Balance Sheet

Fidel Castro's one-man brain trust, Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, last week lectured 5,000 Red Chinese in Peking on how the Marxist blessings of Castro Cuba can be carried to country after country throughout the rest of Latin America. "It is," he said coldly, "through arming the people and smashing the puppet dictatorial regimes." In Washington a high U.S. official dealing with Latin America took a look at the endless crises besetting the hemisphere's governments and likened the situation to a "mountain of sugar melting under a fire hose."

The man at the nozzle is Fidel Castro. Subjected to Castro's purposeful troublemaking and his example, old wrongs throughout Latin America took on fresh passion. Castro has claimed all Latin American discontent and injustice for his own, and though not all dissenters march under Castro's banner, the majority would admit his example if not his leadership. Among the nations where Castro's brand of eroding revolution sees its best opportunities, few can be counted as immune, and many are dangerously vulnerable. Among the vulnerable:

Haiti. President Franc,ois Duvalier last week felt himself so threatened by the forces of discontent in his poverty-stricken republic that he expelled the highest-ranking Roman Catholic churchman in the country, an archbishop, on the odd charge of encouraging "Communist student revolutionaries."

Guatemala and Nicaragua. Still binding up the wounds of last fortnight's open rebellion, while the U.S. Navy patrols the Caribbean to make sure that Cuba does not seize the opportunity to invade.

El Salvador. Five weeks after the overthrow of President Jose Maria Lemus, the U.S. is still withholding recognition from the six-man revolutionary junta until the State Department's Special Envoy Allan Stewart checks reports that the junta is a front for Castroites and Communists.

Honduras. President Ramon Villeda Morales delayed agonizingly while Castro's ambassador roamed the remote backlands sowing rebellion seeds; now he faces inevitable upheavals fed by poverty.

Dominican Republic. Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo has had 30 years to perfect his military defenses, but he is still mortal; when he goes, by revolt or old age, the vacuum he leaves is all too likely to be filled by pro-Castro Marxists.

Colombia. President Alberto Lleras Camargo lacks sufficiently assertive leadership to stamp out backlands bloodshed that has stopped development and killed 300,000 in the past twelve years.

Bolivia. Eight years ago, a deep-cutting revolution brought chaos to the nation's tin mines, on which its economy depends, and disrupted its army. President Victor Paz Estenssoro's efforts to rebuild both have been resisted by peasant violence.

Peru. A rigid feudal system controls most of the nation's land and wealth. Peru's mass-based APRA is firmly anti-Castro, but it has no chance of instituting social reforms until elections in 1962; in the meantime, a new, nationalistic party is rising to chip away APRA's strength.

Ecuador. President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra has a record of social progress, but he also faces a feudal oligarchy so reluctant to change that his reforms may come too hard and too late.

Chile. Still stable, but undergoing a barrage of Castro and Communist propaganda (one-third of the "relief" Cuba sent after the earthquakes last May turned out to be revolutionary pamphlets). The leader of Chile's main labor confederation, orating over the coffins of two men killed in labor violence three weeks ago, threatened that Santiago would become "the Sierra Maestra" of Chile.

Venezuela. President Romulo Betancourt has been harassed by so many Castro-supported riots that last week he cut the most heavily Castro- and Communist-dominated faction out of his Cabinet.

Politically stronger but still not immune to Castro's efforts at subversion:

Mexico. President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, frightened by the support for Castro shown by Mexico's old national hero, ex-President Lazaro Cardenas, has been jailing leftists without trial. In less stable countries, such highhandedness could lead to rebellion, but Lopez Mateos is still backed by the all-powerful Revolutionary Institution Party and a growing anti-revolutionary middle class.

Panama. Anti-U.S. riots a year ago looked like real trouble. Lately the outlook has improved with the inauguration of enlightened Oligarch Roberto Chiari as President, plus a friendship drive by U.S. officials, and a U.S. decision to let the Panamanian flag fly beside the Stars and Stripes on Canal Zone soil.

Costa Rica. Led by peppery Jose ("Pepe") Figueres, Costa Rica fought and defeated its Communists in 1948, now stands as one of the brightest lights of democracy in the hemisphere.

Paraguay. Strongman Alfredo Stroessner is being propped against Castro's inroads by two big neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, both keenly interested in protecting themselves from backdoor infiltration.

Uruguay. Practicing democracy with a Swiss-style revolving presidency, the country has a newly solid economy and a newly solid peso that cut Castro's chances of exploiting woes born of poverty.

Argentina. President Arturo Frondizi manages to keep on rebuilding the Peronwrecked economy and weather crisis after crisis, largely because the pressure from all sides--capitalists. Communists, militarists, trade unionists, Peronistas--is so strong that he is prevented from falling, like a man caught in a subway crush.

Brazil. Despite inflationary troubles, still the strongest Latin American nation and most resistant to propaganda from Cuba. What little admiration Brazilians feel for Castro arises mostly out of the Cuban dictator's role as a fearless tweaker of Uncle Sam's nose--a role that President-elect Janio Quadros appropriated last week by ignoring the invitation of President Eisenhower and refusing the invitation of President-elect Kennedy to visit the U.S.

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