Silent Disenchantment

Flying back into Washington after three weeks in Latin America, Kennedy Brain-truster Arthur Schlesinger Jr. had cheery tidings. During his six-country tour with the President's Food for Peace mission, Schlesinger had found that support for Castro was fading fast among Latin American statesmen, labor leaders and intellectuals, even though he still has student support. "A year ago." said Schlesinger, "Castro struck many Latin Americans as a symbol of social change. Now he seems to them a symbol of a Communist bridgehead in the hemisphere."

Schlesinger found, as others have before him, that many of Latin America's leaders in private are ready to express their growing disillusionment with Castro. Last week even Peruvian Leftist Victor Raul Haya de la Torre denounced the Castro government in public (see below). Half a dozen Latin American nations-Haiti, the Dominican Republic. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Peru and Paraguay-have already broken off diplomatic relations with Castro.

But when the U.S. tries to mobilize the hemisphere against Castro, many of Latin America's most influential statesmen refuse to stand up and be counted. Some fear Castro's popular appeal among the hungry peasantry of their own nations; and if Castro has perverted the cause of social reform, they are still on the side of reform. Some doggedly stand by the principle of nonintervention in other states. Nearly all have their own good reasons for not appearing to be the tail on the U.S. kite.

Flat Note. How effectively this silence works to Cuba's advantage was pointed up last week by a Guatemalan attempt to rally collective action against Castro. Fortnight ago, with U.S. approval, the Guatemalan government sent a formal note to foreign ministries across the hemisphere urging, in effect, total isolation of Cuba from the rest of the Americas both economically and diplomatically.

From most nations, the answer was a muted no. The only government to break with Cuba was the new right-wing junta of tiny El Salvador. More significant was the reaction of Latin America's largest nation Brazil. Its new President Janio Quadros recently journeyed to Havana to visit Castro, and though privately disillusioned, he is determined to show Brazilian independence. Brazil said a loud no to Guatemala. Another evidence of Brazil's new stance was its reception for Adolf A. Berle, visiting chief of President Kennedy's Latin American task force. Berle, who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, is respected in Latin America, got a warm welcome in Venezuela from his old friend President Romulo Betancourt, and another from Colombia's President Alberto Lleras Camargo. But after Berle and Quadros talked for two hours, about everything including Castro, a U.S. official would only say, "Well, they didn't throw bricks at one another." Real Fright. Obviously, any step against Castro that required overt support from Latin America was in for trouble.

Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Roa answered Guatemala's proposal with a 22-page note to other Latin American governments. As usual there was a recital of U.S. sins -but this time the Cuban note was marked by what sounded like genuine alarm. The U.S., charged Roa, is giving all-out support to a new drive by anti-Castro Cubans to throw Castro out be fore the conference of American foreign ministers in Quito May 24. If that fails, Roa said, U.S. -supported anti-Castro forces would invade Cuba with the intention of setting up in a liberated section of the country a provisional government that could be recognized by the U.S. and given open support.

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