Soothing Words from A New "Colossus"

Into Guatemala City's Aurora Airport last week flew Mexico's President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. To the shattering accompaniment of a low-flying formation of Sabre jets, he proclaimed that Guatemala and Mexico, both home to the Maya Indians who pounded corn meal into tortillas, were "brothers in ancient culture, in blood, in language and in our way of life, even to the corn which is the sustenance of our people."

It was a sentimental, even corny way to begin the first visit by any Mexican President to Central America, but Diaz

Ordaz hoped that it meant the beginning of a new era in Mexican foreign relations. After 55 years of a generally prosperous "continuing revolution," Mexico has become the stablest major state in Latin America and an outspoken independent in international affairs. But it has remained largely unconcerned about the five Central American republics south of its border.

Cheering Crowds. When Diaz Ordaz, a conservative onetime backlands attorney, took office a year ago, he decided to initiate a new good-neighbor policy. Last week's state visit, which took him first to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and continues this week in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, was a concrete result. His first communique, issued jointly with the Guatemalans, showed what he had in mind.

He promised to try to correct the imbalance of trade between the two countries (now vastly in Mexico's favor) and to improve roads and telephone connections with Guatemala, while a cultural-exchange program will reconstruct Mayan sites along the border.

Next stop was San Salvador, where he was almost mobbed by a cheering crowd as he rode along in an open, unprotected car (a rarity for any Latin American President). There, Diaz Ordaz promised technical assistance, preferential tariffs, private Mexican venture capital for developing Salvadoran industries. Also announced: a $6,000,000 loan to the four-year-old Central American Bank in Honduras.

Gringo Grumbles. Mexico's motives are not altogether selfless. It would like to boost exports and build a stake in the thriving, 12 million-consumer Central American Common Market. This in turn led some Central American businessmen, worried about superior competition from what they refer to as the "Colossus of the North," to grumble about Mexico's "imperialistic" intentions--precisely as generations of Mexican anti-gringos have fretted in the shadow of Mexico's neighbor across the Rio Grande. To soothe their fears, Diaz Ordaz specifically promised no economic or political interference. Said he crisply: "Mexico does not seek for other nations what it is not disposed to accept for itself."

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