Rocky's Second Stage

I bring no new program, no easy remedies or simple slogans. From this mission may result new U.S. policies, but this mission does not bring them with it. Let us talk frankly about what is bad and what is good, of hard realities, not only of pleasant things.

So said Nelson Rockefeller as he disembarked at Ecuador's Mariscal Sucre Airport last week on the second of four fact-finding tours of Latin America for President Richard Nixon. He soon encountered hard realities. Leftist students were out in force to give Rocky the most hostile reception of his travels thus far. A helicopter hovered protectively over the gray Mercedes carrying the New York Governor as it inched through back streets to avoid the mobs. The students fought police with bricks and stones. Stores, banks and schools shut down, traffic was paralyzed, and the smell of tear gas wafted over Ecuador's capital of Quito (pop. 600,000).

More than 1,000 soldiers and policemen were deemed necessary to guarantee Rockefeller and his team of advisers tranquillity for their talks with President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra and a dozen groups of assorted political and business leaders. They told the visiting norteamericanos what they, with local variations, have heard and are likely to hear everywhere. The Latins want more U.S. aid without strings, assured markets and better prices for their exports to the U.S. They want more control over their own resources and over the policies and profits of large U.S. companies that operate in Latin America. Ecuador, in addition, had a specific request: that the U.S. respect its claim to 200 miles of territorial water offshore until Ecuadoreans develop the equipment and know-how to exploit their rich fishing areas themselves.

Common Market. Rocky's first stop this time out was Colombia, where reports of unrest and rioting on his arrival tended to be exaggerated. In Bogota, Nixon's envoy was briefed by President Carlos Lleras Restrepo and others who pointed proudly to their country's success in economic diversification. That achievement is symbolized by the reduction of the proportion of coffee in Colombia's export total from 70% to less than 50%. Still, Rocky's hosts complained that quotas and other restrictions have kept some of their new exports out of U.S. markets. One proposal made in Colombia was that foreign investors should gradually transform local enterprises into joint ventures, taking in Colombian partners.

Perhaps the most hopeful news from Latin America last week had nothing to do with the U.S. visitors: the formation of a common market by the five Andean countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. The five agreed to work toward the elimination of internal tariffs within an eleven-year period and the erection of a common external tariff. This Andean common market represents an improvement over the largely ineffective Latin American Free Trade Association, formed in 1960 by ten Latin American countries. In several respects, the Andean experiment is similar to the nine-year-old Central American Common Market whose existence has encouraged moderately successful economic growth among its five member nations.

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