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The current world tour by Mexico's President Luis Echeverria produced a modest but unexpected diplomatic bonus last week. During Echeverria's visit in Paris, President Georges Pompidou announced that France would associate itself with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, a pact signed in 1967 by 21 Caribbean and Latin American nations (not including Cuba) to bar all nuclear weapons in the region from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego.

Britain ratified a separate protocol in 1969, pledging not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons in the treaty territory; the U.S. ratified the same protocol in 1971. The Soviets and Chinese have so far ignored invitations to add their signatures. Since France has neither military bases nor obvious political ambitions in Latin America, its decision to join the treaty is mainly symbolic.

Nonetheless, diplomats note that this is the first instance in which France has accepted significant geographical limitations on its use of nuclear force.

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