The Road Back to Confidence

The star we live on follows a regular course; but the men who live on it form their behavior in an arbitrary way. Now they want one thing and tomorrow they will want another. Today they despise what they sought yesterday. Some love, others hate; some give, others take; and tomorrow it will all be different. Despite its regularity, this world is a confused sphere of arbitrary things.

--Quetzalcoatl, 1965 Jose Lopez Portillo was an unknown 45-year-old government official and author when he wrote his mystical novelette about the god Quetzalcoatl, who figures so largely in the Toltec legends of the Mexican people. Today, at 56, he is President of Mexico, and now the age-old questions of love and hate, giving and taking, are considerably more real and painful in the Mexican sphere of arbitrary things.

As President, Lopez Portillo inherits leadership of a nation that is rich in contrast and color but impoverished in terms of national fulfillment. A small percentage of the population is comfortably rich; a large portion is lamentably poor. Lavish playgrounds for international jet-setters exist almost side by side with villages still run by caciques, or chieftains, who seem to belong to the last century.

The nation has long suffered from lack of education, poor communications, inefficient bureaucracy and outright political corruption -- all of which, in spite of the wealth of its natural resources, have kept Mexico from being as great or as well developed as it ought to be.

New Relationship. Having assumed office only eleven weeks ago, Lopez Portillo thought it practical to journey north to examine some of these questions with a neighboring President who has just begun to confront great issues.

"So far from God," goes an old Mexican saying "and so close to the U.S."

This week LOpez Portillo, accompanied by a phalanx of ministers and experts, visited Washington. There the former law school student and professor talked to members of the U.S. Supreme Court and addressed a meeting of Congress; before he left the U.S., side trips were scheduled to Williamsburg, Va., and Chicago, which is home to a sizable ( 150,000) Mexican population.

The principal topics on Lopez Portillo's agenda with Jimmy Carter will be trade and the need to promote a new and healthier relationship between the two countries. Mexico is currently going through a grave economic crisis. Inflation is running at an explosive rate of 30%. Of Mexico's 63 million people, a vast number are either unemployed or, almost as bad, underemployed. The trade deficit has been growing steadily and now stands at $3.2 billion. Despite this, Lopez Portillo has not gone abegging to the Oval Office, although he would like adjustments in a trade relationship that heavily favors the U.S. In fact, he preceded his visit with a generous Mexican offer to the U.S. PEMEX, the national oil company, has begun shipping 2.4 billion cu. ft. of natural gas to the fuel-starved U.S. through pipeline connections at Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros; the gas will have a price tag of more than $5 million. And with Florida's vegetable crops devastated by the winter weather, Mexico is shipping tomatoes in quantity to the U.S. from vast agribusiness farms below the border

The two Presidents will discuss an ambitious plan for the development of Mexico's petrochemical industry, and Carter is expected to assure Lopez Portillo of adequate U.S. aid. Then there are other substantive questions with which Carter and Lopez Portillo must deal. To begin with, there is the drug problem. Mexico has become the principal supplier to U.S. users of marijuana and heroin. Lopez Portillo has ordered his army to destroy the crops (see box). The crackdown has also filled some Mexican jails with U.S. citizens who were caught with drugs in their possession; about 590 are currently serving prison terms. Sensitive to complaints about jail conditions, the Mexican government has agreed with the U.S. to exchange prisoners. The Mexican legislature has already ratified the agreement, and it now awaits action in Washington.

Next is the matter of Mexico's illegal migrant workers. Each year Immigration agents all over the U.S. round up tens of thousands of illegals and send them home again. Lopez Portillo has devised a two-pronged solution to the problem: the U.S. should relax its immigration rules to help this safety valve on Mexico's chronic unemployment, and should encourage American investment in Mexican industry, thereby providing more jobs.

Reduced Prices. Finally, and perhaps most urgently, Lopez Portillo is eager to promote tourism.

Mexico depends on tourism and border transactions for 37% of its dollar income and on the U.S. to provide 90% of the visitors to such established resorts as Acapulco and Mazatlan as well as the new playgrounds at Cancun on the Caribbean and Ixtapa on the Pacific. The devalued and floating peso has reduced the price of a Mexican vacation by at least one-third, but the laggard tourist trade has not picked up as expected. For a decade before 1975, tourism had been rising at the rate of 14% a year until it reached $1.2 billion; in 1975 it fell by 7%, and last year it declined again.

Tourism slumped for a variety of reasons. Cheap charter flights have drawn Americans to other exotic places. Tourists heard rumors of coups (that never took place) and decided to stay away. A few heavily publicized murders of American tourists sharpened the business decline. To allay fears, the government has reinforced safety, particularly on Highway 15, which runs south from Nogales, with troops and "green angels"--trouble cars that patrol the roads to help travelers.

The most dramatic blow to tourism, however, came in 1975, with former President Luis Echeverria's decision to align Mexico with those countries in the U.N. that voted to equate Zionism with racism. The vote was no sooner recorded than U.S. Jews rushed out to their travel agents to cancel their reservations for Mexican vacations. The tourist business has yet to recover from that devastating period. Lopez Portillo cannot erase his country's vote in the U.N., but he is doing his utmost to convince foreigners of all persuasions that Mexico is once again, as a new slogan declares, "the amigo country."

Misjudging the Peso. Echeverria's legacy continues to haunt the nation in many ways. Don Luis tried to be a master builder, both for the campesinos --the landless peasants of Mexico--and for the country's new middle classes. He sank at least $100 million in infrastructure for the new resort areas of Cancun and Ixtapa. He also built a steel mill and hydroelectric plants and financed new oil exploration--all worthy projects but ill timed in the midst of worldwide recession. His spending fueled inflation and increased the public foreign debt fourfold in six years; $1 out of every $3 earned from exports must now be paid out to service the national debt.

Echeverria's most serious misjudgment involved the Mexican peso. No economist himself, he ignored the cautions of his advisers--including Lopez Portillo--that the peso was overvalued and should no longer be artificially pegged to the dollar. Eventually, rumors of approaching devaluation forced so much money out of the country that the peso last year had to be allowed to float. Since that occurred, the peso has stabilized, but the repercussions have been severe. There were, meanwhile, rumors of widespread corruption in the government. Some Mexicans insist that Echeverria himself made a fortune on land deals at Cancun, although the former President vigorously denies that charge. In addition, many Mexicans objected to Don Luis' style. Says one who opposed him: "It was the way he did it, tongue-lashing us in the process. He slapped on a luxury tax, an airport tax and a 15% tax on meals in first-class restaurants [tourists were exempt], and when we did not all sit around and applaud, he told us that we were materialistic pigs."

Such were the antagonisms created by Echeverria that Mexico's middle class lost virtually all hope for prosperity and stability. These were the emerging achievers, numbering perhaps 15 million, who, according to some waggish observers, had moved away from huarache sandals and tortillas to shoes and white bread. Whatever their habits, they became arrogantly vocal. "Why should I go without so that some crooked politician can line his pockets?" demanded Garage Owner Francisco Motta in Mexico City. The reply for some has been escape. Chemical Salesman Ignacio Gomez and his wife have applied for a U.S. immigration visa. Says Gomez: "Probably we will have to wait four or five years for it, but at least it gives us something to hope for. Only an idiot would be willing to stay in this country."

The man whose job it is to restore compassion and hope to Mexico seems eminently right for the task. Unlike the majority of his countrymen, who after four centuries have become meztizo (of mixed blood), he is descended straight from Spaniards who arrived in Mexico in the 16th century. The family settled in the state of Jalisco but moved during the 1910 revolution to Mexico City, where Lopez Portillo was born and grew up.

He was destined for an intellectual life. He graduated from the National University and did postgraduate work in Chile (a notable classmate: Don Luis Echeverria), then returned to the campus to teach and write textbooks and fiction. Not until 1959 was he persuaded to enter the government. In 1973 Echeverria asked his old friend to become his Treasury Minister, and in that capacity he prepared Echeverria's tax programs.

Political Dark Horse. Few could have predicted that Lopez Portillo would succeed Echeverria as President; he was a political dark horse. But so much power rests in the Mexican presidency that it is the incumbent who chooses his successor; the voters merely endorse the selection. Mexican elections are scarcely cliffhangers. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has long dominated the government and filled elective offices. The real suspense is who in the party will be the tapado, or "covered one," selected to become the next President. The tapado has often come out of the key Interior Ministry, as Don Luis Echeverria himself did in 1969, when he was chosen to succeed Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. Treasury Minister

Lopez Portillo was considered the longest shot among seven possible choices for the post. Echeverria's decision was statesmanlike. Having assessed the future needs of Mexico, he selected a man who was not merely his friend but who was both experienced in financial matters and gifted with an appealing personality.

Lopez Portillo had no opposition, but he ran as though he were neck and neck with Gerald Ford. He ranged from Tijuana in the north to Tapachula in the south, covering 40,600 miles in the course of a nine-month campaign, traveling at times by horse, and by bus and plane, both christened Quetzalcoatl. He did very little preaching, but he reversed Echeverria's antibusiness stance by calling for an "alliance for production" between business and government to provide 300,000 new jobs.

Judgment Reserved. Voters looked forward to what for most of them would be their one glimpse of a real live President. They were impressed. Lopez Portillo spent less time speaking to them than he did listening to their complaints, and he seemed to promise a new opportunity for the country.

Now that he has moved into the presidential palace in Mexico City, the approbation continues. There are those, however, who agree with one advertising executive who commented: "I thought Echeverria was pretty good in the beginning, and look what happened. This time I'm reserving judgment." It would be hard to fault Lopez Portillo--at least, so soon. In his first days in office, he has kept a low profile and concentrated mostly on restoring confidence and attacking Mexico's economic crisis. In December he enlisted 140 companies to join the alliance for production and step up investments. Mexican businessmen, who are by nature stubbornly distrustful of new Presidents, responded with full-page newspaper advertisements promising cooperation.

In the Carterian mode, Lopez Portillo runs a tight and efficient presidential office and is available to people who want to see him. Most come away impressed with the friendliness of the man. Says Writer Octavio Paz: "Lopez Portillo has one thing that is very important, and that is a sense of humor. It's catastrophic that we have had a group of Presidents modeled after Benito Juarez, who was a great man but a man who could never smile. This man is human and not official."

Like Carter, Lopez Portillo stresses family life. He lives in the presidential mansion, Los Pinos, with his wife Carmen, a former concert pianist, and their children, Jose Ramon, 22, Carmen, 18, and Paulina, 15. He sings and plays the guitar, but now more often he finds relaxation in a basement gymnasium, where he lifts weights, boxes and practices karate.

Despite the fact that they have been hand-picked by their predecessors, Mexican Presidents rarely follow the style of the men they succeed. Lopez Portillo shows that inclination. His manner and words are markedly different from those of the more garrulous and intense Echeverria. In an interview at his office with TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich, the President displayed his characteristic thoughtfulness. Primary problems of his government, he told Diederich, are "food, energy, education, health, unemployment and inflation. But our first goal is unquestionably that of feeding our people and guaranteeing for all of them at least the minimum level of welfare."

His views on other topics:

>On the plight of the devalued peso:

"The floating of the peso should continue until economic and financial equilibrium are re-established in our economy."

> On land distribution: "Unfortunately, there has been an excess of demagoguery and too much faith placed in the redistribution of land as a means of solving inequalities. The truth is that this is no longer a real possibility for the more than 1.5 million peasants who still have no land. What the peasant really seeks through land possession is security of employment and income. There are other ways of offering that kind of security."

> On tax reform and redistribution of wealth: "We will look for ways of improving our tax laws. They must not only satisfy the need to increase government revenue and regulate economic activity; tax rates must also have a closer correspondence to the economic capacity of the taxpayers."

Some of the problems that Lopez Portillo will have to face over the next six years seem hopeless, even for a skilled and optimistic President. One of the burdens is Mexico City itself.

The capital's metropolitan area now is populated by an estimated 12 million souls--one-fifth of the nation--and more people flock to it every day. At least 500,000 campesinos arrive each year looking for work, then settle into makeshift hovels only marginally better than the villages they left behind. Once one of the hemisphere's most beautiful cities, the capital is now one of the most blighted. Clouds of smoke from burning garbage, tortilla shops and public bathhouses--fortified by the rarefied oxygen at 7,347 ft.--make lung congestion almost epidemic and blot out the view of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, the twin peaks between which Hernan Cortes advanced in 1519. Other urban areas--Guadalajara and Monterrey --are almost as bad.

Responsible Parenthood. More difficult to deal with is Mexico's population explosion; the annual increase is 3.2%. Half of the nation's people are under 20 years of age, and at least 40% of the older youths in this group can find no work. Lopez Portillo will have to find a way to help the disaffected; few people have forgotten the 1968 student riots, including the notorious noche triste (the night of sorrow), when an estimated 200 people died. Three years ago, the government established a birth control program that emphasized "responsible parenthood"; the birth rate has begun to fall, and Lopez Portillo is determined to get it down to 2.6% by 1982. In a country where Our Lady of Guadalupe remains a powerful figure, cooperation is not certain; the population total by the year 2000 will have approached an unmanageable 115 million.

By far the greatest challenge for Lopez Portillo is to find a solution for the gnawing problem that is really at the basis of all the nation's troubles. Whatever the reasons--proximity to the U.S., corruption at high levels, resentment, frustration--Mexicans have never been able to realize a true national identity. Some sociologists theorize that Mexicans suffer a national inferiority complex. Cynics among them describe Mexico as a nation of losers, who endure the worst of outrages by telling sad little jokes about their leaders.

In his campaign, Lopez Portillo coined the catch phrase la solution somos todos (the solution is all of us). He might have been reflecting on a passage from his own book, Quetzalcoatl:

"What is force compared to conscience? Nothing more than the weight of a stone! Each conscience watches over and illuminates the work of God from a point that no one can replace. Do not doubt. Maintain your conviction to serve! And remember that there is more merit in using your force for the benefit of the suffering than for your own gain!"

The man who wrote that could well be the one to bring Mexico closer to its full promise.

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