265. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Bolivian Ambassador (Andrade Uzquiano) and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs (Lyon), Washington, July 22, 19561
SUBJECT
- Comments by Bolivian Ambassador on Various Inter-American Matters
During lunch today, the Bolivian Ambassador commented on a number of diverse matters:
Visits of President of Bolivia
The Ambassador said that he had just heard that the President of Bolivia would make a visit to Colombia. This will follow a scheduled visit to Ecuador and the visit of the President of Chile to Bolivia August 6.
Communists
After my reply to the Ambassador’s inquiry with regard to my views concerning the Communist Party in Chile, I asked about the situation in his country. He said that they had no worries about Communists in Bolivia at the present. In fact, it was his theory that if the United States did not oppose the liberal elements in South America, the Communists would not constitute any danger in the Western Hemisphere. In the first place, according to the Ambassador, the Latin Americans are too individualistic, and they are too nationalistic. Before World War I, the European influence in Latin America was so great that leading writers, such as Conrado Gallardo and countless others, said that the weak feature of Latin America was the Indian population and that this would have to be replaced by Europeans. This theory was now a dead letter and the Latin countries were proud of their Indian heritage and truly American traditions. They would never tolerate domination from abroad.
I said that, in my opinion, however, the Communists could cause a good deal of difficulty in places such as, for example, Haiti, where one had a very critical economic situation plus the racial problem. The Ambassador said not even here there would be difficulty if we realized that the majority of the populations in Latin America for years had lived in an unfortunate economic situation. This had nothing to do with the United States. They had seen the rich living in luxury equal to anywhere else in the world, while the masses had been extremely poor. Naturally, the masses wanted to [Page 543] change this and were on the way toward doing so. The vested interests, in their attempt to preserve their own situation, frequently pointed the finger at those national leaders who were seeking to improve the condition of the masses, labeled them Communists, and thus sought to obtain United States support against these legitimate national movements. The problem, the Ambassador admitted, was a very delicate one, and it is one which we must handle very carefully.
Communist Literature
In answer to my inquiry as to whether the Communists were pumping quantities of propaganda into Bolivia, the Ambassador told me that the Minister of Education of Bolivia2 had told the Ambassador that the Minister had built up a library of fifteen hundred books, all of which he had received gratis from the Communists. About half of them were sheer propaganda, and about half of them were ordinary books well printed. I asked whence they came and how they were distributed, and the Ambassador replied that they came in the ordinary mails, presumably from the USSR or other countries.
Argentina
The Ambassador believes that Peron will finish his term as President. However, he thinks that Peron’s powers have been considerably limited and the Army will control him, but they will not put him out. Furthermore, in the Ambassador’s opinion, the opposition in Argentina could not be worse organized; it is hopeless, he feels.
U.S. Policy for Latin America
The Ambassador feels that the US policy so far as South America is concerned is piecemeal. In his opinion, we have never planned a long-range policy but merely tackled problems when they arose. He thinks the day has passed when the United States can afford this. He recommends that we prepare a long-range western continental policy. I pointed out to him that, in my opinion, considerable progress had been made through the creation of the OAS and our whole inter-American system. He agreed that if one compared the situation today with that of twenty years ago, much progress had been made, but he feels we could go much farther. I said that certainly one of our policies was an attempt to act as one of twenty-one states in conjunction with them. The Ambassador said this was quite impossible. It is really the United States on one hand, and [Page 544] twenty states on the other, and they all realize this. He said that in our long-range policy, there might be certain things that the Latin American countries would not like but that we should go forward with them, in any event. For example, Venezuela; her Government was a dictatorship which was maintaining itself by force: elaborate barracks, the most modern armament, etc. It was not, however, the people’s will that Perez Jimenez continue in power forever. We have ways of letting the Venezuelans know that this is not in the American tradition.
Armaments
When the Ambassador referred to the subject of Venezuelan armaments, I told him that one of the things that worried me was the inter-American race for armament. He said we should call a conference to deal with this; that at this point there was no need for rivalry among the various American Republics. We should tell the American Governments that the frontiers were now fixed, that there would be no more frontier squabbling, and that we would guarantee the present frontiers. Then all that would be necessary would be a continental defense force. In the Ambassador’s opinion, that should be a coordinated defense force with a unified command. He said that most of the Latin American countries, if they knew we favored this, would support it strongly.