396. Memorandum From the Director of the Office of South American Affairs (Bernbaum) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Holland)1
SUBJECT
- Recommendation that President Ibañez of Chile be invited to the United States in 1957
It is recommended that you put forward the name of President Carlos Ibañez del Campo of Chile to be invited to the United States in 1957 as Chief of State visitor from the Latin American area.
President Ibañez took office on November 3, 1952 for a six-year term. He has been personally friendly to the United States since the beginning of his term, belying indications during the electoral campaign that Ibañez could be expected to adopt anti-U.S. policies. The President has withstood pressures to expand Chile’s trade with the Soviet bloc and he has been strongly outspoken in his criticism of international communism and communists. On the home front his [Page 813] government has been firm in dealing with Chile’s communists, especially in the last year or so, even though he had been elected with communist and other extreme left-wing support.
During his present term Ibañez has governed within the framework of the laws as the constitutional president of a truly democratic republic, in spite of his past history as a dictator in the 1920’s, which led some to feel he might revert to his authoritarian tendencies.
The Ibañez administration, as now constituted, has been the first in years to reverse the tendency in Chile toward increasing state intervention in the economy, and has fostered important innovations to improve the treatment of the large U.S. investments in Chile. With the help of private U.S. economists, the administration is now pressing a comprehensive economic reform program designed to arrest the aggravated inflation from which Chile long has suffered.
The proposal to invite President Ibañez to the United States can be presented within our Government as:
- 1.
- A recognition of his position as Constitutional President of a true Western Hemisphere democracy;
- 2.
- An appreciation of the efforts his administration is making in improving the economic health and stability of Chile;
- 3.
- A recognition of his Government’s and his own firm stand in opposition in international communism.
The proposal to invite President Ibañez should be conditioned on his Government’s continuing to press forward with the economic reform program. Should this effort collapse, or change direction prior to the extending of the invitation, it would not be desirable to advance this proposal.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 725.11/5–1056. Secret. Drafted by Silberstein.↩