91. Memorandum of conversation, April 18, between President Kennedy and Foreign Minister Chiriboga1

[Facsimile Page 1]

SUBJECT

  • Ecuadorean Foreign Minister’s Call on the President

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • Foreign Minister Chiriboga of Ecuador
  • Ambassador Ponce of Ecuador
  • Acting Assistant Secretary Coerr

The Foreign Minister said he brought to President Kennedy the warm greetings of the President and people of Ecuador, and the assurance that President Velasco was looking forward with great pleasure to accepting President Kennedy’s invitation to visit the United States next October. The Foreign Minister said that his President had accepted “in principle” in frank recognition of the possibility that social and economic conditions might make it unwise for him to leave Ecuador at that time. President Kennedy expressed his pleasure at meeting the Foreign Minister and his hope that conditions in Ecuador next October would be such as to permit President Velasco to come to the United States then. He also thanked the Foreign Minister for his comments on the program of Alliance for Progress.

The Foreign Minister declared that Latin America is in a period of active social revolution which the communists are effectively exploiting through propaganda, political parties and mass organizations, and that the next few years could see many Latin American countries “sink into communism” or “be saved for democracy.” He said the issue hinges on whether the rich people of Latin America will achieve (sic) adequate social reforms and—especially—whether the United States can extend enough aid. The Foreign Minister noted that U.S. aid programs sometimes suffer [Facsimile Page 2] from too much bureaucracy and red tape. He said specifically that the Government of Ecuador had been having considerable difficulty in satisfying requirements of the Development Loan Fund with respect to applications totaling some $25 million.

The President said he fully recognized that red tape has its drawbacks but that at its best it may be regarded as a form of insurance against imprudent decisions, and he assured the Foreign Minister that [Typeset Page 231] agencies of the U.S. Government would do their best to expedite action as soon as they had in hand the information that might be required by law.

Referring to President Kennedy’s statement in his Pan American Day speech favoring the holding of a high-level meeting on economic and social development during the coming summer, the Foreign Minister expressed the fear that such a meeting might detract from the prestige of the 11th Inter-American Conference scheduled for next May 24. He emphasized that his government felt strongly that the Conference should be held as scheduled.

The President asked the Foreign Minister whether there would be any security problem should the Conference be held as scheduled this May. The Foreign Minister asserted emphatically that there might be some few troublemakers, but that the Ecuadorean people were generally very friendly to the United States and that the government could exert sufficient force to maintain order. The President said that he of course hoped the 11th Inter-American Conference would be held on time but that, like President Velasco’s visit to the United States, it might be affected adversely by economic and social conditions. He said that the United States neither had nor would take any initiative in the matter but of course would be influenced strongly by the consensus of opinion among the other nations of the Hemisphere.

  1. Review of relations and security in Latin America. Confidential. 2 pp. DOS, CF, 720.5-MSP/4–186.