Office of the Historian

98. Memorandum of conversation, November 28, between President Kennedy and Ambassador Plaza1

November 28, 1961
[Facsimile Page 1]

SUBJECT

  • Ecuadorean Special Ambassador’s Call on The President

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • Sr. Galo Plaza, Special Ambassador of the Government of Ecuador
  • Sr. Eduardo Arosemena, Ecuadorean Chargé d’Affaires
  • Mr. Robert F. Woodward, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs
  • Mr. Taylor G. Belcher, ARA/WST

During his call on President Kennedy at 4:45 p.m. November 28, Special Ambassador Galo Plaza delivered to the President a letter from Ecuadorean President Arosemena and expressed his sincere and deep appreciation of the reception which he had received in the United States, both from Government officials and from the press. He said he felt he had been successful in dispelling the doubts which had at first been expressed in the United States news media about the political orientation of the new Ecuadorean Government. Ex-President Plaza went on to assure President Kennedy that he would never have accepted the Special Mission which President Arosemena had asked him to undertake unless he had been assured in his own mind that the new Government was not extremist and on the contrary had every intention of living up to the commitments of the Alliance for Progress by engaging in self-help measures. He related recent developments establishing a progressive inheritance tax and described pending progressive income tax legislation. He said that President Arosemena had taken immediate steps to reduce government expenditures to a minimum in order to alleviate the present budgetary difficulties caused by the fiscal mistakes of the Velasco Government. President Kennedy said that news of such measures being taken in Ecuador would help in our forthcoming presentation to Congress requesting Alliance for Progress funds for next year’s program.

In discussing the aid which Ecuador had already received from the United States, Ambassador Plaza said the budget support loan just approved was the type loan he hoped would never have to be repeated. He also remarked on the excellent work done in Ecuador by the various [Typeset Page 241] Servicios. Their work had been [Facsimile Page 2] effective and at a level at which there had been maximum impact on the community as a whole. He said that he had been distressed to find that the concept of the new AID organization seemed to be downgrading the role of the Servicios and he hoped that something could be done so that the valuable programs which they were carrying out would not be terminated.

President Kennedy asked Ambassador Plaza for his opinion as to the political future of Ecuador in view of the strong leftist influence which had been apparent in the recent disturbances. Plaza replied that it was true that left-wing elements had participated to an important degree in the change-over but that it was notable that the only group which had been excluded from the new government was that representing the extreme left and the Communists. He went on to point out that the universities were a focus of communist penetration, and that unfortunately the United States had failed to make an impression in the intellectual-cultural field in Ecuador. There had been some useful work done through the Fulbright program but it was extremely difficult to achieve further significant progress as long as we had a Cultural Attaché in Quito who could not speak Spanish. President Kennedy took note of this fact and observed that we would look into the possibility of enlarging on the limited teacher and professor exchange program which was already in operation to see whether it would be possible to expand this by taking advantage of summer school operations as well as the possibility of utilizing the “sister university” concept.

As the meeting broke up President Kennedy referred to the invitation which had previously been extended to President Velasco to visit the United States and said he hoped to have the opportunity of meeting the new President here in the United States as soon as affairs would permit him to come. He told the Chargé, who is President Arosemena’s brother, that he would get in touch with the President through Ambassador Bernbaum in order to fix a mutually satisfactory date.

  1. New Government in Ecuador; U.S. aid. Official Use Only. 2 pp. DOS, Presidential Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 66 D 149.↩