Ills to Cure

U.S. envoys to ten South American countries met in Rio de Janeiro last week to thresh out regional problems and talk policy. Sparkplug of the meeting was brisk, affable Edward G. Miller, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Also present, as observer and counselor: the State Department's planner in chief, scholarly George F. Kennan.

Brazilian Communists tried to make it as warm as possible for the visiting diplomats. They staged mock funerals for Kennan and burned an American flag in

Sao Paulo. In their air-conditioned board room five stories above Rio's Avenida Wilson, the conferees worked on, unperturbed by the Red heat.

South America's main ills, the conference concluded, were economic rather than political; the indicated treatment was increased productivity all along the line. To achieve this cure, the diplomats agreed, there must be more U.S. dollar investment, especially by private capital, in fields other than petroleum and mining.

At a reception given in his honor by Octavio da Souza Dantas, Miller got talking with portly (240 lbs.) Augusto Frederico Schmidt, poet, businessman and columnist. Between nibbles of crisp shrimp patties, Schmidt waxed eloquent on political matters. Next day, in his column in Rio's influential Correio da Manha, he developed his thoughts in an open letter to Miller and, indirectly, to the U.S.

"The Communist enemy," wrote Schmidt, "has fomented intrigues which have insinuated themselves into Brazilian opinion ... It is our duty, not only to unmask the lies, intrigues and false interpretations, but to cure the ills which really exist . . . Unless the country is enriched, there will be no social justice, no order, no true democracy, no cultural advancement--millions and millions of Brazilians will continue to vegetate, lost in poverty . . .

"Of course the U.S. is not to blame for the servitude of so many men . . . but I do believe that the time has come for your country to examine its conscience . . . Since the war, has the U.S. made a serious effort to help us in this fight for our enrichment, a serious, understanding, real effort, based on altruistic and clarified reasoning?"

The question was in part rhetorical, but it was one that many another South American was asking himself. The ambassadors' conference showed that Ed Miller and his colleagues believed in helping the "fight for enrichment." At the same time it was perfectly clear that, in line with overall U.S. policy, they also believed in the basic principle of helping those who could and would help themselves.

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