Evening star., 1950-05-07

gional meeting in Montevideo,
Uruguay. attended by leftist labor
delegates. from Chile, Bolivia,
Brazil. Paraguay and. Interestingly
enough, Argentina. The distin-
guished newspaper El Pals of
Montevideo called it "a confer
ence of undesirables." The news
paper went on to say that Uruguay
"as a free and democratic nation
tolerated the meeting" and added,
"it must be remembered that we
grant freedom to those who, if
they were in power, would imme-
diately suppress it,"
The Cuban government has been
deviled with another wave of
strikes, which at one time para
lyZed a half dozen of the islands S
principal ports and even threat
ened to tie up the entire sugar
industry in the middle of the har-
vest season. The more moderate
labor leaders themselves appealed
to President Prio SoccaraS to do
something about the situation.
The President, apparently con-
vinced that the Reds were the
instigators. accused them of "at-
tacking the interests of the whole
nation" and threatened that "the
government has at its disposal all
the necessary means to destroy
communism.
Diplomats Views
Those who are watching all
these developments closely do not
think there is any probability of
Moscow taking over bodily the
continent of South America, or
any of the principal countries.
"They don't need to do So" one
of them told me, ito serve their
purposes. All they have to do is
to keep up agitation, get in a
position to bring about, at the
right moment, disastrous strikes in
various industries, such as the oil
industry in Venezuela, the copper
industries of Chile and Peru, the
tin mines of Bolivia, the sugar
centrals of Cuba, along with the
most important seaports."
One of our leading diplomats in
South America says, cit would be
foolish on our part to think that
the Russians are overlooking Latin
America, any more than the Ger
mans and Japanese overlooked it
prior to the last war. These
southern countries would be vital
sources Of most of the minerals,
metals. alloys, fibers and other
strategic products we would need
In case we are forced into another
conflict. The tin, rubber and
other raw materials of Malaga and
the Far East may soon be cut off
from us again as they were after
the Japanese conquest of South
ern Asia"
Before World War H." he went
on, the Nazis had by inflltration
OF armies and governments al
most demobilized several of the
Latin American countries. Before
Pearl Harbor the Japs had been
busy gaining control of strategic
plots of land suitable for landing
fields all up and down the west
coast of Central and South
America, particularly in countries
near the Panama Canal"
"The Communists" he said,
have a better technique. They
will inf1ltrate labor unions, as they
have already done in several coun-
tries. They will worm their way
into leftist political groups, pro-
selyte among the rank and file of
poorly paid soldiers. They are al
ways prepared to take advantage
of any unrest among the under
privileged.
"Only the vigilance of many of
the leaders in these various coun-
tries" he went on. "has kept them
down or at least under cover. That
and the fact that until lately busi-
ness and industry in most of them
has held up since the war. There
has been no great unemployment
so far. But the economic pinch is
now beginning to be felt, and will
probably grow worse in the coming
months"