Evening star., 1950-10-22

China. In spite of the tremendo
into Western Europe, including
the expensive program to strene
Atlantic pact countries, the Reds
are still menacing threat to most
OF the continent. Powerful bloc.
representing their parties still sit
in the parliaments of France, Italy
and others.
But the nations of this hemi.
sphere present an entirely differ.
ent picture. In a trip that ha.
taken me from Mexico to Argen.
tina find the masses less leftist
and more anti-Communist thar
they were a year ago. In the big
cities the hammer and sickle" is
less in evidence on walls and pave
ments. In fact, the Communists
are actually on the run in the
vast majority of the countries
On the whole our neighbors have
done about the best job in the
world OF breaking the back of Red
influences among their $50 mil
lion people.
Reds Made Progress
What is more, they have done
1t without Marshall Plan or an
expensive arms program. At least
1t has been one anti-Communist
campaign for which the taxpayers
of the United States have not
doled out billions of dollars in
economic aid nor supplied vast
amounts of military equipment.
Yet it has been no ordinary fight.
Most of us have overlooked the
fact that even before they started
their all-out drive to subjugate
Western Europe and Asia, Russian
agents had already made great
headway in spreading their, total
itarian poison in Mexico, Chile
and a number of the other key
countries to the south of us. The
government of Mexico recognized
the Soviet Union and received an
Ambassador from Moscow long
before Washington took such steps.
Vicente Lombardo Toledano,
then the all-powerful boss of labor
in Mexico, was already committing
between Mexico City and Moscow
and peddling Communist ideology
among us when Harry Bridges
was still a novice union organizer
on the San Francisco water front.
Famed and atheistic Diego Rivera
and other radical Mexican artists
had sat at the feet of the old
Ro|shevik revolutionists of the
Krerulin and were splashing
mnrals containing Red symbolisms
and propaganda on the walls of
Mexican government and school
buildings. before 1t became fash
ionable for pseudo -intellectuals of
New York's Greenwich Village to
take up Soviet culture seriously.
Back In 1881 Luis Carlos Prestes,
then in voluntary exile because of
his revolutionary tendencies and
who later organized and made
himself the boss of the Commu-
mist Party in Brazil, began four
year apprenticeship in the Soviet
Union. It was not until 1945 that
he succeeded in setting up his
Brazilian party organization open
ly. When we permitted the old
Amtorg Trading Co.. the first
semiofflcial Soviet group to oper-
ate in the United States after the
Bolshevik revolution, to begin it's
career of shady commerce and
espionage, a similar Russian trad
ing agency was going full blast in
Montevideo, Uruguay. At that
time the Uruguayan capital was
also known as the Communist
capital of South America" From
Montevideo, Communist mission
aries, in the guise of commercial
agents, famed out over the CONT
nent to establish propaganda cells.
Even so, only Mexico, Uruguay
and one or two others actually
established full diplomatic rela-
tions with the Russian govern
ment until a decade later.
u. S. Partly Responsible
Nor should it be forgotten that
our own Government finally had
a hand in opening several Latin
American doors to the Reds. Dur
ing World War II, after the Rus
slams became our allies" Wash
ington recommended to several
countries that they exchange en-
voys with Moscow. Until then
Brazil had spurned all Commu-
mist political ties with the Stain
regime. "Only your insistence, :"
one Brazilian official told me in
Rio the other day, caused us to
take the Soviet serpent into our
BOSOM"
BY 1946 the Communists had
made such headway in party Or
ganization and in the penetration
of labor unions in Brazil, Chile,
Cuba, Venezuela and others that
they literally Haunted themselves.
They planned and plotted almost
openly to take over governments.
BY 1948 they had gained control
of the labor movement, and held
the most important Offices in lead
ing unions of a half dozen of the
republics. They dominated the
oil workers unions in Venezuela
and Colombia, the copper and
nitrate unions Of Chile, several of
the unions of tin mine workers
in Bolivia and even some of the
unions in the Cuban sugar in
dustry.
Fortunately, 1948 saw the high
point of Red influence in all but
two or three of the smaller and
less populous countries. In that