Page 2 The Nebroskon Wednesday, Moy 24, 196)
One Solution for Cuban Problem:
Steal Some
By Renny Ashleman
Our Cuban policy is ill. The appalling
fact is that it is not going to get better.
Despite the 500 million dollars in social
sulfa and political penicillin recently ap
propriated, despite the CIA, despite the
Rockefeller Foundation, and even despite
the thousands of newspaper editorials and
columns devoted to the subject, the patient
is going to die.
We're treating the wrong disease and
we're using the wrong medicine. The
problem ia Latin America is not Castro
and it is not even communism. The prob
lem is disease, poverty, ignorance, tyran
ny, hypocrisy, American Imperialism,
and downright stupid American foreign
policy not necessarily in that order.
Castro is barely a symptom of what is
wrong with Latin America from the view
point of the United States. Castro is tem
peramental, insulting, unstable. But he
merely represents the man intelligent
enough to call for what nearly all of.
Latin America needs: land reform. This
is a good deal more intelligence displayed
than that offered by all of the foreign
policy of the United States experts put
together.
Castro has seized all of the United
States property in Cuba. The same thing
happened in Latin America years ago. The
theft was carried out by our warm neigh
bor to the South, Mexico. Castro is friendly
to the East. So are all of our allies, if
trade is the criterion, and nearly all of
our foreign aid recipients, if aid is the
criterion. Castro is a dictator. This en
titles him to break bread with our good
friends Batista, Trujillo, and Franco. "
This is not to apologize for Castro. If
is simply to put him ia perspective. If
lie did not lead the Cuban revolution,
someone else would. The Cubans want
land reform, they want expropriation, and
they want to twist the tail of the United
States.
This makes Cuba just like the other
countries of the world. An attack on Cas
tro is not an attack on a dictator. It is
an attack on a nation which is doing
The Daily Nehrashan
MAGAZINE ISSUE
Vol. 74 No. 114 Wednesday, May 24, 1961
LATIN AMERICA TODAY
By Renny Ashleman Page Two
A STUDY OF SHAPIRO
By Roy Scheele Page Three
TO LAUREL AND ILARDY,
WITH LOVE
By John C. West Page Four
A PEBBLE CAST . . .
By Lynn Wright Page Five
POETRY, AS I SEE IT
By Carol Bush Page Six
COVER PHOTOGRAPH
By Doug McCartney
of Castro's
precisely what the rest of Latin America
and much of the world wants to do.
When we attack Cuba or help attack
Cuba we are announcing just this: we in
tend to block the movements f any na
tion in the world, if its movements are
inimical to the United States.
Such fears are real not just postulated.
Pern has refused a loan of oars to set
p a cooperative movement among the
American states. Instead Pen is consid
ering seizing United States oil property.
Mexican government officials have openly
praised Castro and Ms defense efforts.
Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and
many others have accepted aid and trade
offers from the Communists.
In most of Latin America the leader
ship of the universities becomes the lead
ership of the country. Most of this lead
ership is today communist and leftist It
is rapidly becoming pro-Castro. This is
serious for University pontics are one of
the best indices of national political trends
ih LA.
Take Peru. In a recent election in the
leading University of San Marcos the vote
was 4,300 for Castro party candidates,
3,000 for the left wing Aprista candidate,
and 1,390 for the Christian Democrat
party. This is the university of the
wealthy students, the conservatives. It is
the university that has furnished the
leadership of that country. These results
are not singular. They are a good match
for most of the countries in Latin Amer
ica. It is maintained that despite the clear
evidence that we are fighting a popular
and ever more popular cause in Latin
America that we mast continue to do so
because our honor is at stake. Our pres
tige must be protected.
I fail to see the sense of that state
ment Our prestige was disastrously dam
aged by the ill-planned, ill-advised ' ,iH
fated adventure. Our prestige would have
been daviaged had we succeeded. This is
nothing prestigous about the most power
ful nation in the West beating one of the
smallest. There is nothing prestigious
about crushing a popular government
Had we won we would have had to kill
Thunder
thousands, perhaps millions of Cubans.
We would have had to maintain a dictator
in power. We would have solidly proved
Russia's case of dollar diplomacy.
The problem is South America rill .
deeper than the United State Wanders.
South America is restless becanse of Its
poverty. This poverty is not walking pov
erty, nor breadline poverty. It is the pov
erty of the underfed, the starving; the
underboused, the homeless; the poorly
paid, unemployed, and virtaal slave.
The Buenos Aires Herald points out the
facts in December 1960 "When you have
a population growing at a rate three times
faster than the increase in production
there is but one result possible . . . ever
deepening poverty."
Argentina gets less food to its workers
than it did in 1930. Uruguay is not de
veloping. Chile is in risk of political vio
lence of the worst sort On her own,
Chile (next twenty-five years) could not
repay the cost of one of her earthquakes.
Colombia is killing off as many as 500,
000 of her people by civil disturbance, per
decade. Venezuela is the richest nation
in LA," and has one of the worst social
lags. The opposition in Venezuela is fully
fidelista. Brazil's northern province is in
a semi-revolt stage and her inflationary
problems are unbelievable. She has at
times printed more money than her en
tire economy is worth.
In economic terms all of Latin America
is still undeveloped. "Only Argentina feeds
her people the satisfactory number of
calories for a low calorie country accord
ing to FAO. Many thousands die of mal
nutrition yearly in 17 of the LA counties.
The final blow to Latin America's eco
nomic strength is the fact that none of
the Latin American countries trade with
each other to any appreciable extent Ia
Northern Chile, mountain towns needing
fresh vegetables cannot get them from
Argentina, though both sides would bene
fit from a trade exchange.' Political dif
ficulties keep the two countries raOroads
separated by fifty yards.
If the United States wants to save Latin
America for the kind of world that it
favors, it must attack all dictatorships,
not just those against us. We must quit
holding our friends in power and let the
true popular governments come into
power.
The second thing that we mast do is
aid Latin America. This aid cannot be el
the type which we have given in the past
which aids the oligarchs or rich families
and which supports armies ten times as
big as any of the countries need to main
tain order or preserve their borders.
This aid must go for agrarian reform,
better transportation systems, better hous
ing, better water, and the development
of markets for Latin American products.
We are giving all of Latin America 500
million for these aims today. We have
given Franco of Spain over two billion hi
past years. No amount of money will
make Latin America prosperous. An aid
amount in the two billion category would
give them markedly better bousing, sani
tation, and transportation. This is Castro's
program. If Free Enterprise is superior
to communism, the only way to prove it
is to prove it by action. Genuine demo
cratic land reform would destroy Castro
ism in every country of Latin America.
Nothing else wilL
