ustxtxb_obs_1984_06_29_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

Page 15

by

t k c e an Ot s i t Cafe 310 East 6th St. Austin, Texas meant Mexico was about to devalue. There was a tremendous flight of money. Mexican officials had an allnight meeting with the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, saying, ‘We’ll just have to default.’ If they default, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. In 48 hours they handed Mexico better than $2 billion with $1.5 billion paid for [oil] in advance without saying how much the price was per barrel. It’s laughable if it weren’t so tragic at midnight to tell a startled Secretary of Treasury we just can’t pay.” Gonzalez introduced a resolution, HR 506, ‘to apologize for the treatment of de la Madrid by Jack Anderson’s column, appearing on the same day as the Mexican President’s official visit to Washington began. Anderson reported that de la Madrid had been amassing millions. “You cannot imagine the consternation, the demoralization that [the Anderson column] caused in that BEHIND THE TARPON INN PORT ARANSAS OPEN DAILY at’s It c Wl e About? Parisian Charm. Omelette & Champagne Breakfast. Beautiful Crepes. Afternoon Cocktails. Gallant Waiters. Delicious Quiche. Evening Romance. Continental Steaks. Mysterious Women. Famous Pastries. Cognac & Midnight Rendezvous. In short, it’s about everything a great European style restaurant is all about. Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez group,” Gonzalez said. Gonzalez linked the Anderson information to a statement by the U.S. Commandant of the SouthGorman, who declared, “Our number one security problem is Mexico.” “He doesn’t talk that way,” Gonzalez insisted, “unless it’s cleared, and he’s attacking a friendly nation’s government. The Mexican intelligentsia and leadership have been completely shaken up by this.” Gonzalez contended that both Anderson and Gorman received their information from U.S. intelligence “The CIA’s working formula,” Gonzalez said, “is what they think was successful in Guatemala in 1956. They are so abysmally ignorant. Central America is completely different. The Alliance for Progress wouldn’t float today in Central America. With Reagan we’ve lost all vestiges of leverage to operate collectively in Latin America. Even Eisenhower worked with the equivalent of the Contadora group and brought about the understanding of 1957. Our policy since Haig has been the opposite to bring out the old wounds. That’s why troops are in Honduras today because of the bankruptcy of our policy. “The most unreported crisis in Mexico is Guatemala. It’s going to blow up just as we’re sitting here. If Mexico acceeds to our pressure, it will go a long way toward finding itself destabilized. One day the Mexican government says Good books in every field JENKINS PUBLISHING CO. The Pemberton Press John H. Jenkins, Publisher Box 2085 \(I Austin 78768 it will help the Guatemalan refugees. The next day they say, ‘We’re not going to give refuge.’ ” Gonzalez said such equivocation is the result of pressure from the United States. The psychology of Reagan, he said, is “you’ve got to hate our enemies or else you’re not our friend.” Gonzalez pinned part of the blame for U.S. policy in Mexico and Central America on the insulation of U.S. officials. He said U.S. officials only come into contact with the upper classes of Mexico and Central America, and it is this contact that leads to foreign as 0 policy. “The rich [of Mexico] could 5 care less. They’re like the rich of El Salvador or Nicaragua. It’s easy for 0 those to say that’s communist [as the _c 0 rich of El Salvador labeled austerity measures proposed by the International Monetary Fund]. These are the classes our leaders deal with [and it leads to] what seems incomprehensible policy to sensible Americans why we shore up exploiters, saying we’re preventing a communist takeover. But this is what’s at stake in our country: we have a president who wants to have the same thing [a rigid class system]. What’s at stake is whether or not we will stratify and have a lumpen proletariat and have a rigidity that we don’t believe we can be inured to.” Gonzalez believes we are heading toward a “wider and bloodier conflagration [in Central America]. It will be region-wide. The soldiers are down there to enforce payment of U.S. loans. The conservative Honduran president said last year, ‘With the arrival of American troops we’ve lost everything, including our honor.’ ” On the telephone to a journalist calling from Mexico City, Gonzalez called himself “un voz solitario.” In a speech delivered on the floor of the House the day before, Gonzalez had warned of dire signals at home and abroad forecasting trouble for this country. At the same time, he decried “a curious kind of suspended judgment” despite conditions “that clearly require thought and decision. . . . The United States is merely reacting to dangers of every kind, not leading, and the reaction is merely to send arms where there are already too many arms, to issue threats where there are already too many threats, and to issue reassuring words where the need is for real economic action. . . . Because we lack such leadership, any person viewing the scene would have to feel like Cassandra telling the truth of things, only to be ignored by those who would rather feel good than go out and do the right thing for the country.” G.R. 6 JUNE 29, 1984