Nixon's Latin American policy still seems to be largely unformed and Latin American countries seem to be taking advantage of Nixon's interim non-confrontation politics to solidify their own response to Uncle Sam. Peru's expropriation of the International Petroleum Company and seizures of U.S. tuna boats (on the basis of her claim for 200 mile territorial waters) have received wide acclaim in other Latin American countries. Brazil has called for a meet- ing of representatives of Latin American countries to be held in Chile in April. The United States is notably excluded from the invitation and the topic of discussion will be the creation of a common front against U.S. economic penetration.
Meanwhile, Nixon, faced with the task of appointing Latin American policymakers (including the U.S. representative to the Organization of American States, due to Sol Linowitz's retirement from public life), has been moving slowly. He seems to be waiting for the results from Nelson Rockefeller's exploratory trip to Latin America (scheduled for April) before outlining his administration's Latin American policy. Nevertheless, three of the appointments already made deserve particular notice.
Nixon apparently acceded to certain Peruvian demands in his appointment of John N. Irwin II as his personal envoy to Peru. The Peruvians are understood to have attached the following conditions to negotiations: any U.S. negotiator must be an important man in U.S. government circles, it must be clearly stipulated that he is the personal representative of President Nixon, and he must have broad discretionary powers of negotiation and be willing to go to Lima for talks. Irwin's talks have not yet produced any resolution of the crisis, but it seems that the United States is ready to seize upon any technicality in order to avoid enforcement of the Hickenlooper Amendment (see NACLA Newsletter, February 1969). Irwin is a fitting advance man for Rockefeller. He is a partner in a Rockefeller-associated law firm, Patterson, Belknap & Webb, a director of the U.S. Trust Company of New York (a Rockefeller-controlled bank) and chairman of the board of directors of Union Theological Seminary, which is heavily endowed by the Rockefeller family. He served as Deputy Assistant and then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs under Eisenhower and was special negotiator for President Johnson on the 1967 treaties revising the Canal rights with Panama. He is also a director of IBM World Trade Corporation (his wife's brother is board chairman of IBM). He is a trustee of Princeton University and of all three prep schools that his children are presently attending, and a trustee of the Asia Foundation which has been heavily funded by the CIA.
Charles Appleton Meyer is Nixon's choice for the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. His appointment was announced the same day that the financial pages carried news of Sears, Roebuck and Company's record earnings. So Meyer must have been pleased on two counts. He has been with Sears since 1939, most recently in charge of Sears' Eastern area. His Latin American experience comes from his term (1953-55) as President of a Sears subsidiary in Bogota, Colombia. He subsequently served five years as the company's Vice President in charge of Latin American operations. During this period, he built up a 10-country department store chain which now does more than $135 million in annual business. He keeps up his Spanish by talking with the family's two Colombian maids. He.was advisor to the U.S. delegation at the 1957 Economic Conference of the Organization of American States, and a member of the National Advisory Commission on Inter-American Affairs. He also served as Chairman of the Latin American Committee of the Business Advisory Council and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Export-Import Bank during the Eisenhower administration. Meyer was also a director of the Republic National Bank of Dallas, the Allstate Insurance Company, the Gillette Company and the United Fruit Company. He resigned these posts in order to avoid claims of conflicting interest, but his long association with U.S. companies like Sears has no doubt left him with a better understanding of the needs of "multinational companies" than with the problems of Latin America.
Nixon has just named Joseph Farland as Ambassador to Argentina. Farland is a West Virginia lawyer who has held executive positions in Farland Fuel Company and other West Virginia coal companies (which are currently under political attack by miners). He was an FBI agent from 1942 to 1944. He was appointed Ambassador to the Dominican Republic in 1957. His mission was to try to persuade Trujillo to step down peacefully at a time when the Trujillo reign in the Caribbean was becoming increasingly bothersome to the United States. Diplomatically, the United States found it hard to plan its move against the Castro "dictatorship" without also moving against a blatant dictatorship of the right. And Trujillo was becoming a threat to U.S. investments as he tried to force firms to sell to him. The only major U.S.-owned sugar producer left was South Puerto Rico Sugar Company which produced 33% of the country's export crop. Finally, Farland gave the go-ahead for Trujillo's assassination and left the country when the United States withdrew its embassy staff in 1960. Trujillo fell under a rain of bullets in May, 1961, one month after the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion. Interestingly enough, Farland was subsequently named a director of South Puerto Rico Sugar Company. He then became Ambassador to Panama' (from 1960 to 1963). He is a consultant on Latin American affairs to the Readers' Digest and a director of Schering Corporation which has several Latin American subsidiaries. Farland is a heavy contributor to the Republican Party and organized an Ambassadors for Nixon group in the 1968 elections.
