Being Lucky: Reminiscences and Reflections

18. A Trip and a New Awareness

[18] 000 A Trip and a New Awareness PRIO R TO 1941 the only foreign countries I had visited were Mexico and Canada. My first opportunity for extensive travel abroad came when I was invited by Hubert Herring, the executive director of the Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America, Incorporated, to participate in the Institute on Inter-American Affairs , which traveled throughout Latin America from late July through mid-September, 1941. The trip was organized so well that I gained an amazing amount of information about Latin America in a relatively short period, but, more importantly, the experience enlarged my perspective in a way that was to have a profound influence on my view of Indiana University's province. All at once I became conscious of the world scene. People were beginning vaguely to perceive Latin America at this time as of much more significance to the United States than had previously been recognized. Rumors of the Nazi infiltration in Latin America were rife, and suddenly, because of the war pressures , we began to realize the importance of Latin American raw materials such as rubber to our own economic health. As a result, attention focused on Brazil, which was in the process of developing rubber plantations. Hubert Herring was an authority on Latin America, had written several books about it, and in the course of his many travels there, had become acquainted with the outstanding personalities in nearly every field-journalism, government, education, business, the military , and the intelligentsia. His reputation was so well established that he was able to arrange conferences for us with the most important people in each of the countries, that is, people who could give us the best insight into and interpretation of their particular country 266 NAT ION A LAN DIN T ERN A T ION A L S E R V ICE in relation to what was happening overall in Latin America. Herring had invited to go with him as a part of the seminar group eleven others, selected to represent journalism, labor relations, education, business, religion-in fact, the whole gamut of the social and political concerns within the countries. Part of the group assembled in Miami and it was joined by the rest in Panama, our first stop. I had my initial view then of the little country that has been so much of a factor in the political arena from that time to this because of the Canal and its real or imagined strategic importance to the welfare of our country. Although I described in the log I kept of the trip the Hotel Tivoli and my impressions of a drive through Old Panama, previous experience still formed my frame of reference: There are many Oriental shops run by Indians and other types of Orientals. The contents of the shops are not so good as those in Mexico City except for the food stores, but the general effect is one of much greater well-being and cleanliness than any place in Mexico except the fashionable portion of Mexico City. From there we went to Bogota, Colombia, and began our intensive study of that country. Among others we had a long session with Spruille Braden, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia. He stressed the danger of the Nazi infiltration into the political life and economic structure of South America, which he believed and, as we discovered later many others believed, was intended eventually to place the whole of Latin America under a Nazi-oriented leadership that would be both an economic and a military threat to our country's safety. In Colombia we began a schedule that was replicated as we went from country to country. We met successively the U.S. ambassador and leaders of various professional and political groups. We were briefed by the ambassador and entertained at the U.S. embassy for dinner. Hubert Herring always arranged to have us briefed also by any members of the embassy staff whom he considered particularly outstanding; for instance, if the commercial attache in a country was especially acute, he too would brief us. Also, in each country, if the ambassadors from other Latin American countries were of a very high quality, Herring arranged for us to see them as well. Often. to cover various conferences in a city, we A Trip and a New Awareness divided our forces along the lines of our individual interests and exchanged...