“Don’t worry, the Reds are still 90 miles away”was the sarcastic slogan of the 1960s designed to focus attention on the stupidity of our State Department, first, in supporting Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba, second, in withdrawing air and sea support from the Cuban Freedom Fighters at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and, third, in refusing to enforce the Monroe Doctrine when the Soviets installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962.
Thirty Congressmen, Republicans and Democrats, recently sent a letter to President Ford which indicates that they believe that the Reds are no longer as far away as 90 miles, but are on the verge of taking control of Mexico. If that ever happens, the Communists will share a virtually unguarded border along 1,500 miles of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The letter that the 30 Congressmen sent to the President pointed out the “long strides toward the imposition of a Communist regime” which have been taken by Mexican President Luis Echeverria, including “a broadfront attack upon private property in all forms,” “officially tolerated land seizures,” “compulsory textbook changes intended to indoctrinate young Mexicans with a Castroite propaganda,” and a proposed amnesty which “would release hardened Communist cadres from prison and allow them to enter the government.”
Under this amnesty, the Communists who would move from prison to government jobs would be those who engineered the so-called “student revolt” in Mexico City in 1968 resulting in the deaths of at least a thousand people.
President Echeverria has welcomed to Mexico the top Communist officials who fled from Chile after the suicide of Salvador Allende. Echeverria is often seen on public platforms with Allende’s widow, Hortensia, who now lives in Mexico. Although Mexican law prohibits foreigners from owning Mexican property, Mrs. Allende has been per mitted to buy a $250,000 villa in Cuernavaca.
President Echeverrie set up a “think tank” in Mexico for Chilean and other foreign Communists called the “Center of Economic Investigation and Teaching.” Among the laws produced by this “think tank” is the new Law of Urban Reform, which the newspaper “El Occidental” of Guadalajara says was praised by Mrs. Allende as being “identical to one which her husband intended to impose in Chile.”
President Echeverria is often quoted in Communist publications, such as “New Times,” as pledging “solidarity with the people of Chile waging in struggle against Fascism.” “Fascism” is, of course, the Communist term for the present anti-Communist Chilean military government.
The letter to President Ford from the 30 Congressmen states that “Mexico is in turmoil over these changes… which are inspired by a large group of foreign Communists and Marxists who presently advise President Echeverria. They include such notorious Chileans as the former Foreign Minister, Clodomira Almeida, the former Minister of Economics, Pedro Vuskovic, and the head of the far-left Socialist Party, Carlos Altamirano.”
The 30 concerned Congressmen accurately point out that the establishment of a Castro-type or Allende-type Communist government in neighboring Mexico would pose ”a tremendous danger to the United state” It is an open question whether our State Department is giving our President any more accurate information than it dicl before Castro took over Cuba, or before Castro’s soldiers invaded Angola and Mozambique•
