THE AMERICAS: Losing Ground

Democracy, as the U.S. understands it, took more defeats in South America last week. Chile voted a diehard nationalist ex-dictator back to power; in Ecuador the most effective democratic administration in 28 years gave way to another elected ex-dictator. It was a moment for the U.S. people in general, and the State Department in particular, to face a distasteful fact: with these changes, all the South American republics except Uruguay will be governed by dictators or ex-dictators. Some of the governments still profess to be well disposed toward the U.S. and its ideas of democracy. But it is painfully clear that those ideas are on the defensive —and losing ground.