BRAZIL: Visitor from Lebanon

A Brazilian airliner startlingly painted with Arabic characters landed at Rio's Galeao field one day last week. "Special for President Chamoun," said the inscription, and on board was the chief executive of Lebanon, first Middle Eastern head of state ever to visit South America. In the welcoming committee surrounding President Getulio Vargas, Camille Chamoun noted six Congressmen of Lebanese descent. Said he, "I already feel at home."

President Chamoun was aware that there are 250,000 Lebanese in Brazil. Smaller than Connecticut, the republic at the eastern end of the Mediterranean is so densely populated (1,250,000) that a nearly equal number have moved out and now live abroad. Some 500,000 are in the U.S., many in Brooklyn. Explained a Foreign Office official in Beirut: "Our people have been traders since the dawn of history, and they can sniff a business opportunity a long way off." Some Lebanese opportunity-sniffers in Brazil have been strikingly successful.

Notable example: the textile-and-banking Jafets. currently headed by Vargas-Backer Ricardo Jafet. But many a Lebanese in Brazil is simply a backhands pots-and-pans trader. Of such, Brazilians are currently singing a popular samba : Hallah, hallah, hallah, Have pity on Abdallah; Up and down the hills he trots, Carrying his sample box.

With Lebanese-Brazilian links such as these, Chamoun's visit was sure to be friendly. He received the Grand Collar of the Southern Cross from Vargas, signed a "most-favored-nation" commercial treaty, addressed Congress. Everywhere he plugged Arab-Latin American solidarity in the United Nations.

This week Chamoun was in São PaulÔ, where the Avenida Paulista is dotted with the mosque-style homes of wealthy Lebanese. Next on his itinerary: Uruguay, where there are 15,000 Lebanese, and Argentina, where there are 150,000.