THE HEMISPHERE: Dialogue of Equals

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Henry Kissinger starts off this week on another Mission: Impossible. Meeting in Mexico City with Foreign Ministers from 25 other hemisphere countries, the U.S. Secretary of State will try to improve the sour feelings that have resulted from the Nixon Administration's near-total neglect of inter-American problems. Indeed, if the conference succeeds, it will be for one reason only: nobody expects very much from it.

Perhaps in recognition of that unhappy fact, Washington has been talking about the Mexico City meeting in rather guarded terms. Notably missing has been any grand verbal sweep of the Yankee sombrero—the rhetorical overkill that, for instance, heralded the southern tour of Kissinger's predecessor William Rogers as the most important visit by any American Secretary of State in more than 40 years. Such hyperbole —which said "everything without doing anything," in the words of one Latin diplomat—has turned many Latin Americans into skeptics about U.S. intentions.

Kissinger described the goal of his trip quite modestly. Its purpose, he said last week, was to "create the mood and atmospherics so that Latin America again can become a vital part of the foreign policy of the U.S."

The shift in Washington's attitude began last October. Speaking to the Latin Foreign Ministers and ambassadors in Manhattan, Kissinger called for "a new dialogue" between the U.S. and the other countries of the hemisphere.

American policy, he acknowledged, had been "characterized by alternating periods of what some of you have considered intervention with periods of neglect. We are proposing to you a friendship based on equality and on respect for mutual dignity." With U.S. encouragement, the Latin Americans met in Bogota last November to work out an agenda for Mexico City.

At the same time, Kissinger took his own crash course in Latin America. He also dispatched to Latin posts perhaps the ablest team of diplomats the U.S. has sent south of the border for years.

Jack Kubisch, an expert on Brazil who worked with Kissinger in Paris during the Viet Nam truce negotiations, was named Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. John Crimmins, a former Ambassador to the Dominican Republic, was posted to Brazil; John Jova, a former Ambassador to the Organization of American States, was assigned to Mexico. Earlier this month, Kissinger flew to Panama to initial an agreement that promised to remove one of the most emotionally charged irritants in hemisphere relations—continued U.S. control of the Panama Canal.

The Panamanians, the agreement promised, would have the canal—at some as yet unspecified time.

The fact that Kissinger, involved as he was in Middle East negotiations and questions about detente, decided to go to Mexico City, has already impressed many Latin leaders. They know where power lies, and that Kissinger, unlike Rogers, has it. They snubbed Rogers, but they will not do the same to Kissinger. "The Mexico City meeting would be the same as the others if it weren't for Kissinger," says one Latin diplomat.

"He has a personal obligation to succeed; so he will." Adds Costa Rica's President Jose Figueres: "I've come to place my hope in great men, and Kissinger is one of them."