ARGENTINA: Customers' Man

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In the eighth-floor U.S. embassy office in Buenos Aires' Boston Bank building, the telephone jangled. "Never mind the protocol," boomed the voice of Juan Perón, "come on over." After three months in Washington, big, breezy U.S. Ambassador James Bruce was back at his post. In answer to Perón's call, he put other business aside, walked the four blocks to the Casa Rosada for a hearty abrazo and a long talk with Argentina's President. In the next two days, he saw most of the country's cabinet ministers, called twice on Foreign Minister Juan Bramuglia.

When Jim Bruce first went to Buenos Aires 21 months ago, about the only instruction he carried was to make friends with the Argentines. A convivial customers' man and a millionaire (National Dairy Products Corp., Baltimore Trust), Businessman Bruce did as he was told. He got on joke-swapping terms with Juan Perón, hobnobbed with the cardinal primate and governors. Bruce became so close a friend of some nationalist generals that it got to be embarrassing. A group of army brass once invited him to a meeting. Just in time, Bruce learned that they were plotting the government's overthrow and wanted his advice. "This is one meeting, gentlemen," he told them, "which I cannot attend."

The economic questions that plagued Argentina—falling production, lack of dollars, shrinking markets—were right up Bruce's alley. Persistently, he used his backslapping sessions with Perón to dish out a businessman's advice. Once he suggested that Argentina export more butter. "But we don't produce enough butter to export any," argued Perón. "If you will allow exporters a free hand in exporting butter, you would produce enough," answered Bruce.

Last week, as the two men sat down together again, it looked as if Perón had begun to take some of the ambassador's advice. The government had just announced that trade debts to U.S. banks, once over $300 million, had been cut to half that figure, would henceforth be systematically reduced by applying against the debt one-fifth of the dollars the U.S. pays for Argentine goods. To stimulate U.S. trade, imports & exports hitherto state-traded would be allowed to revert to private hands. Most important of all, Argentina would sell its crop surpluses at going world prices, instead of charging all that the traffic would bear. Jim Bruce felt that his mission had begun to bear fruit.