PUERTO RICO: The 51st State?

Giving in after a dogged resistance, Governor Luis Muñoz Marin last week agreed to a plebiscite on Puerto Rico's future relationship with the U.S. Choices: statehood, independence or continued Commonwealth status.

The concession reversed seven years of continued insistence by Muñoz that the status issue was settled once and for all in 1952 when 81% of the voters endorsed the Commonwealth constitution. As recently as a fortnight ago, Muñoz firmly maintained that statehood and the accompanying obligation to pay federal taxes would be "the ruin" of Puerto Rico.

What changed Muñoz' mind was an upsurge of statehood sentiment after admission to the Union of Hawaii, which is also a racially dissimilar, noncontiguous U.S. possession. As a first step, he promised to request the island legislature to pass a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to grant whatever status the Puerto Rican people may choose in a plebiscite. Muñoz' proposal seems to be the proper start: U.S.-Puerto Rico relations are regulated by a compact that can be changed only by mutual consent. It also set the stage for a hot argument in Congress about whether the U.S. should commit itself flatly in advance to accept the decision of the Puerto Rican electorate.