Yanqui on a Southern Swing

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Betancur certainly sounded nonaligned. Even his public remarks at lunch with Reagan, after their 45-minute private talk, were harsh. He said that Colombian products are denied full access to the U.S. market by tariffs, that the U.S. should prod the IMF to lend more money more easily to countries like his, and that industrialized powers generally renege on their vague, rosy promises to help developing countries. Alluding to the unaccommodating U.S. attitude toward Marxist Nicaragua, Betancur said that hemispheric interests are ill served "either by pressure or isolation." Reagan did not reply in kind. His speech, muted and conciliatory, implied that Betancur's government has an obligation to crack down on Colombia's powerful cocaine exporters.

On Bogota's streets, the visitor's critics were far less civil. At the National University, 200 anti-American student demonstrators threw rocks, and outside Narino House the Presidents encountered a large crowd of protesters shouting "iFuera Reagan!" (Go away, Reagan).

The crowds were thoroughly pro-Reagan at the next stop, Costa Rica, the most stably democratic and pro-U.S. country in Central America. The left wing charges that Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge, in office just seven months, is Washington's pawn, seduced by U.S. aid ($70 million in 1982). Indeed the money is crucial just now: the country's economy is in a recessionary tail spin.

Immediately after Reagan arrived, he met for an hour at his hotel with a fellow visitor to Costa Rica, El Salvador's Magana. As interim President, Magafta is the most formidable check on Roberto d'Aubuisson, the provocative right-wing leader of the Nationalist Republican Alliance. The conversation with Magafta concerned human rights and Salvadoran efforts to curb the country's murderous counterrevolutionary squads. Said Reagan after the meeting: "I think that they are trying very hard and making great progress against great odds."

Reagan's final 24 hours outside the U.S. were his most tiring. Saturday he met with Monge and his Cabinet, signed a new extradition treaty with Costa Rica and delivered a speech to 500 Costa Rican officials and business leaders. It was delayed for several minutes by a Communist Party member, who read a protest in Spanish from the rear of the hall. Reagan waited him out, then drew applause by declaring: "He wouldn't be allowed to do that in a Communist country."

From San Jose, Reagan flew to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He never left the airport there. He and President Roberto Suazo Cordova spoke together in a conference room, walked to a hangar and read boilerplate speeches. Suazo Cordova, who presides over Central America's poorest country, wants $100 million in U.S. aid to retire 75% of the Honduran budget deficit. Honduras has a strong claim on American largesse: it has lately been a staging area for U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista forces. Reagan met Guatemala's Rios Montt (who had flown to Honduras earlier) for a brief talk. Then the U.S. President flew homeward on Air Force One.