NICARAGUA: Best Wishes

Dictator Anastasio (“Tacho”) Somoza passed the word: one nation after another was recognizing the government of his uncle, President Victor Román y Reyes, which he put in power last August without an election. He listed them: Costa Rica, Honduras, the Dominican Republic of Fellow-Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay. If enough of the American republics gave him the right hand of fellowship, he felt that the U.S. would follow. That would again make him a member in good standing in the Pan-American nations club.

Tacho was right about Costa Rica, Honduras and Trujilloland, but the other countries hastily denied any such intentions. At week’s end, the Foreign Office lamely admitted that it had all been a mistake. Tacho had cabled New Year’s greetings to the American republics and when Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay sent him best wishes in return, he had mistaken them for notes of recognition.