COSTA RICA: Medal for Otilio

Around the Caribbean, where some governments change violently and others never seem to change at all, little Costa Rica (pop. 800,875) has the firmest grip on democracy. Its citizens like their Presidents elected, their press free, their schools strong. They feel no need for an army but will rise in arms when they must. A citizen army, under Coffee Planter Jose Figueres, fought in 1948 to stop a scheming government from keeping an elected President, Otilio Ulate, out of office. Figueres won handily, and, as promised, turned the government back to Ulate. Since then, President Ulate has run the republic in the way its democratic citizens like.

Last week President Harry Truman sent Under Secretary of State Edward Miller to San Jose, the cool, green capital of Costa Rica. There, amidst the yellow silk tapestries of the one-story’ Foreign Office, Miller pinned on a beaming, weeping Ulate the U.S. white-&-gold Legion of Merit in the highest grade for “exceptionally meritorious conduct” in office.