Before returning to Washington last week for consultations about the safety of Americans in Mexico, U.S. Ambassador John Gavin met for 40 minutes with TIME's Mexico City bureau chief Harry Kelly. Excerpts from the interview:
Q. How is Mexico coping economically?
A. They are doing some remarkably good things--for example, their attack on inflation, which was brought down from 100% to 60% last year. However, this year I don't think they'll hit their 35% target. Among their problems, they have 900,000 to 950,000 new people coming into the job market at this time every year. Soon it will be a million,...