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Last week the U.S. Senate turned loose a bull in the Latin American china shop. He was Spruille Braden, now confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, a big, jolly, working democrat whose object was to smash the Western Hemisphere's dictatorial bric-a-brac.
Never before had the U.S. had such a man in charge of its Hemisphere relations. Seldom had it had such a man in any major diplomatic office. And never had the prideful, sensitive, yearning Latins had to deal on a Hemispheric scale with such a North American.
Already Spruille Braden was better known to the Latins than any other U.S. figure, Franklin D. Roosevelt perhaps excepted. In five months of Hemispheric fame, twelve years of quieter labors, he had made himself an idol to many, anathema to many others. Nor were all who distrusted or feared him dictators and authoritarians. Many a Latin democrat (perhaps more Latin than democratic) was numbered among his loud detractors.
For Spruille Braden, in his big person and his big ideals, embodied the great paradox confronting the U.S. in Latin America. The U.S. officially, and Braden personally, propose to uphold the U.S. idea of liberty in all the Western Hemisphere. Yet the U.S., as the greatest of western nations, and Braden as its servant, must recognize that sovereignty—especially sovereignty below the Rio Grande—is sometimes more precious than liberty.
Spruille Braden thinks that he knows the answer: in the final test, sovereignty rests not in governments but in the people, and the people love liberty. He learned that revolutionary answer where it often seems to be contradicted—in Latin America.
Man of the Mountains. The most colorful diplomat on the current U.S. scene was born 51 years ago, in the Montana mountain country. His future was shaped at birth: Spruille's father was William Braden, an engineer and promoter who followed the mining business from Montana to Chile, got rich in the process, and in his day was famous throughout the southern continent.
William Braden made a point of taking his family wherever he went. When schools were scarce, Spruille's mother tutored him. At 16 he entered Yale's Sheffield Scientific School, took a year off to mine, cut timber and slush about the oilfields of the West, then graduated at 20. Yale knew "Fat" Braden as an All-America goal in water polo, and as a discriminating but notable eater. His class annual characterized him: "He hath eaten me out of house and home." His mother later said that the English language, as perfected at Yale and spoken by Spruille Braden, was unintelligible.
Possessed of a budding paunch and a brand new engineering diploma, young Braden set to work in his father's Chilean copper mine. He was 21 when he saw 19-year-old Maria Humeres del Solar in the box of a Santiago theater. By managing to marry her six months later he set something of a record in overcoming the restrictive protocol of Latin courtship, and the lack of a common language. (Both now speak excellent Spanish and English.) Two of Braden's handiest assets in Latin America have been his greying senora's charm and judgment. The Bradens have five children, three grandchildren.