10: Three Scenarios of the Future

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A Sad Scenario Scene: TV studio. In front of cameras, four men sit: interview moderator, a Swiss; the U.N. delegate of the Republic of Québec; the U.N. delegate of the United States of Mexico; the U.N. delegate of the United States of America.

Moderator: Round table speeches are a bore, and we have agreed to have none. One minute is the limit. I will ask the first question, then others as I think useful. Otherwise, we will move clockwise-first, the delegate from Québec, then the delegate from Mexico, then the delegate from the United States. My question is: Will Mexico's charges against the United States of violations of human rights reach the United Nations General Assembly?

Québec: Certainly. Enough countries--including my own--are for it.

Mexico: The United States of North America does not even deny the charges but merely says its actions are what it calls justified.

U.S.A.: No, sir. The United States does deny that everything Mexico calls violations of rights are that. Requiring English for schools and for business is not a violation of human rights, merely good sense. Mexico is just as determined that Mexicans speak Spanish.

Mexico: Three million Mexicans speak Indian languages.

U.S.A.: So do all American Indians who wish to.

Mexico: What about violent deportation of innocent Mexicans from the United States?

U.S.A.: What about answering my rebuttal on language?

Moderator: Please, can everyone wait his turn?

Québec: We in Canada rather agree with the United States on the language issue. One state, one language. Our territory suffered when we were ruled by Ottawa.

Mexico: In those years you had much more territory, did you not?

Québec: As the world knows, the brutal Anglos took 70 percent of our territory before giving us independence. And still refuse to answer to the United Nations vote that this was illegal! So we sympathize with Mexico's interest in its lost territories from Texas to California.

U.S.A.: Mr. Moderator, something seems to have happened--again--to the agreed order.

Moderator: Please, gentlemen.

U.S.A.: Communist and Third World attacks on the United States ignore our right to control entry of immigrants. All nations do so, including Mexico. The United States has been a haven for millions of poor, and those who flee military dictatorship, like that of Mexico today. Mexico scarcely has given refuge to a handful of people in all its history.

Mexico: Will the United States delegate repudiate the assertion often heard in the U.N. today, that the United States is a fascist state?

U.S.A.: Yes. How do you feel about the charge, often heard, that the Mexican dictatorship is a tool of world communism?

Mexico: No one ever put up such a wall as the United States has erected between our countries. It is brutal and insulting.

U.S.A.: The communists built quite a wall in Germany. The Chinese put up a fair-sized one. The Romans built a number. Many European cities had walls at one time. The English used the Channel like a wall, refusing to tunnel under it. France fought for centuries for defensible boundaries-another type of wall. Mexico chooses to consider our defensive wall insulting. It was not so intended. Will the Mexican delegate explain how the wall is brutal?

Mexico: It ignores human problems--of Mexicans invited to the United States, then treated brutally.

U.S.A.: Since Mexico refused to prevent Mexicans from leaving illegally, we did so ourselves. That was our undoubted right.

Mexico: You invited them in.

U.S.A.: We canceled the invitation.

Mexico: You had no right to take such drastic action with brutal haste and without proper discussion.

U.S.A.: We tried years of discussion. If we're speaking of rights, you had no right to a population growth of over 3 percent a year, foisting those you could not support onto us. You have 100 million now, and we hear of your plans to push them into Central America and the Caribbean. What will you do when you have 200 million?

Moderator: The population question is so delicate....

U.S.A.: The Mexican delegate should reply.

Mexico: I agree with the moderator that the United States attitude makes discussion of the matter impossible.

U.S.A.: Pooh. You don't know what to say.

Québec: Mr. Moderator, can't this be kept on a civilized plane?

U.S.A.: Well, I'll change the subject. Mexico supports on its soil a group that calls itself the "Chicano Government in Exile." How would Québec like it if we fostered a "Québec Government in Exile"?

Québec: I consider the question irrelevant.

U.S.A.: The entire U.N. consideration of the Mexican charges is irrelevant.

Moderator: Because the United States has the veto power in the Security Council?

U.S.A.: Not only for that reason.

Moderator: Could we turn to the charges concerning American deportation of aliens?

Québec: Over four million men, women, and children simply dumped over the border in four or five months. It was inhuman!

Mexico: A crime!

U.S.A.: They were fed and housed.

Mexico: And simply thrown into a country unready to receive them.

U.S.A.: Unready and unwilling in every sense. You should have been ready. Besides, we offered $100 million a month in foodstuffs, for three years.

Mexico: Admitting your responsibility.

U.S.A.: To help Mexico perform its duty to its own citizens.

Moderator: It certainly seems to much of the world that between the colossal wall--surely unprecedented, despite what the American delegate says--the massive deportations, and the harrying of children for speaking Spanish, that Americans are paranoid about homogenizing their population.

U.S.A.: Spoken like a Swiss neutral and impartial moderator.

Moderator: I am proud of Swiss neutrality, and of our pluralistic culture--including, you may know, four official languages.

U.S.A.: Yes, in four languages the Swiss reject any responsibility that matters in international affairs. They never help anyone at any risk to themselves. Nor has their pluralistic society attracted many imitators. Abraham Lincoln thought division dangerous. Many throughout the world today think the same.

Mexico: It has become impossible for Mexicans and North Americans to speak together!

U.S.A.: So it seems. I regret that.

Mexico: I also. And we have not touched many important issues-such as your country's refusal to trade with Mexico.

U.S.A.: Or yours to sell us petroleum, while you sell it to neutrals and our enemies.

Mexico: Or your refusal to let tourists visit us.

U.S.A.: Who would want to, when Mexicans insult them?

Mexico: With reason.

U.S.A.: No doubt that was why you seized all U.S.-owned property in Mexico.

Moderator: Perhaps it is time for new efforts at compromise.

U.S.A.: Things change. It is difficult to go back.

Mexico: Very difficult.

The two sheriff's deputies in uniform stood in the night by their patrol car, staring at the searchlights playing on the wall.

"Looks spooky, don't it, Bill?"

"Yeah. I was a kid, we used to swim in the river--about here, I think." They peered at the twenty-foot high concrete wall. There were no openings. A lighted guard tower to the west was only a few hundred yards away. The one to the east was much farther, where the lights of the suburbs of El Paso began. "Hard to tell exactly."

"Yeah. Wouldn't know Mexico was there at all--except when they shoot over it."

"Hear about the mortar last night?"

"Where?"

"California. Lobbed twenty or thirty shells from Tijuana into San Diego."

"Not the Mex government?"

"No. Private."

"What'd we shoot back?"

"Paper says about a hundred mortar rounds. My wife says the Mexican radio says thousands, including nuclear charges."

"Your wife, she understands the Mex pretty good?"

"Spoke it at home. Both parents Mex. Our kids sure as hell only speak English."

They both nodded. Bill asked, "See the TV program last night about the U.N.?"

"Yeah. Our guy did real good."

"Fuckin' U.N. Two-bit countries tryin' to get a handout."

"Your wife must feel bad."

"Yeah. We used to go down all the time in our camper, huntin' and fishin', 'n sometimes to the beach in winter. Real cheap, you did it that way."

"Get along OK with the Mex down there?"

"Oh, sure." He seemed surprised. "No problem."

"Course, your wife's got the lingo."

"Yeah, that helped." He rubbed thoughtfully at his jaw. "But we all just seemed to get along fine."

"Maybe you'll get back some day."

"Hope so." He hesitated, then said, "Tell you the truth, this damned wall gives me the willies."

"Yeah. Well, let's go'n report in."

The Soviet colonel was bored. "I can merely repeat that it is a losing game for Mexico, Colonel Gámiz. Either you stop private citizens from shooting into the United States, or you suffer retaliation."

The Mexican colonel said savagely, "They are brutal about it. Ten, a hundred, for one."

The Soviet colonel said gravely, "Possibly they learned it from their Jews."

The Mexican looked puzzled. "How is that?"

"In Israel, they retaliated like that against the Palestine Liberation Organization."

The Mexican nodded, impatient with ancient history. "Well, sir, what am I to say to the general about our request?"

The Soviet colonel said formally, "That the Soviet Union regrets that it cannot increase weapons for the defensive area of the Mexico-United States border. That it advises Mexico, again, to evacuate as many civilians as it can from the area--say, within ten kilometers of the border. That Soviet policy must remain dedicated to (a) the defense of the heartland of Mexico and (b) confronting the United States with a retaliatory nuclear threat from artillery, aircraft, and rockets in Mexico."

The Mexican colonel said gloomily, "I'll probably be back tomorrow.

The Soviet officer said politely, "Always a pleasure, Colonel Gámiz." Then he straightened slightly. "Possibly your general will become accustomed."

Colonel Gámiz looked startled. "No! No Mexican likes to take orders from outsiders."

The president of the United States said, "I'll have to oppose it, Fred."

The national leader of the AFL-CIO said flatly, "Low wages in the border area were bad for labor for a hundred years. We're going to have to raise them, now that Mexican labor's dried up."

"It'll push up food prices, especially if you go as fast as you're proposing. "

"It'll raise wages and they'll be able to afford more."

The president shrugged. "No use going over it all again. I'm going to ask Congress to let us enforce the wage freeze more strictly." He looked thoughtfully at the labor leader. "Did you ever think that maybe the immigrant labor was valuable to us?"

The labor leader said firmly, "No, Mr. President. It threatened to suck the heart right out of organized labor."

"You don't miss those tomatoes and strawberries from Mexico in winter?"

The labor man smiled wryly. "Mine come from racist South Africa. I'll bet you eat them, too."

The president asked, "What about the busboys and maids?"

The labor leader said, with emphasis, "The wives of labor leaders aren't allowed to have maids, and if they want to eat out they can pay what decent restaurant wages make necessary or eat in cafeterias. There's just nothing about cheap alien workers you can sell to the American labor movement."

A bit later in the day the president was trying to find a chink in a different armor. "But Harry, you know what happened when we tried it without gas rationing."

Senator Gardener said stubbornly, "It's not working with rationing. The ration's too small."

"For some of your leading constituents, I take it?"

"Some folks need more gas than others."

The president said, with obvious patience, "And the rationing system provides for that."

"Not well enough," the senator argued. "Seems to me we should go back to letting the market distribute the gas.

The president said sharply, "You know what that led to. Lots of people couldn't afford five dollars a gallon for gas."

The senator retorted, "They've got to give up more of their cars."

"Does that include senators?"

The senator ignored that. "The new railroads and streetcars and subways and bus lines can handle it."

"Thanks, Harry," the president said sarcastically. "You don't care how much political trouble you plan for me. And I have a feeling it's not just because we're in different parties."

The senator smiled. "Now, Mr. President, you've handled worse. You've got those dandy emergency powers we voted you. Hell, the press can hardly print anything you don't like. And that new national police: 300,000 men dolled up in fancy uniforms and carrying machine pistols."

The president asked curiously, "You don't worry, Harry, what all this coercive power is doing to us?"

The senator said sharply, "What choice do we have--with Soviet rockets in Mexico, and Central America and the Caribbean about to be divided between Mexico, and Cuba and the Soviet Union." He paused, then continued angrily, "I suppose you haven't decided to put a stop to that."

The president said coldly, "The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is consulted at the appropriate times." And, he thought to himself, "Thank God, Harry Gardener is not on that."

The same night the National Security Council met for three hours. Afterward, the secretary of state stayed on with the president of the United States.

"So," the president said wearily, "if we invade Mexico, or stop its takeover of Central America, the Soviet Union invades Turkey and Greece and Iran, and maybe more. Then what?"

The secretary said, "Mexico expands till it meets Brazilian expansion."

The president asked gloomily, "So we have no choice but to pour all we can into Brazilian development--and expansion--so it won't fall into the Soviet sphere, too?"

The secretary nodded, "I thought you agreed."

"Oh, I agree, but it would have been cheaper and safer to help develop Mexico a few years ago."

"There was little support for it, sir, as you remember," the secretary pointed out. "Possibly," he continued impassively, "we could try again, Mr. President."

"That won't work," the president said impatiently. "You know they don't trust me." He looked at the expressionless face of his secretary of state. "Oh, I see what you mean, John. I suppose I could resign. Do you think I should, John?"

"It would be a remarkable act, sir."

The president nodded gravely, "All of that, John, all of that."

The president of Mexico dropped the message form on his desk and said to his young private secretary, "Tegucigalpa is secured. All the Central American republics in our hands before noon."

"And Washington merely blustered!" The young secretary was exultant.

The president observed moodily, "When I was your age, Pepe, we sneered at military men and condemned imperialism."

The secretary protested, "Washington had us under its thumb."

"It's certainly a different thumb now," the president agreed.

"We've increased our national territory 20 percent in one day," the secretary gloated. "We have room for the Mexican people."

The president said sourly, "Yes, we can postpone the population question again." He looked curiously at the young man. "You know, Pepe, we now have a border with Colombia, and its population grows faster than ours. Are we going to let poor Colombians into the greater Mexico?"

"I've thought about that, Mr. President."

"I thought you probably had, Pepe. And what do you recommend?"

"Naturally, we must control it.

"Naturally."

"But there are some tasks for which we have difficulty recruiting adequate hands."

The president nodded solemnly. "Your wife lose another maid who decided factory work was more dignified?"

The secretary smiled. "Something like that, Mr. President.

I should remind you that the Chief of the Combined Staffs will be here in a moment. He wants to discuss the political role of the military in the new territories."

The president said, "I am ready for the battle."

"I beg pardon, Sir?"

"Merely an attempted witticism, Pepe. You must learn to ignore them. It is an affectation of the aged."

The secretary was polite. "Yes, Mr. President."

"Relax, Pepe," the president said kindly. "I gather that you approve of General Bueno?"

"I find him impressive, Mr. President. When I studied at the Diplomatic Institute, he addressed my class."

The president said dryly, "On the 'Greater Mexican Sphere of Activity in Alliance with the Soviet Union,' no doubt."

"No, sir," the secretary said seriously. "His subject was 'A Giant Should Be Respected.' "

The president said musingly, "It wasn't what I was brought up to, but I can live with that."

A Rosy Scenario

The chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist party of Mexico was sixty-nine years old and looked it. "You have the list, Alicia?"

"Yes," said the secretary. She passed him a paper as she sat down by his desk.

The chairman regarded the list without enthusiasm. "Not too inspiring."

Alicia was a phlegmatic and formless forty. "No," she agreed unhelpfully.

"Nevertheless," the chairman said doggedly, "we must have a program to recommend by three this afternoon."

The woman waited, pencil in slack fingers.

"We can," the chairman said without conviction, "attack the new Mexico-United States joint citizenship as destructive of Mexicanidad."

When the secretary did not react, the chairman said sharply, "What's your reaction to that, Alicia?"

"People like dual citizenship," she said stolidly.

"I know that," the chairman said testily. "We're talking about tactics."

Alicia shrugged. "I can only think of one, Pedro."

The chairman looked at her suspiciously. "And?"

"A long vacation."

"That is not amusing."

"My God!" the woman said. "It wasn't meant to be. What I meant to say was--a period of inaction to redevelop planning in the light of altered circumstances."

The chairman looked aggrieved. "We've been in the party together a long time, Alicia. You needn't be sarcastic."

The secretary threw her dictation book on the desk and brought out a cigarette. "It wasn't just sarcasm. I'm nervous. Nobody seems to make any mistakes but us."

"Moscow, too," the chairman said comfortingly.

"I was including them with us," the secretary said.

The chairman looked at the list again. "Well, we can start another campaign against selling all our surplus petroleum and natural gas to the United States at twenty percent above world prices-if we can find a new twist."

"Don't look at me," Alicia disclaimed. "It's hopeless. People think we're screwing the gringos. That seems to have corrupted everyone."

The chairman read from the list. "Possibly 20 million Mexicans now work in the United States. Is that the new official figure?"

The secretary blew smoke out with a laugh. "I made it up."

"Your mother, with the jokes!" exploded the chairman. "I like to know what I'm talking about."

Alicia said soothingly, "The last government figure was over 18 million. No doubt it's gone up."

"I suppose so," the chairman said apathetically. "We can claim again that the bilingual schools in the United States are a fake."

"We can," Alicia agreed, "but no one would believe it. Really, Pedro, all I can think of is either population control or free trade. At least they are so complex that there's some room for maneuvering."

The chairman threw the list on his desk and lit a cigar. "My sister's head of the State of Michoacán Birth Control League."

"That the one married to a road builder?"

"Yes. They could afford a hundred children."

Alicia said firmly, "It's gone out of fashion. Even in Russia."

"That," said the chairman, "leaves us with free trade. 'Mexico increasingly subservient to the Money-Masters of Wall Street?' "

Alicia looked doubtful. "Not very punchy." She said the word in English.

"Shit! Do you have to use those English terms?"

The secretary said testily, "Even Lenin used foreign terms when he wanted to be punchy."

The chairman said despondently, "We could say that the new alliance with the United States is threatening the beauty of the Spanish language."

"Oh, boy," Alicia said in English, "Que idea comunista."

And they lived happily ever after.

A Moderate Scenario

The Mexican diplomat raised his glass. "Salud! Not a bad session, Ray."

The State Department man looked moodily around the crowded bar. "Not for you, Luis. Christ! Twenty percent over world prices for your oil."

The Mexican smiled. "What you and I learned at Harvard Business School, Ray. The parts of a rational solution may seem irrational."

"We gave up our transportation advantage."

"You don't have any unless we give it to you."

"Damn it, Luis, it's five times as far to Indonesia as to Mexico. That's a natural advantage."

The Mexican smiled again, "Harvard Business taught us that nature has no vote."

The American said, "I didn't realize you were taking our student days so much to heart. I suppose Harvard Business told you how we can solve the political problem of such an agreement."

"Oh," Luis protested, "I would not dream of interfering in your political process. I am sure you can just say that the Mexicans held you up."

"That'll make us look great."

"You'll get sympathy."

The American said sarcastically, "Thanks. Pity, more likely, and pity in politics buys nothing."

The Mexican said sharply, "The oil won't buy us too much, either, Ray. You'll raise the prices of computers and machinery."

The American nodded, smiling. "You've cheered me up. Here's to Harvard Business School."

"Come on, Don. You know that an international agreement requires compromises."

Senator Donald Parker said, "You gave Arizona's water to Mexico, Mr. President, and folks at home are mad."

The president asked, "You have enough water right now?"

The senator looked at him suspiciously. "You know we don't. California takes too much."

The president said impatiently, "The Colorado River doesn't have enough for all the users. You know that, Don."

"Everybody knows that, Mr. President."

The president said earnestly, "So you give up some Colorado water, and--"

"Sure," the senator from Arizona exclaimed. "The treaty gives Mexico five times as much as it gets now. They get more from the Colorado River than all the American users put together. And the river runs two thousand miles in the United States and a lousy hundred in Mexico."

"When?"

"When what?" the senator asked.

"When," the president asked, "does Mexico get all that Colorado water?"

The senator looked disgusted. "Oh, I read the treaty, Mr. President. You're talking about the fine print. Voters don't care about the fine print."

The senator flapped a hand, settled back in his chair, got out a cigar. His face became a shade less red. "Sure, I read the fine print in personal contracts--and everything else. But voters are jumpy."

The president said, "I'm going on TV."

"That may help,"the senator conceded.

"They don"t lose any Colorado River water till the Alaska pipe is in, and that's out of federal money."

"Voters aren't much interested in the future, Mr. President."

"I know, the president agreed. "I spend a lot of time thinking about voters, too, Don."

The senator chuckled. "The Colorado's real close. It seems more real than Alaska."

The president nodded."I'll tell them they won't lose a gallon of that lousy salty river till the Alaska stuff is flowing in, clear and sparkling."

The senator asked, "What do you really suppose the Alaska water project's going to cost us, Mr. President?"

The president said coolly, "I'm not interested."

The senator asked in surprise, "How's that? Won't you have to be? It'll ruin the budget."

"Not mine," the president said complacently.

The senator looked startled. "You've got five more years--if you're reelected."

"I expect to be reelected, Don."

"You mean, you 're not going to build the Alaska line?"

The president looked almost benign. "I mean I expect that the Congress will insist on prolonged feasibility studies."

The senator seemed to find that a pleasing idea. "I'm sure we will. Let 'em wait a piece."

"I am sure," the president said gravely, "that the Mexicans are not unprepared for that."

The girl on the beach towel accepted a glass from the young man. "Thanks, Ricky. How was Washington?"

"Cold," he said, taking off the jacket of his conservative dark suit. "I'll go up and change. Just wanted to be sure you were here, Meg."

"Did you make brilliant speeches, Ricky?"

"Hagghh!" The young man was disgusted. "At my level in the Mexican Foreign Ministry, your longest speech is, 'Sí, señor.' Why did your father bring you here?"

The girl shrugged. "Dad says Acapulco's ugly and dirty. So Ixtapa's where we are."

"I still love you," the young man said.

The girl did not appear too grateful. "So it's lasted another two weeks."

"And it will last another two years." He was irritated.

"Is that what we'll put in the marriage contract?" she asked.

"Good for two years?"

The young man threw his coat onto the girl's beach towel, and sank to his knees in the sand beside her. "Your sister's problems have nothing to do with us, Meg. Some international marriages work."

"Dad calls them cross-cultural marriages."

"What's the difference?" the young man said impatiently.

The girl said with mock gravity, "Dad says that if you don't know the difference, you don't know the problem."

The Mexican said, smiling with conscious charm, "I know the difference. I know the problem." He took her hand. "Come on, Meg, let's get married and have some Mexican-American children. The boys can go into your father's business, which will boom under the new treaty we just cleverly arranged."

"Were you really clever?" she asked derisively. "Dad says treaties seldom are even half-intelligent. What'd you do about drugs, tell me that."

The Mexican sat in the sand, pulled off his shirt and shoes.

"OK, you'll see how bright your future husband is. We agreed that drugs are an internal United States problem, and that population growth is a Mexican problem."

She protested, "You didn't! That's no solution at all."

"We dressed it up a little," he added. "Mexico will do its utmost to ameliorate the conditions that lead to illegal immigration to the United States, while the United States will make equally vigorous efforts to ameliorate the conditions that induce drug smuggling from Mexican territory."

She was indignant. "But it doesn't change anything."

"Not immediately," he agreed. "But, little innocent, it was a master stroke."

"Little innocent, yourself. It's a nothing."

He grinned at her and said, "It made it easier to change a lot of other things."

"Such as?"

"Things that let your father's Superior Electronics build fifty-five factories in Mexico."

She smiled. "He'll love that."

"I know he will. That's why I did it. So that when I come to dinner he'll feel more kindly toward cross-cultural marriages."

Meg's father was on the long-distance telephone in his suite in the Ixtapa Hilton.

"OK, Bill. That's clear. In effect, the United States agreed to drop a lot of labor-intensive manufacturing, and let Mexico take over and sell us the stuff. And we concentrate on capital intensive production. That's us.... Sure, sure, the pants and shoe manufacturers will howl. You get to work howling them down."

The president of the American Farm Federation said to his chief lobbyist, "Tom, we've got to stop ratification of the Mexican treaty."

"It'll be tough."

"We'll get a lot of sympathy. It lets cheap Mexican farmers destroy the small farmer in this country."

The lobbyist said, "Lots of agribusiness will be for the treaty. They'll sell plenty of wheat and corn to Mexico."

The president said sharply, "The American Farm Federation is made up of small and medium-size farmers."

"I know, I know. I'm just saying it will be tough. Lots of people'll be glad to get Mexican tomatoes and strawberries and vegetables."

"For Christ's sake, Tom! Don't tell me the problem. Tell me the solution."

"I'm happy," said the U.S. secretary of state, "that you could agree to this private meeting after the signing of the treaty."

The Mexican minister of foreign relations nodded. "It seems to me that we have some things to discuss."

The secretary of state smiled. "Such as how long will it take to make the new treaty work well?"

The Mexican made an expressive gesture. "We know the answer to that. A long time." He asked casually, "How soon do you think your Alaska water flow will release the Colorado River water to Mexico?"

"Sooner, I imagine, sir, than your population growth will be as low as two percent a year."

"The long view," observed the Mexican, "is so apt to be discouraging." He smiled slightly. "Also the short view."

The secretary of state nodded. "A friend of mine used to say that foreign relations is not gleeful. What I wanted to briefly explore with you, sir, is the possibility that in the gleeful future, Mexico, the United States, and Canada might want to consider some sort of economic union."

The Mexican looked interested. "It is the trend of the times, as the young men in my ministry insist. They like to show me computer printouts."

"You and I will be gone," the secretary of state observed, "before such a union can be discussed seriously."

The Mexican said heavily, "I know. Mexico will have to change its society in order to be a full partner with the United States and Canada."

The secretary of state said kindly, "It will be a large task, certainly. My young men's computer printouts say that by then Mexico's population will be about 180 million, ours maybe 250 million, and Canada's 40 million, not counting Québec of course."

The Mexican agreed. "It will be difficult enough without the distraction of mini-states." He added musingly, "A community market of nearly 500 million inhabitants." His face grew guardedly complacent, and the American secretary of state wondered if he was selling tomatoes and Datsuns "Hecho en Mexico" to Kentucky and Saskatchewan.

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