Chile has the longest record of democracy of any Latin American. country, going back well over a hundred years. It has been a stable political situation and increasingly democratic. But Chile also became, in time, a multiparty country. Now the Communist Party has operated in Chile since the early 1930's. It has been for a long time one of the most effectively organized parties in Latin America. It is Soviet oriented.

Operating as a part of a coalition, as this party has been able to do in Chile, it has had a success that otherwise it could not have attained. In Chile it is almost impossible for any one party to win a national election, and thus a coalition of parties normally wins an election and elects a president and members to Congress.

In this context the communists have been influential. Allende, who was elected President of Chile last year, is not a Communist; he is a Socialist. In Chile, though, the Socialist Party, which is Allende's party, is farther to the left and tends to be more of a revolutionary party than the Communist Party is. But as part of a coalition, the Communists, the Socialists, a part of the so-called Radical Party, and other leftist groups elected Allende President last year.

Now this coalition is still in control. There are serious questions at the present time as to how far Allende may go. In order to win the election, he had to back away from some of his announced platform. He had to at least promise to preserve constitutional government.

At the present time there is a very interesting standoff between the military and the Allende government in Chile. I was there a few months ago and found this situation quite tense.

The military in Chile is customarily nonpolitical, and this is quite different from most Latin American countries. On the other hand, it is the best organized military in South America. The military has normally not intervened very much in politics. There was an exception to this in the mid- and late-1920's, but since 1932 there has been no serious military interference in politics.

On the other hand, what I found just a few months ago in Chile was not surprising at all. Military leaders were saying, "We support democratic constitutional government." In other words, they will continue to support the Allende government as long as it remains democratic and constitutional, but if it goes too far to the left, this is something different; the military very likely will step in and Allende will be out.

At the present time the two countries in Latin America outside of Cuba in which the communists are wielding the greatest influence and in which they have the greatest freedom to operate are Chile and Uruguay. Uruguay is a very democratic country, and here the communists have been able to operate freely for many years.

There has been trouble in Uruguay under this system, and the situation is very tense and has been for several years due to economic conditions primarily.

In the other countries in Latin America at the present time there is a rather minimum amount of communist influence. In several cases the communist influence has been headed off, communist efforts have been stifled, and several of these countries which appear in the pink on this map would not so appear if you were drawing the map as of just the present day.

Now bear in mind, of course, that in recent years there has been a split in a number of these countries between the Soviet and Chinese communist ideologists. This has weakened the parties in several countries. The Chinese communist influence is still very minimal; the Soviet-backed variety is far more influential.

Aside from the matter of influence of a political nature or economic nature in a country, one important consideration and one that is increasingly interesting, I think, today is the actual diplomatic relations that exist or have existed between the Soviet Union and these various Latin American countries. The first formal relations were established in the early 1920's between the U.S.S.R. and Uruguay and the U.S.S.R. and Mexico, and for several years these were the only two Latin American countries that maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. They both broke off relations with the U.S.S.R. in the 1930's because of fear of too great a Soviet penetration and communist influence in both of those countries.

Colombia established relations with the U.S.S.R. in 1935, and when World War II came along it was the only Latin American Republic which maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

During World War II a rather interesting thing happened. The United States, after becoming involved in World War II, began to pressure many of these Latin American countries into establishing relations with the U.S.S.R. since we were now in the war on the side of the Soviet Union. The result was that a number of Latin American governments did establish relations with the U.S.S.R. or were in the process of doing so or some pretended to do so but actually did not carry through with it.

The result of this was that at the end of World War II well over half of the Latin American Republics had some kind of official diplomatic relationship with the Soviet Union. Then they began to break off these relations in the late 1940's as communist influence in some of these countries seemed to be getting out of hand. The result was that by the late 1940's only three Latin American countries continued their ties with the U.S.S.R., namely, Argentina, Uruguay, and Mexico.

The Soviet Union used its three posts; namely, Mexico City, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires, for many years as the key points from which Soviet propaganda and influence were spread into other parts of Latin America.

Then, of course, with the coming of the Castro regime in Cuba, this opened up a new post, namely, Havana. During the past decade several other Latin American countries have moved gradually in the direction of establishing or reestablishing relations with the Soviet Union. The result is that at the present time 11 Latin American Republics have diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R.

Now, of what significance is this? Well, in the first place this once more gives the Soviet Union bases from which to operate in these countries and which it does take advantage of.

On the other hand, it does not necessarily mean that these Latin American governments are communistically inclined or pro-Soviet. In many cases they have done this as a way of simply trying to appear independent, trying to appear not to be led around by the United States. One way of asserting their independence in recent years has been to establish relations with the U.S.S.R.

The U.S.S.R. has, on the other hand, attempted to use the situation to improve its position, trying to appear respectable, and it has succeeded in doing that to a considerable degree just in the last few years.

At the same time the Soviet Union, I think, is playing a double game. On the one hand, it is trying to increase its respectability over Latin America by the establishment of diplomatic relations and trying to appear a peace-loving country that wants to get along well with all these nations and promote trade and cultural exchange with them.

On the other hand, the U.S.S.R. continues to feed through Cuba funds, propaganda, and various activities of a subversive nature into other parts of Latin America as they have been doing now for the past decade.

This is somewhat the same kind of thing that has happened on a smaller scale in certain individual countries in the past, whereas there were actually two communist parties in existence, one which appeared rather respectable on the surface and one which was operating underground. I think you have that today on a larger scale in Latin America as a whole, so that Castro can take the blame for any subversive activities that are intended to promote revolution, whereas the U.S.S.R can sit back and say, "We are opposed to revolution and we are establishing normal diplomatic relations with these various countries."

Well, gentlemen, I would be very glad to go into much more detail on any of the countries that you would like me to and try to answer any questions that you may have. I don't want to take up too much of your time in just an initial discussion here because I realize that I may be covering things that you yourselves are not so interested in, so I will stop at this point.

Mr. PEPPER. Well, that is a very interesting presentation, Dr. Davis. I would like to ask you two questions. One is, What is the need for the future? Do you see a probable expansion of communistic influence and power in Latin America? And, secondly, How does that affect the United States? Does any of that spill over into or is there social infiltration of communistic influence in the United States?

Mr. DAVIS. In answer to your first question, as I said, there appears to have been in the last few years a decline in communist influence, and right at the present time if you take a look at the situation you would say the communist influence in Latin America is probably about at its lowest ebb, except in the countries I mentioned.

On the other hand, I feel that over the next several years there very likely may be an increase in communist influence in several of the Latin American countries due to the peaceful type of penetration which is going on that I mentioned a while ago.

Now, I think that you have to look to individual countries, because each country in Latin America is so different from the others it is difficult to generalize, and you have to look at the internal situation in each country in trying to evaluate what the prospects are for the immediate future or the more distant future.

One reason why there has been a decline in communist influence. in several of the countries in recent years is the type of government that has come into power; that has made this so.

Should this type of government disappear in a given country and

be replaced by a government that would not be quite as effective in controlling the communist influence, it might blossom forth again.

Bear in mind there are certainly communist activities in all of these countries. There are those present who would take advantage of any situation they found.

Now as far as the implication for the United States, one of the primary aims, of course, of the Soviet efforts in Latin America is to discredit the United States as far as possible and try in various ways to turn Latin Americans against the United States. This has had only a minimal degree of success. I think certain of the efforts in this direction will continue, so that this does offer some possibilities.

Certainly there have been many subversives who have been trained in Castro Cuba who have gone out into various parts of Latin America and operated. They have also come to the United States. Quite a bit of the disturbance you see in this country right now is as a result of the penetration of subversives who have been trained and who are being supported by the communist regime in Cuba.

Mr. PEPPER. You say there are in the United States today communist agents trained in Cuba?

Mr. DAVIS. I think so.

Mr. PEPPER. And working to further the communist objectives in in this country?

Mr. DAVIS. I think so.

Mr. PEPPER. Primarily under Russian direction?

Mr. DAVIS. I think so.

Mr. PEPPER. Well, now, is there an alternative in Latin America to communistic power, military government, or do you see any greater prospect that a government will be able to maintain a democratic way of life without communism being the dominant influence?

Mr. DAVIS. I believe that there are such possibilities. You again have to look at each country individually. There have been several cases recently in which it has been only the coming in of a military government that has helped to put down the communist influence at the time.

On the other hand, you can find examples in Latin America of much more democratically oriented governments which at the same time have been effectively anticommunist. You can take the situation in Chile prior to Allende. The present situation in Chile is, of course, far more in tune with the communist desires and efforts than have been the previous governments in Chile.

Chile is a country with such a democratic tradition that military government or a military revolt is not completely unthinkable but is normally certainly not to be expected, and the communists have been well aware of this. They have been well aware of the fact that their chance for success in Chile was not by means of violent revolution but by means of peaceful intervention.

Temporarily they have succeeded very well but this has not been the picture in Chile in times past. Should the Allende government disappear, it may revert to something more conservative.

Mr. PEPPER. At least in Chile so far they have not prevented the ordinary operation of the electoral process, I take it. Mr. DAVIS. That is right.

Mr. PEPPER. And they are not employing the usual technique of power and military force to fasten communism upon the country and denying the people in general their rights.

Mr. DAVIS. That is right.

Mr. PEPPER. So there is hope.

Mr. DAVIS. That is correct.

Mr. PEPPER. That if public opinion decides to put into effect, to put into operation a government that is not tainted with communism, they still have the power to do so in free elections.

Mr. DAVIS. That is right. This is one thing that Allende was forced to promise, that he would preserve the constitutional system, which would mean in 1976 again there would be a free election. Thus far this has not been violated. Now there are indications that he would like to violate it. Thus far he has not dared for fear that if he did so the military would step in and take over. What would happen if the military did take over? Very likely there would be a military-controlled government for a while, and then the country would be restored to democratically constituted government after things had changed. Mr. PEPPER. Incidentally, Doctor, I have never quite understood how the military government seems to be separate and apart from the civilian authority. If the President of the United States wanted to dismiss all of the top officers in our military establishment, he could do so without any question. But as I recall it, in one of the Latin American countries the President tried to get rid of the Chief of Staff or whoever was head of the army, and it didn't work; the military took over.

What is the relationship between the civilian government and the military in actual operation in Latin America in general?

Mr. DAVIS. One very important consideration is the difference in tradition, the way the thing got started. There is a tradition of military in politics in Latin America which we don't have in this country, never have had.

Dating from the early 19th century, the early independence period, these countries attempted to establish and make work systems of government that they were not accustomed to and not prepared for. The result naturally, then, was the military falling into a position of great influence politically.

From that point you come down to the present time, in which in almost every country, with some very few exceptions, the military is in a position to take control whenever it desires.

Now on the other hand, the desire on the part of the military leaders to actually physically rule the country. I think, has been declining rather definitely in recent years, and today you find many of the top military in a number of Latin American countries who really would prefer to have civilian government as long as it is decent civilian government as they think it should be; in other words, as long as it is not too communist influenced, too far to the left, or too unrealistic in other respects.

But in almost every country the military is in a position where if it feels that things are going too badly, it will step in and take over, even in Chile, which would be the exception.

Mr. PEPPER. Economic conditions, which are generally considered to be relevant to the growth of communism, are they in your observation deteriorating generally in Latin America or are they improving?