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ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to have is my guest at this time the former mayor of New Orleans And now our ambassador, the United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States, the Honorable de Lesseps Morrison. Such a great privilege to have you, sir. Well, thank you, Senator.

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And I, as our ambassador to the Organization of American States, I wonder if you tell us first, what is the organization of American States? Well, the OS is really the U. N for Latin America, in simple words, except that we go back 73 years. Probably We wore the Pan American Union, now the OS.

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But the secretary of the full time people still call the Pan American Union. But in effect, in addition to being the counsel for the American system, the U. S. Also has many inter American bodies. We deal with the political and economic side. We have the Alliance for Progress, which is a 10 year program.

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And although most people think of this as a U S. Program who were reminded last Saturday very forcefully by two ex presidents, President Kubitschek of Brazil, President Euros of Colombia, that this is really a Latin program that the US is only one of the partners in this, of course, is correct.

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And so the OS supervises this this economic program, as well as taking care of many of the attempting to take care of many of the political questions that come up in the American system. Oh, may I call you the lessons? Adolescents. You are the ambassador from the United States to this organization and previously had been greatly interested in this area.

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Do you believe that the Organization of American States is serving any useful function? Yes, I do, Senator. Of course, it's very easy to criticize when you have 20 governments with a variety of opinions and the the difficulty of getting 20 governments to move even the difficulty of getting one government to move.

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Sometimes there's something yet, considering from an international viewpoint, you have to give the O. A s a good mark. During the last two years, principally when the chips were down on the 23rd of October, when President Kennedy really needed the barking to face the Russians in this confrontation, you might say he received a unanimous vote and in one day at nine o'clock in the morning we met on the 23rd of October, and by four o'clock that afternoon we had achieved a unanimous vote in support of President Kennedy's air and sea quarantine of Cuba.

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Now I then went to the U. N. And I'm not going to criticize the U. N. But there it remained for three months. There were many debates about it, but no final decisions were taken and finally was brought back to the U. S in January and placed back in our lap again.

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And I like to feel that the UN is getting so large with 111 nations that perhaps we're going to be relegated more and more in setting these political questions to a regional bodies such as the Oh, yes, and I think comparatively speaking, that we have responded well, we've gotten this unity.

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We kicked Cuba out of the in American system by two thirds vote which required we adopted the Alliance for Progress by unanimous vote. So, on the big issues, I think that we have been ready to act in behalf, incidentally, of the Western Democratic nations. Let me ask you real tough question here in the light of the fact that the OS is going on record is against communism and against the situation as it exists in Cuba.

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What do you think there is that the OS can do to help get rid of communism in Cuba? Well, Senator, we can do a number of things right now, and we're in the process of doing some of this that will not risk World War Three or the beginning of World War Three.

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There is, of course, a levadia report which will prohibit, in effect, the transportation of Communist agents, funds and propaganda. We can do something about air travel, see travel. We can do something about extending sanctions. When it goes beyond that, what type of action will take place?

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You know, there's only one man that can make that decision. He's in the White House. In other words, what you're saying is that if there's going to be any action actually taken by the Organization of American States, it's going to have to originate here in the in the United Well, I would say that if there's any provocation by the Cubans that will justify the invocation of the real treaty, then we can authorize the use of arms.

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And then the U. S. Can contribute arms as well as various other nations. One last question. In just five seconds, if the United States decided to adopt an affirmative program against Cuba, do you think most of the other nations of Latin America would back us up?

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I do. I feel that the great majority of the nations will back us up. Of course, we've had a unanimous vote on the critical issues, and we'd like to have a unanimous vote again. Thank you very much. De Lesseps Morrison, our ambassador to the Organization of American States.

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And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Very much for looking in. I hope you're looking again at the same time next week. These are hard questions, but I don't Yeah. Are you well on this? Would Mr Ambassador, under the Organization of American States Charter do we the United States?

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Do we have the authority to, for example, send the Marines into Cuba? Well, actually, we signed the real treaty some 18 years ago. This was part of the policy Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, the good neighbor policy. And in that treaty, we committed ourselves not to commit an aggression against any country in the hemisphere.

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They like. Why signed the same agreement? And we said also that any aggression committed by one nation is considered to be an aggression against all the nations. Now, if, however, there is a provocation. And of course, on the 23rd of October, the OS declared the formation of missile bases in Cuba to be such a provocation and we branded Cuba as an aggressor.

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We invoke the real treaty. We authorized the removal of the threat to peace by any means, including the use of arms. So then the opportunity was open to have the various nations can joint operation and four dead actually contributes naval forces to the quarantine. But then the Russians withdrew, took their bases out.

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We say we hope and remove their weapons of offensive capabilities. So with the exception of the fact, we have not had the inspection yet. That threat so called that branding of Cuba's and aggressor was alleviated. So perhaps in order to do what you're saying, we would have to have legally speaking some type of provocation which is recognized to be so by the OS.

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Let me ask you this in the light of a recent report made by sub organization of your organization, where you found that the communism does control Cuba totally. Would that not be sufficient to, for example, put into work? The machinery, which was started in October last year, where you authorized the United States and other countries to take whatever forceful steps was needed in order to get rid of the threat does Does communism constitute a sufficient threat by itself standing alone, too, to let the organization take steps?

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In other words, would this be such a problem? Legally speaking, I don't believe that when you speak of a threat that you're speaking of an ideology, although it before and all that would be contrary to everything we believe in. Still, the threat we're speaking about is some type of armed aggression where there is a breach of the peace.

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Of course, we contend that this eating away from within of the democratic institutions by communism is a serious threat. But it's an indirect threat. It's a subversion of intervention. True, but the U. S would then to answer you specifically if the OS felt it to be so and so voted and declared it to be an intervention in the affairs of the other nations and invoked the real treaty and authorized armed aggression to put it down.

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Then you would have the right provocation. But I would say that it would be quite difficult without a specific instance, more or less than an armed provocation that you would get the 14 votes that you need to invoke the real treaty. How dangerous do you think Cuba, uh, emanating propaganda Communist propaganda throughout Central American South America all the time?

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How dangerous do you feel that it is to the rest of the hemisphere? I think it's very dangerous, and I have repeatedly stated, and I said this before the Congressional Committee that we have really two chapters in this book. We have the more dramatic chapter, which is the attempt by the Russians to form this missile base in Cuba.

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It was dramatic. We answered it quickly with a special meeting of the O. A s, a unanimous vote and quick action. This other is a slow process that some eating from within its a tearing down by sabotaging intervention. And I would say that this is just as serious in the long run, but not as dramatic.

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And perhaps a response by the member nations would not be the same. After all, you have to remember that there are strong leftist forces in many of the government. As a matter of fact, two years ago, when I first came aboard, nobody wanted to talk about taking any action on Cuba.

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We had the meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, in which Mr Trujillo's regime was sanctioned. And, of course, they were guilty. But I would say to a small extent compared to Castro, and nothing was done about Fidel Castro. So actually, that you had to come a long way to get them to the point where we had a two thirds vote to kick them out.

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And then a unanimous vote to invoke the Rio Treaty last October. So it's all a practical matter. I think it's just as serious. But can you get the declaration by the government's on that subject? All right, well, thank you very much, Mr Ambassador, for these views and thank you very much, Ladies and gentlemen, for listening in.

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I hope you're listening again at the same time next week.