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Show THE BREAKS Chile, Brazil Kiss Russia Good -By Acting almost simultaneously, two South American na tions Brazil and Chile curtly announced severance of diplomatic dip-lomatic relations with Russia because, as they both implied, thev couldn't stand it any longer Brazil, which beat Chile to the j gun by a few hours in breaking j relations, had the less valid reason j for its action, on the surface, at least. Stated reason for the move was given as the "extremely outrageous out-rageous and even calumnious" articles arti-cles in the Russian press attacking attack-ing Pres. Enrico Gaspar Dutra and the Brazilian army. j Russia's Literary Gazette had called Dutra an incompetent soldier sol-dier and a Fascist. It was the same magazine that had compared President Presi-dent Truman with Hitler, to which the U. S. strongly objected but took no further action. Chile, however, had a more deep-seated deep-seated grievance. Communist infiltration infil-tration in the nation's southern coal zone, leading to recent labor difficulties there, undoubtedly spurred the decision to sever relations. rela-tions. Chilean Pres. Gabriel Gonzalez Videla previously had accused the Communists of planning to cripple Chile's production of copper, Di trates and other strategic materials and hamper defense of the western hemisphere and the United States. He also had announced his intention inten-tion to "end once and for all" what he called Communist dictatorship over Chile's mine workers. And in a burst of thoroughness, Chile also ended diplomatic relationships rela-tionships with Czechoslovakia. If no other end is accomplished, the action by Brazil and Chile at least may answer the question of whether Communist penetration into a nation actually can be halted by breaking diplomatic relations with Russia. |