Febres Cordero a Reagan Favorite : Scrappy Ecuador Leader Facing Oil Price Crisis

The Colt .45 pistol, which is either on his hip or close by in a top drawer of his desk, tells a lot about Leon Febres Cordero, the president of Ecuador.

“My best friend,” Febres Cordero said recently, referring to the pistol. “It doesn’t ask for anything, it never eats and it’s always ready.” A champion pistol shot in his youth, he has never had to use the gun except in target practice but keeps it close at hand. “I’ve been armed all my life,” he said.

Febres Cordero is a tough hombre, and it is just as well. The day may be coming when President Reagan’s favorite South American president will have to circle the wagons. For oil-rich Ecuador, a can-do exception to the region’s economic malaise, is suddenly oil-poor Ecuador.

Moreover, Febres Cordero’s opponents in the backbiting melee that is Ecuadorean national politics charge that his jovial democratic face, which he wore on a visit to the White House in January, masks a streak of authoritarianism. And in June they will test his programs--and his patience--in midterm congressional elections.

This weekend, the president found himself in a theatrical showdown with an air force officer who refused to be fired. Gen. Frank Vargas Pazos, commander of the air force and chief of the joint military command before Febres Cordero fired him from both posts, took refuge in a provincial air base. The president, describing the air force man’s action as a failed uprising, put the armed forces on alert and sent army troops to surround Vargas’ refuge.

Febres Cordero, 55, is by far the most conservative of South America’s elected leaders. He presides over Ecuador as if he were a take-charge chief executive officer running a big, unruly company. He is a man of great passion and litle tolerance, and he inspires profound loyalty and visceral dislike.

“In 30 years of political life I have never encountered a government as abusive or as arbitrary at this one--not even military governments,” said Osvaldo Hurtado, a scholarly Christian Democrat whom Febres Cordero replaced in the presidency 19 months ago.

Political Give and Take

Febres Cordero gives as good as he gets from the center-left opposition, which in his view is stained by communist villainy.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the opposition accused me of responsibility for every illegitimate birth in Ecuador,” he said. “If I weren’t a controversial figure, I wouldn’t have got elected.”

On both sides, the rhetoric is more extreme than the behavior. Outweighing both just now is the somber reality of the collapse of oil prices. Almost overnight, Ecuador’s earnings have been reduced by a third. And plummeting with oil prices are the prospects of a second straight year of strong economic growth.

Sidetracked growth means greater pressure on Febres Cordero from his opponents, who are already arguing that his brand of capitalism favors the rich at the expense of the poor--and the poor make up the majority of Ecuador’s 9 million people.

‘We Are Not Doomed’

“Things are hard, but it is not as though we are doomed,” Febres Cordero said in the colloquial English that he acquired in Pennsylvania, where he played shortstop on his high school baseball team, and that he polished as an engineering student in New Jersey. “We are prepared to meet the crisis. . . . I am forced to choose between recession and inflation. I choose neither. We will find a middle road between them.”

A scarred political veteran, Febres Cordero won the presidency in a surprise victory over his center-left opponent, Rodrigo Borja Cevallos, a Social Democrat.

Since taking office in August, 1984, Febres Cordero has been a firm supporter of U.S. foreign policy, while at the same time initiating economic policies that have delighted the United States, creditor banks and the International Monetary Fund.

Ecuador is sometimes cited as a model of how a Third World government can keep peace with its creditors while at the same time stimulating growth.

Febres Cordero reduced inflation, eliminated some price controls and slashed subsidies, tariffs and the government deficit, all in the name of a more efficient economy. His welcome of foreign private investment has brought in fresh risk capital from foreign oil companies. He has rationalized public administration in Quito under a Cabinet made up of businessmen.

Political Plums Gone

Febres Cordero’s opponents complain that great numbers of their people have been dismissed from public jobs, but his supporters see “a revamped government that works.”

Foreign Minister Edgar Teran said: “Control of customs used to be a political plum. Since we hired a Swiss company to audit exports and imports, government customs revenues have quadrupled.”

This year’s budget is based on an assumed average price of $25.50 a barrel for exported oil, which accounts for two-thirds of Ecuador’s foreign exchange. Recent market prices of around $15 a barrel represent a potential revenue loss of about $700 million.

“If the crisis worsens, we may have to reduce imports and cut spending, but for now we can cope without any drastic measures,” Febres Cordero said.

With the June congressional election obviously in mind, the government rules out a devaluation of the currency or any increase in gasoline prices, now at a giveaway 30 cents a gallon.

If the economy falters badly, it will not take Febres Cordero’s political foes long to pounce.

In the context of South American politics, Ecuador is a low-key, centrist country. Febres Cordero is not as extremely right-wing as his opponents say, nor are they as wildly left as he says. The political game, though, is rough and tumble.

In his year and a half in office, Febres Cordero has battled loudly with an initially hostile Congress, the courts, government commissions and tribunals, and most recently with the universities, which he says are notable mostly as incubators of subversion. This weekend he was locked in the angry confrontation with the sacked air force commander.

‘I Won, I’ll Govern’

“I have an ideological opposition which ranges from the extreme left to the ultraleft,” Febres Cordero said, piercing the air at the presidental palace with a nicotine-stained forefinger. “They have never recovered from their election defeat. They said they’d govern from Congress and I said: ‘The hell with that. I won, and I’ll govern.’ ”

Until the June elections, Febres Cordero has a slim majority in Congress, which has been characterized recently by such goings-on as fistfights, stink bombs, tear gas and the cutting of microphone cables--all attributed by the opposition to the government.

“If I had done that, they’d have impeached me,” Febres Cordero snapped.

Borja, the Social Democrat, believes that Ecuador is witnessing an ominous concentration of power.

“Democracy here is more apparent than real,” he said. “The government has disobeyed the Congress and violated the constitution. Its style is to brutally attack anybody who disagrees.”

If the difference in the perception of Febres Cordero between an applauding Washington and a denouncing opposition is remarkable, it is also understandable.

The Reagan Administration, buffeted by protests from other Latin American countries over everything from debt to Nicaragua, sees in Febres Cordero what it likes the most. The opposition, recently deprived of power and enraged by Febres Cordero’s strong and antagonistic exercise of power in a new direction, sees what it likes the least.

The constant between the two poles, reassuring one and embittering the other, is Febres Cordero’s unshakable concept of job and self.

“My job is to enforce the constitition,” he said, “and that is what I will do for the length of my term--not one day more or one day less. I am a democrat.”