Ex-Goodyear Boss Would Replace Gavin : Reagan Chooses Ambassador to Mexico

President Reagan has chosen a 67-year-old Ohio businessman, former chairman of the board of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., to succeed John Gavin as ambassador to Mexico.

Charles J. Pilliod Jr., who retired in 1982 after eight years as chairman of Goodyear, began his Latin experience in Central America after World War II and served in Brazil from 1956 to 1963.

Pilliod, if confirmed by the Senate, would take over at a critical point in U.S.-Mexican relations. Accusations of widespread corruption in Mexico’s bureaucracy made by U.S. officials at a Senate hearing last month heightened tensions growing out of Mexico’s economic crisis and a $99-billion debt, the bulk of which is owed to the United States.

Latin American Experience

“I assume I was chosen because of my experience in Latin America and my experience as a businessman,” Pilliod said in a telephone interview from his home in Akron, Ohio. “I look forward very much to the job, if I am nominated and confirmed--I am very fond of Mexico.”

In 1977, Goodyear admitted to having paid $2 million in bribes to officials in India, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Taiwan, Algeria and four unidentified Latin nations from 1970 to 1975. Pilliod ordered an investigation that turned up the illegal payments in response to a civil injunction filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC charged that Goodyear had made improper payments to officials in a score of nations, including $134,000 to a Mexican rubber manufacturers’ trade association to win government approv1634476143investigation produced no evidence that executives of the largest U.S. tire maker were aware of the bribes, and no charges were ever filed by the SEC.

‘Cost of Doing Business’

Pilliod said the payments violated no U.S. law and were simply the “cost of doing business” in many countries. Goodyear disclosed that it made the payments from a secret foreign operations account. The company also admitted making an illegal $40,000 contribution to the 1972 reelection campaign of former President Richard M. Nixon.

Unlike Gavin, who was a Reagan friend from Hollywood days and has enjoyed close access to the White House as ambassador, Pilliod said he has met the President only two or three times. He said he is much better acquainted with Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who has been moving methodically to place his own choices in embassies around the world.

Gavin established a confrontational style as ambassador, taking on the volatile Mexican press and even drawing criticism for intervening in domestic politics by showing sympathy for the country’s small opposition conservative party.

A Mexican source in Washington, who spoke on condition that he remain unidentified, said he hopes Gavin’s successor will maintain a lower profile.