THE ROAD AHEAD FOR LATIN AMERICA

...I think we have a duty wherever we are assisting an ally or friend to assure ourselves that the government of that ally is dedicated to improving the lot of the average citizen...

...The liberalization of loan policy and the extension of credit facilities are vital in any program for the development of Latin America...

...The oligarchies, of course, would resist, but the democratic governments, like those in Venezuela and Colombia, would be happy to be armed with a new and powerful weapon against the elite—the requirement of basic internal reform as a condition of U.S...

...Latin Americans were therefore overjoyed when President Kennedy emphasized the need for action in this field in the ten-point program for Latin America he submitted to hemisphere diplomats earlier this year...

...We can offer a helping hand to countries struggling to industrialize...

...assistance...

...Our first task is psychological, not financial...

...We can, for example, lend encouragement to the concept of a common market for Latin America...

...What we need now is the capital to effectuate them...

...The skidding price of coffee, for example, has caused untold hardship to countless Latin American individuals and depleted the treasuries of their governments...

...If it is interference to require, as a condition of our assistance, that Latin America put her own house in order by embarking on reform programs in the fields of health, housing, education, taxation, and land distribution, it is the kind of interference that would be warmly welcomed by the overwhelming majority of Latin Americans who hunger for a better life...

...But far too often the course of non-interference served to cloak the absence of any policy at all, and sometimes served as an excuse for a policy of downright support of tyranny because our business community preferred it or our planners in the Pentagon felt brutal dictators made good allies against Communism...

...It involves the revival of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy and its extension through John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress...

...The only meaningful defense against Communism in the Western Hemisphere is a great offensive for social justice and democracy supported by the United States...

...We may have even used this policy as an excuse for doing nothing when we should have moved...

...Non-interference does not mean the total absence of leadership, inspiration, and example...

...They will have to clear away the ghastly slums that surround every city...

...There is no magic in any of them, but together they add up to a purposeful approach to the insistent challenge of Latin America...

...The United States, until recently, has resisted adoption of a price stabilization program...

...Our files are filled with plans and blueprints," one head of government told me...

...They agree with the American they admire most, Ad-lai Stevenson, who wrote in Look after his extended swing through the hemisphere: "The problems that present themselves can be tackled only by Latin Americans...

...The time has come for an end of speeches, however fine their phrasing, and the beginning of affirmative action...

...This means backing, not bucking, that revolution...

...Most of the leaders of Latin America with whom I talked are painfully aware of the fact that much that needs doing must be done by the people of Latin America themselves...

...The struggle of the moderate middle to find a democratic road to reform between the bitter opposition of the oligarchy and the sabotaging strategy of the far left has taken on a compelling urgency...

...They recognize that the threats of Communism and Castroism do not spring from some sinister plot in Moscow or Havana, but from fundamental, home-grown weaknesses which neither Latin American nor U.S...

...In this closing fragment of my report on Latin America, I want to explore some of these possibilities...

...policies have yet been able to solve...

...The government should represent the will of the people and should be chosen, wherever feasible, by popular and secret ballot...

...But, Adlai Stevenson was quick to add, while they of Latin America must do it, there is much that we of the United States can do to help...

...They knew then from the nature of our progressive leadership that we were interested in their plight, that we were treating them as friends and partners, and that we were determined to help them help themselves...

...The forces for freedom must move swiftly or it may soon be too late...

...Yet some countries spend as much as fifty per cent of their national budgets on armaments"—largely, I add, at the urging of our Pentagon planners...

...They desperately want assistance from the United States, but they understand and accept President Kennedy's concept of self-help...

...help, both through financing on a long-term basis of sound projects broad enough to assure progress, and through a generous measure of technical assistance...

...It will not cost us a penny...

...This means, negatively, an unequivocal policy of refusing to support dictatorships, and, affirmatively, an equally unequivocal policy of encouraging, by word and deed, the democratic forces struggling to strengthen individual freedom while embarking on social programs of reform...

...Equally vital is the need to find ways to stabilize market prices for Latin America's raw materials...

...We can do much to replenish the treasuries of near-bankrupt countries by encouraging them to take the lead in disarmament...

...Frequently in the past, as Watson pointed out, our government has worked with dictatorships on the ostensible theory that we could not interfere in the internal affairs of the Latin American countries...

...Embargoes, blockades, and invasions of Cuba will do nothing to resolve the plight of Latin America...

...Only a creative program of social reform, economic expansion and political freedom—now—can prevent the dynamite that is Latin America from exploding on our doorstep...

...If we do not work towards these things, we are not playing fairly with the concept of freedom upon which our country was founded...

...It is too late now for a slow-paced revolution," said Costa Rica's indefatigable democrat, former President Jose Figueres...

...It means the end of neglect of Latin America and the resumption of respect for her peoples and understanding of her problems...

...The United States, as William Benton has pointed out, "now assumes responsibility for defense in the hemisphere and the Organization of American States takes responsibility for defense against aggression within the hemisphere...

...On the contrary, it was during the golden age of our relations with Latin America, under the Good Neighbor Policy, that we most effectively offered counsel and direction to our smaller and younger neighbors and thereby won their devotion and cooperation...

...Once the Latin American countries have launched their own houseclean-ing of corruption and tax evasion and once they have presented plans for social reform and economic expansion, Latin American nations should qualify for U.S...

...They will have to take the bold, brave, difficult steps to achieve better land use and distribution, better housing and better education at all levels...

...It involves the appointment to the various embassies of able, respected Americans who will work closely with democratic governments, and not, as in the past, of business tycoons whose only claim to appointment was their campaign contributions to the successful candidate for President, and who, when they arrived in the country to which they were accredited, played and associated with only the social elite...

...It means forthright talks with her leaders as equals...

...They will have to reform tax collection, cut corruption, reduce the waste on arms, and increase the rate of savings, and they will have to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor...

...I have sought to distill in this conclusion the best of the countless suggestions to which I was exposed in my travels...

...The affirmative theme was expressed with great clarity recently by Thomas J. Watson, Jr., president of the International Business Machines Corporation, when he said of Latin America: "In the past we have leaned over backwards so as not to interfere in the internal affairs of any nation with whom we had relations...

...What is needed, fundamentally, is, the identification of the United States with the revolution of rising expectations now surging through all Latin America...

...We can, for a pittance, do wonders to improve higher education in Latin America by providing, through private and public sources, a greatly expanded program of scholarships and visiting professorships...

...There are other areas in which we can be decisively helpful...