Show Latin America A Giant Awakens Latin America represents a sleeping that is beginning to awake from its all to long It represents at one and the same time a great potential and a great As is the case with any emerging power Latin America is seething with and more problems than it seems capable of solving or even coping The fact that it is problem ridden presents a threat and a challenge to the United States and to the as a whole that may well decide the future of the Rich in the least of which is human Latin America is pitifully underdeveloped and pitifully mismanaged on the Its industrial development has been rapid on the one hand and lopsided on the It presents one of the most striking paradoxes in contemporary There are areas of great industrial with high wage rates and high standards of Then there are great concentrations of underdevelopment and The gap between the wealthy few and the abject poverty of the many is possibly the most striking single factor of life in Latin The winds of social change are blowing hard in an area where there is great social It is an area where there is often times little of the freedoms that we enjoy in this It is an area where more often than not dictatorships rule in the place of democratically elected governments representative of the wishes of the Any change in the character of the politics of Latin America will come only as a result of social and economic Few if any at all worry about such abstract ideals as democracy and freedom on empty There are some notable exceptions to his general rule of Brazil is perhaps the most advanced politically and socially of any country in Latin let it suffers from inequality in education and lopsided industrial g r o w t h South lS th rocky road oi American politics under the able leadership of one of Latin America's nimblest Arturo Frondizi I f f 32 nL m Latin America and has one of the besl education systems of Yet it from fantastic inflationary problems and one of the most unsettled economies in the is another example of a real effort at maintaining democracy in a country racked by changes and ever increasing social demands made by one of the most volatile societies in Latin President Kennedy in his Alliance for Progress program has great hopes of aiding Latin Americans in advancing towards stable government and a stable society in the frame work of It must be said that this is perhaps one of the most ambitious programs of its kind that has been attempted by any single country before or since the Marshall The lies in the fact that Marshall Plan aid was laid upon a foundation of relatively stable and highly advanced The proof of this can be seen in the fantastic recovery and growth of a once devastated Unfortunately the Alliance for Progress has no such foundation upon which to begin building a strong and vibrant Western The fantastic problems which face Latin and therefore all of the nations of the will in the end test to the very limits the ingenuity and the integrity and the ability of the Americas to solve the jig-saw puzzle that represents the multitudinous problems of South The successful solution to the puzzle must be based upon a positive and realistic approach to the whole confused spectacle of an entire world in the painful throes of One problem that is peculiarly that of the United States is that we stop trying to sell We must remember that we must sell democracy and not necessarily This is by far the biggest handicap of our public and private policies We have long since past the period when we can indulge in self-admiration and international gamesmanship or or any other kind of DENNIS WHITE |