World Events

Abstract

Three years ago I had a chance to talk with a group of students in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was a select gathering, the cream of the student body. I decided to give them the works. I told them that the United States needed Latin America (1) for its natural resources, such as oil, iron, copper, tin; (2) for its food and industrial raw materials, such as sugar, coffee, fruit, sisal; (3) for its huge reservoir of cheap labor power. The Cuban Revolution, then three years old, if extended to other countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, and especially Argentina and Brazil, threatened to upset the Latin American applecart. In a word, the Good Neighbor Policy, based on the assumption of functioning representative government, had failed to hold Latin America to the Monroe Doctrine line—made in the U.S.A.

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