"once dormant peoples are struggling upward toward the sun, toward a better life." 8"

If we are to meet a problem so staggering in its dimensions, our approach must itself be equally bold, an approach consistent with the majestic concept of Operation Pan America. Therefore I have called on all the people of the hemisphere to join in a new Alliance for Progress 10Alianza para Progreso-a vast cooperative effort, unparalleled in magnitude and nobility of purpose, to satisfy the basic needs of the American people for homes, work and land, health and schoolstecho, trabajo y tierra, salud y escuela.

First, I propose that the American Republics begin on a vast new 10-year plan for the Americas, a plan to transform the 1960's into an historic decade of democratic progress. These 10 years will be the years of maximum progress, maximum effort-the years when the greatest obstacles must be overcome, the years when the need for assistance will be the greatest.

And if we are successful, if our effort is bold enough and determined enough, then the close of this decade will mark the beginning of a new era in the American experience. The living standards of every American family will be on the rise, basic education will be available to all, hunger will be a forgotten experience, the need for massive outside help will have passed, most nations will have entered a period of selfsustaining growth, and, although there will be still much to do, every American Republic will be the master of its own revolution and its own hope and progress.

Let me stress that only the most determined efforts of the American nations themselves can bring success to this effort. They, and they alone, can mobilize their resources, enlist the energies of their people, and modify their social patterns so that all, and not just a privileged few, share in the fruits of growth. If this effort is made, then outside assistance will give a vital impetus to progress; without it, no amount of help will advance the welfare of the people.

Thus if the countries of Latin America are ready to do their partand I am sure they are then I believe the United States, for its part, should help provide resources of a scope and magnitude sufficient to make this bold development plan a success, just as we helped to provide, against nearly equal odds, the resources adequate to help rebuild the economies of Western Europe. For only an effort of towering dimensions can insure fulfillment of our plan for a decade of progress. Secondly, I will shortly request a ministerial meeting of the InterAmerican Economic and Social Council, a meeting at which we can begin the massive planning effort which will be at the heart of the Alliance for Progress.11

This remark appears to have been made by the former President of Costa Rica to former Senator William Benton when the latter accompanied Governor Stevenson on his private tour of Latin America in the spring of 1960; see William Benton, The Voice of Latin America (New York, 1961), p. 14.

See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1958, pp. 380-434. 10 See ante, doc. 3.

11 See post, docs. 145 and 146.

For if our alliance is to succeed, each Latin nation must formulate long-range plans for its own development-plans which establish targets and priorities, insure monetary stability, establish the machinery for vital social change, stimulate private activity and initiative, and provide for a maximum national effort. These plans will be the foundation of our development effort and the basis for the allocation of outside resources.

A greatly strengthened IA-ECOSOC, working with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Inter-American Development Bank, can assemble the leading economists and experts of the hemisphere to help each country develop its own development plan and provide a continuing review of economic progress in this hemisphere. Third, I have this evening signed a request to the Congress for $500 million as a first step in fulfilling the Act of Bogotá.12 This is the first large-scale inter-American effort-instituted by my predecessor President Eisenhower 13-to attack the social barriers which block economic progress. The money will be used to combat illiteracy, improve the productivity and use of their land, wipe out disease, attack archaic tax and land-tenure structures, provide educational opportunities, and offer a broad range of projects designed to make the benefits of increasing abundance available to all. We will begin to commit these funds as soon as they are appropriated.

Fourth, we must support all economic integration which is a genuine step toward larger markets and greater competitive opportunity. The fragmentation of Latin American economies is a serious barrier to industrial growth. Projects such as the Central American common market and free-trade areas in South America can help to remove these obstacles.

15

Fifth, the United States is ready to cooperate in serious, case-by-case examinations of commodity market problems. Frequent violent changes in commodity prices seriously injure the economies of many Latin American countries, draining their resources and stultifying their growth. Together we must find practical methods of bringing an end to this pattern.

Sixth, we will immediately step up our food-for-peace emergency program,16 help to establish food reserves in areas of recurrent drought, and help provide school lunches for children and offer feed grains for use in rural development. For hungry men and women cannot wait for economic discussions or diplomatic meetings; their need is urgent, and their hunger rests heavily on the conscience of their fellow men. Seventh, all the people of the hemisphere must be allowed to share in the expanding wonders of science-wonders which have captured man's imagination, challenged the powers of his mind, and given him the tools for rapid progress. I invite Latin American scientists to work with us in new projects in fields such as medicine and agriculture,

1 Text in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 293–299.

18

See ibid., pp. 283–292.

physics and astronomy, and desalinization, and to help plan for regional research laboratories in these and other fields, and to strengthen cooperation between American universities and laboratories.

We also intend to expand our science-teacher training programs to include Latin American instructors, to assist in establishing such programs in other American countries, and translate and make available revolutionary new teaching materials in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics so that the young of all nations may contribute their skills to the advance of science.

Eighth, we must rapidly expand the training of those needed to man the economies of rapidly developing countries. This means expanded technical training programs, for which the Peace Corps," for example, will be available when needed. It also means assistance to Latin American universities, graduate schools, and research institutes. We welcome proposals in Central America for intimate cooperation in higher education, cooperation which can achieve a regional effort of increased effectiveness and excellence. We are ready to help fill the gap in trained manpower, realizing that our ultimate goal must be a basic education for all who wish to learn.

Ninth, we reaffirm our pledge to come to the defense of any American nation whose independence is endangered. As confidence in the collective security system of the OAS [Organization of American States] spreads, it will be possible to devote to constructive use a major share of those resources now spent on the instruments of war. Even now, as the Government of Chile has said, the time has come to take the first steps toward sensible limitations of arms.18 And the new generation of military leaders has shown an increasing awareness that armies can not only defend their countries-they can, as we have learned through our own Corps of Engineers, help to build them.

Tenth, we invite our friends in Latin America to contribute to the enrichment of life and culture in the United States. We need teachers of your literature and history and tradition, opportunities for our young people to study in your universities, access to your music, your art, and the thought of your great philosophers. For we know we have much to learn.

In this way you can help bring a fuller spiritual and intellectual life to the people of the United States and contribute to understanding and mutual respect among the nations of the hemisphere.

With steps such as these we propose to complete the revolution of the Americas, to build a hemisphere where all men can hope for a suitable standard of living and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom.

To achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress. Our Alliance for Progress is an alliance of free governments and it must work to eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in which it has no rightful place. Therefore let us express our special friendship to the people of Cuba and the Dominican Republic-and

"See post, docs. 650-652.

18 See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1959, pp. 434 435.

the hope they will soon rejoin the society of free men, uniting with us in our common effort.

This political freedom must be accompanied by social change. For unless necessary social reforms, including land and tax reform, are freely made, unless we broaden the opportunity of all of our people, unless the great mass of Americans share in increasing prosperity, then our alliance, our revolution, our dream, and our freedom will fail. But we call for social change by free men-change in the spirit of Washington and Jefferson, of Bolívar and San Martín and Martí-not change which seeks to impose on men tyrannies which we cast out a century and a half ago. Our motto is what it has always been-progress yes, tyranny no-progreso sí, tiranía no!

But our greatest challenge comes from within-the task of creating an American civilization where spiritual and cultural values are strengthened by an ever-broadening base of material advance, where, within the rich diversity of its own traditions, each nation is free to follow its own path toward progress.

The completion of our task will, of course, require the efforts of all the governments of our hemisphere. But the efforts of governments alone will never be enough. In the end the people must choose and the people must help themselves.

And so I say to the men and women of the Americas-to the campesino in the fields, to the obrero in the cities, to the estudiante in the schools-prepare your mind and heart for the task ahead, call forth your strength, and let each devote his energies to the betterment of all so that your children and our children in this hemisphere can find an ever richer and a freer life.

Let us once again transform the American Continent into a vast crucible of revolutionary ideas and efforts, a tribute to the power of the creative energies of free men and women, an example to all the world that liberty and progress walk hand in hand. Let us once again awaken our American revolution until it guides the struggles of people everywhere not with an imperialism of force or fear but the rule of courage and freedom and hope for the future of man.

133. REQUEST FOR APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE INTERAMERICAN FUND FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS AND FOR THE REHABILITATION OF AREAS IN CHILE DEVASTATED BY EARTHQUAKE: Message From the President (Kennedy) to the Congress, March 14, 1961 (Excerpts) 19

To the Congress of the United States:

On September 8, 1960, at the request of the administration, the Congress authorized the sum of $500 million for the Inter-American Fund for Social Progress.20 On the basis of this authorization the United

"H. Doc. 105, 87th Cong., Mar. 14, 1961 (text as printed in the Department of State Bulletin, Apr. 3, 1961, pp. 474-478).

"See American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1960, pp. 290–292.

States, on September 12, 1960, subscribed to the Act of Bogotá along with 18 other American Republics.21

In the same bill the Congress authorized $100 million for the longterm reconstruction and rehabilitation of those areas of southern Chile recently devastated by fire and earthquake.

I now request that Congress appropriate the full amount of $600 million.22

The $500 million Inter-American Fund for Social Progress is only the first move toward carrying out the declarations of the Act of Bogotá; and the act itself is only a single step in our program for the development of the hemisphere-a program I have termed the Alliance for Progress-Alianza para Progreso.23 In addition to the social fund, hemispheric development will require substantial outside resources for economic development, a major self-help effort by the Latin American nations themselves, inter-American cooperation to deal with the problems of economic integration and commodity markets and other measures designed to speed economic growth and improve understanding among the American nations.

The fund which I am requesting today will be devoted to social progress. Social progress is not a substitute for economic development. It is an effort to create a social framework within which all the people of a nation can share in the benefits of prosperity, and participate in the process of growth. Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of the people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance. In addition, the process of growth largely depends on the existence of beneficial social conditions. Our own experience is witness to this. For much of our own great productivity and industrial development is based on our system of universal public education.

Thus the purpose of our special effort for social progress is to overcome the barriers of geographical and social isolation, illiteracy and lack of educational opportunities, archaic tax and land tenure structures, and other institutional obstacles to broad participation in economic growth.

It is clear that the Bogotá program cannot have any significant impact if its funds are used merely for the temporary relief of conditions of distress. Its effectiveness depends on the willingness of each recipient nation to improve its own institutions, make necessary modifications in its own social patterns, and mobilize its own domestic resources for a program of development.

Even at the start such measures will be a condition of assistance from the social fund. Priorities will depend not merely on need, but on the demonstrated readiness of each government to make the institutional improvements which promise lasting social progress. The cri

21 See ibid., pp. 293–299.

22 See post, doc. 138.

23 See supra, and ante, doc. 3.