“A Slight but Salutary Case of the Jitters”: The Kennedy Administration and the Alliance for Progress in Paraguay

Abstract

In its Cold War struggle against communism in Latin America, the John F. Kennedy Administration faced a dilemma. How could it maintain the support of anticommunist yet authoritarian regimes whilst concurrently promoting the political liberalisation of those regimes, as Kennedy's core policy toward Latin America—the Alliance for Progress—seemingly mandated? In Paraguay, the Stroessner regime provided Kennedy officials with a clear test of its ability to craft a policy that appropriately balanced both considerations. This case study explores how bureaucratic politics decisively shaped the implementation of that policy, ultimately leading to a continuation in the broader pattern of maintaining support for authoritarian regimes that embraced US leadership in the Cold War.