Consensus and Divergence: The State of the Literature on Inter-American Relations in the 1970s

Abstract

We went to visit neighbors and found brothers.2 So began the text of the Rockefeller report on United States-Latin American relations in 1969. The phrase captures not only a part of the governor's personal style, but also some themes of inter-American relations. Many scholars and public officials in the United States start their analyses and their policies from the following premises: there is a special relationship between the United States and Latin America, a positive, cooperative, warm, quasi-familial bond quite beyond the ordinary interstate bond; and there is a mutuality of interests among these countries of the Western Hemisphere that resembles family ties in the best sense. In case these premises are not self-evident, it is appropriate to use a rhetorical style more positively effusive than perhaps the facts may warrant. We would sum up, as follows, our aspirations for victory: destruction of imperialism by means of eliminating its strongest bulwark-the imperialist domain of the United States of North America.3 So wrote Ernesto (Che) Guevara in his public statement to the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in 1967. This statement, too, captures not only a part of Guevara's style but also other themes of inter-American relations. The premises of these alternative policy prescriptions and analyses could be thus summarized: there is a special relationship between the United States and Latin America, because the latter has suffered the brunt of oppression and aggression from the former, but there is no hint that Latin America may have benefited from its long association with the United States; the cause is larger and broader than merely inter-American relations, for what is at stake is the future of imperialism as a global phenomenon, where the Latin American connection is but the first step in a course of action; and the times require speed of execution, courage, and commitment. Here too, in case the premises are not self-evident, there is a rhetorical style more gripping and demanding than perhaps the facts may warrant. The thoughts and styles of scholars are often couched in different language, pursuing different objectives, and relying upon different methods. But