The Alliance for Progress: Economic Warfare in Brazil, 1962-1964

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Alliance for Progress was the crown jewel of President John F. Kennedy's Latin American policy. Press releases speeches trumpeted that the Alliance would promote economic development democratic government. But fear of communism conquered programs for democracy. conviction that Americans knew better than Brazilians what was best for Brazil persuaded American policy makers collaborate with civilian military conspirators destroy the democratic, constitutional government of President Joao Jango Goulart. A program designed further development democracy was used as an economic warfare tool in the development of a coup climate that led a twenty-year military dictatorship. ALLIANCE FOR PROGRESS TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT AND DEMOCRACY John Kennedy set up a working group develop what became known as the Alliance for Progress before he was inaugurated. Adolf A. Berle, Ambassador Brazil under President Getulio Vargas an old New Dealer converted Cold War warrior, was head of the Latin American Task Force. Lincoln Gordon wrote the economic section of the report. Appointed Ambassador Brazil while Janio Quadros was still in office, Gordon arrived in Brazil in October 1961 after Quadros had resigned Joao Goulart became president. His overseas postings with the Marshall Plan were in Paris London. He did not speak Portuguese or Spanish. drafting officer of the final document was Richard Goodwin. He did not speak Portuguese or Spanish had never been in Latin America before March 1961. Goodwin became the White House expert on Latin America. During a trip Brazil in April 1961 in preparation for an Alliance for Progress conference he described the air of Rio de Janeiro as an aphrodisiac, its warm, odored moisture at once calming the mind arousing the flesh with promise of sexual pleasure. In Rio he had meetings with Latin American economists, drank with journalists until after midnight and enjoyed, in the time remaining, the girls of Ipanema. (1) Like the Truman Doctrine, containment policy the Marshall Plan, the Alliance for Progress was a program combat the expansion of international communism. report sent the president in early 1961 declared that the problem was prevent capture of the inevitable necessary Latin American transformation by Communist power politics. objective of the Communists was to convert the Latin American social revolution into a Marxist attack on the United States. analysis warned that the communist threat far more dangerous than the Nazi-Fascist threat of the Franklin Roosevelt period demands an even bolder more imaginative response. (2) Kennedy announced the Alliance for Progress in a 13 March 1961 speech the Latin American Diplomatic Corps. He said our aspiration for economic progress can best be achieved by free men working within a framework of democratic institutions asserted that political freedom must accompany material progress ... we call for social change by free men. (3) Charter of the Alliance signed at Punta del Este, Uruguay in August 1961 declared The Alliance is established on the basic principle that free men working through the institution of representative democracy can best satisfy man's aspirations. (4) JFK had a Janus-faced policy for the Western Hemisphere. A grandiose plan promote economic development democracy was announced with great enthusiasm. Hidden from public view was the counterinsurgency program designed prevent at all costs the expansion of communist influence in Latin America. For example, Kennedy established AID's (Agency for International Development) Office of Public Safety (OPS) in 1962. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) worked through OPS in six years it was a global anticommunist operation with an annual budget of $35 million four hundred advisors assigned abroad. …