At Cordoba's University City one can still see the concrete and steel foundations of the military bunkers that a dozen years ago surrounded Argentina's oldest college of philosophy and letters. But the casual visitor would not notice such things. Unlike international wars, civil wars, and revolutionary wars, counterrevolutionary wars-of governments against their own citizens-leave few visible scars; but the wounds take longer to heal. In late 1994, Brazil and South America's Southern Cone seemed caught in a time warp. One who was here 30 years ago, as I was, might expect to have a sensation of dejea vu. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile in the early 1960s, President Jorge Alessandri, a Conservative, was about to be replaced by a Christian Democrat named Eduardo Frei. In Argentina at that time, a civilian of the Radical party had just replaced a military regime with the help of the Peronist vote. In Brazil there was a president backed by organized labor and a nationalist movement promoted by dependency theorists such as Fernando Henrique Cardoso. In Chile 30 years later, a Christian Democratic president named Eduardo Frei had defeated a Conservative named Alessandri. (On the campaign trail, Frei had quipped that he had just two things going for him: one was his last name, Frei, and the other was his first name, Eduardo.) In Argentina, a Peronist had replaced a Radical who had taken over from the military. In Brazil, a popular labor leader running for the presidency on a nationalist, dependency-type platform had been overtaken and defeated by a candidate representing the center-right-the same Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Does this mean that the political and economic game has come full circle in 30 years? No. The ghosts of democracies past are just that. Now, as in the