The Alliance For Progress

Abstract

When President Kennedy announced the formation of a new aid programme to Latin America in March 1961, he spoke in terms that seemed to many to betoken a change in U.S. attitudes towards the ferment in the underdeveloped regions of the world. Instead of invoking the time-worn anti-communist rhetoric of the Truman and Eisenhower doctrines, which in practice had always meant defence of vested interests and the status quo, Kennedy set the U.S. and its new Alliance firmly behind the demand for revolutionary change.