UNFINISHED REVOLUTION: America and the Third WorLd

The Third World, hunting grounds for the Western and Communist orbs, consists of the expanding areas of newly-emergent, neutralist, non-aligned, under-developed, impoverished, unstable nations. Mr. Sulzberger, New York Times columnist and gadfly of American foreign policy, is an acute observer of these countries, and, starting with Latin America and working on through Africa, the Near, Middle, and Far East, he provides a sort of Baedeker to the area, pointing out pitfalls instead of landmarks. Woodrow Wilson plays the part of scapegoat; as perpetrator of the concept of self-determination for colonial countries under the benign leadership of the United States, he receives the burden of the blame for the whole existing mess. Conceptually Mr. Sulzberger is vague, but he doesn't feel that the United States leadership need be fussy about principles either. If it takes an autocratic ruler or an enforced socialism to pull these countries out of their socioeconomic mire, we should accept it. The point is to get the people properly fed, aware of their governments, and reasonably enlightened, at which point they are more likely to take an interest in Western democratic ideas. In viewing these nations as they are instead of how they should be, a variety of details have been pulled together about policies, events, attitudes, and, most strongly, first-hand descriptions of the personalities of the individual leaders. There isn't much of an attempt to suggest the cures, except in a few specifics or else in the broadest of terms, but the overall reportage is fine.