U.S. POLICY IN LATIN AMERICA

Subtitled ""A Short History,"" this slim volume might more accurately be termed, as described in the author's introduction, ""Latin America through Washington's Eyes."" Mr. Lieuwen begins with the Monroe Doctrine and touches the salient points from that time to President Johnson's intervention in the Dominican Republic. But he has limited his viewpoint throughout to the official U.S. version, and even the mild, sad tongue-clucking he permits himself during the out-and-out gunboat diplomacy era is absent in his hurried discussion of the subtler but nearly as debatable activities of our recent administrations. In his chapter on the Alliance for Progress, while he notes the scant success it has had and the enormous difficulties it faces, he does not mention such features of the Alliance as the requirements for recipient's aid to follow such conservative fiscal policies that all attempts to revive their economies may be hamstrung at the start. This remains an effective presentation of a partisan viewpoint.