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TWILIGHT STRUGGLE by William Rogers

TWILIGHT STRUGGLE

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Pub Date: Nov. 17th, 1967
Publisher: Random House

A former Deputy U.S. Coordinator for the Alliance for Progress, the author has written a hard-hitting book on the economic and political dilemmas facing Latin America that condemns, praises, and offers tenable solutions for some of them. Joining a legion of critics of the State Department and succeeding national administrations--including the present one--the author blames Latin American complaisance as one of the major causes for its not getting Washington's eye, car or hand during most of the postwar period. Citing the Elsenhower years as ones of pure disaster, he points to the statistics of the period 1950 to 1962 as a decade that saw Latin America's share of total world trade drop almost in half, and even its share of the underdeveloped world's exports slip from 38% to 29%. Devoid of fluff and padding, this is an immensely informative and readable work that, among other things, provides a close analysis of the complicated workings of the Alliance for Progress and blueprints a costly but necessary improved program. After all, he reminds us, the people of the United States spend more on the eradication of crab grass and the care of their lawns than they do on the Alliance for Progress.