ABSTRACT
The Monroe Doctrine, promulgated in 1823, is a unilateral statement of US policy and interests. On its face, the doctrine prohibits European interference in the domestic political affairs of Latin America; more generally, however, it was intended to exclude any foreign political influence from the Western Hemisphere and to stake out the entire New World as a US sphere of influence. With the end of World War II, the temporary political stability of Latin America and the period of goodwill between the United States and Latin America came to an end. Since 1945, Latin America has been in a state of political, economic, and social turmoil. The new program had both long-range and short-range dimensions. The Alliance for Progress represented the former. The Alliance was essentially an anti-Communist program in that it sought to remove the conditions in which communism was thought to flourish—low incomes, feudalistic landowning patterns, inequitable tax structures, poor housing, poor schooling, etc.
