ABSTRACT
In the presidential campaign of 1976, Americans yearned for a moral rebirth and a replenishment of virtue. No candidate better captured and articulated this need than Jimmy Carter. Carter's approach held special promise for Latin America, which had suffered a decade of repression. In the first two years of his term, Carter addressed an agenda of interdependence and formulated a new approach to the region. By the end of 1978, the administration had implemented most of the initiatives begun the previous year. However, the administration was compelled to address a more traditional security agenda as the old world of superpower competition and balance-of-power geopolitics returned. It focused on the Caribbean Basin and managed crises, putting to the test the principles that Carter had outlined at the beginning of his term. Vance and Brzezinski entered the administration with almost the same substantive agenda and no important differences on the key issues of US policy toward Latin America.
