What was kennedys alliance for progress

Together we must find practical methods of bringing an end to this pattern. Sixth, we will immediately step up our Food for Peace emergency program, help establish food reserves in areas of recurrent drought, help provide school lunches for children, and offer feed grains for use in rural development.

For hungry men and women cannot wait for economic discussions or diplomatic meetings—their need is urgent—and their hunger rests heavily on the conscience of their fellow men.

I invite Latin American scientists to work with us in new projects in fields such as medicine and agriculture, physics and astronomy, and desalinization, to help plan for regional research laboratories in these and other fields, and to strengthen cooperation between American universities and laboratories. We also intend to expand our science teacher training programs to include Latin American instructors, to assist in establishing such programs in other American countries, and translate and make available revolutionary new teaching materials in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics, so that the young of all nations may contribute their skills to the advance of science.

Eighth, we must rapidly expand the training of those needed to man the economies of rapidly developing countries. This means expanded technical training programs, for which the Peace Corps, for example, will be available when needed. It also means assistance to Latin American universities, graduate schools, and research institutes. We welcome proposals in Central America for intimate cooperation in higher education—cooperation which can achieve a regional effort or increased effectiveness and excellence.

We are ready to help fill the gap in trained manpower, realizing that our ultimate goal must be a basic education for all who wish to learn. Ninth, we reaffirm our pledge to come to the defense of any American nation whose independence is endangered. As its confidence in the collective security system of the OAS spreads, it will be possible to devote to constructive use a major share of those resources now spent on the instruments of war.

Even now, as the government of Chile has said, the time has come to take the first steps toward sensible limitations of arms. And the new generation of military leaders has shown an increasing awareness that armies cannot only defend their countries—they can, as we have learned through our own Corps of Engineers, they can help to build them. Tenth, we invite our friends in Latin America to contribute to the enrichment of life and culture in the United States.

We need teachers of your literature and history and tradition, opportunities for our young people to study in your universities, access to your music, your art, and the thought of your great philosophers.

For we know we have much to learn. In this way you can help bring a fuller spiritual and intellectual life to the people of the United States—and contribute to understanding and mutual respect among the nations of the hemisphere. With steps such as these, we propose to complete the revolution of the Americas, to build a hemisphere where all men can hope for a suitable standard of living, and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom.

To achieve this goal political freedom must accompany material progress. Our Alliance for Progress is an alliance of free governments, and it must work to eliminate tyranny from a hemisphere in which it has no rightful place. Therefore let us express our special friendship to the people of Cuba and the Dominican Republic—and the hope they will soon rejoin the society of free men, uniting with us in common effort. This political freedom must be accompanied by social change.

For unless necessary social reforms, including land and tax reform, are freely made—unless we broaden the opportunity for all of our people—unless the great mass of Americans share in increasing prosperity—then our alliance, our revolution, our dream, and our freedom will fail. But we call for social change by free men change in the spirit of Washington and Jefferson, of Bolivar and San Martin and Martin—not change which seeks to impose on men tyrannies which we cast out a century and a half ago.

But our greatest challenge comes from within—the task of creating an American civilization where spiritual and cultural values are strengthened by an ever-broadening base of material advance—where, within the rich diversity of its own traditions, each nation is free to follow its own path towards progress.

The completion of our task will, of course, require the efforts of all governments of our hemisphere. But the efforts of governments alone will never be enough. In the end, the people must choose and the people must help themselves. And so I say to the men and women of the Americas—to the campesino in the fields, to the obrero in the cities, to the estudiante in the schools—prepare your mind and heart for the task ahead—call forth your strength and let each devote his energies to the betterment of all, so that your children and our children in this hemisphere can find an ever richer and a freer life.

President John F. Kennedy proposes a year, multibillion-dollar aid program for Latin America. The program came to be known as the Alliance for Progress and was designed to improve U. When Kennedy became president in , U.

The Latin American republics were disappointed with U. They argued that they had supported America during the war by increasing their production of vital raw materials and keeping their prices low—when the United States began massive aid programs to Europe and Japan after the war, Latin American nations protested that they also deserved economic assistance.

More troubling to American officials was the threat of communism in Latin America. In , the Central Intelligence Agency had funded and supplied a revolution that overthrew the leftist government of Guatemala. In , Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba and by , the United States had severed relations with his government. In response to these developments, Kennedy made his plea for the Alliance for Progress.

In requesting funds from Congress, the president stressed the need for improved literacy, land use, industrial productivity, health, and education in Latin America.

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