Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Statement by the President on the Fifth Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress.

March 14, 1966

My fellow citizens of the hemisphere:

Since becoming President, I have often restated my own, and our country's, resolute commitment to the goal of a better life for all the people of the Western Hemisphere.

Many Presidents have worked to shape that goal.

We are proud of the good-neighbor policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

President Eisenhower broke new and fertile ground with the Act of Bogota in 1960--an act growing from the understanding compassion of one people for another.

President Kennedy built on these efforts and gave them increased emphasis with the announcement of the Alliance for Progress on March 13, 1961, 5 years ago.

Today, by word and deed, Americans are helping to fulfill the hopes of those who have little and pray that one day they can have more.

The Johnson administration seeks history's description as a time when, the dreaming and the planning having laid the foundations, the doing and building were underway.

The last 2 years of this vast cooperative effort between the United States and the nations of Latin America are solid evidence that deeds are matching our words.

During these 2 years Latin America has achieved a per capita growth rate of 2.5 percent. The average rate for the preceding 3 years was less than 1 percent. This recent increase of 150 percent is a fact which friends of the hemisphere must note with pride-and new hope for the future.

In fiscal years 1965 and 1966, those Latin American countries cooperating with U.S. programs of action are putting visible results before their people.

Together we are:

--improving 7,000 miles of road

--building 130,000 dwelling units

--irrigating 136,000 new acres of farmland

--adding 530,000 kilowatts to power generating capacity

--providing classrooms for 1 million students

--building 450 new health facilities

--spending $200 million to provide financing for expansion and construction of over 5,000 industrial firms

--spending $250 million in providing agricultural credit to 450,000 farmers.

Equally important, reforms are changing and modernizing these institutions in Latin America essential to the growth of a sense of community that stretches throughout the hemisphere.

Governments, business concerns, labor unions, and cooperatives are working with the people of our hemisphere to attain economic and social progress under free institutions.

--We are building the machinery of cooperation through the Inter-American Committee on the Alliance for Progress.

--We are enlisting the support of private groups and voluntary agencies in ever increasing measure. The Peace Corps, Partners for the Alliance, Council on Latin America, AFL-CIO, private foundations, and universities are making vital contributions.

--We are introducing the principle of mutual aid among the Latin American nations. We are giving new energy to economic integration within Latin America. The Economic and Social Act of Rio de Janeiro, approved last November, gives impetus to these concepts.

--We recognize that fulfillment of all our goals will require continuation of our joint efforts beyond 1971. I said last November that the United States is prepared to extend mutual commitments beyond the period originally foreseen in the Charter of Punta del Este. Selfhelp and mutual aid will be yardsticks in determining the scope of our contribution.

In country after country, nations in the hemisphere are acting to mobilize resources for public and private investment--to reform and modernize the institutions--to expand trade and market opportunities within and outside the hemisphere--and to provide a solid base for the support and cooperation of imported capital and technical assistance.

External support is also coming in increasing measure from the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and its affiliates, and the United Nations. This support has increased by about $200 million in the last 2 years.

For its part, the United States has already committed nearly $5 billion to the nations of Latin America to assist them in their struggle to modernize and achieve a better life for their people. In recent months significant steps have been taken to give Latin America greater access to our markets:

--This administration has insisted that our participation in the International Coffee Agreement be more effective.

--This administration recommended the Congress withdraw the special import fee on sugar.

--This administration removed the quota restrictions on lead and zinc.

After a temporary period of setback, there are now most hopeful signs of a renewal of large-scale private foreign investment in Latin American development, often in joint ventures with Latin American associates. Business leaders interested in Latin American investment have been invited to the Cabinet Room frequently to discuss steps to help the people of the hemisphere.

Three years ago the 19 Latin American countries were deeply concerned over their trade position in the world.

During the past 2 years the trend has changed.

Our experts now predict that export earnings for 1965 will show an increase of $1 billion over the 1963 level, providing additional resources for investment in development.

Yet we must do more than provide money and technical assistance and improve trade. Investments must be made directly in human beings. In every forum, I have advocated and directed that American resources be invested in education, health, and improved living and working conditions. Such efforts are not easy to organize. They require the mobilization of human resources in scarce supply. But they are among the most rewarding of all investments.

Today I want to issue a new call to our sister nations in the hemisphere to enlarge our truly revolutionary cause--the cause of enlarging the lives of all our people.

I am determined to contribute America's resources to this spirit of change--a spirit now slowly, surely, confidently growing in the Western Hemisphere.

All of us in the Organization of American States have seen and understand the lessons of history. Together we are strong. Divided we are weak. Together we must shape the future to our hopes.

In every nation in the hemisphere the needs and the beliefs and the prayers are the same. We want peace and opportunity-the chance to live in dignity, to choose and plan and work and achieve the best for our families.

I believe that in the next 5 years we will see a continent constantly growing in prosperity and in unity--growing in its capacity to meet the desires and needs of its own people and in its contribution to peace and freedom in the world at large.

That is what Bogota and Rio and Punta del Este were all about.

For my own part, I want to help make all this a reality and "to create out of the human spirit, something that did not exist before."

This is fulfillment. And this is our commitment.

Note: The President also read the statement in the Yellow Oval Room at the White House before a group of Ambassadors representing the Latin American countries.

The Alliance for Progress was first proposed by President Kennedy on March 13, 1961 (see "Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961," Item 78). It was formally established by the Charter of Punta del Este on August 17, 1961.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the Fifth Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239598

Filed Under

Categories

Simple Search of Our Archives