The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 28 (2017)
Copyright © 2017 Naoki Kamimura. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

“Liberal” America and Bolivia’s Revolutionary
Challenge, 1952–1960: An Interpretation in a
Comparative Framework

Naoki KAMIMURA*INTRODUCTION
In September 1953, the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration decided toextend emergency economic assistance to Bolivia. This was the culminationof a process of accommodation between the United States and revolutionary
Bolivia that began with the beginning of the Bolivian revolution in April
1952.1 Through a series of aid decisions between September 1953 and mid1954, the Eisenhower administration started a unique, decade-longexperiment of supporting a revolutionary regime in the Third World withlarge-scale economic assistance that lasted until the overthrow of the
Bolivian revolutionary regime by a military coup in November 1964.2 Suchassistance is exceptional in the history of US relations with revolutionary
regimes in Latin America and other regions of the Third World.3 The
Bolivian case also had unusual characteristics in the context of the foreign
policy of the Eisenhower administration, which often identified Third World
revolutionary regimes and movements with Communism and Soviet
expansionism and actively sought to suppress them (Iran in August 1953 andGuatemala in June 1954, for instance).4 Generous economic assistance to a
Latin American country was also a rarity during the budget-conscious*Professor, Nanzan University

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Republican administration.
This uncommon experiment in US foreign policy has been explored inearnest by historians of US foreign relations in recent years.5 Twointerpretations stand out as explanations of factors contributing to the unique
US response and consequences in the Bolivian case. One group of scholars
emphasizes the critical importance of strategic and security concerns about
the Cold War and Communism in US decisions to support Bolivia’s
revolutionary regime. They represent the realist school in international
relations with their focus on power and on power struggles between states.6
The second group of scholars emphasizes the importance of the UnitedStates trying to control and contain economic nationalism as well as thestrengthening of a neocolonial relationship between the United States andBolivia. They represent the revisionist school in US foreign relations with
their focus on economic interests and domination.7 Besides these works on
the Bolivian case, another vein of scholarship on US-Third World relations
provides insights relevant to the Bolivian case as well as other cases of US
relations with Third World revolutions with its focus on the American“liberal tradition” and on cultural and ideological factors in US foreign
relations. Drawing on these new scholarly insights about US-Third World
relations, in this essay I present an interpretative framework for the Bolivian
case that can be characterized as post-revisionist, for it builds on the realist
and revisionist perspectives and seeks to fill the explanatory gap between thetwo interpretations by bringing in cultural and ideological perspectives.8
In this article I will historically examine as a brief case study the processof accommodation and the development of a collaborative relationshipbetween the United States and revolutionary Bolivia during the Truman andEisenhower administrations. I will also look into the interplay of the factors
pointed out by realist and revisionist scholars along with cultural/ideologicalfactors and discuss the meaning of such an accommodative andcollaborative relationship between the two countries in a broader context of
US relations with revolutions in the Third World, particularly in Latin
America. In the concluding section, I will briefly discuss the efficacy of
cultural/ideological perspectives in the analysis of US relations with the
Bolivian revolution as well as revolutions in the Third World in general.
Rather than being a detailed historical analysis of US policy toward the1952 Bolivian revolution, this is a brief interpretive work on the relationshipbetween “liberal” America and revolutionary Bolivia with a comparative
perspective.

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I. THE BOLIVIAN CASE IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Since the beginning of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, the first largescale social revolution in the twentieth century, the United States has
continued a painful search for ways to establish a stable or at least aworkable relationship with those highly nationalist and often Communist
revolutions in the Third World. In almost all cases in which the UnitedStates has had substantial relationships with revolutionary regimes in the
Third World, the United States has had great difficulties.9 In Latin America,
there were at least five large-scale social revolutions in the twentieth century
with which the United States had substantial contact, namely, the Mexican
revolution of 1910, the Guatemalan revolution of 1944, the Bolivian
revolution of 1952, the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the Nicaraguan
revolution of 1979.10
Regarding US relations with revolutionary regimes, Cole Blasier offers,
from a realist perspective, a useful framework in his comparative analysis of
US response to revolutionary regimes in Latin America. According toBlasier, the United States has historically had bitter diplomatic disputes withthe region’s revolutionary regimes, mainly over their challenge to crucial US
economic and strategic interests in the region: the economic interests
through the nationalization of large amounts of US properties by
revolutionary regimes and the strategic interests through their actual orsuspected connection with hostile outside powers, such as imperial or Nazi
Germany before World War II and the Soviet Union thereafter. The
existence of these disputes complicated bilateral relations and prolonged
reconciliation between the United States and Latin American
revolutionaries. According to Blasier, however, the United States did notresort to overt or covert use of force against a revolutionary regime unlessdecision makers came to the conclusion that a resolution of outstanding
economic and diplomatic issues with the regime would not preclude theintervention of a hostile great power in the hemisphere. Indeed, contends
Blasier, such strategic concern was the most critical factor in driving theUnited States to intervene in Guatemala in 1954, Cuba in 1961, and theDominican Republic in 1965, while it kept the United States fromintervening in the Mexican and Bolivian revolutions and madeaccommodation with them possible.11
Blasier’s 1976 work, although a little dated, still presents a solid
foundation for analyzing individual cases—except for his rather narrowfocus on the use of force, for US intervention in other countries has often

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been conducted through economic and other nonmilitary means. US policy
toward revolutionary Bolivia is a case in point. Blasier’s framework cannot
fully explain the development of an accommodative and collaborative
relationship, which had an unmistakable aspect of control and domination as
well. The development of such a relationship can be better understood withadditional insights from revisionist perspectives with their focus on US
control and domination of Latin American and Third World societies
through economic and political means.12 Yet it is still not enough to explain
the Bolivian case because the United States intervened in the Bolivian
revolution in the absence of significant economic stakes, contrary torevisionist theory.13 Although the initial push for intervention, in the form of
emergency economic assistance, was provided by strong strategic concerns
about revolutionary Bolivia’s growing instability and concomitant prospects
for the ascendancy of radical and even Communist forces, such intenseconcerns about “Communism” were relatively relieved when US aid
somewhat calmed Bolivia’s political situation by the mid-1950s. Absent
significant and immediate economic stakes (revisionist theory) in
revolutionary Bolivia or urgent strategic concerns (realist theory), what
could explain the continued large-scale interventions by the United States?
Another point to be considered here is that US relations withrevolutionary Bolivia were not a simple case of domination but had an
important aspect of what Kenneth Lehman describes as a “patron-client
relationship” in which the revolutionary leaders “used Bolivia’s dependency
to forge a reciprocal if asymmetrical bond with a powerful U.S. patron.”14
There needs to be an interpretive approach to complement realist andrevisionist perspectives to explain how such a relationship developed
between the two countries and what the United States sought to realize
through its “peaceful” intervention in Bolivia. Two issues are particularly
relevant here.
Regarding the first that relates to the “how” question above, there is a
general trend in recent Cold War research that emphasizes the importance ofThird World countries not simply as Cold War battlegrounds but as major
actors in the struggle. There is a growing focus on interactions and mutual
influences rather than on simple control or domination by the United Statesor the Soviet Union.15 Such mutuality was exactly how the process ofaccommodation and collaboration evolved in the Bolivian case. Regarding
the second issue that relates to the “what” question, the new trend also
illuminates the Cold War as an ideological struggle between the
superpowers, not just in the traditional sense of a struggle between freedom

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and communism but as a struggle for the hearts and minds of people in the
Third World regarding the “proper path toward modernity anddevelopment.”16
Odd Arne Westad, in particular, emphasizes the role of American liberal
ideology as a critical factor in US Cold War interventionism, for, according
to Westad, the “history of America’s interventions in the Third World is verymuch the history of how this ideology developed over time and how it
framed the policies of the US foreign policy elite.”17 These ideological andcultural issues are more specifically and extensively addressed in the works
discussed in the introduction that focus on the impact of the American“liberal tradition” on foreign policy. Authors of these works havehighlighted how US aid policy toward the Third World has been shaped andcircumscribed by American cultural norms that emphasize democracy,
stability, liberty, development, and American exceptionalism, which may not
be immediately applicable to the realities of Third World countries.18 The
Bolivian case illuminates these points. The most enduring and fundamental
source of conflict between the two countries has been between America’s
liberalism and Bolivia’s revolutionary nationalism.19 Such dynamics ofculture and ideology in foreign policy must be captured by an appropriate
analytical perspective.
II. THE 1952 BOLIVIAN REVOLUTION
The Bolivian revolution was started by the country’s revolutionary party,
the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista
Revolucionario, MNR), in April 1952. In the subsequent twelve years, theBolivian revolutionary regime, led by the MNR, carried out one of the mostfundamental social, political, and economic reform programs in twentiethcentury Latin America. The reform program consisted of four major
elements: universal suffrage (July 21, 1952), the nationalization of the large
tin mines (October 31, 1952), the complete reorganization and reduction of
the military (July 24, 1953), and agrarian reform (August 2, 1953). Of thefour major reforms, the nationalization of the large mining companies hadby far the greatest impact on US relations with revolutionary Bolivia.20
There were three major companies, often called the Big Three or the Tin
Barons. Initially, the MNR revolution was primarily directed against the Big
Three, which until then dominated the Bolivian government, economy, andsociety in collaboration with large landholders in the countryside. These
combined mining and landholding elites constituted the oligarchy of

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prerevolutionary Bolivia, and the Bolivian revolutionaries regarded them as
the source of every evil in the country, from political instability to economic
underdevelopment. The Bolivian revolutionaries’ almost single-mindedfocus on the Big Three was understandable given the country’s criticalreliance on the production and export of tin and other minerals for wealthand foreign exchange income.21
Despite the rich potential of the country’s agricultural and mineral
resources, the successive regimes dominated by the oligarchy mismanaged
the economy and impoverished the country. Bolivia was one of the poorest
countries in Latin America at the time of the revolution. It even had toimport large amounts of food that it should have been able to produce itself.
The Bolivian revolution was, above all, an attempt by the MNR to
fundamentally reorganize the country’s political, economic, and social
systems to realize the maximum development of its human and natural
resources and provide a more equitable distribution of the country’s wealth.
Ideologically, the MNR revolutionaries were neither socialist nor
Communist but nationalist reformers. In spite of frequent reference tocorporatist or Marxist ideas and rhetoric by the party’s leaders after its
establishment in 1941, the core of the MNR remained strongly committed tonationalist, reformist ideals.22 The MNR government’s first president, Víctor
Paz, and other “pragmatist” leaders, to use James Malloy’s term, constituted
the vital center of the MNR party and government. According to Malloy, theparty’s top leaders always remained “a bourgeois intellectual elite bent on
harnessing social forces for the purpose of creating a Bolivia in its image”
and sought to “co-opt the left, blunt its drive, and hook it to the nationaldevelopmentalist framework.”23 This was the case even after the late 1940s,
when the MNR rapidly broadened its popular base by enlisting the supportof the country’s emergent radical labor movement led by Juan Lechín.
Lechín’s powerful mineworkers’ federation, Federación Sindical deTrabajadores Mineros de Bolivia (FSTMB), was under the strong politicaland ideological influence of Trotskyist Communists.
After the revolution, the MNR became even more dependent on Lechín
and the workers’ militia made up of armed union members and formed agovernment based on the principle of cogobierno, joint MNR-labor
governance, and appointed several labor ministers, including Lechín. Labor,
for its part, quickly consolidated its position in Bolivian politics by forminga national labor confederation, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), which
was, according to James Dunkerley, “one of the most militant trade union
confederations in the world.”24 The COB became a focus of Bolivia’s

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revolutionary politics and an important battleground for Paz and other MNR
centrists, Lechín and his leftist followers in the MNR, and the Trotskyist
Communists of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) and Stalinist
Communists (Partido de Izquierda Revolucionaria, PIR, later replaced by
the Partido Comunista de Bolivia, PCB). The leftists sought to pursue
various socialist or other collectivist development paths as opposed to thenationalist bourgeois development envisioned by Paz and other MNR
centrists.25
Under such circumstances, there was every reason for the MNR regime tobe concerned about being labeled “Communist” by the United States, with
Lechín and his militant labor movement the focus of US concerns. The
Bolivian nationalist revolutionaries were watching very closely the fate of
their counterparts in revolutionary Guatemala, who were being labeled by
the United States as a “Communist” threat in the Hemisphere. Moreover, the
MNR had to dispel the highly negative view of the party the United States
had developed since its founding in 1941 because of the party’s strong
nationalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-Semitic positions. The MNR was
denounced as Nazi-fascist by the United States when it first attempted toreform the country’s semifeudal society and tin-dominated economy during
their participation in a reformist military regime led by Maj. Gualberto
Villarroel from 1943 to 1946.26
From this experience the MNR learned a bitter but precious lesson about
the critical importance of a favorable or at least neutral position on the partof the United States in their struggle against the oligarchy. The first priorityof the new MNR government in foreign policy, therefore, was to dispel the
long-standing US suspicion and hostility toward the party and at the sametime avoid the new charge of “Communist” in order to secure early
diplomatic recognition by the United States. Paz and other pragmatist
leaders of the MNR made utmost efforts to accommodate strong US
concerns about “Communism” on both the domestic and international
fronts.27 Just as Westad and others found in their research on overall Third
World activism during the Cold War, the Bolivian revolutionaries, rather
than being a passive target of US policy, were actively involved in the US
political process and sought to influence or even manipulate it whendeveloping the mutual relationship between the United States andrevolutionary Bolivia.28 The success of these efforts was amply demonstrated
first by Truman’s decision to recognize the MNR regime in June 1952 and by
Eisenhower’s decisions to provide aid to Bolivia in 1953–54.

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III. US COLD WAR DIPLOMACY AND BOLIVIA’S REVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGE
THE TRUMAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE ISSUES OF “COMMUNISM” AND
ECONOMIC NATIONALISM
From the perspectives of the United States, Bolivia’s revolutionary
challenge consisted politically and strategically in its possible association orcollaboration with the Soviet Union and in the impact its programs might
have on US economic interests throughout Latin America, to use Blasier’s
framework. Although these were two distinct issues, as the realists wouldemphasize the former and the revisionists the latter, the issues of“Communism” and economic nationalism were often closely connected in
the minds of US officials during the Cold War. As Richard Immerman
argues in the Guatemalan case, because of the prevailing “cold war ethos,” a“radical” expression of economic nationalism, such as large-scale“confiscations” of American properties, was regarded by US officials andthe public as indicating “Communist” influence and control along with other“evidences” of “radical” anti-Americanism.29 Immerman’s “cold war ethos”
could be paraphrased here as “Cold War ideology,” which underscores thecritical importance of analyzing US relations with Third World revolutions
from an ideological/cultural perspective in addition to the conventional
realist and revisionist perspectives.
The issues of “Communism” and economic nationalism were salient fromthe very beginning of the 1952 revolution. Successful accommodation in the
Bolivian case was the result of the two dangerous issues being separated in
the early days of the revolution, mostly because of the MNR leadership’s
highly pragmatic and skillful handling of the country’s domestic andinternational affairs. The first fruit of these efforts was US recognition of the
MNR regime in June 1952 after the Bolivian revolutionaries successfully
demonstrated to the Truman administration that they were not Communist or
Communist-controlled and that the MNR regime was maintained in aprecarious balance of power among various political forces ranging from thecenter Right to the Far Left. US State Department officials concluded, andTruman concurred, that Paz’s revolutionary party was the only force capableof preventing political chaos in Bolivia, which could result in a proCommunist or anti-American regime coming to power, and that delay inrecognizing the reasonably “moderate” Paz regime could undermine the Paz
faction in the MNR coalition and lead to takeover by “radicals” such as
Lechín and his followers.30 Even though State Department officials still had

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strong reservations about the danger of “confiscatory” nationalization of thetin mines, as the realists would argue, the “Communist” concern clearly
mitigated their concern about economic nationalism.
After passing this first crucial “Communism” test, the MNR could deal
with the more intractable issue of economic nationalism, which indeed
constituted the essence of Bolivia’s revolutionary reforms. The issue of
economic nationalism, epitomized by the tin nationalization of October
1952 and the subsequent question of compensation, tended to slow theestablishment of a full-fledged accommodative or collaborative relationshipwith the United States. Although US investments in the Big Three werefairly small, the State Department insisted on “satisfactory” compensation to
American stockholders lest US acquiescence to Bolivia’s “confiscatory”
nationalization have repercussions on the much larger US investments inChilean copper or Venezuelan oil. Bolivia had become a critical test case of
economic nationalism in the eyes of Latin American leaders. State
Department officials were also concerned about possible criticism from
Congress and the public for not vigorously defending US interests.31
In the end, the MNR leadership succeeded in securing a compensation
clause in the nationalization decree by adroitly reconciling the “radical”
demands for immediate nationalization of the tin mines withoutcompensation, which was made by its powerful labor constituencies, and the
US call for responsible economic policies. To blunt the leftist drive, the Paz
government co-opted Lechín and other labor leaders by offering substantiallabor participation in the management of the newly established state mining
corporation (Corporación Minera de Bolivia, Comibol) in exchange forcompensation provisions in the nationalization decree.32 This arrangement
proved to be a great drag on national economic development and a serious
source of tension between the pragmatist MNR leadership and the powerful
FSTMB over control of the mines. But in the short run, the Paz government
needed this arrangement to pass, though barely, this especially difficult US
test that combined “Communist” and economic nationalist concerns bysomehow containing the leftists on the tin nationalization issue while giving
Lechín’s powerful mine workers’ union a special status and separating itfrom the COB leftists under the influence of the Trotskyist POR.33 Toward
the end of the Truman administration, however, the process toward a more
accommodative and collaborative relationship came to a halt over thecompensation issue, which was difficult to implement in Bolivia’s highly
contentious revolutionary politics.
During the initial process of accommodation, however, career officers in

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the US State Department had much leeway in setting the direction of policy
based on their definition of America’s national interests and were largely
free of pressures from the press and Congress because the Bolivian issue
was far less publicized than the contemporary Guatemalan case, which inturn was partly because the immediate economic stakes were much less in
the Bolivian case. State Department officials adopted a highly cautious stepby-step approach to establishing an accommodative and collaborative
relationship with revolutionary Bolivia. They subtly, but effectively, usedtheir powerful leverage, such as a long-term tin contract and, later, economic
assistance, to encourage Bolivia to comply with their expectations regarding
the issues of “Communism” and economic nationalism.
The policies of the Bolivian revolutionaries were always of criticalimportance in this respect. Indeed, the unique US response in the Bolivian
case was ultimately made possible by the exceptional degree of willingness
and ability of Bolivia’s pragmatist leadership to implement highly
cooperative policies on the crucial questions of Communism and economic
nationalism. From the US perspective, not only the willingness but also theability to cooperate was important. According to Blasier, the Guatemalanrevolutionaries, along with the Mexican and Bolivian revolutionaries,“would have preferred compromise” with the United States, but because of“the domestic and international situation,” Guatemalan president Jacobo
Arbenz was “forced to turn increasingly to the left for support, dimming US
hopes for compromise.” In contrast, Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban
Revolution, did “not really want compromise with the United States”
because he “came to believe, probably correctly, that he could not retain
power in Cuba and achieve his revolutionary objectives” within acollaborative framework.34
THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION AND BOLIVIAN AID DECISIONSThe coming of the Eisenhower administration in January 1953 helped
break the impasse over the compensation issue. US concern about
Communism was instrumental in breaking the deadlock over Bolivia’s
economic nationalism. The Eisenhower administration first accepted andthen expanded on the view of the Truman administration that the Bolivian
revolutionaries were those threatened by a Communist takeover rather thanconstituting a Communist threat. Indeed, the new Republicanadministration’s intense concerns about Communism were essential tobringing about the unusual US decision to provide aid to a Third World

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revolutionary regime. Before there was an actual aid decision, however, thegrave economic situation in Bolivia needed to be faced.35
After spring 1953, the full impact of revolutionary reforms began to befelt throughout Bolivia in the form of rapidly decreasing mining andagricultural production along with a continuing decline in world tin prices as
the Korean War was drawing to a close. The Andean country found itself ina critical shortage of foreign exchange for food imports and othernecessities. From the perspective of US State Department officials who had
long been involved in Bolivian affairs, Bolivia’s economic and politicalconditions were deteriorating to such an extent that the United States could
no longer just insist on “fair and just” compensation for the nationalized
mines. If they were to do so, they could expect a long period of politicalchaos and successive regimes of radical anti-Americanism and economic
nationalism in the heart of South America. In April 1953 the State
Department proposed a comprehensive economic assistance program to
revolutionary Bolivia, the centerpiece of which was an outright grant of
about $15 million for three years, a three-year tin contract, and increased
technical assistance. After considerable bureaucratic wrangling, most ofthese elements were to be included in the emergency aid program
announced by President Eisenhower in October 1953. The novel idea ofgiving substantial grants to a Latin American country was intended to avert
Bolivia’s economic collapse and subsequent political chaos that could resultin the ascendancy of “radical” anti-American and “Communist” forces.36
The State Department aid proposal also introduced two other potentiallysignificant arguments. The first was an embryonic economic development
logic that called for encouraging Bolivia’s “economic development throughdiversification, thereby helping create a self-sustaining and viable economy
in the long-run.”37 This logic was to be elaborated by the Kennedy
administration in the 1960s with its Alliance for Progress program, which
combined economic assistance, domestic reform, and economic
development with internal security aid with the goal of producing
democracy and social justice and more effective and “enlightened” antiCommunism.38 The second significant argument could be characterized as ashowcase logic emphasizing that cooperating with the MNR government
would afford the United States “an opportunity for possibly successful
cooperation with a popular government, as distinguished from the various
dictatorial governments which we are accused of favoring.”39 The MNR
were succeeding in not only dispelling the highly negative image they had
since the 1940s but also beginning to develop a positive image and meaning

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NAOKI KAMIMURAin the minds of US officials, which created a momentum for support forthem as a friendly revolutionary regime led by Paz.
The Bolivian aid issue was soon elevated to the highest levels with thepresident’s active involvement in the issue. This was largely due to theefforts of Milton Eisenhower, the president’s brother and trusted adviser,
who became an ardent supporter of the Bolivian aid program after his visit
to the Andean nation as part of his official tour to South America. He wasalso among the strongest advocates of the economic development andshowcase logics in the administration alongside the more prevalent, antiCommunist position. The State Department proposal, however, met stiff
opposition from all the economic agencies concerned, such as theReconstruction Finance Corporation and the Export-Import Bank of theUnited States, with the Department of the Treasury taking the lead under its
powerful secretary, George Humphrey, who greatly influenced the directionof the administration’s foreign economic and assistance policy.
The tin contract issue became a focus of this controversy between theeconomic soundness logic of these agencies and the foreign policy logic of
the State Department. While the State Department strongly argued forcontinued tin purchases from the perspective of the importance of
maintaining a stable supply of strategic raw materials as well as improving
Bolivia’s precarious domestic condition, Humphrey and other fiscal
conservatives argued against it from the perspective of “sound economics.”
Because Humphrey wholeheartedly agreed with the “cold warriors” of theadministration about the threat of Soviet Communism and because the
Bolivian situation had been presented as a Cold War issue, he could not dootherwise than consent to aiding Bolivia in its fight against “Communism.”40
Thus, Humphrey urged that the United States “make an outright grant to
Bolivia which could be used for developing agriculture or other aspects ofan effective economy rather than continuing to purchase low-grade tin
which cannot be smelted economically.” This argument made mucheconomic sense, but it was politically unacceptable to State Department
officials and the president, to say nothing of the Bolivian revolutionaries
who regarded a long-term tin contract as essential to the country’s economic
and political survival.41 As the Bolivian situation became even more criticalafter mid-1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles took up the task ofpersuading economic agencies by using a straightforward anti-Communist
argument, gravely warning against national security risks involved in the
Bolivian issue due to threats from “international Communism” and apossible “Communist takeover.”42 It was Dulles’s ardent anti-Communist

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argument that finally won over his skeptical colleagues rather than theeconomic development and showcase logics presented by Milton
Eisenhower and others, which had to wait until after the late 1950s to havetheir day.
The final aid package was decided on by late September and announced
through an exchange of letters between presidents Eisenhower and Paz in
October 1953.43 This package included both grant aid and a tin contract,which suggested that the State Department’s “foreign policy” and“Communism” logic prevailed over the “economic soundness” logic, at least
temporarily. The emergency aid arguably gave a new lease on life to
Bolivia’s struggling Paz regime. It was, however, in no way an
unconditional commitment to Bolivia’s revolutionary experiment. The State
Department did not include in the aid package a developmental loan fromthe Export-Import Bank that was earnestly desired by the MNR. This was
not only because of the difficulty of securing consent from the economic
agencies but also because the State Department wanted to use it as leveragewith the Bolivian government. Although constrained and frustrated by US
economic agencies, the State Department took advantage of their adamancy
to press Bolivia to comply with the department’s policy objectives.
Secretary Dulles, in the very telegram instructing US ambassador Edward
Sparks in La Paz to convey to Bolivian officials the long-awaited news of
the finalization of an emergency loan, emphasized that “any consideration ofsuch loans, which would add to Bolivia’s already staggering foreign debt
burden, should await further economic and political stabilization.” Dulles
explained to Sparks that this “further economic and political stabilization”
was not only thought of in terms of payments and development prospects
but also in terms of the nature of the Bolivian government, meaning nofurther aid would be forthcoming until the dominance of “moderateelements” in the government was more clearly established.44 As it was, theState Department continued to insist that the Bolivian revolutionaries
cooperate with US economic and political objectives and suppress leftist
influences in the Bolivian government and the country. The Bolivian
revolutionaries had to prove continuously their “moderate” and“responsible” nature by deeds as well as by words as long as they wereheavily relying on US assistance because Bolivia’s desperate economic
condition required a constant infusion of substantial assistance funds fromoutside.
Thus started, US aid involved a policy of seeking “further economic andpolitical stabilization” in revolutionary Bolivia. As soon as the emergency

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decision was announced in October, the State Department started anotherintense campaign to secure funding for longer-term assistance. In March
1954 another decision was made to swiftly provide an additional food grant
to Bolivia, not only to improve its still serious economic condition but also
to reward the Paz government for its increasingly “cooperative” attitudes
and policies regarding the control of domestic “Communists” as well as“cooperating” with the United States at the 10th Inter-American Conference
where it denounced “Communist” Guatemala.45 By the middle of 1954, it
became clear that the Eisenhower administration had decided to support
Bolivia’s revolutionary experiment on a long-term basis.
THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION AND THE 1956 BOLIVIAN STABILIZATIONPROGRAMBy way of buttressing Paz and other “moderate” leaders in the MNR
government, the United States was becoming actively and inevitably
involved in Bolivia’s revolutionary politics and the power struggle among
MNR leaders and various factions as well as between them and the extraparty Left. The goal of “political stabilization” and the partisan focus of US
aid policy helped deepen divisions in what was originally a broadly-based
coalition. Such divisions further intensified after the Eisenhoweradministration embarked on full-fledged economic stabilization when it
introduced a large-scale monetary stabilization program in 1956 under the
façade of IMF supervision, which lasted throughout the rest of theEisenhower period. The program was urgently needed because thehyperinflation Bolivia was experiencing after 1952 evaporated all the gains
from Bolivia’s revolutionary reforms as well as eating up US assistance.46
The monetary stabilization program consisted not only of monetary
policy directed at stopping the printing of excessive money and limiting
money supply but also of fiscal policy aimed at slashing budget deficits,
lifting price controls, abolishing various government regulations, anddrastically reducing or abolishing government subsidies.
Particularly controversial and politically explosive were policies related to
the Comibol and to worker conditions in the nationalized mines. With theintroduction of the stabilization program, the government of the newpresident, Hernán Siles, tried not only to abolish large government subsidies
to miners’ commissaries but also to greatly reduce the number of “excess”
workers in the mines. He sought to regain control of management of themines and reduce the enormous deficits of the national mining corporation,

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which greatly contributed to the large government deficits that were
dragging down economic development.47 It made perfect sense in Bolivia’s
revolutionary politics for the miners, as a crucial and dominant componentof the revolutionary coalition, to take advantage of the revolutionary gains
that had been denied them by the Tin Barons, but from the US perspective it
was simply unacceptable in terms of the political logic that required
reducing radical labor influence and the economic logic that necessitatedachieving efficient management and economic development.
The stabilization program virtually redirected the country “toward a freemarket economy despite the socialist and statist orientation of many of its
political leaders,” according to Blasier. President Siles stood firm with theprogram, with strong US backing, in the face of widespread popular protests
and, especially, strong opposition from the miners. As Blasier argues, thestruggle over the stabilization program became a “struggle for control of the
MNR” and was instrumental in alienating the labor Left from the MNR
coalition.48 President Siles, for his part, began in 1958 to rebuild the
Bolivian military with US internal security assistance to confront the armed
miners who opposed his stabilization policy.49
Obviously, economic agencies and organizations, such as the US Treasury
Department and the IMF, were behind this stabilization program with theirsound economy logic, but it was more than sound economy the UnitedStates was after. As Secretary Dulles’s September 1953 telegram indicates,
both “economic and political stabilization” were essential to US interestsand ideals and formed a basis for consensus in the foreign policy andeconomic agencies of the government vis-à-vis revolutionary Bolivia. Oncethe Eisenhower administration became relatively secure about the survivalof the MNR regime, its assistance policy tended to focus ever more on
liberalizing and privatizing the Andean country’s highly statist economy andsteering the revolution along a more moderate path. As a quid pro quo for
their assistance as well as out of their conviction on the efficacy of liberal
economic policy, US officials strongly pressed the MNR government to“take effective measures to attract foreign capital and to stimulate private
enterprise” as well as to contain the Left, including Lechín’s labor
movement.50 Throughout the epic battles over monetary stabilization andcontrol of the mines, the United States attempted to redirect the Bolivian
revolutionaries’ highly nationalist and predominantly statist approach
toward one in favor of liberal economic principles and practices such as
deregulation and privatization.51

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NAOKI KAMIMURACONCLUSION: “LIBERAL” AMERICA AND REVOLUTIONARY BOLIVIA
The Bolivian case demonstrates that the United States was able not only
to accommodate but also to support a highly nationalist revolutionary
regime as long as the latter was willing and able to cooperate with theUnited States on the critical issues of “Communism” and economic
nationalism. In the final analysis, however, the Bolivian case attests to thedifficulty of establishing such an accommodative and cooperative
relationship between the United States and revolutionary regimes in the
Third World, when seen in the light of the rare combination of favorable
factors surrounding the 1952 Bolivian revolution. Moreover, even in the
Bolivian case, it turned out that the two countries were more successful inaccommodating with each other on the issue of “Communism” than on thatof economic nationalism.
In terms of analytical perspectives, how can one make sense of this rather
unusual case of US relations with a Third World revolution? In the Bolivian
case, realist perspectives are generally quite useful, especially during theinitial period of accommodation and collaboration from 1952 to 1954, since
this was essentially a period of intense US concern about the threat ofCommunism in Bolivia. After this initial period, when US officials began toseek greater control of the country’s revolutionary politics and finance,
revisionist perspectives of control and domination are quite useful. The
United States intervened ever more deeply in Bolivia’s politics and economy
as US economic assistance increasingly became a crucial source of Bolivia’snational budget and external income. Yet, as discussed in the analyticalframework section, the United States’ intervening in the Bolivian revolution
in the absence of significant economic stakes is at odds with revisionist
predictions.
Here enter cultural and ideological perspectives. US leaders, rather thanseeking simple economic domination, sought to transform a highly
nationalist revolutionary Bolivia into a more "liberal," democratic, marketoriented nation. Such a focus became ever more salient in US assistancepolicy toward Bolivia after the 1956 introduction of the economic
stabilization program. With concerns about “Communism” increasingly
relieved and without much immediate economic stakes involved, US policy
became more ideological in the sense that it sought to reshape Bolivia’s
politics and economy in its own image. It tried to superimpose America’s
deeply ingrained and culturally shaped ideas about “modern” and “efficient”
solutions on revolutionary Bolivia without sufficient regard for the local

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context. This became even more evident during the Kennedy period with theintroduction of the Alliance for Progress program and its intense focus on“modernization theory.”52 This aspect of US policy continued to be a greatsource of strain with revolutionary Bolivia, even after the two counties
successfully established an accommodative and collaborative relationship;
ultimately it contributed to the demise of Bolivia’s revolutionary regime.
Economic independence and development were among the most basic
characteristics of any Third World revolution. Its inevitable emphasis on
measures promoting economic nationalism with active state intervention torealize these goals conflicted fundamentally with the ideology and interestsof “liberal” America. That a potentially serious conflict over economic
nationalism did not come to the fore in US relations with revolutionary
Bolivia indicated the extent of the country’s desperate need for US aid. This
does not necessarily mean that the Bolivian case was an aberration but rather
that it was a significant, though extreme, part of a larger conflict-ridden
relationship between “liberal” America and Third World revolutions. The
Bolivian case may also vividly demonstrate the efficacy of cultural/
ideological perspectives as applied to US relations with Third World
revolutions.
NOTES
For the 1952 Bolivian revolution, see Robert J. Alexander, The Bolivian National
Revolution (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958); James M. Malloy, Bolivia:
The Uncompleted Revolution (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970); andJames Dunkerley, Rebellion in the Veins: Political Struggle in Bolivia, 1952–1982 (London:
Verso, 1984).
2
In the decade after 1953, Bolivia received more per capita economic assistance from theUnited States than any other Latin American country and was second only to Israel among allrecipients of US aid between 1953 and 1964. Cole Blasier, “The United States and the
Revolution,” in Beyond the Revolution: Bolivia since 1952, ed. James M. Malloy and Richard
S. Thorn (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1971), 53. The total amount of aid
Bolivia received from 1953 to 1964 was $368 million. Thomas Field, From Development to
Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2014), 198.
3
“Revolution” is a highly complex and contested term, but for this article I find adequate
Cole Blasier’s “revolutionary change,” which he defines as “an exceptionally rapid,
comprehensive, and profound form of social change, usually accompanied by violence andresulting in an abrupt and explosive break with the past.” Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant:
U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America (Pittsburgh, PA: University ofPittsburgh Press, 1976), 4. Some works on revolution relevant to the present article include
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: The Viking Press, 1963); Chalmers Johnson,
Revolutionary Change, 2nd ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982); Peter
Calvert, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1990); James Defronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (Boulder, CO: Westview
1

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Press, 1991); Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994); and Jeff Goodwin, No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary
Movements, 1945–1991 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
4
Throughout the Truman and Eisenhower years, and probably thereafter, the term“Communism” had very vague and diverse meanings; it was often used as a means ofpolitical propaganda to discredit one’s enemy, irrespective of the latter’s actual ideologicalorientation. Richard Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), 81, 82, 101–3. Here I use the term to identify
political movements based on Marxist-Leninism and/or under the influence of the Soviet
Union. When used otherwise, I put the word in quotes.
5
Some of the pioneering works on US policy toward the Bolivian revolution include
Lawrence Whitehead, The United States and Bolivia: A Case of Neo-Colonialism (London:
Haslemere Group, 1969); James W. Wilkie, The Bolivian Revolution and US Aid since 1952:
Financial Background and Context of Political Decisions (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin
American Center, 1969); Blasier, Hovering Giant, 46–54, 128–45; Carlos Navia Ribera, Los
Estados Unidos y la Revolución Nacional: Entre el pragmatismo y el sometimiento(Cochabamba, Bol.: Centro de Información y Documentación para el Desarrollo Regional,
1984); Bryce Wood, The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy (Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1985), 145–52. More recent works fully utilizing declassified US government
documents include Naoki Kamimura, “The United States and the Bolivian Revolutionaries,
1943–1954: From Hostility to Accommodation to Assistance” (PhD. diss., University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles, 1991); James Siekmeier, Aid, Nationalism and Inter-American
Relations, Guatemala, Bolivia and the United States 1945–1961 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1999); Kenneth Lehman, Bolivia and the United States: A Limited Partnership(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999); James Siekmeier, The Bolivian Revolution andthe United States, 1952 to the Present (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011);
Glenn Dorn, The Truman Administration and Bolivia: Making the World Safe for Liberal
Constitutional Oligarchy (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011); Kevin Young,“Purging the Forces of Darkness: The United States, Monetary Stabilization, and theContainment of the Bolivian Revolution,” Diplomatic History 37, no. 3 (2013): 509–37; andField, From Development to Dictatorship.
6
Representative “realist” works on the Bolivian case are Blasier’s Hovering Giant andWood’s Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy.
7
Representative “revisionist” works on the Bolivian case are Whitehead, United States andBolivia; Navia Ribera, Los Estados Unidos y la Revolución Nacional; Dorn, Truman
Administration and Bolivia; and Young, “Purging the Forces of Darkness.”
8“Ideology,” in this article, refers not only to its ordinary meaning of a collection or system
of ideas that influence behavior but also to “cultural systems,” which Clifford Geertz argues,“renders otherwise incomprehensible social situations meaningful, to so construe them as tomake it possible to act purposefully within them” or creates “maps of problematic social
reality and matrices for the creation of collective conscience.” Clifford Greerts, “Ideology asa Cultural System,” in Ideology and Discontent, ed. David Apter (New York: Free Press,
1964), 64. “Culture,” is defined, to use Geertz again, as a web of manmade meanings because“man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” Geertz, The
Interpretations of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 5. “Ideology” and “culture” arethus used somewhat interchangeably in this article. For the role of ideology in US foreign
relations, see also Michael Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1987).
9
For US relations with the Third World in general, see, e.g., Stephen Krasner, Structural
Conflict: The Third World against Global Liberalism (Berkeley: University of California

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123

Press, 1985); Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy,
1945–1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1988); and Packenham, Liberal America and the Third
World, each book representing one of the three perspectives discussed in the introduction tothis article.
10
There are numerous works on US policy regarding these revolutions; see, e.g., Robert
Smith, The United States and Revolutionary Nationalism in Mexico, 1916–1932 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1972); Immerman, CIA in Guatemala; Piero Gleijeses, Shattered
Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1991); Richard Welch, Response to Revolution: The United States
and the Cuban Revolution, 1959–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1985); Jules R. Benjamin, The United States and the Origins of the Cuban Revolution: An
Empire of Liberty in an Age of National Liberation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1990); and Robert Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United States and Nicaragua(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).
11
Blasier, Hovering Giant, 9–11, 211–19.
12
Some representative works are David Green, The Containment of Latin America: A
History of the Myths and Realities of the Good Neighbor Policy (Chicago: Quadrangle,1971); and Kolko, Confronting the Third World.
13
Bolivia was a provider of several critical raw materials, especially tin. It was the only
secure source of the strategic metal during World War II, but by the time of the 1952
revolution, the United States had accumulated more than enough tin in its strategic reserves.
It began to stop purchases and even occasionally sold from its strategic reserves, which
greatly affected revolutionary Bolivia economically and politically. Thomas G. Bohlin,“United States-Latin American Relations and the Cold War: 1949–1953” (PhD. diss.,
University of Notre Dame, 1985), 280–84.
14
Lehman, Bolivia and the United States, xiii.
15
Foremost among them is Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third WorldInterventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
See also Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2010); and Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War in the Third World (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013).
16
McMahon, Cold War in the Third World, 2–5; Westad, Global Cold War, 4–5.
17
Westad, Global Cold War, 8–16.
18
Packenham, Liberal America, 3–22; Latham, Modernization as Ideology and Right Kindof Revolution.
19“Liberalism” is a quite diverse and elusive term that may mean political democracy,
human rights, racial equality, or New Deal and Great Society–type interventions in theeconomy and society, but when applied to the Third World it often has meant market
liberalization, deregulation, privatization, and other policies opposing Third World nationalist
policies, in other words, “neoliberalism” in the current terminology. For background on
American “liberalism,” see Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State (AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964), 9–13; and Alan Dawely, Struggles for Justice:Social Responsibility and the Liberal State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1991), 1–2. For the American ideology of liberal democracy in foreign relations, see Tony
Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in
the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
20
For details of the four reforms, see Alexander, Bolivian National Revolution, 57–120.
21
The Big Three accounted for 85% of tin production, 95% of foreign exchange income,and 50% of government revenues at the time of the revolution. Thorn, “Economic
Transformation,” 169.

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22
Malloy, Bolivia, 280–84; Charles H. Westen, Jr., “An Ideology of Modernization: The
Case of the Bolivian MNR,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 10, no. 1 (January 1968):
85–101.
23
Malloy, Bolivia, 144–48, 163.
24
Dunkerley, Rebellion, 43, 44–46.
25
The Trotskyist POR, rather than the Stalinists, dominated the Communist movement in
Bolivia through its strong presence in the FSTMB; Trotskyist dominance was a unique
Bolivian phenomenon. Malloy, Bolivia, 95–102, 158–64.
26
Cole Blasier, “The United States, Germany, and the Bolivian Revolutionaries, 1941–
1946,” Hispanic American Historical Review 52, no. 1 (February 1972): 26–54.
27
Interview with the foreign minister of the first Paz regime, Walter Guevara, in La Paz,
Bolivia, on January 23, 1990.
28
In fact, one of the first tasks for Víctor Andrade, Bolivian ambassador in Washington, wasto find a public relations firm to help defend the cause of the revolution in the United States.
Andrade to Guevara, August 22, 1952, Bolivia, Embajada de Bolivia en Washington,
Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Recuerdos (hereafter cited as EBW), message
no. 332, no. 114 August–December, 1952; Andrade to Guevara: “Firma Relaciones Publicas,”
April 1, 1953; EBW, message no. 89, no. 116 January–June, 1953; Víctor Andrade, My
Missions for Revolutionary Bolivia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976),
136–41, 157–62.
29
Immerman, CIA in Guatemala, 81–82.
30
Memorandum of Conversation among Miller, Hudson, and Guachalla: “The Situation in
Bolivia,” April 25, 1952, US State Department Records, Record Group 59, National
Archives, College Park, MD (hereafter, NA) 724.00/4–2552; Acheson to US Embassy in La
Paz, April 14, 1952, NA 724.00/4–1252; “Summary of Telegrams,” April 23, 1952, Daily
Briefs, March–April 1952, box 23, Naval Aide files, Harry S. Truman Library; Memorandum(hereafter, Memo) from Hudson to Miller, April 30, 1952, NA 724.00/4–3052; Telegram 312
from Miller to US Embassy in La Paz, April 27, 1952, NA 724.00/4–2752; Memo for the
President from Acheson: “Diplomatic Relations with Bolivia,” May 22, 1952, NA 611.24/5–
2752; Memorandum of Conversation with the President by Acheson: “Bolivian Recognition,”
May 22, 1952, box 67, Acheson Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.
31
Memo for the President from Acheson: “Diplomatic Relations with Bolivia,” May 22,
1952; Memorandum of Conversation by Edgar L. McGinnis, Jr.: “Ecuadoran Views
Regarding U.S.-Bolivian Relations,” May 12, 1953, NA 611.24/5–1253; Memo from Hudson
to Atwood, Mann, and Cabot: “Increasing Anti-American Feeling in Bolivia,” May 11, 1953,
NA 611.24/5–1153; Dispatch 644 from Sparks to Department of State, April 11, 1953, NA
724.00/4–1153; La Nación, April 9, 1953. Memo by Mann to Bruce: “Agreement to
Negotiate Compensation Arrangement and Tin Purchasing Contract with Bolivia,” December
17, 1952, US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter, FRUS),
1952–54, vol. IV, 513–16.
32
Dunkerley, Rebellion, 56–57.
33
Malloy, Bolivia, 78; Thorn, “Economic Transformation,” 169.
34
Blasier, Hovering Giant, 217.
35
For details of the emergence of the Bolivian aid idea in the US State Department and thesubsequent bureaucratic wrangles within the Eisenhower administration, see Kamimura,“United States and Bolivian Revolutionaries,” 273–520.
36
Memo from Hudson to Atwood: “Suggested Approach to the Bolivian Problem,” April 30,
1953, NA 824.00/4–3053.
37
Ibid.
38
For the Alliance for Progress, see Jeffrey Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy: The

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125

Alliance for Progress in Latin America (New York: Routledge, 2007).
39
Memo from Hudson to Atwood, April 30, 1953.
40
For more on the “cold warriors,” see H. W. Brands, Jr., Cold Warriors: Eisenhower’s
Generation and American Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
41
Memorandum of Conversation by Cabot: “Bolivian Tin,” June 22, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54,
vol. IV, 532–33; Minutes of Cabinet Meeting, July 3, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, vol. IV, 534;
Telephone Conversation with Secretary Humphrey, June 24, 1953, Telephone Memo
5–6/53(1), box 1, Telephone Calls, Dulles Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereafter,
DDEL).
42
Telephone Conversation with Secretary Humphrey, June 24, 1953, Telephone Memo
5–6/53(1), box 1, Telephone Calls, Dulles Papers, DDEL; From Dulles to Stassen, September
2, 1953, FRUS, 1952–54, vol. IV, 535; Interview with W. Tapley Bennett Jr. in Washington,
DC, on December 15, 1989. Secretary Dulles had little genuine interest in Latin American
affairs and usually became involved personally in them only when he perceived an imminent
danger of “Communist” intrusion in the hemisphere. This was dramatically demonstrated byhis vigorous personal campaign to form a united front against Arbenz's Guatemala during theTenth Inter-American Conference at Caracas in March 1954. Immerman, CIA in Guatemala,145–51.
43
The total amount was $12.5 million for FY 1953–54. For details, see Wilkie, Bolivian
Revolution, 48. For the text of the presidential letters, see President Eisenhower to President
Paz, October 14, 1953, Department of State, Bulletin (December 2, 1953): 585–86.
44
Telegram from Dulles to Sparks, September 30, 1953, NA 724.5-MSP/9–2953.
45
Third Progress Report on NSC 144/1, May 24, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, vol. IV, 49–50.
46
For the impact of the stabilization program, see Alexander, Bolivian National Revolution;
and Young, “Purging the Forces of Darkness,” 509–37. For the IMF, see Miles Kahler, “TheUnited States and the International Monetary Fund: Declining Influence or Declining
Interest?” in The United States and Multilateral Institutions: Patterns of Changing
Instrumentality and Influence, ed. Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst (London:
Routledge: 1992), 91–114.
47
Cornelius Zondag, The Bolivian Economy, 1952–65: The Revolution and Its Aftermath(New York: Praeger 1966), 58–65, 92; Thorn, “Economic Transformation,” 175, 192–94.
48
Blasier, Hovering Giant, 138–40.
49
The US State Department also wanted to be prepared for the possible demise of thecurrent MNR regime and saw the beefed up military as a form of “secondary insurance.”
Memo from Siracusa to Bernbaum: “Suggestions for Diversifying Bolivian Policy,” February
2, 1956, FRUS, 1955–57, vol. VII, 537–40.
50
For details about the development of Bolivia’s revolutionary politics after 1954 until theNovember 1964 military coup, see Dunkerley, Rebellion, 83–119; Malloy, Bolivia, 235–42,
300–314; Young, “Purging the Forces of Darkness,” 509–37; Field, From Development to
Dictatorship; and Blasier, Hovering Giant, 144–45.
51
Toward the end of the 1950s, the amount of US aid decreased as the Bolivian program wasincreasingly perceived as a failure. The Kennedy administration in 1961, however,resurrected the Bolivian aid program with a sharp increase in the amount of aid as well as a
new emphasis on aid for development and showcase goals. Blasier, Hovering Giant, 140–41.
52
Latham, Modernization as Ideology, 69–108; Taffet, Foreign Aid as Foreign Policy, 2–7,
20–23; Kimber C. Pearce, Rostow, Kennedy, and the Rhetoric of Foreign Aid (East Lansing:Michigan State University Press, 2001), 2–6; Field, From Development to Dictatorship,
1–16.