Joseph Goulden
- 1966
Fellowship Title:
- Political Movements in Mexico and Guatemala
Fellowship Year:
- 1966
Mexico: PRI’s False Front Democracy
JCG-12 Mexico City December, 1966 “The Partido Revolucionario Institucional is indestructible. PRI has the conviction that, because of the law and the support of the institutions it has established in Mexico, it is invulnerable. The people have faith in the PRI because they are convinced that only by the roads traveled by the Mexican Revolution will they manage to satisfy their demands and their problems. For Mexicans, the first value is the man; for him our political activity has to guarantee his dignity under the law.” – PRI national chairman Lauro Ortega, in a speech April 19 at the Teatro Melchor Ocampo in Morelia. Once when I was very young I owned a little dog named General George S. Blood and Guts Patton, who devoted his life to the loud and enthusiastic pursuit of automobiles. One afternoon an old gentleman named Jim Craig watched Pat’s performance from, his porch swing and exclaimed: “Look at that! I never saw a dog make a 1939 Ford run so fast.” Jim Craig and General George S.
Guatemala: Time For The Psychiatrists?
JCG-11 Guatemala City November, 1966 My friend, who has worked with the United States aid program in Guatemala long enough for his cynicism to be mellowed by a “let-us-seek-a-solution” evening about once a month thinks he has found the answer: When aid first began in the late 1940s,” he said, “it was in the hands of technicians, persons who actually went into countries and did things and gave lessons to the host governments. “The economists have it now. Kennedy saw to that. We’re all excited about infrastructure and takeoff, and in reforming this ministry and that ministry, all in hopes that it someday will be the same as OUR government. “Maybe it’s time to turn to the sociologists and anthropologists, the persons who are experts at knowing why societies change, and who are capable of promoting change from the individual up through the top of the government.” Then he sighed deeply. “Or, again, another solution would be to shut down the entire program and use the money to hire a battery of psychiatrists
Guatemala: A Democracy Falters
JCG-10 Guatemala City November. 1966 President Julio Cesar Mandez Montenegro thus far has shown himself incapable of striking at the economic and social inequities that imprison Guatemala. The buoyancy that greeted his inauguration in July as Guatemala’s first freely elected president since 1950 is giving way to malaise and doubt that create a mood befitting the capital’s winter chili, Mendez Montenegro’s lack of decision and leadership has permitted the evaporation – perhaps for good – of the “It’s Time for a Change” spirit felt so strongly here only six months ago. Despite his personal shortcomings it’s hard to fault the president, for one could make a strong case for the premise that no one can govern Guatemala. At the same time, however, the failure of popularly elected government could mean a reversion to the Colonelism that Guatemala’s power structure has tolerated for the sake of superficial peace for much of this century. In July one heard frequent sighs for the return of the “good old days” of Col. Enrique Peralta Azurdia, Mendez Montenegro’s relatively benign
Mexican Subversion: The Hammer Falls
JCG-9 Londres 190, Depto. 109 Colonia Juarez Mexico 6, DF, Mexico October 14, 1966 A series of trip-hammer blows has sent Mexican Communists scurrying for cover to avoid one of the government’s sharpest crackdowns on subversion here in a decade. In separate but indirectly related actions government security police and counter-subversive agents in recent weeks have: Broken up a guerrilla orientation school allegedly conducted In the very heart of Mexico Cit-y by Victor Rico Galan, Spanish-born leftist who until his arrest was an editor of Politica, the Communist bi-weekly newsmagazine, — Outlawed a so-called “study group” in Sinaloa State on the Pacific coast named after Francisco I. Madero, father of the Mexican Revolution, and jailed its leaders for plotting to overthrow the state government. — Used the army to end violence in a student strike at a university in Morelia, capital of the State of Michoacan, to the west of Mexico City, after it fell under the guidance of Communist agitators. A member of the Chamber of Deputies faces arrest for his role
The Cerro de Mercado: A Reprise and a Reprisal
JCG-8 Londres 190, Depto. 109 Colonia Juarez Mexico 6, DF, Mexico September 8, 1966 Consider, if you will, this hypothetical situation: Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois, a staunch party-lining Democrat with an unblemished record of political services is unable to find a solution to a student strike and falls into disfavor with voters who had elected him with a 90-percent majority in 1962, Congress comes to work at one o’clock in the afternoon shortly thereafter and finds before it a request from President Lyndon B. Johnson that Kerner be removed from office. No advance notice of the action has been given – not even to Kerner or members of his state’s Congressional delegation. The resolution in handed to a select committee, which retires into secret session at which no witnesses are heard. The other legislators, meanwhile, spend 45 minutes or so discussing the Georgia boll weevil problem and plans for a delegation to the Iowa State Fair. The committee returns with a favorable reports and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who is presiding, calls