The four essays in this volume were originally presented as papers to the Third Maxwell Institute on the United Nations in the summer of 1966. The contributions are: “The Special Nature of Western Hemisphere Experience with International Organization,” by John C. Dreier, a long-time ambassador of the United States to the OAS; “The Inter-American System: Problems of Peace and Security in the Western Hemisphere,” by Gordon Connell-Smith, a British historian; “Latin American Integration and United States Economic Policies,” by Miguel S. Wionczek, a Mexican economist; and “The Nature of the Inter-American System,” by Michael K. O’Leary, a member of the faculty of the Maxwell Graduate School.

The Dreier monograph discusses the major factors which influenced the development and functioning of the inter-American regional system. The former ambassador’s assessments of faltering OAS ventures to confront regional crises reflect the wisdom, tolerance, and insight cultivated by long years of experience with the system. “The trouble with the OAS,” he says, “is not so much with its form and procedures as with the inner dynamics of the system which makes it possible or difficult for the machinery to work” (p. 43). The OAS has demonstrated its ability to accomplish desired ends whenever there has been a coincidence of purpose among the members, but unfortunately dissentient purpose has been all too common. In the same vein Michael O’Leary says that expectations overreach the realities of the inter-American system, for there is no consensus concerning its goals.

Gordon Connell-Smith puts the inter-American security system to test by dissecting the crises in Guatemala, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He finds that there does not exist a community of interests between the United States and Latin America in the field of peace and security. The United States’ preoccupation with the threat of international Communism is not shared by the Latins whose prime concerns are social justice and economic development.

Two major experiments in economic integration in Latin America, the Central American Common Market and the Latin American Free-Trade Association, are discussed by Miguel S. Wionczek, largely with the purpose of demonstrating that integration in Latin America is impossible outside the framework of United States-Latin American economic and political relations.

Both Connell-Smith and Wionczek are sharply critical of the policies and practices of the United States. They seem to agree that if the inter-American system is to function, the United States must modify its policies to create a coincidence of purpose with its fellow members of the OAS. Such a change is not probable. Thus we agree with John Dreier that because of both present-day United States power in the Pan-American community and Latin American nationalism, the progress of regional international organization in the Americas may have gone about as far as it can go.

These essays should help to dispel illusions concerning the depth of inter-American solidarity.