This annual report provides the opportunity for regional and comparative evaluation of American foreign policy. Although the information provided is limited to brief and titular descriptions of the specific plans and organizations with which the United States is involved, the analysis includes detailed economic tables and organizational schematics, which may be employed as an index-type guideline to further analysis and scholarly investigation in additional sources.

The work proceeds from a regional analysis to a topical one dealing with security, economic and social programs, international law, and cultural themes. A documentary annex concludes the work, and contains principal policy speeches, related treaties, and agreements signed or ratified in the past two years. The interpretive portion of the work, political in nature, suffers from its rhetorical tone and hyperbolic value judgments. Thus “negative” forms of Latin American nationalist spirit are viewed as “uncritical hostility to external influences,” and as an “emotional” reaction to “conscious political manipulation” (p. 97). The Latin Americanist may or may not agree with such conclusions, but he will at least recognize them as a reflection of American foreign policy, and be able to criticize them accordingly.