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"I am a pragmatist, not a dogmatist," says Thomas Clifton Mann, "and I am not a miracle worker." Mann, 51, will need all of his pragmatism and may even have to work a few miracles if he is to succeed in his new job as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and President Johnson's top policymaker and adviser on the difficult, demanding world of Latin America.
"We expect to speak with one voice on all matters affecting this hemisphere," said Johnson when he appointed Mann last month. "Mr. Mann will be that voice." Too often in the recent past, U.S. policy toward Latin America, expressed by a babble of confused voices, has been dangerously diluted by a division of responsibilities in Washington. It now becomes Mann's task to bring order and direction to U.S. relations with an immensely important area that is crying out for change.
The "Invisible" Ones. That area is basically one of a relatively few "haves," and millions of "have nots" whose mood ranges from hopeless to revolutionary. Average per capita income is a miserable $400 a year. Since 1961, seven constitutional governments have been toppled by military coups. Nearly all of Latin America—about 8,500,000 sq. mi. and 220 million people—is teeming with unrest. The "invisible" ones, as Colombian Writer Germán Arciniegas said of the masses, may be at a point where they will make themselves heard in "a consuming fire or a flood of light." And despite jubilant receptions for President Eisenhower when he visited in 1960 and for President Kennedy in 1962, Latin America's feelings toward the U.S. are often far from cordial.
What can the U.S. do? Drawls Texan Mann: "Our job is to convince the Latin Americans that their interests lie parallel to ours—not because of sentiment, but in their own self-interest. Democracy is a tie in these cases, economics is a tie, and Christianity is another tie. The total of these ties is where our interest lies, and when these ties are strong enough, no Marxist can separate us."