Leaving aside the obvious self-interest of the various proponents (although one is tempted to speculate whether President Bordaberry argues on behalf of his country or his own ranching interests), their conclusion follows logically on much of the analysis which has focused on the causes of Uruguay's stagnation. Since the mid-1950s, the growth of the economy has barely kept pace with the small population increase of 1.2 percent per annum.

The policies developed to face the critical housing problems in Chile by the last formally democratic administrations (Alesandri, 1958-1964; Frei, 1964-1970; Allende, 1970-1973), and their relative failures, constitute an important experience to be carefully considered by the underdeveloped world. First, it confirms the existence of the almost insuperable material as well as structural constraints inherent within a conventional treatment of the housing problem in societies of dependentmonopoly capitalism undergoing an intense period of urbanization. Second, the Chilean experience permits us to understand the complexity of social and political actions rooted in the unsatisfied demands for a plot of land or a house in metropolitan areas, with the upwelling of conflictive processes that may be beyond the usual mechanisms of governmental control.

Literature on U.S. influence in the Organization of American States reveals a marked diversity of views. Some authors consider that U.S. influence is absolute or very nearly so; others hold that it is relative; still others think it is minimal.

In the nearly-absolute school, former Guatemalan President Arévalo (1961: 126) says that the United States “always wins” in the OAS. The Ecuadorian writer Benjamín Cardón (1965: 29) says that the OAS “receives orders and complies with them, with the appearance of discussion, and the appearance of votes that satisfy pro-forma the hypocritical quakerism of the masters.” This view might be summed up by a comment attributed to a Latin American delegate to one Inter-American Conference: “If the United States wanted to badly enough, it could have a resolution passed declaring two and two are five ” (New York Times, March 8, 1954).