Colombian President Calderon mentions JFK assassination

[Michael Hogan]

From projo.com

By Karen Lee Ziner

Journal Staff Writer

April 6, 2011

Excerpt:

His (Calderon's) lecture paid tribute to the late President John F. Kennedy’s historic “Alliance for Progress,” a 10-year plan aimed at bringing about “unprecedented democratic, social and economic change” in the Americas, and that brought $20 billion in aid to countries south of the border.

But Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 meant “the loss of the American leader who best understood the significance of Latin America.” The situation reversed under President Richard M. Nixon, whom Santos quoted as saying," 'The only thing that matters are China, Russia and Europe. Latin America doesn’t matter. People don’t give a damn about Latin America, now. They don’t give a damn about it.’ End of quote."

With that, “Kennedy’s message of integration and cooperation was lost, from virtual denial of our presence.”

Since then, Latin America “has been left on the back burner, at best,” he said. However, he noted President Obama, whom he quoted as saying that Latin America is “more important to the security and prosperity of the United States than ever before.”

http://www.projo.com/news/content/COLOMBIAN_PRESIDENT.1_04-06-11_NDND0JU_v16.1a1c21a.html

Edited April 6, 2011 by Michael Hogan

[Ron Ecker]

The old joke about the Alliance for Progress is that in Spanish it translates as la Alianza para el Progreso, which literally means (in addition to the intended meaning) "the alliance stops progress."

[Don Jeffries]

It's always been more likely that a politician in another country will speak about the JFK assassination, before any U.S. congressional representative does.

We have a really pathetic group of "leaders."