Jose Figueres Ferrer Oral History Interview

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

Other interviews conducted in Costa Rica during the summer of 1970 are on deposit at the University Archives, University Libraries, University of Kansas.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened July, 1970
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

[1]

MCCOY: Well, sir, our first question. And let me say that with any of these questions, of course, any way you want to answer them, if you want to add other things that aren't covered by the questions, please feel free to do so. The first question, really I suppose would be two questions. At the end of the Second World War, what did you believe were the chief problems of Costa Rica in terms of economics, politics, international relations, health, communications? And along this line, did you think that the United States had a responsibility to cooperate in the solution of these problems?

FIGUERES: At the end of World War II, our number one problem in Costa Rica was the OPA, the Office of Price Administration in the United States, which, at that time, was in the hands of one of my two friends, either Galbraith, I think it was the first or the second, or who was the one -- Bowles, either Bowles or Galbraith?

[2]

I don't know whom to blame, but we paid a very high price for it. We are mainly exporters of coffee. At the beginning of World War II, coffee was rather low. When war broke out the U.S. froze all prices, internal prices, and established the OPA to handle the freezing. This included coffee because it is consumed in the United States -- not produced. So we continued to sell, I think, at about 18 cents a pound three or four crops, when actually the free market price had gone up to 38 or 40. I believe that we contributed at least one half the value of four coffee crops to the war effort. I've been telling my friends in Latin America in the coffee countries that maybe we paid the low price after all for fighting Nazism. But this was our monetary contribution. The country was absolutely broke in this sense at the end of World War II. And yet, it was a strange way of being broke, because imports had been extremely difficult to obtain, and therefore, although we had no merchandise, we had a relatively large amount of dollar reserves, of foreign currency available. Of course, as soon as we could import foreign goods all these reserves in Costa Rica, like in the rest of Latin America, disappeared. You ask here [on

[3]

list of prepared questions] if I think or thought that the United States had any responsibility in cooperating to the solutions of problems. This involves a major question, really, to what extent are the most prosperous nations in today's mankind responsible (if you want to use the word), for the welfare of the whole of mankind. For those of us who believe that the tendency is towards integration and that this is the end, for the time being, of a very long revolutionary period, it is a responsibility of those who are going ahead, to look back and wait and see, and not get too far separated from those who fall -- among individuals, among families, communities, and nations. And in this sense the United States and Western Europe today, and the Soviet Union today, and Japan today have a major responsibility towards the rest of the world. They have partly inherited and partly built up in the industrial revolution; and because of the industrial, which is a scientific revolution really, they have gotten so far ahead. And now they have a tremendous bargaining power which would make it possible for them, for the prosperous nations, to keep the less prosperous nations back, farther and farther, if they wanted to use this power, and if these weren't against

[4]

the rules of nature. It won't happen. Those of us who have fought for ethical economic relations between rich and poor nations, now that a great deal of headway is being made, and that the rich nations are more convinced today than it appears of the necessity of bringing up to date, into the 20th century, the underdeveloped world. And this is not being done, largely because of the war expenses. Then and today war continues to be our main enemy. I know it is in the United States. I just recently learned some details about how serious this is for the Soviet Union; how far the war effort -- in things that appeared to me to be foolish and unjustified, like their policy in the Middle East -- how much the expenses of this are hindering their aid to underdeveloped countries and the betterment of their own people. And, of course, we are much more familiar with the internal problems of the United States where we cannot really meet the big problems like pollution, or like parking, or like the shortage of higher educational facilities, or housing -- housing is terrible in the States now. We cannot meet the great problems of the people because we have to devote an incredible proportion of our gross national product to war. I think we are just

[5]

as barbaric as the primeval tribes, because they also lived in perpetual warfare, and in a different way we are dedicating a tremendous amount of our energies to warfare, whether it is a hot war or not; and this is, really, keeping not only the underdeveloped world underdeveloped, but the underdeveloped sections of the United States and of the rich nations underdeveloped. I happen to keep track of these figures, and we are now reaching the 200 billion a year amount for war expenses, which will be looked upon in history as the doings of a dark age.

MCCOY: May I ask you, do you think that the amount of international assistance that has been developed by various countries since World War II would have developed even without the stresses of the Cold War, that they might even have been better? Do you think that's a possibility?

FIGUERES: This is a very intriguing question. We owe the whole concept of international assistance to war, like we owe to war…like we owe to war many scientific discoveries.

MCCOY: I was thinking about this because the other day you mentioned Lend-Lease.

FIGUERES: Yes. As I mentioned the other day, in my

[6]

opinion -- and this is just an observation on the part of history in which I have lived -- international assistance was really born with Lend-Lease arrangements during the Second World War. It was a revolutionary measure under which all the nations, the allied nations, agreed to share available reserves. The peacetime equivalent of this is contained, at least philosophically, in President Truman's second inaugural, in that famous sentence in which he says that "Knowledge is the patrimony of mankind." I don't know whether those are his words or not, but I've been using it this way for a long time. The knowledge belongs to mankind and not to the individual or to the nation who happens to develop it or to possess it. This was a very, very revolutionary idea on the part of a powerful nation. It would have been all right if it had come from the "have-nots" but coming from the United States' President, it was an incredible revolution from the top.

Now, we owe all ideas of international assistance to Lend-Lease, and therefore to war. We have had absolutely insufficient international assistance ever since, especially in the last few years, because of war. But the amount we have, in a way, is also due

[7]

to war because of the political competition between the Soviet Union and the United States. After all, if it weren't for this competition, in which sometimes the big powers give the appearance of being in a political campaign competing for the votes of the poor countries, international assistance would even be smaller. So, you have to blame war and be grateful to war -- just like in scientific progress.

MCCOY: What were the difficulties in obtaining United States' cooperation, generally speaking, in the postwar period.

FIGUERES: What were the difficulties? Always political.

MCCOY: But we're thinking here not only, you see, of Senor Picado's administration, but the Junta and...

FIGUERES: Yes, the difficulties were political in the sense that there's a great deal of government by public opinion in the U.S.; I know because I've been there. A great portion of public opinion has never quite understood international assistance. And incidentally, during Mr. Truman's administration I toured the whole Northwest of the United States with Mr. Nelson Rockefeller in a private plane, going from town to town explaining what point 4 was (as we called it then, international assistance),

[8]

Mr. Rockefeller, speaking from the point of view of the United States, as a personal representative of Mr. Truman, which he was at that moment, and I, speaking as a member of the recipient nations. I was invited to tour with him, and the surprise of the American peoples that we visited was great when we told them the amounts involved, which were microscopic by comparison to their ideas, and when we told them of the amount that the receiving countries were contributing to these programs, which we didn't know of. Everywhere we found the same surprise. And this continues to be the case. We figure -- by "we" I mean those of us who fought for the creation of UNTAA [United Nations Technical Assistance Administration] this new agency of the United Nations for relations between rich and poor countries -- we figure that something like two percent of the gross national product of the rich nations devoted to international aid would be a great push, and probably, in the average, it would be as much as can be used, because you know, money is not all. You have to prepare programs, you have to prepare people, and people's receptive minds, and so on: So that in our opinion -- and I belong to sort of a little, private club of people who have been

[9]

working for this -- in our opinion, and we have recommended this officially to UNTAA, two percent should be devoted to aid to the less developed world and probably could be used and would be enough, and would effect a miracle in a quarter of a century, or half a century. Now, this has been extremely difficult to obtain from the rich countries because of political reasons. If you figure that the U.S. is reaching now, what, a trillion dollars or a billion billion, in a few years they're going to reach a billion billion, I hope so. I'm very much concerned with what's going on at this moment as we talk; and I just phoned to Washington and a lot of people are concerned there. It will reach the figure of a billion billion, and two percent, if I'm not mistaken, would mean for the United States alone twenty billion. Twenty billion in foreign aid, from the U.S. alone. It would probably mean forty or fifty billion for the world at large. Now, the U.S. has been reducing foreign aid in every administration, or in every Congressional session. We're now below three billion, when twenty billion should be the figure. Now, this difference of seventeen billion is strictly political. It is not a question of whether the U.S. economy can afford it or not, it's

[10]

a question of whether there is a political way of making the American people through their Congress accept a thing like this, when they are systematically getting reductions. The same is true, I think, for internal problems of the United States. I've been very agreeably surprised, because it enhances my vanity, of which I do not have little, to see that some people have come to the same conclusion that I came to long ago, that what the U.S. needs internally is fifteen billion a year for development during ten years. Somebody else came with the lump amount of a hundred and fifty billion, which coincided precisely with my own estimates -- and don't ask me how I reached it. But the U.S. needs fifteen billion, to mention any figure, a year; and if they would devote fifteen billion to foreign aid at this moment, it would revolutionize the world. The fifteen billion would probably be approximately two percent of the gross national product.

If the U.S. economy were devoting two percent of the gross national product, or fifteen billion, to internal development, and two percent, or fifteen billion, to international developments, we would in ten years clean out the poverty areas of the United

[11]

States, and the major problems of American society today. The whole thing would be thirty billion which is inconceivable politically, and yet, we're spending a hundred billion in war. The inconsistencies of our society are so numerous that we had better not think of them too much and if you compare how much we're spending in nonsensical advertising with what we're spending on higher education, you would come to the same conclusion. And so, on and on. If it were a logical world and a logical family of nations, I don't know where we'd be, but we're not. This is the problem.

Anyway, I consider the expense in armaments of today as something as silly as the Crusades of say nine hundred or a thousand years ago, something that will go down in history as the huge mistake of mankind in a relatively civilized society.

MCCOY: I gather you feel this partly explains the modest appropriations for point 4.

FIGUERES: This is exactly what I mean. It is easier to sell politically to the people terrific expenses in war, because you cater to patriotism and to emotions, and it is very difficult to get public opinion to agree to something more constructive and less emotive.

MCCOY: Could you comment on the origins of United States

[12]

technical assistance missions? We would be interested in the opinion...

FIGUERES: Well, we were very fortunate in the history of international assistance between the United States and Costa Rica, as in many other things historical. For some reason, Costa Rica has been very lucky in its history with the United States. It began with the Inter-American Assistance Programs, or something of that kind...

MCKINZIE: Institute for Inter-American Affairs.

FIGUERES: Institute for Inter-American Affairs was highly successful in Costa Rica, and one of the first directors here was Mr. Howard Gabbert, with whom I became very friendly. I still remember him fondly. Now, he was a man who was a model of down to earth realism, no illusions about excessive foreign assistance, or anything. He would go down to the farmer and find out what the real need was. He must have been an agricultural man before, because he certainly knew. I like to tell a little story of something that happened between him and me, I think he has forgotten. He and I went to some area of small farming. I wanted him to get, personally, the reactions of the peasant farmers. Since I speak peasant language

[13]

and I get along very well with them and they don't feel shy, I managed to get hold of a man and told him, "If somebody could help you, Mr. So-and-So, suppose we could help you, what would be your need, what do you think we could do as a government or friends, or in any capacity, to improve your little farm here? Would you speak of a tractor, or would you speak of fertilizer, or what? Is there anything you think we could do?"

The man said, "Well, look at those two oxen that are plowing?"

I said, "Yes."

"Do you see that one is older than the other?"

I said, "I happen to know about them, because I have bought hundreds of teams of oxen in my life, and I'm sure that the one to the left side is older. I'm sure the one is older, Mr. So-and-So."

He said, "You know what follows?"

"Yes, I know, you have to change him."

"Well, if you could finance the change of that ox for a younger one, this farm would be transformed." [Figueres laughed].

That's the farmer's real need. Change the older ox for a younger one.

[14]

Well, Mr. Gabbert exercised a great influence in this country. He even left a coined word, STICA, which we're now still using for agricultural extension. And I don't know what happened, but he was removed, as I remember, just out of political decisions, which was very lamentable for Costa Rica. I know if he won or lost, or although if he won, because I imagine a man like him, wherever he goes he is welcome. But we certainly lost by having him removed from Costa Rica. There was nothing specifically against him, I think, it must have been some party politics, the way it goes on in all democracies. Anyway, if you see him or you know of him please tell him that I remember him with great fondness.

MCCOY: By all means. Would you say that the United States Technical Assistance missions developed in a way that was realistic in terms of the needs of Costa Rica, and that Costa Rican interests were consulted?

FIGUERES: Yes, by all means. Not only that, it left a school here. A great number of agricultural engineers were formed in that period. Now, this is no comment on missions that have come later, because at this particular moment, AID has excellent people here, maybe because they're Jewish, but they're damned good.

[15]

They are helping us in overall programs for improving agriculture with a great deal of money injected from AID funds in the United States -- very well planned. There may have been deficiencies in the assistance of the United States since the Second World War in Costa Rica, but by and large, if all the programs in the world had gone half as well as they have gone in Costa Rica, the world would be definitely better.

MCCOY: I was wondering, did you see great problems in the changeover from STICA programs to an emphasis on point 4 in Costa Rica?

FIGUERES: Well, as far as I can remember, the main problem was financial, because the U.S. contribution to it was withdrawn. It was one of those theoretical things, well inspired, but not always realistic. Somebody prepared the idea that if something was started in Costa Rica with money contributions from the United States, then Costa Rica could and should take over. Then Costa Rice either could or did not, or low coffee prices came, or what-have-you, and the contributions, the money that went into agricultural extension from then on was a great deal less, and probably also coupled with the lack of warmth and friendship of someone like Mr. Gabbert, the extension practically went

[16]

to pieces. At this moment it is very bad in Costa Rica. One of my worst discoveries during the recent campaign in which I traveled throughout the country (I visited 884 communities), one of my worst discoveries was how little, how nonexistent, agricultural extension is. It's terrifically lamentable. Then people complain of inflation, that one problem is not related to the other. It is, because if you don't produce food you have high prices, and high prices and inflation seem to me to go hand in hand.

MCCOY: Had there been any signs of deterioration in this between the time when you left office under the Junta and the time you were elected in 1953?

FIGUERES: Well, that's a very precise thing. Probably there were, but I wouldn't swear to it. No. I would say that at this moment we're going to greatly increase agricultural assistance, partly because we are doubling our budget for the ministry, and partly because of this program, this AID, under Mr. Harrison's leadership, has been developing. His name is quite Nordic, but he is Jewish.

MCCOY: He's a very interesting gentleman.

FIGUERES: Oh, you know him?

MCCOY: Yes.

[17]

FIGUERES: Oh, I like him, he's a very good guy. Harrison -- he's a very good guy.

MISS HERZFELD: A young person, too.

FIGUERES: Young fellow, yes. He knows the economy of the country very well.

MCKINZIE: Mr. President, of the three types of outside, exterior money, or exterior aid of various sorts -- technical assistance or foreign investment or direct payments of a sort, after the war, would it be fair to say that one of those was, more important than the other, or are they all a part of the same package, so to speak, for the development of Costa Rica?

FIGUERES: I would say that there are, as you say, three main ways or channels for injecting savings or resources of money into a new economy like this. The more desirable one is the natural one of paying higher prices for our products, paying for our national work. This is the most desirable one because we don't have to return it. It automatically becomes our patrimony, where part of it is spent and part saved, but it is our money. So this is the most desirable one. The second one is loans, as easy as possible, especially soft loans these days are very favorable. And the third one is direct investment.

[18]

Direct investment has a favorable effect in the development, but it has real and potential disadvantages. The real ones are that if you increase too much you're really making a country dependent on another, you're establishing a modern type of colonialism -- if you increase it out of proportion to the growth of local wealth. And it brings about political problems, eventually, for both countries, the investing company and the recipient country. Probably this is the main disadvantage.

Now, we don't have a uniform policy, a policy towards foreign investment. We like to analyze case by case on what will it do for the country, what are the prospects of their being prosperous -- because we don't want anybody to invest here and lose money -- how will it affect Costa Rican society by and large. So that the only thing we have is an open mind to study propositions and to welcome foreign capital. But when they want special conditions, we have to study case by case.

MCCOY: This has been a fairly traditional policy since the end of World War II?

FIGURES: Yes, yes, because the end of World War II almost coincided with our party coming to maturity. We really

[19]

became responsible for the country in 1948. Until we overthrew the previous regime, which was a regime . And, more or less, we established a regime, although the opposition to us has been the executive branch of government three or four times since then. There isn't much that they have been able to undo, so that we're really responsible for good and evil for the last twenty-two or twenty-three years in this country.

MCCOY: In terms of your mentioning the possibility of the colonial relationship between a large power and a small power, a question happened to come to mind. And that is, in the period -- I guess one could see it as early as 1951, but by 1953, '54 and '55, obviously, the thing has grown, and that is in terms of greater cooperation among the Central American States; I'm thinking, for example, of ODECA [Organization de Estados Centroamericanosl and some earlier cooperative attempts in the early 1950s among the Central American nations -- would you say that this is an attempt at what we call "self-help" or is it an attempt -- or maybe at the same time -- is an attempt to perhaps increase the bargaining power of the Central American States vis-a-vis a large country like the United States or Great Britain. Or am I completely

[20]

off the track in asking this?

FIGUERES: Yes, I can see. I would think that the Number One objective of all our efforts in Central American integration is economic, and it's a question of having larger markets at the time when production methods are becoming more and more adapted to large markets.

MCCOY: Why did there seem to be a stimulus for this in that particular time?

FIGUERES: At that time.

MCCOY: Yes, in 1950, it seems that...

FIGUERES: That there was a particular stimulus?

MCCOY: Yes.

FIGUERES: I don't think that the five Central American countries together could have much bargaining power vis-a-vis the United States. However, I was responsible for great efforts to get several countries together in the struggle with the United Fruit Company, which is a different thing. One thing is dealing with United Fruit, and one thing is dealing with the United States of America. One is a little larger than the other. In this it would have been desirable to get the different banana countries of Central America to renegotiate contracts simultaneously. We never succeeded in this, because of the varying points of view.

[21]

For example: In Guatemala the parties in power were not interested in renegotiating, but in destroying the United Fruit or the banana business, which seemed to our group in Costa Rica to be suicidal for Guatemala. In Honduras, they were horrified that of United Fruit and identified it too much with "Uncle Sam." They wouldn't think of anything that might look rebellious. In Panama, they were under chronic negotiations about the Panama Canal -- still are, and will be I don't know for how long. And those are the three banana countries aside from Costa Rica. So, we never could get together. Our party fought alone. Eventually, we found a powerful ally, in some aspects, which was the U.S. State Department, in our contention with the Treasury Department of the United States, that certain taxes which really belonged to the Costa Rican treasury, were being paid to the American treasury. When the U.S. State Department was convinced of this, they exercised their pressure in our favor. They did much more as allies than any other Central American country.

MCCOY: About what time was this?

FIGUERES: 1950.

MCCOY: 1950.

[22]

FIGUERES: I think, yes.

MCCOY: Mr. Acheson would have been Secretary by then.

FIGUERES: Yes. Oh, yes, if it hadn't been for the State Department under Mr. Acheson, I don't think we would have been able to renegotiate. Beginning with the fact that the word itself, "renegotiation," stinks to most lawyers...They would put their hands over their heads and say: "the sanctity of the contract," and I'd say, "Well, I've seen things equally sanct go to pieces." We are pioneers in this thesis that contracts are contracts as long as basic circumstances do not change. In economic matters -- not to go into human affairs, which are even more complicated -- in economic matters, the example we used was the city of Paris, which in 1902 or '03 contracted for a hundred years of gas lighting for the city -- gas: In the last five years, I think, because of the progress of electricity, the sanctity of the contracts couldn't have been less sanct, less holy. Now it has become a juridical theory or juridical doctrine, which has a name in Latin, to the effect that even contracts should be reconsidered when conditions under which the parties involved, incurred in those contracts, have changed.

MCKINZIE: Mr. President, I don't mean to be presumptuous

[23]

here, but did the American aid programs during the Junta fit your program for reform in Costa Rica? I realize you had many things you wanted to do during those years; and were these programs compatible, or were they sort of...

FIGUERES: My recollection is that the people in the U.S. Embassy were very sympathetic, but the people in the World Bank were horrible. They were horrible. The people in the World Bank were extreme reactionaries who came to Costa Rica and listened to what the oligarchy here, which we had just overthrown, was saying, and repeated all the arguments for us. They were against the nationalization of the banks. They were against taxing capital after the war. They were against anything that meant social progress. They were European functionaries sent by the World Bank. I have had many dealings with the World Bank in the University of Stanford in San Francisco. I had my first quarrel in the very early fifties about prices, stability international, the founders of the World Bank said it was heresy, that prices should be allowed to get established by offer and demand. They discovered something new, you see; they told me it came from Adam Smith. Although it came from Adam Smith, it was quite recent to them. It only took eight

[24]

years for a new president Black to repeat exactly my thesis in Chicago. Now, this has become so evident that even as an immovable monument as the International Monetary Fund has discovered that prices are important. It's a gigantic stride forward for the International Monetary Fund to realize that the world is not made of currency. It's made of goods and people, you see. But it's too revolutionary for the bankers.

MCCOY: I gather, then, that through the Embassy, that whatever...

FIGUERES: The Ambassador was fine, Mr. Davis, an. old man, very lovable man.

MCCOY: I gather though that through the Embassy or through, perhaps something like STICA, that you found that they were willing to listen to your suggestions?

FIGURES: Yes, very much. They were interested in social progress, very sympathetic. The Ambassador himself was a very kind man. He is retired now, I think it was Mr. Davis. He risked his life in one of the peace negotiations. He went through the lines, and I think was shot at, and stayed here. But at that time, I remember that we had the Berlin airlift and that he and I were day by day watching events and hoping

[25]

that nothing weird would happen.

MCCOY: So, basically, his position during the revolution itself, was...

FIGUERES: Very good. Very fair. We have no complaint. Very recently before, what was happening was, that because of the military alliance between the United States and Russia, many people in the U.S. and in the foreign embassies, were not only pro-Russia, but pro-Communist. Since we were fighting the Communists in power here, we were really their contenders or their enemies, their opponents to the embassies, before '48. But in '48 the Cold War was really beginning already, but before that when I was in the underground, for example, the Communists in the Embassy were very close allies in persecution. We were the troublemakers and the Communists were the good guys. This doesn't mean that the functionaires of the U.S. Embassy here were Communists, it's just that they were war allies. We were war allies of the U.S. I was pro-French in the First World War, and we were pro-allies in the First World War, so we were very passionate in the Second World War. But here we had a Communist in power helping in the violation of the electoral rights. Our war was about the

[26]

electoral rights, and the Communists, of course, don't believe in the electoral right.

MCCOY: I was wondering, you commented on the positions of the Embassy during the revolution, were private American interests aloof, or did they take sides?

FIGUERES: No, they did not take sides. Shortly after we won, there was a booklet printed by the Communists in which the map of Costa Rica was portrayed full of oil rigs, of which we had some, and then chains going from the top of the oil rig, around the country, under the ocean, tying it to the oil industry; and proving that we had financed our revolution through the oil companies. It's too bad, it wasn't true. If I had known we had the oil companies with us, we wouldn't have starved so much. No, the American businesses did not interfere in anything. When we nationalized the banks we had an unfavorable reaction from most American banks. The most liberal minded was Chase. Chase Manhattan was very liberal and never closed. The very limited amount of credit we had with them was never closed, but the rest of the banks did try to sabotage. And they made another attempt three years ago here in which they paid a powerful international publicity agency to try to impress our congressmen,

[27]

and we fought tooth and nail. We had seven or eight public controversies in which we never lost a point. There's absolutely nothing you can argue here against the nationalization of the banks. They didn't win the argument, but that was financed by international banks, many were U.S. banks.

MCCOY: At the time of the nationalization of the banks, how did these interests try to sabotage, through lobbying with members of the Congress?

FIGUERES: No, no, because we had no Congress, thank God, at that time. We did it by an executive decree.

MCCOY: Through propaganda or did they...

FIGUERES: No, by denying credit to Costa Rica. No, they had no offices here at that time, no. The banks have been away from here since 1936 because of a previous very revolutionary measure at that time, in which the gold standard was abandoned, and in which restrictions were imposed on foreign banks, mainly the Royal Bank of Canada, which left the country because of the legislation in 1936. Then by '48 we had no foreign banks. The only harm they could do was to restrict credit -- in the U.S., not with offices here.

MCKINZIE: Mr. President, you have been kind with your time…

[28]

FIGUERES: You have been, with my telephone...

MCKINZIE: ...but I guess an overall kind of response to whether or not the effects of the programs were equal to the promise of the United States when they negotiated these programs, do you think they were? Do you think they improved health or agriculture...

FIGUERES: I don't remember of any broad promises, you know. The only instance I can remember of this is one in which I am one of the culprits. I participated in the founding of the establishing of the Alliance For Progress in Punte del Este. For heavens sake...the schedule...the things we said would take place in ten years will take fifty. We were all sanguine in Punte del Este, you see. We had no realistic idea of how long it would take for many things to happen and to develop. But in all honesty, when aid began by the U.S. to these countries after the Second World War, I don't remember any broad promises.

MCCOY: In terms of, let's say starting with the Institute for Inter-American Affairs program in 1943, I think that's right...

FIGUERES: No, it was before 1943.

MCCOY: I was thinking, taking it from that point, oh, until the end of your administration in 1958 or until

[29]

the conference at Punte del Este, do you think that the effect of United States' aid programs in Costa Rica was equal to the expectation that you might have had at various points at this time?

FIGUERES: In this country, we never create excessive expectations. No, I don't think the U.S. has been embarrassed about anything concerning foreign aid in Costa Rica, because of lack of fulfillment or anything of that kind. I would like to mention something just in case you're interested. When the crash of 1929 came, there were many outstanding bond issues by Latin American governments, as we floated in New York and Europe -- borrowing. This borrowing had been so easy and there had been so much corruption in it. Any dirty politician from a South American republic by sharing a third of the profits with a promoter in New York or in Switzerland would sell the public bonds that were really nothing. And when the crash came, all that collapsed. As a consequence Latin America was left without any access to credit capital until after the Second World War, from '29 to the day in which the World Bank finally opened doors, a year or a year and a half after the conference at Bretton Woods. At Bretton Woods it was decided to

[30]

establish the World Bank, among two agencies. You know, Keynes wanted three. But they established two agencies: a World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank was at Bretton Woods. And in maybe '45 or so, the World Bank opened, and then we began having international development credit for the first time since '29. As bad and corrupt as the credit had been in the twenties, it was relatively abundant. And it did some good, did a lot of good. Now this was closed, absolutely closed until the World Bank came. Now the World Bank came partly as a reaction against the methods used in the twenties, and it had, and has, so many strings attached that it has become almost unmanageable. For example, here we have to have a couple of experts in any office that deals with the World Bank in preparing documents the way that their own people want them. It all has to be in their own jargon, and the one here tries to create a job for one more in the World Bank; and the one there tried to create a job for another young economist in Costa Rica. It's a very nice mutual help, tacit arrangement, and things have become more and more complicated. Now, this has characterized the World Bank from its beginning, as a reaction to the loose method of the

[31]

twenties. This has been imitated by the Inter-American Development Bank. There you see, things have come to a point when you say, "Well, let's build this, and then start the feasibility story for the Bank and file it when it's finished. In the meantime we'll enjoy the thing if we can build it." We only go to them, through all the red tape and bureaucracy and technical studies, because they do supply the cheapest money and the longest-term money. Because from a certain level up, they seem to have good technical people and advice on things like hydroelectric projects, it is usually wise. But at the level of young economists performing studies, it is something unmanageable.

But the main thing is that Latin America was penalized for the loose methods of the twenties, from '29 to '45, which delayed Latin American development tremendously. Then came World War II, our prices were fixed by OPA, and we contributed heavily to the war expenses that way, so that after the World War II, we had a great deal of foreign exchange relatively. but Latin America was in very bad shape. And the accumulated evils are still present. We still have a backlog of human problems that come from the thirties.

MCCOY: Is there anything else you might want to comment

[32]

on that we didn't cover in our questions?

FIGUERES: I don't know, are we finished with your questions? No, I don't really know what you are looking for. Your questions do have a certain slant, which goes along with my own sympathies, by coincidence.

MCCOY: We were thinking...Our feeling is, that you've had so many experiences, and of course, you've been able to develop theories about this, and basically, this is what we're interested in, in trying to...

FIGUERES: You're historians.

MCCOY: That's right.

FIGUERES: Well, then, let me say something again. It has nothing to do with economics. If I were to blame the United States for something in the twentieth century in Latin America, it would be for connivance with corrupt dictatorships. This has been the worst sin, I think. It went on all the time. There has been no corrupt politician in Latin America that hasn't been helped by the U.S. Government and business. And I don't know whether there are any honorable exceptions, where people have not been helped. I took a very active part in the period of inter-American, Latin-American history which has not been written -- I would love the time to write it -- in which a coalition

[33]

was formed of exiled parties to coordinate efforts in exile and overthrow dictators. We overthrew several in Central America. We began in Costa Rica. We overthrew what actually was a Communist held, supported, dictatorship here, and then we helped everywhere. We certainly were responsible for overthrowing [Marcos] Perez Jimenez in Venezuela. Batista was in Cuba. I myself worked two years against Batista, personally. And, several fellows in Central America, we even helped a little in Peru and Argentina. We helped overthrow Peron, incredibly; at least by helping the exiles and giving them encouragement and hiding and radio communications. We were, and still are, a revolutionary party. We're a haven here for exiles from all over the world. I think we should bring down the Czechoslovakian exiles to complete the picture. Bring them to Costa Rica. Dubcek, or what's his name?

MCCOY: Dubcek.

FIGUERES: I'm tempted to invite him. He would be in good company here. In the period of ten years in which I was in the underground in Latin American affairs, the main problem was the U.S. Government; the U.S. intelligence agencies, the U.S. military missions, all favoring Somoza and Batista and Trujillo and

[34]

Perez Jimenez, of course, and Mr. John Foster Dulles. Our main enemy was Mr. John Foster Dulles in his defending corrupt dictatorships. It was so serious that when the 10th Pan American Conference was held in Caracas, Romulo Betancourt, who lived here under my protection, and I decided to line up a few countries that would boycott at Caracas unless the political prisoners were thrown out of the country, at least into exile. So, we got together and made a plan and Betancourt traveled through South America and lined up four countries that would boycott Caracas. What happened, Mr. Dulles himself trailed him, went down and sat with those countries, and told them to backtrack. They couldn't scare me, personally, because I had all my courage in this thing, so finally I convinced him and there was solidarity, and we did boycott the 10th Conference in Caracas, the only country in Latin America, because of general principles, and because there were things on the agenda about human rights that we were going to discuss on top of the dungeons where we had 1500 people being tortured. I produced a document at that time, which is an interesting historical document, saying we will agree to any resolutions that come of this conference –

[35]

pro-human rights, and pro-West, and pro-United States, that's not the point -- but we're just not going to participate in a protest against the present government of Venezuela. At this time, Mr. Dulles was furious, and he and Henry Holland...Then he and Henry Holland were the worst protectors of dictatorship and concessions to companies and all that goes with it. Normally, I think, I don't believe in very wicked intentions in human beings. I don't think Mr. Dulles knew anything about what it was all about in Latin America. I happened to know him personally. He was far from being an evil person. He just didn't know what it was all about. I had many contacts with him, whereas he has a very brilliant brother, with whom I've had a great deal of contact, he is extremely brilliant, Mr. Allen Dulles. You know, we say in those cases, that the brothers were brought up on the same farm and when the milk was skimmed and the one got away with the cream and the other got what was left. The brilliant fellow there was Mr. Allen. Is he still alive?

MCCOY: No, he died.

FIGUERES: They both are dead. In a way, according to the Latins, you should not say anything but good of dead

[36]

people, de mortuis nil nisi bonum. On the other hand, you feel freer now. But I believe that the main complaint that Latin America could have against the United States historically, is cooperation with dictatorships and with the reactionaries, which have always gone together here.

MCCOY: Well, thank you, Mr. President.

Acheson, Dean, 22
Agency for International Development, 14-15, 16
Alliance for Progress, 28

Batista, Fulgencio, 33
Berlin, Germany, 24
Berlin airlift, 24
Betancourt, Romulo, 34
Bowles, Chester, 1
Bretton Woods Conference, 29

Canada, 27
Caracus Conference, 34
Central American integration, 19-20
Chase Manhattan Bank, 26
Chicago, Illinois, 24
Coffee, 2
Cold war, 6, 25
Costa Rica, 1, 29

• • and the Agency for International Development, 14-15, 16
    agriculture in, 16
    and the Chase Manhattan Bank, 26
    and coffee, 2
    communists, and, 25-26
    development of, 17-19
    Gabbert, Howard, and, 12-14
    and the Institute for International Affairs, 12
    the nationalization of the banks of, 26-27
    and the Office of Price Administration, 1-2
    and revolution, 25-26
    and technical assistance missions, 14
    and the United States Fruit Company, 20-21
    and the United States, 1-3, 12, 19, 20, 23, 26
• Cuba, 33
  Czechoslovakia, 33

   

  Davis, Nathaniel P., 24
  Dubcek, Alexander, 33
  Dulles, Allen, 35
  Dulles, John F., 34-35

  Ferrer, Jose Figueres

  • and the Alliance for Progress, 28
    and Batista, Fulgencio, 33
    the Caracus Conference, and, 34
    and Costa Rica:
    • the development of, 17-19
      nationalization of banks, 26-27
      revolution, 25-26
    and Dulles, John F., 34-35
    and farmers, 12-14
    and Gabbert, Howard, 12-14
    and the United Fruit Company, 20-21
    and the World Bank, 29-30
  France, 25

   

  Gabbert, Howard, and Costa Rica, 12-14
  Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1
  Gross national product, 8
  Guatemala, 21

  Harrison, Mr., 16-17
  Holland, Henry, 35
  Honduras, 21

  Institute for Inter-American Affairs, 12, 28
  Inter American Development Bank, 31
  International Monetary Fund, 24, 30

  Japan, 3
  Jimenez, [Marcos] Perez, 33, 34

  Keynes, John Maynard, 30

  Latin American dictators, 32-36
  Lend lease, 5-6

  Office of Price Administration, 1-2, 31
  Organization de Estados Centroamericanos, 19

  Panama, 27.
  Panama Canal, 21
  Pan American Conference, 34
  Peron, Juan, 33
  Point IV, 7-8, 11, 15
  Punta del Este, Uruguay, 28, 29

  Rockefeller, Nelson, 7-8
  Royal Bank of Canada, 27

  STTCA, 14, 24
  San Francisco, California, 23
  Smith, Adam, 23
  Somoza, Anastacio, 33
  Stanford University, 23
  State, Department of, 21, 22
  Switzerland, 29

  Technical assistance missions, 11, 14
  Treasury, Department of the, 21
  Truman, Harry S., 6, 7
  Trujillo, Rafael, 33

  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 3, 4, 7, 25
  United Fruit Company, 20-21
  United Kingdom, 19
  United Nations, 8
  United Nations Technical Assistance Administration, 8-9
  United States, 3, 4, 7, 25, 29

  • and Costa Rica, 1-3, 12, 19, 20, 23, 26
    and economy of, 9-10
    and Latin American dictators, 32-36
    and technological assistance missions, 11, 14

  Venezuela, 33, 34

  Washington, D.C., 9
  World Bank, 23, 29-30
  World War I, 25
  World War II, 1, 2, 5, 18, 28