Word: pragmatists
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...program. Johnson's first act was to bring in Thomas C. Mann (TIME Cover, Jan. 31) as Assistant Secretary of State to boss both the Alianza and the State Department's Latin American end. So far, the difference is largely one of tone. Mann is a pragmatist, a believer in the art of the possible. He has muted the old-style Alliance hoopla for his own soft sell, and encourages such practical reforms as the new computerized tax-collection that helped Mexico enlarge its tax rolls by 1,200,000 people in eight months...
...reforms. Here Riesman's thinking encounters difficulties. Any scheme for utopia requires a comprehensive view of man; otherwise large-scale social reform has no coherence or legitimacy. But, unlike the 18th century ideologues, Riesman has no driving metaphysic; his approach is "one of seeing rather than doing." To a pragmatist, interested in the implementation of ideas, Riesman's detachment would be annoying...
...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...
...Pragmatist Mann seems to understand this, to realize that Latin America is many lands requiring many approaches. Says he: "Cultures, conditions and problems vary from country to country, and exact conformity is neither practical nor desirable." Each of Latin America's 20 sovereign nations (all but one of them nonCommunist) is enmeshed in its own problems, and each offers the U.S. a separate-and by no means equal-foreign policy challenge...
...Kinds of Nationalism. Thomas Mann, the Texas pragmatist, still thinks there is hope. "I believe in the Alianza" he says, "But we must not believe that it is going to solve all problems. It is not a panacea. Countries lacking a good internal structure cannot expect to prosper with Alianza help-or, for that matter, with all the money in the world. Each country has to be studied as an individual case with individual idiosyncrasies and approaches. Our intention is to work with anybody who seriously wants to survive...