Presidents of Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and Hispaniola

This book consists of notes of conversations by one of America's leading Latin Americanists, as well as his correspondence with more than two dozen presidents of the Central American republics, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. In some cases, there are numerous conversations and letters with individual chief executives; in other instances, there are only individual conversations or notes on talks which the author heard.

Each entry reflects the thinking of the person involved at the time of the interview or letter and many shed light on the activities of the individual presidents. Before the items dealing with each particular country, Alexander provides introductory notes, giving information on the individuals dealt with in that country as well as the circumstances of the letters and conversations. These materials, together with those contained in earlier volumes dealing with South America, provide students of 20th-century Latin America unique insight into its political leadership and its history from the 1940s onward.

ROBERT J. ALEXANDER is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science, Rutgers University. He was a member of John F. Kennedy's Task Force on Latin America where the Alliance for Progress was developed, and he is a former consultant to the American Federation of Labor and the AFL-CIO on Latin American and Caribbean organized labor. One of the country's most respected scholars of Latin American politics and economic affairs, Professor Alexander is the author or editor of forty-five earlier books, most of them focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean, including The Bolivian National Revolution, the first English-language study of that upheaval, and the history of labor and radical movements.