Interpretation: Monroe DoctrineA.The message of President Monroe was welcomed with great rejoicing throughout LatinAmerica. Not knowing the inside story of the diplomatic negotiations which preceded it,not knowing the weakness of the European menace at the time, not knowing the realpurpose of the Washington government in advancing it, the people of Latin Americaattributed to the Monroe Doctrine a degree of altruism and effectiveness far above reality.Only through the glass of this popular delusion, the efforts of the most important LatinAmerican governments of the epoch to participate in the privileges and obligations of theDoctrine may be understood. They evidently overestimated the generosity of theirNorthern neighbor and misunderstood its aims…. Their mistaken optimism, on the otherhand, and the disappointment which it caused them, served to clarify the real nature ofthe Monroe declarations and to establish even then, at the very beginning, the light inwhich the United States looked up those declarations.- Gaston Nerval,Autopsy of the Monroe Doctrine, 1934B.A century after the announcement of the Doctrine, one our most eminent Secretaries of
