o Third, the human factor. All of Latin America's Pacific rim presidents are fluent English speakers. Most have graduate degrees from Stanford, Chicago, Harvard or other U.S. universities. They can hold conversations with President Bush without an interpreter. By comparison neither Rodríguez Saá of Argentina nor da Silva of Brazil nor Venezuela President Hugo Chávez have studied abroad or are fluent in a foreign language. Last week, I asked the top U.S. State Department official in charge of Latin American affairs, Otto Reich, about the possibility of an East-West division in the region's politics. Reich, while a conservative himself, says...
