This book, first published in 1993, closely examines the United States government’s policy toward the Latin American debt crisis in the years 1982 to 1985. The United States under Reagan sought to maintain the problem as strictly a private creditor/debtor issue, and avoided the internationalization of the problem. With the election of Bush, however, government policy changed in 1989, and this book analyses the different approaches of both administrations, the successes and failures of their policies, and the eventual resolution of the debt crisis.