<Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> We (the U.S.) have not only supported a dictatorship in Cuba--we have propped up dictators in Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay and the Dominican Republic . We not only ignored poverty and distress in Cuba--we have failed in the past eight years to relieve poverty and distress throughout the hemisphere . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="3">--President John F. Kennedy, October 6, 1960 </Td> </Tr> <P> Besides this aggressive policy towards Cuba, John F. Kennedy tried to implement the Alliance for Progress, an economic aid program which proved to be too shy signed at an inter-American conference at Punta del Este, Uruguay, in August 1961 . </P> <P> In Venezuela, president Rómulo Betancourt faced determined opposition from extremists and rebellious army units, yet he continued to push for economic and educational reform . A fraction split from the government party, Democratic Action, and formed the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). When leftists were involved in unsuccessful revolts at navy bases (El Barcelonazo, El Carupanazo, El Porteñazo), Betancourt suspended civil liberties in 1962 . Elements of the left parties then formed the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN), a communist guerrilla army, to overthrow Betancourt democratic regime . This drove the leftists underground, where they engaged in rural and urban guerrilla activities, including sabotaging oil pipelines, bombing a Sears Roebuck warehouse, kidnapping American Colonel Michael Smolen, seizing soccer star Alfredo Di Stefano, and bombing the United States Embassy in Caracas . FALN failed to rally the rural poor and to disrupt the December 1963 presidentials elections . </P>

What was the relationship between this region and the growing power of the united states