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 Progress with Freedom: Interama, 1960-1967
During the 1960s Miami was being shaped by international political events. In the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution of 1958-59, hundreds of thousands of Cubans settled in South Florida. The exile community established Spanish as Miami’s second language and helped to shift the city’s orientation toward Latin America. At the national level, President John F. Kennedy implemented an Alliance for Progress (1961), with the objective of providing economic assistance to Latin American countries and encouraging more cordial relationships. Following the missiles crisis, Cuba became an increasing factor of U.S. Cold War policy toward other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, a factor that contributed to the American government’s decision to financially support the Interama project.
Interama also entered a period of change and development in the 1960s. The Authority acquired a new director, Irving Muskat, and incorporated a new theme for the project: The American Way of Life - Progress with Freedom. Billed as a “national contribution to further develop Inter-American progress and amity,” Interama’s plans were embedded with the democratic and anti-communist rhetoric of the 1960s. U.S. and Latin American exhibits planned for the project would represent, among others, “the economic, social, and spiritual phases of life under freedom.” Its centerpiece would be a 1,000 foot Tower of Freedom, set in the middle of a lagoon and designed by Minoru Yamasaki to “rival the Statue of Liberty for fame.”
By the end of the 1960s, however, Interama had failed to garner significant Latin-American participation or secure the finances to begin construction of its buildings. Repeated U.S.-led interventions and bolstered dictatorships in Latin America under the guise of the Alliance for Progress throughout the 1960s had undermined the goals of Pan-American cooperation and sparked anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.
>>> Next
- Interama: Miami and the Pan-American Dream
- Pan-Americanism, Miami and Interama: 1951-1959
- Progress with Freedom: Interama 1960-1967
- The International Area
- Interama's final Act: 1967-1975
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