Bogotá Conference (1948)

The Ninth International Conference of American States was held in Bogotá on 30 March 1948. Delegates from twenty-one American republics were in attendance at the Bogotá Conference, including U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. The major achievement of the conference was the adoption of the charter of the Organization of American States, which created a formal structure for the hitherto loosely organized Inter-American System. The delegates also approved a resolution condemning "international communism or any other totalitarian doctrine." In addition, they adopted a treaty on pacific settlement (Pact of Bogotá), which consolidated into a single instrument existing agreements on the prevention of war, but it was never ratified.

Latin American delegates at the conference hoped that the United States would commit itself to greater economic assistance for the region, but U.S. officials gave greater priority to postwar European recovery and stressed the role of private capital in stimulating economic development. The conference was interrupted by the Bogotazo on 9 April but resumed its deliberations on 14 April.

See alsoOrganization of American States .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Lloyd Mecham, The United States and Inter-American Security, 1889–1960 (1961), esp. pp. 301-317.

Additional Bibliography

Shaw, Carolyn M. Cooperation, Conflict, and Consensus in the Organization of American States. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Vázquez García, Humberto. De Chapultepec a la OEA: Apogeo y crisis del panamericanismo. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2001.

                                         Helen Delpar