The Rise and Fall of the Peruvian Military Radicals, 1968-1976

In a short analysis of the Velasco government and its successor, stressing the various views concerning the origins and nature of the left-oriented military and the reasons for their decline, the author concludes that a number of major initiatives were achieved, but that "the problem of participation is the Achilles heel of radical military regimes. . . . No regime can indefinitely reconcile open participation with an enforced and unpopular policy."