Mr. Vargas Llosa goes to Washington

Juan E. De Castro

pp. 21-27

in: Juan E. De Castro, Nicholas Birns (eds), Vargas Llosa and Latin American politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

In March 2005 Mario Vargas Llosa received the Irving Kristol Award. This award is granted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the influential probusiness think tank that then had close ties to the administration of President Bush. The symbiosis between the AEI and the Republican administration is evidenced by the fact that former President George W. Bush made public his decision to invade Iraq during the ceremony for the first of these awards in 2003. In fact, among those present at the award dinner and reception in 2005 were then-vice president Richard B. Cheney and then-deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, two of the architects of the Iraq war.