Furthermore, Ruben Robles, who has known Arias since his run for the presidency of Costa Rica in 1985 and is now an official at the Costa Rican embassy in Washington, D.C., says that much of Arias' campaign strategy in 1985 was inspired by JFK.

"He used the idea of bringing in the young blood, new thinking, new ideas into the party. He focused on 21-to 35-year-olds, and that developed a tremendous amount of momentum," Robles says. Arias used the idea that a torch had been passed to a new generation of Costa Ricans in his campaign, and that message proved to have resonance.

Robles says that the key to Arias' triumph as the Partido de Liberacion de National (PLN) candidate, which came after aggressive inter-party contention in the primary, was his idea that "technologija" had to be brought into the government. His championing of professionalism was a subtle way of emphasizing the same theme, that the days of the older political establishment had been eclipsed by a younger generation.

Despite his anti-establishment rhetoric, Arias rose up through the ranks of the party; in 1964, he became an assistant to PLN's elder statesman, Jose Figueres Ferrer, and in 1965 he worked on a PLN candidate's unsuccessful presidential bid.

When Figueres returned to the presidency in 1970, he gave Arias an entree into the Costa Rican government, appointing him to his economic council, In 1972, Arias became minister of planning and political economy. By 1979, he had been elected to the PLN's top post, that of general secretary.

Costa Rica is a small and fairly poor nation. But it has been democratically run since a civil war in 1948 led to the abolishment of Costa Rica's military. Power has been peacefully transfered at the conclusion of each president's four-year term. By law, a Costa Rican president cannot succeed himself.

"You'd feel very easy in Costa Rica, and it would compare favorably with Western European and even U.S. democracy," Hakim says. He notes that in addition to a strong two-party system, Costa Rica has a vigorous free press and a fairly equitable economic system.

Largely because of Costa Rica's democratic history, Arias was uniquely positioned to present the peace plan, experts on the region say. As Hakim puts it, "Costa Rica is in, but not of, Central America" which is best known for death squads, brutal dictatorships and guerilla warfare.

In a speech this fall at the Kennedy School of Government, which, University Marshal Hunt notes, favorably impressed those involved in selecting the Commencement speaker, Arias made a direct connection between Costa Rica's unique history and his efforts on behalf of peace.

"I come from a small country that was not afraid to abolish its army to become stronger. In my country there is not one tank, not one cannon and not one warship or helicopter gunship. We love democracy and respect the law," Arias said in that speech.

"Ours has been a working democracy for 100 years. It is the oldest in Latin America and one of the oldest in the world," he said this fall. "Our ambition is development. Our desire is peace on our borders."

The Arias plan aims, as he said in his K-School speech, to foster "reconciliation wherever brothers are killing each other." The plan asks foreign powers to stop using military influence in the region and calls on the signers to refrain from using their countries as springboards for aggression against their neighbors. The plan also calls signatory nations to make an effort to democratize their countries.

The success of the plan depends on how one views it. If seen primarily as an effort to end the civil war in Nicaragua, and to bring peace between the Sandinista government and its neighbors, the accord seems to have been successful.

As a result of the plan, the Contra rebels and the Sandinistas government agreed to cease fire early this year, and they are engaged in negotiations. Additionally, the Nicaraguan government has allowed the previously shut down newspaper La Prensa to begin publishing again.

But critics of the plan suggest that the reforms are at the best cosmetic.