Search for Security: The United States and Central America in the Twentieth Century

Author(s): Thomas M. Leonard

Source: The Americas, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Apr., 1991), pp. 477-490
Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History
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the Americas
XLVII(4), April 1991, 477-490
Copyright by
the
Academy
of American
Franciscan
History
4 Research Issu es
SEARCH FOR SECURITY: THE UNITED STATES
AND CENTRAL AMERICA IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY
he fall of
Nicaragu an strongman
Anastasio Somoza in
Ju ly
1979
contribu ted to the
pu blication
of an abu ndance of literatu re on
United States-Central American relations and, like the literatu re be-
fore it, focu sed
largely u pon
the crisis at hand. Two historical
su rveys ap-
peared.
Walter LaFeber's
Inevitable Revolu tions:
The United States and
Central America
represented
a revisionist
approach, charging
that United
States economic
imperialism
is
responsible
for the
present
crisis. John Fin-
dling's
Close
Neighbors,
Distant Friends: United States-Central American
Relations is a
straightforward
accou nt
describing Washington's response
to
variou s crisis. Still an
analysis
of the literatu re is absent.1 In an effort to
address that issu e,
this article examines the literatu re on United States-Cen-
tral American relations in the twentieth
centu ry
and conclu des that the
United States acted on behalf of its own
secu rity interests, whether or not
the threat of
foreign
intervention had been real or
imagined.
In
effect, the
United States maintained the statu s
qu o
and failed to deal with the stru ctu ral
problems responsible
for the
contemporary crisis.
Imposing Responsible
Government
Du ring
the first
generation
of the twentieth
centu ry, presidential policies
toward Central America differed, bu t
they
shared a common characteristic
1
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolu tions: The United States in Central America (New York,1983)
and John E.
Findling,
Close
Neighbors,
Distant Friends: United States-Central American Relations
(Westport, 1987). Usu ally
Central America is treated as
part
of United States
policy
toward the Carib-
bean
region.
For
example
see Lester D.
Langley,
The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth
Centu ry (Athens, Ga., 1985). With the
exception
of Karl Berman's criticism of United States
policy
in
Under the
Big
Stick:
Nicaragu a
and the United States since 1848 (Boston, 1986), scholarly
stu dies
su rveying
United States relations with
any
one of the five Central American
repu blics
is
lacking.
477
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478 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
and
objective. Teddy
Roosevelt set the tone for these
policies
in his instru c-
tions to the United States
delegates attending
the 1901-1902 Inter-American
Conference at Mexico
City:
Every
failu re on their
part
to maintain social order, every
economic distress
which
might give
rise to domestic distu rbance, every
discord between them
impede
their indu stries, menace their
stability,
or
bring u pon
them the ca-
lamity
of
foreign
intervention wou ld be a misfortu ne to u s.2
Roosevelt based his observation abou t Central American
instability
on
nearly eighty years
of field
reports
from both
pu blic
and
private representa-
tives to the five
repu blics (Costa Rica,
El
Salvador, Gu atemala, Hondu ras
and
Nicaragu a). Policymakers
in
Washington
u nderstood the Central Amer-
icans to be victimized
by
u nstable
governments
and societies in which
power, prestige
and wealth rested in the hands of a few at the
expense
of the
majority.
Minister Charles N. Riotte's 1861 observation remained a bench-
mark:
The
family
feu ds become affairs of State, and the
ascendancy
to
political
preponderance
is often su llied with acts of u nwarrantable
cru elty, practiced
not so mu ch
against
the
political adversary
as
u pon
the
enemy
of the tribe. It
is seldom the
greediness
of
gain
whichcau ses the ou tbreak of hostilities, bu t
rather the desire for
power. 3
Until the United States determined to constru ct its own transisthmian
canal, it
gave
little attention to Central America, except
at times of a
foreign
threat, su ch as the British in the 1840s and 1850s,
with the French canal
effort in the
early
1880s and the British
again
in the
1890s.4
With the ex-
ception
of a few individu als like Minor Keith in Costa Rica,
and the variou s
banana
companies along
the isthmian Caribbean coast, commercial interests
in Central America rested with British and German investors and merchants
throu ghou t
the nineteenth
centu ry.5
2
U.S.
Congress, Senate,
Docu ment
330,
Second International
Congress, Message
from the President
of the United States Transmitting
a
Report
With
Accompanying Papers,
of the
Delegates
of the United
States, Held at Mexico
City
from October 22, 1901 to
Janu ary 22, 1902, pp.
31-32.
3
United States National Archives, Despatches
from Costa Rica, 1861-1873, Charles N. Riotte to
Secretary
of State William H. Seward, Au gu st 29, 1861. Dana G. Mu nro's The Five
Repu blics of
Central America (New York, 1918) illu strates the United States
perception
that Central America was a
backward area.
4 Craig
L. Dozier, Nicaragu a's Mosqu ito
Shore: The Years
of
British and American Presence (Uni-
versity, Ala., 1985); Lester D.
Langley, Stru ggle for the American Mediterranean: United States-Eu ro-
pean Rivalry
in the
Gu lf Caribbean, 1776-1904 (Athens, Ga., 1976); Mary
W. Williams, Anglo-Amer-
ican Isthmian Diplomacy,
1815-1915
(Washington, 1916).
5
J. Fred
Rippy,
British Investments in Latin America,
1822-1949 (Minneapolis, 1959); and Thomas
Schoonover, "Imperialism
in Middle America: United States
Competition
With Britain, Germany
and
France in Middle America," in Rhodri
Jeffrey-Jones (ed.), Eagle against Empire:
American
Opposition
to Eu ropean Imperialism (Aix-en-Provence, 1983), pp.
41-58.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 479
Washington's
interest in Central America wou ld increase after its deci-
sion to constru ct a canal at Panama in 1903. Political
instability
in Central
America
might spill
over into Panama and the failu re to meet
foreign
finan-
cial
obligations
invited
foreign gu nboats
into the Caribbean. In either in-
stance, the
secu rity
of the Panama Canal was threatened.
Thu s, Roosevelt's
corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine
ju stified
United
States actions as an international
policeman
and the u se of the
"Big
Stick"
in cases of
flagrant wrongdoing.6
President William Howard Taft
accepted
the advice of his
Secretary
of State Philander C. Knox to refu nd debts and
establish cu stoms
collectorships
in order to "render their Governments
stable and
keep
them from
foreign
intervention."' In
short, "Dollar
Diplo-
macy" replaced
the
"Big
Stick."
Althou gh
Woodrow Wilson came to the
White Hou se as an
ou tspoken
foe of
imperialism,
he
eventu ally
carried ou t
more interventions in the Caribbean
region
than
any
of his
predecessors,
bu t
ju stified
his actions on the
grou nds
that he was
seeking
constitu tional order.
In this
respect,
Wilson's moral cru sade
paralleled
that of his immediate
predecessors,
bu t the ou tbreak of World War I called for a reaffirmation of
the Monroe Doctrine in order to
protect
the Panama Canal from
foreign,
particu larly German,
interlopers.8
Thu s, while
policies differed, the
objec-
tive remained the same:
political
and financial
stability
in Central America
prevented
the
spread
of chaos to Panama and, at the same
time, kept
Eu ro-
peans
from
intru ding
in the
region.
Political
instability prompted
the 1907
Washington
Conference. That
year,
war between El Salvador and
Nicaragu a
threatened to
spread
across
the
isthmu s,
a
possibility
that led United States
policymakers
to conclu de
that the conflict served as a
possible
excu se for
foreign
intervention to
pro-
tect lives and
property.
In the end, the conference resu lts reflected the
United States determination to
impose
constitu tionalism
throu gh
a
treaty
system. Henceforth, u nconstitu tional
governments
wou ld be denied
recog-
6
For a discu ssion of Roosevelt's policy see Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise
of
America to a World Power (Baltimore, 1956); Howard C. Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean
(Chicago,
1937); and Frederick W. Marks, III, Velvet on Iron: The
Diplomacy of
Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln,
1980).
7
United States
Department
of State, Papers Relating
to the
Foreign
Relations
of the United States
1912
(Washington, 1916) p.
1091 (hereafter referred to as FRUS); Hu ntington Wilson, "The Relation
of Government to
Foreign Investment," Annals
of the American
Academy of
Political and Social Sci-
ences, 68:3 (November, 1916), 298-311; Dana G. Mu nro, Intervention and Dollar
Diplomacy
in the
Caribbean
1900-1921, (Princeton, 1964), pp.
65-216.
8 George
W. Baker, Jr. "The Caribbean
Policy
of Woodrow Wilson" (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Colorado, 1961); and
Holger
H.
Herwig,
Politics
of Fru stration: The United States in German Naval
Planning,
1889-1941 (Boston, 1976).
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480 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
nition, neighboring
cou ntries wou ld no
longer
harbor revolu tionaries, a
Central American Cou rt of Ju stice, rather than bu llets, wou ld settle
dispu tes
among
the five nations and, the oft
exploited
Hondu ras was
neu tralized.9
Orderly government
forestalled
foreign
intervention.
The
qu est
for constitu tional
government
and Jos6 Santos
Zelaya's
ten-
dency
to
disru pt
the
peace ju stified
United States intervention in
Nicaragu a
beginning
in 1909. The
su bsequ ent refinancing
schemes and cu stoms recei-
vership
were
designed
to
prevent
the u se of
foreign
force to collect debts.10
While the
Nicaragu an
Conservatives welcomed these
programs
becau se
they
secu red their
political position,
the State
Department's
efforts to im-
pose
financial
restru ctu ring u pon
Hondu ras and Gu atemala met with failu re.
The United States
Congress along
with the Hondu rans and Gu atemalans
resisted "Dollar
Diplomacy."
When Gu atemalan
strongman
Manu el Es-
trada Cabrerra
finally
su ccu mbed to the threat of British
gu nboats,
Secre-
tary
of State William
Jennings Bryan qu ietly acqu iesced
becau se the action
forestalled
perceived
German
intervention."1
Constru ction of the Panama Canal did not
preclu de
the
development
of
the
Nicaragu an
rou te
by
another world
power.
In 1908 ru mors circu lated
that
Zelaya, angered
at the United States for
choosing
the Panama site,
attempted
to interest the
Japanese
in a transisthmian rou te. Two
years later,
the British,
in retu rn for cancellation of its
portion
of the
Nicaragu an debt,
were
tempted
with an offer of the Corn Islands near the Caribbean terminu s
of the
proposed Nicaragu an
rou te.
Su bsequ ently, reports
circu lated re-
garding
German and Canadian interests. Persu aded
by
the
possibility
that
continu ed
intrigu e might bring foreign
navies near the Panama Canal, the
United States conclu ded the Weiztel-Chamorro
Treaty
in 1913, only
to have
the Senate refu se consideration of it becau se of the so called "Platt Amend-
ment" featu re insisted
u pon by Nicaragu an
President Adolfo Diaz. A
year
9
FRUS, 1907, II, pp. 601-728; and William J. Bu channan, The Central American Peace Confer-
ence, 1907 (Washington, 1907).
1o Karl Berman, Under the
Big Stick, pp. 123-181; Lester D.
Langley,
The Banana Wars: An Inner
History of
American Empire,
1900-1934 (Lexington, 1983), pp. 53-76; and
Whitney
T. Perkins, Con-
straint
of Empire:
The United States and Caribbean Interventions
(Westport, 1981), pp.
21-39.
"
For Hondu ras see
George
W. Baker, "Ideals and Realities in Wilson's Administration's Relations
with Hondu ras," The Americas, 21:1
(Ju ly, 1964), 3-6; Warren Kneer, Great Britain and the Carib-
bean, 1901-1913 (East Lansing, 1975), pp. 134-163; and Ju an E. Paredes, The Morgan-Hondu ran
Loan, 1908-1911 (New Orleans, 1912). For Gu atemala see David H. Dinwoodie, "Expedient Diplo-
macy:
The United States and Gu atemala, 1898-1920" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado,
1966), pp. 88-92, 104-120; George
W. Baker, "The Woodrow Wilson Administration and Gu atemalan
Relations," The Historian, 27:2 (Febru ary, 1963), 159-161; and Peter Calvert, "The Last Occasion on
Which Britain Used Coercion to Settle a
Dispu te
with a Non-Colonial Territory
in the Caribbean: Gu a-
temala and the Powers, 1903-1913," Inter-American Economic Affairs,
25:2 (Winter, 1971), 57-75.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 481
later, Secretary Bryan renegotiated
the
treaty,
minu s the "Platt Amend-
ment" featu re and, in 1915, the Senate ratified the
agreement. Du ring
its
deliberations, the Senate focu sed
u pon
the need to secu re the
Nicaragu an
canal rou te from
potential foreign
adventu rers.12
While the United States focu sed
u pon
the
anticipated
cau ses for
foreign
intervention, it failed to
develop
a Caribbean
military
defense
policy
that
inclu ded Central America. Therefore, Washington
was satisfied with isth-
mian
pro-Allied neu trality
from 1914 u ntil 1917. Once the United States
entered the
Eu ropean war, however, all bu t El Salvador declared war on
Germany and, at the
encou ragement
of
Washington,
took
steps
to cu rtail
German activities within their borders.13 Still, United States
policymakers
did not consider the German threat too seriou s, as witnessed
by
the con-
tinu ed
non-recognition
of the Federico Tinoco administration in Costa Rica.
President Wilson determined that constitu tional order took
precedence
over
Tinoco's
pro-Allied declarations, restrictions
u pon
German nationals and
descendants and
warnings
that German
plots against
the Panama Canal were
being
formu lated in Costa Rica.14
For fifteen
years following
the end of World War I, United States
policy
toward Central America was at cross cu rrents. On the one hand, the search
for constitu tional and financial order continu ed. On the
other, the
inability
to achieve these
objectives
contribu ted to a
growing fru stration, which
along
with the diminished
Eu ropean threat, contribu ted to increased
pres-
su re for withdrawal.
The threat of
yet
another isthmian war led to the 1923
Washington
Con-
ference on Central America. The
agreements
conclu ded at this
meeting,
considered an advance over those reached in
1907, inclu ded a clearer defi-
nition of u nconstitu tional
governments
not
worthy
of
recognition
and
steps
to limit the size of the Central American armies in order to remove them as
12 Thomas A. Bailey, "Interest in a Nicaragu an Canal, 1903-1931," Hispanic American Historical
Review, 16:1
(Febru ary, 1936), 1-4; Berman, Under the
Big Stick, pp. 167-171; and Peter E. Brown-
back, "The
Acqu isition
of the
Nicaragu a
Canal Rou te: The
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty" (Ph.D. disserta-
tion, University
of
Pennsylvania, 1952); and Charles T. Weitzel, "American
Policy
in
Nicaragu a,"
United States Senate, Docu ment 334, 64th
Congress,
1st session.
13 FRUS,1917, Su pplement I, pp. 237-238, 259, 290-291; FRUS, 1918, Su pplement II, pp.
89 and
379; John Barrett, "La America Central Continental
y Insu lar," in Frank H. Simonds, Historia de la
Gu erra del Mu ndo(Garden City, 1920), Vol. IV., p. 370; Percy
A. Martin, Latin America and the War
(Baltimore, 1925); pp. 491-501; Warren H. Kelchner, Latin American Relations with the
Leagu e of
Nations (Boston, 1930), pp.
137-138.
14
Hu go Mu rillo-Jimenez, "Wilson and Tinoco: The United States and the
Policy
of
Non-Recognition
in Costa Rica, 1917-1919" (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of California-San
Diego, 1978). This work
was
su bsequ ently pu blished
in Costa Rica as Tinoco
y
los Estados Unidos:
ginesis y caida de u n
regiem
(San Jose, 1981).
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482 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
a sou rce of
political intrigu e. Secretary
of State Charles Evans
Hu ghes
ex-
pressed
his satisfaction with the
agreements
becau se the United States cou ld
not "tolerate mu ch distu rbance in the Caribbean
region
becau se of the vital
importance
to ou r self-defense of the Panama Canal."1" Bu t the
agreements
failed to
bring political stability
to the isthmian nations, nor
prevent
United
States intervention in their
internal
affairs. The ink
barely
dried on the 1923
treaties when
Washington
fou nd itself involved in Hondu ran and Nicara-
gu an internal
affairs. In 1934, the Minister to Gu atemala, Sheldon White-
hou se, brokered the
presidential
election of
Jorge
Ubico.
Non-recognition
on the
grou nds
that he achieved office in violation of the 1923 treaties,
failed to u nseat Salvadoran President Maximiliano Hernindez Martinez be-
tween 1931 and 1935.16 The
qu est
for constitu tional
government
remained
an elu sive
goal.
Arms
redu ction also remained an ideal.
Except
for Costa Rica, military
expenditu res throu ghou t
the 1920s continu ed to consu me
approximately
twenty-five percent
of the national
bu dgets
and the
su ggestion
that a Na-
tional Gu ard be established to
replace
the
highly politicized
armies was
accepted only by Nicaragu a.
Like the armies in El Salvador,
Gu atemala and
Hondu ras, however, the
Nicaragu an
Gu ard became a
major player
in na-
tional
politics.
17
The fru stration cau sed
by
the failed search for order su rfaced immedi-
ately
after the 1923 conference when
Secretary Hu ghes
observed that there
was "considerable force in the
argu ment
that these
peoples
were entitled to
their revolu tions." Three
years later,
Latin American Affairs Division
Chief
Stokeley
W.
Morgan
noted that several of his
colleagu es regretted
that the United States insisted
u pon
the
implementation
of the 1923 treaties
becau se Central American realities failed to
provide
the
opportu nity
for
peacefu l change
of
governments.
Su ccessive heads of the Division Leo S.
's Kenneth J. Grieb, "The United States and the Central American Federation," The Americas, 24:2
(October, 1967), 107-121; and Thomas M. Leonard, "U.S. Policy and Arms Limitation in Central
America: The Washington
Conference of
1923,"
Occasional Paper Series, Center for the Stu dy
of
Armament and Disarmament, California State
University-Los Angeles, 1982, 1-20.
16 Charles Hackett, "The
Backgrou nd
of the Revolu tion in Hondu ras," Review
of Reviews, 69:4
(April, 1924), 390-396; Dana
G.
Mu nro, The United States and the Caribbean Repu blics,
1921-1933
(Princeton, 1974), pp. 132-290; Henry
L. Stimson, American Policy
in Nicaragu a (New York, 1927);
Langley,
U.S. and Caribbean, pp. 108-125; Langley,
Banana Wars, pp. 181-193; Perkins, Constraint
of Empire, pp. 110-116;
Kenneth J. Grieb, "American Involvement in the Rise of
Jorge Ubico,"
Caribbean Stu dies, 10:2
(April, 1970), 5-21; Grieb, "The United States and the Rise of General Maxi-
miliano
Hernindez
Martinez," Jou rnal of
Latin American Stu dies, 3:1 (November, 1971), 151-172; and
Thomas P. Anderson, Matanza: El Salvador's Commu nist Revolt
of
1932 (Lincoln, 1971), pp.
40-77.
17
Leonard, "1923 Conference," 29-40; and Richard L. Millett, Gu ardians of
the
Dynasty (New
York, 1977).
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 483
Rowe,
Francis G. White and Edwin C. Wilson believed it no
longer
neces-
sary
to extend u nwelcomed
protection
or to meddle in Central American
political
affairs.
Policymakers
also u nderstood that the
Eu ropean
threat to
the
region
had all bu t
disappeared
becau se the necessities of
post
war re-
constru ction
negated any
desire for adventu rism abroad. The
coming policy
change
was
signalled by
President-elect Herbert Hoover who u ndertook a
Latin American
goodwill
mission in 1928 that inclu ded a
stopover
in Hon-
du ras.
Following
Hoover's
inau gu ration, opposition intensified, at home
and in Latin America, against
the Marines
pu rsu ance
of
Au gu sto
C. San-
dino in
Nicaragu a.'8
When Franklin D. Roosevelt
proclaimed
the "Good
Neighbor" policy
in
1933 he cu lminated a decade of
changing thou ght.
As a resu lt of the con-
comitant non-interventionist
policy,
the United States withdrew the Marines
from
Nicaragu a
and remained an observer to Anastasio Somoza's march to
the
presidential palace
in 1937 and to the consitu tional
maneu verings by
Tibu rcio
Carfas, Hernindez
Martinez,
Ubico and Somoza from 1939 to
1941 that
illegally
extended their
presidencies.'9
Incorporating
Central
America
into Global
Strategies
From 1936 u ntil
1940, United States
policymakers
directed their atten-
tion to the
rising
war clou ds in
Eu rope
and
Asia, not to constitu tional nice-
ties. Attention focu sed
u pon
the German trade offensive in Central
18 United States Library of Congress, Papers of Charles Evans Hu ghes, Period of International Ac-
tivity,
"Latin American Conferences, 1922-1929," 1-4; Leonard, "1923 Conference," 24 and 45;
Kenneth J. Grieb, The Latin American
Policy of
Warren G.
Harding (Fort Worth, 1976); Charles Evans
Hu ghes,
Ou r Relations with the Nations
of
the Western
Hemisphere (Princeton, 1928); Alexander De-
Conde, Herbert Hoover's Latin American
Policy (Stanford, 1951); Ethan Ellis, Repu blican Foreign
Policy, 1921-1933 (New Bru nswick, 1968); Joseph
S. Tu lchin, The
Aftermath of
War: World War
I
and
U.S
Policy
Toward Latin America (New York, 1971); William Kamman, A Search
for Stability: United
States
Diplomacy
Toward
Nicaragu a, 1925-1933 (Sou th Bend, 1968); Neill
Macau lay,
The Sandino
Affair (Chicago, 1967); Richard V.
Salisbu ry, Anti-Imperialism
and International
Competition in Cen-
tral America, 1920-1939
(Wilmington, 1989);
and
Report of
the
Delegates of
the United States
of
America to the Sixth International
Conference of
American States Held at Havana, Cu ba, Janu ary
16 to
Febru ary 20, 1928
(Washington, 1928).
19 J.
Reu ben Clark, Memorandu m on the Monroe Doctrine
(Washington, 1930); Irwin F. Gellman,
Good
Neighbor Diplomacy: United States Policies Toward Latin America (Baltimore, 1979); Bryce
Wood, The
Making of
the Good
Neighbor Policy, (New York, 1961); and Thomas M. Leonard, "The
Recognition Policy
in United States-Central American Relations, 1933-1949," Occasional
Paper
Series, Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International
University,
1985.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
484 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
America;
the
professed
admiration for Mu ssolini (and to a lesser extent
Hitler) by
Ubico and Hernindez
Martinez; and the
potential
for
sabotage by
residents of the German "colonies" across the isthmu s.
The German trade offensive centered arou nd the Aski mark
system,
u nder
which
Germany bou ght
Central American foodstu ffs and raw materials with
Aski marks that remained in
Germany
for the
pu rchase
of
machinery,
metal
goods, coal,
chemicals and the like.
By
1938
Germany replaced
Great
Britain as the
major su pplier
of
goods
to Gu atemala and El Salvador.20
Like some
military
leaders elsewhere in the
hemisphere
at that
time, Her-
nindez Martinez and Ubico looked
favorably u pon
fascist
principles.
The
presence
of Italian and German
military
missions contribu ted to the
spread
of su ch ideas
throu gh
the officer
corps. Fu rthermore, the German
legation
in Gu atemala
City
served as the distribu tion center for Nazi
propaganda
in
Central America.
Washington
officials also looked
u pon
the
large
German
"colony"
in Gu atemala and the smaller ones in the other cou ntries as
po-
tential centers for su bversive activities.
Only
after the German invasion of
Poland in
September
1939 did the Central American leaders
begin
to line
u p
behind the United States.
United States
regional
defense
policy
did not call for the u se of Central
American forces in combat abroad, bu t
solely
to assist in the defense of the
Caribbean
region
and to contain
any
external invasion u ntil the arrival of
United States forces. At first, military
staff
agreements provided
for the
interchange
of
secu rity information, development
of a secret service to
keep
aliens and su bversive
grou ps
u nder su rveillance and for the elimination of
Axis
propaganda. Su bsequ ently,
all five
repu blics signed
defense site
agreements
which
permitted
United States
airplanes
and naval
ships
to u se
appropriate
facilities to
gu ard approaches
to the Panama Canal and the Ca-
ribbean sea lanes.
Nearly
$400 million in Lend-Lease aid
su pported
the
larger
Caribbean
strategy.
At the
requ est
of
Washington,
the Central Amer-
ican
governments
interned hu ndreds of the German nationals and descen-
dants and,
in some cases, shipped
them to the United States for internment
for the war's du ration. To
adju st
for the economic dislocations cau sed
by
Central America's loss of its
primary
markets in
Eu rope
and for
cooperating
with the
implementation
of the "black listed" German firms, the United
States increased its share of
imports
from the
repu blics. By
the war's end
the United States took in over
seventy percent
of the
region's exports,
a
20 Howard J. Tru eblood, "Trade Rivalries in Latin America," Foreign Policy Reports,
13:9
(Sep-
tember, 1937).
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 485
dependency
that remains to the
present.
In su m, United States wartime
policy
focu sed
u pon
a
possible external
attack and
internal
su bversion.21
As the threat of war receded from the Central America in
1943, internal
threats to the established order su rfaced. Before the war ended both Ubico
and Martinez were forced from office, Somoza
gave
the
appearance
of ab-
dicating power,
and the Costa Ricans elected socialist Teodoro Picado
pres-
ident.
Only
Hondu ran
strongman
Tibu rcio
Carfas
weathered the storm. As
in the 1930s, the United States remained an observer.22 Events in
Eu rope
and Asia took
precedence.
As its containment
policy developed,
the United States determined to
secu re the
western hemisphere
from an
external
attack. Measu res
adopted
the inter-American Conferences at Mexico
City
in 1945, at Rio de Janeiro
in 1947 and at
Bogoti
in 1948 met this
objective.
In 1951, after several
years
of
debate, Congress approved
the $51 million Mu tu al
Secu rity
Act
that
provided
for direct
military
assistance to Latin America. The
military
assistance to Central America
emphasized secu rity
of the Panama Canal,
the Caribbean sea lanes and Mexican and Venezu elan oil.23
In the immediate
post
war
period, diplomats
in Central America,
how-
ever, consistently
cau tioned that the
region's poverty
served as a
breeding
grou nd
for commu nist
exploitation and,
as
Washington's position
toward
the Soviet Union hardened after 1947,
the fear that commu nists wou ld
capi-
talize
u pon regional problems
intensified. Field
reports compared
local
commu nists efforts to commu nist activities in
Eastern Eu rope
and China.
Some United States
policymakers qu estioned
the role of international com-
mu nism in the 1948 Costa Rican civil war.24
By
the end of the Tru man administration,
the threat of commu nist su b-
version
appeared real, particu larly
in Gu atemala, althou gh Washington
had
21
Lau rence
Du ggan,
The Americas: The Search
for Hemispheric Secu rity (New York, 1947);
Alton
Freye,
Nazi
Germany
and the American
Hemisphere
1933-1941 (New Haven, 1967); David
Haglu nd,
Latin America and the
Transformation of
U.S. Strategic Thou ght,
1936-1941
(Albu qu erqu e, 1984);
Stetson Conn and
Byron Fairchild, United States
Army
in World War
II:.
The Western
Hemisphere
(Washington, 1960); Stetson Conn, Rose C.
Engeman
and
Byron Fairchild, Gu arding
the United States
and Its
Ou tposts:
The United States
Army
in World War
II
(Washington, 1964); Kenneth J. Grieb,
Gu atemalan Cau dillo: The
Regime ofJorge
Ubico (Athens, Ohio, 1979); and Carmelo F. Astilla, "The
Martinez Era:
Salvadoran-American
Relations" (Ph.D. dissertation, Lou isiana State
University, 1976).
22
Thomas M. Leonard, The United States and Central America, 1944-1949:
Perceptions of
Political
Dynamics (University, Alabama, 1984).
23 J.
Lloyd Mecham, The United States and Inter-American Secu rity,
1889-1960 (Au stin, 1963), pp.
246-351; Harold Molineu , U.S. Policy
toward Latin America: From
Regionalism
to Globalism
(Bou lder, 1986), pp. 15-29; and Lester D.
Langley,
America and the Americas: The United States in the
Western
Hemisphere (Athens, Georgia, 1989), pp.
161-188.
24
Leonard,
United States and Central America.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
486 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
no evidence of a Soviet connection.25 The
programs
of Presidents Ju an Jos6
Arevalo and his su ccessor, Jacobo
Arbenz, appealed
to the lower
socio-economic
grou ps
at the
expense
of the traditional landed
aristocracy
and the United Fru it
Company,
both of which branded
Arevwlo
and Arbenz
as commu nists. The
myopic
vision of the Eisenhower administration and
the national obsession with commu nism exacerbated the situ ation. Commu -
nists,
however identified, were considered
agents
of the Soviet Union and,
therefore linked to the international
conspiracy against
the United States.
Nowhere in the lexicon of the
day
cou ld one
find, mu ch less
accept,
the
concept
of
revolu tionary
nationalism which meant the destru ction of an im-
perial
based semi-feu dal based
society by
an identifiable
grou p
of
people
in
order to establish an economic, political
and social order that more
equ it-
ably integrated
the
majority
of the
popu lation
into the nation's
dynamics.26
Perceiving
a Soviet
sponsored threat, Secretary
of State John Foster
Du lles
sponsored
a resolu tion at the tenth Inter-American Conference of
American States, meeting
in Caracas in March
1954,
which asserted that
any
American nation
su bjected
to commu nist
political
control was consid-
ered
foreign
intervention and therefore a threat to the western
hemisphere.
Accordingly,
decisive action was called for, presu mably
u nder the 1947 Rio
Treaty.27
At the same time, the United States determined to remove Arbenz from
political power.
Given the
conspiracy thesis,
and the Arbenz land reform
program,
the Eisenhower administration
ju stified
its
sponsorship
of General
Castillo Armas "invasion" in Ju ne 1954 that
toppled
Arbenz. The Amer-
ican
people
were told that this was an
"invasion"
which removed a com-
mu nist threat from the
hemisphere
and restored
stability.28
The facade of
stability
was shattered in 1958
du ring
Vice President Richard Nixon's
"goodwill
tou r" of Latin America,
which in tu rn cau sed a three month
25
Thomas M. Leonard, "Nationalism or Commu nism: The Tru man Administration and Gu atemala,
1945-1952," Jou rnal of
Third World Stu dies, 7
(Spring, 1990), 169-191.
26
Jim
Handy, Gift of
the Devil: A
History of
Gu atemala
(Toronto, 1984), pp. 103-148; Stephen
G.
Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The
Foreign Policy of
Anti-Commu nism
(Chapel Hill, 1988);
Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Gu atemala: The
Foreign Policy of
Intervention (Au stin, 1982), pp.
3-132; Herb Addo, "On the Crisis in the Marxist
Theory
of
Imperialism," Contemporary Marxism, 9:3
(Fall, 1984), 123-147; and
Seymou r
M.
Lipset,
First New Nation: The United States in Historical and
Comparative Perspective (New York, 1963).
27
Mecham,
Inter-American
Secu rity, pp.
436-445.
28
Immerman, CIA, pp. 133-186; Stephen Schlesinger
and Steven
Kinzer,
Bitter Fru it: The Untold
Story of
the American Cou p
in Gu atemala (New York, 1982); John Foster Du lles, "Commu nist Influ -
ence in Gu atemala," Department of
State Bu lletin, 30 (Ju ne, 1954), 873-874; John Foster Du lles,
"International Commu nism in Gu atemala," Department of
State Bu lletin, 31
(Ju ly 12, 1954), 43-45;
and John E.
Pu rifoy,
"The Commu nist
Conspiracy
in Gu atemala, " Department of
State Bu lletin, 31
(November 8, 1954).
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 487
delay
in the Central American visit of Milton Eisenhower. The administra-
tion
placed responsibility
at the commu nist
doorstep.29 Importantly,
the in-
cidents awakened
Washington's policymakers
to the need to address the
region's
social and economic
problems.
Fidel Castro's 1959
victory
in Cu ba
brou ght
the
consequ ences
of social
and economic
disparities
and
political repression
to the
forefront, and con-
tribu ted to President-elect John F.
Kennedy's warning
that it was "one
minu te to
midnight"
in Latin America.
Althou gh Kennedy expressed
a
willingness
to
accept moderately
leftist
governments
that
sou ght
to
imple-
ment
economic, political
and social reform and, demonstrated its
position
by withholding recognition
from and
su spending
aid to the Oswaldo
Lopez
Arenallo
ju nta
in Hondu ras in November
1963,
he made clear his intentions
to
prevent
fu rther commu nist inroads.30
Kennedy
also shifted
military policy.
The 1961
Foreign
Assistance Act
provided training
for the Central American
military
to meet internal
secu rity
needs, while,
at the same time
engage
in civic action
programs-con-
stru ction of
roads, schools, hospitals
and the like-in order to
improve
its
statu s
among
the
people. Su bsequ ently,
the Alliance for
Progress
became
the
centerpiece
of
Kennedy's
Latin American
policy. It, along
with the
Peace
Corps
and Food For Peace
Program, gave promise
for the
improve-
ment of the
region's
social and economic conditions and for
broadening
the
base of
political participation
in order to remove the reasons for commu nist
su bversion.31
These
programs
never achieved their stated
goals,
as Central
America became lost in the Vietnam
qu agmire
and domestic violence that
followed
Kennedy's
assassination.
29
John D. Martz, Central America: The Crisis and the Challenge (Chapel Hill, 1959); Marvin Zah-
niser and W. Michael Weis, "A
Diplomatic
Pearl Harbor? Richard Nixon's Goodwill Mission to Latin
America in 1958," Diplomatic History, 13:2
(Spring, 1989), 163-190; Dwight
D. Eisenhower Presiden-
tial
Library, Abilene, Kansas, Papers
of
Dwight
D. Eisenhower, White Hou se Office Files, Office of the
Special
Assistant for National
Secu rity Affairs, Records, 1952-1961, Box 12, "U.S.
Policy
Toward
Latin America;" and
"Proposed
Central American Visit of Dr. Milton Eisenhower, Ju ly 3, 1958,"
Declassified Docu ments 1984-000759.
3
De
Lesseps Morrison, "The U.S. Position on OAS Consideration of
Cou p d' etats," Department
of
State Bu lletin, 39 (October 6, 1962), 439-451; Edward E.
Martin,
"U.S.
Policy Regarding Military
Governments in Latin America," Department of
State Bu lletin, 40 (Ju ne 29, 1964), 698-700; and
Stephen G. Rabe, "Controlling
Revolu tions: Latin America, The Alliance for
Progress and Cold War
Anti-Commu nism," in Thomas
G.
Paterson (ed.) Kennedy's Qu est for Victory: American
Foreign
Policy, 1961-1963 (New York, 1989).
31
Adolf A. Berle, "Alliance for
Progress
vs. Commu nism," Department of
State Bu lletin, 38 (Ju ne
24, 1961), 763-764; Victor Alba, Alliance Withou t Allies: The
Mythology of Progress
in Latin America,
translated
by
John Pearson, (New York, 1965); Arthu r
Schlesinger,
Jr. "The Alliance for
Progress:
A
Retrospective,"
in Ronald G. Hellman and H. Jon Rosenbau m (eds.), Latin America: The Search
for
a
New International Role (New York, 1975); and Willard F. Barber and C. Neale
Ronning,
Internal
Secu rity
and
Military Power. Cou nterinsu rgency
and Civic Action in Latin America (Athens, 1966).
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488 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
Kennedy's su ccessor, Lyndon
Baines Johnson,
deferred to his Assistant
Secretary
of State for Latin American Affairs, Thomas C. Mann,
who em-
phasized
national
secu rity
while
giving only
verbal assu rances for eco-
nomic, political
and social reform.32 In
practice,
Mann's
policy
meant the
military su ppression
of internal su bversives as illu strated
by
the massive
amou nts of
military
assistance to Gu atemala that enabled its
army
to bru -
tally su ppress
a
gu erilla
movement that dated to the social
protest
of the
1950s.33 Like the Eisenhower-Du lles team before them,
the Johnson-Mann
tandem tolerated no
changes
in the statu s
qu o instigated by alleged
commu -
nists.
Confident that local militaries cou ld handle
insu rgents
across the isthmu s
and, preoccu pied
with
Eu rope
and Asia,
Presidents Richard M. Nixon and
Gerald R. Ford
gave only cu rsory
attention to Central America. Until the
1974-1976
period,
when
insu rgency again
reared its head, Congress
slashed
economic,
social and
military
assistance
by
50
percent.
When
Washington
again
noticed the
region,
it was too late.34 The
political corru ption,
eco-
nomic
disparities
and social
stagnation
that
plagu ed
all bu t Costa Rica was
abou t to boil over when
Jimmy
Carter took the
presidential
oath in 1977.
At first, Carter
appeared
to u nderstand the
legitimacy
of the leftist reform
movements and the need for the United States to
identify
with them. His
efforts on behalf of the Panama Canal treaties demonstrated that u nder-
standing. Su bsequ ent policy decisions, however,
failed to alter Central
American realities. The
requ irement
for
improvement
in hu man
rights
con-
ditions as a
prerequ isite
for United States economic and social assistance
resu lted in the severance of
military
aid to Gu atemala and El Salvador in
32
Thomas C. Mann, "Democratic Ideal in Ou r
Policy
toward Latin America," Department of
State
Bu lletin, 50 (Ju ne 29, 1964), 95-1000; James D. Cochrane, "U.S.
Policy
toward Recognition
of Gov-
ernments and Promotion of Democracy
in Latin America Since 1963," Jou rnal of Latin American
Stu dies, 4:1
(Spring, 1972), 275-293; and Frederico Gil, "The Kennedy-Johnson Years," in John D.
Martz (ed.) United States Policy
in Latin America: A Qu arter Centu ry of
Crisis and Challenge (Lincoln,
1988), pp.
3-27.
33
Milton Henry Jamail, "Gu atemala 1944-1972: The Politics of Aborted Revolu tion," (Ph.D. dis-
sertation, University
of Arizona, 1972); Adolfo
Gu illy,
"The Gu errilla Movement in Gu atemala,"
Monthly Review, 17:1
(May, 1965), 9-40 and 17:2 (Ju ne, 1965), 7-40; Lawrence A. Yates, "The United
States and Ru ral Insu rgency
in Gu atemala, 1960-1970," in Ralph
Lee Woodward, Jr. (ed.),Central
America: Historical Perspectives
on the Contemporary
Crisis (Westport, 1988); and Michael McClin-
tock, The American Connection: State and
Popu lar
Resistance in Gu atemala (London, 1985), pp.
76-122.
34
Ben F.
Stephansky,
"New Dialogu e
with Latin America: The Cost of Political Neglect,"
in
Hellman and Rosenbau m (eds.), New International Order; Jerome Slater, "The United States and Latin
America: The New Radical Orthodoxy,"
Economic Development
and Cu ltu ral Change,
25:4 (Fall,
1977) 747-762; Frederico Gil, "United States-Latin American Relations in the Mid 1970s," SECOLAS
Annals (1976), 5-19; and Michael J. Francis, "United States Policy
toward Latin America Du ring
the
Kissinger Years," in Martz (ed.), Qu arter Centu ry, pp.
28-60.
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THOMAS M. LEONARD
489
1977, bu t not the
lessening
of hu man
rights
violations which continu ed and
even worsened
by
1980. Carter's
Nicaragu an policy
was
equ ally
ineffec-
tive. He failed to
negotiate
with the Sandinistas the
composition
of a
post-
Somoza
government.
The
problems
in El Salvador threatened to make it
"another
Nicaragu a," and,
if the tide was not stemmed there, wou ldn't
Gu atemala and Hondu ras soon be victimized?
As Carter
prepared
to leave office, he
began
to act like his
predecessors.
"In order to maintain ou r ties with
Nicaragu a,
to
keep
it from
tu rning
to
Cu ba and the Soviet Union," Carter
sou ght
$8 million in reconstru ction
assistance and $80 million in
long
term economic aid. He
pu rsu ed
a du al
policy
of
military
and economic assistance to El Salvador to
prevent
a leftist
gu errilla victory.
He
instigated
the revival of CONDECA and
signed
a mili-
tary agreement
with Hondu ras that
provided helicopters
and a
training
mis-
sion. These actions
appeared
as
part
of a
grand design
to contain the San-
dinista movement.
Su bsequ ently,
he
approved
the CIA's
su pport
of
polit-
ical
opposition grou ps
within
Nicaragu a
and
signed
a CIA
Finding
that
called for an end to economic aid to the Sandinista
government.35
Bu t
Carter did not
pu ll
the
plu g.
If Carter had
vacillated, not so Ronald
Reagan,
who came to the White
Hou se determined that
Nicaragu a
had to be saved from Soviet-Cu ban ex-
pansionism,
otherwise the dominoes wou ld fall in Central America.
Reagan
rationalized that failu re to act close to home wou ld also
encou rage
the So-
viets to seek advances elsewhere. To ou st the Sandinistas, a
program
of
economic destabilization was
u ndertaken, followed
by
the
training
and
su p-
port
of a
cou nter-revolu tionary grou p,
the contras. To contain the
"enemy"
Hondu ras became not
only
a base
camp
for the
contras, bu t also an armed
bastion itself. Gu atemala
again
became
eligible
for
military
assistance and,
El
Salvador, already
involved in an
internal conflict, received
special
assis-
tance.
Only
Costa Rica
su ccessfu lly
resisted the United States
pressu re
to
pu rge
the isthmu s of commu nism. The
Reagan
administration conclu ded
that all Soviet and
Eastern Eu ropean
assistance to the Sandinistas demon-
strated Moscow's intentions to establish a base of
operations
in Central
America.36
5
Robert A. Pastor, "The Carter Administration and Latin America: A Test of
Principle,"
in Martz
(ed.), Qu arter Centu ry, pp. 61-97; Pastor, Condemned to
Repetition: The United States and
Nicaragu a
(Princeton, 1987), pp. 49-229; Anthony Lake, Somoza
Falling:
The
Nicaragu an Dilemma: A Portrait
of
Washington
at Work (Boston, 1989); Shirley Christian, Nicaragu a: Revolu tion in the
Family (New
York, 1985), pp. 69-192; and Robert Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars
of
the CIA, 1981-1987 (New
York, 1987), pp. 112-113.
36 Margaret Daly Hayes,
"Not What I
Say,
Bu t What I Do: Latin American
Policy
in the
Reagan
Administration," in Martz (ed.), Qu arter Centu ry, pp. 98-133; Cynthia J. Arnson, Crossroads:
Con-
gress, The
Reagan Administration and Central America (New York, 1989); Timothy Ashby,
The Bear
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
490 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY: UNITED STATES AND CENTRAL AMERICA
Reagan's policy objective appeared
no different than that of his
predeces-
sors since 1945. Correct or not, the
post
war administrations linked local
commu nist movements to an international commu nist
conspiracy
that
needed to be contained and,
in the case of
Nicaragu a
reversed.
Conclu sion
Since 1900, the United States
sou ght
to insu late Central America from
foreign
intervention for its own
secu rity pu rposes.
At first, the
policy
was
predicated u pon
the need to secu re the Panama Canal. In
effect, it meant
that
any development inviting foreign
intru sion needed to be addressed.
Until the 1920s,
this meant the
imposition
of consitu tional
government
and
financial
stability u pon
the isthmian
repu blics.
No sooner had the
Eu ropean
threat receded and the North Americans tired of their self assu med
responsi-
bility,
when World War II
prompted
new efforts to secu re Central America
from both
external
attack and
internal sabotage. Finally,
in the late 1940s
the threat of
international
commu nism
ju stified
for
greater
intru sion into the
internal affairs of the five
repu blics.
In
pu rsu it
of its
secu rity interests, United States
policymakers neglected
to deal with the stru ctu ral
problems
that
plagu ed
Central America. With the
possible exception
of the Alliance for
Progress,
United States
policymakers
consistently
dealt with the
region's ru ling
elite. In the
early
twentieth cen-
tu ry
the United States
sou ght
to
impose political
and financial
stability u pon
it.
Su bsequ ently,
the
ru ling
elite
cooperated
with the United States to con-
tain the Axis threat
du ring
World War II and to
su ppress
commu nism after
the war. In its
qu est
for
secu rity, however, United States
policy
served the
interests of
region's ru ling
elite. Given the
contemporary changes
within the
Soviet Union, which
apparently
will lessen the threat of
international
com-
mu nism,
will the United States alter the
pattern
of its
relationship
with Cen-
tral America? Given its record, most
likely
not. As with the 1920s, the
lessening
of a
foreign
threat will lessen the desire to intervene.
University of
North Florida THOMAS M. LEONARD
Jacksonville, Florida
in the
Backyard:
Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (Boston, 1987); Roy Gu tman, Banana
Diplomacy:
The
Making of
American Policy
in
Nicaragu a,
1981-1987 (New York, 1988); Thomas M. Leonard, "The
United States, Costa Rica and the
Nicaragu an Revolu tion," in Howard Jones (ed.), The Foreign
and
Domestic Dimensions of
Modern Warfare: Vietnam, Central America and Nu clear
Strategy (University,
1988); Woodward, Veil; John Tower, et. al., Report of
the President's Special
Review Board (Wash-
ington, Febru ary 26, 1987); and U.S.
Congress,
100th
Congress,
Ist Session, Hou se
Report
No.
100-433,
Senate Report
No.
100-216,
Iran-Contra Affair:
With
Su pplemental, Minority and Additional
Views, November 1987.
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