Intervention by Way of Propaganda

Extract

The term “ intervention” has had many applications during the course of its long history. Every treatise on international law written before the World War contained an extensive discussion, whether to approve or to condemn, of the various forms of intervention. Even after the general adoption of the guarantee contained in Article 10 of the Covenant of the League of Nations one of our distinguished American scholars felt justified in constructing a treatise on international law with intervention as the keystone of the arch. Condemnation of the alleged right of intervention came to be the dominant note in the foreign policy of a number of the Latin American governments during the nineteen twenties, when the measures taken by the United States to protect American interests in the Caribbean appeared to them to threaten the sovereignty and independence of their countries. It is one of the curious reversals of history that no sooner had Article 8 of the Montevideo Convention laid the specter of intervention, primarily with the record of the United States in view, than intervention of a new kind made its appearance in Latin America. This time the United States, as a member of the inter-American community, was called upon to cooperate in its condemnation.