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Explaining Washington's Central American Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Laurence Whitehead
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Extract

Why have the Washington authorities under both Democrat and Republican administrations chosen to devote so much time, money, and political capital to the pursuit of a policy in Central America that most international opinion, and a substantial proportion of domestic US opinion, considers to be unwarranted interference? The standard answers to this question fall into two main groups, each with strong ideological connotations. The official American position, most forcefully expressed in speeches by such prominent figures as ex-Secretary of State Alexander Haig, UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and President Ronald Reagan himself, judge events in Central America as yet another example of worldwide Soviet expansionism, in this case channelled through Cuba. On this view, it is not possible for America to stand back from the struggles of this small and apparently unimportant region, for unless the Russian cause is decisively rebuffed there is a real risk of ‘falling dominoes’, to the Panama Canal and beyond in one direction, and even northward into Mexico.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , November 1983 , pp. 321 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 James, F. Petras and Morris, H. Morley, ‘Supporting Repression: US Policy and the Demise of Human Rights in El Salvador, 1979–81’, The Socialist Register 1981 (London), p. 56.Google Scholar George Black sees more of a contrast between Carter and Reagan, and attributes the Central American policies of the latter to an ‘unstable right-wing coalition…responsive to the ascendant Sunbelt and West Coast bourgeosie’, which allegedly has a substantial economic stake in the isthmus. Black's interpretation is that ‘This powerful and overlapping set of corporate, political and religious interests have helped place Central America high on Reagan's agenda.’ ‘Central America: Crisis in the Backyard’, New Left Review (London), No. 135 (09–10 1982), pp. 28/9.Google Scholar

2 Wayne S. Smith, the top American diplomat in Cuba until his resignation in 1982, used a striking phrase to underline the undercurrents of emotion and irrationality that are also present. ‘Central America now exercises the same influence on American foreign policy as the full moon does on werewolves.’ See also footnote 16.

3 Hunt and Liddy directed and supervised the Watergate operation. Hunt's plan was that if anything went wrong both families could take temporary refuge ‘among the Cuban community in Florida long enough for a Nicaraguan National Guard transport aircraft to slip in quietly and fly us all out to sanctuary on Corn Island, courtesy of the Somoza family…Later, in the D.C. jail, Hunt tried to interest me in a joint venture with him and the Somozas, after we were free, to develop Corn Island in the Caribbean Sea.’ Gordon Liddy, G., Will (New York, 1980) p. 272.Google Scholar

4 Mira, Wilkins, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970 (Harvard U.P. 1974), pp. 96/8,Google Scholar illustrates the political power of United Fruit in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica in the 1920s. A former senior official of the company, Thomas, McCann has provided some insights into its more recent activities in An American Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit (Crown Publishers, New York, 1976).Google Scholar

5 For a recent well-researched statement of this case, see Stephen, Schlesinger and Stephen, Kinzer, Bitter Fruit – The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (New York, 2nd edn, 1983). They show that the company ‘deployed a platoon of lobbyists and publicists at a cost of over halfa million dollars a year…worked both the left and the right of the American political leadership and won the backing of both liberals and conservatives for its policies in Guatemala. This campaign…had a remarkable impact on the American goverment’ (p. 67). They do admit that Washington also had other reasons for overthrowing Arbenz, but their crucial judgement is that ‘the takeover of United Fruit land was probably the decisive factor pushing the Americans into action. Without United Fruit's troubles, it seems probable that the Dulles brothers might not have paid such intense attention to the few Communists in Guatemala’ (p. 106 – my italics).Google Scholar

6 Quoted in ibid., p. 234.

7 Zbigniew, Brzezinski, Power and Principle (New York, 1983), p. 139. It seems the author always had difficulty in reaching a stable combination between the two elements invoked in his title. On Panama, for example, notwithstanding the principles quoted above, he also records a White House briefing at which he was asked ‘But what if after the year 2000 the Panamanian government simply and suddenly announced that it is closing down the canal for repairs?’ Without a moment's hesitation I replied, ‘In that case, according to the provisions of the Neutrality Treaty, we will move in and close down the Panamanian government for repairs’ (p. 136). Less flippantly, he also states that when it seemed that the Senate might fail to produce the required two-thirds majority for ratification he ‘expected massive violence in Panama and I had ordered that military contingency plans be drawn up’ (p. 138).Google Scholar

8 Walter, Le Feber, The Panama Canal (Oxford, 1979 edn.), p. 190.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., pp. 232/3.

10 Penny, Lernoux, Cry of the People (New York, 1980), pp. 96/107.Google Scholar

11 Jeane, J. Kirkpatrick, ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, Commentary (New York), 11 1979.Google Scholar

12 Power and Principle, op. cit., pp. 346/53 and pp. 565/6.Google Scholar

13 Philip, Wheaton, ‘Agrarian Reform in El Salvador: A Program of Rural Pacification’, EPICA Task Force (Washington, 1980) makes the case for direct US control of the process, but I have been unable to confirm this interpretation.Google Scholar

14 See footnote I above.

15 One month before his assassination, Archbishop Romero wrote to President Carter as follows, ‘if you really want to defend human rights I beg you: to veto plans for the provision of military aid to the Salvadorean government; to guarantee that your government will not intervene directly or indirectly, with military economic or diplomatic pressure, to shape the destiny of the Salvadorean people’. He argued that ‘political power in El Salvador is in the hands of unscrupulous military men who only know how to repress the populace and promote the interests of the oligarchy’, so that the planned military aid ‘would undoubtedly intensify the injustice and aggression against the organized populace who generally have been struggling to secure respect for their most fundamental human rights’. The day before his death he urged soldiers to disobey genocidal orders. President Carter disregarded this appeal, and some American commentators suggested that the left might have caused the Archbishop's death. In Catholic and Latin American circles very few people believe this.

16 White Paper Whitewash ed. by Warner, Poelchau (New York, 1981) p. A–8.Google Scholar This source reprints the White Paper and the captured documents on which it is allegedly based and provides a lengthy critique of the evidence. Two issues were involved: were the captured documents genuine? (The English translations contained some remarkable errors of transcription and some unwarranted interpolations); and, even if they were, did they support the sweeping conclusions of the White Paper? Congressman Barnes Chairman of the Western Hemisphere Sub-committee, concluded that the State Department had failed ‘to lay to rest doubts about the White Paper’ (Washington Post, 19 06 1981).Google Scholar The alternative view is that at this time most rebel arms were obtained locally or on the black market. Castro states that the Cubans initially sent some arms, without Soviet involvement, but claims that in April 1981 these flows ceased. Wayne S. Smith, chief of the US interests Section in Havana 1979–82, has criticized the White Paper for ‘shoddy research, and a fierce determination to advocate the new policy, whether or not the evidence sustained it’. ‘Dateline Havana: Myopic Diplomacy’, Foreign Policy no. 48 (Washington, Fall 1982), p. 162. He states that very shortly after Reagan's inauguration, arms shipments from Cuba and Nicaragua to El Salvador declined (p. 161) and that since then ‘while some arms have been sent from Cuba to El Salvador, the quantities are almost certainly far less than alleged. If the guerrillas had received all the arms reported by US intelligence, the Salvadorean army would be outgunned 20 to 1’ (p. 169). However, after secret congressional hearings held in May, 1983, various critics of the Reagan administration accepted that arms from Nicaragua had become vital for the insurgents.Google Scholar

17 New York Times, 7 04, 1983, p. 16.Google Scholar Although this was considered the most probable outcome the NSC document also contained an annex discussing a variety of other ‘less likely’ developments. These included the introduction of Soviet MIGs into Nicaragua, or of Cuban ground troops. Either of these developments would give Washington favourable opportunities for escalation. On the other hand Congress could inflict a ‘perhaps irretrievable setback’ on the administration if it either cut off military aid to El Salvador or required negotiations as a condition for the semi-annual certification of progress on human rights. (The Washington Post, 17 04, 1983 summarised this annex.)Google Scholar

18 See footnote 15 above.

19 Consider, for example, a Washington Post report (10 03 1982)Google Scholar on the testimony by Assistant Secretary for State, Thomas Enders, who at the beginning of February 1982 told Congress that ‘we sent two embassy officers to investigate recent reports of a massacre in the Morazan village of El Mozote. They reported that…no evidence could be found to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians.’ Strictly speaking, this was true, but what the Post report stressed was that the two officers in question were not able to get closer than three miles to the scene. On Mozote, see also Joan, Didion'sSalvador (London, 1983) pp. 37/40. More generally, Didion dwells on the near impossibility of communicating Salvadorean realities to an American mass public, and on the great difficulties of verifying even the most basic facts (the episode on pp. 67–9 is especially revealing). Her observations on the role played by the US media (e.g. p. 29, 49–51, p. 86) are extremely revealing, as is her discussion (pp. 85–96) of the official American preoccupation with ‘the appearance of things, how the situation might be made to look better’ rather than with the sordid reality.Google Scholar

20 The television critic of the New York Times offered this assessment of network reporting in February/March 1983: ‘Sometimes the programs present the news about El Salvador tardily, sometimes they get it confused and sometimes they focus on the rhetoric rather than the reality… The evening news programs are better at reporting what the Administration says it is doing, rather than what it does. Rhetoric is skimmed off the top; the substance is untouched’. New York Times, 22 03 1983, p. C19.Google Scholar

21 The TV programmes seen by hispanic audiences in various parts of the USA give far more detailed and sensitive coverage than those seen by English-speaking viewers. Many hispanics see news reports originating in Mexico City that reflect the pro-insurgent perspective of the Mexican authorities. By contrast, America's Spanish language press is, in general, extremely hostile to the insurgents.

22 New York Times, 3 04, 1983. The source of this report was an unnamed Honduran directly involved in planning US covert activities, but it was also ‘confirmed in large measure by two Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee and by a highly placed Reagan official’. About 5,000 paramilitary were reported to have entered Nicaragua from Honduras at this time.Google Scholar

23 New York Times, 14 04, 1983.Google Scholar

24 New York Times, 12 05, 1983.Google Scholar

25 William, Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (New York, 1979) p. 270.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 271.

27 Ibid. As Shawcross explains it: ‘The justification for bombing Cambodia had been to protect Americans in Vietnam. Since October 1970 the Congress had included in every military appropriation bill a proviso expressly forbidding bombing in Cambodia except for that purpose. By the end of March 1973 there were no American troops left in Cambodia. Still the bombing of Cambodia increased’ (p. 277). In 1974 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ‘issued an unusual rebuke in which it called Enders's original description of the embassy's role “grossly misleading” and concluded that the embassy had made “a conscious effort” to conceal its role in the bombing.’Google Scholar

28 Newsweek, 8 11, 1982, p. 10.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 11.

30 Ibid., p. 12.

31 He is quoted by Shawcross as follows: ‘I am a Vietnam expert, and I always thought of Cambodia as just an adjunct to the whole damn thing. I knew what I had to do but I didn't get involved in the gory details.’ Shawcross, , op. cit., p. 269.Google Scholar

32 Washington Post, 14 04, 1983.Google Scholar

33 The New York Times, 20 03, 1983 gave a fairly full description of the US intelligence network in Central America.Google Scholar

34 As quoted in The Guardian (London) 25 04, 1983.Google Scholar

35 See fn. 16, above.

36 Shawcross, op. cit., p. 269.Google Scholar