Mistakes on Our Doorstep

...Ambassador to Panama Ambler Moss, 1980 Are the revolutions and political turmoil in Central America the product of external intervention and agitation, or are they home-grown responses to domestic conditions...

...aid coming, human rights violations notwithstanding...

...nourished them...

...troops, and wise enough to protect Washington's interests:'' North American influence over Central Americans was so strong that it could achieve policy objectives by exerting only its enormous political and economic leverage...

...strength in the region increased...

...Militarizing Honduras as a buffer against Nicaragua strengthened the most reactionary military elements in Honduras (notably General Gustavo Alvarez) and practically destroyed the fragile democracy that was emerging there in 1980-81...

...behavior...

...LaFeber emphasizes the unrealistic—indeed ignorant—view Reagan and his advisers have of Central America...

...Kennedy's support for the military helped precisely those forces that opposed the social and political advancements U.S...

...Secretary of State Alexander Haig, 1981 What we see in Central America today would not be much different if Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union did not exist...

...economically, politically and militarily was set up in the 120 years between independence from Spain and World War II...

...As a result, U.S...

...economic aid, often eagerly accepted by the oligarchs and the generals, widened the gap between the rich and the poor...

...In the end when they realized that one was not possible without the other, both Presidents backed away from the consequences...

...Carter waffled, first withholding, then granting and then withholding military aid...

...What, in fact, are the real U.S...

...Or do certain unquestioned ideological assumptions (e.g., prevent the Left from taking over) preclude any clear-sighted analysis of our economic, strategic and political interests...

...As late as May 1979, two months before the overthrow of Somoza, Washington backed his request for $66 million from the International Monetary Fund...

...security [as Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick claimed in 1981], Washington officials had made it so through a century of North American involvement, and particularly by their post-1954 military and economic policies...

...In addition, it gives us the context for interpreting more recent U.S...

...Certainly LaFeber's book does provide evidence of what has not worked, and an appreciation of the historical role of the U.S...

...has traditionally supported, like El Salvador...

...security interests been dominant in shaping the policies of recent Administrations...

...Reviewed by Kenneth E. Sharpe Associate Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore A well-orchestrated Communist campaign designed to transform the Salva-doran crisis from an internal conflict to an increasingly internationalized confrontation is under way...

...Central America is today less safe for the U.S...

...Both wanted the military-oligarch elites, long nourished by and dependent upon the United States, to share power and distribute their wealth more equitably, but neither wanted to lose U.S...

...Seeing the region through an East-West prism, they have misunderstood the indigenous roots of the unrest and the ways in which the U.S...

...and the peoples of Central America...

...In this book Walter LaFeber says that they are largely internal affairs, but that their domestic causes have been conditioned in important ways by meddling from the outside...

...The Alliance-supported industrialization and agricultural diversification in El Salvador in the 1960s, for instance, allowed the coffee-based oligarchy to expand into industry and the production of cotton and sugar...

...Yet then we must ask: What are the appropriate U.S...

...economic interests or U.S...

...In short, investment in economic growth without socioeconomic reform worsened the distribution of income and helped generate the pressures that would cause the turbulence of the '70s and the '80s...

...If that is so, he is right to conclude that the primary question now is not how do we stop them, but how do we live with them...

...threats have made it rational for the Sandinistas to militarize their country, declare a state of emergency, impose press censorship, move thousands of Miskito Indians from near the Honduran border, and increase arms imports from Cuba and other Communist countries...

...U.S...

...Somoza was not interested in any more than token gestures...

...Land that peasants used for subsistence crops was expropriated in order to plant for export, driving the peasants away and increasing malnutrition and unemployment...

...LaFeber begins with a historical discussion of how the system that has bound Central America to the U.S...

...As LaFeber says of the two Chief Executives: "Both desired more democratic societies in Central America as rapidly as possible, but without the radical changes those desires entailed...

...Both men wanted change in Central America, but they dreaded revolution...

...policies, from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan...

...Washington has therefore missed opportunities for negotiated settlements and instead attempted to fight fire by pouring on gasoline...

...In Nicaragua, the attacks by the CIAfunded exiles (led by former Somoza National Guardsmen), the U.S...

...In the last weeks before his downfall, the Carter Administration was still trying to preserve the hated National Guard, among the worst violators of basic human rights in the region, as a weapon against the Sandinistas...

...interests in the region, and to what extent are they congruent with those of the vast majority of Central Americans...

...and less safe for Central Americans...

...The military aid and training (for example, the School of the Americas in the Panama Canal Zone) bolstered military leaders in Central America who insured the status quo for oligarchs opposed to the reforms sought by the Alliance...

...he hoped that fear of the Left would keep U.S...

...In El Salvador, the Reagan Administration propped up a military establishment that was willing to accept the facade of legislative elections while it (and the death squads) murdered over 35,000 Salvadorans (between 1979-83), undermined land reforms, and left no alternative for opposition except armed insurgency...

...Carter's human rights program fell into some of the same traps as the Alliance for Progress...

...How should we deal with insurgency against repressive regimes that the U.S...

...That knowledge is vital if we are to set aside the fantasy world the current Administration inhabits and chart a sensible course that will protect the U.S...

...and the area's dictators and oligarchs...

...A democratic center could not emerge in Guatemala, El Salvador or Nicaragua because reactionary rulers and United States-trained military forces used coups, fraudulent elections and repression (usually under the banner of anti-Communism) to thwart land redistribution and democracy and to protect corrupt political institutions...

...But it was accompanied by a stepped-up military program emphasizing "internal security" (read: counterinsurgency), to protect against revolution until the reforms took hold...

...Carter's rhetorical condemnation of human rights abuses also ignored the entrenched resistance of the ruling groups to the kinds of amelioration their people were increasingly demanding...

...Direct military action declined under Franklin D. Roosevelt's Good Neighbor stance, LaFeber shows, because it was now unnecessary as well as unprofitable...

...For many critics of the current Administration's gunboat tactics, Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and Jimmy Carter's human rights approach appear to be superior alternatives...

...The net effect of the Reagan toughness has been to heighten the danger of regional war...

...The dictators theU.S...

...Where the Kennedy and Carter strategies failed because neither President was willing to oppose the men whose oppressiveness enhanced the appeal of the rebels, the hardline policy of the Reagan Administration has failed because it actively supports the military-oligarch elites...

...Implicit in LaFeber's book are several difficult questions that demand more attention than they receive: Have U.S...

...And he points his finger at the United States, not at Fidel Castro or the Soviet Union, contending that the U. S. has helped to promote the very revolutions it fears: "If Central America had suddenly become 'the most important place in the world' for U.S...

...This was painfully clear in the way Carter was caught in his Nicaragua policy...

...The goal of the Alliance was to head off violent revolution (another Cuba) by eliminating the sources of discontent...

...He argues that the intention of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, to keep out the European powers, became perverted as U.S...

...Meanwhile, the autocratic regimes protected the few very rich from the many very poor, repressed political opposition, and otherwise blocked the establishment of democratic institutions that could peacefully resolve conflicts...

...Close ties were established between the U.S...

...Massive assistance was targeted for supporting socioeconomic change, encouraging democracy and stimulating economic growth...

...As is apparent from his title, though, LaFeber's thesis is that revolutions are inevitable in some Central American countries (thanks in good part to past U.S...

...The historical background is essential for understanding how the United States contributed to the circumstances that created the present crises in Central America...

...power and influence that had always worked through those elites...

...LaFeber's analysis of these policies, however, should give pause to those who hold this view...

...backed or created in the 1930s in Guatemala (Jorge Ubico), Nicaragua (Anastasio Somoza Garda), and El Salvador (Max-imiliano Hernandez Martinez) were powerful enough to quell the unruly withoutU.S...

...economic aid was supposed to eventually bring about...

...What about countries where revolutions may not be inevitable, like Costa Rica...

...economic blockade and U.S...

...It is, perhaps, legitimate for a historian to avoid such policy issues...

...Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine justified the U. S. role as a policeman to maintain order and stop revolutions (the Marines entered the Caribbean no fewer than 20 times between 1889-1920...

...To prevent the Sandinistas from taking power, he wanted to continue backing Anastasio Somoza Debayle and to force him toward reform...

...investment (bananas, mining, railroads), trade and financial ties replaced those with Europe and led to a dependency that often stunted economic development...

...policies for living with countries that have had a revolution, like Nicaragua...