Category: Module 3 Assignment: Analyzing Documents from Cold War Latin America

 

During the Cold War Era, The Cuban revolution was led by figures such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos against the Batista regime. From the perspective of the U.S, the revolution was a move towards discrediting the government in place, which cut off military support to Cuba in return(Dawson,245). With the Batista regime gone, Fidel Castro took place as the leader and made reforms, as well as closer ties with the Soviet Union(Dawson,246). The United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold war era were enemies, and with the U.S not supporting the rebels, the Cuban revolution went forward in painting the U.S as the enemy.“As long as the United States remains the enemy, Cubans must live in the Revolution, which links Cuban nationalism and Socialist revolution so seamlessly that to critique the Revolution is to be a traitor to the Cuban nation. And to do that is to opt for social and economic marginalization, the possibility of jail, and perhaps exile(Dawson,247).” As Dawson describes further relations with the U.S and Cuba “One need not be too cynical to imagine that at critical moments of potential thawing in United States–Cuban relations, Castro actively sought to renew this enmity, as without it he would have no one to blame for Cuba’s problems(Dawson, 247).” With Cuba growing its government towards communism and having high tensions with the U.S, The U.S and CIA worked towards creating covert missions within Cuba to stop Castro’s movements.

 

The Bay of Pigs fiasco was a failed attempt by the U.S, under the Kennedy administration, to overpower Fidel Castro for his relations with the Soviet Union. “ After the failed invasion at the Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) on April 17, 1961, he could rightly claim to have repelled an American invasion(Dawson,249).” The Bay of Pigs was a loss for the U.S and in turn gained more supporters for Castro, from the people of Cuba. In the Document labeled Cuban Covert Program Report, it should be noted that this document is listed from October 13, 1961, a few months after the Bay of Pigs fiasco had taken place in April. The U.S was still working with the CIA, after its failed attempt at the Bay of Pigs, to spy on the Castro regime, the document reports infiltration with agents on the field that were being tracked and reporting back intelligence. The document states that 26 agents were in Cuba, and reporting back on opposition groups from within Cuba that were still present and handing out pamphlets to discourage supporters from the Castro regime. The document goes on to further explain the training of agents and for possible plans of sabotage. The document further cautions against major sabotage and more of minor sabotage plans, to avoid detection from Castro supporters. The document provided is a recording in history that indicates the U.S and Cuban polarized relations during the Cold War Era at the time.

 

 

Dawson, Alexander. Latin America since Independence: A History with Primary Sources. 2^nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2015.

The National Security Archive, nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6434681-National-Security-Archive-Doc-05-Cuban-Covert.

The Cold War was a time period not of fighting, rather a clash of ideologies from existing countries. The two powerhouses at the time were the United States of America who stood for democracy and Russia who stood for communism. Their battles were never directly towards each other, rather it was indirect through proxy wars where the two powerhouses would try to help specific countries lean towards their standing.

During April 25th of 1959, Fidel Castro had met with Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon questioned Castro as to why he went against the U.S imperialism. Castro would reply that he did it for the people of Cuba. Castro felt that by leading a revolution against the American government in Cuba, he would be able to give a better life to the people.  “The Revolution taught the illiterate to read, provided healthcare to the poor, and reshaped the Cuban economy in spite of a crippling blockade” (Dawson, 243). In the moment, Castro felt that there needed to be a change in order to better the lives of the people, so he chose to go against the U.S to accomplish this.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=4329957-Document-10-Memorandum-of-Conversation-Rough

Alexander Dawson, Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, (New York: Routledge, 2015)

The document provided entails of the United States intelligence community actively monitoring countless number of countries that used a Swiss made, but secretly CIA owned encryption device produced by Crypto AG that many governments in Latin America used throughout the Cold War. Unbeknownst to all the governments purchasing the encryption devices, the US along with West Germany had rigged many of the company’s devices in order to break encrypted codes from one country to another, much easier. Countries such as Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil are just a few of the many countries throughout much of the 20th century that the US was actively spying on. According to the  NSA archives, some topics include “the 1973 military coup in Chile; the 1976 military coup in Argentina; the car bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington D.C. in September 1976; the terrorist bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados in October 1976; the Sandinista revolution and the contra war in Nicaragua which the Argentine security forces covertly supported; and 1982 Falklands war between Argentina and Great Britain, among many others.”(1)

Based on our readings and the sheer amount of topics that are declassified in the document provided above, the main takeaway from it would be just how much more information the US had about the countries and dictators it backed in Latin America during the Cold War such as Augusto Pinochet for example. Pinochet, along with leaders from Argentina and Uruguay, collaborated under “Operation Condor” to preserve their power through the means of state terror and political repression. While many of these leaders had notorious human rights violations, the US had supported them all for the means of communism not to spread throughout the region with weapons, money, advisors, and occasionally troops for anti-revolutionary purposes.(2) The US had largely succeeded in its quest to have control of geo-politics in Latin America during the Cold War with the exception of Cuba which remained a thorn in the flesh for the US.

 

1:https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/chile-cyber-vault-intelligence-southern-cone/2020-02-11/cias-minerva-secret

2: Wood, J. A., & Alexander, A. R. (2019). Chapter X. In Problems in modern Latin American history: Sources and interpretations (p. 238). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

3:https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/

Domnika.Elarabi 

Professor Rice

History 3780

November 11, 2020

Module 3

 

During the Cold War, many countries were transitioning in various circumstances, in which some countries collided with one another, such as Latin-America, Russia, and the United States. These countries managed to almost start a war and  Latin-America had to deal with difficult situations that, at times, escalated dramatically between the United State and Russia. Russia was also a key factor in helping Latin-Amerca and also colliding with the United States in trying to have some kind of control amongst Latin-America. The United States and Russia had their problems that were, probably, never solved because of how they dealt with their political views and how they wanted to control Latin-America. During the Cold War 1947 to 1991, the United States dealt with constant threats from Russia, and that both countries were always aware that war can happen at any moment. 

NATO also played a huge part in participating in trying to stop any kind of action that can be caused at the start of a war or any kind of activity that can be easily triggered.  In 1959, there was a meeting that was done to make some kind of plane for any long term negotiations and that there wouldn’t be any kind of future threats to the people or country; also NATO was also willing to maintain some kind of peace amongst the countries and NATO didn’t want a nuclear war. Furthermore, NATO wasn’t just based in the United States, they were also based in Europe, Latin-America, and several other countries, to help stabilize nuclear threats amongst many other countries who might start a war or to help with negotiations that can be resolved without the threat of war. However, the conflict with the United States and Russia managed to escalate many times and they were ready to have a nuclear war at any moment but there were many times that NATO has stepped in.

 NATO wasn’t the only factor that stepped in stopping from having another war. In 1964, there was another tactic it was called the Scare Campaign. It was a campaign that used to scare the people of Chile in order to vote, however, that was the only issue, to vote, it was also seen as a “sophisticated propaganda production that utilized accepted concepts of gender to communicate its message” (Wood, 248). The Scare Campaign tactic was a way to separate gender and that it was also seen as propaganda because it used various sources in order to have people involved in what was going on and wanted to have a one-way thought of how people should think of political views, as well as, how things should be done. 

The Scare Campaign was a way to improvise how people could easily be controlled by different means, such as to vote, or political rise to form a new government. Its main focus was on gender and used gender to pursue an imbalance with one another. Women were forced into a variety of things, such as going into militia groups, and they were more controlled by the communists because women needed, somehow, to portray a new role of how a woman should be, instead of the old version of how a woman should be (more of a womanly role). 

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6990065-National-Security-Archive-Doc-27-Robert-R-Bowie.

Wood, James A. “Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations”. 5th ed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. Chapter X

James A Woods wrote in Problems In Modern Latin American History “In this context of extreme political and ideological polarization, U.S. policy makers sometimes encouraged the Latin American military to seize the reins of civil authority before it was too late… (Woods, p 238). Just one example of this US intervention is in the nation of Nicaragua with what is known as the contra war and the Iran-contra scandal. As mentioned in the documents, the Iran-contra scandal was when Ronald Reagan and his administration sold weapons illegal to Iran in order to then give that money to the contras in Nicaragua to fight against the left-wing Sandinista government. Under Ronald Reagan the United States foreign policy continued to be one of combating the spread of communism which is why they believed it was justified for them to take such actions against the Nicaragua government at the time. Furthermore, another policy was to allow the CIA to secure training bases in Honduras and Argentina and training to the rebels. The CIA itself also had a lot of covert operations against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua such as “the mining of Nicaraguan rivers and harbors and attacks on Nicaraguan shipping — aimed at “arms interdiction” (Criminal Liability of President Bush) This policy ultimately led the United States to send millions of dollars in financial support to the contras. All these policies were enacted because the USA believed that everything was on the table when it came to end the spread of communism to nations around the world. Even if this meant the use of a paramilitary and death squads in Nicaragua backed by illegal money through the CIA, in the end, the ends justify the means to the united states and they saw stopping communism as more important than the lives of the people of Nicaragua. As mentioned in the Criminal Liability of President Bush, “How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas under the finding? The only problem that might come up is if the United States were to promise to give these third parties something in return so that some people could interpret this as some kind of an exchange.” (OX Reagan 2 in U.s. v. Poindexter at ALU0096995.)” The people of Nicaragua live were affected by the contra wars. As the contras acted as a paramilitary force, and as death squads to the people they saw as opposition many human rights were violated The United States backed Contras committed multiple cases of human rights violations these include, attacks on civilians, the kidnapping of combatants, kidnapping of civilians, mistreatment of prisoners. In Criminal Liability of President Bush, it refers to the contras as a paramilitary force and in other documents, it mentions how they were conducting illegal activities.This relates to the readings as it goes to illustrate another example of the USA inciting a war in an effort to be anti-communist in Latin America.

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/docs/doc10.pdf

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB365/index.htm

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB365/Bush%20-%20Criminal%20liability.pdf

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB210/16-Diversion%20Memo%204-4-86%20(IC%2002614).pdf

American interest in human rights policy took place after the Second World War, when that conflict’s terrible toll prompted an international call for the promotion of the rights and liberties of all citizens.

Cold War security interests relegated human rights to a unenforceable symbol during the 1950s and 60s, but the foreign policy scandals of the Nixon and Ford administrations compelled Congress to act. Reports of CIA assassination programs in Vietnam, the use of torture by agents trained by U.S. police advisors in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and the American role in the overthrow of Chile’s President Allende fed a growing sense of outrage about the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in the early 1970s.

In the face of mounting evidence of dirty tricks and brutal policies, lawmakers rebelled against their President. Through a series of increasingly tough measures, Congress ordered the White House and the Department of State to slow or slash aid to countries responsible for human rights abuses. In 1976, Congress passed an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the Secretary of State to publish an annual human rights report.

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB83/press.htm

During the Cold War from 1947 to 1991, the US and the USSR have not participated in any large-scale fighting directly but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. Chile in Latin America is considered as a key place in which the US should hold the upper hand. By the American intervention, Chile’s economy and especially politics have been deeply affected. The election in 1964, the assassination against generals René Schneider, and even the 1973 Chilean coup are involved directly to indirectly from the US government.

Firstly, the Scare Campaign was introduced as anti-communist by using media during the 1964 election in Chile. The US government was heavily involved and provided many of the propaganda skills, resources, and monies needed to develop it. During the campaign, they used a series of posters, leaflets, letters, and radio with the same idea which defamed socialist Salvador Allende and Marxism-Leninism. The reasons which made the ads powerful was because they reflected, appealed to, and constructed ideas about gender then prevalent in Chilean society. Marxism -Leninism was described as a monster that takes children away from the Chilean family and sends them to Cuba to be indoctrinated in communist propaganda and denationalized. In other ads, Cuban women were forced to join the military and their only accessory was a machine gun. In a very short amount of time, with the onslaught on large scale, the US Senate announced that they produced 24 daily new casts in Santiago and the provinces and distributed 3000 posters daily. As a result, Chilean were likely affected by the ads and the victory was given to Eduardo Frei Montalva.

Secondly, generals René Schneider was caught in Central Intelligent Agency sight because he expressed firm opposition to the idea of preventing Allende’s inauguration through a coup. Rene Schneider was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army from 1969. The CIA created a campaign to eradicate Allende supporters, including Rene Schneider, by supplied weapons to a group of Chilean officers led by Generals Camilo Valenzuela. In the attempt, Schneider was shot several times in the ambush in the capital city of Santiago. After this incident, the outrage exploded across the country and his death was a factor that then leads to Allende’s victory in the election in the same year.

Then, right after the victory of Allende, Henry Kissinger presents President Nixon with a briefing memorandum outlining which focuses on the new Chilean president. In the memorandum, Kissinger showed the problem that the US needs to face and several solutions with a different perspective. According to the article, from an economic perspective, the US will lose about 1.5 billion investment in Chile which equal to 10 billion dollars today. Besides, it is more likely that the introduction of Marxism-Leninism in Chile will then have an impact on other regions of the world, leading to a decline in the power of the United States. After showing the pro and cons of the modus vivendi strategy or some of the hostile approach, Kissinger finally asked for Allende’s strong opposition even though it helped Allende get more support from domestic and international as well. He said: “The dangers of doing nothing are greater than the risks we run in trying to do something.”  Consequently, the 1973 Chilean coup was a US-backed Chilean military coup that deposed the government of President Salvador Allende.

Overall, the US government has shown its impact on the economy, culture, and politics in Chile associated with unethical campaigns. Also, the National Security Archive is considered as “smoking guns” evidence of US actions in Latin America.

586 words

Cite:

– https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=7281124-National-Security-Archive-Doc-1-The-White-House

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#U.S._involvement

– Wood, James A., and Anna Rose Alexander. Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations. 5th ed. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central. (chapter X)

Department of State report, “Political Violence in Argentina,” Confidential, June 16, 1975.[1]

 

In June of 1975, the US State Department expressed concern on the increasing level of rightwing violence in Argentina and the growing likelihood of a military takeover of the Argentine government. Detailing the violence and chaos of the government under President Isabelle Peron and her advisor Lopez Rega, the report makes clear that violence is escalating in Argentina and is unlikely to decline for some time. In the 1970s thousands of leftist terror bombings had created panic in Argentina and a violent response from both the government and rightwing terror groups.[2] To assess the violence, the report analyzed an article from the Buenos Aires Herald accounting for the deaths of 503 people since the start of Mrs. Peron’s presidency in 1974. The report broke down the sources of violence in Argentina into both leftwing terror groups such as the People’s Revolutionary Army or ERP and Montoneros who the US believed were inspired by Che Guevara, rightwing terror groups such the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, and government police and military services. Based on the analysis of the newspaper article, the majority of the violence is being perpetrated by rightwing forces, with 190 deaths of leftist political figures. The violence is spread all across Argentine society with both workers, business leaders, police and politicians being subject to violence. The regular use of police killings of prisoners is highlighted along with the complete failure of the Argentine judicial system to maintain any sense of control or integrity. All of this leads the report to believe that a military coup is inevitable as Peron’s Argentine government has very little popularity. It is just a matter of time before the military builds enough public support to position itself to overthrow the government. That prediction would prove correct as the Argentine military did take stage a coup nine months after this report was written. In two additional sidebars, the report focused on US interests, which were primarily business centered, noting that the agitation from leftist groups maked it difficult for foreign investment due to worker conflict and targeted attacks on businessmen in Argentina. The second sidebar comments on the growing danger of human rights violations in Argentina and how regularly torture is used by the Argentine government. The report ends with the need to publicly reiterate US opposition to the use of violence and human rights violations. The report does not state that the US should apply any real pressure to the Argentine government to curb the violence, most likely because it still saw the threat of leftwing terror and political agitation as a hinderance to US interests in Argentina. In the end, this account of growing violence was just a foretaste of what would become Argentina’s Dirty War during the military dictatorship from 1976-1983.

[1] “Department of State report, ‘Political Violence in Argentina,’ Confidential, June 16, 1975,” National Security Archive, November 11, 2020, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6020921-National-Security-Archive-Doc-02-Department-of.

[2] Alexander Dawson, Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 288.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=4329957-Document-10-Memorandum-of-Conversation-Rough

The document above was a conversation that was made between Fidel Castro, who was visiting the United States in April of 1959, and the then vice president and future president, Richard Nixon. The document was essentially Nixon asking Castro why he lead the revolution and overthrew the government that the United States had set up in Cuba. When Castro had overthrown the U.S. set government in Cuba, many in the United States saw him as a villain. Nixon asked why couldn’t Castro have waited for the people  to vote for a new leader and Castro replied with the essentially that the people could no longer wait for elections to happen. The people were angry and the that anger was close to boiling over. Castro decided that he would take the anger of the Cubans and direct them into a revolution that would benefit the people. This is where a major theme of the Cold War era came to play. The people. The people are not the wealthy but the ones that are suffering and are in desperate need of change so that they can continue their lives and live without having to suffer the idea of whether or not they would be able to get their next meal or have to starve again. Nixon tried to cast the idea of a capitalist society that the United States had onto Castro. He believed that he would be able to convince Castro to fall in line and allow the United States to reclaim Cuba as a subsidiary territory. But much to Nixon’s surprise, Castro did not falter. Castro in turn responded with how America may be the greatest country in the world, but it could still be afraid/live in fear. As Castro says  in the document “But every place I go you seem to be afraid–afraid of Communism, afraid that if Cuba has land reform it will grow a little rice and the market for your rice will be reduced–afraid that if Latin America becomes more industrialized American factories will not be able to sell as much abroad as they have previously.” This stunned Nixon. Never had he had to think that capitalist America was imperfect and that with just the success of another country, they would have to compete with them to remain at the top. Castro, on the other hand, believes that to satisfy the people is not to just have a booming economy, but rather to satisfy the needs of the people so that everyone could be happy. This is the reason why he chose to resort to a more communist approach to help him in his quest to make Cuba a haven for his people.