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The Postwar Moment: An Opening for Democracy, 1944–1947

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Becoming a Good Neighbor among Dictators

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Abstract

The end of the war against fascism, combined with the fall of several dictatorships in Latin America, convinced a group of Washington policymakers that the U.S. should support a new trend toward democracy. In Central America, that policy had firm adherents and hostile detractors in the U.S. Foreign Service. Chapter 8 shows how a combination of factors (American closeness to the dictators during the war, divisions over the policy in the Foreign Service, and divisions between Central American actors and well-intentioned U.S. diplomats over the meaning of democracy) conspired against the policy. Around 1947, right-wing leaders in Central America started to reassert their dominance while policymakers in Washington turned to the threat of international communism. The policy to support democracy survived in name only.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Latin America: Democracy’s Bull”, TM (November 5, 1945).

  2. 2.

    Charles D. Ameringer, The Caribbean Legion: Patriots, Politicians, Soldiers of Fortune, 1946–1950 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 11.

  3. 3.

    Clark, Diplomatic Relations, chapters 10 and 11; Walter, The Regime, 129–163; Eduardo Crawley, Dictators Never Die. A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somoza Dynasty (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), 101–109.

  4. 4.

    Clark, Diplomatic Relations, 326–327 and 342 and Crawley, Somoza and Roosevelt, 232. While his focus is on internal dynamics, Knut Walter at least acknowledges that U.S. opposition was the main reason for Somoza not to compete in presidential elections personally. Walter, The Regime, 144–145.

  5. 5.

    Leonard, Search for Stability, 122–123; Bethell and Roxborough, Latin America, 28; Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 316–331; Rock, Latin America, 5–6.

  6. 6.

    Bethell and Roxborough, “The Postwar Conjuncture”, 3–6. The case for the existence of a postwar conjuncture in Latin America was first made in: Leslie Bethell and Ian Roxborough, “Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: Some Reflections on the 1945–8 Conjuncture”, Journal of Latin American Studies 20 (1988), 167–189. A more detailed account, by the same author, of the role of the United States in this period is: Leslie Bethell, “From the Second World War to the Cold War, 1944–54”, in Lowenthal, Exporting Democracy, 41–71. The articles collected in Rock ed., Latin America in the 1940s rivals Bethell and Roxborough’s analysis by their focus on internal, rather than international developments. The book rarely discusses Central America, though.

  7. 7.

    Bethell and Roxborough, “The Postwar Conjuncture”, 6–7.

  8. 8.

    Idem, 16–23.

  9. 9.

    Thomas M. Leonard, The United States and Central America, 1944–1949: Perceptions of Political Dynamics (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984), 10.

  10. 10.

    Leonard, Perceptions, ix.

  11. 11.

    Hussey, Ambassador Braden’s proposed policy respecting dictatorships and disreputable governments in the other American Republics, October 1945, Lot Files, ARA Analysis and Liaison, box 16, folder marked Analysis and Liaison, September to November, 1945.

  12. 12.

    Hussey to Dreier, January 25, 1946, Lot Files, Deputy Assistant Secretaries, 1945–1956, box 2, folder marked Dictatorships, 1945–1946. For Hussey’s own evaluation of the policy: Hussey to Boal, September 2, 1945, Lot Files, Deputy Assistant Secretaries, 1945–1956, box 2, folder marked Dictatorships, 1945–1946.

  13. 13.

    Claude G. Bowers, My Mission to Spain: Watching the Rehearsal for World War II (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954).

  14. 14.

    Hussey, Ambassador Braden’s proposed policy respecting dictatorships and disreputable governments in the other American Republics, October 1945, Lot Files, ARA Analysis and Liaison, box 16, folder marked Analysis and Liaison, September to November, 1945.

  15. 15.

    Wood, Dismantling, 14–131; Schoultz, Beneath the United States, chapter 16.

  16. 16.

    Wood, Dismantling, 121–131. Quote is on page 123.

  17. 17.

    Schmitz contextualizes these policy considerations in the emerging Cold War: Schmitz, ‘Thank God’, 138–144.

  18. 18.

    Long, diary entries of June 1, June 2, June 3, October 27, and December 22, 1944, Long Papers, box 66, folder 334: Diaries and Long, diary entries of January 10, January 12, and March 16, 1945, Long Papers, box 66, folder 335: Diaries. Gleijeses also describes the optimism of the time after Ubico and Ponce’s fall. However, he also refers to the revolutionary government’s violent suppression of an indigenous uprising. Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 30–32.

  19. 19.

    Cochran to Rockefeller, n.d. (March 1945), Lot Files, General Memoranda, box 10, folder marked January to May, 1945; Hussey, Report on the Current Situation in the other American Republics, January 13, 1945, Lot Files, Analysis and Liaison, box 15, folder marked December 1944 to February 1945; Hussey to Butler, August 23, 1946, Lot Files, Analysis and Liaison, box 16, folder marked May to September, 1946.

  20. 20.

    Wise to Woodward, Briggs, Braden, and Acheson, April 25, 1947, Lot Files, General Memoranda, box 13, folder marked May to June, 1947.

  21. 21.

    Interview with Woodward, ADST.

  22. 22.

    On Arévalo and his administration, see Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, chapter 2.

  23. 23.

    Hussey, Ambassador Braden’s proposed policy respecting dictatorships and disreputable governments in the other American Republics, October 1945, Lot Files, ARA Analysis and Liaison, box 16, folder marked Analysis and Liaison, September to November, 1945.

  24. 24.

    On U.S. relations with Guatemala during the early Cold War, see chapter 9.

  25. 25.

    Aaron Coy Moulton, “Building Their Own Cold War in Their Own Backyard: The Transnational, International Conflicts in the Greater Caribbean Basin, 1944–1954”, Cold War History 15:2 (2015), 133–154; Ameringer, The Caribbean Legion, 4–5, 31, 34; Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 107–116; and Ibid., “Juan José Arévalo and the Caribbean Legion”, Journal of Latin American Studies 21:1 (February 1989), 133–145, there 134, 137 and 142–144.

  26. 26.

    Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 99.

  27. 27.

    Braden, Memorandum of Conversation with Mr. John L. Simpson, Mr. Tennyson (International Railways of Central America) and Mr. Pollan (Vice President, United Fruit Company), November 29, 1946, Lot Files, General Memoranda, box 12, folder marked November 18, 1946 to January 17, 1947.

  28. 28.

    Kyle to Arnold Nicholson, Memorandum on Dean Kyle’s background, Kyle Papers; Kyle to Liberty Hyde Baily, March 29, 1946, Kyle Papers.

  29. 29.

    Consider for example, Patterson’s method for identifying communists, discussed in LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, 116.

  30. 30.

    Gen. Miguel Ydígoras-Fuentes to Richard S. Patterson, December 3, 1948, Richard S. Patterson Papers, Harry Truman Presidential Library at Independence, Missouri, box 5, folder marked Appointment; Patterson to Ydígoras-Fuentes, February 28, 1949, Patterson Papers, box 5, folder marked Appointment.

  31. 31.

    Ellis, Memorandum on Political and Social Opinions of Mrs. Menendez, wife of the provisional President, May 25, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Ellis, Memorandum on Political Developments, July 17, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  32. 32.

    This trend is noticeable in the names of the new parties, which stressed democracy and solidarity: Unión Democratica Nacional, Partido Emancipación Nacional, Frente Popular Salvadoreño, Partido Unión Democrata, Partido del Pueblo Salvadoreño, Frente Social Republicano, Partido Fraternal Progresista, and Partido Unificación Social Democratica. Not all parties were as progressive as their names suggested: Partido Fraternal Progresista, for example, was led by an old caudillo while Partido Unificación Social Democratica represented conservative coffee interests. It is indicative of the prestige of democratic principles that even the old coffee barons felt obliged to acknowledge it in the name of their party. Thurston to Department, May 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 29, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 29, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 31, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, June 2, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, June 5, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Gerhard Gade (U.S. Chargé d’Affaires a.i. to El Salvador) to Department, June 22, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Gade to Department, June 24, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  33. 33.

    Thurston to Department, May 12, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 17, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  34. 34.

    Thurston to Department, June 2, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  35. 35.

    Thurston to Department, May 22, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, June 17, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Gade to Department, June 29, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  36. 36.

    Ellis, Memorandum on Support of Augustín Alfaro for the presidential candidacy of Dr. Arturo Romero, May 25, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Ellis, Memorandum on Political Developments, July 17, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Ellis, Memorandum on Politics, July 19, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  37. 37.

    Gade to Department, June 29, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  38. 38.

    Maleady, Memorandum of Conversation with Dr. Arturo Romero, May 17, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  39. 39.

    Ellis, Memorandum on Support of Augustín Alfaro for the Presidential Candidacy of Dr. Arturo Romero, May 25, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  40. 40.

    Thurston, Memorandum starting with: “I told the Minister…”, August 30, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  41. 41.

    Thurston to Department, August 4, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Thurston to Department, August 21, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  42. 42.

    Ellis, Memorandum on Colonel Aguirre Salina, Chief of Police, September 9, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Gade to Department, October 23, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  43. 43.

    Maleady, Memorandum starting with “An informant, whose reliability…”, October 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  44. 44.

    Maleady, Memorandum starting with “This memo is presented…”, October 23, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  45. 45.

    Gade to Department, October 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800.

  46. 46.

    Gade to Department, November 1, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Simmons to Department, November 10, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, November 21, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 7, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 10, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 18, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 22, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800.

  47. 47.

    Gade to Department, November 7, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, November 21, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, November 24, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Stettinius to Simmons, November 28, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Berle to Gade, November 1, 1944, PRES, CF, box 9, class 710.

  48. 48.

    R. Arrieta Rossi (Salvadoran Minister of Foreign Affairs), Radiogram to the American Governments, November 29, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Gade to Department, December 26, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800. Castañeda lost his position in the Martínez government (and his freedom) when he “admitted” to involvement in a conspiracy against the regime. See Ching, Authoritarian El Salvador, chapter 7, section 1.

  49. 49.

    Gade to Department, January 16, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 4, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 8, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 9, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 19, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, February 7, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 16, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, February 9, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, February 15, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, March 7, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, March 10, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, March 10, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800.

  50. 50.

    Cabot to Messersmith, December 21, 1944, Lot Files, Individual Countries, box 46, folder marked El Salvador, 1940–1947; Messersmith, Memorandum on Telephone Conversation with Toriello, February 14, 1945, Lot Files, Individual Countries, box 46, folder marked El Salvador, 1940–1947.

  51. 51.

    Gade to Department, January 25, 1945, PRES, CF, box 11, volume II, class 800.

  52. 52.

    John F. Simmons (U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador) to Department, March 22, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, May 19, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800.

  53. 53.

    Simmons to Department, April 11, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800.

  54. 54.

    PRES, box 119, volume XVII, class 800: Salvador. Protest against Recognition.

  55. 55.

    Gade to Department, February 15, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800. Simmons to Department, March 14, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Gade to Department, January 25, 1945, PRES, CF, box 11, volume II, class 800.

  56. 56.

    Simmons to Department, March 28, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, June 1, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to the American Embassies in Central America, June 11, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, 304, June 13, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, August 8, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, August 29, 1945, PRES, box 118, volume XVI, class 800; Simmons to Department, July 30, 1945, PRES, CF, box 11, volume II, class 800; Gade to Department, November 30, 1945, PRES, box 119, volume XVII, class 801.1.

  57. 57.

    While not referring to Castañeda specifically, Ching briefly discusses this continuity: Ching, Authoritarian El Salvador, conclusion.

  58. 58.

    Simmons to Department, July 9, 1945, PRES, CF, box 11, volume I, class 710.

  59. 59.

    Simmons to Department, September 18, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to Department, September 23, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to certain embassies, September 25, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to Department, September 25, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to Department, September 27, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to Department, September 27, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800; Simmons to Department, September 30, 1946, PRES, box 130, volume XVII, class 800.

  60. 60.

    Simmons to Department, November 27, 1946, PRES, box 131, volume XVIII, class 800.

  61. 61.

    Simmons to Department, October 10, 1945, PRES, CF, box 11, volume II, class 800.

  62. 62.

    Simmons to Department, January 17, 1947, PRES, CF, box 14, class 800; Williams to Newbegin, December 31, 1946, Lot Files, Individual Countries, box 46, folder marked El Salvador, 1940–1947; Williams to Wise and Newbegin, January 23, 1947, Lot Files, Individual Countries, box 46, folder marked El Salvador, 1940–1947; Williams to Newbegin, January 28, 1947, Lot Files, Individual Countries, box 46, folder marked El Salvador, 1940–1947. A brief discussion of Castañeda’s plans for continuismo can also be found in: Roberto Turcios, Autoritarismo y Modernización. El Salvador 1950–1960 (Ediciones Tendencias, 1993), 25–26.

  63. 63.

    Erwin to Department, November 2, 1944, PRHO, CF, box 19, volume 7, class 800.

  64. 64.

    Simmons to Briggs, March 13, 1946, PRES, CF, box 13, volume I, class 020; Newbegin to Braden, August 12, 1946, Lot Files, Miscellaneous Memoranda, box 64, folder marked Neutrality, September 21, 1938 to August 14, 1940.

  65. 65.

    Thurston to Department, July 27, 1944, PRES, box 100, class 800; Thurston to Department, August 19, 1944, PRES, box 100, class 800; The U.S. Legal Attaché to El Salvador to Department, September 13, 1944, PRES, box 100, class 800. The latter claim was made by an unidentified informant of the legal attaché at the U.S. embassy in San Salvador and it seems likely that it is at least an exaggeration.

  66. 66.

    One of secretary Faust’s favorite terms to describe Honduras. Faust to William P. Cochran, Jr. (Department of State), January 21, 1946, PRHO, box 147, class 801.1.

  67. 67.

    Erwin to Cabot, January 11, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, January 11, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, January 12, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Robert F. Woodward (U.S. Secretary of Embassy to Guatemala) to Department, May 29, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, June 14, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, October 12, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Kyle to Department, October 13, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, October 15, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Kyle to Department, October 16, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Erwin to Department, October 20, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800; Kyle to Department, November 9, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 26, volume 7, class 800. Moulton notes that Carías would become involved in the counter-revolutionary activity supported by Somoza and Trujillo, but this appears to have been in 1947 and 1948. Moulton, “Building Their Own Cold War”, 145–147.

  68. 68.

    Braden, Memorandum of Conversation with Dr. Don Julían R. Cáceres, Ambassador of Honduras, August 13, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 31, volume 3, class 800; Lt. Col. Nathan A. Brown, Jr. (U.S. Military Attaché to Guatemala) to the American Embassy in Guatemala, January 16, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 33, volume 6, class 824.

  69. 69.

    Byrnes to Erwin, Paraphrase of telegram received from the Department, March 14, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 32, volume 5, class 800.1.

  70. 70.

    Cochran, Memorandum of Conversation with Cáceres, January 4, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 31, volume 3, class 800.

  71. 71.

    Briggs, Memorandum of Conversation with Cáceres, December 26, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 32, volume 5, class 820; Newbegin, Memorandum of Conversation with Cáceres, October 24, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume 5, class 800.

  72. 72.

    Faust to Department, April 3, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 31, volume 3, class 800.

  73. 73.

    Erwin to Department, August 3, 1945, PRHO, CF, box 24, class 710.

  74. 74.

    Inestroza, Policía Nacional, 184–185 and 199–203; Ibid., Documentos Clasificados, 13–26. “Copia de la solicitud hecha al Señor Presidente por más de doscientas señoras y señoritas de la capital”, in ibid., 180–184.

  75. 75.

    Faust to Dean Acheson (Acting Secretary of State), May 14, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 31, volume 4, class 800.

  76. 76.

    Byrnes to Erwin, March 14, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 32, volume 5, class 800.1.

  77. 77.

    Brown to the Military Intelligence Division, Report 123–146, December 10, 1946, PRHO, CF, box 31, volume 3, class 800.

  78. 78.

    “Furious debate on Lilienthal rages in Senate”, Chicago Daily Tribune [CDT] (March 25, 1947), 11; “Would consider stopgap aid to Greece: Truman”, CDT (March 27, 1947), 16.

  79. 79.

    Dodd, Carías, 210–224; Mario R. Argueta, Juan Manuel Gálvez. Su Trayectoria Gubernativa (Banco Central de Honduras, 2007), 5–23.

  80. 80.

    Y (Louis Halle), “On a Certain Impatience with Latin America”, Foreign Affairs: An American Quarterly Review 28:1/4 (1949–1950), 565–579. Halle used the pseudonym “Y” for the article: an obvious reference to Kennan’s “X” article. The article was supposed to define for the public the groundwork of U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America—much like Kennan’s article with regard to the Soviet Union. Also consult Schmitz, ‘Thank God’, 145–157.

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    Jorrit van den Berk

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van den Berk, J. (2018). The Postwar Moment: An Opening for Democracy, 1944–1947. In: Becoming a Good Neighbor among Dictators. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69986-8_8

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