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The Middle of the Road: The Cold War Comes to Central America, 1947–1954

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Becoming a Good Neighbor among Dictators

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Abstract

This chapter shows how both U.S. and Central American actors moved away from postwar idealism. Policymakers in Washington started to interpret the world in terms of the Cold War while Central American governments made a turn to the political right. Foreign Service officers were squeezed in the middle and needed to make sense of the ambiguous lessons of the war and the more recent crusade against dictatorship. The left-wing government of Guatemala became, in North American eyes, a textbook example of how a democratic experiment could go astray in a developing country. On the other hand, they were not ready to embrace right-wing politicians, some of whom were regarded as fascist sympathizers. In El Salvador and Honduras, U.S. diplomats eventually recognized a “middle-of-the-road” solution, especially in the government of Oscar Osorio, which was nominally devoted to democratic procedures, devotedly anti-communist, and committed to economic progress rather than political experimentation. An epilogue shows these developments provide a background for the Eisenhower administration’s coup in Guatemala in 1954.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Stephen C. Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982); Richard K. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982), 136–138.

  2. 2.

    Grandin and Joseph eds., A Century of Revolution, Part I: The First Cold War, especially the article by Jeffrey L. Gould.

  3. 3.

    Walter and Williams, “Antipolitics in El Salvador”, 327–329.

  4. 4.

    Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 15–16.

  5. 5.

    Williams, Memorandum on Dangers of Split in Junta, December 31, 1948, PRES, CF, class 800.

  6. 6.

    Stephen Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), chapter 1.

  7. 7.

    Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 15. On the local origins of the Cold War, also see: Moulton, “Building Their Own Cold War”.

  8. 8.

    The Ambassador in Nicaragua (Whelan) to Department, Managua, March 6, 1953, FRUS IV, 1375–1377. On Whelan’s relationship with Somoza, consult: Clark, The United States and Somoza, 190–191, and Karl Bermann, Under the Big Stick. Nicaragua and the United States since 1848 (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1986), 242–243.

  9. 9.

    “Memorandum of discussion at the 199th meeting of the National Security Council, Washington, May 27, 1954”, FRUS IV (GC), document 47; Clark, The United States and Somoza, 189–190 and 196, note 44.

  10. 10.

    Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala, 101–132; Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 72–133; “Memorandum of conversation, by the Acting Officer in Charge of Central America and Panama Affairs (Clark), Washington, October 14, 1952. Subject: Export control policy toward Guatemala”, FRUS IV (GC), document 8.

  11. 11.

    Miller, Memorandum of Conversation with Ambassador Sevilla Sacasa of Nicaragua, May 19, 1950, Lot Files, Office of Middle American Affairs, entry 1144, Subject File, box 2, folder marked Memoranda, January to June, 1950.

  12. 12.

    Bennett to Mann, Barber, and Miller, May 18, 1950, Lot Files, entry 1144, box 2, folder marked Memoranda, January to June, 1950.

  13. 13.

    Bennett to Mann and Hughes, April 19, 1950, Lot Files, entry 1144, box 2, folder marked Memoranda, January to June, 1950.

  14. 14.

    On the ideology of the military regime, consult: Walter and Williams, “Antipolitics in El Salvador”, 327–329.

  15. 15.

    Newbegin, Memorandum of Conversation with Cáceres, October 24, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume V, class 800.

  16. 16.

    Daniels to Department, July 18, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume V, class 800; Bursley to Department, July 8, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800.

  17. 17.

    Daniels to Department, July 1, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume V, class 800; Daniels to Department, July 18, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume V, class 800; Daniels (Director of the Division for American Republic Affairs), Memorandum of Conversation with Dr. Zúñiga Huete, Honduran Opposition Leader, December 30, 1947, PRHO, CF, box 34, volume V, class 800; Bursley to Reid, June 11, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800.

  18. 18.

    Bursley to Gordon S. Reid (Division of Central American and Panama Affairs), July 14, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 40, class 800. While Bursley’s assessment of the differences between the Liberal and National Parties fits a long tradition of U.S. skepticism about the role of ideologies in Honduran politics, Suazo Rubí does note that both parties represented the interests of Honduras’s dominant classes during the 1932–1957 period. Suazo Rubí, Auge y Crisis, 262. However, a more radical wing of the Liberal Party, which rejected Zúñiga Huete’s leadership, had also emerged by this time: Euraque, Reinterpreting, 68–71.

  19. 19.

    Bursley to Willard Barber (Chief of the Division of Central American and Panama Affairs), September 30, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 40, class 800.

  20. 20.

    Daniels to Montamat, March 3, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800; Montamat to Daniels, March 8, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800; Montamat to Daniels, March 11, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800.

  21. 21.

    Lt. Col. Isaacson (U.S. Military Attaché to Guatemala) to the Military Intelligence Division, Report 42–48, May 6, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800. On Zúñiga Huete’s 1948 campaign, see González de Oliva, Gobernantes Hondureños, 323–235.

  22. 22.

    See Chap. 3, section “Elections”.

  23. 23.

    Bursley to Daniels, November 1, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 40, class 800.

  24. 24.

    Isaacson to the Military Intelligence Division, Report 42–48, May 6, 1948, PRHO, CF, box 39, class 800.

  25. 25.

    Bursley to Department, January 29, 1949, PRHO, CF, box 42, class 800.

  26. 26.

    For balanced accounts of the changes and continuities present in Gálvez’ government, consult: Edelberto Torres Rivas, “Central America since 1930: An Overview”, in Leslie Bethell ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America. Volume VII: Latin America since 1930. Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 161–211, there 178–179; Inestroza, Historia de la Policia Nacional, 245; Dodd, Carías, 225–226; Argueta, Gálvez, 47–50 and 153–157.

  27. 27.

    Erwin to President Truman, February 15, 1946, Papers of Harry S. Truman, Official Files, box 1570, OF1002: Erwin, John D.; Syracusa to Mann and Miller, January 31, 1951, Lot Files, Office of Middle American Affairs Subject File, box 3, folder marked Memoranda, 1951; Byron Blankenship (U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to Honduras) to Department, despatch 473, January 29, 1951, PRHO, CF, box 48, class 350.

  28. 28.

    Erwin, Memorandum on Rumors of General Tiburcio Carias planning again to make race for Presidency of Honduras, December 7, 1951, PRHO, CF, box 48, class 350.

  29. 29.

    Bursley to Department, March 22, 1949, PRHO, CF, box 44, class 560.

  30. 30.

    Erwin to Department, June 7, 1951, PRHO, CF, box 48, class 350.

  31. 31.

    Erwin to Department, June 8, 1951, PRHO, CF, box 48, class 350.

  32. 32.

    Mann to Randolph, November 10, 1952, Lot Files, entry 1136, Records of the Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State for Inter-American Affairs, box 3, folder marked Honduras; Randolph to Mann, October 30, 1952, Lot Files, entry 1136, Records of the Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State for Inter-American Affairs, box 3, folder marked Honduras.

  33. 33.

    Murat W. Williams (U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to El Salvador) to Department, December 16, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Williams to Department, December 17, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Juan de Zengotita (Division of Central American and Panama Affairs) to Daniels, Memorandum on Background on Salvadoran Revolt of December 14, December 15, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, June 18, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Murat W. Williams (U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to El Salvador) to Department, December 16, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Williams to Department, January 23, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  34. 34.

    Williams to Department, January 9, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, July 2, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, October 21, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, November 2, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  35. 35.

    Nufer, Memorandum on Elections, December 7, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Williams to Department, January 9, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, September 23, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  36. 36.

    On Castañeda’s attempted continuismo and the ensuing coup, see Turcios, Autoritarismo y Modernización, 25–29.

  37. 37.

    Walter and Williams, “Antipolitics in El Salvador”, 327–329. Turcios, Autoritarismo y Modernización, is a good source on the new government’s ideology of (economic) modernization.

  38. 38.

    Nufer to Department, December 24, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, December 23, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Williams to Department, December 17, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, December 22, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, December 31, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, March 24, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350.21; Nufer to Robert F. Woodward (Deputy Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs), June 29, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350.21; Murat W. Williams (U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to El Salvador) to Department, December 16, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, December 31, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  39. 39.

    Nufer to Robert F. Woodward (Deputy Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs), June 29, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350.21; Nufer to Zengotita, December 31, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800; Nufer to Department, December 22, 1948, PRES, CF, box 16, class 800; Nufer, Memorandum on Department’s telegram 135, December 27, 1948, PRES, CF, box 16, class 800; Nufer to Willard F. Barber (Chief of the Division of Central American and Panama Affairs), December 22, 1948, PRES, CF, box 16, class 800.

  40. 40.

    Zengotita to Nufer, December 21, 1948, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  41. 41.

    Barber to Nufer, January 12, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Nufer to Barber, January 21, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Barber to Nufer, January 28, 1949, PRES, CF, box 19, class 360.

  42. 42.

    Shaw to Department, August 25, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Nufer to Department, January 6, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Nufer to Department, April 7, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Williams to Department, July 29, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, September 30, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, January 29, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350.

  43. 43.

    For reports on Osorio’s politics, consult: Nufer to Department, January 11, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Nufer to Department, January 21, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Shaw to Department, October 31, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Shaw to Department, November 1, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Shaw to Department, October 28, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, December 2, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, February 2, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350. On Osorio and Martínez, consult: Shaw to Department, December 6, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, December 19, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, August 1, 1951, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350. On Osorio’s supposed fascist sympathies, consult: Maleady to Thurston, Memorandum on Miscellaneous Notes about Revolution. Rumored Plot to kill Martinez, April 26, 1944, PRES, box 98, volume XIII, class 800; Thurston to Department, May 25, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Maleady, Memorandum on Rumors of Coup d’Etat, June 14, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800. On Osorio’s connections with the Aguirre faction, consult: Gade to Department, October 30, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XIV, class 800; Ellis, Memorandum on Political Notes, November 6, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800; Ellis, Memorandum on Political Notes, November 14, 1944, PRES, box 99, volume XV, class 800.

  44. 44.

    Nufer to Department, December 22, 1948, PRES, CF, box 16, class 800; Nufer to Department, February 4, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Nufer to Department, March 24, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350.21.

  45. 45.

    Shaw to Department, September 22, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350.

  46. 46.

    Shaw to Department, November 10, 1949, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800. Initially, Shaw thought that PRUD was a “Communist front”: Shaw to Department, September 9, 1949, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  47. 47.

    Shaw to Department, April 2, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350.

  48. 48.

    Nufer to Barber, January 21, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, April 26, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350; Shaw to Department, May 19, 1950, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350.

  49. 49.

    Nufer to Department, February 4, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800; Shaw to Department, March 10, 1951, PRES, CF, box 21, class 350; Shaw to Department, March 13, 1951, PRES, CF, box 22, class 350; Shaw to Department, March 20, 1951, PRES, CF, box 22, class 350.

  50. 50.

    Williams to Shaw, Memorandum on Comments on OIR Report, October 27, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 350; Shaw to Department, September 21, 1950, PRES, CF, box 22, class 350; Wieland to Department, September 13, 1951, PRES, CF, box 22, class 350.

  51. 51.

    Williams to Department, July 29, 1949, PRES, CF, box 18, class 800.

  52. 52.

    Shaw to Department, December 5, 1949, PRES, CF, box 15, class 800.

  53. 53.

    Siracusa to Mann and Miller, September 31, 1951, Lot Files, entry 1144, box 3, folder marked Memoranda, 1951; Bennett to Mann and Miller, May 31, 1951, Lot Files, entry 1144, box 3, folder marked Memoranda, 1951; Bennett to Miller and Barber, March 31, 1950, Lot Files, entry 1144, box 2, folder marked Political Summaries.

  54. 54.

    Undated transcript of interview with Ambassador Angier B. Duke, Duke University Living History Program, Duke University, Durham, NC, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, The Angier, Biddle Duke Papers, 1915–1995 (henceforth Duke Papers), box 1, folder 13; Transcript of CBS-TV interview with Ambassador Angier B. Duke, March 29, 1976, Duke Papers, box 1, folder 14; Transcript of “Interview 51”, undated, Duke Papers, box 1, folder 18; Department of State, Swearing on of Angier Biddle Duke as Chief of Protocol, January 24, 1961, Duke Papers, box 62, folder marked Press Releases; Transcript of interview with Angier Biddle Duke, April 4, 1989, ADST.

  55. 55.

    Address by the Honorable Angier Biddle Duke, United States Ambassador to El Salvador, at Florida Southern College, Lakeland Florida, Wednesday, April 15, 1953, Duke Papers, box 43, Scrapbook marked A.B.D. San Salvador.

  56. 56.

    Duke, “An Ambassador Reports”, in Duke Papers, box 43, Scrapbook marked A.B.D. San Salvador.

  57. 57.

    Interview with Angier Biddle Duke, April 4, 1989, ADST. Emphasis added.

  58. 58.

    Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala, 61–67 and 183; Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 61, 165, 199, and 200; Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 222; Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 381. While it is obvious that the United States played a very significant role in the events of 1954, several scholars have pointed out that internal factors should not be overlooked. After all, it was the Guatemalan army that eventually betrayed Arbenz. Gleijeses’s Shattered Hope offers an unequaled account of the so-called “Ten years of Spring.” Bethell and Roxborourgh, Latin America, observes that the Guatemalan revolution is something of a regional anomaly, since the balance of political power in other countries had shifted to the right long before 1954. Deborah Yashar, Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala, 1870s–1950s (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 167–170 and 191–211, argues that CIA intervention in 1954 was a catalyzer for developments that would eventually pull Guatemala to the political right anyway.

  59. 59.

    The following section presents Unites States’ goals for the Guatemalan counterrevolution in the context of its policy toward Central America since World War II. Stephen M. Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000) offers an overview of U.S. management of the counterrevolution, but mainly in a world system analysis framework. Streeter argues that Hubert Humphrey’s assertion that “we should … stop talking so much about democracy, and make it clear that we are quite willing to support dictatorships of the right,” “accurately reflected U.S. policy at the time” (p. 33). In this text, I argue that the goal of the United States was to support what it considered middle-of-the-road politics, not dictatorships of the right.

  60. 60.

    According to Clark, The U.S. and Somoza, 189–190 and 196, note 44, operation Success was a watershed in U.S. Nicaraguan relations.

  61. 61.

    “Editorial note”, FRUS 1952–1954, volume IV: American Republics, 1208–1209.

  62. 62.

    Memorandum for the Record, by Richard Hirsch of the Operations Coordinating Board, Washington, October 28, 1953, FRUS 1952–1954, volume IV: American Republics, 1087.

  63. 63.

    The Ambassador in Guatemala (Peurifoy) to Department, Guatemala City, July 7, 1954, FRUS 1952–1954, volume IV: American Republics, 1202–1208.

  64. 64.

    Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America, 61–62.

  65. 65.

    Quoted in: Council on Foreign Relation, United States in World Affairs, 1954, 387.

  66. 66.

    Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala, 198–200.

  67. 67.

    Council on Foreign Relation, United States in World Affairs, 1955, 203–204.

  68. 68.

    Memorandum of Conversation, Panama City, July 22, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Office Files, 1953–1961. Part II: International Series [EOF], Microfilms, Reel 25, frame 336; Memorandum of Conversation, Panama City, July 23, 1956, FRUS 1955–1957, volume VII: American Republics, 127.

  69. 69.

    Memorandum of Conversation, Panama City, July 22, 1956, EOF, reel 25, frame 336.

  70. 70.

    Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for inter-American Affairs (Holland) to Department, Washington, June 29, 1956, FRUS 1955–1957, volume VII: American Republics, 124–125.

  71. 71.

    Memorandum from the Deputy Director of the Office of Middle American Affairs (Stewart) to the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for inter-American Affairs (Rubottom), Washington, April 9, 1957, FRUS 1955–1957, volume VII: American Republics, 135–137.

  72. 72.

    Program for the visit of His Excellency the President of the Republic of Guatemala and señora de Armas to the United States of America, October to November, 1955, EOF, reel 15, frames 505–510. Also consult: Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala, 180.

  73. 73.

    Stewart to Rubottom, Washington, April 9, 1957, FRUS 1955–1957, volume VII: American Republics, 135–137.

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    Jorrit van den Berk

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van den Berk, J. (2018). The Middle of the Road: The Cold War Comes to Central America, 1947–1954. In: Becoming a Good Neighbor among Dictators. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69986-8_9

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