The Americas: Angry Talk & Negative Action

Not since the Bay of Pigs debacle had the U.S. Senate echoed to such harsh words over the Kennedy Administration’s policy in Latin America. Last week still another legally constituted Latin American government fell by the wayside, toppled by military revolt. The victim this time was the small Central American republic of Honduras. It was the second such coup in eight days, the fourth this year, the seventh since President Kennedy took office.* Throughout, the U.S. has seemed powerless either to prevent the coups or even decide on a consistent approach.

Understandable Exasperation. On the Senate floor, Oregon Democrat Wayne Morse was livid. “We are reaching one of the most serious crises in U.S.Latin American relations in a quarter of a century,” he cried. “We are either going to support constitutional government, or we are going to lose any following that we can hope to obtain by throwing billions of dollars into Latin America.” Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening angrily suggested canceling all military aid (some $700 million since World War II) to prevent its use as “an instrument for the overthrow of established democracies.”

What made the exasperation understandable was the fact that John F.

Kennedy, with his $20 billion Alliance for Progress, had come into office with glowing plans for building stable democracy in Latin America. Yet in the past three years, most U.S. attempts to prop up weak governments have fallen flat. And there are well-founded fears that the worst is not over. All week long, the State Department chewed its nails over military muttering in Colombia, troubled by a weak President and backlands violence; in Venezuela, rocked by increasing Castroite terrorism, and in Brazil, where perpetual chaos brought the country to the point of martial law.

In Need of a Policy. In anger and frustration, 22 Senators, 21 of them Democrats, fired off a telegram to the President asking him to make an example of the Dominican military by recalling all U.S. diplomatic, military-and foreign-aid personnel. After a lengthy series of meetings, Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled all U.S. economic and military-aid personnel from both the Dominican Republic and Honduras.

But surely the Senators and the Secretary of State knew that such angry shouting and negative steps would not go far toward solving the problems. The U.S. experience in Latin America has plainly shown that giving aid to weak though nominally democratic governments is not necessarily productive, and that not all military regimes are necessarily the worst possible alternative. The U.S. clearly is still in serious need of a positive and flexible policy to deal with the complex problems of Latin America.

* El Salvador (January 1961), Argentina (March 1962), Peru (July 1962), Guatemala (March 1963), Ecuador (July 1963), Dominican Republic (September 1963) and Honduras.