Countering the Soviet Threat? An Analysis of the Justifications for US Military Assistance to El Salvador, 1979–92

Abstract

From 1979 to 1992, the US supported the El Salvadorian government in its counter-insurgency war. The insurgents were characterized by the US as Soviet backed communists. US support for the El Salvadorian government was sold as supporting a pro-US ally to contain Soviet expansionism within Central America. This article examines the documentation that the US used to substantiate this justification, and argues that the facts and interpretations that the US used cannot sustain the characterization of the insurgency movement in El Salvador as Soviet backed. Furthermore, even in the event of a rebel victory, and in the absence of US hostility, the insurgents would have almost certainly sought good relations with the US.

Notes

1. Michael McClintock, The American Connection: State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador (London: Zed Books, 1985), pp.340–42.

2. Daniel Siegel and Joy Hackel, ‘El Salvador: Counterinsurgency Revisited’, in Michael T. Klare and Peter Kornbluh (eds.), Low Intensity Warfare (New York: Random House, 1988), pp.112–36.

3. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (London: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), pp.52–148.

4. Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Central America, 24 March 1984. www.Reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/32484a.htm.

5. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, 23 Feb. 1981; US Department of State and Department of Defence, ‘Background Paper: Nicaragua's Military Build-up and Support for Central American Subversion’, Washington DC, July 1984; United States Department of State, Special Report No 132, ‘“Revolution Beyond Our Borders”: Sandinista Intervention in Central America‘, Sept. 1985.

6. William Blum, Killing Hope. US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), pp.352–69.

7. Ibid., pp.352–7.

8. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, pp.33–8.

9. Jenny Pearce, Under the Eagle. US Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean (London: Latin America Bureau, 1982), pp.220–50.

10. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, p.249.

11. Ronald Reagan, ‘Remarks on Central America and El Salvador at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers’, The Ronald Reagan Library, 10 March 1983. www.Reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/52485c.htm.

12. Jeane Kirkpatrick, US Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, ‘Human Rights in Nicaragua’, 1982, p.77.

13. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, 23 Feb. 1981, p.1.

14. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, p.89.

15. Raymond Bonner, Weakness and Deceit: US Policy in El Salvador (New York: Times Books, 1984), p.256.

16. United States Department of State, ‘“Revolution Beyond Our Borders”’.

17. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.1.

18. Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America, 27 April 1983. www.Reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1983/42783d.htm.

19. Ibid.

20. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.2.

21. Ibid., p.4.

22. Ibid., p.4.

23. Ibid., p.4.

24. Ibid., p.5.

25. Ibid., p.5.

26. Ibid., p.7.

27. Bonner, Weakness and Deceit, pp.257–8.

28. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.7.

29. John Lamperti, What Are We Afraid Of? An Assessment of the ‘Communist Threat’ in Central America (Boston: South End Press, 1988), p.54.

30. Bonner, Weakness and Deceit, p.257.

31. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.4.

32. Bonner, Weakness and Deceit, pp.257–8.

33. Bishara Bahbah, Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection (New York: St. Martins Press, 1986), pp.147–77.

34. United States Department of State, ‘“Revolution Beyond Our Borders’”.

35. US Department of State and Department of Defence, Background paper: ‘Nicaragua's Military Build-up and Support for Central American Subversion’, Washington DC, July 1984.

36. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.7.

37. Ibid., p.7.

38. US Department of State and Department of Defence, ‘Nicaragua's Military Build-up and Support for Central American Subversion’, p.19.

39. United States Department of State, ‘“Revolution Beyond Our Borders”’, p.10.

40. Ibid., p.12.

41. Ibid., p.14.

42. Ibid., p.14.

43. Ibid., p.15.

44. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.1.

45. Jonathon Kwitney, ‘Apparent Errors Cloud US “White Paper” on Reds in El Salvador’, Wall Street Journal, 8 June 1981.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.; See also Lamperti, What Are We Afraid Of?, p.58.

48. Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on United States Policy in Central America, 9 May 1984, www.Reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/50984h.htm.

49. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.7.

50. Ibid.

51. Edward King, The Nicaraguan Armed Forces. A Second Look (New York: Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 1985), p.24.

52. Quotation taken from Bruce Marcus (ed.), Sandinistas Speak: Speeches, Writings and Interviews With Leaders of Nicaragua's Revolution (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1982), p.132.

53. United States Department of State, ‘“Revolution Beyond Our Borders”’, p.12.

54. Ibid.

55. See Morris Morley and James Petras, The Reagan Administration and Nicaragua: How Washington Constructs Its Case for Counterrevolution in Central America (New York: Institute for Media Analysis, 1987), p.45 for a succinct analysis of this.

56. Anon, ‘US Halts Economic Aid to Nicaragua’, New York Times, 2 April 1981.

57. Charles Clements, Witness To War: An American Doctor in El Salvador (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), p.84.

58. United States Department of State, ‘Communist Interference in El Salvador’, p.2.

59. Ibid., p.11.

60. Ibid., p.9.

61. Carla Anne Robins, ‘Examining the “Cuban Threat”’, in Abraham F. Loenthal and Samuel F. Wells, Jr. (eds.), The Central American Crisis: Policy Perspectives (Washington: The Wilson Center, 1985), p.110.

62. Richard J. Barnet, Real Security: Restoring American Power in a Dangerous Age (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981), p.115.

63. Jonathon Steele, Soviet Power: the Kremlins Foreign Policy. Brezhnev to Chernenko (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p.168.

64. On the lack of Soviet support to leftist governments and insurgency movements see Margaret Daly Hayes, ‘The Stakes in Central America and US Policy Responses’, in Loenthal and Wells (eds.), The Central American Crisis, p.31; On the unlikelihood of a subordination of Salvadoran foreign policy to the Soviet Union see Morton H. Halperin, ‘US Interests in Central America: Designing a Minimax Strategy’, in ibid., p.25.

65. Penny Laroux, Cry Of The People (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), p.37.

66. McClintock, The American Connection.

67. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, p.48.

68. Carla Anne Robins, The Cuban Threat (Philadelphia: ISHI publications, 1985), p.17.

69. Jutta Weldes, Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), p.168.

70. Ibid., pp.168–9

71. Ibid., pp.165–96.

72. William Blum, ‘Cuba 1959–1980s: The Unforgivable Revolution’, www.thirdworldtraveller.com/Blum/Cuba_uned_Wblum.html; Recently declassified information points to Castro's desire to initiate good relations with both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations right up to the end of 1964. Lisa Howard, a US newswoman, interviewed Castro in Havana in May 1963. Howard was debriefed by the CIA upon her return to the US. Her debriefing was read by then US President Kennedy. In it she emphasized Castro's ‘interest in better relations with Washington’. After the assassination of Kennedy, Castro sent a further notice of his desire for good relations to the new Johnson administration, which was subsequently ignored. For the full declassified documentation outlining this see Peter Kornbluh, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 17, ‘Kennedy and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation‘, 1999. www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB18/index.html.

73. Robins, ‘Examining the “Cuban Threat”’, p.110.

74. Ibid., pp.103–12.

75. Robert Armstrong, Marc Edelman and Robert Matthews, ‘Sandinista Foreign Policy: Strategies for Survival’, NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 1985, p.36.

76. Ibid., p.51.

77. Report prepared by Carl G. Jacobsen for the US Department of State, ‘The Jacobsen Report: Soviet Attitudes Towards, Aid To, and Contact with Central American Revolutionaries’, June 1984, p.21.

78. Lamperti, What Are We Afraid Of?, p.29.

79. On the Sandinista search for arms, see George Black and Robert Matthews, ‘Arms from the USSR – Or from Nobody’, The Nation, 31 Aug. 1985, p.148; For details of the French arms deal and the reactions to it, see Armstrong et al., ‘Sandinista Foreign Policy, p.19.

80. Clifford Krauss and Robert Greenburger, ‘Despite Fears of U.S., Soviet Aid To Nicaragua Appears To Be Limited’, Wall Street Journal, 3 April 1985.

81. Thomas W. Walker, Nicaragua: The First Five Years (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), pp.14–16.

82. Americas Watch, ‘Report on Human Rights in Nicaragua’, July 1985, p.3.

83. Ivan Molloy, Rolling Back Revolution (London: Pluto Press, 2001).

84. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (London: Monthly Review Press, 1973).

85. Dianna Melrose, Nicaragua. The Threat of a Good Example (Oxford: Oxfam Print Room, 1985).

86. Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy Towards Latin America (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981), p.11.