Scholarly Article Review
Central America and the United States: Overlooked Foreign Policy Objectives
Author(syf 7 K R P D V 0 / H R Q D U d
Source: The Americas, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jun., 1993yf S S 0
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1007262
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the Americas
L(1yf - X O \ 0
Copyright by the Academy of American Franciscan History
CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES:
OVERLOOKED FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVES
Since the fall of Nicaragua's Somoza dynasty in 1979, nearly 900
books dealing with Central America have appeared. They repeat the
themes of imperialism, paternalism, and security that traditionally
have characterized studies about Central America and its relations with the
U.S. The imperialist theme is pursued by Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Rev-
olutions and Karl Berman's Under the Big Stick. They assert that the United
States economically exploited and politically controlled Central America in
general and Nicaragua in particular. A sense of moral righteousness is found
in Tom Buckley's Violent Neighbors and Richard Alan White's The Morass
while the security theme is pursued by John Findling in his Close Neighbors,
Distant Friends. Histories about Central America reinforce these themes.
For example, the Dean of the U.S. Central Americanists Ralph Lee Wood-
ward, Jr., and Costa Ricans Edelberto Torres-Rivas and Hector P6rez-
Brignoli, and Honduran Mario Argueta demonstrate that the American busi-
nessmen capitalized upon the ignorance of region's elite for their own eco-
nomic gain.' Despite their diversity, all of these volumes demonstrate that
the United States dominated the relationship and criticize it for so doing.
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (New York: W.W.
Norton and Co., 1986yf . D U O % H U P D Q 8 Q G H U W K H % L J 6 W L F N 1 L F D U D J X D D Q G W K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V 6 L Q F H 8 (Boston: South End Press, 1986yf 7 R P % X F N O H \ 9 L R O H Q W 1 H L J K E R U V ( O 6 D O Y D G R U & H Q W U D O $ P H U L F D D Q d the United States (New York: Times Books, 1984yf 5 L F K D U G $ O O H Q : K L W H 7 K H 0 R U D V V 7 K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H s
Intervention in Central America (New York: Harper, 1984yf - R K Q ) L Q G O L Q J & O R V H 1 H L J K E R U V ' L V W D Q t
Friends: United States-Central American Relations (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987yf 5 D O S K / H e Woodward, Jr., Central America: A Nation Divided (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985yf ( G H O E H U W R 7 R U U H V 5 L Y D V 5 H S U H V V L R Q D Q G 5 H V L V W D Q F H 7 K H 6 W U X J J O H I R U ' H P R F U D F \ L Q & H Q W U D l America (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989yf + H F W R U 3 H U H ] % U L J Q R O L $ % U L H I + L V W R U \ R I & H Q W U D O $ P H U L F D , trans, by Ricardo B. Sawrey and Susanna Stettri de Sawrey (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989yf 0 D U L R $ U J X H W D 7 L E X U L F R & D U L D V D X W R Q R P W D G H X Q D G S R F D 7 H J X O F L J D O S D ( G L W R U L D O * X D \ P X U D V ,
1989yf .
1
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2 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Importantly, scholars have overlooked the fact that the Central American
nations, either collectively or individually, pursued identifiable foreign pol-
icy objectives with the United States and have not always been the compliant
partners that they are portrayed to be. Part of the problem is explained by the
fact that fire, flood, earthquake, mismanagement, and government policy
has restricted access to Central American foreign policy archival materials.
Furthermore, Central American scholars have not written the history of their
foreign policy, either by nation or region, but have focused their attention
upon significant events. Only a few North American scholars-i.e., Kenneth
Grieb, Richard Salisbury, and Thomas Schoonover-have researched Central
American foreign policy archives, and they, too, have focused upon signif-
icant events.2
Despite the emphasis upon United States policy and the preponderant use
of United States sources, the literature clearly indicates that the Central
American nations, individually or collectively, pursued identifiable objec-
tives in their relations with the United States and that they did not always
succumb to Washington's dominance.
Nineteenth Century
In the broad perspective of nineteenth-century inter-American relations,
Central America appeared as a backwater of attention. Only when dealing
with the events that resulted in the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty or the
selection of a transisthmian canal route did the region occupy center stage.
Yet following its independence in 1823, the Central Americans came into
contact with the United States in four areas: 1yf D G R S W L R Q R I S R O L W L F D O S U L Q F L -
ples and cultural mores; 2yf V H F X U L W \ I U R P I R U H L J Q L Q W U X G H U V \f improved
commercial relations; and 4yf W K H G H Y H O R S P H Q W R I D W U D Q V L V W K P L D Q F D Q D O .
Central America's colonial experience severely restricted its understand-
ing of the outside world. A few of them may have read the works of Antonio
de Alcedo Bexarano and Abb6 de Pradt, who provided some discussion
about the United States independence movement, constitutional govern-
ment, and religious freedom. For sure, many patriots read the Declaration of
Independence, Federal Constitution, and some of Tom Paine's writings, but
personal contacts with the United States were limited. Of the few who came
2 The works by Grieb, Salisbury, and Schoonover will be referenced throughout the text. For a
discussion of the availability of archival materials in Central America, see Kenneth J. Grieb, ed., Research Guide to Central America (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985yf .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 3
north, like Guatemalan Jos6 Felipe Flores, they returned home to spread
favorable impressions about the United States. In general, those who iden-
tified with the political ideals of democracy as they might apply to the region
without sacrificing their own socioeconomic and political standing were
identified as Liberals. Those who charged that the federal form of govern-
ment would destroy Spanish institutions and the orderly world that secured
their privileged position were labeled Conservatives.
During the confederative period (1823-1839yf W K D W L P P H G L D W H O \ I R O O R Z H d
independence, the Liberals and Conservatives fought for government con-
trol. When the Liberals had the upper hand, their democratic thoughts were
applied, such as the federal principles found in the 1824 constitution and,
more notably, in the mid-1830s with the Livingston Codes in Guatemala.
Modeled after the U.S. Constitution, the 1824 Central American document
united the five provinces but permitted each considerable autonomy. Nor did
the Liberals use the document to spread the base of political participation
beyond the privileged elite. In the 1830s Guatemala's Liberal President
Mariano Galv6z endeavored to make the state a centerpiece of educational,
economic, and legal reform. The most significant undertaking was the adop-
tion of the Livingston Codes in 1836 that modernized Guatemala's legal and
penal systems. But they proved impractical to enforce because of Conser-
vative resistance that led to civil war and the union's destruction. For nearly
thirty years after the union collapsed, the Conservatives controlled national
governments. They rejected Liberal ideas on the premise that they did not
conform to isthmian history or customs. Instead, the Conservatives insured
the primacy of Spanish institutions and traditions.3
Beginning in the late 1870s, the winds of political change again swept
across Central America, and with it the Liberals returned to the presidential
palaces. Men like Justo Rufino Barrios in Guatemala, Luis Bogrnin in Hon-
duras, Tomis Guardia in Costa Rica, Tomis Regalado in El Salvador, and
Jos6 Santos Zelaya in Nicaragua claimed that modernization of their soci-
3 For a discussion of the Liberal-Conservative struggle, see Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., "The Rise
and Decline of Liberalism in Central America: Historical Perspectives on the Contemporary Crisis," Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 26 (Aug. 1984yf ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K e
Confederative Period (1823-1839yf V H H $ Q G U G V 7 R Z Q V H Q G ( ] F X U L U D / D V S U R Y L Q F L D V X Q L G D V G H & H Q -
troamirica: Fundaci6n de las Republica (San Jos6: Editorial Costa Rica, 1973yf ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K e
ideological issues, see Virgilio Rodriguez Beteta, Ideologias de la independencia (4th ed.; Guatemala: Secretaria de Informaci6n, 1965yf 0 D U L R 5 R G U L J X H ] 7 K H & D G L ] ( [ S H U L P H Q W % H U N H O H \ 8 Q L Y H U V L W \ R f California Press, 1978yf D Q G 0 D U L R 5 R G U L J X H ] 7 K H / L Y L Q J V W R Q & R G H V L Q W K H * X D W H P D O D Q & U L V L V R f 1837-1838 (New Orleans: Middle American Institute, Tulane University, 1955yf ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K e Liberal period at the end of the nineteenth century, see Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Positivism in Latin America, 1850-1900 (Lexington: D.C. Heath, 1971yf .
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4 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
eties would come by imitating the European and North American models.
Barrios reflected their opinion when he asserted that:
I am not like many Central Americans who think that North American inter-
vention... is dangerous to the independence and integrity of Central Amer-
ica . . . I am decidedly American and prefer the advances of that industrious
race if they are able to increase and multiply among US.4
Although their policies brought modern buildings, universities, arts and
literature to the capitals at Guatemala City, Tegucigalpa, San Jos6, San
Salvador, and Managua, the provincial cities around which the masses of
people resided, remained backwaters of the past. And once in office, the
governing Liberals acted more like their forefathers. They refused to share
the benefits of modernity with the middle and lower sector groups. Identi-
fication with North American political and cultural values did not bring
political democracy or social mobility to Central America in the nineteenth
century.5
Immediately after independence, the concept of political affinity also
served as a vehicle for seeking United States protection against foreign
interlopers. Claiming that its liberal principles paralleled those of the United
States, the El Salvadoran government sought annexation to the northern
neighbor in 1823 hoping to secure itself from possible Mexican intervention.
In preparation for the Panama Congress three years later, the Central Amer-
icans joined with Colombia and Mexico in extending an invitation to the
United States in anticipation that its presence would prompt Spain to think
again before attempting to reclaim its lost empire. In both 1823 and 1826 the
threat of foreign intervention was more a perception than a reality, and the
United States preferred to remain aloof.6
Shortly after independence, the British presence in the region threatened
Central American interests and eventually those of the United States. The
British presence on the Honduran coast at present day Belize dated to its
logging colony in 1622. Although the colony's economic value had long
4 Victor Miguel Diz, Barrios ante la posteridad (Guatemala: Tijos, 1935yf S S .
5 North American visitors to Central America during the nineteenth century consistently reported on the region's backwardness. For example, see: United States National Archives, Despatches From Min-
isters to Central America, 1824-1906; Cecil Charles, Honduras: The Land of Great Depths (Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1910yf D Q G : L O O L D P ( & X U W L V & H Q W U D O $ P H U L F D , W V 5 H V R X U F H V D Q d Commerce," Forum, 25 (April 1898yf .
6 Gordon Kenyon, "Mexican Influence in Central America, 1821-1823," Hispanic American His- torical Review, 41 (Aug. 1961yf > K H U H D I W H U F L W H G D V + $ + 5 @ 5 ) $ U D J R Q 7 K H 3 D Q D P a Congress of 1826" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1926yf D Q G * X L R Q * U L I I L V - R K Q V R Q 7 K H 0 R Q U R e
Doctrine and the Panama Conference," James Spruent Historical Studies, The University of North Carolina (1927yf .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 5
disappeared, the British refusal to surrender its claims to Belize at the time
of Central American independence created a controversy with Guatemala
that remains to the present.7 Initially, the Central Americans looked to the
United States for assistance in dealing with the British. In 1835 Juan Gal-
indo, a Guatemalan with large land holdings in Belize, implored President
Andrew Jackson and Secretary of State John Forsyth to intervene on behalf
of his government because "it always had been the policy of the United
States that there should be no European settlement upon the American
continent."8 Not perceiving a British threat to U.S. interests in the region,
the President and Secretary of State ignored Galindo's appeal. Unable to
check the British by themselves, the Central Americans watched, as the
British Minister to Central America Frederick Chatfield expanded London's
economic and political position in the region. By the mid-1840s the British
laid claim to the ill-defined Mosquito Coast as far south as the San Juan
River and garnered the largest share of isthmian commerce.9 The Costa
Ricans, Hondurans, and Nicaraguans begged for United States assistance,
but their calls fell on deaf ears in Washington. Not until the end of the
Mexican War, did the United States look south and discover the British
presence a threat to its interests. In its containment of British expansion in
the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, Washington dealt directly with London,
not Central America, an action that damaged U.S. credibility across the
isthmus. Despite the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and agreements with Guate-
mala, Honduras, and Nicaragua by 1860, the British did not completely
evacuate the Mosquito Coast. o
Late in the nineteenth century, Nicaraguan President Jos6 Santos Zelaya
determined that the removal of the British from the Mosquito Coast would
strengthen his political position at home and increase his prestige across the
7 Troy S. Floyd, The Anglo--Spanish Struggle for the Mosquitia (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967yf D Q G 5 $ + X P S K U L H V 7 K H ' L S O R P D W L F + L V W R U \ R I % U L W L V K + R Q G X U D V 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1961yf .
8 William J. Griffith, "Juan Galindo, Central American Chauvinist," HAHR, 40 (Feb. 1980yf .
9 Mario Rodriguez, A Palmerstonian Diplomat in Central America, Frederick A. Chalteld, Esq. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1964yf .
1O For a discussion of U.S. policy toward Central America through the 1840s, see: Joseph B. Lockey, "Diplomatic Futility," HAHR, 30 (Aug. 1930yf & K D U O H V / 6 W D Q V L I H U 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V & H Q W U D l American Relations, 1824-1850," in Ray T. Shurbutt, ed., United States-Latin American Relations:
The Formative Years (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991yf : L O O L D P 5 0 D Q Q L Q J ' L S O R - matic Correspondence of the United States, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1925yf D Q G Y R O . 3 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1933yf ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K e
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and the 1860s, see Mary W. Williams, Anglo--American Diplomacy, 1815- 1915 (Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1916yf F K D S D Q G : L O E X U ' - R Q H V 7 K e American Problem in British Diplomacy, 1841-1861 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974yf ,
chap. 5.
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6 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
isthmus. Zelaya found the United States a willing ally because of its growing
interest in a transisthmian canal. Working together in 1894, the Nicaraguans
and the Americans forced the British from the Mosquito Coast but not from
Belize, which by this time had been renamed British Honduras."
Great Britain was not the only threat to Central America. Twice in the
nineteenth century the United States appeared as the foreign interloper. In
both instances the Central Americans acted in unison to resist North Amer-
ican advances. In the 1850s filibuster William Walker envisioned a Central
American empire under his direction. While the Central Americans rejected
Walker's plan to "Americanize" the isthmus as unacceptable to them, the
banal polices of Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan that failed
to check Walker's activities, raised fears that his presence was the precursor
to something more sinister. Their security threatened, the Central Americans
momentarily banned together and accepted aid from Cornelius Vanderbilt
and the British, each with their own motives, to drive Walker from the
isthmus.12
In 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln suggested that a place be
found for freed blacks, the United States again appeared as an imperialist
power to the Central Americans. Lincoln considered Central America a
prospective site, in part, on the assumption that it would blunt British
expansion on the isthmus. Although Guatemalan President Rafael Carrera
and Honduran President Santos rebuffed the suggestion, the United States
persisted. In 1862, when Secretary of State William H. Seward made a
formal inquiry, the Central Americans were more adamant. Not only did the
they refuse the colonization scheme, but they were irked by Seward's ref-
erences to their equality with blacks.13 Apparently, Washington policymak-
" Craig L. Dozier, Nicaragua's Mosquito Shore: The Years of British and American Presence
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985yf S S D Q G - R K Q ) L Q G O L Q J / D G L S O R P D F L a norteamericana y la reincorporaci6n Mosquitia," Boletin Nicaraguense de Bibliografia y Documenta- ci6n, 26 (Nov.-Dec. 1987yf .
12 For a discussion of the Walker period, see: Charles Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times ofFilibusters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980yf $ O E H U W & D U U 7 K H : R U O d
of William Walker (New York: Harper and Row, 1963yf : L O O L D P 2 6 F U R J J V ) L O L E X V W H U V D Q G ) L Q D Q F L H U s
(New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1916yf S S 5 R E H U W 0 D \ 6 R X W K H U Q ' U H D P R I ( P S L U H % D W R n
Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1963yf - R V 5 D P L U H ] 0 - R V H G H 0 D U F R O H W D S D G U H G H O D G L S O R P R F L a nicaraguense (Managua: Imp. nacional, 1975yf 5 D I D H O 2 E U H J Q / R U L D & R V W D 5 L F D \ O D J X H U U H G H O O a
campafia del Transito 1856-1857yf 6 D Q - R V ( G L W R U L D O & R V W D 5 L F D \f; and Carlos Garcia Bauer, Antonio de Irisarri, diplomdticao de America, su acteraci6n en los Estados Unidos: la colonizal colo- nizacidn negro y la invasion filibustera (Guatemala: Universidad San Carlos, 1970yf . 13 For a discussion of the Lincoln colonization plan, see: Bauer, Irisarri; Warren A. Beck, "Lincoln
and Negro Colonization in Central America," Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, VI (1950-51yf D Q d Thomas Schoonover, "Misconstrued Mission: Expansionism and Black Colonization in Mexico and
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 7
ers learned nothing from Walker's reestablishment of slavery in Nicaragua
in 1856.
Independence ended Central America's commercial relationship with
Spain. The need for new markets prompted the Central Americans to initiate
discussions with the United States that resulted in the 1825 Treaty of Amity
and Commerce. The treaty provided for complete reciprocity, including the
most favored nation clause and granted investment privileges for the citizens
of each in the other country. Although many North Americans envisioned
economic opportunity, little commerce and almost no investment material-
ized before the treaty lapsed twelve years later. But the treaty's provisions
set precedents for the generosity of the Liberals fifty years hence. The
Liberals opened the door to North American entrepreneurs [i.e., Minor
Keith, Robert Preston, Washington Valentine, Samuel Zemurray] in the
1880s and 1890s with generous concessions that freed them from taxes,
permitted duty free importation all goods necessary for their operations, and
gave them free access to far reaching lands. In return, the Liberals hoped to
stimulate their nation's economic development. The economies did expand,
but only to the benefit of the ruling elite and the foreign investors. Despite
North American penetration by 1900, the Central Americans remained de-
pendent upon the British and German merchants and markets.14
Even before the Central Americans opened the door to foreign investment
in the late nineteenth century, they anticipated that a transisthmian canal
Central America During the Civil War," Pacific Historical Review, 49 (Nov. 1980yf ) R U a
discussion of the black experience in Central America, see Thomas M. Leonard, "Black Experience in
Central America," in E.J. Alagoa, ed., Oral Tradition and Oral History (Lagos: University of Lagos,
1990yf .
14 William M. Malloy, comp., Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1904 (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1910yf , S S : D W W 6 W H Z D U W . H L W K R I & R V W D 5 L F D $ % L R J U D S K L F 6 W X G \ R I 0 L Q R r Cooper Keith (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974yf 7 K R P D V 0 F & D Q Q $ Q $ P H U L F D n
Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit (New York: Crown, 1976yf - R K Q ) L Q G O L Q J 7 K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H s
and Zeilaya: A Study in the Diplomacy of Expediency" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas-Austin, 1971yf ; Kenneth V. Finney, "Precious Metal Mining and Modernization of Honduras: In Quest of el Dorado, 1880-1890" (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1973yf - ) U H G 5 L S S \ 7 K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V D Q G * X D W H P D O a
During the Era of Justo Rufino Barrios," HAHR, 22 (Nov. 1942yf . H Q Q H W K 9 ) L Q Q H \ 2 X r Man in Honduras: Washington S. Valentine," West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences, 17
(June 1978yf - ) U H G 5 L S S \ % U L W L V K , Q Y H V W P H Q W V L Q / D W L Q $ P H U L F D 0 L Q Q H D S R O L V : University of Minnesota Press, 1959yf S S 7 K R P D V 6 F K R R Q R Y H U , P S H U L D O L V P L Q 0 L G G O H $ P H U - ica: United States Competition with Britain, Germany and France in Middle America, 1820s-1920s," in
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, ed., Eagle Against Empire: American Opposition to European Imperialism (Aix- en-Provence, France: Universit6 de Provence, 1983yf S S D Q G 7 K R P D V 6 F K R R Q R Y H U 7 K H 8 Q L W H d
States in Central America 1860-1911: Episodes of Social Imperialism and Imperial Rivalry in the World System (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991yf .
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8 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
would spur their economic development. They first broached the idea of a
inter-oceanic canal in 1824 when the United Provinces first Minister to
Washington Juan Jos6 Cafias, confident that United States businessmen
would undertake the project, suggested the construction of a canal through
Nicaragua. His contemporary, Jos6 Aycinena, who resided in the United
States during the height of its canal construction, visualized that a transisth-
mian canal would draw world shipping to Central America, spur local
agriculture and industry and make the region a maritime power. Further-
more, a canal would foster road building across the region to bring local
wares to market, and attract Europeans to Central America, whose marriage
with the indigenous people would procreate a more ambitious and educated
population. Such a vision of a "new Central America" persisted throughout
the nineteenth century. During the same time period, the Central American
governments willingly offered generous concessions in some 45 canal agree-
ments to individuals, including the American A.G. Menocal, whose projects
never materialized. In the pursuit of their dream, the Central Americans
failed to recognize that Panama did not benefit from the railroad that tra-
versed its territory since 1855, because its developers looked to the linkage
among world markets, not the development of the Colombian province.
U.S. officials and entrepreneurs never shared the Central American dream
that a canal along the San Juan River on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan
border would significantly stimulate the region's economy. Rather, these
officials and entrepreneurs maintained that a canal would enhance the U.S.
position in the world's commercial and naval arenas. Still, the governments
in San Jos6 and Managua sensed Washington's eagerness to have a canal,
but anxious to exact a high price for the concession, procrastinated in their
negotiations with Washington in 1902 and 1903. Their delay may have cost
them a canal. When the United States government selected Panama, it did
so for financial and engineering reasons. Benefits to the local economy were
not factored in.15
Central America's relations with the United States got off to an inauspi-
cious start in the nineteenth century. The Central Americans found that its
'5 Connick, "United States and Central America," pp. 157-59; Schoonover, "Imperialism"; John E.
Findling, "The United States and Zelaya"; Ralph D. Bald, Jr., "The Development of Expansionist Sentiment in the United States, 1876-1914, As Reflected in Periodical Literature" (Ph.D. diss., Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, 1973yf ' D Y L G 0 & K D Q G O H U - R V $ \ F L Q H Q D 1 L Q H W H H Q W K & H Q W X U \ * X D W H P D O D n Conservative: An Historical Survey of His Political, Religious, Educational and Commercial Careers"
(M.A. thesis, Tulane University, 1965yf S S ' D Y L G ) R O N P D Q 7 K H 1 L F D U D J X D Q 5 R X W H 6 D O W / D N e City: University of Utah Press, 1972yf D Q G ' D Y L G 0 F & X O O R X J K 7 K H 3 D W K % H W Z H H Q W K H 6 H D V 7 K H & U H D W L R n of the Panama Canal, 1876-1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977yf .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 9
northern neighbor had little interest in the region until late in the century
when it aspired to construct a transisthmian canal for its own purposes.
When it did, Central America's relations with the United States underwent
a drastic change.
A Period of United States Domination?: 1903-1939
The common assumption is that the Central American leadership willingly
succumbed to United States imposition of political tranquility and financial
responsibility following Washington's decision to construct a canal in Pan-
ama. According to this reasoning, the United States sought tranquility
throughout Central America on the premise that any internal disruptions
would spill over into Panama and that fiscal irresponsibility might invite
European gunboats into the Caribbean Sea. In both instances the transisth-
mian canal would be threatened. Thus, in order to secure the canal, the
United States pursued policies that turned the Caribbean into a North Amer-
ican lake by 1920.16 The assumption does not square with the historical
record. With the exception of the Conservatives in Nicaragua, political
leaders in the other Central American countries resisted Washington's ad-
vances or used its policies to meet their own needs.
In 1907, when violence threatened to engulf the entire isthmian region,
Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Porfirio Diaz of Mexico initiated a Central
American Conference that convened in Washington. There, the Central
American leaders readily signed agreements that forbade them from harbor-
ing revolutionaries of their neighbors and from extending recognition to
illegal governments. They also agreed to the establishment of a Central
American Court of Justice that would settle disputes not solved through
normal diplomatic channels." While Washington policymakers anticipated
that the treaty system would bring stability to the region, the Central Amer-
icans envisioned it as a self-serving instrument. For the long term, the
16 George W. Baker, "The Caribbean Policy of Woodrow Wilson" (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1961yf + R Z D U G . % H D O H 7 K H R G R U H 5 R R V H Y H O W D Q G W K H 5 L V H R I $ P H U L F D W R D : R U O G 3 R Z H r
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956yf - R K Q 0 & R R S H U 7 K H : D U U L R U D Q G W K H 3 U L H V W :
Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1983yf ) U H G H U L F N : 0 D U N V ,
Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979yf ; and Walter V. and Marie V. Scholes, The Foreign Policy of the Taft Administration (Columbia: Uni- versity of Missouri Press, 1970yf .
17 United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States 1907 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923yf , , S S > + H U H D I W H U F L W H G D V ) 5 8 6 @ D Q G : L O O L D P - % X F K D -
nan, The Central American Peace Conference, 1907 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907yf .
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10 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Central American leaders found the treaty system provided them with a
sense of security against revolutionary plots. Immediately, the presidents of
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala viewed the treaty sys-
tem as a deterrence to Nicaraguan leader Jos6 Santos Zelaya, who desired to
forge a union under his leadership.
But the treaty system did not prevent revolution. In Nicaragua, opposition
to Jos6 Santos Zelaya's high handed policies erupted into a civil war in
1909. The United States became more than an idle observer, becoming
involved in Nicaraguan internal affairs in the belief that each new act would
be the last, but in reality, sunk deeper into a quagm,-. 'rom which it did not extract itself until 1933. Nicaragua became the prime example of United
States isthmian imperialism. Nicaragua's Conservatives, who came to
power as a result of U.S. intervention, recognized that their acceptance of
the marines' election supervision, establishment of a U.S.-controlled cus-
toms receivership and ownership of the National Bank and railroads assisted
Washington's efforts to establish orderly and fiscally responsible govern-
ment. They also knew that such intervention secured their political position.
Internal opposition to the Conservatives, and the American support of them,
often became violent. It also prompted President Adolfo Diaz to suggest the
inclusion of the so called "Platt Amendment," feature to the original
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty. The American manager of the Nicaraguan Na-
tional Bank, Bundy Cole, understood Nicaraguan political dynamics when
he observed that if the U.S. marines withdrew, "President Diaz would be on
the last coach out of Managua with them. "'18
The Honduran political leadership also used the United States search for
orderly government to its advantage. Historically the weakest and most
impoverished Central American nation, Honduras faced a new crisis begin-
ning in 1909 when the British government proposed a restructuring of the
$120 million due its investors. In an effort to ward off the British in 1911,
the Taft Administration persuaded President Miguel Davila to accept a J.P.
Morgan proposal that would be guaranteed by a U.S.-supervised customs
collectorship. Influenced by the Nicaraguan model, Davila's political op-
18 For a discussion of United States involvement in Nicaragua to 1920, see: Karl Berman, Under the
Big Stick, pp. 123-81; Lester D. Langley, The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire,
1900-1934 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1983yf S S D Q G : K L W Q H \ 7 3 H U N L Q V , Constraint of Empire: The United States and Caribbean Interventions (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981yf S S ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I W K H % U \ D Q & K D P R U U R 7 U H D W \ V H H 7 K R P D V $ % D L O H \ , Q W H U H V t
in a Nicaraguan Canal, 1903-1931," HAHR, 16 (Feb. 1936yf % H U P D Q 8 Q G H U W K H % L J 6 W L F N S S . 167-71; Peter E. Brownback, "The Acquisition of the Nicaragua Canal Route: The Bryan-Chamorro
Treaty" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1952yf D Q G & K D U O H V 7 : H L W ] H O $ P H U L F D Q 3 R O L F \ L n Nicaragua," United States Senate, Document 334, 64th Congress, Ist session.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 11
ponents understood that the American presence would stifle their ambitions.
Charging that Morgan plan violated national sovereignty, the opposition
persuaded the legislature to reject Morgan's proposal. For the next four
years the debt issue became lost in Honduran political machinations. It
surfaced again in October 1913 when Francisco Bertrand succeeded to the
presidency. Bertrand believed that he could secure his tenuous position by
allying himself with the Wilson Administration. Therefore, he signed one of
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan's "cooling off" treaties and did
not protest the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty. Bertrand also found solace in
Washington's efforts to convince Guatemalan President Estrada Cabrera not
to interfere in his own 1915 re-election, a violation of the Honduran con-
stitution. But Estrada Cabrera acted in self-interest, not as Washington's
enforcer of the 1907 treaties. Confronted with mounting opposition to his
long tenure in office, Estrada Cabrera hoped to invoke the 1907 treaty
system should the Guatemalan exiles in neighboring countries plot against
him.'9 The appearance of Washington's support for Bertrand, however,
only intensified the opposition's anti-American sentiment in Honduras.
"Dollar Diplomacy" met stiffer resistance in Guatemala, where the for-
eign debt reached $10.5 million by 1909. As in Honduras, when the British
proposed a restructuring plan, President Taft tried to persuade Estrada Ca-
brera to accept one of the plans put forward by Minor Keith, the J & W
Seligman banking consortium, or the Windsor Trust Company. But like his
Honduran neighbors, Estrada Cabrera asserted that he could not accept such
a violation of national sovereignty. He proceeded to procrastinate on the
issue until May 1913 when the British prepared to close its legation in
Guatemala City and the HMS Aeolus arrived at Belize. Estrada Cabrera
capitulated, agreeing to restore current debt service and negotiate back in-
terest. There was no outcry from in the United States to the British violation
of the Monroe Doctrine.20
While the Hondurans and Guatemalans resisted United States advances,
Costa Rican President Federico Tinoco sought to gain Washington's favor.
'~9 George W. Baker, "Ideals and Realities in the Wilson Administration's Relations with Honduras,"
the Americas, 21 (July 1964yf : D U U H Q . Q H H U * U H D W % U L W D L Q D Q G W K H & D U L E E H D Q ( D V t
Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1975yf S S D Q G - X D Q ( 3 D U H G H V 7 K H 0 R U J D Q - Honduran Loan, 1908-1911 (New Orleans, 1912yf .
20 For Guatemala, see: David H. Dinwoodie, "Expedient Diplomacy: The United States and Guate-
mala, 1898-1920" (Ph.D. diss., University of Colorado, 1966yf S S * H R U J H : % D N H U , "The Woodrow Wilson Administration and Guatemalan Relations," The Historian, 27 (Feb. 1963yf ,
159-61; and Peter Calvert, "The Last Occasion on Which Britain Used Coercion to Settle a Dispute with a Non-Colonial Territory in the Caribbean: Guatemala and the Powers, 1903-1913," Inter-American Economic Affairs, 25 (Winter 1971yf .
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12 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Tinoco came to power in a 1917 coup d'etat described by the State Depart-
ment as a "family affair." Washington withheld recognition because the
coup violated the 1907 treaty system and President Woodrow Wilson's
determination to have constitutional governments across the isthmus.
Tinoco understood the importance of recognition. Without it Costa Rica's
international commerce, already severely damaged by the European war,
would worsen and contribute to the intensification of the political opposi-
tion. Therefore, Tinoco supported the efforts by American entrepreneurs
Minor Keith, John Popham, and the United Fruit Company, whose invest-
ments became unprotected by non-recognition, to have Washington change
course. Tinoco also seized upon the fears created by World War I and the
potential German threat to the Panama Canal. Capitalizing upon his friend-
ship with New York Times correspondent Modesto Martinez, Tinoco helped
to plant stories of alleged German sabotage plots in Costa Rica and even-
tually declared support on behalf of the Allied war effort. Despite Tinoco's
efforts, Wilson held firm. He continued to withhold recognition until con-
stitutional government was restored in Costa Rica. Throughout the crisis
only Nicaragua supported the U.S. position. The other Central American
countries extended recognition to Tinoco as a means of protesting Wash-
ington's interference in regional political affairs. Acting on his own in June
1919, U.S. Naval Commander L.B. Porterfield landed U.S. forces at
Lim6n. Fearing that it was part of a larger conspiracy, Tinoco commenced
negotiations that led to his resignation, effective August 12, 1919.21
Central America's anguish with Washington's meddling intensified in
1915 with the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty that granted the United States the
right to construct a canal across Nicaragua. The Central Americans did not
accept Washington's explanation that the treaty aimed to keep other world
powers from the region. Instead, they pointed to the violations of the 1907
treaty that prohibited secret negotiations, the granting of leases on the Corn
Islands and guaranteed the free use of each nation's territorial waters. Fur-
thermore, Costa Rica asserted that existing treaties guaranteed their collab-
oration in the granting of any concessions along the presumed canal route on
the San Juan River. The Salvadorans protested the bargaining away of their
rights in the Gulf of Fonseca. Both nations took their cases to the Central
21 Hugo Murillo-Jimenez, "Wilson and Tinoco: The United States and the Policy of Non-Recognition
in Costa Rica, 1917-1919" (Ph.D. diss., University of California-San Diego, 1978yf > 6 X E V H T X H Q W O y published in Costa Rica as Tinoco y los Estados Unidos: ginesis y caida de un regiem (San Jos0: Universidad Estatal a Distancia, 1981yf @ : L O V R Q
V V S H F L D O H P L V V D U \ W R & R V W D 5 L F D - R K Q ) R V W H U ' X O O H V ,
and U.S. authorities in the Panama Canal Zone shared Tinoco's opinion regarding the potential German threat to the waterway.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 13
American Court of Justice, also established at the 1907 Washington Con-
ference. The Court ruled that Nicaragua's return to the status quo ante but,
encouraged by the United States, it refused. In response to the United States
high handedness, the Central Americans refused to extend the Court's con-
vention when it came up for renewal in 1918.22
Thus, in the first part of the twentieth century, the Central Americans
sought to utilize Washington's search for orderly governments for their own
political security, but soon found themselves resisting Washington's inter-
ference in their internal affairs. As a result, Central America tried to steer a
more independent course and the highwater mark came with World War I.
Since 1910 Salvadoran journalists increasingly cautioned that U.S. pres-
ence in Central America would draw the region into a future conflict. When
the European war broke out in 1914, the United States hoped that, in a show
of solidarity, the Central American governments would follow Washing-
ton's policies. Only Nicaragua, where the governing Conservatives owed
their position to U.S. presence, unhaltingly followed Washington's lead.
Guatemala refused to take a pro-Allied stance until 1917 when the loss of
German markets fractured its own economy. Economic necessity prompted
Estrada Cabrera to declare solidarity with the United States. Still, Estrada
Cabrera resisted the U.S. imposition of an alien property custodian to ad-
minister German-held properties in Guatemala. The Honduran legislature
delayed its declaration until July 1918 in protest of President Bertrand's
pro-United States sentiments. Aggravated by the U.S. presence in Nicara-
gua, interference in Costa Rican politics and the 1914 Bryan-Chamorro
Treaty, the Salvadoran government refused to support the U.S. wartime
policy and did nothing more than declare its benevolent neutrality. At the
end of the war, all but Costa Rica (considered a non-belligerentyf U X V K H G W o
join the League of Nations, which was viewed as an instrument that would
curb Washington's excesses in the region. When the United States failed to
join the world organization, the Central Americans lost interest in it.23
22 Demanda de repablica de Costa Rica contra de la Nicaragua, ante la corte de justica centroamer-
icana, con motivo de una convencidn firmada por la segunda con la repablica de los Estados Unidos de
Amdrica, par la venta del rio San Juan, y otros objetos (San Jos&: Impr. nacional, 1916yf 5 R G U L J X H z Gonzalez, El Golfo de Fonseca y el tratado Bryan--Chamorro celebrado entre los Estados Unidos de
Norte America y Nicaragua: doctrina Meldndez (San Salvador: Impr. nacional, 1917yf 0 D Q O H \ 2 . Hudson, "The Central American Court of Justice," American Journal of International Law, 26 (October
1932yf D Q G 6 H O L J $ G O H U % U \ D Q D Q G : L O V R Q L D Q & D U L E E H D Q 3 H Q H W U D W L R Q + $ + 5 0 D \ \f,
199-204.
23 FRUS, 1917, suppl. I, pp. 237-38, 259, 290-91; FRUS, 1918, suppl. II, pp. 89, 379; John Barrett, "La America Central Continental y Insular," in Frank H. Simonds, ed., Historia de la Guerra del
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14 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Shortly after World War I ended, political changes in Central America
again brought the threat of regional war that provided the United States
another opportunity to impose order through a treaty system. In 1922 war
threatened to pit the Liberal governments in Guatemala City and Teguci-
galpa against the Conservatives in San Salvador and Managua. The United
States seized the occasion to redefine and strengthen the 1907 agreements.
In the subsequent 1923 Central American Conference held in Washington,
the isthmian republics accepted five new treaties. In addition to repeating the
1907 pledge not to harbor revolutionaries, the treaties more sharply defined
an illegal government not worthy of recognition.
Ratification of the treaties did not go well in Central America except in
Nicaragua where the Conservatives quickly understood that the treaties
served their purpose. Given the region's historical record, each country
became concerned with its national sovereignty. Following the 1923-1924
revolution, Honduran President Miguel Paz Barahona directed the legisla-
tive approval of the agreements because they shielded him from potential
adversaries. Costa Rican President Ricardo Jim6nez ordered the legislature's
ratification of the treaties. Although he argued that the pacts interfered with
his country's internal affairs, Jim6nez contended that the treaties would
contribute to political stability among his northern neighbors and, therefore,
insulate Costa Rica from regional turmoil. In rejecting most of the treaties,
the Salvadorans described them as an ideal to be realized rather than an
objective currently practical. Among their rejections was the proviso that
detailed the exclusion of revolutionaries eligible for the presidency. The
legislature's rejection of this proviso was admission that Salvadoran political
revolutionaries were among the infamous 14 families that dominated the
nation's political arena. Before approving the agreements, the Guatemalan
legislature correctly speculated that the new accords opened the door to
greater United States involvement on the isthmus.24 Treaty ratification
Mundo (Garden City: Doubleday, 1920yf , 9 S 3 H U F \ $ 0 D U W L Q / D W L Q $ P H U L F D D Q G W K H : D r (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1925yf S S : D U U H Q + . H O F K Q H U / D W L Q $ P H U L F D n
Relations With the League of Nations (Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1930yf S S $ O W K R X J h
the Tinoco government did all it could to support the Allied cause during World War I, including a declaration of war against Germany, only Spain, of all the European powers, recognized the Tinoco
government, making it a non-belligerent country, and therefore not entitled to representation at the Paris
Peace Conference which began on January 12, 1919, exactly seven months to the day before Tinoco's
resignation.
24 Kenneth J. Grieb, "The United States and the Central American Federation," the Americas, 24 (Oct. 1967yf D Q G 7 K R P D V 0 / H R Q D U G 8 6 3 R O L F \ D Q G $ U P V / L P L W D W L R Q L Q & H Q W U D O $ P H U L F D :
The Washington Conference of 1923," Occasional Paper Series, Center for the Study of Armament and Disarmament, California State University-Los Angeles, 1982, pp. 1-20.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 15
served the purpose of those in the presidential palaces, except in Costa Rica,
where the treaties were viewed as an insurance policy against isthmian
political turmoil. None of the Central American leaders appeared as ideal-
istic as the Washington policymakers who sought to impose North American
constitutionalism.
As with the 1907 treaty system, the 1923 accords failed to prevent either
revolution or U.S. interference in the internal affairs of the isthmian states.
Also, as before, the Central American governments followed the United
States lead in the application of the non-recognition of revolutionary gov-
ernments, not as supporters of Washington's idealism but as pragmatists to
shield themselves from political opposition.
In 1923, civil war erupted in Honduras when Liberal and Conservatives
failed to agree upon a compromise presidential candidate. U.S. Marines
landed, ostensibly to protect American lives and property. Subsequently,
Sumner Welles was dispatched to work out an agreement that brought Paz
Barahona, who had not violated the 1923 treaties, to the presidential palace
in 1924. The Central American leadership again followed Washington's
lead in 1930 when they withheld recognition from Guatemalan General
Manuel Orellana for engineering a coup d'etat. Subsequently, the State
Department instructed Minister Sheldon Whitehouse to work for the resto-
ration of what it considered to be constitutional government. Whitehouse's
efforts resulted in the unopposed election of Jorge Ubico in February 1934.
Not a violator of the 1923 accords, Ubico received recognition. Finally in
1931, the Central Americans followed the United States lead in withholding
recognition from General Maximiliano Hernmindez Martinez even though he
was not linked to the coup that ousted President Arturo Araujo. In each
instance, the Central American presidents applauded the upholding of con-
stitutional principles, leaving the distinct impression that they had suc-
cumbed to Washington's whims. The impression is wrong. By upholding
the 1923 treaty system, the Central American presidents signaled their op-
ponents that non-recognition awaited them should they seize the reins of
government. In other words, the Central American political leadership cap-
italized upon Washington's search for political tranquility to secure its own
position.
In contrast to the sitting presidents, those Central Americans out of po-
litical power appealed to the United States to guarantee free elections, con-
fident of their own victory at the polls. When the United States refused to
supervise elections, the opposition registered their protest against the polit-
ical process by not participating in the elections, or as with Tiburcio Carias
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16 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
in Honduras, take to the hills to organize violent resistance.25 U.S. State
Department desk officer Stokeley W. Morgan aptly described the Central
American use of the treaty system:
singularly and without exception... the party in power in any Central Amer-
ican country is always in favor of supporting Central American treaties, and of
according no recognition or encouragement to revolutionary movements or
governments which come to power through violent means. To that end, parties
in power always sought United States support to prevent revolutions, but
wanted no interference in their control of elections. The party out of power, on
the other hand, sincerely thought that it should be made an exception to [any
sanctions] and asked for American supervision of elections, believing it would
win any fair contest.26
Of all the political crisis across the isthmus during the 1920s, Nicaragua
drew the most attention because of its complexity and the extent of U.S.
presence. A new crisis emerged following the tainted 1924 elections in
which Conservative Carlos Sol6rzano became President and Liberal Juan B.
Sacasa Vice President. Despite the tenuous situation, the United States
withdrew its marines in accordance with a pre-election policy decision. In
the absence of an international police force, fighting erupted between the
political factions. Rather than being viewed as another domestic affair,
Mexican assistance to Sacasa's Liberal forces turned the fracas into an
international event that provided a moment in which Costa Rica, Guatemala,
and El Salvador cooperated with the United States. All feared that Mexico
intended to use Nicaragua as a base to spread its Bolshevik principles. While
the Salvadoran government did little more than express its regret at extend-
ing recognition to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala went further.
Costa Rican President Jimrnez, reflecting his country's long standing dis-
trust of Nicaragua and insufficient military to resist external aggression,
secretly encouraged the United States to take some action against Mexico.
With Guatemalan support, they offered to mediate the conflict. But when
the U.S. placed Conservative Adolfo Diaz in the presidency in 1926,
Jimrnez withheld recognition on the grounds that the whole affair violated
the 1923 agreements. Jimrnez did not want to encourage his political op-
ponents at home by involving Costa Rica in isthmian politics. The other
25 Charles Hackett, "The Background of the Revolution in Honduras," Review of Reviews, 69 (April 1924yf . H Q Q H W K - * U L H E $ P H U L F D Q , Q Y R O Y H P H Q W L Q W K H 5 L V H R I - R U J H 8 E L F R & D U L E E H D n Studies, 10 (April 1970yf . H Q Q H W K * U L H E 7 K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V D Q G W K H 5 L V H R I * H Q H U D O 0 D [ L P L O L D Q o
Hernindez Martinez," Journal of Latin American Studies, 3 (Nov. 1971yf D Q G 7 K R P D V 3 .
Anderson, Matanza: El Salvador's Communist Revolt of 1932 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1971yf ,
pp. 40-77.
26 "American Policy and Problems in Central America," Stokeley W. Morgan, lecture to the Foreign Service School, Department of State, January 29, 1926, 1-4.
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 17
countries followed the dictates of the ruling party. The Liberal administra-
tion in Guatemala also withheld recognition, while Conservatives in Hon-
duras and El Salvador extended recognition. Such actions should not be
interpreted as following Washington's lead, but rather as steps to warn the
political opposition of their fate should they attempt a coup d'etat. The treaty
system served the interests of the ruling party.
Amidst the political crisis, there was a rising tide of Nicaraguan nation-
alism that demanded the government to reclaim ownership of its main rail-
roads and national bank and become financially independent of the United
States. Augusto C. Sandino came to represent the epitome of this feeling.
Tired of U.S.-imposed solutions upon his country, Sandino determined to
free it from "Yankee" imperialism as he took to the countryside in a war
that lasted until 1933. The picture of marines chasing Sandino's ragtag army
only fueled the anti-Americanism across the isthmus. Central American
newspapers illustrated the dilemma their governments faced. On the one
hand, the newspapers unanimously opposed U.S. intervention, reflecting
the opinion of the literate groups. On the other hand the newspapers did not
portray Sandino in favorable terms, a reflection of the elite's antipathy
toward the masses. Regional anti-imperialists lashed out against Washing-
ton's abuse of power. Still, the Central American governments resisted
involvement in Nicaragua's domestic affairs, fearing that it might encourage
revolutionaries at home or in the exile communities abroad. The other Latin
American nations joined their isthmian neighbors at the Sixth Inter-
American Conference meeting in Havana in 1928 to condemn U.S. inter-
vention in Nicaragua.27
The popular belief that the United States dominated isthmian affairs in the
1920s is incorrect. If anything, the United States met stiff resistance and
27 William Kamman, A Search of Stability: United States Diplomacy Toward Nicaragua (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1968yf ' D Q D * 0 X Q U R 7 K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V D Q G W K H & D U L E E H D Q 5 H S X E -
lics, 1921-1933 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974yf S S + H Q U \ / 6 W L P V R Q $ P H U -
ican Policy in Nicaragua (New York: Scribner's, 1927yf 1 H L O 0 D F D X O D \ 7 K H 6 D Q G L Q R $ I I D L U Q G H G ;
Durham: Duke University Press, 1985yf / D Q J O H \ % D Q D Q D : D U V S S 3 H U N L Q V & R Q V W U D L Q W R f Empire, pp. 110-16; Richard V. Salisbury, "United States Intervention in Nicaragua: The Costa Rican Role," Prologue, 9 (Winter 1977yf 5 L F K D U G 9 6 D O L V E X U \ $ Q W L , P S H U L D O L V P D Q G , Q W H U Q D W L R Q D l
Competition in Central America, 1920-1929 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1989yf 5 L F K D U G 9 .
Salisbury, "Mexico, the United States and the 1926-1927 Nicaraguan Crisis," HAHR, 66 (May 1986yf , 319-39; James J. Horn, "U.S. Diplomacy and the Specter of Bolshevism in Mexico, 1924-1927," the
Americas, 32 (July 1975yf 7 K R P D V - ' R G G - U 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V L Q 1 L F D U D J X D Q 3 R O L W L F V 6 X S H U - vised Elections, 1927-1932," Revista del Pensamiento Centroamericano, 30 (July-Sept. 1975yf ;
and Report of the Delegates of the United States of America to the Sixth International Conference of American States held at Havana, Cuba January 16 to February 20, 1928 (Washington, D.C.: Govern- ment Printing Office, 1928yf .
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18 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
Central American frustration with the failure of the 1923 treaty system was
rampant across the isthmus.
In 1932 Nicaragua's La Prensa resoundly criticized the U.S. search for
constitutional order: "under the protection of the Washington Pacts, there
have been more revolutions in Central America then ever before." Costa
Rica was the first to take action. President Jim6nez renounced the treaties in
1932. He asserted that U.S. interference in isthmian political affairs not only
violated the 1923 treaties, but also increased the probabilities of drawing his
country into a regional quagmire. Jim6nez's action prompted Salvadoran
President Hernindez Martinez, isolated by the non-recognition provisions of
the 1923 treaties, to do the same. In 1934 at a regional conference convened
by Ubico in Guatemala City in 1934-to which the United States was not
invited-the Central Americans defied Washington's policy and extended
recognition to Hernindez Martinez.28 The Central American leaders no
longer felt they needed United States interference to secure their political office.
Also beginning in the mid-1920s, there was a growing sense of frustration
in the United States regarding its interference in Central American political
affairs. It contributed to a new policy that was finally enunciated by Pres-
ident-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. In promising to be a "Good
Neighbor," Roosevelt committed the United States to refrain from inter-
vening in Central America's internal affairs. Implementation was swift. The
marines came out of Nicaragua and recognition extended to Hernaindez
Martinez in 1934. The next year Washington did little more than register its
displeasure at the constitutional maneuverings of Ubico and Carias to extend
their presidencies. The United States also ignored the implorings of Nica-
raguan President Sacasa and other political groups as Somoza marched to
the presidency in 1937. Nor did the State Department discuss withholding
recognition in 1939 when Carias, Hernindez Martinez, and Somoza took
office, or in 1941 when Ubico used extralegal means to extend their terms
in office.29 To charge the United States with responsibility for permitting
dictatorships to emerge and sustain themselves overlooks the Central Amer-
ican dynamic.
28 Documentaci6n relativa a la tratados centroamericano el 12 de abril de 1934 (San Jos6: Impr. nacional, 1934yf & D U P H O R ) U D Q F L V F R ( V P H U D O G D $ V W L O O D 7 K H 0 D U W L Q H ] ( U D 6 D O Y D G R U D Q $ P H U L F D n
Relations, 1931-1944" (Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1976yf S S 7 K R P D V 0 / H R Q D U G , "The Washington Conference of 1923"; "Los pactos Washington son la llave," La Prensa, November
8, 1932, p. 2.
29 United States Library of Congress, Papers of Charles Evans Hughes, Period of International
Activity, "Latin American Conferences, 1922-1929," pp. 1-4; Thomas M. Leonard, "The Washington Conference of 1923," pp. 24, 45; Kenneth J. Grieb, The Latin American Policy of Warren G. Harding
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 19
From the beginning of the twentieth century, Central America's political
elite sought to capitalize upon Washington's search for stability as a tool to
secure its own position. Otherwise, the Central Americans often success-
fully resisted the U.S. presence and proposed their own solutions to isthmian
problems.
Responding to Global Crisis: Since 1933
At the same time the Central Americans were distancing themselves from
the United States, world events brought another turn in the relations between
the isthmian republics and Washington. For their own purposes Central
American leaders willingly cooperated with Washington's strategies that
dealt with the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, and the Cold
War.
Beginning in 1929, the world community reacted to the Great Depression
in nationalistic fashion, rather than address the problem collectively. The
Central Americans were no exception. Their coffee exports found expanded
markets in Europe, particularly Germany, which also devised the Aski mark
system that required monies earned by foreign exports be spent in Germany.
The Central Americans also participated in Secretary of State Cordell Hull's
trade reciprocity program designed to stimulate U.S. manufacturers, not
foreign economies, a program objective that smacked of imperialism. But
the Central American leadership signed agreements knowing that they con-
tained minimal benefits for them because the bulk of their goods already
entered the United States duty free and they already benefitted from Wash-
ington's policy of most favored nation treaties to all countries. The isthmian
leaders had other motives. With the exception of Costa Rica, political con-
siderations not economic reasons, dictated the Central America's participa-
tion. Presidents Tiburcio Carfas in Honduras, Jorge Ubico in Guatemala and
Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez in El Salvador understood that trade rec-
(Fort Worth: Texas Christian University, 1976yf & K D U O H V ( Y D Q V + X J K H V 2 X U 5 H O D W L R Q V : L W K W K H 1 D W L R Q s of the Western Hemisphere (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928yf $ O H [ D Q G H U ' H & R Q G H + H U E H U t
Hoover's Latin American Policy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951yf ( W K D Q ( O O L V 5 H S X E O L F D n Foreign Policy, 1921-1933 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1968yf - R V H S K 6 7 X O F K L Q 7 K e Aftermath of War: World War I and U.S. Policy Toward Latin America (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1971yf - 5 H X E H Q & O D U N 0 H P R U D Q G X P R Q W K H 0 R Q U R H ' R F W U L Q H : D V K L Q J W R Q ' & : Government Printing Office, 1930yf , U Z L Q ) * H O O P D Q * R R G 1 H L J K E R U ' L S O R P D F \ 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V 3 R O -
icies Toward Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979yf % U \ F H : R R G 7 K e Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961yf D Q G 7 K R P D V 0 . Leonard, "The Recognition Policy in United States--Central American Relations, 1933-1949," Occa-
sional Paper Series, Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University, 1985, p. 30.
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20 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
iprocity with the United States did not benefit their economies but, believed
that by signing the agreements, they gained implied recognition of their
illegally extended presidential terms between 1936 and 1939. In contrast,
Nicaraguan President Juan B. Sacasa initialed a trade agreement with the
United States in 1936, assuming that the link to Washington would help
prevent Anastasio Somoza's path the presidency. It did not, and, when
Somoza renegotiated the agreement in 1938, he not only felt more secure in
the presidency, but he also raised the price of U.S. imports to the benefit of
his business allies. In 1936 the Costa Rican legislature recognized that
nothing could be gained from a U.S. reciprocity treaty, but grudgingly
ratified a treaty in hopes of receiving other economic assistance from the
United States for its beleaguered economy. None was forthcoming.30
Hull also recognized that the reciprocity agreements provided nothing for
the Central Americans, but that their participation gave a sense of Inter-
American solidarity at the 1936 Inter-American Conference on War and
Peace that convened in Buenos Aires to focus attention upon the rising war
clouds in Europe and Asia. Hull, however, came away from the conference
with great disappointment. The Central Americans shared the opinion of
their South American neighbors that potential war was too distant to be a
threat. Instead they expressed greater interest in having the United States
reaffirm its 1933 non-intervention pledge. After war erupted in 1939, the
Central Americans became willing Allied partners, readily signing defense
agreements and participating in the Lend-Lease program. American air
strips and naval facilities dotted the Caribbean coast for the U-Boat cam-
paign in 1942, and the bulk of Lend-Lease aid was for that purpose. The
dictators requested and received U.S. military missions to modernize their
armies. The Central American governments also cooperated with anti-Nazi
activities, including the curtailment of the civil rights of German nationals
and their descendants and the transporting of some to internment camps in
the United States. The number held in United States camps during the war
exceeded that requested by the State Department. Carfas, Hernindez-
Martinez, Ubico, and Somoza sent several of their political opponents to the
United States. They also confiscated German-owned properties for their
own benefit or that of their friends. Although Somoza was the most demon-
30 Lloyd Gardner, Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1964yf S S ' L F N 6 W H Z D U G 7 U D G H D Q G + H P L V S K H U H 7 K H * R R G 1 H L J K E R U 3 R O L F \ D Q G 5 H F L S - rocal Trade (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1975yf S S & K D U O H V , % H Y D Q V F R P S , Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States, 1776-1949 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1971yf 9 , S S 9 , , S S 9 , , , S S D Q d
X, pp. 395-405; Howard J. Trueblood, "Trade Rivalries in Latin America," Foreign Policy Reports, 13 (Sept. 1937yf .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 21
strative, Carias, Hernandez-Martinez, and Ubico also made public identifi-
cation with President Roosevelt and the American troops stationed in their
countries. Such displays of affinity gave credence to the assertion that
Washington approved of their rule.31
As the Cold War unfolded in the 1940s and 1950s, Central America
moved to the periphery of United States policy, except when the established
order was threatened. At the same time the campaign against international
communism intensified, the isthmian "generation of rising expectations"
sought to increase its political participation and obtain economic and social
benefits for the impoverished masses. Local elites branded such reformers as
communists, and Washington policymakers failed to make a clear distinc-
tion between the legitimate movements for change and communism. This
blurred vision enabled the Central American elites to capitalize upon United
States Cold War policies for their own benefit.
The 1948 Costa Rican civil war provided its eventual victor, Jos6
Figueres, to utilize both the old and the new United States policies to his
advantage. When war broke out in 1948, Nicaraguan President Somoza
offered to assist the ill-prepared government troops to secure the old order
that protected his lucrative cattle market. As it had in the past, the United
States feared the spread of violence and to curb that possibility put its forces
in Panama on alert and placed Ambassador Nathanial P. Davis in a medi-
ator's role. These actions contributed to Figueres's victory, which he
claimed saved the country from communism, a proclamation he hoped
Washington received favorably.32
31 Laurence Duggan, The Americas: The Search for Hemispheric Security (New York: Holt, 1947yf ;
Alton Freye, Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere 1933-1941 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967yf ' D Y L G + D J O X Q G / D W L Q $ P H U L F D D Q G W K H 7 U D Q V I R U P D W L R Q R I 8 6 6 W U D W H J L F 7 K R X J K W -
1941 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984yf 6 W H W V R Q & R Q Q D Q G % \ U R Q ) D L U F K L O G 8 Q L W H d
States Army in World War H: The Western Hemisphere (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960yf 6 W H W V R Q & R Q Q 5 R V H & ( Q J H P D Q D Q G % \ U R Q ) D L U F K L O G * X D U G L Q J W K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V D Q G , W s
Outposts: The United States Army in World War HII (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964yf : D U U H Q ) . L P E D O O 7 K H 0 R V W 8 Q V R U G L G $ F W / H Q G / H D V H % D O W L P R U H - R K Q V + R S N L Q s University Press, 1969yf 5 $ + X P S K U L H V / D W L Q $ P H U L F D ' X U L Q J W K H 6 H F R Q G : R U O G : D U Y R O V .
(London: London Institute for Latin American Studies, 1981yf 5 L F K D U G 0 L O O H W * X D U G L D Q V R I W K H ' \ Q D V W y (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1971yf S S & D U O R V & D O Y R * D P E R D & R V W D 5 L F D H Q O D V V H J X Q G D P X Q G L D O ,
1939-1945 (San Jos&: Universidad de Costa Rica, 1985yf 8 6 & R Q J U H V V + R X V H R I 5 H S U H V H Q W D W L Y H V ,
"Message of the President, 16th Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations for the Period ending July 30, 1944"; 77th Congress, 2nd session, Serial 10884, House Document 374; Kenneth J. Grieb,
Guatemalan Caudillo, pp. 248-63; and Carmelo F. Astilla, "The Martinez Era," pp. 146-91. Regina Wagner is completing a doctoral dissertation at Tulane University under the direction of Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., on the issue of wartime confiscated properties in Guatemala.
32 J. Lloyd Mecham, The United States and Inter-American Security, 1889-1960 (Austin: University of Texas, 1963yf S S + D U R O G 0 R O L Q H X 8 6 3 R O L F \ 7 R Z D U G / D W L Q $ P H U L F D ) U R P 5 H J L R Q D O L V m
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22 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
The blurred nationalist-communist issue was more evident in the events
that lead to the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. The
crisis had its origins in the 1945 presidential election of Juan Jos6 Arevilo.
Arevilo had been a long time critic of United States economic exploitation
of Latin America in general and Guatemala in particular. His allegedly
socialistic reform program threatened Guatemala's established order. His
successor, Jacobo Arbenz, appeared to be more extreme than Arevilo. Both
the Guatemalan elite and Washington policymakers portrayed them as the
first Soviet agents in Central America. Other Central American leaders,
representing diverse political views, such as Figueres, Somoza, and Salva-
doran Democrat Miguel A. Magaiia shared Washington's opinion. They
feared that communism would spread across the isthmus from Guatemala.
Thus, Guatemala stood alone among its neighbors at the Tenth Inter-
American Conference in Caracas in March 1954, where Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles pushed through a resolution calling for the removal of
communists from the hemisphere. The Central American Ministers failed to
respond to Guatemalan Minister Guillermo Toriello, when he charged that
approval of the Dulles resolution meant that Pan-Americanism would be-
come an instrument in the service of monopolistic interests, which would
further stymie the economic and social development of the region. Only
Costa Rica challenged the United States. President Figueres refused to send
a delegation to the conference because he opposed intervention. As a rep-
resentative of the "generation of rising expectations," he also favored social
and economic reform at the expense of native and foreign landowners. The
story of the subsequent CIA-sponsored invasion has been well told. Wash-
ington found its allies in Generals Castillo Armas and, subsequently, Miguel
Ydigoras Fuentes, because they represented strong government "which so
many Guatemalans seem to want." Just as with the Guatemalan elite, the
United States was satisfied with rightist administrations that failed to address
the demands of indigenous nationalist movements. This image was strength-
ened in 1956 when U.S. medical efforts failed to save Somoza's life from
an assassin's bullet.33
to Globalism (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986yf S S / H V W H U ' / D Q J O H \ $ P H U L F D D Q G W K H $ P H U -
icas: The United States in the Western Hemisphere (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989yf S S . 161-88; John P. Bell, Crisis in Costa Rica (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971yf D Q G 7 K R P D V 0 .
Leonard, The United States and Central America, 1944-1949: Perceptions of Political Dynamics (Tus- caloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1984yf F K D S .
33 Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1984yf , pp. 103-48; Thomas M. Leonard, "Nationalism or Communism: The Truman Administration and
Guatemala, 1945-1952," Journal of Third World Studies, 7 (Spring 1990yf 5 L F K D U G + , P P H U -
man, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1982yf 6 W H S K H Q 6 F K O H V L Q J H U D Q G 6 W H Y H Q . L Q ] H U % L W W H U ) U X L W 7 K H 8 Q W R O G 6 W R U \ R I W K H $ P H U L F D Q & R X S L n
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 23
With the exception of Costa Rica, where Figueres's social program and
criticisms of U.S. interventionist policies rankled Washington, the Central
Americans appeared as close United States allies in the late 1950s. With the
exception of Figueres, neither the Central American elite nor Washington
policymakers wanted to pay for any improvement in the quality of life for
the lower sector nor extend political participation to the middle sector. The
United States faced a greater challenge in Europe and Asia and, the Central
American elite, anxious to avoid interference in their internal affairs, made
continual professions of anti-communism and praised the U.S. containment
policies. The height of such identification came when Guatemala and Nic-
aragua hosted the CIA's Cuban exile group that eventually invaded the
island in 1961.34
Fidel Castro's victory in Cuba in 1959 demonstrated the complexity of the
post-war issues raised by the "generation of rising expectations" and the
blurred communist-nationalist discussion. Castro's revolution also prompted
a shift in United States policies, upon which the Central American elite
capitalized.
The new policies-the Alliance for Progress and military counterinsur-
gency-had their roots in the latter part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's
Administration, but began their implementation under President John F.
Kennedy. The Alliance, launched as a ten-year $100 billion program, aimed
at improving the quality of life in all Latin America through a variety of
educational, health, sanitation, land distribution, manufacturing, and polit-
ical reform schemes. The program's ideals became lost after 1964 as the
United States sank deeper into Vietnam and the Johnson Administration
de-emphasized economic and social programs abroad. Still, the Central
American ruling elite seized upon these programs to increase their own
wealth at the expense of labor. Rather than the massive land distribution
Guatemala (New York: Doubleday, 1982yf 3 L H U R * O H L M H V H V 6 K D W W H U H G + R S H 7 K H * X D W H P D O D Q 5 H Y R O X W L R n
and the United States, 1944-1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991yf - R K Q ) R V W H U ' X O O H V ,
"Communist Influence in Guatemala," Department of State Bulletin, 30 (June 1954yf - R K n
Foster Dulles, "International Communism in Guatemala," Department of State Bulletin, 31 (July 12, 1954yf D Q G - R K Q ( 3 X U L I R \ 7 K H & R P P X Q L V W & R Q V S L U D F \ L Q * X D W H P D O D ' H S D U W P H Q W R I 6 W D W e
Bulletin, 31 (November 8, 1954yf , Q U H D O L W \ : D V K L Q J W R Q S X V K H G I R U O L E H U D O L ] D W L R Q R I W K H 6 R P R ] D U H J L P H ,
a fact that Somoza, if not the public, understood. "What advantage do we get from being friendly," he asked. "You treat us like an old wife. We would rather be treated like a young mistress," in John D. Martz, Central America: The Crisis and the Challenge (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1959yf .
34 Thomas M. Leonard, "The United States and Central America, 1955-1960," Valley Forge Jour-
nal, 3 (June 1986yf ) R U D G L V F X V V L R Q R I ( L V H Q K R Z H U
V / D W L Q $ P H U L F D Q S R O L F \ V H H 6 W H S K H Q * . Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy ofAnti-Communism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988yf .
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24 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
program originally envisioned, Central American landowners used the funds
to expand their properties, upon which they increased production through
newly available agricultural technology. Displaced farmworkers made their
way to urban centers where they faced unemployment and greater social
hardship. Industrial development under the Alliance emphasized capital not
labor intensive industries, and the local elites invested heavily. The already
depressed urban labor market was exacerbated by the addition of the un-
skilled agricultural workers. The explosive situation was most evident in El
Salvador and Honduras and contributed to the 1969 "Soccer War." When
the Alliance passed in 1971, the United States Agency for International
Development, which administered most of the Alliance programs, admitted
that the elite had profited during the 1960s and that the quality of life had not
improved for the masses of Central Americans.35
Kennedy's military reform program soon became a victim of local real-
ities. The counter-insurgency program intended to use the military to carry
out social projects such as road building, dispensing medical assistance, and
clearing rural lands for the poor, while at the same time combatting local
guerrilla movements. Instead, the military continued to support the old
order. The military assistance program also identified the Central American
forces with their American counterparts, leaving the impression that the
United States was involved in their political repression. Although general-
izations about the impact of U.S. military training of Central American
officers and rank personnel is difficult to analyze, some conclusions can be
made about Guatemala. Exposure to the lifestyle of the American officers
(clubs, golf, swimming, etc.yf L Q I O X H Q F H G W K H * X D W H P D O D Q V W R D F K L H Y H a
higher standard of living. Thus, the Guatemalan officers often sought, and
acquired government positions, made private investments, or became land-
holders. The anti-communist training programs they took at the School of
35 Stephen G. Rabe, "Controlling Revolutions: Latin America, The Alliance for Progress and Cold
War Anti-Communism," in Thomas G. Patterson, ed., Kennedy's Quest For Victory: American Foreign
Policy, 1961-1963 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989yf $ G R O I $ % H U O H $ O O L D Q F H I R U 3 U R J U H V s vs. Communism," Department of State Bulletin, 8 (June 24, 1961yf 9 L F W R U $ O E D $ O O L D Q F e
Without Allies: The Mythology of Progress in Latin America, trans, by John Pearson (New York: Praeger, 1965yf $ U W K X U 6 F K O H V L Q J H U - U 7 K H $ O O L D Q F H I R U 3 U R J U H V V $ 5 H W U R V S H F W L Y H L Q 5 R Q D O G * .
Hellman and H. Jon Rosenbaum, eds., Latin America: The Search for a New International Role (New
York: Wiley, 1975yf D Q G $ J H Q F \ I R U , Q W H U Q D W L R Q D O ' H Y H O R S P H Q W $ , ' \f, Congressional Presentations, 1962-1973, Annex Latin America and the Caribbean. For a discussion of the "Soccer War," see: William H. Durham, Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979yf D Q G 7 K R P D V 3 $ Q G H U V R Q 7 K H : D U R I W K H ' L V S R V V H V V H G :
Honduras and El Salvador (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983yf 6 W H S K H Q 6 W U H H W H U L V F R P S O H W - ing a doctoral dissertation at the University of Connecticut under the direction of Thomas G. Patterson on United States AID programs in Guatemala during the 1960s.
This content downloaded from 146.111.34.148 on Sat, 25 Mar 2017 03:32:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
THOMAS M. LEONARD 25
the Americas in Panama made them less tolerant of the left. In effect, they
came to defend the status quo which they became increasingly part of.36
From the early 1960s until the mid-1970s, the Central American right, free
from United States interference because of the war in Vietnam and domestic
violence at home, strengthened its position and brutally suppressed its op-
position. During the same time period, the local military, except in Costa
Rica which outlawed its army following the 1948 revolution, became the
dominant player in Central American politics for its own purposes. This was
most evident in 1972 in El Salvador, where the military denied Jos6 Napo-
leon Duarte the presidency, and in Nicaragua where it carried out Somoza's
political repression following the devastating earthquake. By 1977 the U.S.-
trained and supplied military in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras
controlled their nations's political apparatuses and in Nicaragua secured the
Somoza regime. Their strength was subsequently evident when President
Jimmy Carter's human rights policy, that resulted in arms embargoes against
El Salvador and Guatemala, failed to dislodge the military from power or
provide for an improvement in human rights. Nor did Carter's policies
prevent the military regimes from acquiring arms on the world market. In
effect, the Central American right capitalized upon Washington's policy
vacuum in the late 1960s to secure its own position, but in the 1970s fell
victim to the political ambitions of the military. In so doing, the Central
American middle sector became increasingly frustrated at its failure to gain
entrance into the region's political apparatus and the poor equally frustrated
at the failure to improve its socio-economic quality of life. By July 1979 the
old order came unravelled in Nicaragua and was under severe pressure in El
Salvador.37
36 Willard F. Barber and C. Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military Power: Counterinsurgency and Civic Action in Latin America (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966yf ' R Q / ( W F K L V R Q 7 K H 8 Q L W H d
States and Militarism in Central America (New York: Praeger, 1975yf 0 L O W R Q + H Q U \ - D P D L O * X D W H P D O a
1944-1972: The Politics of Aborted Revolution" (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1972yf $ G R O I o
Guilly, "The Guerrilla Movement in Guatemala," Monthly Review, 17 (May 1965yf $ G R O I o Guilly, "The Guerilla Movement in Guatemala," Monthly Review, 17 (June 1965yf / D Z U H Q F H $ .
Yates, "The United States and Rural Insurgency in Guatemala, 1960-1970," in Ralph Lee Woodward,
Jr., ed., Central America: Historical Perspectives on the Contemporary Crisis (Westport, CT: Green- wood Press, 1988yf 0 L F K D H O 0 F & O L Q W R F N 7 K H $ P H U L F D Q & R Q Q H F W L R Q 6 W D W H D Q G 3 R S X O D U 5 H V L V W D Q F H L n Guatemala (London: Zed Books, 1985yf S S D Q G 7 K R P D V & 0 D Q Q ' H P R F U D W L F , G H D O L Q 2 X r
Policy Toward Latin America," Department of State Bulletin, 50 (June 29, 1964yf D Q G 8 6 .
Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Military Policies and Programs in Latin America: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, 91st Congress, Ist
session.
37 James D. Cochrane, "U.S.-Policy Toward Recognition of Governments and Promotion of Democ-
racy in Latin America Since 1963," Journal of Latin American Studies, 4 (Spring 1972yf ; Frederico Gil, "The Kennedy-Johnson Years," in John D. Martz, ed., United States Policy in Latin
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26 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
The success of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua sent shockwaves across the
isthmus. The Central American elites charged that the communist victory in
Nicaragua threatened the isthmus's established order. They found a sympa-
thetic ear in Ronald Reagan who maintained that the Soviets, through their
Cuban proxies, intended to spread communism across the isthmus in order
to destroy economic, political, and social institutions that had been in place
at least since the region's independence from Spain in 1821. In face of the
challenge, Reagan determined at the outset of his presidency in 1981 to
maintain the old order in Central America, except in Nicaragua, where he
intended its restoration.
While Reagan applied a broad brush to the entire region, the circum-
stances within each country dictated its foreign policy objectives in response
to Washington's plans. The Nicaraguan and Salvadoran responses remained
consistent, but for different reasons. The Sandinistas in Managua held off
Washington's attempt to dislodge them. They ventured to challenge the
"big brother" of the North and survived. That is a piece of national pride
that will always be cherished. Their determination to resist the imposition of
a U.S. solution encouraged continued Soviet and Eastern European support
through Cuba. In contrast, by the early 1980s, El Salvador became Wash-
ington's client state, but not so dependent as to prevent the right wing
civilian elite and its military partners from stifling reform and continuing
human and civil rights violations. The Salvadoran rulers correctly assumed
that Reagan would tolerate their actions while pursuing the communist
scourge.
As so often in its tortured history, Honduras was again exploited by a
stronger power. Rather than a Central American neighbor, in the 1980s it
was the United States. The Honduran military, which dominated national
politics instead of the elected civilian presidents, cooperative partners. Con-
fident that Reagan would have his way-and that they would benefit from
cooperation-the Honduran military permitted the United States to construct
America: Century of Crisis and Challenge (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988yf S S % H n
F. Stephansky, "New Dialogue With Latin America: The Cost of Political Neglect," in Hellman and Rosenbaum, eds., Search for a New International Role; Jerome Slater, "The United States and Latin
America: The New Radical Orthodoxy," Economic Development and Cultural Change, 5 (Fall 1977yf , 747-62; Frederico Gil, "United States-Latin American Relations in the Mid 1970s," SECOLAS An-
nals, 1976, 5-19; Michael J. Francis, "United States Policy Toward Latin America During the Kissinger Years," in Martz, ed., Quarter Century, pp. 28-60; Robert A. Pastor, "The Carter Administration and
Latin America: A Test of Principle," in Martz, ed., 61-97; Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: The United
States and Nicaragua (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987yf S S $ Q W K R Q \ / D N H 6 R P R ] a
Falling: The Nicaraguan Dilemma: A Portrait of Washinaton At Work (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989yf 6 K L U O H \ & K U L V W L D Q 1 L F D U D J X D 5 H Y R O X W L R Q L Q W K H ) D P L O \ 1 H Z < R U N 5 D Q G R P + R X V H \f, pp. 69-192; and Robert Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987yf S S .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 27
military encampments and conduct maneuvers within Honduras in an effort
to threaten the Sandinistas. The Honduran army also allowed the Nicaraguan
contra army to maintain secure staging areas within Honduras and served as
conduits of U.S. assistance to them. The chief of the Honduran military,
General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, pleased Reagan when he proposed that
CONDECA be revived in order to form a common military front against the
Nicaraguans. In return the Honduran military received U.S. military assis-
tance that reached $31 million annually by 1983. Such generosity strength-
ened its position in the Honduran political arena. The Honduran opposition
charged that Alvarez permitted the country to become an American colony
that only increased the risk of war with Nicaragua. When United States
policy changed near the end of Reagan's first term, the influence of the
Honduran military in national politics also waned. The opposition benefitted
from Washington's hesitant policy in 1984 and forced Alvarez's resignation.
His replacement, General Walter L6pez Reyes, did not comply with the
directives given by the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, and after his election
in 1986 President Jos6 Azcona further distanced Honduras from the United States.
Costa Rica found itself drawn into the regional morass because it served
as a ferrying point for equipment to anti-Sandinista forces inside Nicaragua,
a headquarters for former Sandinista Ed6n Pastora and a haven for exiles
from the north, whose presence strained the Ticos generous social system.
President Rodrigo Carazo successfully resisted U.S. pressure to openly
support Washington's Central American policy in return for economic as-
sistance. But in 1982 President-elect Luis Alberto Monge did not. Explain-
ing that he had to contend with increasing violence on the Costa Rican-
Nicaraguan border and increased urban violence caused by the exiles pres-
ence, Monge agreed to the professionalization of the nation's Civil Guard
and to the construction of roads and an air strip capable of handling military
equipment. In return he accepted badly needed economic aid. Costa Rica
became one of the first recipients of the Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initia-
tive, designed to stimulate regional economies. The rising tide to the Amer-
ican presence forced Monge to retreat in late 1983. He refused to send the
Civil Guard to Honduras for military training, openly criticized the U.S.
invasion of Grenada and Ambassador Curtis Winsor's public remarks about
his hesitant policy. Finally, in December 1983 Monge declared his nation's
neutrality in international affairs.
Guatemala's military rulers remained reluctant to join in the fray for fear
that the U.S. might attempt to force change in their own restrictive and,
often, brutal government. The presidential election of Christian Democrat
Vinicio Cerezo in 1986 brought little change. Cerezo also wanted to avoid
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28 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
the regional quagmire, preferring to focus upon domestic issues, but always
mindful of the military's political presence.
The crescendo of Central American opposition paralleled the heightening
protest in the United States against Reagan's Central American policies and
provided an opportunity for the Central Americans to seize the initiative.
They did. At the encouragement of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, they
forged a peace plan in August 1986 that served the purpose of each partic-
ipant. For Costa Rica, a termination of the crisis would end the potential for
being drawn further into the fracas and halt the stream of immigrants that in
turn would alleviate the pressure on the national welfare system. The San-
dinistas anticipated that the peace plan would secure their own position in
Nicaragua. Salvadoran President Duarte believed that the Arias plan would
end outside military support for the FMLN guerrillas and finally bring peace
to his country. Honduras viewed the peace treaty as a vehicle to reduce the
possibility of Nicaraguan vengeance should Washington abandon the con-
tras Guatemalan President Cerezo viewed a general peace as an opportunity
to further curtail the political presence of the military. Underlying these
individual objectives was the common desire to end United States domi-
nance of isthmian affairs.38
Conclusion
Writing in 1974, Richard V. Salisbury noted that scholars sustained the
belief that the Latin American nations "accepted a passive, or at best, a
secondary role in their relationships with the Great Powers," and that such
a view was "especially applicable" to Central America which lived under
the domination of the United States. Salisbury refuted that general assump-
tion regarding Costa Rica's policy toward the United States non-recognition
38 Timothy Ashby, Bear in the Backyard: Moscow's Caribbean Strategy (Lexington: D.C. Heath,
1987yf 0 D U J D U H W ' D O \ + D \ H V 1 R W : K D W , 6 D \ % X W : K D W , ' R / D W L Q $ P H U L F D Q 3 R O L F \ L Q W K H 5 H D J D n Administration," in Martz, ed., Quarter Century, pp. 98-133; Cynthia J. Arnson, Crossroads: Con-
gress, The Reagan Administration and Central America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989yf 5 R y Gutman, Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua, 1981-1987 (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1988yf : R R G Z D U G 9 H L O - R K Q 7 R Z H U H W D O 5 H S R U W R I W K H 3 U H V L G H Q W
V 6 S H F L D l Review Board (February 26, 1987; Washington, D.C.yf 8 6 & R Q J U H V V W K & R Q J U H V V , V W 6 H V V L R Q , House Report No. 100-433, Senate Report No. 100-216, Iran-Contra Affair: With Supplemental, Mi- nority and Additional Views, November 1987; Thomas M. Leonard, "The United States, Costa Rica and
the Nicaraguan Revolution," in Howard Jones, ed., The Foreign and Domestic Dimensions of Modern Warfare: Vietnam, Central America and Nuclear Strategy (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988yf S S D Q G 7 K R P D V 0 / H R Q D U G & H Q W U D O $ P H U L F D D Q G W K H 8 Q L W H G 6 W D W H V 7 K H 6 H D U F K ) R r Stability (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991yf F K D S .
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THOMAS M. LEONARD 29
policy between 1923 and 1934.39 In a much broader context, this essay
substantiates Salisbury's thesis that the Central American governments have
pursued their own foreign policy objectives in their relations with the United
States, despite the fact that in times of crisis, such as the events that led to
the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, the 1954 Guatemalan invasion, the Alli-
ance for Progress in the 1960s, or in the 1980s with the contra war, the
United States dominated the relationship. Even in the times of U.S. domi-
nance, the Central Americans had their own policy goals that were not
always compatible to those in Washington. Several themes characterize
Central America's relations with the United States.
In the nineteenth century, the Central Americans sought to identify with
the United States when such an alliance benefitted them. This first occurred
after independence when the regional governments sought to identify with
the United States either to ward off foreign interlopers, such as the Mexicans
or British, or to advance their own societies as with the Liberals in the 1830s
and again in the 1880s and 1890s.
Subsequently, the Central American rulers recognized that they could
secure their own position at home by identifying with the objectives of
United States policies. Washington's search for political stability was the
purpose of the 1907 and 1923 treaty systems, but the Central American
leaders viewed these treaties as an opportunity to insure their own presi-
dencies by advocating their implementation to thwart revolutionary move-
ments. Both the Washington policymakers and the Central American dic-
tators recognized that the reciprocal trade treaties of the 1930s brought little
economic benefit to either. While Washington was more interested in hemi-
spheric solidarity, the isthmian dictators accepted the treaties in order to gain
a degree of international legitimacy for their regimes. The dictators further
believed that their identification with the U.S. during World War II provided
them with a stamp of approval that deterred their domestic political oppo- sition.
In the years since World War II, Washington's obsession with the threat
of international communism played into the hands of Central America's
ruling elite against the "generation of rising expectations." Unable, or
unwilling, to differentiate between legitimate nationalist movements to cor-
rect economic, political, and social disparities and communists plots, Wash-
ington accepted the isthmian elite's explanation that communists had pen-
etrated their nations, and to secure the old order against such penetration,
39 Richard V. Salisbury, "Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy: Costa Rica's Stand on Recognition, 1923-1934," HAHR, 54 (Aug. 1974yf .
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30 CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES
provided the necessary assistance. When the assistance proved insufficient,
the elite supported Washington's proxies in hopes of returning to power, as
in Guatemala in 1954 and Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Often times the Central Americans found themselves in conflict with the
United States. Both in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Cen-
tral Americans successfully resisted United States advances, as with
William Walker's filibustering in the 1850s, Abraham Lincoln's coloniza-
tion plan in the 1860s, and "Dollar Diplomacy" in the 1910s. On the
negative side, during the mid-1970s, El Salvador and Guatemala rejected
President Jimmy Carter's human rights policy and arms embargo in order to
maintain brutally repressive governments. In the 1980s the Central Ameri-
cans again seized the initiative to formulate a peace plan that would end ten
years of isthmian violence and force the withdrawal of the United States
military presence from the isthmus.
Finally, the literature suggests, by omission, that there is a greater need
for the analysis of Central America's foreign policy and the internal dynam-
ics that affected its formulation. As the current regional crisis recedes, so
too, will the publishers desire to put into print new books about the isthmus.
Hopefully, scholars will follow Richard Salisbury's recent work and the
forthcoming dissertations by Regina Wagner, Kyle Longley, and Stephen
Streeter in examining the Central American foreign policy perspective in the
future.40
University of North Florida THOMAS M. LEONARD
Jacksonville, Florida
4 Salisbury, Anti-Imperialism. For Regina Wagner and Stephen Streeter, see notes 31 and 35 above.
Under the direction of George Herring at the University of Kentucky, Lester Langley is completing a doctoral dissertation on the foreign policy objectives of Costa Rican President Jos6 Figueres with the
United States.
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