Nation-Building in the land of eternal counter-insurgency: Guatemala and the contradictions of the alliance for progress

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 57-68

  Streeter, Stephen M ^a  

^a MCMASTER UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEVELOPING WORLD; GEOPOLITICS; NATION STATE; STATE BUILDING;

CENTRAL AMERICA; GUATEMALA [CENTRAL AMERICA];

EID: 31344457744     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436590500368974     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Public Papers of the President, JFK, 13 March 1962.
2. Schlesinger to JFK, 10 March 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 12 (hereafter FRUS, with year and volume).
3. Special National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), 80-62, 17 January 1962, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, pp 211-212.
4. SG Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p 18.
5. Report from the Task Force on Immediate Latin American Problems to President-elect Kennedy, 1 January 1961, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 4;
6. and memorandum of conversation (JFK, Macmillan), 30 June 1963, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 608.
7. Testimony of Allen W Dulles, 2 May 1961, US Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 1961, 87th Cong, 1st sess, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1984, pp 393-394.
8. C Bowles, 'The Alliance for Progress: A continuing revolution', Department of State Bulletin, 6 November 1961, p 744.
9. NIE, 80/90-64, 19 August 1964, FRUS, 1964 - 1968, 31, document #24, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36230.htm.
10. S Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954 - 1961, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000.
11. M Bundy, 'Nation-building: Historical precedent and the basis for US intervention', Brown Journal of World Affairs, 2, 1994, p 33;
12. J Mecklin, Mission in Torment: An Intimate Account of the US Role in Vietnam, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965, p 22;
13. and ME Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and 'Nation-Building' in the Kennedy Era, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000, p 38.
14. 'Study in anticipation of a crisis in Guatemala', 21 April 1969, National Security Archive, George Washington University; and interviews with D Jickling and G Smith, January 1991.
15. For the text of the Punta del Este Charter, see http://www.yale.edu/ lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam16.htm. Studies of the Alliance for Progress are too numerous to cite. For a standard overview, see J Levinson & J de Onís, The Alliance that Lost its Way: A Critical Report on the Alliance for Progress, Chicago, IL: Quadrangle, 1970, p 381.
16. Testimony of Viron P Vaky, 11 March 1969, US Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, New Directions for the 1970's: Toward a Strategy of Inter-American Development, 91st Cong, 1st sess, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1969, p 3.
17. Minutes of the Fifth Regional Operations Conference, San José, Costa Rica, 16 - 18 October, 1961, US National Archives, Record Group 59 (hereafter RG with group number), entry 3147, box 3, folder 'Woodward, Robert F'.
18. 'Remarks of the President Commemorating the Fifth Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress at the Pan American Health Organization', 17 August 1966, National Security Files, Speech File, box 5, folder 'President's Speech - Alliance for Progress, 8/17/66'.
19. W Lippman, Conversations with Walter Lippman, Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1965, p 142.
20. C Bowles, 'A fresh look at the Alliance for Progress', Department of State Bulletin, 20 August 1962.
21. Quoted in A Schlesinger, 'Myth and reality', in LR Scheman (ed), The Alliance for Progress: A Retrospective, New York: Praeger, 1988, p 69.
22. Quoted in RS Leeds, 'The origins of the Alliance for Progress: continuity and change in US policy toward Latin America', PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1976, p 106. Che's warning was later discussed at high levels within the State Department. See 'Highlights of Discussion at the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Committee Meeting', 13 February 1962, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 92.
23. Che's warning was later discussed at high levels within the State Department. See 'Highlights of Discussion at the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Committee Meeting', 13 February 1962, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 92.
24. Quoted in Senator Jacob K Javits of New York, 'Latin America: Will we meet the challenge of the 70's?', Comité Interamericana de la Alianza para el Progreso (CIAP) - Office of the Chairman, 1968, box 16, folder 'I. Council of the OAS, United States1969', Columbus Memorial Library, Organization of American States, Washington, DC.
25. Bureau of Intelligence and Research memorandum RAR-11, 17 January 1962, FRUS, 1961 - 1963, 12, p 83;
26. Hughes to Woodward, 19 January 1962, FRUS, 1961-1963, 12 pp 86-91;
27. and 'Interderpartmental Committee of Under Secretaries on Foreign Economic Policy', 29 November 1961, FRUS, 1961-1963, 12, p 71.
28. Quoted in G Colby, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, New York: HarperCollins, 1995, p 376.
29. On the origins of the Public Safety Program in Guatemala, see M McClintock, The American Connection, Vol 2, State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala, London: Zed, 1985, pp 35 - 36;
30. and Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution, pp 92 - 94.
31. For Humphrey's comment, see US Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee on Appropriations, A Report on the Alliance for Progress 1963, 88th Cong, 1st sess, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1963, p 36.
32. BJ Calder, 'Interwoven histories: The Catholic Church and the Maya, 1940 to the present', in EL Cleary & TJ Steigenga (eds), Resurgent Voices in Latin America: Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004, pp 97 - 98
33. and S Davis, 'The social roots of political violence in Guatemala', Cultural Survival Quarterly, 7, 1983, p 8.
34. Diócesis del Quiché, El Quiché: El pueblo y su iglesia, 1960-1980, Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala: La Diócesis, 1994, pp 76-77.
35. L Frank & P Wheaton, Indian Guatemala: Path to Liberation, The Role of Christians in the Indian Process, Washington, DC: Ecumenical Program for Interamerican Communication and Action, 1984, p 34.
36. See also Thomas Melville's letter to Senator Fulbright, in R Gott, Rural Guerrillas in Latin America, London: Penguin, 1973, p 147.
37. Interview with DDW MacCorquodale, August 1991.
38. Holden memorandum to the files, 5 August 1964, RG 59, entry 167, box 20, folder 'AGR 3: Cooperatives and Credit FY 66'.
39. AD Marroquín, 'Panorama de indigenismo en Guatemala', América Indígena, 32, 1972, pp 297-298;
40. RP Appelbaum, 'Seasonal migration in San Ildefonso, Ixtahuacán: Its causes and its consequences', Public and International Affairs, 1966, p 77;
41. and L Schmid, The Role of Migratory Labor in the Economic Development of Guatemala, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Land Tenure Center, 1967, p 45.
42. US officials also detected the decline in seasonal migration. See Handelman memorandum de visita, 24 June 1971, RG 286, entry 167, box 6, no folder. On the need for plantation owners to raise wages to alleviate the labour shortage,
43. see K Warren, The Symbolism of Subordination: Indian Identity in a Guatemalan Town, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1978, p 160.
44. Louis J Twomey, George E Flanagan & Frank Keller, draft proposal to AID, 28 May 1965, Twomey Papers, box 63, folder 'Twomey Records of Institute - A Center: Agency for International Development University Contract', Loyola University, New Orleans, LA.
45. 'The Inter-American Center of Loyola University: The first two years of operation', undated, Twomey Papers, box 63, folder 'Twomey Records of Institute - A Center: Miscellaneous (folder 11)', Loyola University, New Orleans, LA. On the concept of 'liberal developmentalism', see ES Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890 - 1945, New York: Hill and Wang, 1982, p 7.
46. Hope memorandum to Loyola Selection Committee, 8 June 1967, RG 286, entry 167, box 10, folder 'Loyola Seminar No 17 - Political Leaders - July 1-August 12, 1967'.
47. Interview with MacCorquodale.
48. Memorandum of conversation (Martínez Durán, Gándara, Hinton, Connolly,Wright,MacCorquodale), 14 November 1967, RG 286, entry 556, box 14, folder 'ADM: 8-1 Memorandum of Conversation'.
49. There are many accounts of the Melville affair. For a good summary, see LA Fuller, 'Catholic missionary work and national development in Guatemala, 1943-68: The Maryknoll experience', MA thesis, New York University, 1970, pp 199 - 237.
50. For the impact of the Melville incident on the Catholic community, see ET Brett, 'The US Catholic press on Guatemala', Journal of Church and State, 44, 2002, pp 128-133.
51. JO Bell oral history transcript, pp 39-40, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Georgetown University Library.
52. HD McInnis, 'Crisis and government in Guatemala', Guatemala, 1962, p 7, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, TX.
53. For accounts that emphasise this point, see W LaFeber, 'The burdens of the past', in R Leiken (ed), Central America: Anatomy of Conflict, New York: Pergamon Press, 1984, pp 60-63;
54. F Niess, A Hemisphere to Itself: A History of US - Latin American Relations, London: Zed Books, 1990, p 178;
55. and JF Petras & RJ LaPorte, Cultivating Revolution: The United States and Agrarian Reform in Latin America, New York: Vintage Books, 1971, pp 396-403.
56. AM Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy in the White House, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, p 769.
57. Stephen M Streeter, 'The 1963 coup in Guatemala: Did the Kennedy administration give the military a green light?', paper presented at the Third Inter-American Relations Conference, Arizona State University, February 1999.
58. 'Cuban training of Latin American subversives', 27 March 1963, Vice Presidential Security Files, box 9, folder 'Cuba (Miscellaneous Papers)May 1961 and Nov - Dec 1962', Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL).
59. NIE 82-66, 24 June 1966;
60. and FRUS, 1964-1968, 31, document #89, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/ frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36268.htm.
61. For example, see Defense Intelligence Agency, 'Cold War (Counter Insurgency) Analysis Guatemala', 10 September 1963, RG 286, entry 26, box 73, folder 'IPS 14/Internal Defense/Guatemala, 1962-1963'.
62. A good example is memorandum of conversation, 7 December 1966, RG 59, Subject Numeric Files, box 2248, folder 'Pol 2 Gen Reports & Stat, 1/1/ 64'.
63. Vaky memorandum to Oliver, 29 March 1968, FRUS, 1964-1968, 31, document #102, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36269.htm.
64. Testimony of Viron P Vaky, 11 March 1969, p 26.
65. According to one USAID official, between half and two-thirds of the Loyola graduates trained in the 1960s had perished in political violence by the 1980s. Interview with D Jickling. According to the Guatemalan Historical Truth Commission, during Guatemala's civil war, state forces and related paramilitary groups committed 93% of the arbitrary executions and forced disappearances. Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, Guatemala, memoria del silencio, Guatemala, 1999, at http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/report/spanish/ conc2.html.