Hot Wars: Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East

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Hot Wars Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East

• Q Was the US effective in containing communism
  in the 3rd World?

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Case Studies

• Despite rhetoric, US foreign policy opposed to 2
  central concepts
• Nationalism
• Democracy
• Nationalism transfer econ power US
  multinationals to own
• Democracy power to the people transfer econ
  power to people (esp. land reform)? labeled
  communism
• Nationalist, democratic revolutions against
  pro-US elites defined as communist

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I. Losing China and Korea

• A. We picked a bad horse
• 1949 corrupt, anti-land reform Chiang Kai-Shek
  (Nationalist) defeated by pro-peasant Mao Zedong?
  Taiwan
• Mao Asian Tito or puppet?? US refuse
  negotiations 1945 1949? lean USSR (1950
  alliance)? no official recognition till 1979
• Republicans blame HT for losing China (despite
  billions in aid)
• Raises fear Indochina domino effect
• Precedent for Cuba

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B. Ignoring the Prime Directive

• 1945 Korea divided 38th Parallel (a la G)
• 1950 Kim Il Sung invades to reunify? civil war
• HT Communism was acting in Korea just as
  Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese acted in the
  1930s.
• MacArthur Controversy crosses the Rubicon
  nearly undoes Constitution
• Called for impeachment, claimed HT drunk when
  ordered firing

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II. Like A Good Neighbor

• FDR Good Neighbor Policy
• 1936 Pan-American Conference (nonintervention)
  1939 Declaration of Panama
• Marines pulled out of 19-year occupation of
  Haiti Cubas Platt Amendment repealed cultural
  exchange programs US accepts Mexican
  nationalization oil (1938)
• BUT Rafael Tujillo (Dominican Republic)
  Anastasio Somoza (Nicaragua) Fulgencio Batista
  (Cuba) Puerto Rico
• Regardless, relations deteriorated despite
• 1948 Organization of American States (OAS) NATO
  in Latin America
• 1961 Alliance for Progress

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A. UFCOs Banana Republic

• United Fruit Company of Boston
• ½ million acres of land, railroad, the port and
  telecommunications 25 of production came from
  Guatemala
• 70 of land controlled by 2.2 of pop.
• Only 10 available to 90 of pop., esp. poor
  Indians
• Built schools, hospitals, treated malaria, but
  institutionalized Jim Crow opposed unions
• Tore down schools, housing, hospitals when
  abandoned towns that unionized
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of
  Solitude

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B. Jacobo Arbenz and Nationalization

• Coup? election
• March 17, 1951, Arbenz elected president w/ 65
• Modernization land reform? fallow land bought up
  and given to poor
• Arbenz repaid the land owners what they declared
  the value in taxes
• UFCO had claimed 1 million
• Later claimed 16 million
• Nationalization vs. expropriation

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• UFCO paints Arbenz as a Communist rather than a
  nationalist
• Secy State John Foster Dulles former law firm
  had represented UFCO
• CIA head Allen Dulles had been on the board of
  trustees
• Ed Whitman, husband Ikes private secretary "Why
  the Kremlin Hates Bananas
• UFCO paid expenses of journalists who went to
  Guatemala? pro-UFCO pieces

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• 1954 Operation PBSUCCESS only 150 invaders, but
  CIA convinced Guatemalans and Arbenz that it was
  much larger
• Radio station and expert bombers
• Howard Hunt, CIA chief, Mexico
• "What we wanted to do was have a terror campaign
  to terrify Arbenz particularly, terrify his ...
  his troops, much as the German Stuka bombers
  terrified the population of Holland, Belgium and
  Poland at the onset of World War II and just
  rendered everybody paralyzed."

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• Guatemala City strafed from air, rebels invaded
  from Honduras, CIA spreads panic
• U.N. emergency session Washington denied
  responsibility
• Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
• "The information available to the United States
  thus far strongly suggests that the situation
  does not involve aggression, but is a revolt of
  Guatemalans against Guatemalans."

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• Soviets warned not to interfere either in the UN
  or in Guatemala.
• Henry Cabot Lodge "Stay out of this hemisphere.
  And don't try to start your plans and your
  conspiracies over here."
• Castillo Armas, right-wing dictator, bend to
  UFCO's will Armas purged the country of all
  suspected communists, disenfranchised illiterate
  Guatemalans (poor Indians vast majority of the
  population), and banned labor unions

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• Among those who fled was a young Argentine
  doctor, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who went to Mexico
  and there met Fidel Castro
• US backed corrupt Batista regime? 1959
  revolution? assassination attempts, invasion?
  closer to USSR
• Irony Bay of Pigs? Cuban Missile Crisis
• Deepened Latin American anti-Americanism

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III. Pan-Arabism

• A. The State of Israel
• May 14, 1948 David Ben Gurion declares Israel
  based on UN plan for partition
• Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq invade? Israel
  gained land than? Palestine ceased to exist as
  independent nation? massive refugees (750,000)
• 6,000 Jews killed, 10 Israeli pop.? need support
• US State Dept. anti-Semitic (recog., but little
  aid till 69)? France (trad. imp. power Mid East)
• France war Arabs in colony of Algeria
• France supports Israels socialist ideals

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B. US and Iran

• Support Israel also limited (despite Holocaust,
  Jewish-Am lobbyists) by need Arabs oil
• Fear Soviet power in region 1953 CIA topples
  Irans prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh
  (Operation Ajax)
• Wanted nationalize Irans oil industry? power and
  wealth for nation
• Reinforce power of pro-US Shah Mohammed Reza?
  repressive and autocratic secret police (SAVAK)
• Anti-shah uprising in 1979? Ayattolah Khomeni

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C. Nasser and Pan-Arabism

• 1952, Gamal Abdel Naser led Free Officers revy
  coup in Egypt
• Nasser hoped to carry revolution throughout Arab
  world
• Pan-Arabism unite all Arab people together to
  return them to former dignity power
• Independence from foreign control
• Key positive neutralism or non-alignment

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• Nassers relations strained with West over
  British influence in the region and control of
  the Suez Canal
• A fortune off the shipping fees
• Nasser saw the control of the canal in similar
  terms to Mossadegh and Iranian oil
• Britain wanted a collective security pact in the
  Middle East to mirror NATO and SEATO Baghdad
  Pact
• Join Britain together with Iraq, Pakistan, and
  Turkey January 12, 1955
• Nasser refused an imperial device for Britain
  control? removal 80,000 troops? Egypt left to
  defend against Israel? needs guns? US turns down
  (pro-Israel lobby)

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• Moscow wants in but avoid MAD? Czechs as a
  middleman? Czech Arms Deal
• Dulles simmering with anger sends Kim
  Roosevelt, CIA agent who toppled Mossadegh, to
  see Nasser
• Nasser warned to Remember Guatemala? To hell
  with Guatemala We are independent of the West
• Dulles initially accepted Nassers right to get
  arms Arab countries were independent
  governments and free to do whatever they wished
  in the matter...it is difficult to be critical of
  countries which feeling themselves endangered
  seek the arms which they sincerely need.

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D. Suez Crisis and Eisenhower Doctrine

• Dulles sensed non-alignment for real? Aswan High
  Dam
• Dulles offers financing, but strings? Nasser
  delays? Dulles pulls the deal off the table to
  force cooperation
• Aswan example Wests lack of respect?
  nationalizes Suez Canal
• Nasser promises to pay Suez Canal Company, but
  Britain, France, Israel collude
• Israel claims that the Egyptians are about to
  invade? send troops into Egypt
• British and French try to negotiate a peace,
  when this inevitably fails they too send troops

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• Nasser closes the Suez Canal, cutting off
  European trade and oil supplies to the attackers
• Millions of Egyptians and other Arabs rose up to
  resist the invaders
• Dulles wanted to win over the popular leader?
  calls for British withdrawal
• Basically ends Brit empire in Mid East
• Soviets threaten rocket attacks (possible nukes)

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• Both sides step in to void left by Europeans
  (Soviets build Aswan), Nasser hero
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• US military aid to Mid Eastern countries that
  request support
• 200 million to support development in countries
  that request aid
• 1957 14,000 Americans in Lebanon
• US promote corrupt King Ibn Saud (Saudi Arabia)
  as Arab rival
• Model for Reagan Iran-Iraq
• Deepened Arab 3rd World anti-US sentiment