Hemispheric Alliances

Andrew J. Kirkendall

Description

Hemispheric foreign policy has waxed and waned since the Mexican War, and the Cold War presented both extraordinary promises and dangerous threats to U.S.–Latin American cooperation. In Hemispheric Alliances, Andrew J. Kirkendall examines the strengths and weaknesses of new models for U.S.–Latin American relations created by liberal Democrats who came to the fore during the Kennedy administration and retained significant influence until the Reagan era. Rather than exerting ironfisted power in Latin America, liberal Democrats urged Washington to be a moral rather than a militaristic leader in hemispheric affairs.

Decolonization, President Eisenhower's missteps in Latin America, and the Cuban Revolution all played key roles in the Kennedy administration's Alliance for Progress, which liberal Democrats hailed as a new cornerstone for U.S.–Latin American foreign policy. During the Vietnam War era, liberal Democrats began to incorporate human rights more centrally into their agendas, using Latin America as the primary arena for these policies. During the long period of military dictatorship in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, liberal Democrats would see their policies dissolved by the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush administrations who favored militant containment of both communism and absolutism.

Sujets

• Latin American Studies
• Caribbean Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Democracy promotion
• Counter-insurgency
• Human rights

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469668024
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Hemispheric Alliances
Hemispheric Alliances
Liberal Democrats and Cold War Latin America
ANDREW J. KIRKENDALL
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
© 2022 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Set in Minion Pro by Westchester Publishing Services
Manufactured in the United States of America
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kirkendall, Andrew J., author.
Title: Hemispheric alliances : liberal Democrats and Cold War Latin America / Andrew J. Kirkendall.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021046321 | ISBN 9781469668000 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469668017 (paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469668024 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH : Democratic Party (U.S.)—History—20th century. | Cold War. | Liberalism—United States. | United States—Relations—Latin America— History—20th century. | Latin America—Relations—United States—History—20th century. | United States—Politics and government—20th century.
Classification: LCC F 1418 . K 53 2022 | DDC 973.922—dc23/eng/20211007
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2021046321
Cover illustrations: Left to right , Robert Kennedy, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy, August 28, 1963 (National Archives, Cecil Stoughton White House Photographs, compiled 1/29/1961–12/31/1963, NAID 194238); background , American continent blank map vector ( Danzky/Shutterstock.com ).
To Richard S. Kirkendall, one of the first liberal Democrats I ever met.
To Meg Reynard, my dear heart.
To Panalin, Book, and Eli: may they yet discover that “another world is possible.”
To Terry Anderson, Al Broussard, and Chester Dunning: I have not forgotten.
Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Liberal Democrats and U.S. Hemispheric and Global Leadership Chapter 1 Liberal Democrats and Latin America Toward Engagement Chapter 2 Let Us Begin The Many Fronts of John F. Kennedy’s Latin American Cold War, Part I Chapter 3 The Many Fronts of John F. Kennedy’s Latin American Cold War, Part II Chapter 4 Kennedy’s Unfinished Legacy and Intended and Unintended Consequences Chapter 5 Let Us Continue Toward the Johnson Alliance Chapter 6 Robert Kennedy, Kennedy Men, the Kennedy Legacy, and the Johnson Alliance Chapter 7 The End of the Alliance for Progress and the Origins of the Human Rights Issue in U.S.-Latin American Relations Chapter 8 Jimmy Carter and Human Rights in South America Chapter 9 The Carter Administration in Central America and the Caribbean Chapter 10 Liberal Democratic Resistance and Accommodation in the Reagan/Bush Years Conclusion Cold War Legacies Notes Bibliography Index
Acknowledgments
When I was researching a book on Paulo Freire back in 2004, I had my first experience at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. I soon realized how rich it was in material on Latin America. That became clearer over the years as the consistent annual support of the Texas A&M University History Department for my research on this book enabled me to work my way through the presidential library system from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. Although people lambaste presidential libraries periodically, I rarely find historians among the naysayers. I am grateful that the system exists. Two of them, the Dwight David Eisenhower library and the Kennedy library, provided me with small research grants. In the case of the Kennedy library, I received a grant named after one of the main “characters” in this book, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (That paid for my second trip to Boston.) My last and longest trip to the JFK library was paid for by A&M’s much-lamented Program to Enhance Scholarly and Creative Activities. A Fasken grant helped me to do research in the Wayne Morse and Frank Church papers at the University of Oregon and Boise State University at a critical turning point in the project. The Princeton University library also supported my research in the Adlai Stevenson and George McGovern papers.
I have been presenting on this project at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) since 2005. My debts to many foreign relations scholars are largely impersonal. I have read their books and articles with profit, and my notes reflect that. But there are a few people to whom my debt is rather more direct, particularly Tom Zeiler, B. J. C. McKercher, Mitch Lerner, Andy Johns, Matthew Masur, Dustin Walcher, Tom Maddux, and the incomparable Diane Labrosse. From the beginning, SHAFR’s reputation for being among the friendliest academic organizations has been confirmed. Thanks as well to Diplomacy and Statecraft (published by Taylor and Francis), which gave permission for me to include material that originally appeared there as a 2007 article that developed out of that first paper I presented at SHAFR seventeen years ago.
There are far too many archivists and librarians whose names I cannot locate for me to feel comfortable citing only those whose names I can. I will bend this rule slightly to thank two people at the Sterling C. Evans Library in College Station, Joel Kitchens and Laura Sare. They were particularly helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic as I was finishing the book. I am also grateful to Congressman Donald Fraser for giving permission to do research in his papers at the Minnesota Historical Society.
I cannot pass up the opportunity to thank several friends. My favorite “reviews” of my books over the years have been those supplied by Manuel Serpa. He and his wonderful wife, Angela Colognesi, have long been dear friends. Manuel worked for many years as an engineer for a state-owned company in Brazil. In the evenings, he never talked about his work and spent much of his time reading novels in numerous languages. I always appreciated his thoughtful engagement with my books. I was thrilled one evening in Aracaju when he told his sons and some of their friends that they should read my first book if they wanted to understand Brazil. Harlan Gradin has been a constant friend since the 1980s. I much admire his work of many years at the North Carolina Humanities Council. In this age of social media, he remains the only nonfamily member with whom I speak regularly on the phone. My work at the Minnesota Historical Society made it possible for me to visit with my mom’s best friend, Joan Watson. It is a testimony to my deep affection for this woman of tremendous warmth and endless curiosity that I can be grateful for experiencing kidney stones on the first trip, so that I had to return to finish my research a year later.
My colleagues in the Texas A&M University History Department have helped in various ways. Roger Reese inspires by his work ethic, and I am grateful that I have had an office right next door to him to share the daily professional grind, even during the pandemic. Brian Rouleau is a dear friend, whom I saw rarely during the pandemic, but who kept my spirits up even via e-mail. Toward the end, he read the whole manuscript, and had some valuable suggestions regarding final revisions. Dan Schwartz, a digital humanist, gave me more help with the computer than the people who are actually paid to do that sort of thing. Jason Parker and I always enjoyed long debriefing sessions following SHAFR meetings. Walter Kamphoefner has been supportive since the beginning. David Hudson has always been generous with his time. I miss model citizens Jim Bradford and John Lenihan. As my dedication shows, I have not forgotten how much I owe to Terry Anderson, Al Broussard, and Chester Dunning. Many thanks also to the front-office folks who kept things going over the years: Mary Johnson, Barbara Dawson, Rita Walker, Kelly Cook, Mary Speelman, and Erika Hern á ndez, as well as department advisers Robyn Konrad and Phil Smith.
Richard S. Kirkendall will be happier than anyone to see this book in print. Although for many years I tried to avoid going into the “family business,” I eventually succumbed and found that it was where I belonged all along. Dad was not surprised. He himself had an extraordinarily satisfying career in history in the Golden Age of academia. As I have said elsewhere, he showed me how to find my way around a library at an extremely young age. I believe we were looking up books about pirates! He was also a liberal Democrat committed to progress in civil rights. He served on a navy destroyer during the Korean War, and although he supported the Vietnam War initially, he came to see it as a misguided application of the containment policy following the congressional testimony of George Kennan in 1966. Dad served as cochair of the Robert Kennedy presidential campaign in Boone County, Missouri, alongside Betty Anne Ward McKaskill, mother of future Senator Claire McKaskill. Dad has often mentioned to me in recent years that if he had not left the University of Missouri in 1973 to head up the Organization of American Historians in Bloomington, Indiana, he might have run for Congress. I do not recall Dad ever talking about Latin America at any point growing up, which probably helped me as I “found myself” as a Brazilianist in the 1990s, getting my PhD at thirty-eight. I had already started publishing when I started presenting at SHAFR, and I remember a hilarious encounter with a fellow SHAFR-ite who kept insisting that he knew my work, and I kept responding, “No, my dad wrote that … no, my dad wrote that … no, my dad wrote that too.” Fortunately, by this time, I was okay with the fact that I was always going to be “little Kirkendall” to many in the profession. Dad and his wife Kay enjoyed living in a retirement community in Seattle for many years; he gave roughly forty-six lectures to his friends there on Harry Truman. My dad has had some tough times since he turned ninety, not least of all the loss of his wife. I am grateful th