(The is a repost from the Headlines & Heroes Blog. The author is Victoria Giron, an intern in the Serial & Government Publications Division from the University of Virginia. Victoria majors in Foreign Affairs and is fluent in Spanish. She spent her summer working with the Latin American newspaper portfolios.) Many people who learn about World War II are taught about the participation of the United States and Great Britain in the Allied war effort. While most people may be aware that the greater Allied war effort involved the participation of many European countries, few people know that several Latin American countries were also formal allies in World War II.  “Saludo de ‘El Mundo Libre’ a la Pressa Americana [A Greeting From ‘El Mundo Libre’ to the American Press],” El Mundo Libre (San Salvador, El Salvador), March 30, 1941. There were important developments in U.S. foreign policy that affected the way that Latin American countries viewed the war. First, the Good Neighbor Policy was enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a policy of non-intervention that emphasized cooperation and trade to maintain friendly relations with the southern hemisphere. Second, the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) was created in 1940 to coordinate the activities of the U.S. government in Latin America. The OIAA hoped to increase economic cooperation and interdependence between the United States and Latin America. The Office also became heavily involved in disseminating information through the radio, motion picture, and press media.“Solidaridad Continental [Continental Solidarity],” La Voz de Chihuahua (Chihuahua, Mexico), April 13, 1941. Starting in 1941, before the United States entered the war, newspapers in countries like El Salvador were already printing their support. The Salvadorian paper El Mundo Libre directly gave a greeting to the American press and gave its mission of supporting democratic ideology. The paper also featured an editorial with FDR’s picture and stated that it would print as long as war raged on in Europe. While it is unknown if this paper received financial assistance or support from the OIAA, Salvadorian media at the time was heavily censored by the government, so the newspaper had at least indirect support from the government.In La Voz de Chihuahua, a special “Continental Solidarity” issue was commissioned by Mexican President Manuel Avila Camacho in 1941. The special edition came in the wake of a speech given by Mexican foreign minister, Ezequiel Padilla, who addressed the need for hemispheric cooperation showing the gradual movement of the Mexican government towards a pro-U.S. position. “Rutas Vitales Para Los Aliados [Vital Routes for the Allies],” Actualidad (Guatemala, Guatemala), October 18, 1941. In Actualidad, a Guatemalan newspaper, many pictures and political cartoons show the state of the war from a pro-ally stance. In one article, there is a map showing vital trade routes for the allies. Another reason that many Latin American countries concerned themselves with a far-away war was because of the disruption of normal trade routes.After Pearl Harbor, many Latin American nations were shocked and showed their solidarity by declaring war on Japan and the other Axis powers. On January 1, 1942, twenty-six nations signed the “Declaration of the United Nations.” The declaration was an agreement among signing nations to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and to promise that no nation would try to seek a separate peace with any Axis nation. Eight Latin American nations were among the original signatories: Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. “Otros Paises de America Estan Entrando al Estado de Guerra [Other American Countries are Entering a State of War],” Diario Latino (San Salvador, El Salvador), December 9, 1941. While Mexico did not sign the “Declaration of the United Nations” in January 1942, the country finally declared war on May 22, 1942 after the sinking of two oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico by Germany. Mexico was one of two Latin American countries, the other being Brazil, that sent troops to war. From May to August 1945, the 201st Squadron of the Air Force, comprised of volunteer Mexican citizens, conducted missions in the Pacific theater. More than 300 Mexican volunteers served in WWII. Thirty-three were experienced airmen and the rest were support personnel. The men left Mexico for the U.S. to train on July 24, 1944 and began flying missions in May 1945. The 201st Squadron, known as “The Aztec Eagles,” supported U.S. Air Force missions.Mexico offered other means of support to the U.S. through programs such as the Bracero Program. The Bracero Program between the governments of Mexico and the U.S. allowed young Mexican men work in the U.S. as farm labor. As a result of the war and due to worries that a lack of farm labor would lead to food shortages, the Bracero Program was signed into law on August 4, 1942 and lasted until 1964. An article in the October 13, 1942, issue of El Porvenir writes about Senator McFarland of Arizona asking for more Braceros to be able to work to serve the needs of the state. “En la Escuela de Aviacion [At the Aviation School],” Las Noticias (Los Mochis, Mexico), June 3, 1943. While Latin American countries are often overlooked allies to the United States and to the Allied war effort, as we can see, the war reached practically every country and their support played a role in the success of winning the war.Additional Resources: Records of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration. Remembering the “Aztec Eagles”, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Bracero History Archive.
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The Good Neighbor Policy was a primary aspect of United Stated foreign policy implemented in 1933 by President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) for the stated purpose of establishing friendly relations and mutual defense agreements with the nations of Latin America. To maintain peace and economic stability in the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt’s policy stressed cooperation, non-intervention, and trade instead of military force. Roosevelt’s policies of military non-intervention in Latin America would be reversed by Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower after World War II.
Roosevelt’s predecessor, President Herbert Hoover, had already tried to improve U.S. relations with Latin America. As secretary of commerce in the early 1920s, he promoted Latin American trade and investment, and after taking office in 1929, Hoover promised to reduce U.S. intervention in Latin American affairs. However, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. continued to periodically use military force or threats to protect the commercial interests of American companies operating in Latin American countries. As a result, many Latin Americans had grown increasingly hostile toward the United States and its so-called “gunboat diplomacy” by the time President Roosevelt took office in 1933. The main challenge to Hoover’s non-interventionist policy came from Argentina, then the wealthiest Latin American country. From the late 1890s to the 1930s, Argentina reacted to what its leaders considered to be U.S. imperialism by carrying out a sustained effort to cripple the capability of the United States to employ military force in Latin America. Mexico’s desire to prevent American military intervention in Latin America grew from the loss of half of its territory in the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848. Relationships between the U.S. and Mexico were further damaged by the 1914 U.S. shelling and occupation of the port of Veracruz, and the repeated violations of Mexican sovereignty by U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing and his 10,000 troops during the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1920. In his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, President Roosevelt announced his intent to reverse the United States’ past course of foreign military intervention when he stated, “In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.” Specifically directing his policy toward Latin America, Roosevelt marked “Pan-American Day” on April 12, 1933, when he stated, “Your Americanism and mine must be a structure built of confidence, cemented by a sympathy which recognizes only equality and fraternity.” FDR’s intent to end interventionism and forge friendly relationships between the U.S. and Latin America was confirmed by his Secretary of State Cordell Hull at a conference of American states in Montevideo, Uruguay, in December 1933. “No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another,” he told the delegates, adding, “The definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention.” Early concrete effects of the Good Neighbor Policy included the removal of U.S. Marines from Nicaragua in 1933 and from Haiti in 1934. The U.S. occupation of Nicaragua bad begun in 1912 as part of an effort to prevent any other nation except the United States from building a proposed but never built Nicaraguan canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. American troops had occupied Haiti since July 28, 1915, when President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince. The military intervention was in reaction to the murder of pro-American Haitian dictator Vilbrun Guillaume Sam by insurgent political opponents. In 1934, the Good Neighbor Policy led to the ratification of the U.S. Treaty of Relations with Cuba. U.S. troops had occupied Cuba since 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Part of the 1934 treaty annulled the Platt Amendment, a provision of the 1901 U.S. army funding bill, which had established stringent conditions under which the U.S. would end its military occupation and “leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people.” Annulment of the Platt Amendment allowed for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Cuba. Despite the troop withdrawal, continued U.S. intervention in Cuba’s internal affairs directly contributed to the 1958 Cuban Revolution and the rise to power of anti-American Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro. Far from becoming “good neighbors,” Castro’s Cuba and the United States remained sworn enemies throughout the Cold War. Under the Castro regime, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled their country, many for the United States. From 1959 to 1970, the population of Cuban immigrants living in the U.S. grew from 79,000 to 439,000. In 1938, U.S. and British oil companies operating in Mexico refused to comply with Mexican government orders to raise wages and improve working conditions. Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas responded by nationalizing their holdings, creating the state-owned petroleum company PEMEX. While Britain reacted by cutting diplomatic relations with Mexico, the United States—under the Good Neighbor Policy—increased its cooperation with Mexico. In 1940, as World War II loomed, Mexico agreed to sell much-needed crude oil to the United States. Aided by its Good Neighbor alliance with the U.S., Mexico grew PEMEX into one of the world’s largest oil companies and helped Mexico become the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter. Today, Mexico remains the United States’ third-largest source of imported oil, behind only Canada and Saudi Arabia. After World War II, the Organization of American States (OAS) was established in 1948 for the purpose of ensuring cooperation between the countries of the Americas. While the U.S. government had helped found the OAS, its focus under President Harry Truman had shifted to rebuilding Europe and Japan instead of maintaining the Good Neighbor Policy’s relations with Latin America. The post-World War II Cold War ended the Good Neighbor era, as the United States sought to prevent Soviet-style communism from arriving in the Western Hemisphere. In many cases, their methods conflicted with the Good Neighbor Policy’s principle of non-intervention, leading to a period of renewed U.S. involvement in Latin American affairs. During the Cold War, the U.S. openly or covertly opposed suspected communist movements in Latin America, including:
More recently, the United States has assisted local Latin American governments in fighting drug cartels, for example, the 2007 Mérida Initiative, an agreement between the United States, Mexico, and the Central American countries to fight drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. The cost of U.S. intervension has been high, and typically borne by the citizens of Latin American countries. An American-backed coup in the 1950s in Guatemala led to the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people between 1960 and 1996. El Salvador traces some of its most brutal gangs to the deportations of American-raised gang leaders, while the country also faces the aftereffects of violence stemming from American training to "fight" communism. As a result of this violence and instability, refugee numbers have skyrocketed: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees counts more than 890,000 people from the North of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) and Nicaragua displaced from their homes. |
What was the significance of Americas Good Neighbor policy as a second world war grew more eminent?
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