The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America

by Stephen G. Rabe

The Killing The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America is a comprehensive yet concise analysis of U.S. policies in Latin America during the Cold War. Author Stephen G. Rabe, a leading authority in the field, argues that the sense of joy and accomplishment that accompanied the end
of the Cold War, the liberation of Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the Soviet Union must be tempered by the realization that Latin Americans paid a ghastly price during the Cold War. Dictatorship, authoritarianism, the methodical abuse of human rights, and campaigns of state terrorism
characterized life in Latin America between 1945 and 1989. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala endured appalling levels of political violence. The U.S. repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of Latin American nations in the name of anticommunism,
destabilizing constitutional governments and aiding and abetting those who murdered and tortured.

Incorporating recently declassified documents, Rabe supplements his strong, provocative historical narrative with stories about the fates of ordinary Latin Americans, an extensive chronology, a series of evocative photographs, and an annotated bibliography.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History, Grad School, Latin American History, Political Science

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2011

Reviews

[Numidica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Killing Zone comprehensively addresses a subject which gets comparatively little press in the U.S.: American Cold War actions in Latin America. After a general history of the region prior to about 1935, the events covered by the book include the major US engagement initiatives:

1954 Overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala
1961 Kennedy announces Alliance for Progress aid program for Latin America,
1961 US forces the Trujillo family out of the Dominican Republic
The Bay of Pigs (1961) and what Rabe calls the “war against Cuba” in the 1960’s
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
1963 Juan Bosch overthrown in Dominican Republic – CIA involvement alleged
1963 Brazilian military, with US encouragement, overthrows civilian government
1964 Cheddi Jagan is prevented from taking office as president in Guyana by US pressure
1965 US forces invade Dominican Republic to prevent “second Cuba”
1966 US backed candidate wins presidential election in DR
1967 US-trained Bolivian forces capture and kill Che Guevara
1968 CIA rigs the presidential election in Guyana
1970 CIA attempts to defeat Allende in Chilean election, but he wins presidency
1973 US encourages military takeover of government in Uruguay
1973 CIA executes Nixon policy to overthrow Allende – Pinochet takes power
1976 US encourages military takeover of Argentine government
1981 US begins massive military aid to El Salvador
1981-89 US forces deployed clandestinely and openly in Central America in large numbers
1982 Reagan publicly defends President Rios Montt of Guatemala against genocide charges
1983 US Forces invade Grenada
1984 US backed candidate wins presidency in El Salvador
1985 Reagan admits it is US policy to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua
1986 Americans learn of the Iran-Contra scandal

As the ‘80’s wore on, the usurper military governments which were helped into power by the US gradually reverted to civilian control. In Argentina, after their defeat in the Falklands War with Britain, “Argentina’s leaders had demonstrated to the world that their leadership skills and competence were limited to torturing and murdering innocent civilians”, and the people of Argentina threw them out. In Uruguay, power passed peacefully back to civilians. In Brazil, the generals allowed civil rule to return in 1985. As of 2019, almost every country in Latin America has returned to democratic rule, but sadly, US involvement delayed the progress of democracy there by at least a generation.

What a mess the United States made of its policy in Latin America; the original policy idea, generally formulated by George Kennan, was that the Western Hemisphere was a US sphere of influence and absolutely no communist governments would be allowed here. The Cold War in Latin America consisted of preventing communism from gaining a foothold; and from the first intervention in 1954 in Guatemala, the policy smacked of paranoia and a lack of a sense of proportion. Jacobo Arbenz was a charismatic president and leader who was reaching out to all elements of Guatemalan society, which State and CIA immediately characterized as “encouraging communists”. As many have noted, the US overthrow of Arbenz was the “original sin” by the US in Latin America. Whereas FDR had worked hard to repair relations in the region, from 1954 on, the US followed the Kennan doctrine, amplified by others as time went on, which had the practical effect of supporting dictators and overthrowing democratically elected leaders if there was even a whiff of leftist ideology. This approach gradually morphed into an overt preference for military dictators in the region, particularly under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.

Early on, despite the Guatemala coup, America’s approach toward the region showed promise: Kennedy’s Alliance for Peace drove economic growth in Latin America – for example, an average 4% annual growth rate in Central America in the 1960’s. And the aid was not specifically or predominately military; hospitals and schools were built, and the US found itself relatively popular in Latin America in the ‘60’s. Unfortunately, the Kennedy brothers’ obsession with unseating Castro turned into a policy of opposing any regime whose policies were even slightly left of center.

It is important to understand that neither in Cuba nor in Nicaragua were the revolutions led by Communists. Castro did not declare himself a Marxist-Leninist until it was clear that US was going to steadfastly oppose him, and Somoza’s army killed 40-50,000 people in Nicaragua between 1977 and 1979, which led directly to a people’s revolution under the Sandinista’s, who did not seek Soviet aid until America made its opposition to them clear. With regard to US actions in the Dominican Republic, Lyndon Johnson later said that invading the DR was one of the things he regretted most in his presidency; he was persuaded to invade by advisors who said he had to prevent “another Cuba”.

It was Henry Kissinger and Nixon who came down hard on the side of tyrants. Kissinger had a cynical view of the military rulers in the region, “They’re SOB’s, but they’re our SOBs”, and both Nixon and Kissinger had a desperate need to win, regardless of whether a tactical win actually yielded a strategic loss. The best example of this was the CIA’s overthrow of Allende in Chile which emboldened military juntas across the region and set back democracy in the “cone countries” of South America a generation, while earning the United States the enmity of the people of those countries. Supposedly, it was Kissinger who said “Academic fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small”, but he was unable to see the corollary in Latin America, i.e., why was the US willing to spend so much money and effort to subvert democratic processes in the region when the likelihood of the emergence of a communist country in Latin America was so low? But throughout the Nixon and Ford administrations, dictators were encouraged to clamp down on dissent; for example, at one point, Uruguay had the highest percentage of population incarcerated of any nation on earth.

Then, in Carter’s presidency, there was a brief respite, and even a roll-back of support for military governments. Argentina was directly challenged on the guerra sucia, the dirty war, and if nothing else, US government military aid to dictators decreased.

And then came Reagan, and with Reagan came the proponents of aiding military governments, especially in Central America. US aid to the military in the tiny country of El Salvador was, for a time in the early ‘80’s, at a level that put it in the top three recipients of U.S. military aid after Israel and Egypt. One of the most ardent proponents of the dictators was Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations. Her love of Argentina’s military rulers went so far as to bring her to ask Margaret Thatcher not to oppose Argentina’s military takeover of the Falkland Islands. Thatcher responded negatively, but tactfully. Thatcher’s Ambassador to the US, Sir Nicholas Henderson, was more direct; he assessed Kirkpatrick as “more fool than fascist….tactless, wrong-headed, ineffective, and a dubious tribute to the academic profession of which she claims to be a part”. Rabe notes, “She was known for the "Kirkpatrick Doctrine", which advocated supporting authoritarian regimes around the world if they went along with Washington's aims. She believed that they could be led into democracy by example. She wrote, “traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies’” This thinking led her to support even the death squads of El Salvador. Of the four American nuns killed by the military there in 1980, Kirkpatrick said “the nuns were not just nuns. They were political activists. We ought to be a little more clear about this than we actually are.” That bit made me want to vomit, since I have read Carolyn Forche’s account of her time in El Salvador in that era.

It became clear in the 1990’s from declassified documents that the Reagan Administration knew exactly what was happening in El Salvador, and did not care, as long as Communism was kept out of Latin America. And again, this was the tragedy; communism was about as likely to spring up in El Salvador as in Oklahoma, but the neo-cons were apparently too mentally lazy to see that. Given Kirkpatrick’s steadfast opposition to the Soviet Union and communism in general, it is hard to understand how she squared her championing of prisoners in the Gulag with her disregard of the Disappeared in Argentina, Chile, and other Latin American countries. One of the common responses of the Reagan Administration to critics of its Central America policies was “whataboutism”, i.e., they said the leftist were as bad or worse than the military juntas. But multiple studies in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, and Argentina found that approximately 95% of the killings were carried out by the military.

Contrary to what some think, this critique of US policy in Latin America is not about “Blame America”. I served in the U.S. Army in Central America in the 1980’s, and I know America can do great things when governed by wise leaders. I also speak Spanish and have spent time in Honduras, Brazil, Uruguay, and particularly in Mexico. It is possible to examine the mistakes of your country in foreign policy, or any kind of policy, learn the lessons of those failures, and formulate better policy. As someone who has worked decades in the unforgiving world of measurable outcomes, both in engineering and manufacturing management, I discovered long ago that failure is a better teacher than success. What makes me crazy is “leaders” who can’t or won’t learn, and who keep doing the same wrong thing in the face of facts that show their actions are producing a demonstrably bad outcome. This is the story of American involvement in Latin American until about 1990.

After the end of the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile, truth commissions carried out investigations that were effective in getting to the truth, and to some extent, in bringing the guilty to justice. Such efforts in Guatemala and El Salvador have been notably less effective, and the continuing near-chaos in Honduras, Guatmala, and El Sal have perpetuated the exodus from those countries, and – surprise! – the arrival on the United States southern border of masses of immigrants fleeing violence in those countries, violence set in motion in large part by the policies of Reagan.

So Rabe’s book is a counterpoint to the successful conclusion to the Cold War in Europe, which freed millions in Eastern Europe from the tyranny of their Soviet client governments. In Latin America, the end of the Cold War simply meant an end, for the most part, to American meddling in their affairs. So much more could have been achieved in the region from 1954 to 1990 if the U.S. had chosen to build schools, hospital, power plants, and roads instead of funding military juntas and dictators who terrorized their own people.

In all, the book is a good overview of a complex subject, and very readable.

[Ryan Maher · Rating 1 out of 5]

A liberal account of 20th century imperialist meddling in Latin America that denounces the atrocities of the US and its international collaborators, while accepting the premises for that meddling.

Since analysis into the motivating force of imperialist political economy is off the table for the author, the best he can provide is feeble non-sequiturs to explain the actions of the United States—"madness", "ideological blinders", "mass delusion", "self-delusion", "exaggerated fears", "willful ignorance". The author excuses US diplomat George Kennan's racist and aggressive foreign policy by speculating that he was perhaps going through a mid-life crisis.

In fact, the strongest reasons the author can find to explain the plight of those described in this book are their lack of "expertise", "national identities", and "democratic tradition", along with Latin America's "population growth"—essentially blaming the impoverished and brutalized for their own existence.

Ultimately, a shallow book that excuses genocide.

[Todd Stansbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I read this book during a class offered by the author. That being said, Rabe has a remarkable knowledge of the Cold War antics of the United States, especially in Latin America. I've yet to read the new edition of the book, but Doctor Rabe offered us a preview of it in the class and the expansion seems worth it.

It can be hard for many American's to admit that we have had less than clean hands in our dealings with other nations; though with Snowden's "revelations" it likely gets easier everyday. Rabe does not make them any easier to accept, because after all, who wants to think that they are the bad guy or are supporting the bad guy, but he does make them easier to understand. Anyone interested in political science, foreign affairs, or just curious about the shenanigans that America got up to during the Cold War might find this work interesting.

[Vic u · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical analysis of American imperialism devastating Latin America through invasions, assassinations, embargoes, sanctions, and funding to death squads and military dictatorships. The author is however strictly anti-communist and his comments about previous existing socialist countries especially the Soviet Union are excessive and annoying. He, however, does not hold back in showing how American presidents were responsible in helping contribute to genocide.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Takes a little while to pick up, but this book Paints a vivid (and gruesome) picture of what Latin Americans had to deal with during the Cold War. Rabe brings the horrors of Cold War Latin America to life.

[Rhuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Rabe has been studying the cold war's impact on the Western Hemisphere for decades, having produced two other fine books of the period and place. In this slim recoup (puns unintended) he has assembled a vast bill of particulars of the very hot real war waged upon the peoples and nations of Latin America from the late 1940s. In effect, what transpired for some forty years was a continent-wide civil war; exacerbated by the rise of the Cuban Revolution, but begun by the US over a decade before Castro ruptured the cemeterial postwar Pax Americana.

And yet Rabe, too, suffers from conventional liberal US blinkers. For the cold World War Three was, in great measure, an extension of World War II. Nowhere was this more evident than in Latin America, where there had been no victory over Fascism; where war criminals fleeing postwar European justice could find no-questions-asked accommodation. In the US' self-proclaimed backyard political and social democrats, liberals, and Marxists still struggled in united front against feudal elites and military mafias. Just as the US turned a blind eye to Nazi collaborators and fascists lingering in postwar Europe it winked at their proteges still in power in the Americas. Those in Washington who felt the US had backed the "wrong" side in 1941 found their vindication here: mocking the democratic triumphalism in Eastern Europe Rabe lauds by way of introduction. Though Rabe is aware of the hypocrisy, he seems not to connect the *why* of its glaring contradiction: the claims of power and empire. Men at home are usually not what they seem when abroad.

Though the facts presented here are not new, their assembling in one volume comes in very handy for a newer generation just discovering this era and place. I am surprised at some of the elisions in his bibliography. Military regimes such as Brazil's could be better explained by incorporating period literature like Mario Moreira Alves' "A Grain of Mustard Seed," or Helena Moreira Alves' analysis of the national security state in her "State and Opposition in Military Brazil." Penny Leroux' survey of Central American repression in the 1970s - "Cry of the People" - is also strangely absent.

Even with my criticisms, Rabe's book is essential reading for a new generation, raised on Reaganite chest-beating, that needs to know the hidden price of that alleged triumph. In truth, their reading Rabe would parallel the citizen of a hypothetically victorious WW II Germany, discovering the holocausts swept under the rug of righteous mendacity.

[David Hollingsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a well-documented, handy summary of US policy in Latin America during the Cold War. I originally got this book during graduate school (though this was for a mixed undergrad/grad class) and read part of it, but now having completed my History MA, I wanted to read all of it. It's pretty quick at only 195 pages, but does a good job of summarizing events and providing an easy to follow timeline of those events.

The book has some good analysis, both in its factual basis and what it derives from those facts, though a few parts miss some of the nuances that scholars have pointed out in some pretty major works. For example, Ariel Armony showed in 1997 that the Contras in Nicaragua were actually created by the Argentine military dictatorship and picked up by the Reagan administration, rather than being a creation of the Reagan administration as is implied on Page 160. It doesn't take away from this book in any major way, but little details like that do detract from it slightly.

Also, there is occasionally an odd organizing choice here and there. For instance, the chapter about Cuba spends a few pages going over the Castro government during the 1960s and even into the early 1970s, then right afterward talks about the Bay of Pigs, then about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Those sections should've been first, especially because they inform what happened during the rest of the 1960s and after.

Still, overall, this is an excellent work that gives a great summary of US involvement in Latin America during the Cold War. As someone with an MA in History whose one of two areas of study is 20th Century Latin America, I'd highly recommend this book as a starting point to anyone looking to learn more about the topic. It's very accessible for an average reader without losing scholarly integrity.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that rightfully doesn’t let you breathe is the best way I can describe this. The book provides an overview of the different atrocities that took place throughout Latin America by both the U.S government and the forces within Latin America itself, and it doesn’t hold back; it talks frankly and openly about some of the United States most revered presidents among the general population and is a fantastic book to work people into the history of these tragedies. I say it is a good beginner book because that is what it is at its core. It is a slender 200 pages and covers multiple different countries and decades within those pages, and it provides a good overview and goes into detail where it needs to. A lot of this information will not be something new to people who are aware of the history between the U.S and Latin America, but even if you are aware, I feel like you will still get something out of this book as it does an excellent job at covering these issues and events in a concise and confronting manner which is all because of the fantastic writing from Stephen G. Rabe

[Samuel Shelton · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is so biased its unreal. Its almost as if the author excuses the bastardisation of its southern neighbours. No word whatsoever critiquing US actions. Read a book instead called beneath the United States by Karl Shoultz. I read the killing zone yesterday and today I'm reading beneath the United States and its a far more balanced assessment of events that transpired. Large Shoultz

[Cesar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, extremely informative. Little is known to the masses of the injustices and barbarism that bestowed Latin America during the Cold War, all in the name of American Cold War imperatives.

[Cecilia Costa Da Luz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book to understanding American invasion of Latin America

[Daniel Gaddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had a distinctly academic tone, but if you’re looking for a dense 200-page survey of US intervention in Latin America, this is it for sure.

[DipShitBookClub · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we get around to doing the “Victims of Capitalism” memorial, this book will be a good starting place.

[Ellie Jane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incredibly biased centrist neoliberal writing

[Michael Craft · Rating 5 out of 5]

My copy has a photograph of Henry Kissinger and Pinochet shaking hands on the cover. That should tell you everything you need to know about this going in.

[Fresno Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

somewhat repetitive

[Shannon OKeefe · Rating 3 out of 5]

another book for class -- good overview of US Cold War involvement in Latin America

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow...I knew that the USA was in cahoots with some unsavory characters in Latin America during the Cold War but I did NOT realize the full extent. This is brutal. Administration after administration propping up horrendous regimes and secretly funding "anti-communist" troops, which actually turned out to be basically just death squads. Latin American dictators realized that they could get as much money as they wanted to get a stranglehold on their country, as long as they claimed that the opposition was communist.
I didn't always love Rabe's tone here...for example, he essentially calls Reagan a Nazi at one point, but he is cute about it so you can't flat out say that he called Reagan a Nazi. That's a bit childish and unproductive. And he is clearly trying really hard to dismiss any actual connections between the Soviets and these Latin American countries, which is a little silly when it comes to Cuba, since not only did the Soviets put nuclear missiles there but Castro recommended nuking the US! Not a made-up threat, exactly.
Still, very little that the US did in this era seems defensible at this point. Not an uplifting/inspiring read.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selective history of Latin America during the Cold War. Some information I hadn't picked up elsewhere, but nothing that establishes it as the standard. The chapter on Cuba retraces oft-trodden territory, the summaries of the Alliance for Progress and the U.S. tilt towards support of right wing dictators similarly familiar. Rabe's (justifiably enough) angry about U.S. complicity in Latin American violence; some of the best pages have to do with his criticism of the "two demons theory," which posits right wing violence as an overreaction to radical insurgency. The problem with that is that the response preceded the alleged provocation in almost all cases and the magnitude of the violence was nothing like comparable with 90% of the murders perpetrated by the right.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a school book but we only read select chapters and I decided I wanted to read the rest on my own.

Rabe did an excellent job compiling a timeline for such a complex series of events that spanned a continent and decades. The Cold War in Latin America is a subject I was little aware of before this book and I am highly interested in now. It put everything into perspective and I got more out of the book than the class lectures (prof was not great at that).

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the subject out of pure thirst for knowledge or looking for a solid secondary resource for research.

[Jonah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book all citizens of the United States should read. It's an impressive piece of scholarly work that illuminates the horrors perpetrated by regimes the US backed in the name of "anti-communism," and the disastrous events that resulted. Almost no one in America knows about things like Lyndon Johnson's invasion of the Dominican Republic-- which, I admit I only found out by reading this book. Or the hostilities perpetrated by Reagan- such as the funded regimes in El Salvador. I certainly think all Americans should read this to reflect on our history and think about possible reparations for the atrocities we have enabled.
9/10.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pros: lots of information about the period, a lot of analysis of policymaking, made a strong argument

Cons: could have been better organized, bordered on polemical and left me wanting to read a different perspective on US Latin America during the Cold War

Overall, I learned a lot, and I will probably go back to it if I teach Latin American history again.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good overview of US-Latin American relations during the Cold War but Rabe does not make any new arguments here. Is best for an undergraduate course on the Cold War to look at one regional evolution.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important corrective to post-Cold War triumphalism explaining the devastating effects of the Cold War on Latin America.

[Rae]

I wrote a review for Empire's Workshop by Greg Grandin that also fits my feelings about this book.

[Garn · Rating 3 out of 5]

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