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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!don
From: don@allegra.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Hypocracy in C.A. Policies
Message-ID: <1738@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Aug-83 22:45:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.1738
Posted: Fri Aug 12 22:45:38 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Aug-83 18:41:56 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 15

Mr. Hope's note about Arbenz fits my model quite well.  One could
paraphrase it as, 'Well, Arbenz did some nice things for the people,
but he was too far left.  Since him, there have been lots of nasty
dictatorships, but by golly we saved them from the Communists.'  I will
concede that Arbenz was radical, but I think we could have lived with
him, and I don't believe a Soviet take-over of Central America was a
real danger in 1954.  Latin American socialists are concerned with
their own domestic issues, not with taking orders from the Kremlin.

When Coolidge put the Samoza family in power in Nicaragua (1927) he
claimed to be protecting them from "Mexican Bolshevism".  How absurd!
Talking about the Cubans and Russians in Latin American is just as
absurd today.  Coolidge's real motives were the same as Eisenhower's in
Guatemala and Nixon's in Chile:  to protect large US companies
operating in the regions.