Year 501 Read Free

wards. Again, Haines strikes traditional chords, including the faith in the benign intent that so miraculously serves self-interest.

    3. Protecting Democracy
    Haines focuses on the early years, but he gives a foretaste of what was to come when he refers to the goal of “cultivating the Brazilian military,” which US officials “promoted...as the protector of democracy.” This far-sighted program to achieve our democratic vision came to fruition as the generals took command in 1964, terminating Brazil’s postwar parliamentary interlude and instituting a neo-Nazi National Security State with ample torture and repression, inspiring their counterparts throughout the hemisphere to do the same in a notable illustration of the “domino theory” which, for some reason, is rarely discussed under this rubric. Following approved neoliberal doctrine under continued US tutelage, the Generals proceeded to create an “economic miracle” that was much admired, though with some reservations about the sadistic violence by which it was instituted.
    The military-run National Security States were a direct outcome of US policy and doctrine. From World War II, US planners sought to integrate the Latin American military within the US command structure. During the war, they had laid the basis for a permanent coordinated supply system, with standardized US weapons for the continent. These measures, it was assumed, would “prove very profitable” to the booming US military industries (General “Hap” Arnold, referring, in this case, to the postwar aviation industry); and control over military supplies would provide economic and political leverage as well, enabling the US to deter nationalist tendencies and to counter “subversion.” A corollary would be a takeover of training missions, displacing European rivals. Truman’s Inter-American Military Cooperation Act of 1946 sought to secure a US monopoly of supply and training in a “militarily closed hemisphere under United States domination” (Green). The need to replace European rivals was stressed in internal documents in later years, and soon accomplished.
    The problem of combating “subversion” had come to the fore in 1943, when Bolivian mine owners called on government troops to suppress striking tin miners, killing hundreds of them in the “Catavi massacre.” There was no US reaction until the nationalist, anti-oligarchic, pro-labor National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) deposed the dictatorship a year later. The US denounced the new regime as “pro-fascist” (on flimsy pretexts) and as opposed to “Anglo-Yankee imperialism” (accurately, in this case), demanded that all MNR members be excluded from positions of power, and quickly secured its overthrow in favor of a military government. A State Department memo identified one decisive theme: the mine owners, it observed, are afraid of the MNR’s “announced intention to interest itself in the betterment of the workers, fearing this can only be done at the expense of the mining interests.” The broader fear was radical nationalism (chapter 2.1).
    The Kennedy Administration moved the process forward, shifting the mission of the Latin American military from “hemispheric defense” to “internal security,” meaning war against the population. Academic experts explained soberly that the military are a “modernizing” force, when guided by their US tutors.
    The basic reasoning was explained in a secret 1965 study by Robert McNamara’s Defense Department, which found that “U.S. policies toward the Latin American military have, on the whole, been effective in attaining the goals set for them”: “improving internal security capabilities” and “establishing predominant U.S. military influence.” The military now understands their tasks and are equipped to pursue them, thanks to the