The Kissinger Report and the Restoration of US Hegemony

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (The Kissinger Report) (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, Januarv 1984). p. 102. (Also published in book form by Macmillan Publishing Co., New York: paginalion in the two editions is different.)

Henry A. Kissinger , 'Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy', in American Foreign Policy, 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1977), p. 27.

See Thomas Kuhn , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 5. 10-11. 52. 76, 80, 82, 84, 144-146, 149.

I use the term in the sense given to it by Wolin, according to which the imaginative, not the descriptive, element - as when one talks about an aesthetic or religious vision - is uppermost. See Sheldon Wolin , Politics and Vision ( Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), p. 18.

Karl Popper , Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), P. vii.

B. Parekh , 'Social and Political Thought and the Problem of Ideology', in R. Benewick , R, N. Berki and B. Parekh (eds.). Knowledge and Belief in Politics: The Problem of Ideology ( London: George Allen and Unwin.1973), p. 81.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 2.

Ibid. p. 34.

Ibid. p. 37.

Ibid, p. 4,

John Steinbruner , The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press. 1974 ). p. 3.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 37.

Ibid., p. 36.

Ibid., p. 95.

Ibid., p. 21.

For a description of the mechanisms of state terrorism in Guatemala, 'the country of violence and death', see Gabriel Aguilera. 'Guatemala: Estado, Militarismo, y lucha Politica', in Donald Castillo Rivas (ed.), CentroAmerica: Más Allá de la Crisis (Mexico: Ediciones SIAP, 1983), pp, 61-89.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 99.

Gabriel Aguilera y Jorge Romero, La Dialéctica del Terror en Guatemala (Costa Rica: EDUCA Ediciones, 1981). According to the US chapter of Amnesty International the case of Guatemala is 'unique', because in no other country have 'disappearances' occurred so 'regularly for such a long period of time'. The scale is enormous, amounting to tens of thousands, 'mainly peasants and rural workers'. See 'Disappearances, A Workbook ( New York: Amnesty International USA, 1981).

The Council of Hemispheric Affairs, Annual Human Rights Report, 1980.

Interview moderated by Juan de Onis, New York Times, 7 December 1980,

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., pp. 100-101,103.

Ibid., p. 5 1.

Ibid., p. 54.

Ibid., pp. 4, 12, 15, 84, 107.

Ibid., p. 114.

Ibid., p. 84.

Peter Calvert , The Mexican Revolution. 1910-1914: The Diplomacy of Anglo-American Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 289-290.

For an analysis of the Salvadoran Left's ideology, see Robert S. Leiken , 'The Salvadoran Left', in Robert S. Leiken (ed.), Central America: Anatomy of Conflict (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984), pp. 110- 130. On the complexities of Sandinista policies, sec Arturo Cruz Sequeira , 'The Origins of Sandinista Foreign Policy', in Robert S. Leiken (ed.), op. cit. pp. 95-109, and his article 'Nicaragua: Crisis Economica, Radicalización o Moderación?' in Donald Castillo Rivas (ed.), op. cit, pp. 137-161.

Institute of Social Studies, An Alternative Policy for Central America and the Caribbean (The Hague Declaration), The Hague, June 1983, (mimeo), p. 54.

US House of Representatives , Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs. July 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1981)p. 17.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., pp. 9. 10, 22, 25, 51-52.

Ibid., p. 34.

Ibid., pp. 48, 53.

See 'Proposed aid package for Central America mauled'. The Times, 3 March 1984.

R.E. Feinberg and R.A. Pastor , 'Far From Hopeless: An Economic Program for Post-War Central Amemca', in Robert S. Leiken (ed,). op. cit, p, 193.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 40.

For a review of the literature, see Mark Kesselman , 'Order or Movement? The Literature of Political Development as Ideology', World Politics (Vol. 26, No. I. October 1973), pp. 139-154.

Henry A. Kissinger , The White House Years ( London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979), p. 69.

Henry A. Kissinger , The Necessity for Choice ( London: Chatto and Windus. 1960). p. 310. See also Henry A. Kissinger. Years of Upheaval (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1982), pp. 667-677.

Walter LaFeber , Ineevitable Revolutions : The United States in Central America (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1983). p. 145.

See Gert Rosenthal , 'Principales Rasgos de la Evolucion de las Economias Centroamericanas desde la Postguerra'. in CECADE-CIDE, CentroAmerica: Crisis y Politica Internacional (Mexico : Siglo XXI. 1982), pp. 19-38.

D.L. Etchinson . The United States and Militarism in Central America (New York: Praeger, 1975), pp. 71-117.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 25.

Ibid., pp. 41. 54.

Walter LaFeber , op. cit, p. 282.

Ibid., p. 283.

An Alternative Policy for Central America and the Caribbean, op. cit., pp. 36-49.

Ibid., p. 43.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 51.

Ibid., p. 30.

On this point see Theodore Moran , 'The Cost of Alternative US Policies Toward El Salvador, 1984-1989, in Robert S. Leiken (ed.). op. cit, pp. 166-170.

The Commission did not incorporate in the Report the one measure that the sole economist among its members, Professor C. Diaz Alejandro, considered the only realistic hope for improving the region's development prospects: the opening of the US market to Central American exports. Professor Diaz registered a dissenting note, which also criticises covert US support to the contras (Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., pp. 129-130).

Quoted by Senator Alan Cranston , 'Yes, War Threatens in Central America ', International Herald Tribune, 25 April 1984.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., p. 92.

Ibid., p. 87.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 110.

Ibid, p. 97.

Ibid., pp. 103-104.

Ibid., p. 130.

Probably the best account of this inglorious episode is Joan Garces ' brilliant study, Allende y la Experiencia Chilena ( Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1976 ), pp, 65-112.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., pp. 114-115.

Ibid, p. 91.

Ibid., p. 85.

Ibid., p. 116.

Ibid, pp. 128-131.

Ibid. p. 116. According to a recent press report, 'the CIA-prescribed plan is to topple the Sandinista government before the US and Nicaraguan elections are held in November. Failing that ... Washington hopes to cause so much internal unrest that Nicaragua will be unable to lift its state of emergency and will be forced to postpone the election. Sunday Times. 22 April 1984,

James Kurth , The United States in Central America: Hegemony in Historical and Comparative Perspective', in Richard E. Feinberg (ed.), Central America: International Dimensions of the Crisis (New York and London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., 1982), pp. 39-57.

Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, op. cit., pp. 119-120.

Ibid. p- 123.

Paul Nitze , 'Atoms, Strategy, and Policy', Foreign Affairs, (Vol. 34, No. 2. January 1956), p. 187.

John Dunn , Modern Revolutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Piess, 1972), p. 257.