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Did the United States Plan an Invasion of Mexico in 1927?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

James J. Horn
James J. Horn*
Affiliation:
Department of History, State University College at Brockport, Brockport, New York
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Extract

For many years the vague notion has circulated that the United States and Mexico were on the verge of war in 1927. Howard Cline (1965: 209) cited unspecified “Mexican sources” as purportedly revealing that Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and Ambassador James R. Sheffield in Mexico City were “purposely trying to provoke some Mexican act that could be used as a pretext for American intervention.” Former Mexican President Emilio Portes Gil (1964: 396) went further and insisted that American warships had actually mobilized for intervention, only to be thwarted by an “imperturbable” President Calles. These and other such assertions have never been thoroughly analyzed on the basis of available American diplomatic and military records. This article attempts to demonstrate that intervention was highly unlikely. Moreover, circumstantial evidence and logic combine to suggest that the administration of Calvin Coolidge never seriously considered such a move and that rumors of intervention were founded more upon Mexican suspicion and mistrust than upon realities in Washington.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , November 1973 , pp. 454 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1973

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