¹ For a review of the human rights literature, see Donnelly, Jack, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” World Politics 34 (July 1982), 574–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One author dubbed human rights “a minor growth industry.” The literature on human rights, like that on U.S. policy toward the Caribbean Basin, is primarily composed of edited volumes.

² See, for example, Callcott, Wilfrid Hardy, The Caribbean Policy of the United States, 1890–1920 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942)Google Scholar; Perkins, Dexter, The United States and the Caribbean (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947)Google Scholar; and Munro, Dana G., The United States and the Caribbean Republics, 1921–33 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar. All three books cover Central America as well as the Caribbean.

³ For a discussion of the concept of a “Caribbean Basin” and the similarities and differences between the nations of the region, see Pastor, Robert, “Sinking in the Caribbean Basin,” Foreign Affairs 60 (Summer 1982), 1038–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Adam Clymer, “Poll Finds Americans Don't Know U.S. Positions on Central America,” New York Times, July 1, 1983, p. Ai. In a nationwide poll in 1983, only 25% knew the administration supported the government in El Salvador; 13% knew it sided with the rebels in Nicaragua; and only 8% knew both. In April 1984, a New York Times poll showed that 19% knew the administration supported the rebels in Nicaragua; by June 1985, after numerous efforts by President Reagan to focus American public opinion on Nicaragua, still only 26% knew the U.S. supported the rebels. To put it another way, three out of four Americans still did not know which side the U.S. was supporting in Nicaragua. (Adam Clymer, “Most Americans in Survey Oppose Aid for Overthrow of Sandinistas,” New York Times, June 5, 1985, p. A8.) A poll taken in the Washington area and its suburbs in 1983 found that fewer than half of those surveyed said they had “heard or read anything about the Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua and Central America.” In a nationwide poll, the same questions provided approximately the same results. (Cited in Daniel Rapoport, “What They Don't Know,” National Journal, June 18, 1983, p. 1289.) In a statement warning that the U.S. could “lose Central America,” Senator John P. East (R-N.C.) admitted: “I hate to say it, but the average American doesn't know the difference between a contra and a caterpillar, or between a Sandinista and a sardine” (New York Times, October 12, 1984).

⁵ Lowenthal, “‘Liberal,’ ‘Radical,’ and ‘Bureaucratic’ Perspectives on U.S. Latin American Policy: The Alliance for Progress in Retrospect,” in Coder, Julio and Fagen, Richard R., eds., Latin America and the United States: The Changing Political Realities (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1974), 212–37Google Scholar. Dominguez, , “Consensus and Divergence: The State of the Literature on Inter-American Relations in the 1970s,” Latin American Research Review 13 (1978), 87–126Google Scholar.

⁶ There are also several books by journalists, including Chace, James, Endless War: How We Got Involved in Central America and What Can Be Done (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1984)Google Scholar, and Buckley, Tom, Violent Neighbors: El Salvador, Central America and United States (New York: Times Books, 1984)Google Scholar.

⁷ For the classics, see Bemis, , Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1943)Google Scholar, and two volumes by Munro, : Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The United States and the Caribbean Republics, 1921–1933 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)Google Scholar. For more recent, argumentative works using the strategic perspective, see Jeane Kirkpatrick's two articles in Commentary, “Dictatorships and Double Standards” (November 1979), and “U.S. Security and Latin America” (January 1981); Haig, Alexander, Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 117–40Google Scholar; The Committee of Santa Fe, A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties (Washington, DC: Council for Inter-American Security, 1980)Google Scholar; Edward Luttwak, “The Nature of the Crisis,” and Michel, James, “Defending Democracy,” both in Cirincione, Joseph, ed., Central America and the Western Alliance (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985)Google Scholar; and Kristol, Irving, “Should Europe Be Concerned About Central America?” in Pierre, Andrew, ed., Third World Instability: Central America as a European-American Issue (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁸ Reagan press conference, New York Times, July 27, 1983, p. Aio; Francis X. Clines, “Reagan Calls Salvador Aid Foes Naive,” New York. Times, March 20, 1984, p. A3.

⁹ Presidential address, New York Times, April 28, 1983; on ‘feet people,’ see Lou Cannon, “A Latin Axis Could Take Central America, Reagan Says,” Washington Post, July 21, p. Ai, cited in Leonel Gomez, in Leiken, 219.

¹⁰ Presidential address (fn. 9).

¹¹ Address by Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary of State, cited in Bemis (fn. 7), 167.

¹² Presidential address on “Caribbean Basin Initiative,” New York Times, February 26, 1982.

¹³ Statement by President Reagan, New York Times, May 10, 1984, p. A16.

¹⁴ Quester, , in American Foreign Policy: The Lost Consensus (New York: Praeger, 1982)Google Scholar, argues that Vietnam fractured the old consensus so completely that a new approach swung to the opposite extreme, claiming that the U.S. was “worse than other nations.” With the Reagan administration, the pendulum apparently has swung back.

¹⁵ Part of the difficulty of testing the dependency theory systematically stems from its many variations. As one study put it, “the number of different [dependency] theorists only slightly exceeds the number of distinct strands of theory.” Steven Jackson, Bruce Russett, Duncan Snidal, and David Sylvan, “An Assessment of Empirical Research on Dependencia,” Latin American Research Review 14 (No. 3, 1979), 7.

¹⁶ T. H. Wintringham asked a similar question after studying military revolutions from ancient times to the 20th century. “The puzzle becomes not why did the mutiny occur, but why did men, for years or generations, endure the torments against which in the end they revolted.” See Johnson, Chalmers, Revolutionary Change, 2d ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982), 61Google Scholar.

¹⁷ LaFeber's book also contains a number of factual errors. He states (p. 231) that the U.S. considered providing military aid to Somoza in 1977 covertly and then provided $2.5 million openly, but neither assertion is correct. Evidently to support his point that Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski tended to see third-world problems in exclusively East-West terms, LaFeber cites Brzezinski's Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technotronic Era (New York: Viking Press, 1970), 210Google Scholar, n. 324. However, that reference disproves LaFeber's point: Brzezinski argued (p. 288) that the U.S. should abandon the Monroe Doctrine and the “special relationship” with Latin America, place U.S. relations with the region “on the same level as its relations with the rest of the world,” and approach revolutionary change in “the developing countries with a great deal of patience.” LaFeber's suggestion that the U.S. looked “suspiciously” at a large Venezuelan investment in Honduras as a possible loss of control reinforces his thesis that the U.S. aimed at exclusive control of its Central American system, but it has no basis in fact (p. 218). In practice, most administrations since Kennedy's have encouraged Europeans, Japanese, and Latin Americans to invest in friendly Latin American countries to supplement U.S. efforts to promote economic development.

¹⁸ On the varying interpretations of the elections in El Salvador in March 1982, see William LeoGrande (pp. 109–10, in Fagen-Pellicer); on the elections in Nicaragua in November 1984, see “Report of the Latin American Studies Association Delegation to Observe the Nicaraguan General Elections of November 4, 1984,” in LASA Forum 15 (Winter 1985), 9–43.

¹⁹ In some ways, the gap between the two images reflects the gap between the perspectives of many social scientists in the U.S. and Latin America. For instance, one of the most influential books on economic development published in the U.S. in i960 shows how the third world could and should follow in the steps of the industrialized countries; the most influential development books published in Latin America stress the structural barriers to development and the dependency conditions imposed on the periphery by the core countries. See Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Fernando H. Cardozo and Enzo Faletto, Dependence and Development in Latin America, written between 1965 and 1967, first published in 1971 as Dependencia y Desarrollo en America Latina (Mexico: Siglo Veinteino, S.A., More recently, many North American social scientists have adopted the dependency model—reflecting, in some ways, the academic equivalent of traditional State Department “clien-telism.”

²⁰ William Schneider, “Public Still Rejects Reagan's ‘Vital Interest’ Argument on El Salvador,” NationalJournal, May 21,1983, pp. 1082–83; William LeoGrande, “Public Opinion on Central America, U.S. Senate Democratic Party Committee, August 4, 1983.

²¹ PACCA; The Report of the President's National Bipartisan Commission on Central (Kissinger Commission); Greene, James R. and Scowcroft, Brent, eds., Western Interests and U.S. Options in the Caribbean Basin: Report of the Atlantic Council's Working Group on Caribbean Basin (Boston: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1984)Google Scholar; Vaky, Viron W., ed., Governance in the Western Hemisphere (New York: Praeger, 1984)Google Scholar; Moss, Ambler H. Jr. and Suchlicki, Jaime, eds., The Miami Report: Recommendations on United States Policy Toward Latin America and the Caribbean (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami, 1984)Google Scholar. Also see two reports of the Inter-American Dialogue, The Americas at a Crossroads (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, April 1983), and The Americas in 1984: A Year for Decisions (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, May 1984).

²² Ibid., 7.

²³ The Americas at a Crossroads (fn. 21), 41–43.

²⁴ For two excellent analyses of the impact of political culture on U.S. foreign policy, see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Foreign Policy and American Character,” Foreign Affairs 62 (Fall 1983), 1–16, and Hoffmann, Stanley, Gulliver's Troubles, or the Setting of American Policy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968)Google Scholar, Part II, 87–175. For an attempt to apply theories of political culture and decision making to a specific case, see Robert Pastor, “Continuity and Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: Carter and Reagan on El Salvador,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 3 (No. 2, 1984), 175–90.

²⁵ For example, Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle said: “We can no more negotiate an acceptable political solution with these people [Salvadoran leftists] than the social democrats in revolutionary Russia could have talked Lenin into giving up totalitarian Bolshevism.” Public Affairs Office, Department of Defense, remarks to Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, September 12, 1983.

²⁶ Eric Hoffer wrote: “We are usually told that revolutions are set in motion to realize radical changes. Actually, it is drastic change which sets the stage for revolution.… Where things have not changed at all, there is the least likelihood of revolution.” Cited in Johnson (fn. 16), 61. For a review of the literature on revolutions, see Johnson; Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Brinton, and, The Anatomy of Revolution (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1952)Google Scholar. On Central America, see Feinberg and Pastor (Leiken, 194–202).

²⁷ For a description of the foreign policies of many of these new actors, see Ferris, Elizabeth G. and Lincoln, Jennie K., eds., The Dynamics ofLatin American Foreign Policies (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Mufioz, Heraldo and Tulchin, Joseph S., eds., Latin American Nations in World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Milieu, Richard and Will, W. Marvin, eds., The Restless Caribbean: Changing Patterns of International (New York: Praeger, 1979)Google Scholar; see also Feinberg, Erisman-Martz, and Fagen-Pellicer.

²⁸ Also see Cirincione, Joseph, ed., Central America and the Western Alliance (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985)Google Scholar.

²⁹ Also see Leiken, Robert, Soviet Strategy in Latin America, The Washington Papers No (New York: Praeger, 1982)Google Scholar; Blasier, Cole, The Giant's Rival: The U.S.S.R. and Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

³⁰ For an excellent discussion on Cuban foreign policy, see Jorge I. Dominguez, “Cuban Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 57 (Fall 1978); for the best short essay on U.S.-Cuban relations, see John Plank, “The United States and Cuba: Cooperation, Coexistence, or Conflict?” in Millett and Will (fn. 27); on Cuban-Soviet relations, see Robert Pastor, “Cuba and the Soviet Union: Does Cuba Act Alone?” in Levine, Barry, ed., The New Cuban Presence in the Caribbean (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983)Google Scholar; on all of the above, see that volume in its entirety.

³¹ Also see Winfield J. Burggraaff, “Oil and Caribbean Influence: The Role of Venezuela,” in Millett and Will (fn. 27).

³² Robert J. McCartney, “Managua Gets Bulk of Oil from Soviets,” Washington Post, August 16, 1984, p. 1. In the fourth renewal of the San Jose Pact, on August 3, 1984, Mexico and Venezuela added a condition that would suspend the shipment of subsidized oil to any recipient engaged in “warlike actions” against its neighbors. This was their first public condition on aid. By then, ten countries were benefiting by receiving credits (at 8% for 6 years) for 20% of their oil bills. “New Terms Set by Venezuela, Mexico on Oil,” Washington Post, August 4, 1984, p. A17.

³³ William J. Orme, Jr., “Mexico Terms 4th Session of U.S.-Nicaraguan Talks ‘Substantive': Hosts Rebut Reports of Coolness Toward Sandinistas,” Washington Post, August 18, 1984, p. A26.

³⁴ It should be recalled that Mexico has a history of intervention in Central America in the 19th century which many Central Americans remember with the bitterness with which Mexico remembers the U.S.-Mexican war.

³⁵ Blasier, , The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

³⁶ Grayson, , The United States and Mexico: Patterns of Influence (New York: Praeger, 1984), 193Google Scholar.

³⁷ Abraham F. Lowenthal, “Ronald Reagan and Latin America: Coping with Hegemony in Decline,” in Oye, Kenneth A., Lieber, Robert J., and Rothchild, Donald, eds., Eagle Defiant: United States Foreign Policy in the 1980s (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 321Google Scholar. That critique U.S. policy for treating Latin America as an object is ironic, not just because it unites both security and neodependency perspectives, but because its author would find both perspectives ill-fitting. Indeed, he argues that the U.S. and Latin America ought to treat each other with mutual respect, even though the above quote implies that Latin Americans cannot pursue their interests unless the U.S. permits them to.

³⁸ The interactive perspective builds on the concept of asymmetric interdependence developed by Keohane, Robert and Nye, Joseph S. Jr., Power and Interdependence: World in Transition (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977)Google Scholar. For an application of the Keohane-Nye model to U.S.-Mexican relations, see Bagley, Bruce M., “The Politics of Asymmetrical Interdependence: U.S.-Mexican Relations in the 1980s,” in Erisman, H. Michael, ed., The Caribbean Challenge (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

³⁹ U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–54 (Washington, DC: G.P.O., 1983), 1387–90Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Millett, Richard, Guardians of the Dynasty: A History of the U.S.-Created Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua and the Somoza Family (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977), 201–15Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Rangel, “Is Democracy Possible in Latin America?” in Democracy and Dictatorship in Latin America (New York: Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, no date), 73.

⁴² For an eloquent statement on hew small countries are controlled and exploited by an unfair international economic order, see Manley, Michael, Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery (London: Third World Media Limited, 1982)Google Scholar; and for a contrasting approach on the development possibilities of small countries, see Harrison, Lawrence E., Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁴³ See Carr, Raymond, Puerto Rico: A Colonial Experiment (New York: New York Uni versity Press, 1984)Google Scholar, and Carrion, Arturo Morales, Puerto Rico: A Political and Cultural (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Paz, “Latin America and Democracy,” in Democracy and Dictatorship in Latin America (fn. 41), 9.

⁴⁵ Williams, , From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean (New York: Vintage Books, 1984; originally published 1970), 502–04Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ For a good, succinct summary of this cycle, see Virginia R. and Dominguez, Jorge I., The Caribbean (New York: Foreign Policy Association Headline Series 253, 1981), 64–77Google Scholar.