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United States involvement in Central America throughout the 20th Centu

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DarkWaters

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Hi,

Does anyone here have any strong opinions on the various United States involvements in Central America during the 20th Century? Specifically, I am interested in hearing opinions on events such as:

  • CIA's involvement with overthrowing the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz.
  • U.S. Intervention in Chile in 1970.
  • The U.S. Government's support of the Contras in Nicaragua.
  • The U.S. involvement in Latin America during the Wilson Administration.
  • The U.S. invasion of Grenada.

Needless to say, sharing any opinions on these matters from Ayn Rand herself or any prominent Objectivists would be interesting. I remember hearing that Peter Schwartz commented on the U.S. invasion of Grenada and the U.S. involvement with the Contras, but I am unable to locate this anywhere.

Thanks!

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Does anyone here have any strong opinions on the various United States involvements in Central America during the 20th Century?
I'm not very familiar with most of the instances given, but I think things like the Guatemala actions were atrocious, both from an ethical and tactical standpoint.

I understand that such things were attempts to protect America, but they were done in ways that were very short-sighted, dangerous (and embittering) to native peoples, and in my opinion, immoral.

I'm not sure seen any major Objectivist directly addressing such US involvements, but I've seen an article or two by Yaron Brooks in which he was (or other people interpreted as) indirectly defending the principle of the involvements.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'm not very familiar with most of the instances given, but I think things like the Guatemala actions were atrocious, both from an ethical and tactical standpoint.

I understand that such things were attempts to protect America, but they were done in ways that were very short-sighted, dangerous (and embittering) to native peoples, and in my opinion, immoral.

I agree, Guatemala definitely seems to be the worst of such involvements.

I know that Rand said that Pinochet was better than Allende. I don't know much about Latin American history (outside of Mexico).

I have a friend from Chile who I consider to be particularly rational. He seems to think poorly upon how his home country seems to be the only country in history where a communist dictator was voluntarily elected.

Even the United States' tactical approach concerning Cuba after the Cuban revolution seems to fairly suboptimal in retrospect. Of course, Fidel Castro is indisputably a criminal so the tactical blunders are not automatically moral blunders.

In general, a lot of questionable (or worse) foreign policies in Central America in the later half of the 20th Century appear to stem from a monolithic view of communism: either a nation was pro-capitalism and therefore a United States ally or the nation was pro-communism and therefore a Soviet Union ally. I think this viewpoint particularly common under the Eisenhower Administration. After all, the Eisenhower Administration saw Operation PBSUCCESS (our removal of the Arbenz presidency in Guatemala), Senator Joseph McCarthy accusing liberals in Hollywood of being communist spies and the insertion of "under god" in the pledge of allegiance on the misconception that the best approach to combating communism, then viewed as the worshipping of a state, is to intensify worship of god.

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Senator McCarthy was generally NOT wrong in his accusations.

The most dangerous Communist spies who were extirpated, such as Alger Hiss, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, were generally caught by the Truman Administration before Senator McCarthy made accusations. At best it seems that Senator Joseph McCarthy had not made any major discoveries in terms of detecting communist spies whose loyalty was otherwise not under question.

Can you please provide a representative sample of individuals accused of being communists by Senator McCarthy as well as some evidence as to the extent of their allegience to the Soviet Union?

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I can point you to some sources, such as Ann Coulter's Treason. Unfortunately, having just moved for college, I cannnot give you the quotations right now as I don't have all my books with me. I would recommend reading up on the Venona files and reading Coulter's chapters on McCarthy. Also, read what many of McCarthy's contempoaries (even people like JFK and RFK said about him).

Here is a somewhat representative list of people clandestinely involved in Soviet intelligence, many of whom McCarthy helped expose:

John Abt United States Department of Agriculture; Works Progress Administration; Civil Liberties Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Education and Labor; special assistant to the United States Attorney General, United States Department of Justice

Solomon Adler, United States Department of the Treasury, supplied info to Silvermaster group, went to China after communist revolution and joined government of Mao Zedong

Lydia Altschuler

Thomas Babin, Yugoslavia Section Office of Strategic Services

Marion Bachrach, (*) congressional office manager of Congressman John Bernard of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party

Rudy Baker

Vladimir Barash

Joel Barr, United States Army Signal Corps Laboratories

Alice Barrows, United States Office of Education

Theodore Bayer, President, Russky Golos Publishing

George Beiser, National Research Establishment, Research and Development Board; engineer Bell Aircraft

Aleksandr Belenky, General Electric

Cedric Belfrage, journalist; British Security Coordination

Elizabeth Bentley, companion of Jacob Golos of Sound/Myrna group; turned herself in to FBI in 1945 leading to unraveling of many Soviet spy rings

Marion Davis Berdecio, Office of Naval Intelligence; Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; United States Department of State

Josef Berger, (*) Democratic National Committee

Joseph Milton Bernstein, Board of Economic Warfare

Walter Sol Bernstein, Hollywood Screenwriter, listed on the MPAA's Hollywood blacklist

T.A. Bisson, Board of Economic Warfare

Thomas Lessing Black, Bureau of Standards United States Department of Commerce

Samuel Bloomfield, (*) Eastern European Division, Research and Analysis Division, Office of Strategic Services

Robinson Bobrow

Ralph Bowen, (*) United States Department of State

Abraham Brothman, chemist convicted for his role in the Rosenberg ring

Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States

Rose Browder

William Browder

Michael Burd, Head of Midland Export Corporation

Paul Burns, employee of TASS

Norman Bursler, United States Department of Justice Anti-Trust Division

James Michael Callahan

Sylvia Callen

Frank Coe, Assistant Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Department of the Treasury; Special Assistant to the United States Ambassador in London; Assistant to the Executive Director, Board of Economic Warfare; Assistant Administrator, Foreign Economic Administration, went to China and joined government of Mao Zedong

Lona Cohen, sentenced to 20 years; subject of Hugh Whitemore's drama for stage and TV Pack of Lies

Morris Cohen (Soviet spy) sentenced to 25 years; subject of Hugh Whitemore's drama for stage and TV Pack of Lies

Eugene Franklin Coleman, RCA electrical engineer

Anna Colloms, New York City schoolteacher

Judith Coplon, Foreign Agents Registration section, United States Department of Justice; her convictions for espionage were overturned on technicalities

Lauchlin Currie, Administrative Assistant to President Roosevelt; Deputy Administrator of Foreign Economic Administration; Special Representative to China

Byron Darling, United States Rubber Company; United States Office of Scientific Research & Development

Eugene Dennis, General Secretary Communist Party USA sentenced to 5 years for advocating overthrow of U.S. government

Samuel Dickstein, United States Congressman from New York known to be paid by Soviets; New York State Supreme Court Justice; Vice Chair of HUAC during hearings into the Business Plot against FDR

Martha Dodd, daughter of United States Ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Popular Front

William Dodd Jr., son of William Dodd, United States Ambassador to Germany; Democratic Congressional candidate

Laurence Duggan, head of United States Department of State Division of American Republics

Demetrius Dvoichenko-Markov, U.S. Army

Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov

Frank Dziedzik, National Oil Products Company

Nathan Einhorn, Executive Secretary of American Newspaper Guild

Max Elitcher, (*) Naval Ordinance Section, National Bureau of Standards

Jacob Epstein, International Brigades

Jack Fahy, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; Board of Economic Warfare; United States Department of the Interior

Linn Markley Farish, Liaison Officer with Tito's Yugoslav Partisan forces, Office of Strategic Services

Edward Fitzgerald, War Production Board

Charles Flato, Board of Economic Warfare; Civil Liberties Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Education and Labor

Isaac Folkoff

Jane Foster, Board of Economic Warfare; Office of Strategic Services; Netherlands Study Unit

Zalmond Franklin

Isabel Gallardo

Boleslaw Gebert, National Officer of Polonia Society of International Workers Order

Harrison George, senior CPUSA leadership, editor of People's World

Rebecca Getzoff

Harold Glasser, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Department of the Treasury; United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration; War Production Board; Advisor on North African Affairs Committee; United States Treasury Representative to the Allied High Commission in Italy

Bela Gold, Assistant Head of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture; Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Economic Programs in Foreign Economic Administration

Harry Gold, sentenced to 30 years for his role in the Rosenbergs ring

Sonia Steinman Gold, Division of Monetary Research United States Department of Treasury Department; United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Interstate Migration; United States Bureau of Employment Security

Elliot Goldberg, engineer for an oil equipment company in New York

Jacob Golos, "main pillar" of NKVD spy network, particularly the Sound/Myrna group, he died in the arms of Elizabeth Bentley

George Gorchoff

Gerald Graze, United States Department of State

David Greenglass, machinist at Los Alamos sentenced to 15 years for his role in Rosenberg ring; he was the brother of executed Ethel Rosenberg

Ruth Greenglass, avoided prosecution thanks to her husband's testimony against his sister that he later admitted was perjured

Joseph Gregg, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; United States Department of State

Theodore Hall, physicist at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, volunteered to spy for Soviets, never prosecuted

Maurice Halperin, Chief of Latin American Division, Research and Analysis Section, Office of Strategic Services; United States Department of State

Kitty Harris, globe-trotting companion of communist party boss Earl Browder

William Henwood, Standard Oil of California

Clarence Hiskey, University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, Manhattan Project

Alger Hiss, Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs United States Department of State, sentenced to 5 years for perjury

Donald Hiss, United States Department of State; United States Department of Labor; United States Department of the Interior

Harry Hopkins, advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Louis Horvitz, International Brigades

Rosa Isaak, Executive Secretary of the American-Russian Institute

Herman R. Jacobson, Avery Manufacturing Company

Bella Joseph, motion picture division of Office of Strategic Services

Emma Harriet Joseph, (*) Office of Strategic Services

Julius Joseph, National Resources Planning Board; Federal Security Agency; Social Security Board; Office of Emergency Management; Labor War Manpower Commission; Deputy Chief, Far Eastern section (Japanese Intelligence) Office of Strategic Services

Gertrude Kahn

David Karr, Office of War Information; chief aide to journalist Drew Pearson

Joseph Katz

Helen Grace Scott Keenan, Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs; Office of United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis War Criminals, Office of Strategic Services

Mary Jane Keeney, Board of Economic Warfare; Allied Staff on Reparations; United Nations

Philip Keeney, Office of the Coordinator of Information (later OSS)

Alexander Koral, former engineer of the municipality of New York

Helen Koral

Samuel Krafsur, journalist TASS

Charles Kramer, Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Price Administration; National Labor Relations Board; Senate Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education; Agricultural Adjustment Administration; United States Senate Civil Liberties Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Education and Labor; Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee; Democratic National Committee

Christina Krotkova, Office of War Information

Sergey Nikolaevich Kurnakov

Stephen Laird, Hollywood Producer; Time Magazine Reporter; Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) correspondent

Rudy Lambert, California Communist party labor director and head of security

Oskar Lange

Trude Lash, United Nations Human Rights Committee

Richard Lauterbach, Time Magazine

Duncan Lee, counsel to General William Donovan, head of Office of Strategic Services

Michael Leshing, superintendent of Twentieth Century Fox film laboratories

Leo Levanas, Shell Oil Company

Morris Libau

Helen Lowry

Willaim Mackey

Harry Magdoff, Chief of the Control Records Section of War Production Board and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce; Statistics Division Works Progress Administration

William Malisoff, owner of United Laboratories of New York

Hede Massing, journalist

Robert Menaker

Floyd Miller

James Walter Miller, United States Post Office, Office of Censorship

Robert Miller, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; Near Eastern Division United States Department of State

Robert Minor, Office of Strategic Services

Leonard Mins, Russian Section of the Research and Analysis Division of the Office of Strategic Services

Arthur Moosen

Vladimir Morkovin, Office of Naval Research

Boris Moros, Hollywood Producer

Nicola Napoli, president of Artkino, distributor of Soviet films

Franz Leopold Neumann, consultant at Board of Economic Warfare; Deputy Chief of the Central European Section of Office of Strategic Services; First Chief of Research of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal

Melita Norwood

Eugénie Olkhine

Rose Olsen

Frank Oppenheimer, (*) physicist

Robert Oppenheimer

Nicholas W. Orloff

Nadia Morris Osipovich

Edna Patterson

William Perl, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at Langley Army Air Base; Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory; sentenced to 5 years for his role in the Rosenberg ring of atomic spies

Victor Perlo, chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board; Head of Branch in Research Section, Office of Price Administration Department of Commerce; Division of Monetary Research Department of Treasury; Brookings Institution

Burton Perry

Aleksandr N. Petroff, Curtiss-Wright Aircraft

Emma Phillips

Paul Pinsky

William Pinsly, Curtiss-Wright Aircraft, Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory

William Plourde, engineer with Bell Aircraft

Vladimir Pozner, head Russian Division photographic section United States War Department

Lee Pressman Department of Agriculture; Works Progress Administration; General Counsel Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

Mary Price, stenographer for Walter Lippmann of the New York Herald

Esther Trebach Rand, United Palestine Appeal

Bernard Redmont, head of the Foreign News Bureau Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs

Peter Rhodes, Foreign Broadcasting Monitoring Service, Allied Military Headquarters London; Chief of the Atlantic News Service, Office of War Information

Stephen Rich

Kenneth Richardson, World Wide Electronics

Ruth Rivkin, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

Samuel Rodman, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

Allan Rosenberg, Board of Economic Warfare; Chief of the Economic Institution Staff, Foreign Economic Administration; Civil Liberties Subcommittee, Senate Committee on Education and Labor; Railroad Retirement Board; Councel to the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board

Julius Rosenberg, United States Army Signal Corps Laboratories, executed for role in Rosenberg ring

Ethel Rosenberg, executed for role in Rosenberg ring based on perjured testimony of her brother David Greenglass

Amadeo Sabattini, International Brigades

Alfred Sarant, United States Army Signal Corps laboratories

Saville Sax, Young Communist League, friend of Los Alamos spy Theodore Hall

Marion Schultz, chair of the United Russian Committee for Aid to the Native Country

Bernard Schuster

Milton Schwartz

John Scott, Office of Strategic Services

Ricardo Setaro, journalist/writer Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Charles Bradford Sheppard, Hazeltine Electronics

Anne Sidorovich

Michael Sidorovich

George Silverman, Director of the Bureau of Research and Information Services, US Railroad Retirement Board; Economic Adviser and Chief of Analysis and Plans, Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Material and Services, War Department

Greg Silvermaster, Chief Planning Technician, Procurement Division, United States Department of the Treasury; Chief Economist, War Assets Administration; Director of the Labor Division, Farm Security Administration; Board of Economic Warfare; Reconstruction Finance Corporation Department of Commerce

Helen Silvermaster

Morton Sobell, General Electric, sentenced to 30 years at Alcatraz for his role in the Rosenberg ring

Jack Soble, brother of Robert Soblen, sentenced to 7 years for his role in the Mocase ring

Robert Soblen, psychiatrist, sentenced to life for espionage at Sandia Lab, escaped to IsraeI, committed suicide

Johannes Steele, journalist and radio commentator

Alfred Kaufman Stern, Popular Front

I. F. Stone, (*) journalist for The Nation

Augustina Stridsberg

Anna Louise Strong, journalist for The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The Nation and Asia

Helen Tenney, Office of Strategic Services

Mikhail Tkach, editor of the Ukrainian Daily News

Lud Ullman, delegate to United Nations Charter meeting and Bretton Woods conference; Division of Monetary Research, Department of Treasury; Material and Services Division, Air Corps Headquarters, Pentagon

Irving Charles Velson, Brooklyn Navy Yard; American Labor Party candidate for New York State Senate

Margietta Voge

George Vuchinich, 2nt. United States Army assigned to Office of Strategic Services

Donald Wheeler, Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis division

Enos Wicher, Wave Propagation Research, Division of War Research, Columbia University

Maria Wicher

Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury

Ruth Beverly Wilson

Ignacy Witczak

Ilya Wolston, United States Army military intelligence

Flora Wovschin, Office of War Information; United States Department of State

Jones Orin York

Daniel Zaret, United States Army Explosives Division

Mark Zborowski

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Here is a somewhat representative list of people clandestinely involved in Soviet intelligence, many of whom McCarthy helped expose:

Where did you obtain this list from?

The first thing I noticed is that it is missing some individuals who are widely known to be accused of being in allegiance with the Community Party. An example is Fred Fisher. Or is this list supposed to be only individuals suspected of being involved with Soviet intelligence, which is different from individuals who are suspected of being involved with the Community Party?

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  • 2 months later...
This list comes from the Venona files, Soviet intelligence that was declassified by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

I intended to reply to this a long time ago, but I never found sufficient evidence including this list to conclude that Senator Joseph McCarthy was largely correct in his accusations, that he specifically helped expose key soviet spies or that he issued his accusations in a moral and justified fashion. Instead, I just find a decent argument that there were significantly more dangerous communists in public officials than we may have otherwise thought. This itself is obviously discomforting.

Edited by DarkWaters
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It's tough to martial all of the evidence on a discussion board. As I said, I'd recommend Treason, which is backed up with tons of quotations and citations (though pretty much only the McCarthy chapters are good).

Perhaps I will try to obtain a copy from a library for the sole purpose of reading those chapters so that I can better evaluate such arguments. In general I try to avoid reading Ann Coulter on principle, but I already discussed this.

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