"Restoring Order" South of the Border

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²⁸San Francisco Chronicle, 8 June 1983, p. C2. See also remarks by Dr. Fred C. Ikle, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, at American Security Council White House briefing, 26 August 1983.

²⁹Barricada (Managua), 20 February 1983, p. 5.

³⁰El Nuevo Diario (Managua), 3 December 1983, p. 2.

³¹FBIS-Latin America, 12 July 1983, p. P25.

³²La Prensa Libre (San Jose, Costa Rica), 25 March 1983, and The Washington Times, 29 April 1983.

³³FBIS-Latin America, 15 July 1983, p. P17.

^MBarricada, 14 June 1983, p. 6.

³⁵Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya (Moscow), 19 June 1983, FBIS-Soviet Union, 23 June 1983, p. Kl.

“Bohemia (Havana), 7 February 1983, pp. 72-75.

³⁷Remarks of Nestor D. Sanchez, ASC Seminar, Washington, D.C., 26 August 1983, p. 7.

³⁸Tass, 29 July 1983, FBIS-Soviet Union, 1 August 1983, p. Kl.

³⁹Havana Domestic Service, 3 August 1983, FBIS-Latin America, 4 August 1983, p. P10.

“The New York Times, 27 July 1983.

⁴¹FBIS-Latin America, 27 May 1983, p. P10.

⁴²FBIS-Latin America, 14 February 1983, p. P8.

⁴³FBIS-Latin America, 28 June 1983, p. P25.

^FBIS-Latin America, 17 June 1981, p. P24.

⁴⁵Miami Herald, 21 June 1983, and The New York Times, 19 June 1983.

“The New York Times, 27 July 1983.

⁴⁷Daily Telegraph (London), 30 July 1983, pp. 1, 24.

⁴⁸FBIS-Latin America, 20 July 1983, pp. A4, A5.

⁴⁹Barricada, 25 September 1983, p. 1.

⁵⁰Background Paper: Central America, p. 15.

^5,Boris Ponomarev, “Topical Problems of the Theory of the Revolutionary ess,” Kommunist, October 1971, p. 75.

⁵²Report of the President’s National Bipartisan Commission on Central America’ January 1984, p. 92.

Mr. Ashby is conducting research for his doctoral dissertation, “Soviej Strategy in the Caribbean.” He will receive his PhD in international relations in December from the University of Southern California. H^e lived in Grenada, off and on, from 1967 to 1980 and was residing there after the Marxist coup d'etat, from September 1979 to May 1980, durin? which time he witnessed the Cuban militarization of Grenada. His highjy acclaimed article, ‘‘Grenada: Soviet Stepping Stone,” was published iⁿ the December 1983 Proceedings.

“Restoring Order” South of the Border

By Richard K. Kolb

The dreaded specter of Vietnam is dredged up ad nauseam in rela­tion to U. S. foreign policy in the Americas; the 18 Americans killed in combat on Grenada in October 1983 and the deaths of a Navy lieutenant commander in El Salva­dor and an Army chief warrant of­ficer in Honduras have focused even more attention on this anal­ogy. Yet, the historical record of U. S. armed forces in the Carib­bean Basin shows that there is no valid parallel, especially in terms of combat casualties.

U. S. forces have been deployed on 13 occasions in Mexico, 14 in South America, 18 in the West In­dies, and 32 in Central America.¹ However, the commitment of U. S. forces to combat has been the ex­ception rather than the rule; in only 20% of the deployments did Amer­icans actually participate in fight­ing. During the past 137 years, Washington has committed troops to two declared wars in the Latin world, eight major campaigns, and 29 significant landings.

Of prime interest are the inter­ventions in which armed hostilities resulted in U. S. combat casualties.

I will focus on a concise yet com­prehensive chronicle of our little- known combat campaigns.

U. S. military action in South America began in a most unlikely place. The Falkland Islands played host to a landing in 1831. After investigating the capture of three U. S. sealing vessels and showing the colors, U. S. sailors quickly departed the Argentinian islands.

More than 20 years later, an up­rising in Buenos Aires, in 1853, brought U. S. Marines to the main­land to protect resident Americans. During the operation, retaliatory fire killed four armed looters. This was one of the few instances in which U. S. troops actually fired on local rebels in Latin America in the 19th century.

The 1848 U. S. acquisition of the southwestern states from Mex­ico made the Isthmus of Panama— our new coast-to-coast link—the focal point of U. S. interests south of the border. The United States now had a vital stake in Central America’s stability.

In 1885, the newly formed 1,000-man Marine Expeditionary

Brigade was put ashore to neutral­ize Panama City in order to ensure freedom of transit on the Panama Railroad. This first canal mission was the forerunner of more exten­sive Caribbean expeditions.

Although possession of Spain’s former territories cast the United States in a new colonial role, “Th^e sound core of American imperial­ism was essentially protective, co°' ceived to defend the continental homeland.”² Consequently, U. S- “sea soldiers,” soon to serve as colonial infantry throughout the “American Mediterranean,” stood ready to intervene on diplomatic notice.

In his Fourth Annual Message ^t0 Congress on 6 December 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt set forth U. S. policy: “In the West^e Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doc­trine may force the U. S., howe^ve reluctantly, in flagrant cases of impotence, to the exercise of an ₎₃ international police power . . ■ ■

Nicaragua, engulfed by civil ^ in 1912, became the first major te case of the Roosevelt Corollary ^t0 the Monroe Doctrine. President

ho:

U. S. Combat Casualties in the Americas

Years                                                 Intervention                              Combat Deaths

^,nal government. Vera Cruz was

Howard Taft’s dispatch of 2,500 Marines to Managua marked a turning point in U. S. policy for “there had been no case before 1912 where American forces had actually gone into battle to help suppress a revolution.”⁴ Marines engaged rebel forces on three occasions in a brief campaign that ended with five killed and 16 Wounded. The largest encounter at Coyotepe left 60 Nicaraguans dead. Hy early 1913, all marines, with the exception of a 105-man Lega- hon Guard, were withdrawn.

For the first time, the U. S. Marines had fought and died to taep a pro-American government in Power in Central America. The in­tervention was essentially designed ^to preempt foreign powers from Meddling in Nicaragua’s internal ^affairs. Historically, this modest military move paved the way for tttuch longer troop commitments.

In 1910, Mexico erupted in revo­lution and for the next decade threatened the security of our bor- tfer. At one point, President Taft temporarily assembled a 30,000- jt>^an Maneuver Division along the w'o Grande River. During the hos­tilities, some 7,000 troopers regu- ^arly patrolled the border. U. S. ^cavalrymen often found themselves °ⁿ the southern side of the river.

Under the stewardship of Presi- hent Woodrow Wilson’s progres­ses, a new dimension was added to our Latin American policy: “In ^sh°rt, it is a tale of what happened "'hen evangels of democracy set °^ut to teach other peoples how to Uect good leaders and govern hemselves well.”⁵ . The progressive odyssey began Mexico. President Victoriano j*^uerta provided the perfect pretext ,®^r U. S. intervention in April ^y*4. Refusing to pay respect to ^e U. s. flag at Tampico, Huerta ^^ave Congress sufficient reason to ^aUthorize a resolution permitting ^e use of force to redeem the na- '°nal honor.

behind the scenes, the Wilson i, ministration planned to oust Uerta from power in order to re- ..^ace his regime with a constitu- targeted when it was learned that German munitions were to be de­livered there. Some 6,429 sailors and marines seized the port city after three days of house-to-house fighting that cost 19 American lives and left 69 wounded; at least 126 Mexicans were killed. More than 6,400 marines and soldiers occu­pied Vera Cruz until November 1914. This “affair of honor” did result in the resignation of Huerta, but it did little to thwart German espionage in Mexico. In fact, rela­tions worsened, and the Germans became emboldened.

Within two years U. S. troops were back in Mexico. In 1916, Pancho Villa, a renegade revolu­tionary, and his band of cutthroats, masquerading as patriots, ordered 16 American engineers from a train in Santa Ysabel and murdered them.

The following March, the “Vil- listas” climaxed their murder spree with a raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Columbus was burned, and 19 U. S. soldiers and civilians were killed in the attack.

The public was outraged and demanded revenge. Brigadier Gen­eral John Pershing promptly re­ceived a War Department directive specifying his mission as the “pur­suit and dispersion of the band or bands that attacked Columbus, New Mexico.”⁶ Official Mexican con­sent for the campaign was grudg­

ingly granted by President Venus- tiano Carranza, Huerta’s successor.

For nearly 11 months, 12,000 U. S. cavalrymen braved 122° tem­peratures, physical exhaustion, hun­ger, thirst, and a hostile popula­tion. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition penetrated 350 miles into Mexico in pursuit of the elusive Villa but never sighted him.

In five major engagements with Villistas and Mexican federal forces—Carranza withdrew his consent for the mission in mid­stream—18 Americans were killed and 27 wounded. Approximately 130 Villistas and 80 Carranzistas were killed. Villa’s bands neverthe­less plagued the border and terror­ized Mexico for the next two years.

Pershing’s troopers received a roaring welcome home in early 1917. Cheering crowds greeted them as they paraded through the streets.

Meanwhile, clashes with Car­ranza’s federates caused President Wilson to mobilize 112,000 Na­tional Guardsmen along the Rio Grande. World War I averted full- scale war with Mexico, but hostili­ties persisted. U. S. troops entered Mexico in pursuit of bandits at least nine times in 1918-19 and ran afoul of Mexican regulars. In August 1918, at Nogales, seven Americans died in a skirmish with federates. Two German bodies were found among the 129 Mexi-

In 1916, Brigadier General Pershing, left, headed a force that scoured Mexico—unsuccessfully—for the revolutionary Pancho Villa.

can dead. Juarez was the scene of a major clash with Villistas in June 1919. At the price of two Ameri­cans, 200 bandits were killed.

After Juarez, Villa faded from the border. In 1923, he was assas­sinated. Banditry was endemic for years to come, and retaliatory pur­suits continued, the last skirmish taking place at Naco in 1930.

During World War I, the Carib­bean became a hotbed of European intrigue. The “threat of German incursion was the immediate and ultimately decisive factor” in the decision to intervene in Haiti in July 1915.⁷ President Vibrun Guil­laume Sam’s assassination opened the door for eventual U. S. occupa­tion of the island.

Organized banditry blossomed in the wake of the bloody coup. Ma­rines arrived shortly thereafter to restore order. Bandit-mercenaries called Cacos attempted to evict the marines during the latter half of 1915. Four major encounters result­ing in the destruction of most of the Cacos’ forts temporarily ended resistance.

During World War I, the marines maintained security against poten­tial German saboteurs. Few volun­teered to serve there, and the psy­chological toll was heavy.

In 1919, the Cacos revolted again. Bands totalling an estimated

5,0             Cacos under the nominal leadership of Charlemagne Peraulte mounted hundreds of jungle am­bushes against Marine patrols. Nine skirmishes turned into major frays. By May 1920, the revolt was bro­ken by the 1,346-man 1st Marine Brigade and the Gendarmerie D’Haiti, led by Marine officers.

Casualties were relatively light— only 13 Americans were killed and 28 were wounded. Another 136 died from disease and accidents. More than 2,000 Cacos were killed, prompting charges of “un­told atrocities” allegedly committed by marines. Haitian police contrib­uted to this large body count by “eliminating” captured Cacos. Atrocity tales, unfounded or not, provided a cause celebre for the liberal press. The uproar resulted in a congressional investigation in the early 1920s in which partisan poli­tics undoubtedly played a part. The marines’ accomplishments during their 14-year stay in Haiti are for­gotten—international debts were paid off, public works constructed, yellow fever eliminated, and stabil­ity restored.

In 1916, an insurrection gripped the other end of Hispaniola. Protec­tion of U. S. citizens and the pros­pect of German interference com­pelled President Wilson initially to order troops to the Dominican Re­public. That U. S. Marines re­mained for eight years had more to do with the progressives’ compul­sive need to “civilize” the downtrodden.

Although the political revolt was suppressed in two months, orga­nized bandits kept the 3,000 men of the 2nd Marine Brigade occu­pied for the next six years. The U. S. military presence prevented rival political factions, always vola­tile, from plunging the entire coun­try into anarchy.

During the pacification campaign (1917-22), the Marine Corps re­corded 467 contacts with outlaw elements in which they inflicted 1,137 casualties while sustaining C killed and 50 wounded. More than 100 marines died from disease and accidents. Once law and order were restored, the Dominican National Police assumed Marine Corps duties in late 1924.

Renewed fighting brought ma­rines back to Nicaragua in 1926 to safeguard U. S. interests. Feuding Liberal and Conservative factions concluded a peace treaty in early 1927, but one dissident Liberal leader refused to disband his army- Augusto Sandino and his followers’ known as Sandinistas, tied up nearly 5,000 U. S. servicemen and the entire Nicaraguan Guardia Na- cional at the peak of hostilities. Fighting was most fierce in 1927— 28: the marines engaged Sandinis­tas in 12 major battles and nurnef' ous small unit actions.

Warfare was brutal at times. A machete through the skull was among the more merciful ways t° die. Machos or “he-men,” as the marines were known, earned a dreaded reputation among their ^ene mies. Especially feared was Com­pany M, led by the legendary Lewis “Chesty” Puller. Modern advancements in warfare—from

mispheric foot in the door. (And anagua has been just that since

Thompson submachine gun to ground-air support—were tested in the Nicaraguan jungles.

The “Sandino Affair” was the tiost costly of the ‘‘banana wars.” Marine Corps casualties included T? killed, 66 wounded, and 89 head from other causes. Govern­ment forces listed 75 killed and 122 wounded. An estimated 1,115 Sandinistas were killed.⁸

Sandino’s war of liberation was h?e first armed conflict in the West­^ern Hemisphere that raised the ^sPecter of communism. In his mes­^Sage to Congress in 1927, President Calvin Coolidge made special men- hon of the need to stop the spread

Mexican-inspired communism in Central America. Nicaragua’s prox- ^1IT|ity to the Panama Canal made it a target for foreign machinations.

Sandino was profoundly influ­^enced by Mexican revolutionaries ^when he worked in the Tampico oil 'mlds. Not surprisingly, his revolu- ^tlon adopted some of the trappings ^and rhetoric of Marxism. Interest- ^lngly, Sandinistas sported black- and-red hatbands, the colors of

Syndicalism.

Communists throughout the "mrld rallied behind Sandino. Mos- > saw a leftist Nicaragua as a

^9.) To demonstrate its symbolic ^SuPport, the 1928 Sixth Congress the Communist Internationale in yl°scow adopted a special resolu- '°a honoring Sandino.

. Sandino became an instant celeb- ^r'ty to American leftists, who ^cnampioned his cause. Rallies Sponsored by the American Anti- ‘tiperialist League raised funds and j’.applies, and Nation magazine pub- '^shed a series of articles sympa­tic to the revolution.

Though not in sympathy with ^^rtTled radicals, public opinion and °ⁿgress eventually soured on in­dention. By 1930, marines were stricted to garrison duty, and the _s arine-ied National Guard had as- 1^ 'Tied responsibility for most com- I Patrols. Troop withdrawals were ^s° accelerated.

The Roosevelt administration ^0tT|pleted the U. S. pullout, and

shortly thereafter, Sandino signed a peace treaty with the regime in power. In February 1934, Sandino was killed by officers loyal to An- astasio Somoza Garcia.⁹

Three decades of carrying the “white man’s burden” in the Car­ibbean left Americans disillusioned. Yet the State Department was not deterred. “The seeds of this country’s massive military involve­ment in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s were sown during the Good Neighbor period.”¹⁰

President Franklin Roosevelt re­lied on military missions and espio­nage to combat Axis subversion in Central America in World War II. When the war ended, a network was in place for succeeding admin­istrations. Cold war military aid programs operated as the functional alternative to armed intervention as a means of securing internal politi­cal stability in the Americas. “In the era of the Cold War, keeping Soviet power and influence out of the hemisphere, and particularly out of the Panama Canal area, was far more important to Washington than old-style banana diplomacy.”¹¹

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro’s at­tempts at “exporting” revolution in the 1960s were met by CIA covert paramilitary operations. President John F. Kennedy readily employed “dirty tricks.” But tricks were not sufficient to check Soviet penetra­tion of the Caribbean.

By October 1962 there were

20,0             Soviet troops manning and guarding 42 offensive missiles only 90 miles from Florida. For the first time in nearly a century, the United States had permitted a hostile power to establish a threatening military presence in the Western Hemisphere. Only a massive “show of force” prevented a final showdown during the Cuban Mis­sile Crisis.

Three decades had passed by the time the Johnson administration dispatched troops to the Dominican Republic in April 1965, to protect U. S. nationals and property.

Fearing “another Cuba” and be­lieving the revolt was dominated by the Castroite June 14th Movement, President Lyndon Johnson acted without delay. Declaring the right to prevent a communist takeover in any country within the hemisphere, the House passed a resolution en­dorsing the intervention.

U. S. troops ashore—including a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Divi­sion and the 4th Marine Expedi­tionary Brigade—peaked at 21,500. Americans were assigned the task of securing an International Safety Zone in Santo Domingo, the na­tion’s capital. The troops took no part in active operations to crush the rebels.

Some 28 U. S. personnel were killed and 174 wounded in sniping attacks while attempting to preserve stability. Their role was similar to that played by the U. S. Marines in Lebanon recently. And, as in Bei­rut, Dominican duty was a thank­less job.

Despite their peacekeeping role,

U. S. soldiers soon became scape­goats for both sides in this confus­ing civil conflict. Seen as a symbol of Yanqui imperialism, U. S. ser­vicemen bore much of the brunt of Dominican internecine hostility. An Inter-American Peace Force, com­posed mostly of Americans, main­tained order during the formation of a provisional government and subsequent free elections in Sep­tember. After a 17-month stay, the last U. S. troops departed the Dominican Republic in September 1966.

The United States helped pave the way for a flourishing democ­racy in the Dominican Republic.

Don Bohning, Latin American edi­tor of the Miami Herald, wrote: “Eighteen years after America in­tervened to halt a bloody civil war— and head off what Washington per­ceived as a Communist threat—the Dominican Republic stands as one of the most durable democracies in the Western Hemisphere.”¹²

However, most of Latin America remained unstable. Shunning fur­ther overt military moves, the Johnson administration created 52 special anti-subversive missions, totalling 800 men, to combat the rising tide of Castro-inspired, armed and advised insurgencies.

Teams operated throughout Latin

America, including Venezuela, Bo­livia, and Guatemala. In Guate­mala, a company of Green Berets made parachute drops, accompanied patrols, and even suffered casual­ties between 1966 and 1968.¹³ Since then, the United States has employed—until recently—more subtle means of countering Castro­

ism. In many cases, these means were less than successful.

Today, the Pentagon maintains a modest permanent defense network in the Caribbean. Approximately

16,0             military personnel are sta­tioned in the region, mostly in Pan­ama, Puerto Rico, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. More than half the troops are in Panama, the home of the 193d Infantry Brigade.

Others are attached to training missions or the military attache sections of U. S. embassies. Five thousand soldiers engaged in ma­neuvers known as Operation Big Pine Two in Honduras, August 1983-February 1984, as part of an old-fashioned “show of force.” President Ronald Reagan has as­sured the nation that he “will never send combat troops in.” But he also added that “Presidents never say never." In January 1984, a U. S. Army observation helicopter was forced down and its pilot killed by Sandinistas; he was the first American combat casualty in Honduras.

U. S. military intervention in the Americas has stirred emotional de­bate for more than a century.

While criticism of various adminis­tration policies has been warranted, the anti-American rhetoric and ac­tions that sometimes accompanied it were not. Intervention opponents often found their mark in the U. S. serviceman.

Such was the case as early as the Mexican War, 1846-48. Senator Thomas Corwin of Ohio, a “con­science” Whig, publicly spoke of welcoming our soldiers to “hospi­table graves” in Mexico. Select clergymen saw soldiers as “costly . . . though useless creatures ...” prone “to lie, to steal, to kill.” Abolitionists viciously wished de­feat, disgrace, and death on U. S. forces.

Marine stereotypes were rein­forced by liberal journalists in the late 1920s and early 1930s amidst the Sandino craze then in vogue. Though World War II erased the caricature from public memory, it was revived with vigor in the Viet­nam era.

Contemporary critics are fond of

fueling the current controversy over Central America with constant ref­erences to Vietnam. And in at least one respect there is an undisputable analogy between the Vietnam era and now. Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander James Currieo put his finger on the domestic parallel when he denounced “the cynical, political use of the Vietnam Memo­rial by aging anti-Vietnam activ­ists” to demonstrate against U. S- involvement in El Salvador. The use and abuse of Vietnam veterans-" dead or alive—demonstrates the lengths to which the “movement” will go.

President Reagan’s anti-commu­nist stance in the Caribbean has given a new lease on political life to a network of homespun commit­tees, coalitions, centers, con­gresses, offices, and task forces intent on showing their solidarity with hemispheric Marxists.

Organized by the Committee of Solidarity with the people of El Salvador, a 12 November 1983 demonstration in Washington brought out 20,000 people to pro­test the liberation of Grenada. Pro- Hanoi sympathizers invoked the memory of Vietnam.

As with Vietnam, criticism is directed solely at the United States- Marxist human rights abuses are ignored or apologized for. San- dinista atrocities against Miskito Indians in Nicaragua and leftist massacres in El Salvador are app^af' ently of little concern to home fr^orl ‘ ‘ hyper-moralists. ’ ’

It can be argued that the U. S- people should be more alarmed at the prospect of “another Cuba” instead of “another Vietnam.”

And, indeed, Americans are. An NBC News poll recently revealed that 83% of the public is concert about the communist threat in Cen tral America.                                       .

A Vietnam-type combat comm¹* ment to Central America is un­likely. Since 1912, under 200 U. S. military personnel have bee¹¹ killed fighting in the Americas.

One day of fighting in Vietnam took more U. S. lives—246 on ] January 1968—than eight Latin ^ terventions spanning seven decani