Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Organizations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE EL SALVADOR IN THE COLD WAR
- PART TWO JIMMY CARTER
- PART THREE RONALD REAGAN
- 19 Reagan Arrives
- 20 Reagan and Salvador
- 21 El Mozote
- 22 Another Vietnam
- 23 Solidarity
- 24 Troop Cap and Certifying Human Rights
- 25 Reagan Gambles on Elections, 1982
- 26 The Shultz Doctrine
- 27 Human Rights
- 28 Henry Kissinger
- 29 Contras
- 30 “Elections Yes, Dialogue No,” 1984 Presidential Election
- 31 La Palma
- 32 Esquipulas
- 33 Counterinsurgency I
- 34 Counterinsurgency II
- 35 Zona Rosa
- 36 Air War
- 37 José Napoleón Duarte
- 38 Iran-Contra
- PART FOUR GEORGE H. W. BUSH
- PART FIVE POSTWAR
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
19 - Reagan Arrives
from PART THREE - RONALD REAGAN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2016
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Organizations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE EL SALVADOR IN THE COLD WAR
- PART TWO JIMMY CARTER
- PART THREE RONALD REAGAN
- 19 Reagan Arrives
- 20 Reagan and Salvador
- 21 El Mozote
- 22 Another Vietnam
- 23 Solidarity
- 24 Troop Cap and Certifying Human Rights
- 25 Reagan Gambles on Elections, 1982
- 26 The Shultz Doctrine
- 27 Human Rights
- 28 Henry Kissinger
- 29 Contras
- 30 “Elections Yes, Dialogue No,” 1984 Presidential Election
- 31 La Palma
- 32 Esquipulas
- 33 Counterinsurgency I
- 34 Counterinsurgency II
- 35 Zona Rosa
- 36 Air War
- 37 José Napoleón Duarte
- 38 Iran-Contra
- PART FOUR GEORGE H. W. BUSH
- PART FIVE POSTWAR
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It isn't just El Salvador. What we are doing is going to the aid of a government…to halt the infiltration into the Americas by terrorists…who aren't just aiming at El Salvador but…who are aiming at the whole of Central and possibly later South America, and, I'm sure, eventually, North America.
– Ronald Reagan, March 6, 1981Let us show the world that we want no hostile communist colonies here in the Americas – South, Central, or North.
– President Ronald Reagan, televised address to the nation, May 9, 1984We know who the guerrillas in El Salvador are, where and how they get their arms, what their plans are, who their friends are.
– Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, April 22, 1983No Room for Additional Cubas
Events across the globe deeply influenced the mood in America leading up to the November 1980 presidential election between Republican challenger Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter. In 1978, the Panama Canal – “long the great symbol of U.S. say in Central America” – was transferred by treaty to full Panamanian sovereignty. The Iranian revolution in 1979 resulted in the removal of a regime in Tehran that had long been well inside the American orbit. A national humiliation ensued when Iranian radicals held U.S. Embassy staff hostage for over a year. By July 1979, the Sandinistas had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in nearby Nicaragua. Five months later, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan.
For the rising tide of American foreign policy conservatives, these events were viewed as a step backward for the United States. The root cause of this perceived impotence was a Carter administration paralyzed into inaction by fear of another Vietnam-style morass. In the summer of 1980, Ronald Reagan stood before his fellow Republicans in Detroit, Michigan, where he accepted his presidential nomination in a convention filled with foghorns and the whistles and cheers of a wild crowd. He told his audience when “we cast our eyes abroad…[a]dversaries large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but we are given weakness when we need strength.” American might, Reagan contended, would restore freedom and world peace.
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- Information
- The Salvador OptionThe United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992, pp. 201 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016