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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
The post-World War II period in Latin America, as elsewhere, has been marked by the presence of two somewhat contradictory phenomena in the field of armaments. On the one hand, most of the countries have continued their long-standing tradition of devoting a substantial portion of their national budgets to the military and have expanded their arsenals of weapons and stocks of military equipment. On the other hand, several governments have suggested various arms control measures for the Latin American countries. The aim of some of these suggestions has been a reduction in the level of armaments, equipment, and force size; the aim of other suggestions has been more modest—to freeze armaments and forces at existing levels; and the aim of still other suggestions has been to ban nuclear weapons from the region.
1 The tradition in nearly all Latin American countries of devoting sizeable portions of national budgets to the military, arms and equipment purchases, force sizes, U.S. military assistance programs to the countries south of the Rio Grande, and the political role of the armed forces in the Latin American countries are subjects thoroughly dealt with in a number of studies. See, for example: Johnson, John J., The Military and Society in Latin America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Lieuwen, Edwin, Arms and Politics in Latin America, rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1961)Google Scholar; Loftus, Joseph E., Latin American Defense Expenditures, 1938-1965 (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Rand Corporation, January, 1968)Google Scholar; and U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Survey of the Alliance for Progress: The Latin American Military, 90th Cong., 1st sess., 1967 (a study prepared by Edwin Lieuwen).
2 Hispanic American Report, January 1958, p. 19.
3 Hispanic American Report, March 1958, p. 141; The New York Times, 6 March 1958, p. 4.
4 The U.S. policy is described and subjected to analysis in Lieuwen, Arms and Politics, pp. 196-244.
5 Hispanic American Report, March 1958, p. 133.
6 Slater, Jerome, The OAS and United States Foreign Policy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967), p. 45 Google Scholar.
7 The New York Times, 20 December 1959, p. 32.
8 Ibid., 2 March 1960, p. 16.
9 Eisenhower, Dwight D., The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965), p. 532 Google Scholar.
10 “Arms and the Hemisphere,” Americas 12 (February 1960): 2.
11 The statement is reproduced in Robles, Alfonso García, The Denuclearization of Latin America (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1967), pp. 69–70 Google Scholar.
12 See Bradford Burns, E., “Tradition and Variation in Brazilian Foreign Policy,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 9 (April 1967): 203 Google Scholar; and Quadros, Janio, “Brazil's New Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs 40 (October 1961): 26 Google Scholar.
13 The New York Times, 30 October 1962, p. 16; 9 November 1962, p. 2.
14 Group A was composed of Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, and Uruguay.
15 At the First Session, Guatemala sent an observer instead of a fully accredited delegate. Cuba sent neither a delegate nor an observer.
16 Group B was composed of El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru.
17 Group C was composed of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
18 Robles, García, Denuclearization, pp. 82–84 Google Scholar. All references to this work refer to official Acts of the Preparatory Commission, which are reproduced therein. 19 The New York Times, 19 July 1965, p. 8.
20 Robles, García, Denuclearization, pp. 92–93 Google Scholar.
21 Ibid., pp. 96-106.
22 Ibid., pp. 117-130.
23 Ibid., pp. 128-29. Also, see “Issues before the 21st General Assembly,” International Conciliation, no. 559 (September 1966), pp. 34-36, for a general statement of the similarities and differences in the two drafts.
24 Robles, García, Denuclearization, p. 113 Google Scholar.
25 The New York Times, 17 April 1966, p. 28.
26 The name of the treaty derives from the area of Mexico City where the Preparatory Commission met and the treaty was signed. The full text of the treaty with protocols is reproduced in Bader, William B., The United States and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Pegasus, 1968), pp. 146–165 Google Scholar. For the complete texts of the rival drafts that were reconciled by the compromise, see Robles, Garcia, Denuclearization, pp. 117–130 Google Scholar.
27 Bowser, Hallowell, “Denuclearization in Latin America,” Saturday Review (20 May 1967), p. 32 Google Scholar.
28 The New York Times, 13 February 1967, p. 1. At the same time, Moscow has indicated a conditional willingness to undertake the obligations contained in Protocol II, the condition being that other nuclear powers do the same. In reporting this Soviet position, the Chairman of the Preparatory Commission stressed that “the statement did not say all nuclear powers, but other nuclear powers must adhere if the Soviet Union were to do likewise. The implication was clear to the delegates that the Russians would not insist upon Chinese ratification of the protocol before accepting it themselves.” (The Denuclearization of Latin America: Implications for Arms Control, a study prepared for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency [Los Angeles: Security Studies Project, University of California, 30 June 1968], pp. 49-50. Hereafter this work is cited as: Denuclearization: Implications for Arms Control.)
29 See Halperin, Morton H. and Perkins, Dwight H., Communist China and Arms Control (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 119 Google Scholar.
30 The New York Times, 2 October 1966. The Chinese government stated that “while China would never ‘at any time and under any circumstances be the first to use nuclear weapons,’ Peking could not support a treaty which was so clearly the end result of General Assembly activities, for the UN ‘has violated all the rights of the People's Republic of China in the world organization'; furthermore, ‘the denuclearization of zones bordering on the United States … will serve no purpose if the latter continues to maintain nuclear weapons in its territory and in its Latin American bases.'” (Denuclearization: Implications for Arms Control, p. 50.)
31 See “Issues Before the 22nd General Assembly,” International Conciliation, no. 564 (September 1967), p. 43.
32 The New York Times, 27 October 1967, p. 13.
33 Whitaker, Arthur P. and Jordan, David C., Nationalism in Contemporary Latin America (New York: The Free Press, 1966), p. 188 Google Scholar.
34 Burr, Robert N., Our Troubled Hemisphere: Perspectives on United States-Latin American Relations (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1967), p. 79 Google Scholar.
35 This argument is made in Glick, Edward Bernard, “The Feasibility of Arms Control and Disarmament in Latin America,” Orbis 9 (Fall 1965): 757 Google Scholar.
36 The revised U.S. military policy toward Latin America is dealt with in Lieuwen, Edwin, Generals vs. Presidents: Neo-Militarism in Latin America (New York: Praeger, 1964), especially pp. 124–126 Google Scholar. See also Lacy, James F., “United States Military Policy Toward Latin America: An Analysis of a Change” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Tulane University, 1968)Google Scholar.
37 Pye, Lucian, “Armies in the process of Political Modernization,” in Johnson, John J., ed., The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), pp. 78–80 Google Scholar.
38 Schelling, Thomas C., Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. v.Google Scholar
39 Kemp, Geoffrey, “Arms Sales and Arms Control in Developing Countries,” The World Today 22 (September 1966): 391 Google Scholar.
40 Schmitt, Karl M. and Burks, David D., Evolution or Chaos: Dynamics of Latin American Government and Politics (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 37–38 Google ScholarPubMed.
41 Johnson, , Military and Society, p. 239 Google Scholar.
42 Dyke, Vernon Van, International Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966), p. 163 Google Scholar.
43 Padelford, Norman J. and Lincoln, George A., The Dynamics of International Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 15 Google Scholar.
44 Bader, , Spread of Nuclear Weapons, p. 116 Google Scholar.
45 Quoted in Alfonso García Robles, “The Treaty of Tlatelolco: Origin, Purposes and Scope of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America,” in Herge, Henry C., ed., Disarmament in the Western World, Conference Proceedings on the Occasion of the 23rd Anniversary of the United Nations, Occasional Publications, no. 1 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Latin American Institute, Rutgers University, June 1969), p. 37 Google Scholar.
46 The lack of progress in implementing the agreement is very, very briefly discussed by former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, Linowitz, Sol M., in New Directions for the 1970's: Toward a Strategy of Inter-American Development, Hearings, Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, U.S. Congress, 91st Cong. 1st sess., 1969, pp. 342–343 Google Scholar.
