An Unclear Menace: U.S. Perceptions of Soviet Strategy in Latin America

Abstract

Both the 1985 movie, Red Dawn, and the 1987 ABC television miniseries, Amerika, portrayed a Soviet takeover of the United States with Communist troops from Latin American nations. The issue of “international Communism” in Latin America reared its head numerous times during the late 1920s and 1930s, but it never became a major concern in the United States. The administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt was even more reluctant to intervene directly in Latin America. In Chile, the formation in 1938 of a Popular Front cabinet, which included ministers from the Communist party, failed to elicit serious concern. The influence of the Cold War on US relations with Latin America became obvious during the 1947 Inter-American Conference on the Maintenance of Continental Peace and Security, popularly known as the Rio Conference. The American public paid little attention to the Communist threat in Latin America during the 1940s.