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The Roosevelt Foreign-Policy Establishment and the "Good Neighbor": The United States and Argentina, 1941-1945

1980; Oxford University Press; Volume: 85; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1855115

1937-5239

Thomas L. Karnes, Randall Bennett Woods,

Brazilian History and Foreign Policy

The Good Nei.ghbor Policy and Argentine Neutralism by Roosevelt's intervention into Cuban affairs and by his treatment of Colombia in regard to the Panama Canal, but they were even more alarmed by the president's overall attitude toward the hemispheric community, an attitude that was characterized by obsession with power and insensitivity to the rights of weaker nations. 5 Responsibility for Roosevelt's empire in the Caribbean fell to his handpicked successor, William Howard Taft.Even more than Roosevelt, Taft and his secretary of state, Philander Knox, believed that in order to preserve Latin America as a reliable field for investment and to protect United States strategic interests in the area, they would have to restrict European influence to an absolute minimum.Taft and Knox perceived, however, that the Roosevelt Corollary, if interpreted literally, would impose an awesome burden on the United States and would lead to frequent armed intervention, something they ardently hoped to avoid.Knox's solution to the problem of how to protect American interests south of the Rio Grande without maintaining permanent marine garrisons throughout the hemisphere was a curious blend of corporate finance and strong-arm imperialism.The secretary of state persuaded Taft that if the United States could displace Latin American indebtedness from Europe to the United States, the threat of foreign meddling would vanish, along with the need for American intervention.Unfortunately, United States financiers proved to be just as anxious about the security of their investments as were their European counterparts.Once they had been persuaded to invest in Latin American stocks and bonds, they demanded that Washington use whatever force was necessary to ensure stability and regularity of interest payments.Thus, while dollar diplomacy was designed to facilitate United States control of the Western Hemisphere and while it perhaps reduced the threat of nonhemispheric interference, the policy also led to massive military intervention and so to mounting alienation in Latin America. 6 In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt, enraged by his successor's handling of America's Caribbean and Far Eastern empires as well as his neglect of the Rooseveltian domestic programs, challenged Taft for the presidency and, in so doing, hopelessly split the Republican party.As a result, Woodrow Wilson became the second Democrat to enter the White House since the Civil War.Wilson brought a new style to foreign affairs and new objectives to the Latin American policy of the United States.This former academician believed that the basic drive behind American foreign policy should 2 LATIN AMERICANIST VS.INTERNATIONALIST: THE RIO CONFERENCE OF 1942Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war on the United States by Germany and Italy set in motion the inter-American machinery for consultation on joint action against the enemies of the hemisphere.On 9 December 1941, Secretary of State Cordell Hull invoked Article Fifteen of the Havana Resolutions, which declared that any attempt by a nonhemi-.sphericstate to violate the territorial integrity, political independence, or national sovereignty of any American nation would be considered an act of aggression against all and would result in consultation among the signatory powers.In response, the Governing Board of the Pan-American Union scheduled a meeting for 15 January 1942, to be held in Rio de Janeiro.1 The conference, like the two preceding inter-American conclaves, was highlighted by a clash between Argentina and the United States over two issues: hemispheric policy toward World War II and the nature of the inter-American consultative system established during the 1930s.As in the past, Argentina demanded the right to remain neutral and insisted that the Inter-American System should be nothing more than a forum for discussion.The United States sought to have all American states sever relations with the Axis and urged that the consultative system be converted into a collectivesecurity organization.Despite this basic divergence and the crisis atmosphere created by the United States' sudden entry into the war, hemispheric unity was preserved as Argentine and American diplomats agreed to a resolution that merely recommended to each American republic that it sever relations with the Axis nations.Both Washington's decision to acquiesce in Argentina's insistence on a nonbinding pact and its refusal to isolate Argentina within the hemispheric community were the outgrowth of a power