![handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry99 and id is 1 raw text is:
The Reagan Administration and
Revolutions in Central America
WALTER LAFEBER
Recent U.S. presidents have won office less for having proved their
talent in governing than for an ability to soothe. These presidents have resembled
the clergy welcomed by a tragedy-stricken family. Richard Nixon's mysterious
plan for peace helped him defeat the Vietnam-tarred ticket led by Hubert
Humphrey. Jimmy Carter's non-Washington background seemed a welcome
relief after the chicanery of Watergate and the Nixon pardon. Ronald Reagan
offered both congeniality (a welcome contrast to Carter's up-tight insecurity)
and a soothing traditionalism that promised the triumph of the nation's past
over the complexities of its future.
In no foreign policy area has Reagan's traditionalism been more apparent than
in Central America. And no area needed more attention. His ambassador to the
United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, warned in early 1981 that Central America
is the most important place in the world for the United States today. Many
North Americans seemed to share that view, at least in 1980. Reagan consequent-
ly ran on a Republican platform that deplored the Marxist Sandinista takeover
of Nicaragua and the Marxist attempts to destabilize El Salvador, Guatemala,
and Honduras. The plank condemned Carter's offer of aid to the Nicaraguans.
The platform then warned of possible future action: However, we
[Republicans] will support the efforts of the Nicaraguan people to establish a
free and independent government.' Arguing that foreign devils and ideologies
were to blame for Nicaraguan troubles, these words ignored reality. If Central
The text is found in the New York Times, 13 July 1980.
WALTER LAFEBER is the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History at Cornell Univer-
sity. His books include America, Russia, and the Cold War (in four editions), The Panama Canal:
The Crisis in Historical Perspective, The New Empire, and Inevitable Revolutions: The United States
in Central America, from which this article is adapted.
Political Science Quarterly Volume 99 Number I Spring 1984](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/pclscceqry99&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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