Over the past two centuries, the United States has repeatedly carried out military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean. Many of these operations have been coordinated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was founded in 1947. However, during the Cold War, the US financed several operations aimed at overthrowing elected left-wing leaders in the region.
1950s in Guatemala In 1954, elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was toppled by local fighter groups backed by the CIA under US President Dwight Eisenhower. Under the CIA's Operation PBSuccess, the agency trained fighters led by military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who took power after the coup. Arbenz had sought to nationalize a company, stoking fears within the US of more socialist policies in Guatemala.
1960s in Cuba In 1959, Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro came to power after overthrowing Dictator Fulgencio Batista. Under Eisenhower, the CIA devised a plan to train Cuban exiles to invade the country and overthrow Castro. In 1961, Kennedy signed off on the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a plan for the Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. However, the invasion failed when the Cuban military overwhelmed them. Castro found out about the training camps through Cuban intelligence.
1960s in Brazil In 1961, Joao Goulart came to office as president of Brazil, with a mandate to pursue social and economic reforms. The US government greatly increased military aid to Brazil. This undermined Goulart’s leadership, culminating in a military coup in 1964, which established a US-friendly dictatorship that would last until 1985.
1960s and 70s in Bolivia Between 1963 and 1964, the US used covert funding, largely through the CIA, to influence Bolivia’s politics. The funding backed leaders who were friendly to the US, and supported a military coup in November 1964 led by General Rene Barrientos Ortuno against elected President Victor Paz Estenssoro. The coup was successful and forced Paz Estenssoro into exile. However, the US was not done interfering in Bolivia. This time, the target was President Juan Jose Torres, who had come to power in 1970 and had nationalized multiple US companies in the country. The White House secretly sought, and received, $410,000 ($3.3m in today’s money) in what critics within the administration described as “coup money” to finance military leaders and political leaders opposed to Torres. Two months later, senior military officer Hugo Banzer led a successful coup against Torres. The US continued to fund Banzer’s government, which ruled until 1978.
1970s in Chile The CIA provided funding to help end the presidency of Salvador Allende, an elected leftist leader. Allende had planned to nationalize Chilean copper companies, many of which were owned by US interests. The CIA funding was used to back Allende’s opponent and spread anti-communist sentiment. Backed by the US, Pinochet toppled Allende in a coup d’etat on September 11, 1973 and led the country in a dictatorship until 1990.
1970s: Operation Condor in Six Countries In 1975, the CIA supported right-wing military dictatorships in six Latin American countries by setting up a transnational network called Operation Condor. Targeted countries included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. The operation was aimed at crushing political dissidents, leftists and communist sympathizers. Under the operation, at least 97 people were killed, according to Plan Condor, a joint initiative by Latin American organizations and the University of Oxford. The dictatorships used a shared database to monitor dissidents and their families across state borders.
1980s in Grenada By the early 1980s, the US was worried about Cuban influence in Grenada. Maurice Bishop, the prime minister of the tiny Caribbean island, had adopted Marxist-Leninist policies after seizing power himself in 1979 when the previous premier, Eric Gairy, was out of the country. As bloody in-fighting broke out within Bishop’s party over a leadership struggle in October 1983, the US swooped in an operation codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, invading the country, capturing Cubans in Grenada and ensuring that the country’s future was aligned with US priorities.
1980s in Panama The US invaded Panama in 1989 during the US presidency of George HW Bush, a Republican. The invasion was called Operation Just Cause. The US underplayed the death toll and justified the invasion, saying it was carried out to remove President Manuel Noriega for alleged drug trafficking.
1980s in El Salvador The US government greatly increased military aid to El Salvador between 1980 and 1982. This was during El Salvador’s civil war of 1980-92. In December 1981, the Salvadoran military’s elite Atlacatl Battalion conducted a deadly massacre in the village of El Mozote, killing about 1,000 civilians, including women and children.
Quote: “In the end, the CIA owned almost everybody who was anybody in Ecuador,” a CIA agent told analyst Roger Morris later, in a 2004 CIA-approved appraisal of the agency’s activities in Latin America.
