SAIS Review

INTERVIEW WITH _ RICHARD R. FAGEN Richard R. Fagen is GildredProfessor ofLatin American Studies at Stanford University and the author of numerous publications on Latin America. His firsthand experience in the area has included resident teaching assignments in both Chile and Mexico, and five visits to Nicaragua during and after the insurrection ofJune-July 1979. In the following interview, conducted in February and May 1981, Professor Fagen discussed changing conditions in the Caribbean Basin countries and U.S. policy interests in the region. Questioning Professor Fagen was Kathryn Waters, a 1981 SAIS graduate in Latin American studies and member ofthe SAIS Review staff. SAIS Review: In your book, Latin America and the United States: The Changing Political Realities,'you argue that the United States has continued to maintain an interventionistpolicy towardLatinAmerica, albeit in a more subtle form than overt military action. Do you think that the Carter administration made any incremental steps toward a less statusquo policy in the Caribbean area? FAGEN: If by a less status-quo policy you mean that they did things that encouraged or resulted in certain changes, the answer is "yes." Certainly in Nicaragua, the fact that they disassociated themselves, finally, from the Somoza regime was clearly a change in the status quo. In other cases, for instance with respect to Cuba, after an initial flurry ofspeculation that something would be done to change the relationship with Cuba, they did nothing. Ifanything, they toughened up. So it really depends on what country, or even what time, we are talking about. SAIS Review: I was thinkingprimarily ofhow you described the history of U.S. policy as being status-quo oriented in wanting to maintain dominance in the hemisphere; for instance, despite the disassociation 1 Richard R. Fagen and Julio Cotler (Eds.), LatinAmericaand the United States: The Changing Political Realities (Stanford, CaI.: Stanford University Press, 1974). 49 50 SAIS REVIEW with Somoza, that the United States would still try to wield influence in the Nicaraguan arena. FAGEN: Oh, absolutely. I think that the Carter administration didn't make a dramatic break with the long tradition of attempts to exercise U.S. hegemony in the Caribbean Basin. That's perfectly obvious in the El Salvadoran situation where the Carter administration was profoundly interventionist. It essentially shaped the first junta in the fall of 1979, and of course continued to turn, or at least tried to turn, that particular sow's ear into a silk purse. SAIS Review: The increased incidence ofarmed confrontation and revolution in Central America and the Caribbean in the last two years seems to reflect a demand for radical change from intolerable conditions. Have the transitions in Grenada and Nicaragua, and earlier in Cuba, encouraged guerrilla activity elsewhere in the Caribbean such as El Salvador? What conditions determine the success or failure of offensives directed against a government in power? FAGEN: Well, as to the first part ofthe question, it's clear that successful insurgencies and revolutionary activity ofthe sort that was carried on in Nicaragua give heart to similar movements elsewhere. There's little enough to cheer about from the viewpoint of the left, and when something like Nicaragua happens it gives heart to people struggling against various forms ofoppression in other places. As to the second part ofthe question, it depends on what one means by "encouraged guerrilla activity." Ifone means that in the sense, for instance, that those in the U. S. government, in the media, in academic life, and elsewhere mean when they see the "hand of the Cubans" and the "hand of the Nicaraguans " behind every insurgent movement, then the answer has to be "No." In fact, what is striking about the tumultuous Caribbean Basin is how little overt and demonstrated Cuban- and Nicaraguan-inspired guerrilla activity there is. One of the things that many people in Washington have trouble believing is that insurgent movements are basically nationalistic and indigenous movements, and that it doesn't take a Nicaragua or a Cuba to make those movements come into being or to sustain themselves. SAIS Review: Would you say that the publicity about boats with arms and men landing in El Salvador from Nicaragua was exaggerated or misinterpreted by government people...