THE RIGHT BOOKS

Since the 1950s, Latin-Americanists in the United States have permitted their suspicion of “McCarthyite” rhetoric to abet their naïveté in regard to the modus operandi of the Soviet Union abroad, with the result that they have felt themselves justified in dismissing claims of Communist subversion in “their” countries. In The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $24.75), Howard J. Wiarda and Mark Falcoff, with Ernest Evans and Jiri and Virginia Valenta, write with a distinct purpose in mind. “The Soviet Union is emerging as a serious presence in Latin America that must be assessed factually, prudently, and realistically. It will do us little good as a nation for our policy either to overstate or to understate the Soviet role. . . . Our purpose here … is to provide a reasoned, calm, dispassionate, and, we think, realistic analysis and assessment.”

The contributors to this volume believe that the Soviet Union—since the 1950s but more particularly since the 1970s—has been what Howard Wiarda calls a “rising presence” in Latin America: an area the Kremlin nevertheless considers to be of “secondary importance” to its overall global strategy. Through the 1950s, the USSR contented itself for the most part with giving limited aid to scattered Communist insurgencies in the region— “its commitments, activities, and enthusiasms for Latin America were not very great.” Following its completely unlooked-for receipt of Cuba-on-a-platter at the very end of that decade, Moscow began to search eagerly for other revolutionary heroes similar to Castro, in the hope that they too might prove capable of delivering to the cause of world socialism something for nothing, or almost nothing. Thus, while in Washington the State Department was determinedly muttering about “no second Cubas,” the Soviet Union was busily trying to provide it with a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth Cuba. The defeat and death of Che Guevara in Bolivia, however, made the Soviets wiser, quieter, and much more subtle maneuverers, as Mr. Evans and the Valentas argue in their contributions:

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Since the 1950s, Latin-Americanists in the United States have permitted their suspicion of “McCarthyite” rhetoric to abet their naïveté in regard to the modus operandi of the Soviet Union abroad, with the result that they have felt themselves justified in dismissing claims of Communist subversion in “their” countries. In The Communist Challenge in the Caribbean and Central America (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $24.75), Howard J. Wiarda and Mark Falcoff, with Ernest Evans and Jiri and Virginia Valenta, write with a distinct purpose in mind. “The Soviet Union is emerging as a serious presence in Latin America that must be assessed factually, prudently, and realistically. It will do us little good as a nation for our policy either to overstate or to understate the Soviet role. . . . Our purpose here … is to provide a reasoned, calm, dispassionate, and, we think, realistic analysis and assessment.”

The contributors to this volume believe that the Soviet Union—since the 1950s but more particularly since the 1970s—has been what Howard Wiarda calls a “rising presence” in Latin America: an area the Kremlin nevertheless considers to be of “secondary importance” to its overall global strategy. Through the 1950s, the USSR contented itself for the most part with giving limited aid to scattered Communist insurgencies in the region— “its commitments, activities, and enthusiasms for Latin America were not very great.” Following its completely unlooked-for receipt of Cuba-on-a-platter at the very end of that decade, Moscow began to search eagerly for other revolutionary heroes similar to Castro, in the hope that they too might prove capable of delivering to the cause of world socialism something for nothing, or almost nothing. Thus, while in Washington the State Department was determinedly muttering about “no second Cubas,” the Soviet Union was busily trying to provide it with a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth Cuba. The defeat and death of Che Guevara in Bolivia, however, made the Soviets wiser, quieter, and much more subtle maneuverers, as Mr. Evans and the Valentas argue in their contributions: