Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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responding to pressures from the oligarchy and the United States, staged
a countercoup,” a foretaste of what was to come 20 years later. The US
Embassy urged support for the military regime, stating that the internal
security forces are behind the present government, are strongly anti-
Communist, and constitute major force for stability and orderly political
and economic development.” Their rule was necessitated by “subversive
anti-government activities” such as “underground propaganda,” the
Embassy explained, offering an insight into the concept of “subversion”
as understood by the Kennedy liberals. Dr. Fabio Castillo, a former
president of the National University, testified before Congress that the
US had openly participated in the countercoup and had opposed the
holding of free elections. 29 The conservative junta was quickly
recognized by President Kennedy, whose preference for civil-military
regimes was noted earlier (chapter 2, end of section 2), after they had
“pledged to take tough actions against the students [who had protested
against the outlawing of political parties, the main proof offered of a
Communist plot], cut relations with Castro, and warmly welcomed
foreign investment.” The trends of earlier years continued: production,
including food production, increased, largely for export, along with
starvation and general misery. These trends were enhanced by the
Alliance for Progress programs of Kennedy and Johnson. By 1969,
300,000 Salvadorans (one in eight citizens) had fled to Honduras to
find food and work. Military aid rapidly increased along with US training
and coordination of the military and other security forces of the region. 30
The threat of such subversive acts as distributing propaganda, which
justified support of a military dictatorship in 1961, still remains an
unsolved problem. “Christian Democrats have recently acknowledged
with candor the immediate threat that political accommodation with the
rebels could pose,” Sam Dillon of the Miami Herald reports. The
problem, as explained by one of President Duarte’s aides, is that “Six