Brief history of U.S. interventions in Latin America, Caribbean : NPR
NPR••general
Key Points:
- The U.S. has a long history of intervention in the Caribbean and Latin America, rooted in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and expanded under President Theodore Roosevelt to justify unilateral military actions to protect U.S. interests and counter foreign influence, particularly communism during the Cold War.
- Key interventions include the 1954 CIA-backed coup in Guatemala that overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, leading to decades of repression; the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion aimed at toppling Fidel Castro in Cuba, which escalated Cold War tensions; and the 1983 invasion of Grenada to counter Cuban influence, which resulted in stable democratic governance.
- The U.S. covertly supported the Nicaraguan Contras
