A REPORT ON THE 'LEFT' IN LATIN AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200180017-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 6, 2000
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: March 1, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

NO IUD PENDENT
1 D X00001 ROO
A mer ? ~e "L~ v" In Lain A neriea .
~~ w~..-~-,.,+ ,r n r JIB
gress. TI `s
CPYRGHT (The following is a cpcr~ rom a book in pro
,,u,hnr i.< washineton's only fulllime Latin American
In January, in 'Havana, coinciding with the beginning o e
of the Cuban Revolution and the holding of the Tricontinental Congress
of Friendship among the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, mem-
bers of the Chilean delegation invited Fidel Castro to send some repre-
sentatives to the 40th anniversary-celebrations of the founding of the
Chilean Communist Party.
"There isn't much to celebrate in 40 gears out of power," replied
Fidel. "I'll personally come when you celebrate some anniversary in power."
11. 1
,(mostly Latin American military), dedu- -r-..N
-1
cat.ed, as they say, "t' eradicate Com- : -.. .
to any other Latin American country to
celebrate any anniversary of a Comniu-
,nist rnment, are very remote indeed.
The IA agrees. In a report written by,,,,
r gent liatd'TM1Ctthias and counter-
sTg?iicd-by Sherman'ICerit, Chairman of ,the
BOard'of National Estimates. of the ;CPA;
and i;eccntly seen by this writer it ` is
stated that: "The Communist parties in,
Latin America are in their greater part.
uilde'r'Moscow=oriented leaders incapable
ot'overthrowing any regime or to, influ-
ence them strongly and have proven large- i
:ly incapable of gaining mass support."
%The Matthias Report is realistic in most
of its estimates of the "Communist dan-
ger" in Latin America, largely in the
sense that it fails to find the kind of dan-
ger drummed up in public speeches by
Administration officials and the neuras-
thenic pronouncements of the Organiza-
tion of American States.
A reading of the periodic reports of the
Special Consultative Committee on Secur-
ity of the OAS, for example,. clearly
shows to what extreme, a group of men
The chances of Fidel going to Chile or v11~1V~
munism from the Americas," ensnare
themselves in their own peculiar ghost,
"The political elements that offer the
most serious danger to the existing re-
gimes, being of the traditionalist or pro-
gressive character," says the Matthias
Report, "are not those that call them-
selves Communist or Castroites, but those
of nationalist left that blame their own
difficulties and those of their countries on
what they believe is an alliance between
foreign capitalism-particularly Ameri-
can-and the landowners, military lend-
ers and native political adventurers."
Nonetheless, Carlos Angulo Rueda, one
of the original lights in the Security Com-
mittee of the OAS, expressed to this
th f 11 n uideline ? "To us it
we
t
Ap
er e o o
g g
wri
does not matter whether the elements that have their consciences at ease.
e in the Latin Their rationalization is not very dif
l chan
di
t
d
g
ca
e a ra
voca
a
'American structures call themselves ent from that of certain segregationi is
Communists, Marxists, nationalists of the who mark as "Communist inspired" r
'left, or any other label they militate un- "Communist dupes" anyone and any me s
der. All of them threaten constituted au- ure taken to change the status quo in e
'thorities and our Christian way of life. U.S. South.
All of them must be dealt with vigorously Juan Bautista de Lavalle, the chairm n.
as Communists." of the so-called "Lavalle Committee" t it
The bitter attacks on the A% 1. "nationalists created the Special Security Commit e
roved;?i?f'1G1`aa7-' QQ~~,~~SS re ommended a aeries f
Q ~i~Hb~Y Oa Qe 74 a ended draft In r-,
tenure as Assistant . Secretary. of .State American.. anti-Commuhlst code, that e'
dent Kennedy's Administration, and co, -
tinued by Mr. Thomas C. Mann while e
"These,., orcgS .GSays.,,t .e.N~,]A., reLO.rt
are represented, for instance, by the Pe -
onist tradition. in. Argentina and Brizo a
group in Brazil; their program is strong-
ly anti-US, leftist in its ideology a rd
demagogic in method."
To any one following the developme t
of the "hemispheric defenses against t e ,
Communist threat," it appears that, o
matter the origin or character of t 1e
threat, if it is a threat, it is labeled "Co i-
munist" under the assumption that it w 11
give the existing regimes a free hand