Abstract

Chaos in the Caribbean: Our Zig-Zag Policy

The Caribbean zone is vulnerable because the U.S., which for over a century has controlled and directed its destinies, today operates there without a policy. Although a first team of diplomats occupy strategic posts, thanks largely to the efforts of U.S. Senator Wayne Morse and his subcommittee investigating inter-American affairs, they go unarmed with either political or economic weapons. Unless a clear-cut policy is adopted, there is danger that the U.S. may walk into one or both of two traps that have been prepared. The first is to provoke its military intervention. This is the purpose of the filibustering expeditions of the kind which invaded Panama and Honduras recently, and which last week invaded Nicaragua.