Diplomacy from the Bottom Up: U.S.-Chilean Relations in the 1960s

Book Reviews : 227 doi: 10.1093/dh/dhab072 Advance Access publication on October 11, 2021 á n g e l a v e r g a r a Sebastian Hurtado-Torres. The Gathering Storm: Eduardo Frei’s Revolution in Liberty and Chile’s Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. 270 pp. $49.95 (hardcover). The history of U.S.-Latin American relations during the long 1960s has long attracted diplomatic scholars. The aftermath of the Cuban Revolution (1959), U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic (1965) are pivotal chapters in the history of the global Cold War. In The Gathering Storm, Sebastian Hurtado-Torres contributes to this growing literature by focusing on U.S.-Chilean foreign relations during the administration of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964–1970). If historians have traditionally studied the role played by the CIA and covert interventions in destabilizing countries and supporting right-wing dictatorships, HurtadoTorres turns to diplomatic relations, the daily work of U.S. ambassadors, and economic negotiations. Based on archival documents from the U.S. Department of State and three presidential libraries (Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon), and a wide range of Chilean diplomatic and political sources, the author offers a solid and well-written analysis of how U.S. diplomacy worked on the ground. The book covers the period from the presidential election of 1964 to the election of Salvador Allende, Chile’s democratically-elected socialist president, in 1970. Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat, was elected president of Chile in September 1964. A popular, Catholic, democratic, and anti-communist political leader, Frei’s style and presidential program resonated with the U.S. political and economic agenda for Latin America. In the context of the Alliance for Progress, Chile became a “model partner” and worked closely with U.S. diplomats. This relationship led to considerable economic and political support, and the country received, between 1964–1970, about $420 million in aid and program loans from the United States. The United States, however, conditioned economic assistance on Chile’s commitment to maintain fiscal balance and avoid resorting to inflationary policies. C The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for V Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/46/1/237/6380913 by guest on 29 January 2022 Diplomacy from the Bottom Up: U.S.-Chilean Relations in the 1960s 228 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/46/1/237/6380913 by guest on 29 January 2022 As Hurtado-Torres unfolds the history of Chilean-U.S. relations throughout the second half of the 1960s, he develops three main arguments. First, he demonstrates that Chile’s Christian Democratic Party and the Johnson administration viewed economic modernization through a similar lens. This shared view and language, as well as a shared anti-communism, became the basis of fluid dialogues and channeled a stream of economic aid. Hurtado-Torres’s second argument, and the most significant historiographical and methodological contribution of the book, is that the U.S. embassy in Chile played a vital but “informal” role in national politics. He provides a detailed reconstruction of the embassy’s world and the ambassadors’ personalities, showing the importance of looking at diplomatic relations from the ground and the bottom-up. Third, despite these relatively peaceful and diplomatic confluences, the United States contributed to polarizing the country. On the eve of the election of Salvador Allende, the United States had returned to its traditional methods, and Chile became an example not of diplomatic encounters but of CIA intervention. In an engaging political and chronological narrative, Hurtado-Torres reveals how Chilean and U.S. diplomats struggled to cooperate and advance their interests in a time of rapid national and global polarization. He starts with the election of 1964. Documents from the U.S. Department of State offer a glimpse of how diplomats viewed Chile and worked to influence different political leaders. Despite the early success of U.S. involvement in local politics, intervention, especially traditional CIA tactics, had its risks. As Hurtado-Torres explains, leftist political parties quickly denounced the foreign meddling in national elections, contributing to undermining U.S. regional influence. During the “years of hope” (1964–1967), the government accomplished its most emblematic reforms, including the beginning of the process of Agrarian Reform, the rural unionization law, and the first phase of the Chileanization of copper. To understand how Chilean-U.S. relations worked during these years, the author turns to Ralph Dungan, a Catholic and progressive foreign servant, who served as U.S. ambassador to Chile between 1964 and 1967. Dungan worked closely with Frei and the Christian Democrats, and the author shows how his style and background shaped diplomatic relations. By the end of 1967, an economic recession and a severe drought threatened the government’s reformist agenda. Social turmoil and strikes increased, as also did government repression. This shift coincided with U.S. foreign policy changes, the end of the Johnson administration, and the election of Richard Nixon. At the local level, the appointment of Edward Korry as U.S. ambassador to Chile in 1967 ended a period of fluid dialogue. Hurtado-Torres does an outstanding job contrasting both ambassadors and their different political strategies. While Dungan connected with Christian Democratic leaders both at a personal and intellectual level, Korry developed a new set of relations and strategies with right-wing political figures. Growing economic pressures and social mobilization contributed to destabilizing the government and politicized the economic discussion, especially wage readjustment bills. As Nixon rose to Book Reviews : 229 doi: 10.1093/dh/dhab070 Advance Access publication on October 4, 2021 theresa keeley The Catholic Turn in Conservative U.S. Circles D.G. Hart. American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. 280 pp. $29.95 (hardcover). In American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War, D.G. Hart explores how post-World War II politically conservative Catholics, “primarily in the world of opinion journalism and magazines, made Americanism safe for the church” and “political conservatism (especially the Republican party) plausible to Roman Catholics” (7). Hart labels these Catholics “neo-Americanists” to distinguish them from those of the nineteenth century (xi). Although Phyllis C The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for V Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/46/1/237/6380913 by guest on 29 January 2022 power, the Christian Democrats lost an ally. Nixon confronted a completely different scenario in Chile, and both the internal tensions within the government party and the campaign of Salvador Allende signaled the end of the United States’ “model partner” period. The Gathering Storm is a fascinating and well-researched book that contributes to our understanding of the multiple layers of U.S. foreign policy. Hurtado-Torres is at his best in analyzing the nuance of diplomatic relations from the work of the ambassadors to the political negotiations over foreign loans. But he also cautions historians not to look at this story as a one-way relationship. His detailed analysis of Chilean politics, elections, and congressional debates shows how progressive leaders, such as the Christian Democrats, shaped diplomatic relations. While the imbalance of power between Chile and the United States is unquestionable, Hurtado-Torres reveals how Chileans renegotiated foreign loans and, such as in the case of U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, asserted a critical voice in global politics. As with any good book, this one also raises many questions for further research. For example, more research is needed on the interplay between diplomacy and non-state actors such as non-profit organizations, investors, and international agencies. While Hurtado-Torres focuses on economic modernization, more could be done in terms of social and cultural programs. The Frei administration’s political agenda targeted the urban poor, women, students, and rural workers. Placing these actors and concerns into the broader history of U.S.-Chilean relations would also shed light into the transnational history of modernization.