Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

by Jonathan Blitzer

The US government had never taken a serious interest in El Salvador, but after the Cuban Revolution, in 1959, concern over the spread of communism led to a new posture in the region. The Kennedy administration created a military command center, called SOUTHCOM, to coordinate so-called counterinsurgency operations carried out by special forces throughout Latin America. Modeled on American maneuvers in Vietnam, these activities were conceived as “guerrilla” actions “in support of the state.” The American paradigm posed an immediate dilemma for ordinary Salvadorans. The state itself was wildly repressive, but the US advisers who were training and arming it considered any public opposition to be grounds for a militarized response.