A Study of Ronald Reagan's Central

The Effects of Ideological Conformity on Foreign Policymaking: A study of Ronald Reagan’s Central American Policy A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (or Science) in the Faculty of Arts and Science Trent University Peterborough, Ontario, Canada © Emmett Brownscombe, 2016 History M.A. Graduate Program September 2016 Abstract The Effects of Ideological Conformity on Foreign Policymaking: A Study of Ronald Reagan’s Central American Policy Emmett Brownscombe During the 1970s, ideological divisions caused by divergent interpretations of the American failure in Vietnam permeated the world of foreign policymaking. This led to a concern among the architects of the Reagan administration that foreign policymaking had become incoherent. They attempted to mitigate the effects of this disharmony by re-establishing a workable degree of ideological conformity within the foreign policy bureaucracy. This thesis focuses on the strategy used to improve ideological conformity and its effect on the foreign policy bureaucracy’s ability to produce well informed policy. Using case studies of two of Reagan’s ambassadors to Central America, it argues that Reagan’s strategy created a foreign policy bureaucracy that manufactured uninformed policy. The influence granted to officials who based their recommendations on regional expertise was severely curtailed. This shift produced a subsequent change in diplomatic prac- tice, as foreign service officers adapted to the demand for allegiance to the president’s agenda. Keywords: Reagan Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy Making, Pezzullo, Negroponte, U.S.-Central American Diplomacy, Foreign Service ii Acknowledgments Among the multitude of people who deserve thanks for their contributions to this research project, my supervisor, Dr. David Sheinin, merits special mention. When David first suggested that he thought I would be capable of completing a masters level research project, I quietly wondered how a man so intelligent could be so wrong. But, I put my trust in David at a time when I did not trust my- self, and I am immensely thankful for his encouragement and belief in me. With- out his expert advice and unwavering patience, this project gets nowhere close to completion. I apologize for missing every submission deadline we ever set. I would also like to thank the other members of my supervisory committee, Dr. Robert Wright and Dr. Finis Dunaway, whose constructive advice and attention to detail have greatly enriched the content of these pages. Dr. Jennine Hurl-Ea- mon, and the Graduate History program’s secretary, Catherine O’Brien, also deserve mention for their help in guiding me through the procedural process of completing this project. This thesis was made possible by the efforts of the archivists at the Na- tional Security Archive, whose curated digital collections allowed a student in a cramped apartment in Peterborough, Ontario, to gain a more intimate under- standing of the characters behind Ronald Reagan’s Central American policy. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of the Bata Library at Trent University, who processed a never ending stream of interlibrary loan requests and helped me learn the ways of the mysterious microfiche. The staff of Robarts library at the University of Toronto are also owed thanks for helping to transform a lost visiting graduate student into a master of the stacks. Finally, in accordance with the well established conventions of acknowl- edgement section writing, I am obligated to disclose my appreciation for my family’s limitless love and support. My father took regular breaks from his retire- ment bliss to offer me helpful editorial feedback. I owe what work ethic I pos- sess to my devoted mother, while my overachieving brothers are a constant source of pride and inspiration for me. I am also infinitely grateful for the love and support of my girlfriend, Danielle, and her family. Danielle’s experience teaching kindergarteners granted her the skills needed to quieten my frequent project related tantrums, while her parents provided me with rent free accom- modations and overlarge but delicious Italian meals during my impromptu research trips to Toronto. I dedicate this thesis to my grandfather, a history enthusiast and proud United Empire Loyalist who is almost certainly grumbling about his grandson’s interest in American history as he reads this. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents v List of Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Ideological Conformity Rediscovered 25 Chapter 2: The ‘War Party’ at Work 61 Chapter 3: The Discreet Diplomat 113 Conclusion 151 Bibliography 160 v List of Abbreviations ARA Bureau of Inter-American Affairs CIA Central Intelligence Agency DCI Director of Central Intelligence FDN Nicaraguan Democratic Force FMLN Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front FLSN Sandinista National Liberation Front FUSEP Honduran Public Safety Force (National Police) NSA National Security Advisor NSC National Security Council NSPG National Security Planning Group OPD Office of Public Diplomacy OPM Office of Personnel Management OSS Office of Strategic Services PRCs Policy Review Committees SCCs Special Coordination Committees vi !1 Introduction One of the less immediately recognized casualties of the Vietnam War was the veil of democratic mythology that sheltered the foreign policy bureaucracy from public awareness.1 Observers belonging to all manner of political per- spectives saw in the foreign policy failure of Vietnam reason to better investigate the mysterious world of the American foreign policy bureaucrat. In 1972, journalist David Halberstam published The Best and the Brightest, a best selling work that argued the responsibility for the failure in Vietnam lay with a group of elite level foreign policy officials.2 The focus of Halberstam’s analysis was a collection of Kennedy era advisors, who had received high-ranking positions in the foreign policy bureaucracy on the basis of their reputations as some of the most brilliant thinkers in business and academia. He posited that this group of officials, which included Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, was consumed by the arro- gance caused by their highly regarded reputations, and that this led them to commit heavily to a Vietnam policy despite growing evidence that it was fatally flawed. Halberstam used a variety of different terms to refer to this group of officials, but the label ‘the establishment’ became the most popularly used catego- rization. The acclaim of Halberstam’s assessment of the failure in Vietnam helped to spark a trend of published work that would be colloquially branded ‘Establish- 1 Godfrey Hodgson, “The Establishment,” Foreign Policy 10 (Spring 1973): 5. 2 David J. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972). !2 ment Studies’.3 One of the earliest entrants into this emerging field was British journalist Godfrey Hodgson, who, in an article published in the Spring 1973 edition of Foreign Policy, further deliberated upon the group of foreign policy officials investigated by Halberstam. What separated Hodgson’s article from The Best and the Brightest was its scope of investigation. While Halberstam focused his analysis on the Vietnam War and the establishment’s involvement in that policy failure, Hodgson extended the group’s origins to the Truman administration. This change in approach led Hodgson’s article to produce a slightly different interpretation of the establishment. Since Halberstam focused almost exclusively on the establishment’s largest policy failure, his book portrayed the group as a collection of entitled, arrogant and ultimately incompetent bureaucrats. Hodg- son’s article, with its heavier focus on the group’s background and the characteristics of the foreign policymaking process that establishment officials constructed, produced a slightly more favourable image. While it would be erroneous to sug- gest that Hodgson was a proponent of the establishment, a tone of concern re- garding the consequences for foreign policymaking procedure brought by the group’s demise certainly informed sections of his article.4 It is this more positive interpretation of the group that would become significant nearly a decade after the article’s publication, when President Ronald Reagan’s transition team sought 3 Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World they Made (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 26. 4 Hodgson, “The Establishment,” 12-14. !3 to replicate some of the procedural practices that were common during the postwar era. Although Hodgson did not outline the specific members of the group in great detail, it is likely that the core of what he viewed as the postwar establishment consisted of the men popularized by Halberstam. Many of those officials had held high-ranking positions in the Truman administration, and had main- tained their influence during subsequent presidencies. These men were Truman’s Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, two suc- cessive U.S. ambassadors to the Soviet Union George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, as well as presidential advisors John McCloy and William Harriman.5 They were joined by a legion of protégés, a group that included President Kennedy’s Secretary of State Dean Rusk and McNamara.6 Taken together, these men constituted the preeminent group of foreign policy thinkers who held positions within government in the postwar period. Hodgson pointed to a similarity of background and a shared perspective on America’s global role as evidence that the postwar establishment constituted a distinct association within the world of foreign policymaking. He identified a collection of characteristics that he believed summarized the consolidated perspective of the establishment. This summary acts as a useful description of the phi- losophy that dominated thinking about the craft of foreign policy making in the 5 Isaacson and Thomas, The Wise Men, 18-19. 6 I.M. Destler, Leslie H.

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