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Witham, Nicholas David (2012) After the New Left: U.S. cultural radicalism and the Central America solidarity movement, 1979-1992. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14112/1/580281.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. · Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. · To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in Nottingham ePrints has been checked for eligibility before being made available. · Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not- for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. · Quotations or similar reproductions must be sufficiently acknowledged. 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For more information, please contact [email protected] AFTER THE NEW LEFT: U.S. CULTURAL RADICALISM AND THE CENTRAL AMERICA SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT, 1979-1992 By Nicholas David Witham Dissertation submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in American Studies February 2012 Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Introduction - Rethinking Radical Politics in the 1980s: Cultures of Central America Solidarity 1 Section I: Intellectual Culture Chapter 1 - Walter LaFeber, Gabriel Kolko and the History of American Empire 30 Chapter 2 - Verso Books and Transnational Solidarity 64 Section II: Press Culture Chapter 3 - Liberal Anti-Interventionism at The Nation 104 Chapter 4 - The Guardian, the Solidarity Movement and El Salvador 143 Section III: Screen Culture Chapter 5 - Anti-Interventionist Cinema at Hollywood's Margins 185 Chapter 6 - Feminist Documentary Filmmaking and Central American Revolutionary Struggle 224 Conclusion - Cultural Legacies of Central America Solidarity 263 Bibliography 275 ii Abstract After the New Left: U.S. Cultural Radicalism and the Central America Solidarity Movement, 1979-1992 examines how the work of intellectuals, journalists and filmmakers combined with that of transnational solidarity activists during the 1980s to negotiate the legacies of the U.S. New Left and create a radical anti-interventionist movement forged around opposition to the policies of the Reagan administration in Central America. The case studies examined include the revisionist historiography of Walter LaFeber and Gabriel Kolko, transnational debates about the meaning of "solidarity" in the pages of several important publications by Verso Books, anti- interventionist journalism at left-liberal magazine The Nation and radical weekly newspaper the Guardian, and political filmmaking including Haskell Wexler's Latino (1985) and Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), as well as feminist documentaries When the Mountains Tremble (1983) and Maria's Story (1991). Detailed historical analysis of each case study casts light on the relationship that developed between cultural work and political activism during the 1980s, a relationship that helped to sustain the U.S. left through a long and difficult period of Republican ascendency, economic restructuring and decline in trade union militancy. Ultimately, whilst the individuals and institutions examined often used their work to provide representations of the ideas and impulses of the Central America solidarity movement, they also played a sometimes unanticipated role in the constitution of anti- interventionist politics. In other words, the cultural work of intellectuals, journalists and filmmakers played a role not only in reflecting political processes, but also in 111 helping to shape them. Analysis of the uses to which U.S. cultural radicalism was put in the immediate period "after the New Left" therefore provides an excellent opportunity not only to engage with the complex legacies of 1960s radicalism in recent American history, but also to rethink the question of the relationship between radical culture and activist politics. IV Acknowledgements I must first thank my supervisors, Sharon Monteith and Tony Hutchison, for their generous advice and support throughout the time it has taken me to research and write this thesis. I would not have been able to complete it without the financial assistance provided by a doctoral award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), as well as travel funding from the British Association for American Studies, the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, and the University of Nottingham Graduate School. I am also glad to acknowledge the editors and anonymous reviewers at Left History and U.S. Studies Online, where sections of Chapters 1 and 5 were first published. At Nottingham, I have benefitted from the suggestions and opinions of Richard King, Christopher Phelps, Matthew Pethers, Robin Vandome, Maria Ryan, Bevan Sewell, Graham Thompson and, even since his departure to Dublin, Dan Geary. Furthermore, the support provided by the Postgraduate Professional Development Program in the School of American and Canadian Studies has been invaluable, especially the comments, friendship and hospitality of Mark Storey, Ian Evans, Keith Nottle, Tim Foster, Michael Collins, Theo Sweeting, Zalfa Feghali, Rachel Walls, Fran Fuentes, Hannah Hawkins and Rachel Williams. During an AHRC Library of Congress scholarship at the Kluge Center in Washington, D.C., Mary-Lou Reker provided inspiration with her stories of time spent in Nicaragua during the 1980s, and several librarians and film archivists ably supported me. Whilst in Washington, I also benefitted from the intellectual sustenance v that arose from sharing a workspace with Matthias Freidank, and from Scott McLemee's kind offer to impart his memories of the Central America solidarity movement, which resulted in an introduction to the cultural and political work of Ed Asner and Bruce Cockburn, amongst other things. During the course of another overseas visit, this time to Madison, Wisconsin, I was warmly greeted by Jennifer Ratner- Rosenhagen and Paul Buhle, and skilfully sustained in my research by Harry Miller and his team of archivists at the Wisconsin Historical Society, the collections of which are a treasure trove for historians of the American left. In Ithaca, Walter LaFeber generously provided his advice over lunch; in Boston, Bradford Martin offered kind words of encouragement, as well as the proofs of his book on the "Other Eighties"; and in Sheffield, Ellie Shermer helped to get me thinking about the ways in which my thesis could be of interest to political historians. I am also grateful to Mike Davis and Pamela Cohen, who generously responded to my questions via email without having met me in person. On a personal level, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to David, Alison and Louise Witham for their never-ending supply of emotional support and reassurance, as well as to Ellis, Kathleen and James Armstrong for the generous encouragement and relaxation they have offered in Essex and, more recently, Texas. My friends in London and elsewhere, most notably Ben Melton, Russell Coombes and Manni Sasani, have lightened my mood on numerous occasions and have therefore played a crucial, if unintended, role in helping to get this thesis finished. But my final and most sincere acknowledgement must go to Rebecca Armstrong, whose love and support has helped me every step of the way. vi No matter how strong a social or ideological system, it cannot control everything within its domain. Many people feel powerless before a media-government combination that rumbles on inattentively. And yet, the presence of a fledgling alternative to this combination has appeared in America, and in many ways has made its contribution to the emergence of a counter-politics, which, while it is limited to the ideological and cultural realm, is nevertheless of inestimable significance. Edward Said, "Irangate: A Many-Sided Crisis" (1987) vii Introduction Rethinking Radical Politics in the 1980s: Cultures of Central America Solidarity In October 1986, American Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson traveled to Nicaragua to interview Tomas Borge, who was at that time Interior Minister in the Sandinista government that had ruled the country since the culmination of a long and protracted revolution in 1979. In making his political pilgrimage to Central America, Jameson was by no means unique: during a similar period, many thousands of U.S. journalists, intellectuals and activists traveled to the region to experience life in revolutionary Nicaragua, or to learn first hand about the guerrilla movements that had taken up arms against the U.S.-backed oligarchies that ruled EI Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.' Taken together, these travelers formed one important sector in the Central America solidarity movement that emerged during the late 1970s and retained a presence within the U.S. left until the early 1990s, comprising a loose coalition of leftist, peace, and religious groups united around a commonly held opposition to U.S. foreign policy in the region. Upon his return, Jameson's interview with Borge was published in the British Marxist journal New Left Review (NLR). Introducing the piece, he made clear that his central interest in travelling to Nicaragua was to learn J In one estimate, the number of activists who travelled to Nicaragua during the 1980s was 100,000 alone. See Roger Peace, "Winning Hearts and Minds: The Debate over U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua in the 1980s" in Peace and Change 35: 1 (January 2010) p.
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