Latin America and the War

Report Outline
Continental Solidarity Against the Axis
Latin American Nations in First World War
New Bases for Inter-American Cooperation
Consultation and Common Action Since 1939

Continental Solidarity Against the Axis

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and with Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, the nations of Latin America gave an unsurpassed demonstration of continental solidarity by at once ranging themselves at the side of this country. Whereas in 1917 only Cuba and Panama immediately followed the United States into war against Germany, in 1941 all of the Central American countries and all of the Caribbean republics issued declarations of war against the Axis almost simultaneously with the United States, while Mexico, closest Latin neighbor of the United States, and Colombia, the South American country nearest the Panama Canal, lost no time in severing diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. Venezuela took the same action, December 31. The other South American nations, while maintaining a position of technical neutrality, all signified their intention of cooperating with the United States. And they moved quickly to implement that policy by taking such steps as freezing Axis assets, curbing activities of Axis propagandists, or offering use of their labors and landing fields to United States naval and air craft.

Consultation and Cooperation in the War Emergency

Latin American cooperation with the United States, now manifesting itself under the stress of war, results in part from widespread recognition of the reality of Axis threats to the security of the entire Western Hemisphere and in part from the fact that the Roosevelt administration' serious pursuit of the good neighbor policy since 1933 has cleared the way for common action in the face of emergency. At Pan American conferences in 1936 and 1938 instrumentalities were developed which enabled the American republics, as soon as the war started in Europe, to act together to formulate joint policies and measures for hemisphere neutrality and hemisphere defense. Those were the questions that dominated respectively the first and second consultative conferences of American foreign ministers at Panama in September, 1939, and at Havana in July, 1940. The third conference, convening at Rio de Janeiro, January 15, will be dominated by problems of war, now that half the nations of the continent have entered the conflict and the rest have given plain recognition of their interest in victory over the Axis.

While the brunt of prosecuting the war and defending the hemisphere must of necessity fall on the United States, owing to the comparative weakness of the military, naval, and air forces of the Latin American countries, the action of the latter nations in assuming a belligerent status or adopting a cooperative attitude is of practical value in facilitating accomplishment of the task now confronting this country. If Latin American ports, bases, and other military facilities are generally opened to the United States, for example, it will be possible to lay strategical plans on a hemisphere-wide basis and to achieve maximum efficiency in disposing of the armed forces to safeguard the continent against attack and gain victory over the enemy. Measures of economic warfare and measures for control of enemy aliens and suppression of fifth-column activity likewise can be made more effective with the cooperation of the other nations of the hemisphere. Their readiness to make common cause with the United States thus foreshadows unification and mobilization of the strength of the continent as a whole and makes for strong reinforcement of this country in the struggle in which it is now joined.