Challenged Monroe Doctrine

Report Outline
Soviet Challenging of Monroe Doctrine
Monroe Doctrine in Hemisphere History
Inter-American System and the Doctrine

Soviet Challenging of Monroe Doctrine

Monroe Doctrine and Red influence in Cuba

Soviet premier khrushchev's recent attempt to consign the Monroe Doctrine to oblivion has had the opposite effect. It has proved the continuing vitality of that 137-year-old warning to European powers to keep out of the Western Hemisphere. Khrushchev last month proclaimed the demise of the doctrine, but President Eisenhower declared that the United States would not permit the establishment in this part of the world of a regime dominated by international communism.

The policy now challenged by the Kremlin has gone through various extensions and contractions since it was proclaimed by President Monroe in 1823. Early in World War II it was made a basic policy of all 21 American republics. But there is question whether the ability to enforce observance of the doctrine—particularly in a case of indirect aggression—was strengthened by its incorporation in inter-American treaties and declarations.

It is a matter of controversy, for example, whether the United States would be entitled, under the Charter of the Organization of American States and the United Nations Charter, to move independently to prevent a triumph of communism in Cuba. If action could be properly taken only under the authority of the O.A.S., the practical question arises of whether Latin American nations are more fearful of Communist intervention than they are distrustful of United States intervention.