Cold War in Latin America

The U.S. consistently intervened in Latin America to prevent or reverse leftist governments.

• Guatemala (1954): CIA-backed coup overthrew the elected leftist president Jacobo Arbenz, who had nationalized United Fruit Company lands
• Cuba (already discussed): Castro's revolution and the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis
• Chile (1973): CIA-supported coup overthrew the elected Marxist president Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Pinochet's military regime killed thousands of opponents.
• Nicaragua (1979): Sandinista revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship. The Reagan administration backed the Contras, right-wing rebels, in the 1980s. The Iran-Contra scandal (1986-1987) involved illegal Reagan administration arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras.
• El Salvador, Guatemala, etc.: Brutal civil wars in the 1980s were fueled and shaped by Cold War politics