Background While working under President Wilson, Roosevelt had perpetuated ideas of American racial superiority by believing that the people of Latin American were incapable of self-government. However, by 1928 he had switched his point of view, becoming an advocate for cooperation.
Policy In an effort to denounce past U.S. interventionism and subdue any subsequent fears of Latin Americans, Roosevelt announced on March 4, 1933, during his inaugural address, "In the field of World policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors." In order to create a friendly relationship between the United States and Central as well as South American countries, Roosevelt sought to abstain from asserting military force in the region. This position was affirmed by
Cordell Hull, Roosevelt's
secretary of state at a conference of American states in
Montevideo in December 1933. Hull said: "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Roosevelt then confirmed the policy in December of the same year: "The definite policy of the
United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention."
Impact ,
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940) became the muse of the Good Neighbor policy. The Good Neighbor Policy terminated the
U.S. Marines occupation of Haiti in 1934, led to the annulment of the
Platt Amendment by the
Treaty of Relations with Cuba in 1934, and allowed for the negotiation of compensation for
Mexico's nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets to take place in 1938. The
United States Maritime Commission contracted
Moore-McCormack Lines to operate a
"Good Neighbor fleet" of ten cargo ships and three recently laid-up
ocean liners between the United States and South America. The passenger liners were the recently defunct
Panama Pacific Line's ,
Virginia and
Pennsylvania. Moore-McCormack had them refurbished and renamed them SS
Uruguay, and for their new route between
New York and
Buenos Aires via Rio de Janeiro,
Santos, and
Montevideo. The policy sought to redefine the way Americans perceived Latin Americans, both politically as well as racially, while at the same time maintaining hemispheric unity. In order to accomplish this, Roosevelt created the
Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) in August 1940 and appointed
Nelson Rockefeller to head the organization. The OCIAA was essentially a propaganda tool used by the United States to define Latin American society, as they perceived it. One division within the OCIAA, the Motion Picture Division, was headed by
John Hay Whitney, with the main intent to abolish preexisting stereotypes of Latin Americans that were prevalent throughout American society. Whitney was convinced of:The power that Hollywood films could exert in the two-pronged campaign to win the hearts and minds of Latin Americans and to convince Americans of the benefits of Pan-American friendship.In order to accomplish this, Whitney urged film studios to hire Latin Americans and to produce movies that placed Latin America in a favorable light. Further, he urged filmmakers to refrain from producing movies that perpetuated negative stereotypes. Historically, Latin Americans were portrayed as lazy, backwards and suspicious. One film star who emerged then was
Carmen Miranda. Used as a product to promote positive hemispheric relations, her films, including ''
The Gang's All Here'', explicitly promoted the Good Neighbor policy. Similarly, in 1941
William S. Paley and
Edmund A. Chester at
CBS Radio collaborated with the OCIAA to create the
La Cadena de las Américas (Network of the Americas) radio network to broadcast news and cultural programs which reflected Roosevelt's Good neighbor Policy and
Pan-Americanism throughout Latin America during World War II. As a professional journalist, Chester insisted upon the presentation of accurate news programming as well as cultural programs which dispelled the negative stereotype of Americans toiling as automatons in a national industrial machine. Also, the policy's cultural impact included the launch of
CBS Radio's
Viva América and
Hello Americans programs and the
Walt Disney films
Saludos Amigos (1942) and
The Three Caballeros (1944). By the end of
World War II,
Latin America was, according to one historian, the region of the world most supportive of American foreign policy.
Further impact By 1936, global peace was broken as nations in parts of
Europe,
Asia, and
Africa were at war. Against this background the United States called for a special meeting of the
Pan-American Union. Held in Buenos Aires from December 3 to December 26, 1936, the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace received great attention from the countries of the western hemisphere.
Franklin D. Roosevelt attended the meeting in person and delivered a speech in which he said that
American countries are determined to live in peace and that if there is any aggression from outside, the countries of the western hemisphere are fully prepared to negotiate for their common security and interests. The important results of the Buenos Aires Conference in 1936 led to further developments at the Pan-American Conference of Lima 1938, where the Conference of American States agreed in a declaration to settle all disputes peacefully, to refrain from interfering in other countries' internal affairs, to deny recognition of territories seized, and make it illegal to collect debts by force. The declaration was to be known as the "
Declaration of Lima".
1939 World's Fair The
1939 New York World's Fair was just the place to promote neighborly relations between the United States and Latin America. Placed against the backdrop of a growing
Nazi threat, the World's Fair was an attempt to escape from the looming prospect of
war and to promote peace and interdependence between nations. With the fair boasting over 60 countries, with some coming from Latin America, it was the place to redefine negative Latin American stereotypes. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the
Pan American Union were all represented at the World's Fair. Each country seized the opportunity to showcase their country and to make it more appealing to those around the world, especially in the United States. In their bid to increase cultural awareness at the World's Fair, each country promoted
tourism, and strived to compare itself to the United States in an effort to appeal to Americans.
Legacy The era of the Good Neighbor Policy ended with the ramp-up of the
Cold War in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the Western Hemisphere from
Soviet influence. The changes conflicted with the Good Neighbor Policy's fundamental principle of non-intervention and led to a new wave of US involvement in
Latin American affairs. In October 1940, the CIAA reached out to
Disney Studios in effort to increase meaningful relationships between the United States and Latin America. As German and fascist influence began to expand around the world, the United States wanted to keep nations such as Argentina and Brazil close. Starting in August 1941 Walt Disney and his team would take a three-month tour through Latin America to mainly receive a better understanding of the area for their respective films. Starting in Brazil, the Disney Studios team would explore the country while working with the Brazilian people in order to prepare for future films. There were eventually two films that were produced in result of the Walt Disney Project; those two films being
Saludos Amigos and
The Three Caballeros. These two films included the likes of the famous Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck characters, who had become worldwide known figures. The two films, which were released in Latin America, worked to build better relations by including famous Disney characters into the world of Latin America. Walt Disney's portray of the Good Neighbor Policy seemed to be a success, as these films seemed to be very useful.
Good Neighbor Policy to Cuba The
Cuban Revolution of 1933 tested the Good Neighbor Policy, as some in the Roosevelt administration wanted full-scale military intervention in Cuba while Roosevelt wanted to avoid it. The Good Neighbor Policy caused the annulment of the
Platt Amendment in 1934, though the U.S. did continue to exert influence on Cuban affairs. In one notable example, the U.S. government expressed to the Cuban government that it should increase American quotas for Cuban sugar under a trade agreement, with the idea that it would benefit Cuba's local economy.
Significance Good Neighbor diplomacy during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency had alleviated some of the tensions that were caused by the United States being a previously bad neighbor. The earlier policies regarding U.S. military intervention and supervision under the Monroe Doctrine were unpopular with Latin Americans, since it was perceived as an invasive foreign policy measure. For example, U.S. president William Howard Taft used dollar diplomacy and dispatched 2,700 Marines to Nicaragua in order to suppress a revolution against the government of President
Adolfo Díaz, which was directly threatening U.S. economic interests in Central America. After the United States successfully suppressed the revolution, Taft left Marines in Nicaragua to hinder and deter any other potential uprisings against the Díaz government. Roosevelt opposed U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, since he understood that Latin Americans opposed U.S. intervention and he viewed the Monroe Doctrine as a cooperative effort rather than an aggressive U.S. foreign policy measure. Being a Good Neighbor became synonymous with non-intervention, even though non-intervention had its exceptions. The United States did adhere to non-intervention when U.S. interests were not directly threatened, but the United States did continue to intervene when it was deemed necessary, such as having U.S. military personnel stationed within the Panama Canal Zone. Nevertheless, Good Neighbor diplomacy was an important collective effort between the United States and Latin America, which fostered a spirit of cooperation and produced a sense of hemispheric solidarity amongst each other as seen with the Declaration of Lima. ==See also==