In the report of the spring 1969 Presidential
Mission for the Western Hemisphere, Nelson
Rockefeller predictably speaks of the danger of
‘communist subversion’ to Latin America. In an
assessment of the military situation, Rockefeller
notes that the native armed forces “have gradually
improved their capabilities for dealing with
Castro-type agrarian guerrillas.” The Governor
warns, however, that “radical revolutionary
elements in the hemisphere appear to be in-
creasingly turning toward urban terrorism in
their attempts to bring down the existing order.
This type of subversion is more difficult to
control and governments are forced to use in-
creasingly repressive measures to deal with it.
Thus, a cycle of terrorist actions and repressive
counter-reactions tend to polarize and unsettle
the political situation, creating more fertile
ground for radical solutions among large segments
of the population.” 1
The turn toward urban guerrilla warfare is
particularly disturbing, according to Rockefeller,
because of the general urban atmosphere in Latin
America: “With urbanization in the Western
Hemisphere have come crowded living conditions
and a loss of living space in physical and psycho-
logical terms. The urban man tends to become
both depersonalized and fragmented in his human
relationships. Unemployment is high, especially
among the young, ranging as high as 25 to 40
per cent in some countries….These sprawling
urban areas of the hemisphere spawn restlessness
and anger which are readily exploited by the
varying forces that thrive on trouble….” 2
Rockefeller’s concern with the urban battlefield
reflects the icreasing audacity of urban guerrillas–
especially in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina–and
the projections of America’s defense analysts.
In 1965 John L. Sorenson of the Defense Research
Corp. of Santa Barbara (now the General Research
Corp.) wrote that, “The city is geographically
complex and physically intricate as a fighting
terrain. For those who know how to take advantage
of it, the urban milieu can be as protective as
the jungle. The mass of people makes the insurgent
difficult to identify…. Physical cover is multi-
dimensional due to walls, roofs, basements, and
utility passages. Fighting is likely to be in
confined areas where small numbers of men may be
able to stand against forces far superior in
number.” 3
In this kind of environment, accroding to U.S.
counter-insurgency strategists, the regular armed
forces are not as effective as the police. In
testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on American
Republics Affairs, Prof. David Burks of Indiana
University complained that “…civil security
forces have received much less attention from the
United States than the military. Yet the
police are first and best line of defense against
insurgency. Police well integrated with the
population and using minimum force can often control
a crisis before it can escalate to dangerous
proportions.” 4 The concern with ‘minimum
force’ in controlling disorders is a central
feature of Burks’ argument:
“…I think we have to face a reality. The
reality is that when the insurgents appear, the
governments will call upon the army to eliminate
the insurgents. And, in most cases that I have
examined, this was not too difficult to do. But
there comes a point–and this came in Cuba in
1957 and 1958 when Castro was in the Sierra Maestra–
there can come a point when the army cannot
handle this kind of situation simply because
the military establishment tends to use too much
force, tends to use the wrong techniques and tends,
therefore, to polarize the population and gradually
force the majority of those who are politically
active to support the revolutionary or insurgent
force …. The troops are not trained–their
orientation is not such that they are really
competent to handle this kind of problem. Whereas
a civil police force…is with the people all
the time carrying on the normal functions of
control of or apprehension of ordinary or common
criminals and can, therefore, move very quickly
whenever an insurgent problem develops.” 5
These views have apparently been adopted by Governor
Rockefeller, who reported to the President that
“there is not in the United States a full appreciation
of the important role played by the police. There is
a tendency in the United States to equate the
police in other American republics with political
action and repression.” In this regard, Rockefeller
is forced to acknowledge that “there have, unfortu-
nately, been many such instances of the use of the
police.” The counterinsurgency role of the police,
however, concerns the Governor most, and he indicates
that, “At the present time…police forces of many
countries have not been strengthened as population
and great urban growth have taken place. Consequent-
ly, they have become increasingly less capable of
providing either the essential psychological support
or the internal security that is their major
function.” 6
In his “Recommendations for Action,” Rockefeller
asserts that it is in the interests of the United
States to upgrade the police forces of Latin
America. Specifically, he suggests that “…the
training program which brings military and police
personnel from the other hemispheric nations to
the United States and to training centers in Panama
be continued and strengthened.” In addition, “The
United States should respond to requests for assist-
ance of the police and security forces of the
hemisphere nations by providing them with the
essential tools to do their jobs. Accordingly,
the United States should meet reasonable requests
from other hemisphere governments for trucks, jeeps,
helicopters, and like equipment to provide mobility
and logistical support for these forces; for radios,
and other command control equipment for proper
communications among the forces; and for small
arms for security forces.” 7
One can safely assume that these suggestions
will evoke a warm response in Washington; in10
fact, U.S. police operations in Latin America
have been expanding ever since John F. Kennedy
changed the emphasis of U.S. military strategy
in the region from defense against extra-
hemispheric attack to defense against internal
revolutionary struggle. 8 At the present time,
the U.S. contribution to the strengthening of
Latin American police forces consists of training
programs and supply of police equipment
(particularly communications equipment and vehicles).
The U.S. has also been active in helping Latin
police forces establish modern storage and re-
trieval systems for their intelligence net-
works. (The Federal government is playing a similar
role with respect to urban police forces in the
United States. 9) At the present time, such
assistance is channeled through the Agency for
International Development (AID), and often con-
sLmes a major portion of AID funds supposedly
earmarked for “social betterment” programs in
Latin America.
Professor Burks, in his report to the Senate
Subcommittee, indicated that, “As of March, 1967,
the Public Safety Division of AID operated
public safety programs in fourteen Latin American
countries and in Guyana and Jamaica. Four
countries (Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and
Guatemala) with active insurgency are included.” 10
Details of these programs are hard to come by,
but it is known, for instance, that in 1967 the U.S.
lent Guatemala $200,000 to purchase 54 Ford
automobiles to be used by the police in
patroling the guerrilla-infested countryside. 11
In 1969, Mr. V.R. Montanari of the AID Infor-
mation Staff provided the Guardian with a brief
description of AID Public Safety programs in
Latin America. This document, dated July 18, 1969,
is reproduced below as an Appendix. Al-
though this document is phrased in standard
public relations jargon, there is no difficulty in
translating the statement into understandable terms;
thus programs to upgrade police capabilities “to
maintain law and order in a humane manner” (Colombia)
stand for the acquisition of tear gas and other
antiriot munitions, and “the implementation of
a modern records system” (El Salvador) and
“assistance in establishing a central identi-
fication system” (Ecuador) should read, ” creation
of an intelligence service.”
Aside from grants, the most important U.S. activity
is training. In 1962, President Kennedy established
the Inter-American Police Academy at Fort Davis
in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1964, the school
was moved to Washington, D.C., and the name
changed to International Police Academy (IPA).
As of February 1969, some 3,000 students (drawn
from hird World police agencies) had graduated
from the Academy, of whom 60 percent were
Latin Americans. The course of instruction
at IPA is divided into three major divisions:
police Management (organization, command and
staff relationships, public relations); Police
Operations (criminalistics, communications,
border control, intelligence); and Internal Security
(riot control formations, chemical munitions,
terrorist countermeasures). 12 IPA students
also travel to the John F. Kennedy Special War-
fare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to study
“civil-military relationships in counter-
insurgency operations and police support in un-
conventional warfare.” 13 From what is known
of IPA, it is clear that the major emphasis at
the Academy is on urban counterinsurgency and
on the control of strikes and demonstrations. 14
In addition to training programs in the United States,
AID sends “Public Safety Advisers” to Latin America
to provide “on-the-job” training to police officers.
These advisers (whose relations to Latin police
forces is comparable to that of U.S.Special Forces
personnel who counsel Latin military forces) are
usually drawn from local, state and Federal law
enforcement agencies in the U.S. (and particularly
from the FBI). The 1968 annual report on the U.S.
Foreign Assistance Program indicated that at that
time 91 persons were employed by AID as Public
Safety Advisers in Latin America. 15
FOOTNOTES:
1. The Rockefeller Report on the Americas, The
Official Report of a Presidential Mission
for the Western Hemisphere, by Nelson A.
Rockefeller (Chicago: Quadrangle Books,
1969), p. 34.
2. Ibid., pp. 27-29.
3. John L. Sorenson, Urban Insurgency Cases
(Santa Barbara, Cal.: Defense Research
Corp., 1965), p. 7.
4. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs,
Survey of the Alliance for Progress. Com-
pilation of Studies and Hearings, 91st
Cong., 1st Sess., 1969, p. 414.
5. Ibid., p. 430.
6. Rockefeller Report, pp. 61-62.
7.
8.
Ibid., pp. 63-64.
See the author’s “U.S. Military Operations/
Latin America,” NACLA Newsletter, vol. II
(Oct., 1968), pp. 1-8.
9. See the author’s “Urban Counterinsurgency: An
Introduction,” Viet-Report, vol. III (Summer,
1968), pp. 40-47.
10. Survey of the Alliance for Progress, p. 209.
11. As reported in the Guatemal-n press, El
Grafico (Feb. 19, 1967) and Impacto
(same date).
12. “Curriculum,” IPA Review (Jan., 1967),
p. 12. Published by the Iternational
Police Academy, Washington, D.C.
13. “The IPA Faculty,” IPA Review (Jan., 1967)
p. 11.
14. For background, see: Willard F. Barber and C.
Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military
Power (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State
University Press, 1966), pp. 98, 170; and
David Sanford’s article on IPA in The New
Republic (Feb. 11, 1967). IPA’s in-house
publication, IPA Review , published monthly
in Washington, D.C., is the best regular
source of information on the Academy.
15. The Foreign Assistance Program, Annual Report
to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1968 (Washington,
D.C.: 1969), p. 51.
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