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The subcommittee of the Committee on Internal Security met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C., Hon. Claude Pepper, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

(Subcommittee members: Representatives Claude Pepper of Florida, chairman; Richard H. Ichord of Missouri, chairman of the full committee; Richardson Preyer of North Carolina; John M. Ashbrook of Ohio; and Roger H. Zion of Indiana.)

Subcommittee members present: Representatives Pepper, Ashbrook, and Zion.

Staff members present: Donald G. Sanders, chief counsel; Richard L. Schultz, associate chief counsel; and Robert M. Horner, chief investigator.

Mr. PEPPER. The subcommittee will come to order.

We will continue the hearings that we have been holding on the theory and practice of communism.

We are very much pleased this morning to have with us Dr. William Davis, professor of international affairs and director of the speakers bureau, The National War College.

We have a summary of the various academic achievements and experience and background of Dr. Davis.

I am pleased to note that he was born in Alabama, although he was 10 years behind me in coming to that State and he has a distinguished academic record. Graduate of the University of Alabama, has a masters degree in the University of Alabama, and he has a Ph. D. from Harvard University in 1948.

Dr. Davis used to be over in the Senate when I was there. He has had an impressive career as an author, being the author of books dealing with Latin America and the international affairs of other countries. I will ask the reporter if you will be good enough to include in the record the biographical data.

(5413)

Dr. Davis, please.

(The biographical material follows:)

Dr. William Columbus Davis, professor of international affairs and director of the speakers bureau, The National War College, was born 28 August 1910 in Birmingham, Ala. He received the A.B. (1931) and the M.A. (1932) from the University of Alabama, and the M.A. (1943) and the Ph.D. (1948) from Harvard University.

Dr. Davis held administrative positions in the United States Senate (1933-48): was assistant professor of history, University of Georgia (1948-51); intelligence analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (1951-52); and a member of the George Washington University faculty as lecturer (1951-52), professorial lecturer (195253), associate professor (1953-60), and professor (1960-66) of Latin American History and Government, and director of Latin American studies (1952-66). From July 1963 to June 1964 Dr. Davis was professor of foreign affairs, Department of Political Affairs, The National War College. In June 1964 he assumed his present permanent position on this faculty. Since then, as professor of international affairs, he has continued his work in Latin American studies, and also has directed the college's very significant lecture program and served in other administrative capacities. Dr. Davis continued his association with George Washington University on a part-time basis during 1963-66.

He is the author of The Last Conquistadores: The Spanish Intervention in Peru and Chile, 1863-1866 (1950); The Columns of Athens, Georgia's Classic City (1951); and various articles on recent Latin American political and economic developments; coauthor, Soviet Bloc Latin American Activities and Their Implications for United States Foreign Policy (study prepared for U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee) (1960); editor, Index to the Writings on American History, 1902-1940 (1956); and The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (1960). He has directed and participated in numerous NBC television and radio programs on Latin American topics.

Mr. PEPPER. Dr. Davis, we are very much pleased to have you with us this morning and we will be glad to have you make such statement as you would like to make, unless counsel wishes to inquire.

Proceed, if you will.

Mr. SCHULTZ. No, sir.

Go ahead, Dr. Davis.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM COLUMBUS DAVIS

Mr. DAVIS. It is my understanding that you would like for me to take a few minutes to set the background for this whole Latin American picture, which I shall try to do.

I have a map here which I think you may find of interest.

What I shall spend a few minutes talking about also ties in with the written statement and in many respects will duplicate what I say there.

This map I brought along I think may be of interest to you in pointing up some of the communist influences in Latin America over a period of time.

I have been lecturing on this subject for a number of years, and several years back I made up these two maps, which I have updated from time to time.

The map on the left shows in different colors the degree of communist influence in the various Latin American countries before 1955. The one on the right shows the same thing since 1955.

Now the countries that appear in the green are those in which there has been a very insignificant amount of communist influence at any time during the period of the map. The same is true for the map on the right.

(At this point Mr. Zion entered the hearing room.)

Mr. Davis. The countries that appear in yellow, there has been a significant amount of communist influence at some time during that period.

Those appearing in pink, there has been a serious amount of communist influence at some time during one of those periods, not necessarily the entire time.

Then we have the extreme case of Cuba over here, which is the only one that appears in the red, namely, the extreme communist influence in the period since 1959.

Now as you look at these two maps some rather interesting things appear. It has often been said that the countries in the world which are most vulnerable to communist penetration are those with the lowest standards of living, those in which there is a great amount of poverty, those in which there are various dictatorial forms of government, those which are characterized as backward, unprogressive countries. But look at these maps. There are only three Latin American countries that appear in the green on both maps, namely, those in which there has been an insignificant amount of communist influence any time during this period or that period. What are these three countries? They are Nicaragua, Haiti, and Paraguay.

Now by no stretch of the imagination can anyone say these are the more advanced countries in Latin America, quite the contrary. They are some of the most backward countries of Latin America. They are countries with low standards of living, Haiti, of course, being extreme in this case. They are countries, also, which have been normally ruled by some form of dictatorship throughout this entire period.

So these are really not the criteria that you look for. It is not necessarily the country of this type in which the communists have found their greatest opportunity. On the contrary, as you look at these maps you find other countries appearing in either the yellow or the pink colors which are far more advanced than the ones we have just mentioned, which are far more democratic, in which there has been a greater amount of communist penetration, communist influence.

Let's look at those that appear in pink, those in which there has been a serious amount of communist influence at some time during this period and then we shall come over to the other side.

Well, one is little El Salvador here. This was the first country in which the communists really made a serious effort to take over a Latin American Republic.

In 1932 there was a rather blundering attempt by a communist group, by means of armed revolt, to seize control of El Salvador. It failed. And this attempt actually had the effect of a kind of vaccination, so that since that time there has been very little communist influence in this country because since that time the various governments which have followed, most of which have been militarily oriented, somewhat dictatorial in form, have very carefully kept things in check and prevented any communist influence from getting out of hand.

Moving to another country here in Central America, one of the most democratic countries by far in Latin America is Costa Rica. If you are looking at the countries with the longest record of democracy, the three that stand out are Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Chile.

For almost a century Costa Rica has been a very stable country, yet there was a time in the early mid-1940's when there was a serious communist buildup and a serious communist threat in Costa Rica. Why? Because during that period there were two rather left-leaning governments in existence in this country from 1940 to '44 and then from '44 to 48 which permitted infiltration into the government of certain communist leaders, and in this way the communists gained a great degree of influence to a rather dangerous point until this was wiped out by a revolution in 1948 which did away with this govern

ment.

The most famous case of communist penetration in a Latin American country in the period before 1955 was in Guatemala. Guatemala is very interesting because this was, in effect, a prelude to Cuba. In fact, some of those who participated in the Cuban affair actually gained experience in Guatemala.

During the late forties and early fifties, when Guatemala was experiencing about the most democratic period it has known, why did this come about?

In 1945 an election was held following a long dictatorship, which had been customary prior to that time in this country, and as a result a president was elected, Juan José Arévalo, who came in on a platform promising great reform for the masses of people. He was inaugurated: he did succeed in serving out his term of office, which was not easy, and during this time he tried to put into effect the reforms he had promised in his campaign, but he had great difficulties because his support did not come from the military nor from the old landholding aristocracy, which has been very prominent in Guatemala. The support came almost exclusively from the labor element for whom the reforms were destined.

It so happened that prior to this time there had been no labor organization permitted in Guatemala; now labor organization was permitted and was encouraged, and a few well-placed communists found a golden opportunity to worm their way into this type of organization and took full advantage of it, thus operating through labor as well as in certain key positions in the government.

The communist influence built up to the point where by the late 1940's it was becoming very dangerous. Arévalo was not a communist, he was a victim of circumstance; he needed people to assist him in carrying out this program for which he had been elected, and a few communists filled the bill rather nicely.

In the early 1950's Arévalo was succeeded by Jacobo Arbenz who permitted a further communist increase in power until the time was reached in '52, 53, '54 in which the situation was rapidly approaching a complete communist takeover. There was a great deal of worry here in Washington among people in government as to what was going to happen in Guatemala.

This problem was solved by a revolution in 1954, in which the United States was quietly involved, which overthrew the government and brought in one strongly anticommunist as well as more democratic, and the result was the communist danger at least for the time being evaporated.

I could go on at length and talk about several of the other countries. I do not want to take too much time doing this because I realize our time is limited. These have been covered in the paper I gave you.

If we move over to the other map, you will notice in the period since 1955 there are other countries which are shown in the pink color, indicating that some time during this period there has been a serious degree of communist influence.

Now, of course, Cuba is the extreme case. The Cuban case is so well known probably I should not spend too much time discussing it. But it is one in which you are, I am sure, quite interested.

The Cuban revolution occurred under circumstances which are quite different from what you find in some of these other countries. Here was a country which actually was living on a considerably higher scale than many other Latin American countries were at that time. There was a higher level of literacy; there was a higher standard of living than you would find in quite a few of the others, not in all of them.

But there were many things that people in Cuba wanted. There were many who wanted a better house, many who wanted land, many who wanted better schools, many who wanted better health facilities, many who felt that there were other improvements that were needed. Castro gained a following and came into power largely as a result of promising the various things that various groups wanted, and thus he gradually gained sufficient support to take over the country.

Now hardly anyone in Cuba realized that there was or had been or might be a connection between Castro and the communists at that time. Castro actually was a political opportunist, a born revolutionary who, earlier in his career, had been pro-Fascist until that went out of style and then turned the other way.

The communists rather belatedly supported Castro, and then he turned strongly toward them after he came into power and there has been a close tie ever since. This came about somewhat naturally, in that much of Castro's rise to power and his influence in Cuba has been based on an anti-United States policy. He could not afford to be proUnited States, and thus of necessity has a close alliance with the Soviet Union.

Castro's ideology has many times appeared to be much more proChinese communist than pro-Soviet communist, but the Soviets are the ones that have been footing the bill in Cuba and thus this is where his bread and butter come from to a large degree. The influence is still very great and probably will continue for quite a while to come. Moving down to the South American continent, there have been. two interesting situations in Latin America which are quite similar. The case in Brazil and the case in Chile both arose under somewhat similar circumstances. The communist influence in Brazil, of course, has been greatly lessened as a result of the revolution that occurred there in 1964, which has brought in a very strongly anticommunist military type of government. The situation in Chile, though, is quite different. Since the Chilean situation is very significant, I shall spend a few minutes trying to explain it because this again is different from what we have just been talking about.

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