The Politics of Intervention: The United States and Argentina, 1941–1946

Abstract

In Argentina during World War II the US stepped outside the limits of the Good Neighbor policy proclaimed by the Roosevelt administration in 1933 and attempted to overthrow the government of a major Latin American power.1Between 1941 and 1945 Argentina was not only treated differently from the rest of Latin America by the United States, but was also singled out for harsher treatment than other neutrals, despite its large material contribution to the Allied cause. In 1944 Washington was readier to compromise with Franco's Spain, a country whose Axis connections were notorious, than it was to seek a settlement with the government in Buenos Aires.2The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of US interference in Argentine affairs after Pearl Harbor and the reasons for US hostility to the rise of Perón following the military coup of June 1943.