El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War

El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War
by Marvin E. Gettleman, Patrick Lacefield, Louis Menashe, David Mermelstein & Ronald Radosh

Why has the Reagan administration singled out El Salvador, a small, poor Central American nation, as the testing ground for a new foreign policy?

Is El Salvador really on a Soviet "hit list?"

Are the violence and political unrest in that country the outcome of a long, indigenous struggle against poverty and tyranny common throughout Central America, or are they, as the Reagan administration claims, the by-products of outside interference by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and their allies?

El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War, providing background material and discussion of these important issues, is an indispensable guide for those who want to understand the intensifying turmoil in El Salvador and Central America as a whole.

The editors have assembled the selections from a wide variety of sources and provide introductory essays for each topic.

Included Are:
> Eye-witness reports on terror, politics and the guerrilla war
> Official policy statements and views from Washington, the Salvadoran junta and the leaders of the armed rebellion
> Critical discussions of the controversial "White Paper" published by the State Department to justify U.S. intervention in El Salvador
> Background to the current conflict, including the roles of the military, the rebel leaders, the oligarchy, the Catholic Church, and the famous Land Reform program
> Overview of the new Reagan foreign policy in relation to Latin America and the Third World, the Reagan human rights policy, and the U.S. anti-Soviet posture contributing to the new "cold war"
> Discussion of the question that haunts all Americans: Is El Salvador another Vietnam?

Marvin E. Gettleman, Professor of History, Polytechnic Institute of New York, is the editor of the bestselling book Vietnam: History, Documents and Opinions.

Patrick Lacefield is a journalist whose reports on El Salvador have appeared in In These Times and Christian Century.

Louis Menashe is Associate Professor of History at Polytechnic Institute of New York and the author of numerous articles on Soviet history and politics.

David Mermelstein, editor of The Economic Crisis Reader and Economics: Mainstream Readings and Radical Critiques, is Associate Professor of Economics at Polytechnic Institute.

Ronald Radosh is Professor of History at Queensborough Community College and the Graduate Center/CUNY, whose books include American Labor and U.S. Foreign Policy and Prophets on the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics of U.S. Globalism.