The Manufactured Governments of Latin America and the False Moral Claim Now Used to Justify War

 

The Manufactured Governments of Latin America and the False Moral Claim Now Used to Justify War

by Germanico Vaca

To understand the danger of current U.S. rhetoric toward Venezuela, it is essential to revisit a suppressed and well-documented chapter of American history: the systematic manufacture of governments in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s by the Central Intelligence Agency, under the administrations of Richard Nixon, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and successive CIA directors.

Between the early 1960s and mid-1970s, at least eleven South American governments were directly destabilized, infiltrated, or replaced through covert CIA operations, not in response to democratic failures, but to guarantee access to natural resources—particularly oil, minerals, and strategic commodities—under terms favorable to U.S. corporations.

This is not speculation. It was confirmed from within the Agency itself.

Philip Agee and the Exposure of CIA Operations in Ecuador

Philip Agee, a former CIA officer who later defected and exposed Agency operations, was the first intelligence insider to describe in detail the daily life of a CIA operative and the mechanics of covert intervention in Latin America—with Ecuador as one of his central case studies. His disclosures were so damaging that Washington was forced to enact legislation criminalizing the disclosure of CIA identities and operations.

In the Latin America & Empire Report (July–August 1974), under the section “Under the Cloak and Behind the Dagger,” congressional testimony and investigative reporting summarized how CIA embassy networks actually functioned:

“The function and composition of the Embassy network changes depending on the political situation of the country. Agents are spread across different sections of the diplomatic structure depending on which areas of local society must be infiltrated, penetrated, or ‘assisted.’ Agents may be placed in political, economic, labor, aid (AID), and cultural relations sections. This distribution not only provides better cover, but facilitates penetration at multiple levels of all sectors of society.”

Agee’s documentation shows that Ecuador was transformed into a CIA operational hub, particularly after the discovery of oil. In 1960, Ecuador was among the poorest nations in the hemisphere: roughly 1% of the population earned at levels comparable to U.S. elites, while over 75% lived on the equivalent of ten dollars per month. Oil changed Ecuador’s strategic importance overnight—and with it came foreign control of its political organs.

The Removal of Velasco Ibarra: When Obedience Was Not Enough

One of the most revealing contradictions exposed by Agee concerns President José María Velasco Ibarra. Velasco was not a socialist. He was openly anti-communist, opposed Fidel Castro, sought to sever relations with Cuba, and even proposed banning communism outright.

By Cold War logic, he should have been Washington’s ideal ally.

Instead, the CIA worked relentlessly to remove him.

Why? Because Velasco resisted surrendering sovereign control over Ecuador’s oil resources on terms dictated by U.S. interests. His removal—five times—demonstrates that ideological alignment was secondary to economic obedience. When Julio Arosemena Monroy refused to sign exploitative oil concessions, he too was removed. Only Otto Arosemena Gómez, who accepted oil contracts so lopsided that revenues were nearly symbolic, was allowed to remain. In fact, the agreement was signed for thirty years in favor of Texaco, paying a measly amount of 3 cents per barrel. Now, Donald Trump, a pillar of unfathomable ignorance, claims that the United States was robbed by Latin American nations of that oil when they put an end to such travesty?

This pattern was repeated across the continent.

How Governments Were Manufactured

According to Agee, CIA strategy did not merely infiltrate governments—it created political realities:

• Leftist and rightist organizations were simultaneously infiltrated.
• Some “opposition movements” were entirely fabricated when no suitable group existed.
• Labor unions, student groups, indigenous movements, media outlets, and churches were penetrated.
• Journalists, editors, and columnists published CIA-prepared material under the appearance of independent reporting.
• Leaders were identified, groomed, educated abroad under scholarships, positioned in universities or ministries, and elevated through controlled publicity.

Agee states plainly:

“If no organization existed that could serve our priorities, one was created.”

This machinery explains how obscure political figures could achieve meteoric prominence seemingly overnight, and how opposition could just as suddenly disappear.

Control of Information and Society

By the mid-1960s, the CIA had infiltrated nearly every Ecuadorian government department. Postal services intercepted mail. Immigration and customs tracked weapons and individuals of interest. Telecommunications were monitored. Intelligence obtained through wiretaps and surveillance was selectively shared to elevate compliant officials and destroy dissenters.

The CIA even maintained influence over medical access to political leaders, ensuring intimate control over decision-making.

This was not democracy promotion. It was an administrative occupation without uniforms.

Why This History Matters Now

This dark history matters today because it exposes the moral inversion now being promoted: the claim that Latin American nations “robbed” U.S. corporations by ending exploitative treaties imposed under coercion.

In reality, many of those treaties were signed:

• Under threat of coups,
• By governments installed or sustained through covert intervention,
• With populations excluded from consent,
• And with profits extracted at levels incompatible with national development.

To now cite the termination of such arrangements as justification for war—particularly against Venezuela—is not only historically false, but profoundly dangerous.

It replaces accountability with amnesia, and aggression with manufactured grievance.