Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The United States In El Salvador: 1979-1992 Success Through The Eyes Of The Diplomats, David Jeffrey Mouritsen

Theses and Dissertations

The United States made El Salvador one of its top priorities in the 1980s as the communist threat from the Soviet Union made its way to El Salvador. The Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group, the Farabundo Martí­ National Liberation Front (FMLN), was supported by the Soviet Union via Cuba and became the target of the hard line politicians that ruled in El Salvador.

In order to combat the guerrilla movement, the United States structured its policy around national security to justify intervention in El Salvador. The three main points of the policy were to prevent a left-wing takeover by the communist-backed FMLN, …