Transnational Cold Warriors: The World Anticommunist League and Counter Revolution in the Americas

In seeking to rethink the Cold War as a global phenomenon, recent Latin Americanist histories and historiographies have emphasized the transnational dimensions of the social, political and cultural phenomena of this period. This paper is an attempt to explore the “transnational contact zones,” trajectories and roles played by the World Anti-Communist League in creating a transnational community of anti-Communist activism and solidarity, based on the idea that a “mutual enemy” was indeed threatening freedom around the world. The paper will touch mainly on the creation and early transformations of the League’s Latin American Chapter, the Confederación Anticomunista Latinoamericana (CAL), led by prominent Mexican anti-Communists. I will draw on the broader context and ways in which this changing conglomerate of Latin American intellectuals, businessmen, and obscure political figures managed to turn the CAL into an influential entity, through the endorsement of counter-revolutionary ideology and practice in places like Cuba, Mexico and Argentina. This paper is also an attempt to contribute to the scant scholarly production on the WACL and its Latin American branch, seeking to understand the transnational articulations of Cold War imaginaries and initiatives in the region.