Against Gringo Zionists and Catholic False Prophets: The Mexican Right in the World Anticommunist League in the 1970s

In August of 1972, the activist organization known as the World Anticommunist League held its Sixth Annual Conference in Mexico City, the first in Latin America since the League’s founding in 1967. The League’s Mexican chapter, the Anticommunist Federation of Western Mexico (FEMACO) hosted the meeting, in what became the launching pad for the aspirations of these Mexican activists to forge alliances within and beyond the Americas and lead the continent into an increasingly radicalized struggle against global communism. FEMACO’s entry into the global anticommunist movement was not without conflict: other anticommunist organizations, such as the American Council for World Freedom (ACWF) and the Brazilian group Tradition, Family, Property (TFP) were seen by FEMACO as not just competitors, but as accomplices of the global forces behind the expansion of communism, and as enemies in their own right. Based on correspondence and archival materials from various WACL members, as well as FEMACO publications, this paper examines the various sides of this conflict through the lens of “grassroots diplomacy” - that is, by paying attention to forms of international political engagement by non-state actors belonging to non-territorial units. In claiming to hold the truest and most sincere anticommunism, FEMACO brought its own roots on the religious conflict in Mexico to bear on the conflict, projecting its integrist Catholic view onto the Cold War, and hurling anti-Semitic accusations against their otherwise anticommunist fellow travelers. These debates reveal significant fractures within these sectors of the hemispheric Right, and also show the often understated plurality and fragility of the global anticommunist project.