Defensive Diplomacy: US Wartime Intelligence in Latin America, 1939–42

As European hostilities erupted in World War II, US officials devoted considerable attention to gathering intelligence about potential Axis activities close to home. The FBI, the Department of State, and the newly-formed Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American affairs answered the call to surveil suspected Nazi saboteurs in Latin America and reported alarming levels of subversive activities. While historians have since shown that the paranoia of Axis incursion in the Western Hemisphere were largely overblown, real-time intelligence stoked fears in Washington officials and eventually led to the detention of thousands of Latin American Germans in facilities throughout the United States. Fears of Nazi penetration also drove US diplomatic policies in Latin America regarding hemispheric trade, wartime propaganda, and political support throughout World War II. This paper analyzes the intelligence reports that led to such policies and ties that intelligence to the rising levels of alarm that informed US diplomacy during the war.