Hans Bennett / Upside Down World: Please give some background on your 1979 book, co-authored with Noam Chomsky: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism: The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume I.

Edward S. Herman: There was an outfit called Warner Modular that was a division of the early Warner Publishing House. We had a little document called “Blood Baths in Reality and in Myth,” and it was mostly about Indochina, the Vietnam War and Indonesia. Our argument was that the really big blood bath was the one that we brought to Vietnam, which killed maybe 4 or 5 million people. And of course in Indonesia we supported Suharto taking over at the cost of maybe a million people being killed.

But the media of course have never called these “blood baths,” so we wanted to write a little book telling people about the real blood bath and the people responsible for it.

But the owners, the Warner people up top got wind of this thing, and before the thing actually could be published they seized it, destroyed it, and they made it impossible to publish it. And actually Warner Modular, the little affiliate, was closed down very quickly. So it was a beautiful case of suppression by a big media corporation.

Then Chomsky and I, after a few years, decided to enlarge it. We actually enlarged it to about 5-10 times the original, and put out this book, The Washington Connection – which had a partner volume on Indochina alone called “After the Cataclysm.”

UDW: The mainstream media presents the idea that the US is trying to help the third world, particularly to fight poverty and promote democracy.

EH: The idea that the United States in the third world is sort of a charitable or benevolent operation is straight out of Orwell or maybe out of Kafka, because we’re not do-gooders in the third world. Our foreign policy is dictated by the demands of the powerful actors who are really the transnational corporations and the banks. What they want is a favorable environment of investment.

The problem for them is that after the second world war, a lot of the colonial areas–like Indonesia and Indochina–were freed of colonial oppression. But [their new governments] were led by nationalists and people who were concerned about their own people, and that wasn’t what we wanted. We wanted them to have an open door, to let our investors in and to take care of them–not to help trade unions engage in welfare programs that would be very expensive.

We wanted those societies to be oriented to serve us, which means a favorable climate of investment. A favorable climate of investment means weak or no trade unions. It means weak or no social welfare expenditures. It means an open door to private investment, and to get that is not very easy where you have nationalist regimes.

So what did we do? We supported military regimes. We supported Suharto’s overthrew of a relatively democratic regime. And of course a very important case was in Iran, where in 1953 we organized the overthrow of a democratic government and put in the Shah of Iran as a dictator. And then of course in Vietnam we could not tolerate the idea of Ho Chi Minh ruling. He was a Vietnamese nationalist and even a communist. So we intervened heavily. And of course in South Vietnam, we imported a man from the US to run the place. He was a dictator!

In Latin America in the 70s and 80s we supported a huge array of dictatorships. It was a form called the “national security state”. And in Latin America, 10 different national security states were organized in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and we supported every one of them. Probably the most important was Brazil, where a democratic government was overthrown and a military regime, a torture regime, was imposed starting in 1964. And of course we supported Pinochet overthrowing the democratically elected government [of Salvador Allende]. I mean it’s all over the place.

Another key incident was in Guatemala. We had supported a dictator before the second world war. For YEARS we supported this dictator! And then the Guatemalan people threw him out and brought in a democratic government that lasted for 10 years. Within those 10 years, that government passed laws permitting labor union organization. In fact one famous book argues it was at that point when this government allowed labor unions, that the US became hostile to the government. Then they tried land reform and that was it. The United Fruit Company was upset at this, and they had a lot of influence in the US government. For 10 years there was a democratic government in Guatemala and we couldn’t stomach it! So we then helped overthrow it and imposed a national security state in Guatemala.

Today, there is essentially no longer a national security state in Guatemala, but the remnants of that national security state are there. It’s still a state of fear and oppression. During the national security state years, there were hundred of thousands killed, there was really a genocidal policy carried out against the Mayan Indians. It was our baby! We were supporting this gangster monstrous government! In fact Amnesty International in 1980 put out a report titled “Government by Political Murder,” about Guatemala, which was really being supported by us.

I’m just really starting to scratch the surface, but we almost never supported a democratic government. We overthrew many, and supported many gangster regimes because they would always help us with investment rights. In fact, I wrote a book in 1982 titled The Real Terror Network, and I argued that really what we did in Latin America was have a joint venture system. Our joint venture partners were these military governments, and many of their officers where trained at The School of the Americas. They would go back, and they would help overthrow the democratic government.

We would have a joint venture with them. We would supply them with military equipment, would treat them nicely, and make them feel important. [In Exchange] they would destroy labor unions and create a friendly environment for investment.

Somewhat surprisingly, in the 60s and 70s, one of their enemies was the Catholic Church, which in Latin America became quite progressive. The Church put out a series of documents that were crushing attacks on the process of atomization of the people. The documents were called “The Marginalization of the People” by the Catholic Church in Latin America. That was really quite amazing.

So, our role in creating a favorable climate in investment was truly sinister and ugly.

Recently we’ve been carrying out a claimed program of “democracy promotion.” We’re promoting democracy!? Of course the hypocrisy here is mind boggling even today because we support Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship and of course we support Mubarak in Egypt who is a real tyrant. And, of course, for years in Pakistan we mainly supported little military dictators who would do our will.

But there are governments that we wish to overthrow that are democratic, but they are weakly democratic, like Milosevic. He actually was relatively democratic compared to Saudi Arabia. But what we could do is pretend to be really worried about non-democracy in Yugoslavia, or the Ukraine, or any of these states bordering on the Soviet Union.

Some of them are autocracies and some are semi-democratic, but we can always play that we’re supporting democracy as we pour money in to support one faction that will overthrow the existing government that maybe isn’t working as clearly as we want for our interest. What we want is for them to have an open door, but also to become our clients in the military sense: let us have bases, and [get them to] enter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

So we’re fighting to get our own client state. We “promote democracy”, but at the same time we’re promoting dictatorships all over the place. And most of these so called democracies that we’re supporting, like the government of Serbia now, is really a subservient government. The Kosovo government is not going to be democratic at all!

The most democratic government in Latin America, where we want to “promote democracy,” is Venezuela. Chavez has had election after election. You have a press that has much more dissent than you find in the United States of America. He has mass support, and the people there are much more conscious of the political issues than in a brainwashed country like the US.

But [Chavez] is hostile towards US operations in Latin America. Therefore you have Joe Biden calling him a dictator, although it’s probably the most democratic state in Latin America. And of course, compared to Saudi Arabia or Egypt it’s the model of democracy. In fact, it’s much more democratic in most important respects than the United States. But it’s on our democracy hit-list, and we have democracy promotions going on inside Venezuela! What we need is democracy promotions in the US!

UDW: Given the election of Chavez and other leftist presidents, is the United States losing power in Latin America?

EH: Its power has certainly been weakened. Just the Chavez government alone is a bad thorn in the flesh of the United States. Then you have the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina, even Paraguay and Brazil, that are somewhat out of our influence, but not completely.

We still have this enormous amount of military power, and we control a lot of the media through groups friendly to the United States. Even in Venezuela the mainstream media is very hostile toward Chavez, and very pro US and imperialism. But, we’ve taken some hits partly because of our preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve somewhat neglected our “responsibilities” toward Latin America, of keeping the climate of investment really suitable to the needs of our transnational corporations.

But the US is still important there, and our military power is still tremendous. Most of these countries are somewhat now out of our control, but they’re still somewhat respectful. Several of them are trying to maintain good relationships with the US.

But they’re still vulnerable. There could be coups there. The old military that we sponsored for years back still exists in these countries, and under some conditions they could come back. God knows what we’re going do with our huge military. We might use it down there some day again.