Buenos Aires Conference (1936)
Buenos Aires Conference (1936)
Called by the United States, the Buenos Aires Conference of 1936, a Special Conference for the Maintenance of Peace, was held 3-26 December in the capital of Argentina. It was prompted by U.S. concern over the attacks of Japan and Italy on China and Ethiopia, respectively, and the Spanish Civil War and the possibility of global war. A major question was the possibility of neutrality if war resulted. An important Latin American interest was the absolute acceptance of nonintervention by the United States. This was achieved because the latter had continued to implement the Good Neighbor Policy—for example, the occupation of Haiti had ended in 1934.
Secretary of State Cordell Hull headed the U.S. delegation; of great significance to Latin Americans was the presence of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who addressed the inaugural session. The conference adopted eight conventions, two treaties, and one protocol. One important document provided for consultation if American peace was threatened, and especially important was the Additional Protocol Relative to Non-Intervention (which the United States approved without reservation). Also welcomed by Latin America was the fact that the United States, for the first time, assumed leadership in cultural affairs.
See alsoHull, Cordell; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Latin American Policy of the United States: An Historical Interpretation (1943), chap. 16.
Samuel Guy Inman, Inter-American Conferences, 1826–1954: History and Problems, edited by Harold E. Davis (1965), chap. 12.
Graham H. Stuart and James L. Tigner, Latin America and the United States, 6th ed. (1975), chap. 2.
Additional Bibliography
Marichal, Carlos. México y las conferencias panamericanas, 1889–1938: Antecedentes de la globalización. México: Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2002.
Sheinin, David. Beyond the Ideal: Pan Americanism in Inter-American Affairs. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Larman C. Wilson