The Emergency Committee to Aid Latin American Scholars (ECALAS): Liberal Academics and the Contradictions of Cold War Foreign Policy in Latin America

Abstract

I researched the creation of the Emergency Committee to Aid Latin American Scholars (ECALAS) as a response to the crackdown on Chilean intellectuals after the coup d’état by the military junta on September 11, 1973. The coup had the U.S. government support in an alleged suppression of the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. The Cold War Era political games had severe repercussions in all Latin American countries. Many fell under bloody dictatorships that persecuted their critics and drove them into exile as an option to prison or, in many cases, certain death. ECALAS is part of a transnational solidarity movement made possible through many years of academic exchanges that the U.S. government and private institutions financed. Such investments in creating a Latin America pro-U.S. also created a human network that influenced public policies in the U.S., Chile, and elsewhere in defense of intellectual freedom and human rights.