ABSTRACT
Prior to the Second World War, the role of the United States in world affairs was largely limited to Mexico, the Philippines, and the nations of the Caribbean Basin. During the 1930s, Carlton Beals expanded his interests to Cuba and Peru, to each of which he devoted full-length books. His obsessive and wrongheaded campaign of character assassination against US Ambassador Harry Guggenheim in Havana—even his admiring biographer comes close to calling it that—played an important role in preparing the way for the Cuban revolution of 1933. Between 1910 and 1930 Mexico was torn by a series of civil wars which subsequent historians call the Revolution. At one level, the conflict was about issues which had been smoldering since the late colonial period—land tenancy, the prerogatives of the Roman Catholic Church, and racial distinctions. Beals's interest in Castro was tepid during the latter's "moderate" political phase, and reached fever pitch only when the Cuban dictator sought.
