Ronald Reagan's foreign policy in Central America.

Abstract

This thesis aimed to demonstrate that the Reagan administration's Central American policy has shown neither innovation nor initiative, instead it merely continued ideals first expressed by James Monroe; that is a policy of containment in which the threat that Ronald Reagan imagined was communism. Because of the immediacy of my topic I have largely been confined to current newspaper reports and official documents for my information, rather than historical analysis. Although where possible l have drawn upon such sources. This thesis holds no pretense at being able to offer an absolute truth about the Reagan years as it deals only with events up to March 1988. Yet because it is being written at the time of events its analysis and conclusions are not coloured by the knowledge of an events outcome. Yet it is precisely in the current nature of this topic that its appeal lies. This topic has enabled my conclusions to be drawn from the nature of particular events and actions themselves, as well as the surrounding circumstances, and not by considering what may result from Reagan's foreign policy actions in Central America beyond 1988.