Oil, the FBI and the U.S. Security Complex in Venezuela 1935-1947

• In Event: The FBI and United States counter intelligence networks in Latin America

Abstract

With Venezuela as the world’s leading exporter of oil, the U.S. closely tracked developments there during World War II. Venezuela’s security apparatus included a National Guard protecting the oil fields, Standard Oil Company’s personnel, and the U.S. military. The U.S. operated artillery batteries on the coast and bombers in Maracaibo, near the oil fields. They also stationed bombers in Aruba and destroyers in Trinidad.

Despite these defenses, in October 1940, the Secret Intelligence Service of the FBI sent the first of 27 agents to Venezuela to track Nazi collaborators and purported communist agitators. But Venezuela lacked a significant German presence and the Communist Party fully supported the war effort. Reports from SIS agents in Venezuela reveal a constant effort to justify their presence there. Without Nazis to pursue, U.S. agencies focused on “communist threats.”

The various overlapping intelligence agencies compelled each branch to overstate the communist threat. It also conditioned the Venezuelan military and political forces to adopt emerging Cold War rhetoric to justify their actions. Moreover, it allowed the oil companies to project basic workers rights as communist demands. The experience of the SIS in Venezuela shows the limits of intelligence in a country already in the Washington’s orbit.

Author

• Miguel R Tinker Salas, Pomona College