The Mountain of Death and the Selegua Gap: The United States, Highway Engineers, and the Early Cold War in Central America

• In Event: Cold Warriors and Technocrats: Experts and Expertise in the Latin American Countryside

Abstract

This paper explores how attempted cooperative rural development shaped the early Cold War in Central America and vice versa through an analysis of the Inter-American Highway and its related politics. Running from northern Guatemala to the Panama Canal, the Inter-American Highway was one of the largest cooperative development projects the United States ever undertook in Latin America, with a phalanx of federal highway engineers assigned to countries in Central America.

Though these engineers were ostensibly apolitical technocrats, in the years following WWII, they struggled to overcome the imbalance between the international idealism they represented and political realities. The paper explores this tension through two case studies: first, in Costa Rica, a nearly-completed route along Cerro de la Muerte (the Mountain of Death) proved central to José Figueres’ 1948 rebellion, during which he co-opted U.S. engineers into his efforts; second, the desire of U.S. engineers and the Guatemalan government to cross the imposing Selegua Gap triggered secret State Department opposition, contributing to the 1954 coup.

Author

• Eric Rutkow, Yale University