No Room for Additional Cubas

Events across the globe deeply influenced the mood in America leading up to the November 1980 presidential election between Republican challenger Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter. In 1978, the Panama Canal – “long the great symbol of U.S. say in Central America” – was transferred by treaty to full Panamanian sovereignty. The Iranian revolution in 1979 resulted in the removal of a regime in Tehran that had long been well inside the American orbit. A national humiliation ensued when Iranian radicals held U.S. Embassy staff hostage for over a year. By July 1979, the Sandinistas had overthrown the Somoza dictatorship in nearby Nicaragua. Five months later, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan.

For the rising tide of American foreign policy conservatives, these events were viewed as a step backward for the United States. The root cause of this perceived impotence was a Carter administration paralyzed into inaction by fear of another Vietnam-style morass. In the summer of 1980, Ronald Reagan stood before his fellow Republicans in Detroit, Michigan, where he accepted his presidential nomination in a convention filled with foghorns and the whistles and cheers of a wild crowd. He told his audience when “we cast our eyes abroad…[a]dversaries large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but we are given weakness when we need strength.” American might, Reagan contended, would restore freedom and world peace.