Media coverage of the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala in the Cold War?

El Salvador like Nicaragua was the field of a proxy war between the 2 superpowers. The proposition of a socialist Salvador was viewed with great alarm by the United States, while the basket cases of Honduras or Guatemala were deemed irrelevant.

El Salvador was also not a basket case? Guatemala is more geo-economically valuable than El Salvador.

More valuable to whom? Let’s consider your initial question, because we both know the immediate and obvious answer. In fact the answer is SO obvious that we both ignored it. Press coverage was inordinate in comparison to that of the struggle in Guatemala because it is in Salvador where the 2 super powers committed the money and resources to not only draw the attention of the press. In fact that attention was actually directed and focused by the government of the United States in its propaganda campaign to counter the perceived threat of the “expanding scourge of Godless Communism.” It didn’t matter that the conflict in Gustemala was even more brutal and bloody than anything in Salvador or Nicaragua. What mattered was that unlike Guatemala the leftist uprising in Salvador was bound for success without substantial intervention by the United States.

So perhaps I answered this question when I mentioned that Guetemala was not so sensitive to US military aid.

Brian Ghilliotti