Description
The Daniel James Collection contains James' correspondence, notes and
drafts (1953-1969), including most of his "Dateline Latin America" columns and
an unpublished work titled "Communism in Mexico." The collection also contains
information files on Latin America and individual Latin American nations
(1953-1969) made up of clippings, pamphlets and other similar materials, many
of them in Spanish. The bulk of these files is devoted to Cuba and to
Mexico.
Background
Free-lance American journalist, Daniel James (b. 1914), covered Latin
America during the Cold War years. His writings reflect two themes: 1) that the
region had become a primary target for Soviet aggression against interests of
the United States; and, 2) that American policies had failed to reflect the
importance of the region to the United States. The author of hundreds of
columns, articles and at least four books on these topics, including: "Red
design for the Americas: Guatemala prelude" (1954), James first went to Latin
America in 1953. He described Communist activity in Guatemala and in British
Guiana in articles published in that year. James continued to publish articles
reflecting his favorite themes in "Harper's," "The Saturday Evening Post," and
the "London Observer." Later, he prepared a study of U.S. business activities
in Mexico for the United States Embassy and the American Chamber of Commerce in
Mexico (1956). From 1955 through 1967 Daniel James was a syndicated columnist
for the Hearst Newspapers and SPADEA, publishing his views under the title:
"Dateline Latin America." During the 1960s he published: "Cuba: the first
Soviet satellite in the Americas" (1961); "Mexico and the Americas" (1963);
and, "Che Guevara; A biography" (1969), the last written with the aid of
diaries found when their author was killed while trying to start a Communist
revolution in Bolivia (1967). Subsequently, James was for four years a tourism
director in Mexico City (1974-1978). After 1987 he operated the Mexico-United
States Institute in Washington, D.C.