The moderates are those who accept the basic norms, crucially, the need to maintain a favorable climate for business operations, investment, and resource extraction. They hold the middle ground, confronting the extremists on all sides. The extremists are a motley crew, including advocates of social reforms that challenge privilege, excessive nationalism, or other such disorders. Another category of extremists are the perpetrators of atrocities that we find embarrassing and therefore choose not to attribute to our moderate friends, who, in reality, are often directing them or fronting for them in the service of our cause. The moderates range from such figures as Mussolini, Suharto, Saddam Hussein, assorted Latin American and Caribbean mass murderers and dictators, and so on, to figureheads of the Duarte variety who are constructed to salve the liberal conscience while arms flow to the killers.
Moderates become villains if they attack U.S. interests.
Let us turn now to the extreme doves among the Central American moderates. This quest carries us to Costa Rica, the one Western-style democracy. As noted earlier, the U.S. always regarded this experiment with some ambivalence, despite the commitment of the political leadership to safeguarding the needs of investors and serving U.S. interests generally. He particularly valued the contributions of Jay Lovestone and other U.S. labor bureaucrats, who had worked effectively to undermine the labor movement in Latin America and elsewhere for many years. He suggested that the Dominican Republic be used as a base for intervention in Cuba, though only after his enemy Trujillo was deposed.