Central America in the Crosshairs of War: On the Road from Vietnam to Iraq

During the 1980s, the Reagan Administration financed and directed wars against popular movements in El Salvador and Nicaragua that left more than 300,000 dead and countless more wounded. Vowing to block “Soviet expansion,” the U.S. waged a Vietnam-style counterinsurgency against leftist rebels in El Salvador while orchestrating an illegal and covert war to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Some 75,000 died in El Salvador, mostly at the hands of U.S.-backed military and security forces, and more than 30,000 were killed in Nicaragua. Meanwhile, with tacit American support, the Guatemalan military razed hundreds of communities and killed an estimated 200,000 people during a 36-year civil war, including 100,000 Indigenous Mayan villagers. Scott Wallace arrived in Central America in 1983 to cover the conflicts as a freelance “stringer” for CBS News, and he would also later report for Newsweek, The Nation, The Guardian, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and other news organizations. Seeking to discern the truth in a region riddled with death and deception, Wallace evolved a distinctive style of field reporting that included photography, writing, and broadcast recordings. He stayed in the region throughout the decade, moving back and forth across national boundaries and battlelines to produce a unique body of work that includes the perspectives of opposing sides of the interwoven conflicts as well as their impacts on the noncombatants tragically caught in the middle. He later reported from Afghanistan and Iraq. Situating the exercise of U.S. power on a continuum running from Vietnam through Central America to Iraq and the Middle East, In the Crosshairs of War provides a rare look into the shocking real-life consequences of morally dubious policies while offering a gripping primer for aspiring foreign correspondents and field reporters. As Wallace reminds us, the multiple “troubles” associated today with America's southern border-among them immigration, drugs, and crime-are in significant measure the result of misadventures undertaken by the U.S. during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He also shows a continuum in U.S. military affairs, from Vietnam to Central America and the Middle East. AUTHOR: Scott Wallace is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut and the author of the best-selling book, The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes (Crown, 2011). A longtime contributor to National Geographic, Wallace has also written and reported for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Condé Nast Traveler, The Guardian, Harper's, Interview, The New York Times, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among others. His photographs have also appeared in Details, National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications through Getty Images and the World Bank Photo Collection. He has been honored with the Explorers Club's Lowell Thomas Award for excellence in reporting from the field, and he has won awards from the Associated Press, Gannett Newspapers, Inter-American Press Association, Renewable Natural Resources Foundation, and Society of Professional Journalists. Christopher J. Dodd represented the state of Connecticut first as a member of the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1981 and then as a U.S. Senator from 1981 to 2011, during which time he was Chair of the Banking Committee (2007-2011), Chair of the Senate Health Committee (2009), and Chair of the Senate Rules Committee (2001-2003). From 2011 to 2017 he was CEO of the Motion Picture Association, and in 2018 he returned to the practice of law. Chris Dodd is Special Presidential Advisor on the Americas to President Joseph R. Biden. 102 color photographs, 2 color maps, and 6 color montages See more