The October 1983 crisis in Grenada left little doubt that the Soviet and Cuban presence had been expanding in the Caribbean basin. But the October crisis did not answer questions regarding the extent of their actual influence there, nor the direction it might take in the future, nor even what the most appropriate U.S. policy responses should be to that influence elsewhere in the region. Therefore, in the wake of the U.S. occupation of Grenada and the evidence it uncovered about the degree of Soviet and Cuban activity there, it is useful to examine the kind of situations that have encouraged the Soviets to expand their presence and/or influence in Latin America. At the same time, it equally is useful to examine the limitations or constraints on such an expanded presence or influence.

Clearly, Soviet policy in Latin America has been the product of two conflicting forces or tendencies.

The Reagan administration is sending mixed messages on its policy in Central America, leading some observers to label the policy “schizoid” and influencing yet others to give the president the benefit of the doubt until policy implications become clearer or unavoidable. Commenting in July on White House policy as it has been iterated in the first half of 1983, Senator Christopher Dodd (1983), a leading administration critic, asserted that “there is total confusion in Washington as to what the administration's policies are, and there is a total confusion in Central America as to what U.S. intentions are.” Similar charges have been made from both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Almost sadly, these charges are not part of an opposition's political ploy, but in fact are rooted in speeches, position papers, and actions formulated by the president and his Central America policy team.

Trade policy has played a larger role in the internal and international relations of Canada than of the United States, certainly in the last half century. There are many reasons for this: The Canadian economy is more open than that of the United States (e.g., merchandise exports as a percentage of gross national product were 30% in Canada and 7% in the United States in 1982); the United States is far more dominant in Canada's trade than any single country or group of countries such as the European Economic Community is in U.S. trade (in recent years about 70% of Canada's exports have been sent to the United States and more than 70% of its imports came from the United States; for the United States, about 15% of its exports in recent years went to Canada, its major trading partner, and between 15% and 20% of its imports have come from Canada); and with this double dependence on trade and on a single market, a selfinterested foreign policy must concentrate on trade policy (Grey, 1981: 3-4).

In the 1960s and 1970s, scholars interested in studying Latin American politics inevitably were drawn to the study of military coups d'etat and their causes. In the 1980s, a number of the countries in Latin America whose civilian political regimes were overthrown by military regimes may undergo or attempt to consolidate processes of democratization or redemocratization. Thus scholarly interest has tended to shift away from seeking to understand the causes for military overthrows of civilian regimes toward the study of prospects and processes of democratization or redemocratization in Latin America. In this context, the reexamination of earlier examples of durable transitions from authoritarian military regimes to civilian regimes may shed light on the relative importance of different factors in determining particular outcomes. This article carries out such a re-examination for the case of Colombia, analyzing the transition from rule by General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957) through the crucial period of the interim military junta (1957-1958) to the consociational National Front political regime.