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Central America, the Caribbean and South America become the battleground for a test of wills between the United States and the U.S.S.R. -- as the Cold War comes to America's "backyard."
 
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| Since 1946, the controversial School of the Americas has trained thousands of Central and South American soldiers the ABCs of thwarting communist insurgencies. |
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| E-mail was the favorite means of communication for John Poindexter and Oliver North as they hatched a secret plan to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Read the messages they tried to delete from public view.
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| In Mexico, there remain hints of the old conflicts that made Central America fertile ground for revolution. CNN Mexico City Bureau Chief Harris Whitbeck reports.
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| Postwar U.S. presidents focused on fighting any Central or South American government's drift to communism. But did the superpowers have to treat the region's players as pawns in a greater game?
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TIME: The Bloody End of a Marxist Dream
September 24, 1973
Izvestia: Latin America and the Chilean tragedy
December 5, 1973
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The United States suspected Russia's interests in the Western Hemisphere long before the Cold War. In fact, fears about Russian territorial ambitions in the Americas were a primary motivation for the Monroe Doctrine.
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