Although the policy was implemented by the Roosevelt administration, President Woodrow Wilson had previously used the term, but subsequently went on to justify U.S. involvement in the Mexican Revolution and occupation of Haiti.
After the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, whenever the United States felt its debts were not being repaid in a prompt fashion, its citizens' business interests were being threatened, or its access to natural resources was being impeded, military intervention or threats were often used to coerce the respective government into compliance.
"[9] In order to create a friendly relationship between the United States and Central as well as South American countries, Roosevelt sought to abstain from asserting military force in the region.
"[12] The Good Neighbor Policy terminated the U.S. Marines occupation of Haiti in 1934, led to the annulment of the Platt Amendment by the Treaty of Relations with Cuba in 1934, and allowed for the negotiation of compensation for Mexico's nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets to take place in 1938.
[15] Moore-McCormack had them refurbished and renamed them SS Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina for their new route between New York and Buenos Aires via Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and Montevideo.
In order to accomplish this, Roosevelt created the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA) in August 1940 and appointed Nelson Rockefeller to head the organization.
Similarly, in 1941 William S. Paley and Edmund A. Chester at CBS Radio collaborated with the OCIAA to create the "La Cadena de las Américas" (Network of the Americas) radio network to broadcast news and cultural programs which reflected Roosevelt's Good neighbor Policy and Pan-Americanism throughout Latin America during World War II.
[22][23] Also, the policy's cultural impact included the launch of CBS Radio's Viva América and Hello Americans programs and the Walt Disney films Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944).
Placed against the backdrop of a growing Nazi threat, the World's Fair was an attempt to escape from the looming prospect of war and to promote peace and interdependence between nations.
In their bid to increase cultural awareness at the World's Fair, each country promoted tourism, and strived to compare itself to the United States in an effort to appeal to Americans.
[28] The era of the Good Neighbor Policy ended with the ramp-up of the Cold War in 1945, as the United States felt there was a greater need to protect the Western Hemisphere from Soviet influence.
U.S. interventions and interference in this era included the CIA overthrow of Guatemala's President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, the unsuccessful CIA-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba in 1961, support for the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état which helped to remove from power democratically elected President João Goulart, the occupation of the Dominican Republic, in response to the Dominican Civil War, in 1965–1966, the CIA subversion of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1970–1973, and support for the 1973 coup d'etat that removed Allende, and support for Operation Charly in Central America and Operation Condor in South America, and the CIA subversion of Nicaragua's Sandinista government from about 1981 to 1990.
Given Brazil's strategic importance for World War II, the country was the target of an immense U.S. propaganda effort, mainly through films, cartoons, and documentaries.
Many American artistic and intellectual personalities were in Brazil working on behalf of the Good Neighbor Policy, including Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Samuel G. Engel, Gregg Toland, and John Ford.
[30] Starting in August 1941 Walt Disney and his team would take a three-month tour through Latin America to mainly receive a better understanding of the area for their respective films.
After the United States successfully suppressed the revolution, Taft left Marines in Nicaragua to hinder and deter any other potential uprisings against the Díaz government.
[35] Nevertheless, Good Neighbor diplomacy was an important collective effort between the United States and Latin America, which fostered a spirit of cooperation and produced a sense of hemispheric solidarity amongst each other as seen with the Declaration of Lima.