The End of Innocence: Peruvian Foreign Policy and the United States, 1919–1942
From I9I9 to I942, Peruvian foreign policy focused on two interrelated issues: the resolution of Peru's territorial disputes with Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, and the reconciliation of an expanding and deepening relationship with the United States government. The two issues were entwined since the Peruvian government and people, for part of the period, expected the support and assistance of the United States government in resolving the three territorial issues. Partially in an attempt to respond to these expectations, the United States government was aggressively and extensively involved, albeit sometimes in a manner contrary to Peruvian desires, in the resolution of all three disputes. On the whole, United States foreign policy seldom equaled Peruvian expectations throughout the period, and its failure to do so precipitated or accelerated the growth of major new tenets in Peruvian foreign policy. Augusto B. Legula, President of Peru from 1908 to I912, returned to Peru after five years of exile in London and was re-elected in May I9I9. Not waiting to be installed constitutionally, he seized the National Palace in a golpe del estado on 4 July 1919. For the next eleven years, he ruled as a dictator with only a facade of constitutional authority. One of Legufa's lifelong foreign policy concerns was Peru's territorial disputes with its five neighbors: Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, and Chile. The first four disputes originated at the time of Peru's independence from Spain and were largely the result of Spain's failure to delineate the boundaries of its American colonies. The dispute with Chile was more recent in nature, involving former Peruvian territories which Chile occupied after the War of the Pacific (I87983). Leguia considered himself a statesman and wanted to be the Peruvian responsible for ending these annoying disputes. During his first administration, he had negotiated settlements of Peru's boundary disputes with Brazil and Bolivia, and during his second term the principal goal of his foreign policy was to complete the delineation of Peru's territorial limits. As early as 1918, he told a Colombian friend and journalist that he believed it was time for Peru to terminate all disputes with its neigh-