Teaching and Learning with Primary Sources:
Funding El Salvador’s Civil War
A LESSON PLAN FROM THE MOAKLEY ARCHIVE & INSTITUTE
SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY, BOSTON
Funding El Salvador’s Civil War:
T H E C L A S H O F U . S . E X E C U T I V E A N D L E G I S L AT I V E B R A N C H E S
S T U D E N T PA C K E T
Political cartoon depicting the US Congressional investigation of the murder of Jesuit Priests in
El Salvador by Paul Szep, Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, 1926-2001 (MS100)
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Background Reading
From 1980 until 1992, the small
Central American nation of El
Salvador was ripped apart by a
civil war between the militaryled government of El Salvador
and the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front
(FMLN), a coalition of left-wing
guerrilla groups. The conflict
left more than 75,000 people
dead, primarily civilians, and
resulted in the mass migration
of nearly one fifth of the
population.
FIGURE 1: MAP OF EL SALVADOR. HTTP://WWW.MAPSOPENSOURCE.COM/IMAGES/ELFearing El Salvador would
SALVADOR-MAP.GIF
succumb to a leftist takeover,
the US government provided training and more than 4 billion of aid to support the Salvadoran
government’s military operations. Beginning in the early 1980s, members of Congress, such as US
Congressman John Joseph Moakley of Massachusetts, urged the Reagan and Bush administrations
to cut El Salvador’s military funding.
Congressman Moakley’s commitment to El Salvador was cemented after meetings with
constituents that included refugees of the Salvadoran civil war and a group of community activists,
the Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America. As a result of these encounters Moakley spent the
next six years working to ease immigration restrictions on Salvadorans, and was later chosen to lead
a congressional investigation into the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests and two women at the
University of Central America in San Salvador. This congressional investigation, also known as the
Moakley Commission, revealed that the murders had been directed from the upper levels of the
Salvadoran armed forces and had been aided and abetted by the United States. The findings
influenced the decision to reduce military funding to El Salvador, led to the successful prosecution
of members of the Salvadoran military and helped pave the way for a U.N. negotiated peace
accords in 1992.
The peace accords contained fundamental provisions for El Salvador’s democratization (including
the removal of the military from political affairs). However, the country began to recover from years
of political and economic turmoil, only to be devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and by a major
earthquake in 2001. Postwar reconstruction has been further delayed by organized crime, faltering
economic growth, and persistent social inequality.
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Lesson Overview
The primary sources for this lesson were selected because they provide insight on a crucial moment in
late twentieth-century American foreign diplomacy when the federal executive and legislative branches
debated U.S. interests in El Salvador during the 1980s and ‘90s.
By closely reading these documents you will be able to:
1. Identify the positions taken by the executive and legislative branches positions on U.S.
interests in El Salvador during the 1980s and ‘90s.
2. Identify and differentiate government stakeholders’ points of view.
3. Develop the skill of close textual analysis.
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Introduction and general discussion of assigned readings (10 minutes)
2. Students divide into teams to analyze one of the four documents (35 minutes)
Each team will:
a. Identify a reporter and timekeeper.
b. Use the Document Analysis Worksheet to closely analyze your document. You may
record answers to questions on the worksheet or on a separate piece of paper.
c. Assist the reporter with compiling the team’s key findings.
3. Teams report back and group discussion (25 min)
Be prepared to answer the following question:
“What explains the clash between executive and legislative branch over U.S. intervention
in El Salvador?”
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document Analysis Worksheet
Document Identification
1. What type of document is it? (Map, letter, report, photograph, newspaper article, etc.)
2. When was it created?
3. Where was it created?
4. Who created it? (Name, profession, status, class, gender, ethnicity, etc.)
5. Who is the intended audience for this document?
Document Analysis
1. List 3 things the author said that you think are important.
2. Does the author have an argument? If so, what is it?
3. Why was the document written? How do you know? Select a quote as evidence.
4. What does this document tell you about U.S. foreign policy towards El Salvador during the
1980s and 1990s?
5. What questions are left unanswered by this document?
6. What research question could this document be used to answer?
Group Discussion Question
What explains the clash between executive and legislative branch over U.S. intervention in
El Salvador?
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 1 (page 1 of 2)
Letter from John Joseph Moakley to President Ronald Reagan urging him not to allow Salvadoran troops to be
trained in the United States, 1 February 1982 http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8601
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 1 (page 2 of 2)
Letter from John Joseph Moakley to President Ronald Reagan urging him not to allow Salvadoran troops to be
trained in the United States, 1 February 1982
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8601
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 1 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 2 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 3 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 4 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 5 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 2 (page 6 of 6)
Justification for Presidential Determination to Authorize Continued Security Assistance for El Salvador, circa 1980
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8605
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 3 (Page 1 of 3, excerpt of 34 page document)
List of El Salvador cases and expense totals by fiscal year from 1980-1992, 3 April 1992
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8562
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 3 (Page 2 of 3, excerpt of 34 page document)
List of El Salvador cases and expense totals by fiscal year from 1980-1992, 3 April 1992
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8562
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 3 (Page 3 of 3, excerpt of 34 page document)
List of El Salvador cases and expense totals by fiscal year from 1980-1992, 3 April 1992
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8562
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 4 (page 1 of 4)
Congressional Record - House. "Legislation to prohibit further military assistance to El Salvador." 8 March 1982
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8897
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 4 (page 2 of 4)
Congressional Record - House. "Legislation to prohibit further military assistance to El Salvador." 8 March 1982
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8897
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 4 (page 3 of 4)
Congressional Record - House. "Legislation to prohibit further military assistance to El Salvador." 8 March 1982
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8897
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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Document 4 (page 4 of 4)
Congressional Record - House. "Legislation to prohibit further military assistance to El Salvador." 8 March 1982
http://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/8897
MOAKLEY ARCHIVE AND INSTITUTE | Funding El Salvador’s Civil War | Student packet
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