The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Benning (briefly known as Fort Moore) in Columbus, Georgia. The school was renamed in the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act.
The institute was founded in 1946; by the year 2000, more than 60,000 Latin American military, law enforcement, and security personnel had attended the school. The school was located in the Panama Canal Zone until its expulsion in 1984.
When the institute was still known as the School of the Americas it had what it described as a 'Hall of Fame' honoring its most accomplished alumni. It included Bolivian dictator Gen. Hugo Banzer Suárez, drug lord and dictator Manuel Noriega, and Guatemalan General Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas.
As part of the U.S. Army's restructuring initiated in December 2025, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) is aligning with the newly created United States Army Western Hemisphere Command (USAWHC). This shift integrates regional security training, education, and partnerships under a single four-star command designed to enhance theater security cooperation and operational focus across the hemisphere.
History Latin American Training Center-Ground Division In 1946, the United States Army founded the Latin American Training Center-Ground Division (Centro de Entrenamiento Latino Americano, Division Terrestre) at Fort Amador in the Panama Canal Zone to centralize the "administrative tasks involved in training the increasing number of Latin Americans attending U.S. service schools in the canal zone." The school trained Latin American military personnel to use artillery and advanced weapons purchased from the United States and provided instruction in nation-building. The army soon renamed the division the Latin American Ground School (Escuela Latino Americana Terrestre) and divided it into three departments: engineering, communications, and weapons and tactics. The school was affiliated with army training schools in Panama that included the Food Service School (Fort Clayton), the Motor Mechanics School (Fort Randolph), and the Medical School (Fort Clayton). Chronic under-enrollment occurred during the school's first few years, as Latin American officials preferred to have personnel trained within the continental United States. Cadets of varying degrees of education and military experience were placed in the same courses. In 1947, discussions of national castes and class divisions in Latin American countries among U.S. officials led to changes in course structure that created separate classes for officers and lower-ranks.Gill, Lesley (2004). The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas. Duke University Press. pp. 65-70. . Retrieved 2019-11-12.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the school sought to prove that the quality of training provided matched or exceeded training provided by institutions within the U.S. When a group of Argentine officers attended a three-month course in 1948, the school painstakingly structured the program to convince them that the U.S. was "enterprising, efficient, and powerful." Administrators leveraged preconceived notions around Argentine racial superiority in Latin America to cultivate feelings of equality between the Argentine officers and their U.S. counterparts.
Scholar Lesley Gill has argued that the Ground School not only trained students, but incorporated them "into the ideology of the 'American way of life' by steeping them in a vision of empire that identified their aspirations with those of the United States."Gill, Lesley (2004). The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas. Duke University Press. pp. 65. . Retrieved 2019-11-12.
U.S. Army Caribbean School In February 1949, the army consolidated the training schools in the Panama Canal Zone and transferred operations to Fort Gulick.Ormsbee, William H., US Army School of the Americas (USARSA): Profile of a Training Institution (1984) The army changed the name of the Latin American Ground School to the U.S. Army Caribbean School. Some courses were taught in Spanish to accommodate requests from Latin American countries that the school served. The school graduated 743 U.S. military personnel and 251 Latin Americans representing ten countries in 1949.
Mutual defense assistance agreements bound the U.S. Army to the militaries of Latin America by the middle of the 1950s, with only Mexico and Argentina as exceptions. By 1954, the school's pupils were overwhelmingly from Latin American countries due to a decrease in U.S. military personnel in the region, an increased utilization of the school by governments in Latin America, and an agreement that the United States would pay "transportation, per diem and course costs for military trainees from MDAP countries in Latin America."Latin America, United States Objectives and Courses of Action with Respect to. Transmittal Memorandum, Elmer B. Staats, Exec. Officer, Operations Coordinating Board, to James S. Lay, Jr., Exec. Secy, NSC. Feb. 3, 1955. 2 p. Att: Same title [progress in fulfilling the objectives of NSC 5432/1 are detailed: the Communist government of Guatemala has been overthrown, and a government favorable to the US has come to power; the US has increased financial support to the OAS; criticism of US economic policy has subsided; assistance has been given to Haiti and Honduras for disaster relief; course, travel, and per diem costs are being paid for Latin American military trainees in the US; military agreements have been made with Honduras and Nicaragua; the information program has been reoriented for more impact on priority areas. Problems may arise from the Soviet Union's program aimed at indoctrination of Latin American labor, efforts to implement the policy to extend credit for the sale of military equipment, and Latin American desire to extend sovereignty beyond the three-mile limit]. Progress Report on NSC 5432/1. Jan. 19, 1955. 4 p.; Annex: Detailed Development of Major Actions. Report. 25 p. TOP SECRET. Declassified Dec. 8, 1980. Eisenhower Library, White House Office, Office of the Spec. Asst. for Nat. Security Affairs: Records, 1952-61, NSC Series; Policy Papers Subseries, Box 13, NSC 5432/1, Policy toward Latin America. National Security Council, 3 Feb. 1955. U.S. Declassified Documents Online, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/C9oXm5 . Retrieved November 6, 2019. In 1956, English was eliminated as an instructional language and the school adopted Spanish as its official language. Accordingly, the majority of U.S. personnel the school trained between 1956 and 1964 were Puerto Rican.
During this period, the army utilized the school for translation. In 1955, the Department of the Army established the Spanish Translation Review Board within the school to "review new and old translations of U.S. Army Field Manuals prior to publishing to correct grammatical and technical errors and to assist in the standardization of military terms" employed in Spanish-language curricula. In 1961, General Lyman Lemnitzer suggested that Latin American students could be utilized to "review translations to insure conformance with individual country language and practical applicability."A. Latin America, Military Actions for. Transmittal Memorandum, JCSM-832-61, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, to the President. November 30, 1961. 2 p. App. (A): Part I. Recommendations with Statement of the Problem and Need for Action [the US has a greater capability for furthering its objectives in Latin America than it is presently using]. 7 p.; App. (B): Part II. Recommendations with Supporting Data [actions and programs are outlined that are to be implemented within the DOD, that are to implemented within the DOD in conjunction with other agencies, and that require host government acceptance and participation]. 15 p.; Annex (A) to App. (B): Basis for United States Military Participation in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 4 p.; Annex (B) to App. (B): Requirement for Intelligence. 2 p.; Annex (C) to App. (B): The Military Assistance Program in Latin America. 4 p.; Annex (D) to App. (B): Proposed Implementation for a Latin American Military Information and Education Program. 5 p.; Annex (E) to App. (B): A Proposal for Latin American Civilian Conservation Corps Programs. 4 p.; Annex (F) to App. (B): Latin American Military Air Transport in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 3 p.; Annex (G) to App. (B): Nation Building and Civic Actions. 2 p.; App. (C): Part III. Factual Data [information on bloc penetration; Communist Parties in Latin America; influence of the US on the Latin American military; indigenous politics; economics, social, cultural, and psychological life; and significant US military accomplishments in Latin America]. 25 p. SECRET to CONFIDENTIAL. SANITIZED copy. Released Mar. 20-23, 1981. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, NSAM 118, JCS Recommendations, Parts I-III, Dec. 1961, Box 333. Department Of Defense, 30 November 1961. U.S. Declassified Documents Online, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/C9pba3 . Retrieved November 6, 2019.
After the 1959 revolution in Cuba, the U.S. Military adopted a national security doctrine under the perceived threat of an "international communist conspiracy." In 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered the school to focus on teaching "anti-communist" counterinsurgency training to military personnel from Latin America. Broadly, the U.S. offered training to Latin Americans in riot and mob control, special warfare, jungle warfare, intelligence, and counterintelligence, civil affairs, and public information.A. Latin America, Military Actions for. Transmittal Memorandum, JCSM-832-61, Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, to the President. November 30, 1961. 2 p. App. (A): Part I. Recommendations with Statement of the Problem and Need for Action [the US has a greater capability for furthering its objectives in Latin America than it is presently using]. 7 p.; App. (B): Part II. Recommendations with Supporting Data [actions and programs are outlined that are to be implemented within the DOD, that are to implemented within the DOD in conjunction with other agencies, and that require host government acceptance and participation]. 15 p.; Annex (A) to App. (B): Basis for United States Military Participation in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 4 p.; Annex (B) to App. (B): Requirement for Intelligence. 2 p.; Annex (C) to App. (B): The Military Assistance Program in Latin America. 4 p.; Annex (D) to App. (B): Proposed Implementation for a Latin American Military Information and Education Program. 5 p.; Annex (E) to App. (B): A Proposal for Latin American Civilian Conservation Corps Programs. 4 p.; Annex (F) to App. (B): Latin American Military Air Transport in Support of the Alliance for Progress. 3 p.; Annex (G) to App. (B): Nation Building and Civic Actions. 2 p.; App. (C): Part III. Factual Data [information on bloc penetration; Communist Parties in Latin America; influence of the US on the Latin American military; indigenous politics; economics, social, cultural, and psychological life; and significant US military accomplishments in Latin America]. 25 p. SECRET to CONFIDENTIAL. SANITIZED copy. Released Mar. 20-23, 1981. Kennedy Library, NSF, Meetings and Memoranda, NSAM 118, JCS Recommendations, Parts I-III, Dec. 1961, Box 333. Department Of Defense, 30 November 1961. U.S. Declassified Documents Online, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/C9pba3 . Retrieved November 6, 2019. According to anthropologist Lesley Gill, the label "communist" was a “highly elastic category that could accommodate almost any critic of the status quo."