CIA activities in Guatemala
Encyclopedia
Several hundred records were released by the Central Intelligence Agency
on May 23 1997, on its involvement in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
They reflected Truman administration feeling that the government of Arbenz, elected in 1950, would continue a process of socio-economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'"
Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of successive US-sponsored military regimes murdered more than 200,000 civilians, with another 100,000 "disappeared."
Although most high-level US officials recognized that a hostile government in Guatemala by itself did not constitute a direct security threat to the United States, they viewed events there in the context of the growing Cold War
struggle with the Soviet Union
and feared Guatemala could reduce the influence of US corporations (such as United Fruit) in the region, and thus reduce US influence.
CIA and IC
reports tended to reinforce the view that Guatemala and the Arbenz regime were rapidly falling under the sway of socialism
. DCI Walter Bedell Smith believed the situation called for action. Their assessment was that without help, the Guatemalan opposition would remain inept, disorganized and efficient. The anti-communist elements -- the Catholic hierarchy, landowners, business interests, the railway workers union, university students and the army were prepared to prevent socialism, but apart from the US they had little outside support.
The CIA interest in Guatemala was in creating an authoritarian government in Guatemala in place of its functioning democracy for the sole
purpose of protecting US corporate interests.
Other US officials, especially in the US Department of State, urged a more cautious approach. The Bureau of Inter-American Affairs,for example, did not want to present 'the spectacle of the elephant shaking with alarm before the mouse.' It wanted a policy of firm persuasion with the withholding of virtually all cooperative assistance, and the concluding of military defense assistance pacts, with El Salvador
, Nicaragua
and Honduras
. Although the Department of State position became the official public US policy, the CIA assessment…had support within the Truman administration as well."
Following a visit to Washington by Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza
in April 1952, in which Somoza boasted that if provided arms, he and Guatemalan exile Carlos Castillo Armas could overthrow Arbenz, President Harry Truman asked DCI Smith to investigate the possibility…" After seeing the report of an agent sent to investigate, Smith approved a proposal to supply Castillo Armas with arms and $225,000 and that Nicaragua and Honduras provide air cover. PBFORTUNE was approved on 9 September 1952, but was terminated a month later when Smith learned it had become known. The idea of assassinations were mentioned, but only at a general level.
The National Security Council and President Eisenhower approved a covert action against Arbenz in August 1953. It carried a $2.7 million budget for "psychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war.
, was the codename for the CIA's first covert operation in Latin America, carried out in Guatemala.
The purpose of the operation was to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán
, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala
. The U.S. began to worry about the growth of Communism there, due to Jacobo Arbenz's policies. In fact, before the authorization of the president, the CIA had already begun sending out memos, regarding the threat and the spread of communism. By recruiting a Guatemalan military force the CIA's operation succeeded in eliminating the democratic government and replacing it with a military junta headed by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas
.
A U.S. State Department
report released in 2003 states that social unrest within Guatemala and Arbenz's alleged Communist ties were the reason the CIA first drew up a contingency plan to oust Arbenz, entitled Operation PBFORTUNE
. The plan was drafted in 1951, before the U.S.-based United Fruit Company
's landholdings had been expropriated.
The CIA's own declassified analysis is generally consistent, although differing in detail with the above. Training for the new PBSUCCESS plan included preparation of a briefing plan for assassinations,separate from the NSC plan.
Dissident leaders urged the "violent disposal" of an opponent, as psychological warfare, but the CIA chief of the temporary covert action base, LINCOLN, cautioned that they only wanted to destroy effectiveness; "we do not mean to kill the man…scare not kill."
Castillo Armas' CIA-supported force entered Guatemala on June 16. Arbenz sought asylum on 27 June, and 120 other Arbenz officials were given safe passage out of the country. There is no evidence of executions. "Discussion of whether to assassinate Guatemalans…took place in a historical era quite different from the present. In the documents, however, was an unsigned, undated technical discussion of assassination.
Soviet Communism had earned a reputation of using whatever means were expedient to advance Moscow's interests internationally…American officials and the public regarded foreign Communist parties as Soviet pawns and as threatening to US security interest. The public perception was that the Soviets were intent on world hegemony -- which the Soviets believed of the US.
The political and consequent social instability created in Guatemala 6 years later resulted in a very long civil war and its consequent, destructive impact upon the society, the economy, human rights and the culture of Guatemala. According to author Kate Doyle, the CIA-sponsored military coup in 1954 was "the poison arrow that pierced the heart of Guatemala's young democracy."
wanted to invade Guatemala with private military contractors. In support of this, CIA Director William Raborn
was tasked with finding evidence to support the President's belief that Guatemala was a Cuban puppet state
. Raborn was unsuccessful in finding such evidence.
1988-91. CIA station chief in Guatemala from 1988 to 1991 was a Cuban American. He had about 20 officers with a budget of about $5 million a year and an equal or greater sum for "liaison" with Guatemalan military. His job included placing and keeping senior Guatemalan officers on his payroll. Among them was Alpirez, who recruited others for CIA. Alpirez's intelligence unit spied on Guatemalans and is accused by human rights groups of assassinations. CIA also gave Guatemalan army information on the guerrillas.
who attempted a self-coup
and had suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio
.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
on May 23 1997, on its involvement in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
They reflected Truman administration feeling that the government of Arbenz, elected in 1950, would continue a process of socio-economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'"
Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of successive US-sponsored military regimes murdered more than 200,000 civilians, with another 100,000 "disappeared."
Although most high-level US officials recognized that a hostile government in Guatemala by itself did not constitute a direct security threat to the United States, they viewed events there in the context of the growing Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
struggle with the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and feared Guatemala could reduce the influence of US corporations (such as United Fruit) in the region, and thus reduce US influence.
CIA and IC
Ic
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
reports tended to reinforce the view that Guatemala and the Arbenz regime were rapidly falling under the sway of socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. DCI Walter Bedell Smith believed the situation called for action. Their assessment was that without help, the Guatemalan opposition would remain inept, disorganized and efficient. The anti-communist elements -- the Catholic hierarchy, landowners, business interests, the railway workers union, university students and the army were prepared to prevent socialism, but apart from the US they had little outside support.
The CIA interest in Guatemala was in creating an authoritarian government in Guatemala in place of its functioning democracy for the sole
purpose of protecting US corporate interests.
Other US officials, especially in the US Department of State, urged a more cautious approach. The Bureau of Inter-American Affairs,for example, did not want to present 'the spectacle of the elephant shaking with alarm before the mouse.' It wanted a policy of firm persuasion with the withholding of virtually all cooperative assistance, and the concluding of military defense assistance pacts, with El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
and Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
. Although the Department of State position became the official public US policy, the CIA assessment…had support within the Truman administration as well."
Guatemala 1952
The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952. As early as February of that year, CIA Headquarters began generating memos with subject titles such as "Guatemalan Communist Personnel to be disposed of during Military Operations," outlining categories of persons to be neutralized "through Executive Action"--murder--or through imprisonment and exile.Following a visit to Washington by Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza
Anastasio Somoza García
Anastasio Somoza García was officially the President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 to 29 September 1956, but ruled effectively as dictator from 1936 until his assassination.-Biography:Somoza was born in San Marcos, Carazo Department in Nicaragua, the son of...
in April 1952, in which Somoza boasted that if provided arms, he and Guatemalan exile Carlos Castillo Armas could overthrow Arbenz, President Harry Truman asked DCI Smith to investigate the possibility…" After seeing the report of an agent sent to investigate, Smith approved a proposal to supply Castillo Armas with arms and $225,000 and that Nicaragua and Honduras provide air cover. PBFORTUNE was approved on 9 September 1952, but was terminated a month later when Smith learned it had become known. The idea of assassinations were mentioned, but only at a general level.
Guatemala 1953
In 1953, the CIA continued to try to influence Guatemalan policy and explore disposing of key adversaries…As psychological warfare, the CIA Guatemala City station sent "death notice" cards to all leading communists. The one-month campaigns in April and June produced no apparent results.The National Security Council and President Eisenhower approved a covert action against Arbenz in August 1953. It carried a $2.7 million budget for "psychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war.
Guatemala 1954
PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, was the codename for the CIA's first covert operation in Latin America, carried out in Guatemala.
The purpose of the operation was to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán
Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as Defense Minister of Guatemala from 1944–1951, and as President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954....
, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala
President of Guatemala
The title of President of Guatemala has been the usual title of the leader of Guatemala since 1839, when that title was assumed by Mariano Rivera Paz...
. The U.S. began to worry about the growth of Communism there, due to Jacobo Arbenz's policies. In fact, before the authorization of the president, the CIA had already begun sending out memos, regarding the threat and the spread of communism. By recruiting a Guatemalan military force the CIA's operation succeeded in eliminating the democratic government and replacing it with a military junta headed by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas
Carlos Castillo Armas
Carlos Castillo Armas was a Guatemalan Colonel who came to power in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954. He held the title of President of Guatemala from July 8, 1954 until his assassination in 1957.-The coup:...
.
A U.S. State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
report released in 2003 states that social unrest within Guatemala and Arbenz's alleged Communist ties were the reason the CIA first drew up a contingency plan to oust Arbenz, entitled Operation PBFORTUNE
Operation PBFORTUNE
Operation PBFORTUNE was the name of a contingency plan drafted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 1951 that outlined a method of ousting Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz if he was deemed a Communist threat in the hemisphere...
. The plan was drafted in 1951, before the U.S.-based United Fruit Company
United Fruit Company
It had a deep and long-lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the...
's landholdings had been expropriated.
The CIA's own declassified analysis is generally consistent, although differing in detail with the above. Training for the new PBSUCCESS plan included preparation of a briefing plan for assassinations,separate from the NSC plan.
Dissident leaders urged the "violent disposal" of an opponent, as psychological warfare, but the CIA chief of the temporary covert action base, LINCOLN, cautioned that they only wanted to destroy effectiveness; "we do not mean to kill the man…scare not kill."
Castillo Armas' CIA-supported force entered Guatemala on June 16. Arbenz sought asylum on 27 June, and 120 other Arbenz officials were given safe passage out of the country. There is no evidence of executions. "Discussion of whether to assassinate Guatemalans…took place in a historical era quite different from the present. In the documents, however, was an unsigned, undated technical discussion of assassination.
Soviet Communism had earned a reputation of using whatever means were expedient to advance Moscow's interests internationally…American officials and the public regarded foreign Communist parties as Soviet pawns and as threatening to US security interest. The public perception was that the Soviets were intent on world hegemony -- which the Soviets believed of the US.
The political and consequent social instability created in Guatemala 6 years later resulted in a very long civil war and its consequent, destructive impact upon the society, the economy, human rights and the culture of Guatemala. According to author Kate Doyle, the CIA-sponsored military coup in 1954 was "the poison arrow that pierced the heart of Guatemala's young democracy."
Guatemala 1965
President Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
wanted to invade Guatemala with private military contractors. In support of this, CIA Director William Raborn
William Raborn
Vice Admiral William Francis Raborn, Jr., United States Navy was a United States Navy officer, the leader of the project to develop the Polaris missile system, and the 7th Director of Central Intelligence as well as the 5th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.Born in Decatur, Texas on June...
was tasked with finding evidence to support the President's belief that Guatemala was a Cuban puppet state
Puppet state
A puppet state is a nominal sovereign of a state who is de facto controlled by a foreign power. The term refers to a government controlled by the government of another country like a puppeteer controls the strings of a marionette...
. Raborn was unsuccessful in finding such evidence.
Guatemala 1980
1954-95. U.S. Undercover agents have worked for decades inside a Guatemalan army unit that has tortured and killed thousands of Guatemalan citizens, per the Nation weekly magazine. "working out of the U.S. Embassy and living in safe houses and hotels, agents work through an elite group of Guatemalan officers who are secretly paid by CIA and implicated personally in numerous political crimes and assassinations unit known as G-2 and its secret collaboration with CIA were described by U.S. and Guatemalan operatives and confirmed by three former Guatemalan heads of state. Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, Guatemalan officer implicated in murders of guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez — husband of an American lawyer — and rancher Michael Devine discussed in an interview how intelligence agency advises and helps run G-2. He said agents came to Central American country often to train G-2 men and he described attending CIA sessions at G-2 bases on "contra-subversion" tactics and "how to manage factors of power" to "fortify democracy" the Nation quoted U.S. and Guatemalan intelligence sources as saying at least three recent G-2 chiefs have been on CIA payroll — General Edgar Godoy Gatan, Colonel Otto Perez Molina and General Francisco Ortega Menaldo. `It would be embarrassing if you ever had a roll call of everybody in Guatemalan army who ever collected a CIA paycheck, report quoted Colonel George Hooker, U.S. DIA chief in Guatemala from 1985 to 1989, as saying. Human rights group Amnesty International has said Guatemalan army killed more than 110,000 civilians since 1978 with G-2 and another unit called Archivo known as main death squads.1988-91. CIA station chief in Guatemala from 1988 to 1991 was a Cuban American. He had about 20 officers with a budget of about $5 million a year and an equal or greater sum for "liaison" with Guatemalan military. His job included placing and keeping senior Guatemalan officers on his payroll. Among them was Alpirez, who recruited others for CIA. Alpirez's intelligence unit spied on Guatemalans and is accused by human rights groups of assassinations. CIA also gave Guatemalan army information on the guerrillas.
Guatemala 1993
In 1993 the CIA helped in overthrowing Jorge Serrano ElíasJorge Serrano Elías
Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías was President of Guatemala from January 14, 1991 to May 31, 1993.-Career:Serrano was born April 26, 1945 in Guatemala City as the son of Jorge Adán Serrano and Rosa Elías...
who attempted a self-coup
Self-coup
A self-coup or autocoup is a form of coup d'état that occurs when a country's leader, who has come to power through legal means, dissolves or renders powerless the national legislature and assumes extraordinary powers not granted under normal circumstances. Other measures taken may include...
and had suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, and imposed censorship. He was replaced by Ramiro de León Carpio
Ramiro de León Carpio
Ramiro de León Carpio was the President of Guatemala from 6 June 1993 until 14 January 1996.-Career:He studied law at the University of San Carlos and then at the Rafael Landívar University, where he ran the Sol Bolivariano newspaper...
.