Operation PBSUCCESS
Encyclopedia
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation
organized by the United States
Central Intelligence Agency
to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán
, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala
.
Árbenz's government put forth a number of new policies, such as seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants. The U.S. intelligence community deemed such plans communist in nature. This led CIA director Allen Dulles to fear that Guatemala would become a "Soviet
beachhead in the western hemisphere
". Dulles' concern reverberated within the CIA and the Eisenhower administration, in the context of the anti-communist fears of the McCarthyist era.
Árbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational
United Fruit Company
, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala
and lobbied various levels of the U.S. government to take action against Árbenz. Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.
The operation, known by the code name Operation PBSUCCESS, lasted from late 1953 to 1954. The CIA armed and trained an ad-hoc "Liberation Army" of about 400 fighters under the command of a then-exiled Guatemalan army officer, Colonel
Carlos Castillo Armas
, and used them in conjunction with a complex and largely experimental diplomatic, economic, and propaganda
campaign. The CIA established the Voice of Liberation radio station, located across the border in Honduras
relaying programming originating in Miami, and pretended to be the spontaneous voice of patriots opposed to the elected government. The operation effectively ended the experimental period of representative democracy
in Guatemala known as the "Ten Years of Spring", which ended with Árbenz's official resignation. Following the coup, the Guatemalan Civil War
began, a civil war involving some of the most brutal counterinsurgency of its time (including years of massacres of Maya
Indians, since characterized by Historical Clarification Commission
as genocide).
The operation was preceded by a plan, never fully implemented, as early as 1951, to supply anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding, Operation PBFORTUNE
. Afterwards there was an operation, Operation PBHISTORY, whose objective was to gather and analyze documents from the Árbenz government that would incriminate Árbenz as a Communist puppet
. This Operation found no evidence to support such a strong claim; the Árbenz government was found to not have been "infiltrated" by communists, but simply allowed communists the democratic right of party-formation and political participation.
, and Ubico's predecessor Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, Guatemala was widely opened up to foreign investment, with special favors being made from Ubico to the United Fruit Company
(UFC) in particular. The UFC responded by pouring investment capital into the country, buying controlling shares of the railroad, electric utility
, and telegraph, while also winning control over the majority of the country's best land and de facto control over its only Atlantic port facilities. As a result, the Guatemalan government was often subservient to the UFC's interests.
In the "October Revolution" of 1944 General Jorge Ubico
was overthrown. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was elected. A new constitution allowed for the possibility of expropriating land. This, as well as Arévalo philosophy of "spiritual socialism", alarmed Guatemala's landed elite who began to accuse Arévalo of supporting communism
. In 1947 he signed a labor protection law that implicitly targeted the UFC. The US embassy in Guatemala sent alarmed messages that Arévalo was allowing communists to organize and had reputedly provided known communists with support. Arévalo supported the Caribbean Legion
, a group of ostensibly reformist Latin America
ns who plotted to overthrow dictatorships in the Dominican Republic
, Venezuela
, Nicaragua
, and Costa Rica
. A 1949 CIA analysis described it as a "destabilizing force."
Jacobo Árbenz Guzman, who as an army captain had played an important role in the "October Revolution" of 1944, won 65% of the vote in the 1950 election. The constitution did not allow the president to run for reelection in the next vote, scheduled for 1956.
While impoverished peasants welcomed Árbenz's Agrarian Reform Act of 1952, known as Decree 900
, the landowning upper-classes and factions of the military accused him of bowing to Communist influence. Tension resulted in civil unrest in the country and fueled the indignation of the UFC. In March 1953 uncultivated lands owned by UFC were to be expropriated with a proposed compensation plan, whereby the Guatemalan government would pay the United Fruit roughly US$600,000 based on the company's declared taxes, in essence offering the company what it publicly said the land was worth as compensation. In the following October 1953 and in February 1954, the Guatemalan government took another 150,000 acres (600 km²) of uncultivated land from the United Fruit Company, bringing the total amount of appropriations to almost 400,000 acres (1,600 km²). In April 1954 the U.S. State Department delivered a note to the Árbenz government demanding that Guatemala pay $15,854,849 for the UFC properties expropriated on the Pacific Coast alone. Guatemala denied this overture, charging violation of its sovereignty.
After the expropriations began in 1953 the UFC began lobbying the U.S. government in an attempt to draw them into their confrontation with Árbenz. The "father of spin", Edward L. Bernays organized a series of inflammatory articles in major US publications. The U.S. State Department responded by, amongst other things, successfully seeking approved cuts in economic aid and cuts in trade, with devastating effect to Guatemala, since "85% of Guatemala’s exports are sold in the country and 85% of their imports come from the U.S." Internal U.S. State Department documents stated that the cutoff would have to be done "quietly" because this was "a violation of the Non-intervention agreement, to which we are party... If it became obvious that we were in violation of this agreement, other Latin America
n governments would rally to the support of Guatemala."
A U.S. State Department
report released in 2003 states that social unrest within Guatemala and Árbenz's alleged Communist ties were the reason the CIA first drew up a contingency plan to oust Árbenz, entitled Operation PBFORTUNE
(later changed to Operation PBSUCCESS.) The plan was drafted in 1951, before the United Fruit Company
's landholdings had been expropriated. "In the Agency's view, Árbenz's toleration for known Communists made him at best a 'fellow traveler,' and at worst a Communist himself. The social unrest that accompanied the passage and implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law supplied critics in Guatemala and Washington with confirmation that a Communist beachhead had been established in the Americas. Agrarian reform was not the issue--communism was."
In retrospect, the US government admitted that these concerns of "communism" under Arbenz were greatly exaggerated not only in their propaganda campaign but in their own private planning as well. After the coup, they initiated an operation (see Operation PBHISTORY section below) to amass documents left from the Arbenz government that might confirm their thesis that Arbenz was becoming a Soviet puppet. They found no evidence that would support such a serious claim. Several academics have commented that "communism" in the Arbenz government was not really the issue, and that Arbenz's supposed "tolerance" of communists only amounted to the democratic permission of party-formation and political participation that Arbenz allowed to all political factions, including communists. While "communism" was shown by Operation PBHISTORY to not have been an actual threat, the primary threat that did motivate the US coup was the program of democratic social reforms that Arbenz was carrying out (and the implicit threat to the interests of US corporations such as United Fruit).
Richard Bissell, a former Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, has stated that there "is absolutely no reason to believe" the desire to help United Fruit played "any significant role" in reaching the decision. CIA agent Howard Hunt, who was involved with the coup, has suggested to the contrary that United Fruit's lobbying campaign was a contributing factor in making policy; although Hunt suggests that the action was justified by security concerns, he believes that United Fruit's political clout was nonetheless a key factor.
(DCI) Walter B. Smith sent an agent to Guatemala City
to investigate potential candidate individuals or organizations. At the time the state of the opposition to Árbenz was inert, divided, and increasingly fractious. The agent returned empty handed. Fortunately for the CIA, this roughly coincided with the first state visit
of the President
of Nicaragua
, Anastasio Somoza
. He informed them of Castillo Armas's small rebel group and stated that, with the CIA's support, he and Armas could unseat Árbenz. They also could expect financial backing from Dominican dictator
Rafael Trujillo and, as Armas later claimed, from internal elements within the Guatemalan army. DCI Smith urged his subordinates to follow up on this and to establish contacts with Armas, which they did in June of the same year. At the CIA's request, Armas then relayed to them a plan for invasion, which was to launch from El Salvador
, Mexico
, and Honduras
(from UFC land) and would be coordinated with simultaneous uprisings within Guatemala. Armas requested arms, money, aircraft, and boats and informed them that he would launch the invasion as planned regardless of the CIA's support if need be. In July the CIA secured arms, transport, and $225,000 (US) for Armas, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. In September the CIA secured State Department approval and Operation PBFORTUNE
was set.
One of two major setbacks occurred shortly afterwards when, while preparing for the arms shipment, the operation had to be called off. Somoza had been speaking of the invasion plan with other Central American leaders and the operation's cover, which was very important due to the fragile diplomatic situation the United States had with the region, was blown. While Operation PBFORTUNE was officially terminated, the operation led a twilight existence with the arms shipment prepared prior still kept in waiting and with Armas being kept on a $3,000 a week retainer.
and the arrival of Dwight D. Eisenhower
, hopes were again raised within the CIA about the possibility of reviving the invasion. Eisenhower expressed favor toward covert operations as a means of cheaply and covertly combating the Soviet Union. While working toward getting this support, anxiety within the Agency about the possibility of a premature coup attempt being enacted by overeager rebel groups began to rise and was justified in early 1953 when a futile and poorly planned invasion was attempted by a rebel group marginally associated with Armas. The invasion precipitated exactly the reaction feared within the Agency: the Guatemalan government was provided with a justification for severely clamping down on anticommunist elements within their country—jailing many—and was supported by a popular backlash against the anti-communists amongst the people.
With almost all of their local assets destroyed, the CIA was forced to rely solely on the much more fragmented exile groups.
After all but abandoning the project in mid-1953, the U.S. National Security Council
revived the project in August of that year after a review of the situation in light of the success of the recent CIA-organized coup against Mossadegh in Iran
. CIA officers involved included Tracy Barnes
, the CIA officer in charge, David Atlee Phillips
, Jacob 'Jack' Esterline
, E. Howard Hunt
, David Sanchez Morales
, Frank Wisner
, William "Rip" Robertson, William Pawley, Gerry Droller
.
When PBSUCCESS was initiated a leader had to be chosen to lead a rebel army. The CIA had an important decision to make due to the fact that whoever they chose was probably going to succeed Árbenz. The CIA had three Guatemalan exiles in mind. At first the CIA were leaning towards Juan Cordova Cerna. Cerna was a coffee finquero, UFCO consultant and former cabinet member for Arevalo. He helped the UFCO have an uprising in 1953. Another candidate was Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes
. He was previously a notable general, department governor for Ubico. Fuentes was pro-Nazi up until 1943, when he became pro-United States and even went to the states to mediate the overthrow of Ponce. The third candidate was Carlos Armas. Armas had military skills and attended the national military academy with Árbenz. The CIA eventually chose Armas .
Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida
in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots, oversaw the training of rebels, set up a radio station to use for propaganda purposes, and stepped up the diplomatic pressure on Guatemala. Although they couldn't halt the exports of coffee, a major industry in Guatemala at the time, they succeeded in foiling two deals to buy arms and ammunition from Canada
and Germany
. Faced with dwindling military supply and witnessing the buildup of armaments in neighboring countries, Árbenz started to seriously take into account the possibility of an invasion, which had been rumored for months and finally confirmed when a defector from the Agency's stable of rebels informed the Árbenz regime of PBSUCCESS and its details, and began looking for potential sellers of crucial supplies. This brought Árbenz to conclude a deal, announced in the newspaper El Imparcial, with Czechoslovakia
for arms; apparently Czechoslovakia had kept tons of captured German arms in storage since the end of World War II
, a decade before. The Czechoslovakian arms were delivered on a Swedish freighter named Alfhem
which departed from the Polish port Szczecin. The freighter delivered the arms in the city of Puerto Barrios. The U.S. State Department and the CIA tried to delay and stop the freighter. In one instance they worked quickly to stop the shipment but they miscalculated and believed the shipment was on a ship called Wulfsbrook. This provided a window for the Alfhem to make it to Guatemala. Árbenz intended for the shipment to be a secret. He wanted to give some of the arms to the workers’ militia and then give the remaining to the army. Now he was forced to give them all to the army. This was seen by politicians as a rift between Árbenz and the military. While the cash-and-carry deal was made with a Soviet Bloc country, not with the Soviet Union, when the arms shipment arrived, the CIA took their opportunity and promoted the transaction as proof of the Soviet hand pulling the strings. The American public was told only that Guatemala was undergoing a "revolution."
After the revelation of the Czech arms shipment and the domestic support it whipped up, the US drastically stepped up both its covert and overt campaigns. On May 20, 1954 the US Navy began air-sea patrols under the twin pretexts of arms interdiction and protection of Honduras from Guatemalan invasion. On June 7, a "contingency evacuation" force, consisting of five amphibious assault ships plus an "anti-submarine warfare" (ASW) aircraft carrier was dispatched to the area. Embarked was a US Marine Battalion Landing Team; meanwhile the only utility of the ASW carrier in the situation could have been for helicopter assault (then under development by the US Marines).
On May 24 the U.S Navy created a sea blockade on Guatemala called operation HARDROCK BAKER. The Navy stopped all ships using submarines and warships to search for arms. Instructions stated to stop ships by any means, even if they had to use force and damage the ships. British and French ships were stopped and boarded but the British and French did not protest because they were having colonial troubles in the Middle East and did not want the United States to get involved. This event opened further action on the part of PBSUCCESS against the army. Castillo Armas ’ warplanes were seen flying over Guatemala’s capital dropping leaflets. The leaflets had messages to the army stating, “Struggle against communist atheism, Communist intervention, Communist oppression . . . Struggle with your patriotic brothers! Struggle with Castillo Armas!” The messages were intended to turn the army against Árbenz and Communism. The warplanes were seen as a practice bombing and people in Guatemala now believed they were going to be invaded at any given time. Operation HARDROCK BAKER and Armas’ warplanes showed the people of Guatemala that now no one was going to interfere against the United States.
, which had turned the tide at the critical moment in the Iran operation. Although relatively few Guatemalans personally owned a radio, the radio was considered to be an authoritative source, and the CIA hoped that word of mouth would assist in the dissemination of their propaganda to an audience greatly exceeding those with radios. The radio station, La Voz de la Liberacion (The voice of liberation), was set up in Miami but claimed to be operating from "deep in the jungle" and broadcast a mix of popular music, humor, and anti-government propaganda. While the broadcasts were overtly tailored to the general populace, they were specifically and subversively targeted at "men of action", particularly the officers in the Guatemalan military, whose complicity was essential to the success of the operation. The Guatemalan army, made up of around 5,000 well trained and armed soldiers, was more than a match militarily for Armas's 400 undisciplined rebels. Depending on a strictly military success was not an option, and winning the officer class over, mostly through intimidation, was pivotal to the success of the operation. Immediately preceding the invasion propaganda efforts were intensified with Armas sending warplanes to fly low over the capital, buzzing the presidential palace, and drop leaflets urging the military to disavow their Communist government.
Internal propaganda activities were taken up mostly by student groups under direct instruction of CIA experts stationed at the Florida headquarters. Employing many advanced ideas and techniques, they met with immediate success. They started a weekly pamphlet and plastered the number "32" -- for Article 32 in the constitution that prohibited international political parties—on buses and walls across the whole country, garnering much local media attention. Encouraged by this initial success the group began using an increasingly wide variety of ideas and approaches. One scheme was to put stickers saying "A communist lives here" on the homes of Árbenz's supporters. Another was to send out fake death notices for Árbenz or other leading members of his cabinet to local newspapers. These activities reached such a height that Árbenz found it necessary to take harsh measures to stymie them, arresting many members of the student groups, limiting freedom of assembly, and intimidating newspapers into ignoring their activities. These severe clampdowns essentially turned Guatemala into the repressive regime that the Agency was trying to portray it as, which only succeeded in giving ammunition to Agency claims and hastening Árbenz's downfall.
Almost immediately, Armas's forces met with decisive failure. Invading on foot and hampered by heavy equipment, it was in some cases days before the rebels reached their objectives. This weakened the psychological impact of the initial invasion, as local Guatemalans realized they were in no immediate danger. One of the first groups to reach its objective, the group of 122 rebels whose task it was to capture the city of Zacapa
, were severely crushed by a small contingent of 30 Guatemalan army soldiers, leaving only 28 rebels who had escaped death or capture. An even larger defeat was handed to the group of 170 rebels who undertook the task of capturing the heavily guarded port city of Puerto Barrios
. After the police chief spotted the invading force, he quickly armed local dock workers and assigned them defensive roles. In a matter of hours the vast majority of the rebels were killed or captured, with the remaining men fleeing back into Honduras. Within three days, two of Armas's four prongs were out of commission. Attempting to recover momentum, Armas ordered an air attack on the capital the following day. This too failed, as a single slow flying plane managed to bomb a small oil tank, creating a minor fire that was doused in 20 minutes.
After these rebel failures, Árbenz ordered his military commander to allow Armas's forces to advance deep into the country. Árbenz and his chief commander didn't fear Armas's ragtag army, but there was a concern that, were the rebels to be too severely crushed, it would provide a pretext for open American military intervention. This fear spread widely amongst the officer class, with no one wanting to engage and defeat Armas's increasingly decimated force. Rumors spread - fueled greatly by the presence of the American amphibious assault force - that a Honduran landing by US Marines was in progress; preparatory to an invasion of Guatemala. Árbenz feared that the officers would be cowed into striking a deal with Armas. Confirmation of Árbenz' fear came when an entire army garrison surrendered to Armas a few days later in the town of Chiquimula
. Árbenz summoned his cabinet to explain that the army was in revolt, and on June 27 Árbenz announced his resignation.
end, and hoped the United States would reinstate their former landholdings. The Indian population received the revolution with mixed reactions; some were earlier disenfranchised by the restrictions on their local powers, others viewed Árbenz (like most of the general population) favorably and realized the importance of Decree 900. On the other hand people in the cities of Antigua
, San Martín Jilotepeque
and San Juan Sacatepéquez
started an uprising and resistance due to Árbenz’s resignation. These people had significant land reform under Árbenz and burned their crop after learning they were going to lose the land under Armas.
In the 11 days after Árbenz's resignation five successive juntas occupied the presidential palace, each more amenable to American demands than the last, with Armas himself finally taking office at the end. He proved to be embarrassingly inept and his corrupt and repressive policies renewed civil conflict unseen in the country since before the revolution of 1944.
The coup was reviled by the international press. Le Monde
and The Times
both attacked America's "modern form of economic colonialism." There was a widespread and long-lasting protest of the coup in Latin America, with Guatemala becoming a symbol of resistance to American designs for the region. United Nations
Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld
accused the US's actions of being at odds with the UN Charter and even West German papers, usually gentle to America, were condemning the coup.
According to Kate Doyle, director of the Mexico Project of National Security Archives and a regular contributor to Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center
, most historians now agree that the military coup in 1954 was the definitive blow to Guatemala's young democracy. Over the next four decades, the succession of military rulers would wage counter-insurgency warfare, destabilizing Guatemalan society. The violence caused the deaths and disappearances of more than 140,000 Guatemalans, and some human rights activists put the death toll as high as 250,000. At the later stages of this conflict the CIA tried with some success to lessen the human rights violations and in 1983 stopped a coup and helped restore the democratic government, leading to general elections that gave power to the Cristian Democratics party (Democracia Cristiana), with Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo assuming the presidency.
Following closely on the heels of the successful CIA-orchestrated coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran
to allow the Shah
to rule autocratically in 1953 (see Operation Ajax
), some argue that it employed ideas and methods that were relatively new at the time and, due to the ostensible success of the operation, led to Operation PBSUCCESS becoming the de facto
model for the overthrow or destabilization of a defiant government for some time to come, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion
.
Covert operation
A covert operation is a military, intelligence or law enforcement operation that is carried clandestinely and, often, outside of official channels. Covert operations aim to fulfill their mission objectives without any parties knowing who sponsored or carried out the operation...
organized by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Central Intelligence Agency
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...
to overthrow Jacobo Árbenz 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...
.
Árbenz's government put forth a number of new policies, such as seizing and expropriating unused, unfarmed land that private corporations set aside long ago and giving the land to peasants. The U.S. intelligence community deemed such plans communist in nature. This led CIA director Allen Dulles to fear that Guatemala would become a "Soviet
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....
beachhead in the western hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
". Dulles' concern reverberated within the CIA and the Eisenhower administration, in the context of the anti-communist fears of the McCarthyist era.
Árbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
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...
, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and lobbied various levels of the U.S. government to take action against Árbenz. Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.
The operation, known by the code name Operation PBSUCCESS, lasted from late 1953 to 1954. The CIA armed and trained an ad-hoc "Liberation Army" of about 400 fighters under the command of a then-exiled Guatemalan army officer, Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
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:...
, and used them in conjunction with a complex and largely experimental diplomatic, economic, and propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
campaign. The CIA established the Voice of Liberation radio station, located across the border in 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...
relaying programming originating in Miami, and pretended to be the spontaneous voice of patriots opposed to the elected government. The operation effectively ended the experimental period of representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
in Guatemala known as the "Ten Years of Spring", which ended with Árbenz's official resignation. Following the coup, the Guatemalan Civil War
Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960-1996. The thirty-six-year civil war began as a grassroots, popular response to the rightist and military usurpation of civil government , and the President's disrespect for the human and civil rights of the majority of the population...
began, a civil war involving some of the most brutal counterinsurgency of its time (including years of massacres of Maya
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
Indians, since characterized by Historical Clarification Commission
Historical Clarification Commission
The Historical Clarification Commission was Guatemala's truth and reconciliation commission.The creation of the CEH was ordered by the Oslo Accords of 1994 that sought to bring an end to the Central American nation's three-decade-long Civil War, during which an estimated 200,000 people lost their...
as genocide).
The operation was preceded by a plan, never fully implemented, as early as 1951, to supply anti-Árbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding, 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...
. Afterwards there was an operation, Operation PBHISTORY, whose objective was to gather and analyze documents from the Árbenz government that would incriminate Árbenz as a Communist puppet
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...
. This Operation found no evidence to support such a strong claim; the Árbenz government was found to not have been "infiltrated" by communists, but simply allowed communists the democratic right of party-formation and political participation.
Naming
The operation name, PBSUCCESS, is a cryptonym, otherwise known as a codename. Each CIA cryptonym contains a two-character prefix (a "digraph"), which designates a geographical or functional area. In this case, PB stands for "Presidential Board" and with the words that followed, SUCCESS and FORTUNE, simply being indicative of the general optimism and confidence amongst its planners at the CIA at the time. This varied from the normal CIA practice of choosing arbitrary or deliberately misleading words to complete a cryptonym.Background
Under the regime of General Jorge UbicoJorge Ubico
Jorge Ubico y Castañeda was a Guatemalan dictator who held the title of President of Guatemala from 14 February 1931 to 4 July 1944.-Early years:...
, and Ubico's predecessor Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, Guatemala was widely opened up to foreign investment, with special favors being made from Ubico to the 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...
(UFC) in particular. The UFC responded by pouring investment capital into the country, buying controlling shares of the railroad, electric utility
Electric utility
An electric utility is a company that engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity for sale generally in a regulated market. The electrical utility industry is a major provider of energy in most countries. It is indispensable to factories, commercial establishments,...
, and telegraph, while also winning control over the majority of the country's best land and de facto control over its only Atlantic port facilities. As a result, the Guatemalan government was often subservient to the UFC's interests.
In the "October Revolution" of 1944 General Jorge Ubico
Jorge Ubico
Jorge Ubico y Castañeda was a Guatemalan dictator who held the title of President of Guatemala from 14 February 1931 to 4 July 1944.-Early years:...
was overthrown. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was elected. A new constitution allowed for the possibility of expropriating land. This, as well as Arévalo philosophy of "spiritual socialism", alarmed Guatemala's landed elite who began to accuse Arévalo of supporting communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
. In 1947 he signed a labor protection law that implicitly targeted the UFC. The US embassy in Guatemala sent alarmed messages that Arévalo was allowing communists to organize and had reputedly provided known communists with support. Arévalo supported the Caribbean Legion
Caribbean Legion
Caribbean Legion is the name of the group of reformist Latin American politicians who plotted to overthrow dictatorships in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica...
, a group of ostensibly reformist Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
ns who plotted to overthrow dictatorships in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, 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 Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. A 1949 CIA analysis described it as a "destabilizing force."
Jacobo Árbenz Guzman, who as an army captain had played an important role in the "October Revolution" of 1944, won 65% of the vote in the 1950 election. The constitution did not allow the president to run for reelection in the next vote, scheduled for 1956.
Land redistribution
Árbenz advocated social and political reforms, unionization, and land reform. For the latter, Árbenz secretly met with members of the Communist Guatemalan Labor Party (known by its Spanish acronym 'PGT') in order to establish an effective land reform program. Such a program was proposed by Árbenz as a means of remedying the extremely unequal land distribution within the country: in 1945, it was estimated that 2.2% of the country's population controlled 70% of all arable land, but with only 12% of it being utilized.While impoverished peasants welcomed Árbenz's Agrarian Reform Act of 1952, known as Decree 900
Decree 900
Decree 900 was a Guatemalan land reform law ordered on June 27, 1952 by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. This decree redistributed unused lands of sizes greater than 223 acres to local peasants...
, the landowning upper-classes and factions of the military accused him of bowing to Communist influence. Tension resulted in civil unrest in the country and fueled the indignation of the UFC. In March 1953 uncultivated lands owned by UFC were to be expropriated with a proposed compensation plan, whereby the Guatemalan government would pay the United Fruit roughly US$600,000 based on the company's declared taxes, in essence offering the company what it publicly said the land was worth as compensation. In the following October 1953 and in February 1954, the Guatemalan government took another 150,000 acres (600 km²) of uncultivated land from the United Fruit Company, bringing the total amount of appropriations to almost 400,000 acres (1,600 km²). In April 1954 the U.S. State Department delivered a note to the Árbenz government demanding that Guatemala pay $15,854,849 for the UFC properties expropriated on the Pacific Coast alone. Guatemala denied this overture, charging violation of its sovereignty.
After the expropriations began in 1953 the UFC began lobbying the U.S. government in an attempt to draw them into their confrontation with Árbenz. The "father of spin", Edward L. Bernays organized a series of inflammatory articles in major US publications. The U.S. State Department responded by, amongst other things, successfully seeking approved cuts in economic aid and cuts in trade, with devastating effect to Guatemala, since "85% of Guatemala’s exports are sold in the country and 85% of their imports come from the U.S." Internal U.S. State Department documents stated that the cutoff would have to be done "quietly" because this was "a violation of the Non-intervention agreement, to which we are party... If it became obvious that we were in violation of this agreement, other Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n governments would rally to the support of Guatemala."
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 Árbenz's alleged Communist ties were the reason the CIA first drew up a contingency plan to oust Árbenz, 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...
(later changed to Operation PBSUCCESS.) The plan was drafted in 1951, before the 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. "In the Agency's view, Árbenz's toleration for known Communists made him at best a 'fellow traveler,' and at worst a Communist himself. The social unrest that accompanied the passage and implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law supplied critics in Guatemala and Washington with confirmation that a Communist beachhead had been established in the Americas. Agrarian reform was not the issue--communism was."
In retrospect, the US government admitted that these concerns of "communism" under Arbenz were greatly exaggerated not only in their propaganda campaign but in their own private planning as well. After the coup, they initiated an operation (see Operation PBHISTORY section below) to amass documents left from the Arbenz government that might confirm their thesis that Arbenz was becoming a Soviet puppet. They found no evidence that would support such a serious claim. Several academics have commented that "communism" in the Arbenz government was not really the issue, and that Arbenz's supposed "tolerance" of communists only amounted to the democratic permission of party-formation and political participation that Arbenz allowed to all political factions, including communists. While "communism" was shown by Operation PBHISTORY to not have been an actual threat, the primary threat that did motivate the US coup was the program of democratic social reforms that Arbenz was carrying out (and the implicit threat to the interests of US corporations such as United Fruit).
Richard Bissell, a former Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence, has stated that there "is absolutely no reason to believe" the desire to help United Fruit played "any significant role" in reaching the decision. CIA agent Howard Hunt, who was involved with the coup, has suggested to the contrary that United Fruit's lobbying campaign was a contributing factor in making policy; although Hunt suggests that the action was justified by security concerns, he believes that United Fruit's political clout was nonetheless a key factor.
Operation PBFORTUNE
As early as 1951, before the agrarian reform law had been written or passed, CIA apprehension about a Communist takeover caused the agency to seriously explore options for Árbenz's overthrow. Árbenz's toleration for known Communists made him at best a "fellow traveler," and at worst a Communist himself. The most viable option being considered was the covert backing of rebel groups and dissidents already active in Guatemala and the then CIA Director of Central IntelligenceDirector of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
(DCI) Walter B. Smith sent an agent to Guatemala City
Guatemala City
Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...
to investigate potential candidate individuals or organizations. At the time the state of the opposition to Árbenz was inert, divided, and increasingly fractious. The agent returned empty handed. Fortunately for the CIA, this roughly coincided with the first state visit
State visit
A state visit is a formal visit by a foreign head of state to another nation, at the invitation of that nation's head of state. State visits are the highest form of diplomatic contact between two nations, and are marked by ceremonial pomp and diplomatic protocol. In parliamentary democracies, heads...
of the President
President of Nicaragua
The position of President of Nicaragua was created in the Constitution of 1854. From 1825 until the Constitution of 1838 the title of the position was known as Head of State and from 1838 to 1854 as Supreme Director .-Heads of State of Nicaragua within the Federal Republic of Central America...
of 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...
, 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...
. He informed them of Castillo Armas's small rebel group and stated that, with the CIA's support, he and Armas could unseat Árbenz. They also could expect financial backing from Dominican dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
Rafael Trujillo and, as Armas later claimed, from internal elements within the Guatemalan army. DCI Smith urged his subordinates to follow up on this and to establish contacts with Armas, which they did in June of the same year. At the CIA's request, Armas then relayed to them a plan for invasion, which was to launch from 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...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, 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...
(from UFC land) and would be coordinated with simultaneous uprisings within Guatemala. Armas requested arms, money, aircraft, and boats and informed them that he would launch the invasion as planned regardless of the CIA's support if need be. In July the CIA secured arms, transport, and $225,000 (US) for Armas, and furnished a few World War II-era airplanes. In September the CIA secured State Department approval and 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...
was set.
One of two major setbacks occurred shortly afterwards when, while preparing for the arms shipment, the operation had to be called off. Somoza had been speaking of the invasion plan with other Central American leaders and the operation's cover, which was very important due to the fragile diplomatic situation the United States had with the region, was blown. While Operation PBFORTUNE was officially terminated, the operation led a twilight existence with the arms shipment prepared prior still kept in waiting and with Armas being kept on a $3,000 a week retainer.
The Coup
With the departure of President Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
and the arrival of Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight 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...
, hopes were again raised within the CIA about the possibility of reviving the invasion. Eisenhower expressed favor toward covert operations as a means of cheaply and covertly combating the Soviet Union. While working toward getting this support, anxiety within the Agency about the possibility of a premature coup attempt being enacted by overeager rebel groups began to rise and was justified in early 1953 when a futile and poorly planned invasion was attempted by a rebel group marginally associated with Armas. The invasion precipitated exactly the reaction feared within the Agency: the Guatemalan government was provided with a justification for severely clamping down on anticommunist elements within their country—jailing many—and was supported by a popular backlash against the anti-communists amongst the people.
With almost all of their local assets destroyed, the CIA was forced to rely solely on the much more fragmented exile groups.
After all but abandoning the project in mid-1953, the U.S. National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
revived the project in August of that year after a review of the situation in light of the success of the recent CIA-organized coup against Mossadegh in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. CIA officers involved included Tracy Barnes
Tracy Barnes
Charles Tracy Barnes was a senior staff member at the United States' Central Intelligence Agency , serving as principal manager of CIA operations in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion....
, the CIA officer in charge, David Atlee Phillips
David Atlee Phillips
David Atlee Phillips was a Central Intelligence Agency officer for 25 years, one of a handful of people to receive the Career Intelligence Medal. He rose to become the CIA's chief of all operations in the Western hemisphere...
, Jacob 'Jack' Esterline
Jacob Esterline
Jacob Donald 'Jake' Esterline was a CIA specialist in guerrilla warfare.-Early life:...
, E. Howard Hunt
E. Howard Hunt
Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was an American intelligence officer and writer. Hunt served for many years as a CIA officer. Hunt, with G...
, David Sanchez Morales
David Sánchez Morales
David Sánchez Morales was a Central Intelligence Agency operative who worked in Cuba.-Biographical highlights:...
, Frank Wisner
Frank Wisner
Frank Gardiner Wisner was head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s....
, William "Rip" Robertson, William Pawley, Gerry Droller
Gerry Droller
Gerard "Gerry" Droller was a CIA officer involved in the covert 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the recruitment of Cuban exiles in the preparation of the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961....
.
When PBSUCCESS was initiated a leader had to be chosen to lead a rebel army. The CIA had an important decision to make due to the fact that whoever they chose was probably going to succeed Árbenz. The CIA had three Guatemalan exiles in mind. At first the CIA were leaning towards Juan Cordova Cerna. Cerna was a coffee finquero, UFCO consultant and former cabinet member for Arevalo. He helped the UFCO have an uprising in 1953. Another candidate was Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes
Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes
General José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuentes was President of Guatemala from 2 March 1958 to 31 March 1963. He took power following the murder of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas....
. He was previously a notable general, department governor for Ubico. Fuentes was pro-Nazi up until 1943, when he became pro-United States and even went to the states to mediate the overthrow of Ponce. The third candidate was Carlos Armas. Armas had military skills and attended the national military academy with Árbenz. The CIA eventually chose Armas .
Upon establishing operation headquarters in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in December 1953, the Agency started recruiting pilots, oversaw the training of rebels, set up a radio station to use for propaganda purposes, and stepped up the diplomatic pressure on Guatemala. Although they couldn't halt the exports of coffee, a major industry in Guatemala at the time, they succeeded in foiling two deals to buy arms and ammunition from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Faced with dwindling military supply and witnessing the buildup of armaments in neighboring countries, Árbenz started to seriously take into account the possibility of an invasion, which had been rumored for months and finally confirmed when a defector from the Agency's stable of rebels informed the Árbenz regime of PBSUCCESS and its details, and began looking for potential sellers of crucial supplies. This brought Árbenz to conclude a deal, announced in the newspaper El Imparcial, with Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
for arms; apparently Czechoslovakia had kept tons of captured German arms in storage since the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a decade before. The Czechoslovakian arms were delivered on a Swedish freighter named Alfhem
MS Alfhem
The Alfhem was a Swedish flag vessel that became famous when she was used to transport a large quantity of Czechoslovak arms and ammunition to the Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán government of Guatemala in May 1954....
which departed from the Polish port Szczecin. The freighter delivered the arms in the city of Puerto Barrios. The U.S. State Department and the CIA tried to delay and stop the freighter. In one instance they worked quickly to stop the shipment but they miscalculated and believed the shipment was on a ship called Wulfsbrook. This provided a window for the Alfhem to make it to Guatemala. Árbenz intended for the shipment to be a secret. He wanted to give some of the arms to the workers’ militia and then give the remaining to the army. Now he was forced to give them all to the army. This was seen by politicians as a rift between Árbenz and the military. While the cash-and-carry deal was made with a Soviet Bloc country, not with the Soviet Union, when the arms shipment arrived, the CIA took their opportunity and promoted the transaction as proof of the Soviet hand pulling the strings. The American public was told only that Guatemala was undergoing a "revolution."
After the revelation of the Czech arms shipment and the domestic support it whipped up, the US drastically stepped up both its covert and overt campaigns. On May 20, 1954 the US Navy began air-sea patrols under the twin pretexts of arms interdiction and protection of Honduras from Guatemalan invasion. On June 7, a "contingency evacuation" force, consisting of five amphibious assault ships plus an "anti-submarine warfare" (ASW) aircraft carrier was dispatched to the area. Embarked was a US Marine Battalion Landing Team; meanwhile the only utility of the ASW carrier in the situation could have been for helicopter assault (then under development by the US Marines).
On May 24 the U.S Navy created a sea blockade on Guatemala called operation HARDROCK BAKER. The Navy stopped all ships using submarines and warships to search for arms. Instructions stated to stop ships by any means, even if they had to use force and damage the ships. British and French ships were stopped and boarded but the British and French did not protest because they were having colonial troubles in the Middle East and did not want the United States to get involved. This event opened further action on the part of PBSUCCESS against the army. Castillo Armas ’ warplanes were seen flying over Guatemala’s capital dropping leaflets. The leaflets had messages to the army stating, “Struggle against communist atheism, Communist intervention, Communist oppression . . . Struggle with your patriotic brothers! Struggle with Castillo Armas!” The messages were intended to turn the army against Árbenz and Communism. The warplanes were seen as a practice bombing and people in Guatemala now believed they were going to be invaded at any given time. Operation HARDROCK BAKER and Armas’ warplanes showed the people of Guatemala that now no one was going to interfere against the United States.
Propaganda
Psychological warfare was prominent in the operation. The CIA planned to make heavy use of rumor, pamphlets, poster campaigns, and, most of all, radioRadio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, which had turned the tide at the critical moment in the Iran operation. Although relatively few Guatemalans personally owned a radio, the radio was considered to be an authoritative source, and the CIA hoped that word of mouth would assist in the dissemination of their propaganda to an audience greatly exceeding those with radios. The radio station, La Voz de la Liberacion (The voice of liberation), was set up in Miami but claimed to be operating from "deep in the jungle" and broadcast a mix of popular music, humor, and anti-government propaganda. While the broadcasts were overtly tailored to the general populace, they were specifically and subversively targeted at "men of action", particularly the officers in the Guatemalan military, whose complicity was essential to the success of the operation. The Guatemalan army, made up of around 5,000 well trained and armed soldiers, was more than a match militarily for Armas's 400 undisciplined rebels. Depending on a strictly military success was not an option, and winning the officer class over, mostly through intimidation, was pivotal to the success of the operation. Immediately preceding the invasion propaganda efforts were intensified with Armas sending warplanes to fly low over the capital, buzzing the presidential palace, and drop leaflets urging the military to disavow their Communist government.
Internal propaganda activities were taken up mostly by student groups under direct instruction of CIA experts stationed at the Florida headquarters. Employing many advanced ideas and techniques, they met with immediate success. They started a weekly pamphlet and plastered the number "32" -- for Article 32 in the constitution that prohibited international political parties—on buses and walls across the whole country, garnering much local media attention. Encouraged by this initial success the group began using an increasingly wide variety of ideas and approaches. One scheme was to put stickers saying "A communist lives here" on the homes of Árbenz's supporters. Another was to send out fake death notices for Árbenz or other leading members of his cabinet to local newspapers. These activities reached such a height that Árbenz found it necessary to take harsh measures to stymie them, arresting many members of the student groups, limiting freedom of assembly, and intimidating newspapers into ignoring their activities. These severe clampdowns essentially turned Guatemala into the repressive regime that the Agency was trying to portray it as, which only succeeded in giving ammunition to Agency claims and hastening Árbenz's downfall.
Invasion
At 8:00 p.m. on June 18 Castillo Armas's forces crossed the border. Divided into four groups, his roughly 480 strong party invaded at five key points along the Guatemalan-Honduran and the Guatemalan-Salvadoran border. This was done to give the impression of a massive forces invading along a wide front, and also to disperse the men so as to minimize the chance of the entire force being routed in a single unfavorable engagement. In addition to these regular troops, ten trained saboteurs slipped in ahead and were given the task of blowing up key bridges and cutting telegraph lines. All of the invading forces were instructed to minimize actual encounters with the Guatemalan army, for many reasons but most of all to avoid giving reason for the uniting of the army against the invaders. The entire course of the invasion was specifically designed to sow panic and to give the impression of insurmountable odds in order to bring the populace and the military over to its side, rather than defeat them. During the invasion, radio propaganda also assisted towards this end, transmitting false reports of huge forces joining the local populace in a popular revolution.Almost immediately, Armas's forces met with decisive failure. Invading on foot and hampered by heavy equipment, it was in some cases days before the rebels reached their objectives. This weakened the psychological impact of the initial invasion, as local Guatemalans realized they were in no immediate danger. One of the first groups to reach its objective, the group of 122 rebels whose task it was to capture the city of Zacapa
Zacapa
Zacapa is a city in eastern Guatemala, along the Río Grande de Zacapa. It is renowned locally for its manual crafting of cigars, hard dry cheese and a flavored cake made with said cheese ....
, were severely crushed by a small contingent of 30 Guatemalan army soldiers, leaving only 28 rebels who had escaped death or capture. An even larger defeat was handed to the group of 170 rebels who undertook the task of capturing the heavily guarded port city of Puerto Barrios
Puerto Barrios
Puerto Barrios is a city in Guatemala, located within the Gulf of Honduras at. The bay in which the harbour is located is called Bahia de Amatique. Puerto Barrios is the departmental seat of Izabal department and the administrative seat of Puerto Barrios municipality.Puerto Barrios was named after...
. After the police chief spotted the invading force, he quickly armed local dock workers and assigned them defensive roles. In a matter of hours the vast majority of the rebels were killed or captured, with the remaining men fleeing back into Honduras. Within three days, two of Armas's four prongs were out of commission. Attempting to recover momentum, Armas ordered an air attack on the capital the following day. This too failed, as a single slow flying plane managed to bomb a small oil tank, creating a minor fire that was doused in 20 minutes.
After these rebel failures, Árbenz ordered his military commander to allow Armas's forces to advance deep into the country. Árbenz and his chief commander didn't fear Armas's ragtag army, but there was a concern that, were the rebels to be too severely crushed, it would provide a pretext for open American military intervention. This fear spread widely amongst the officer class, with no one wanting to engage and defeat Armas's increasingly decimated force. Rumors spread - fueled greatly by the presence of the American amphibious assault force - that a Honduran landing by US Marines was in progress; preparatory to an invasion of Guatemala. Árbenz feared that the officers would be cowed into striking a deal with Armas. Confirmation of Árbenz' fear came when an entire army garrison surrendered to Armas a few days later in the town of Chiquimula
Chiquimula
Chiquimula is a city in Guatemala. It serves both as the capital of the department of Chiquimula and as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name....
. Árbenz summoned his cabinet to explain that the army was in revolt, and on June 27 Árbenz announced his resignation.
Aftermath
When Árbenz resigned, it was not easy to persuade all of the army officers to abandon Árbenz and be the army under Armas. Most military officers agreed to abandoning Árbenz because they did not agree with his agrarian reform but they did not want Armas either. The reaction of the Guatemalan people was mixed to the fall of Árbenz. Upper class landowners were relieved to see the agrarian reformAgrarian reform
Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. Agrarian reform can include credit measures,...
end, and hoped the United States would reinstate their former landholdings. The Indian population received the revolution with mixed reactions; some were earlier disenfranchised by the restrictions on their local powers, others viewed Árbenz (like most of the general population) favorably and realized the importance of Decree 900. On the other hand people in the cities of Antigua
Antigua Guatemala
Antigua Guatemala is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala famous for its well-preserved Spanish Mudéjar-influenced Baroque architecture as well as a number of spectacular ruins of colonial churches...
, San Martín Jilotepeque
San Martín Jilotepeque
San Martín Jilotepeque is a municipality in the Chimaltenango department of Guatemala.-See also:Chajoma...
and San Juan Sacatepéquez
San Juan Sacatepéquez
San Juan Sacatepéquez is a municipality in the Guatemala department of Guatemala, northwest of Guatemala City. According to the 2002 census, it had a population of 81,584. The city is known for flower-growing and wooden furniture.-See also:*Chajoma...
started an uprising and resistance due to Árbenz’s resignation. These people had significant land reform under Árbenz and burned their crop after learning they were going to lose the land under Armas.
In the 11 days after Árbenz's resignation five successive juntas occupied the presidential palace, each more amenable to American demands than the last, with Armas himself finally taking office at the end. He proved to be embarrassingly inept and his corrupt and repressive policies renewed civil conflict unseen in the country since before the revolution of 1944.
The coup was reviled by the international press. Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
both attacked America's "modern form of economic colonialism." There was a widespread and long-lasting protest of the coup in Latin America, with Guatemala becoming a symbol of resistance to American designs for the region. United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish diplomat, economist, and author. An early Secretary-General of the United Nations, he served from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961. He is the only person to have been awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. Hammarskjöld...
accused the US's actions of being at odds with the UN Charter and even West German papers, usually gentle to America, were condemning the coup.
According to Kate Doyle, director of the Mexico Project of National Security Archives and a regular contributor to Americas Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center
Interhemispheric Resource Center
The Interhemispheric Resource Center, which later became the International Relations Center, was founded in 1979 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, focusing initially on "The plight of undocumented Mexican workers and the impact of energy development on indigenous communities in the [American] Southwest"...
, most historians now agree that the military coup in 1954 was the definitive blow to Guatemala's young democracy. Over the next four decades, the succession of military rulers would wage counter-insurgency warfare, destabilizing Guatemalan society. The violence caused the deaths and disappearances of more than 140,000 Guatemalans, and some human rights activists put the death toll as high as 250,000. At the later stages of this conflict the CIA tried with some success to lessen the human rights violations and in 1983 stopped a coup and helped restore the democratic government, leading to general elections that gave power to the Cristian Democratics party (Democracia Cristiana), with Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo assuming the presidency.
Following closely on the heels of the successful CIA-orchestrated coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
to allow the Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
to rule autocratically in 1953 (see Operation Ajax
Operation Ajax
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project...
), some argue that it employed ideas and methods that were relatively new at the time and, due to the ostensible success of the operation, led to Operation PBSUCCESS becoming the de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
model for the overthrow or destabilization of a defiant government for some time to come, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
.
Operation PBHISTORY
After the campaign, the CIA sent a handful of agents to Guatemala in order to gather and analyze government documents that would, amongst other things, find evidence that would support the CIA's belief that Guatemala was a rising Soviet puppet state, in an operation that was known as Operation PBHISTORY. Despite amassing well over 150,000 pages, they found very little to substantiate the key premise of the invasion. The socialism that gained influence under Árbenz's presidency in fact had no ties to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, some private sector leaders and the military began to believe that Árbenz represented a Communist threat and supported his overthrow despite most Guatemalans' attachment to the original ideals of the 1944 uprising.See also
- Banana republicBanana republicIn political science, the pejorative term Banana Republic denotes a politically unstable country dependent upon limited primary productions , which is ruled by a plutocracy, a small, self-elected, wealthy group who exploit the country by means of a politico-economic oligarchy...
- Church CommitteeChurch CommitteeThe Church Committee is the common term referring to the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church in 1975. A precursor to the U.S...
- Covert operations, coups, military advisors etc.
- Covert U.S. regime change actionsCovert U.S. regime change actionsThe United States government has been involved in and assisted in the overthrow of foreign governments without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency . Many of the governments targeted by the U.S...
- Guatemalan Civil WarGuatemalan Civil WarThe Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960-1996. The thirty-six-year civil war began as a grassroots, popular response to the rightist and military usurpation of civil government , and the President's disrespect for the human and civil rights of the majority of the population...
- History of GuatemalaHistory of GuatemalaThe history of Guatemala begins with the arrival of the first human settlers as early as 12,000 BC or even 18,000 BC. Civilization developed and flourished during the Pre-Columbian era with little to no contact with cultures from outside of Mesoamerica...
- National Committee of Defense Against CommunismNational Committee of Defense Against CommunismThe National Committee of Defense Against Communism, established on 19 July 1954, was a committee formed by Carlos Castillo at the request of the United States Central Intelligence Agency...
- Operation KufireOperation KufireOperation Kufire was a program that sought to identify and track all communist party members who had flocked to Guatemala during the Arbenz regime. “Via Kufire, the CIA was intent on charting their movements and monitoring or frustrating their machinations”1...
- Operation KugownOperation KugownOperation Kugown relied on the media to inform the Guatemalan people on the extent to which communism had infiltrated Guatemala. This was largely derived from the documents seized by the PBHistory team. The analyzed documents were then translated into Spanish and distributed throughout Guatemala...
- Operation PBFORTUNEOperation PBFORTUNEOperation 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...
- Operation PBHISTORY
- Operation WASHTUBOperation WASHTUBOperation WASHTUB was a CIA-organized covert operation to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua to demonstrate Guatemalan ties to Moscow. It was part of the effort to overthrow the President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954....
- Plausible deniabilityPlausible deniabilityPlausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...
- Timeline of United States military operations
Further reading
- Immerman, R. H., The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, University of Texas PressUniversity of Texas PressThe University of Texas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texana, anthropology, U.S...
: Austin, 1982. - Kinzer, Stephen and Schlesinger, Stephen. 1999. Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University PressHarvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
. - Miguel Ángel AsturiasMiguel Ángel AsturiasMiguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat...
, Week-end in Guatemala, 1956, is a fictional account of these events. - Vidal, GoreGore VidalGore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, Dark Green, Bright Red, Ballantine Publishing Group, 1950, revised 1968. Gore's fiction uncannily presages the Guatemalan coup d'état.
External links and further reading
- CIA.gov - CIA's declassified documents on Guatemala CIA Documents Chronicling the 1954 Coup
- US State Dept. site - Foreign Relations, 1952-1954: Guatemala
- American Accountability Project - The Guatemala Genocide
- Guatemala Documentation Project - Provided by the National Security Archive.
- Video: Devils Don't Dream! Analysis of the CIA-sponsored 1954 coup in Guatemala.
- The Guatemala 1954 Documents
- From Árbenz to Zelaya: Chiquita in Latin America - video report by Democracy Now!
- Stephen Schlesinger, Stephen Kinzer, John H. Coatsworth, Richard A. Nuccio (Introduction); Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala Revised and Expanded edition, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (December 30, 2005), trade paperback, 358 pages, ,