Operation WASHTUB was a CIA-organized covert operation to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in 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...

 to demonstrate 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...

n ties to Moscow. It was part of the effort to overthrow the 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...

, 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....

 in 1954.

On February 19, 1954, the CIA planted a cache of Soviet-made arms on the Nicaraguan coast to be "discovered" weeks later by fishermen in the pay of Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza García

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...

. On May 7, 1954, President Somoza told reporters at a press conference that a Soviet submarine had been photographed, but that no prints or negatives were available. The story also involved Guatemalan assassination squads. The press and the public were skeptical and the story did not get much press.