2.1 Guatemala: Social,
Political and Economic Conditions, 1931–1944
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 62—prepared
in March, 1952, by the intelligence organizations of the Department of State,
the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA—noted:
The present political situation in Guatemala is the outgrowth of the Revolution of 1944. That Revolution was something
more than a routine military coup. From it there has developed a strong
national movement to free Guatemala from the military dictatorship, social backwardness, and "economic
colonialism" which had been the pattern of the past. These aspirations
command the emotional loyalty of most politically conscious Guatemalans
and the administration of President Arbenz derives
corresponding strength from its claim to leadership of the continuing national
Revolution.
[1]
The Revolution of 1944 reflected a need for change
at a time when change seemed natural and inevitable. World War II was ending
and the fascist dictatorships in Europe were crumbling.
Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and “Four Freedoms” had given hope
to millions of Americans, as well as many foreigners, that a new age of
responsible governance would follow. For citizens of the Third World, the lure of this message had particular appeal
as decolonization began, making aspirations to self-governance and self-determination
finally attainable. This was no less true in Guatemala, which, despite having gained its independence in
1821, still remained very much like a fiefdom.
The
nation’s peasantry remained in a state of virtual serfdom, tied by laws
of forced labor and vagrancy to their ‘feudal lord,’ Jorge Ubico.
[2]
Ubico was concerned only
for the country’s landed elite—a caste which made up 2% of the population
but held over 70% of the country’s arable land—and a loyal but venal cohort
of generals who ensured compliance with his will.
[3]
Like any "tin-pot dictator of a banana republic",
Ubico’s failing lay to the North, to the United
States
and U.S. capital interests. Ubico
had courted foreign capital as a means of strengthening the country’s backward
economy, providing favorable land grants, generous tax concessions and monopolistic
opportunities to foreign companies in order to entice them into the Guatemalan
economy.
Prominent
amongst these firms was the Boston-based United Fruit Company (UFC). As the largest landowner in Guatemala with about 550,000 acres of land, the UFC became
known to Guatemalans as El Pulpo (the octopus) and its influence extended into almost
all areas of Guatemalan life. In addition to its vast landholdings, UFC
held a monopoly on the country’s telegraph and telephone systems and owned
the International Railways of Central America (IRCA), controlling 787.8
miles of Guatemala’s 817.3 miles of rail track; a de
facto monopoly reinforced by the lack of an adequate road system as
an alternative. Central to the IRCA’s massive
influence was its control of the sole connection between the nation’s capital
and the Atlantic port of Puerto Barrios, the nation’s only deepwater port. Puerto Barrios
accounted for over 60 percent of the nation’s foreign trade. The IRCA controlled the only means of transporting
goods to the port as well as the only pier; waiting at the docks was the
UFC’s “Great White Fleet” – 85 ships, which easily
dwarfed the shipping capacity of any other competitor in the entire Mesoamerican
peninsula.
[4]
The concessions that Ubico
granted to this colossal firm were considerable: exemption from internal
taxation and import duties as well as a guarantee of cheap labor.
[5]
2.2 The Revolution of 1944
By
1944, resentment of Ubico had begun to rise to
the surface. Buoyed by promises of global democracy, a small but growing
bourgeoisie began to protest against the dictator’s harsh excesses. These
sentiments spread like wildfire throughout Guatemala and demands for the right to unionize were followed
by demands for Ubico’s resignation. On October 20
1944, two young army
officers, Major Francisco Araña and Captain Jacobo Arbenz, staged well-executed
coup, forcing the reigning junta to step down. Despite prior U.S. support for the Ubico
regime, this news found a positive reception in Washington, where the U.S. government had grown increasingly irritated by Ubico’s fiscal conservatism and fascist sympathies.
[6]
If
this had been “a routine military coup” — to which Latin America was no
stranger — the interim junta formed between Araña,
Arbenz and Jorge Toriello, a prominent
Guatemalan businessman, would have retained power, or at least devolved
it to one of its own members. However, the aspirations of this group of
men ran somewhat deeper than the norm: these revolutionaries sought democracy,
political freedom, economic development and independence for their homeland.
To this end, the junta promised a free democratic election — the first in
the nation’s history — and began their preparations by drafting a liberal
constitution that was based on Jeffersonian ideals as well as the constitutions
of revolutionary Mexico and republican Spain.
[7]
As their candidate, the junta placed their faith
in Juan José Arévalo, then Professor of Philosophy
at Tucuman
University in Argentina, rather than choosing one of their own. Arévalo, a Guatemalan by birth, had been forced into exile
for his opposition to Ubico’s reign. This, coupled
with his civilian credentials and his Rooseveltian
political views, made him the perfect representative of the revolution’s
democratic ideals. The nation united behind Arévalo’s
candidacy and in December 1945 he was elected President of Guatemala with
an overwhelming 85 percent of the vote.
[8]
Arévalo described his politics as “spiritual socialism.” Outspoken in his denunciations
of Marxism, the new president nonetheless affirmed his commitment to bettering
the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. This, he believed, could be achieved
not through redistributive policies but through the emancipation of his
people. The U.S. government, caught by surprise by the 1944 revolution, knew little
about Arévalo on his election. Indeed, some feared
that he might prove to be a Communist because of his connections with Latin
American intelligentsia, a class heavily dominated by Communist sympathizers.
Secretary of State Spruille Braden cabled his
Argentine Embassy in order to put his misgivings to rest. John F. Griffiths,
the Embassy’s Charges D’Affaires, laconically
replied:
[Concerning] the suspicions which might be had about Arévalo…it is my considered opinion that anyone even reasonably
well informed about his teachings, writings and general activities would
be inclined to pass over such suspicions as being so utterly without foundation
as to call for no response.
[9]
Nonetheless,
suspicions regarding the new order in Guatemala remained. The institution of Labor Code under Arévalo
caused U.S. intelligence to refocus its attention on the Arévalo administration, compiling dossiers on the president
and his ministers.
[10]
Such fears were piqued by resentful landowners and
ex-Ubiquistas,
as well as an infuriated UFC. No longer granted favored status by Guatemala’s new rulers, UFC began to suffer at the hands of
newly organized labor, with a series of strikes halting production on their
massive estates. With the government tending to favor the workers in these
disputes, UFC was faced with a complete turnaround in its traditionally
cozy relationship with the Guatemalan government and began to petition the
U.S. government to protest against what it saw as discriminatory
practices against American interests. Concurrently, the company’s public
relations director Edward Bernays, known as the
father of public relations, began, with the help of New York Times publisher Arthur Schulzberger, to launch a concerted attack in the hemispheric
media on the Communist tendencies of Guatemala’s new government.
[11]
2.3 An Officer is Elected
The
ascension of Arbenz to the presidency following
the completion of Arévalo’s term was seen by Washington as an excellent sign. This former military officer
would surely be unlikely to sympathize with Communists or be anything but
a political moderate.
[12]
However, confidence soon
turned to dismay as Arbenz proceeded not only
to continue with the reforming nature of Arévalo’s
presidency, but also to deepen and strengthen previous reforms. Several
characteristics of Arbenz’s presidency served to convince Washington that their earlier evaluation of Arbenz had been inaccurate. The first was Arbenz’s openly tolerant attitude towards the Partido Comunista Guatemalteco (PCG), the Guatemalan Communist Party (later
renamed as the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT)). Created in
1949, the PCG was initially suppressed by Arévalo,
but under Arbenz it was allowed to operate in
the open for the first time. Moreover,
by condoning the election to Congress of four of its members and developing
a personal friendship with some of its more “senior members,” such as the
brilliant José Manuel Fortuny and the strident
Victor Manuel Gutiérrez, Arbenz
began to show that he was not indisposed towards allowing the PGT full participation
in Guatemalan politics,. As a result, the U.S. government came to fear the growing influence of
the Communist Party in Guatemala.
[13]
Two
subsequent events in Arbenz’s presidency reinforced
this fear. The centerpiece of Arbenz’s presidency
was his desire to institute agrarian reform in Guatemala’s countryside. Dismayed by the inequalities afflicting
the poor, as well as the misdistribution of land and wealth throughout his
country, President Arbenz resolved that the only
solution to this problem was to redistribute the majority of the country’s
fallow land. To this end, he enacted Decree 900 that was approved the Agrarian
Reform Bill, approved by Congress on June 17, 1952. Decree 900 stipulated that uncultivated land in
private estates of over 224 acres could be expropriated and divided up into
parcels for re-distribution among the nation’s landless poor. Estates of
between 224 and 672 acres would only be subject to expropriation if more
than two thirds of the land was uncultivated. Also, the government-owned
Fincas Nacionales,
a leftover from the U.S.-sponsored World War II policy of confiscating German-owned
land, would be entirely divided. The owners of this expropriated land would
then be paid the declared tax value of the land in government bonds, that would mature in 25 years. This law clearly had
the power to change the lives of the millions of Guatemalans who lived below
the poverty line. Moreover, its precepts were, as many U.S. officials admitted, “constructive” and “democratic.”
[14]
Nonetheless, the promulgation
of Decree 900 became seen as evidence of Arbenz’s
growing Communist tendencies and was believed by certain U.S. officials to be part of a master plan to mobilize
the peasant masses for a potential Communist takeover of the country.
U.S. infuriation was aggravated by the expropriation
of 386,901 acres of UFC land under Decree 900. The compensation offered
by the Arbenz administration of just over $1 million UFC’s declared tax value of the land outraged the fruit company.
The company had traditionally undervalued its land in order to reduce its
tax burden, and it responded that the land was indeed worth much more. UFC’s governmental connections caused the U.S. embassy to intervene on its behalf, demanding $15,854,849
in compensation. The Guatemalan government refused to pay the requested
amount and launched a blistering reprimand that the U.S. government was not entitled to intervene in Guatemala’s internal affairs.
[15]
The
final straw in the U.S. evaluation of the Arbenz
administration came with the discovery of a shipment of arms from the Czechoslovakia, a Soviet satellite. The enforcement of a U.S. arms
embargo for the past six years, which had extended to obtaining reassurances
from allies that no arms would be sold to the beleaguered Central American
republic, Arbenz had been forced to turn to the
Eastern bloc to procure arms for his nation. The president’s need was immediate.
The threat of an invasion by rebel forces led by an exiled Guatemalan officer,
Carlos Castillo Armas, had circulated for some
time. In January of 1954, the fears of an invasion grew stronger. Jorge
Isaac Delgado, a courier for Castillo Armas, turned
over to Arbenz a series of documents, which not
only revealed that an invasion was indeed planned by Castillo Armas in that year, but also that he had received the backing
of Nicaraguan dictator Anastosia Somoza and “the
government of the North.”
[16]
Arbenz responded by publishing
these documents. However, these revelations were ridiculed by the U.S. government and media because it was believed that
Guatemala was about to become Communist.
Those in Guatemala harbored no such illusions. The pressures that had
been building against Guatemala since it first registered its democratic credentials
became suffocating. Press coverage towards the embattled regime was at this
point bellicose: “a great espionage, sabotage, and propaganda organization”
was said to be working “day and night for the Soviet Union,”
[17]
while the PGT had “armed shock troopers in every
town, village and hamlet.”
[18]
While few in Guatemala believed these reports, the antagonism emanating
from all around was palpable. New
York Times reporter Sidney Gruson, whose submissions
were comparatively sparse, conveyed little in the way of sympathy towards
the Arbenz regime.
[19]
Such views were openly echoed in official U.S. government circles. Ambassador Peurifoy had told Time
prior to taking up his post in Guatemala that the United States would “not permit a Soviet republic to be established
between Texas and the Panama Canal.
Public opinion in the United States,” he warned, “might force us to take some measures
to prevent Guatemala from falling into the lap of international Communism.”
[20]
It was not difficult from this to extrapolate that
the continuing Revolution was under severe threat.
2.4 The Wider War
However, Arbenz and his
inner circle maintained hope in diplomacy. The Tenth Inter-American Conference
of the Organization of American States (OAS) was due to take place in Caracas in March 1954. There, the United States was expected to introduce a resolution condemning
the growth of Communism in Guatemala. The Arbenz administration
expected its Latin American brethren to voice their rejection of the American
ploy, and their affirmation of the spirit of non-intervention that was enshrined
in the Charter of the OAS. Caracas would witness a very serious public confrontation
unfold.
The “Declaration of Solidarity for the Preservation
of the Political Integrity of the American States against International
Communism” tabled by John Foster Dulles at Caracas read:
The domination or control of the political institutions
of any American state by the international Communist movement…would constitute
a threat to the sovereignty and political independence of the American states,
endangering the peace of America, and would call for appropriate action in accordance with existing
treaties.
[21]
The treaty to which Foster Dulles was specifically
referring was the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (Rio Treaty),
which mandated that “an aggression which was not an armed attack” on any
signatory nation could be countered with diplomatic and economic sanctions
or even intervention should two-thirds of the member nations agree that
such a threat existed.
[22]
Guatemala’s Foreign Minister Toriello
pulled no punches in his response, defiantly denouncing both the means and
the motives behind the U.S. position, something to which few U.S. statesmen had been subjected at the OAS. “We feel
this proposal was merely a pretext for intervention in our internal affairs,”
the foreign minister responded.
[23]
He referred to the return of hegemonic interference
in the continent, after so short a hiatus under Franklin Roosevelt, as well
as to the economic interests that fuelled the measure and the economic blandishments
that supported it. Toriello, despite his own private
misgivings prior to the conference on the advisability of such a polemical
stance against the American Secretary of State, had acquitted himself forcefully
and eloquently.
[24]
The impact of his words was reflected in the weight
of the applause that greeted his summation, almost twice as long as that
with which Foster Dulles had been blessed, according to the New York Times.
[25]
It was to be, however, a hollow victory. Over the
next two weeks, Foster Dulles applied all of his powers of persuasion to
the delegates in order to secure the support he required: “[Foster Dulles]
spared no effort and spared no blandishment to get this Caracas Resolution
through,” noted one U.S. official.
[26]
On March 26, the resolution
passed 17-1, with only Mexico and Argentina abstaining, and Guatemala the sole voice of resistance. But even Foster Dulles’
victory was somewhat hollow. Press reports condemned the U.S. Secretary
of State for his heavy-handed tactics while the Uruguayan delegate lamented
that “We contributed our approval without enthusiasm, without optimism,
and without feeling that we were contributing to a constructive measure.”
[27]
Roy Rubottom, who would
later become Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, described
it as the low point in U.S. relations with Latin America.
[28]
Marcha, the noted
Uruguayan daily, would reflect: “It is in Caracas, once the proud city of Bolívar, now the domain of Perez Jimenez, that a conference
to promote peace and assail dictatorship is being held. The representatives
of Trujillo, Batista and Odria are
leading the democratic wave.”
[29]
John Foster Dulles would later ruefully admit to
Congress that “the support of the so-called dictator countries…was sometimes
a bit embarrassing.”
[30]
2.5 The Beginnings of the End
In Guatemala City, President Arbenz described
the conference as “a great moral victory,”
[31]
as tens of thousands of citizens
lined the streets to welcome Toriello home. The
words must have tasted like ashes in his mouth, however, as he recognized
the event for what it was—a massive psychological defeat. However, reflection
was not a luxury Arbenz could afford in those early months of 1954. In May,
Somoza’s Nicaragua broke diplomatic relations with Guatemala, and followed up on the Caracas resolution by calling for a meeting of the OAS to
discuss the threat to the peace and security of the region posed by Guatemala. José Figueres, the Costa
Rican president whose candidacy had enjoyed the support of the Guatemalan
government, applauded the proposal. Meanwhile U.S. officials began garnering the support required to
pass sanctions on Guatemala in the upcoming conference in Montevideo. As a consequence, Guatemalan diplomats were expelled
from Haiti and put under watch in Cuba, while Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica recalled their ambassadors. As the Central American
press disseminated the rumor that Guatemalan troops were massing at the
Honduran border—what would have been a suicidal gesture for the U.S. had it been true—U.S. warships began patrolling the Gulf of Honduras and the Canal Zone, intercepting
shipping in clear violation of international law. Arbenz could feel the noose tightening.
[32]
That same week, Castillo Armas’
air force of World War II-era U.S. planes operating from neighboring Honduras and El Salvador began dropping leaflets over the capital and, at
night, anti-Communist propaganda appeared under the doors of terrified citizens.
By this time, La Voz de la Liberation was in full swing, congratulating
the advance column of the Liberacionistas on their failed attempts to sabotage the country’s
rail networks. Reports of minor skirmishes filtered in as Castillo Armas’ “soldiers in uniform swaggered around the streets of
Tegucigulpa [Honduras].”
[33]
On June 4, Rodolfo Mendoza, former head of the Guatemalan
air force and its most experienced pilot, fled Guatemala City with former U.S. Air Attaché Ferdinand Schupp. Both would return in the cockpits of Liberacionista aircraft.
[34]
Guatemala was clouded by a rank fear.
2.6 La Liberación
On June 18 the invasion arrived. The heavy-handed
preparations for the Montevideo conference scheduled to be held on July 1 had been
a sham. The U.S. expected Arbenz to not be in power by that
date.
[35]
Castillo Armas divided
his force in two; one to storm the vital Atlantic port of Puerto Barrios and the other, under his command, to strike towards
the capital via Zacapa.
Arbenz, who had feared direct support from the United States, seemed to relax perceptibly when it became clear
that this was not forthcoming. “This invasion is a farce” he confided to
Fortuny, “We can shoo them away with our hats.”
[36]
Arbenz instructed the
head of his armed forces, Col. Carlos Enrique Díaz,
to allow the rebels to advance a suitable distance into Guatemalan territory
to ensure the conflict remained internal, and then to crush them at Zacapa. As Díaz dispatched three
trusted commanders to Zacapa, Arbenz
began preparations for what he considered to be the real battle—diplomacy.
Arbenz would take the fight to the United Nations (UN) where
the strength of his case, he believed, would force that body to intervene.
This tactic showed early promise, as a June 20 resolution was approved demanding
“the immediate termination of any action likely to cause bloodshed” and
requesting “all Members of the United Nations to abstain…from rendering
assistance to any such action.”
[37]
This motion was tabled by France, which, along with Britain, was deeply concerned about the precedent that would
be set if the UN failed to act. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, whom
Churchill had once described as “the only case I know of a bull that carries
his china shop with him,”
[38]
was enraged: “We have…held up putting Indochina in the UN in deference to their request. And then
without prior understandings etc., they jump right in when another international
body should be used.”
[39]
The U.S.’s policy position was that the Guatemalan crisis
could be handled by the OAS, U.S.-guided body. Foster Dulles was determined
to ensure that the UN ignore Toriello’s request
that it “take the measures necessary…to put a stop to the aggression”
[40]
He assured Toriello that
President Eisenhower was prepared to use the veto if necessary, something
which had never transpired before in UN history. To avoid such embarrassment,
Foster Dulles recommended that UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge “let the
British and French know that if they take [an] independent line backing
[the] Guatemalan move in this matter…we would feel entirely free without
regard to their position in relation to any such matters as any of their
colonial problems in Egypt, Cyprus, etc.”
[41]
Essentially, Foster Dulles was asking Lodge to give
the French and British delegations a political science lesson regarding
the Monroe Doctrine which meant that any meddling by European powers in
what was exclusively the preserve of the United States would be repelled
vigorously with a comparable attack on Britain and France’s own spheres
of colonial influence.
[42]
The message hit home, and on June 25, the Security
Council elected not to consider the Guatemalan crisis.
[43]
2.7 Divisions Within Divisions
With this battle lost, Arbenz
had to look to his troops in Zacapa for salvation.
Arbenz’s widow, Maria de Arbenz,
recalls: “Jacobo believed that the army would
defend the motherland. Our army would refuse to submit to Castillo Armas,
a traitor who had been defeated in 1950 and who was leading a motley band
of outlaws—not even soldiers. The army would not dishonor itself. The officers
would not capitulate to a traitor.”
[44]
Arbenz’s faith was misplaced,
however, and, as his attention was distracted by events in New York, a silent rebellion took place. The officers who
had been sent to defeat Castillo Armas were reluctant
to do so. Confident in their military superiority, the army had nonetheless
become increasingly demoralized in the months leading up to the invasion,
fearing that support for Arbenz would lead them
to disaster. For these officers, Castillo Armas
was the embodiment of this truth. Clearly, he had the moral and financial
support of “the government of the North,” and it was foolish for even the
strongest army in Central
America to instigate a war with that leviathan. If they
followed orders, and routed the Liberacionistas, the certain response, to their minds, would
be a full-scale assault from the U.S. marine corps. So, they
lied, sending conciliatory reports back to the capital assuring their president
that an attack would be launched soon. It never was. On June 25, Castillo
Armas attacked Chiquimula, a small
town near Zacapa. As the army in Zacapa remained in stasis, the garrison commander surrendered
without a fight. A line had been crossed, from which there was no returning.
Zacapa’s paralysis was tantamount to treason and,
as an indignant Arbenz demanded an account, Zacapa
declared, their commander in chief should step down.
[45]
Demoralized and disoriented, Arbenz’s
resolve wavered. Briefly, he considered arming the populace, but these plans
never reached fruition. Meanwhile, the revolutionary politicians and members
of Arbenz’s inner circle—all but his most trusted
confidants within the PGT—began to abandon his sinking ship. Hastily convened
meetings discussed the imminent fate of the revolution of 1944 and Arbenz’s presidency, while Arbenz
spent a despondent night in the Presidential Palace. One of these groups
was headed by Col. Diaz, head of the armed forces and a loyal supporter
of Arbenz. Their conclusion was simple: if Arbenz
could be convinced to step down from the presidency, the democratic progress
of Guatemala might yet be saved. Diaz arranged a meeting with
U.S. Ambassador Peurifoy in which he explained
the group’s intention and asked for Peurifoy to
arrange a truce with the rebels. Peurifoy agreed
and Diaz reluctantly went to the Palace to inform Arbenz,
with no small amount of fear in his heart for Arbenz’s
response. Diaz’s solution had already occurred to Arbenz,
however, and, although the details of the conversation that took place that
day between the two friends are unknown, on June 27, 1954, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman resigned the presidency of Guatemala, and retreated to the Mexican Embassy. What followed
was a bizarre game of musical chairs, as a series of candidates shuffled
through positions in the interim junta, each more unsavory than the last,
until finally, Castillo Armas, America’s ordained, ascended to the outright presidency
of Guatemala, and the long night of dictatorship descended on
the Central American nation.