rewind.
Though first articulated to Congress in 1823, the Monroe Doctrine would not become a significant part of US foreign policy until the closing moments of the nineteenth century. Further still, whilst initially a policy of isolationism in regard to Europe, it has become synonymous with US neo-imperialism and the extension of interests—perhaps no nation is more aware of this than Guatemala.
The United Fruit Company
Starting in 1899, in an attempt to modernise the country, Guatemala’s then-president, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, entered into a controversial relationship with Boston’s United Fruit Company (UFCO), granting a ninety-nine-year concession over vast tracts of land in the Guatemalan jungle in return for the development of the export trade from Puerto Barrios. To Cabrera, such an action was a necessary means for a Third World country such as Guatemala to obtain the infrastructure required for an aspirational ‘modernity’. However, by aspiring to a modernity defined by the West, Cabrera merely invited US imperialism in. Indeed, his decision is one that would come to define Guatemala in the coming century—with devastating consequences.
Elected in 1951, Jacobo Árbenz was no Cabrera: a young, left-leaning social democrat, Árbenz had broad popularity and was deemed a worthy successor to his predecessor, Juan José Arévalo, under whom he had served as defence minister. Nevertheless, in a similar vein to Cabrera, Árbenz too had grand notions of modernity for the country, although his vision was one of reclaiming Guatemalan infrastructure and trade in order to propel the nation out of its relative Third World status. From his inauguration onwards, Árbenz made it clear that a policy of land reform would be a priority for his administration, in order to reduce foreign influence and dependency on foreign markets. It was natural, then, that the UFCO would come under fire. Still, albeit a provision of $1.1 million in exchange for 380,000 acres of land was made—part of the requisitioning under Decree 900, passed in May 1952—the UFCO, and indeed the US Department of State, insisted they be paid $16 million.
The Role of the CIA
The year 1952 was pivotal for US–Guatemalan relations, although intervention would not reach its peak until 1954. CIA intervention became a real possibility after Decree 900, albeit at the behest of Nicaraguan Anastasio Somoza and Guatemalan Colonel Castillo Armas. Such is the origin of the short-lived Operation PBFORTUNE, launched by the CIA, which entailed contingency plans for supplying funds, training, and advice to an insurgency led by Armas, alongside the provision of arms through Somoza’s Nicaragua. With the Truman administration inevitably on the way out by this point, however, PBFORTUNE was destined to fall out of favour also. Nevertheless, its legacy remains profound: everything Operation PBFORTUNE was would soon become subsumed into a new operation, titled PBSUCCESS.
Launched in 1953, PBSUCCESS was the child of President Eisenhower, alongside brothers Allen Dulles (Director of the CIA) and John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State). With the relatively harmless and defenceless Guatemala easily framed as a Soviet satellite, Eisenhower could pursue his Cold War policy with the guarantee of ideological victory—even if the Soviets had not yet established diplomatic relations with Árbenz. Doubly conspicuous is the close involvement of the Dulles brothers with the United Fruit Company. Though not direct shareholders, they were both stakeholders due to their involvement with Sullivan and Cromwell, the law firm that represented United Fruit. John Foster Dulles may have protested, but it was in his interest to protect those of the UFCO, just as it was in the US economic interest to protect the company’s monopoly.
The Coup
Like PBFORTUNE before it, PBSUCCESS would eventually amount to an armed insurgency led by Armas. On 17 June 1954, he led 480 CIA-trained insurgents into Guatemala to face an army comprising 6,000 men—achieving little in the process. However, despite defeat, it is surprising that Armas should emerge as dictator within the space of a month. Such is due to the fact that insurgency was no longer the focus of PBSUCCESS as it had been with its predecessor. Instead, ‘black propaganda’ proved far more significant in achieving eventual victory. Not only was it crucial for the CIA to promote the threat of an incoming invasion—an act that constitutes de facto terrorism—but also to continuously push the narrative of Árbenz being a virulent Communist. These tactics worked phenomenally. Though Armas was defeated by 21 June, it would take only six more days for the army to rise up against Árbenz on 27 June and seize control. Armas was made president on 8 July by unanimous decision—achieved only once his closest rivals, Colonel Dubois and Colonel Cruz Salazar, had each received a payment of $100,000, and once Colonel Díaz, the man behind the army insurrection, had stepped down at the request of the CIA.
Thus, the coup of 1954, whilst technically constituting a coup, is hardly home-grown by any means, and arguably amounts to a neo-imperialist invasion through covert operations. It is undeniable that the coup’s success rested upon CIA backing: without the CIA there is no Armas insurgency, no military coup, indeed, no widespread fear of a Communist government that would never have arrived. Henceforth, in the name of economic interest, ideology, and a warped vision of democracy, the US imposed a non-elected individual who would go on to commit serious human rights violations in his three short years as president. Further still, in the name of imposing ‘stable democratic conditions’, they would kickstart Guatemala’s long decline into instability and atrocity—one that still mars the nation to this day.
Bibliography
Chapman, Peter, Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World (New York: Canongate, 2007)
Dosal, Paul J., Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala (Wilmington, DA: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1993)
Fried, Jonathan L., Guatemala in Rebellion: Unfinished History (New York: Grove Press, 1983)
Gleijeses, Pierro, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)
Grow, Michael, US Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime change in the Cold War (Lawrence, KA: University of Kansas Press, 2008)
Handy, Jim, Revolution in the countryside: rural conflict and agrarian reform in Guatemala, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)
Streeter, Stephen M., Managing the counterrevolution: the United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2000)
Rabe, Stephen G., The Killing Zone: The United States wages Cold War in Latin America, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Reid, Michael, Forgotten Continent: A History of The New Latin America, 2nd edn. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017)