V o L u m e I : a d

The evolving situation in Guatemala, however, provoked a much differ-

ent American response. U.S. policymakers’ concerns with Guatemala began

in 1944 upon the overthrow of longtime dictator General Jorge Ubico. The

succeeding administrations of Juan José Arévalo (1945–1951), an educator,

and Jacobo Arbenz (1951–1954), a reform-minded army colonel, implemented

a nationalist, reformist program. These reforms soon led to a conflict between

the government and foreign-owned companies, especially the powerful

United Fruit Company (UFCO), an American-owned corporation. These

companies had influential friends and lobbyists in Washington, and the U.S.

government was increasingly concerned about the growing influence of com-

munists in Guatemala, especially in the labor movement and in the agrarian

reform program. Arbenz’s new labor policy led the UFCO to pressure the

U.S. government to impose economic sanctions, but the Truman adminis-

tration refused to be drawn into the growing controversy. In June 1952 the

Arbenz government implemented new agrarian legislation providing for the

expropriation of uncultivated lands, with compensation in government

bonds. In early 1953, the Guatemalan government used this legislation to

expropriate the UFCO’s unused land. The new U.S. administration of Dwight

Eisenhower vigorously protested the action as discriminatory and the method

of compensation as inadequate, although past American administrations had

considered payment in bonds as satisfactory.

The Eisenhower administration responded with a two-track policy: a

diplomatic track pursued by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and a mil-

itary track under his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles. Both of the Dulles

brothers had connections to the UFCO; John Foster Dulles had worked for

a law firm representing UFCO, while brother Allen had served on the com-

pany’s board of directors. At the diplomatic level, John Foster Dulles moved

for action against Guatemala at the Tenth Inter-American Conference at

Caracas in March 1954, where he personally headed the U.S. delegation.

Dulles, however, encountered the usual Latin American desire to discuss

economic problems, not the perceived communist threat to the American

republics. After two weeks of negotiations, the conference unenthusiastically

passed a resolution classifying international communism as a threat to the

independence of American states and calling for a consultative meeting of

foreign ministers to deal with specific cases. Neither Dulles nor the resolu-

tion specifically mentioned Guatemala, although Guatemala cast the only vote

against the resolution.

The resolution of the Guatemalan situation ultimately reflected the

second track being pursued by the United States. The CIA had already

begun arming and training a group of Guatemalan exiles, led by Guatemalan

Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, in late 1953. On 18 June 1954, this force of

approximately 150 men invaded Guatemala from neighboring Honduras.

Supporting the invasion force were three aircraft based in Nicaragua and

flown by civilian pilots, most of whom were U.S. citizens or CIA operatives.

The key to the intervention’s success was neither the rebel force nor the CIA

but rather the attitude assumed by the regular Guatemalan Army, which

refused to mount any significant opposition to the invasion. When Arbenz

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took matters into his own hands and tried to arm his civil-

ian supporters, the army prevented the move and instead

forced the resignation of Arbenz on 27 June. A military junta

appointed Armas provisional president on 7 July. Armas

indicated the direction that his regime would take when

he returned the UFCO lands expropriated under Arbenz.

The U.S. government responded by recognizing the new

government on 13 July and by providing military, eco-

nomic, and technical aid to the new regime.

The Arbenz government had initially hoped for inter-

national support in the crisis. Guatemala twice appealed to

the United Nations Security Council to end the fighting

but received only a watered-down resolution calling for an

end to any actions that might cause further bloodshed.

The Organization of American States (OAS) responded to

the Guatemalan situation on 28 June, the day after Arbenz

resigned. The OAS Council called for a meeting of foreign

ministers in Rio for 7 July, although the rapid consolidation

of power by Armas ended the crisis, and the Rio meeting

was never held.

The decision by the Eisenhower administration to

intervene in Guatemala was influenced by the earlier

(August–September 1953) CIA-backed coup in Iran, which

had toppled a nationalist regime and restored the pro-

American Shah of Iran to power. The lessons of Iran were

applied to Guatemala. The lessons of Guatemala would in

turn be applied to Cuba with disastrous results during the

Bay of Pigs debacle in April 1961. The United States had successfully kept

the Guatemalan crisis a hemispheric issue to be handled by the OAS, but the

American role in Arbenz’s ouster violated one of the most important provi-

sions of the OAS Charter: the prohibition on intervention. The Eisenhower

administration clearly believed that the Guatemalan operation was a major

victory in the Cold War and that such covert operations offered an effective

and inexpensive way of dealing with similar problems in the future. The

intervention itself did little to promote peace or stability in Guatemala.

Armas was assassinated in July 1957, and bitter political divisions and the

socioeconomic issues behind them continue to haunt Guatemala in the

twenty-first century.

Don M. Coerver

See also

Arbenz, Jacobo Guzmán; Bay of Pigs; Central Intelligence Agency; Dulles, Allen

Welsh; Dulles, John Foster; Guatemala; Mossadegh, Mohammed

References

Blasier, Cole. The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin Amer-

ica, 1910–1985. 2nd ed. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.

Guatemalan Intervention

875

Peasant volunteers who comprised the liberation forces of

Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas march back to the center 

of Guatemala City after helping to put down an uprising

against the regime, 7 August 1954. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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