Interpreting the 1954 U.S. Intervention in Guatemala: Realist, Revisionist, and Postrevisionist Perspectives
2000; Society for History Education; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3054375
ISSN1945-2292
Autores Tópico(s)Politics and Society in Latin America
ResumoAT NINE IN THE EVENING of June 27, 1954, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmain announced his resignation. The beleaguered colonel had many reasons for abandoning the presidency. His 1952 land reform program, known as Decree 900, had enraged wealthy planters and United Fruit Company (UFCO) officials, who spread propaganda tagging Arbenz as a Communist. Earlier in 1954, at the Tenth Inter-American Conference in Caracas, Venezuela, the Eisenhower administration had isolated Guatemala by bludgeoning members of the Organization of American States (OAS) into adopting an anticommunist resolution which insinuated that the Arbenz regime had become a Communist beachhead. Then, on June 17, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas and his band of several hundred peasant soldiers-the so-called Liberation Army-had invaded Guatemala from Honduras with logistical support from a covert U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation code-named PBSUCCESS. As the Liberation army stumbled its way through the countryside, unmarked planes strafed Guatemala City while radio broadcasters jammed the airwaves with rumors that the government was collapsing. Although the early stages of the invasion had gone poorly for Castillo Armas, the Guatemalan army decided on the 25th to abandon the battlefield in Zacapa. The high command refused the president's order to arm the
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