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The Arbenz Factor: Salvador Allende, U.S.-Chilean Relations, and the 1954 U.S. Intervention in Guatemala

2007; Oxford University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1467-7709.2007.00656.x

1467-7709

mark t. hove,

Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

The U.S.-sponsored overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán of Guatemala on 27 June 1954 radicalized Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, a young Argentine doctor who was working in Guatemala City at the time. Recalling that moment to a group of Cuban medical students in 1960, Guevara asserted, “There must first be a revolution…. The individual effort, … the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals means naught if that effort is made alone, solitary, in some corner of Latin America, fighting against hostile governments and social conditions that do not permit progress.” In the immediate aftermath of Arbenz's demise, Guevara put his sentiments more bluntly: “The struggle begins now.”1 Scholars generally agree that the overthrow of the democratically elected Arbenz stunned and angered Latin Americans, and haunted U.S. relations with the region, as well as with the developing world, long after Arbenz resigned and fled the Guatemalan capital. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Henry F. Holland (1954–1956) admitted at the time that the United States “had paid a price in terms of prestige and good-will.”2 Yet few historians have explored in depth how the U.S. intervention in Guatemala harmed U.S. ties with key Latin American states. Nor have they examined how the June 1954 intervention influenced political dynamics within some of those key states. Few have sought to determine the consequences or the “price” that the United States paid.3 How did Latin Americans outside Guatemala respond to events in Guatemala? How extensive was local opposition within a particular nation? Did this affect local political dynamics? One may also ask how U.S. officials responded to any surges of anti-Americanism generated by this episode within that nation. Were those surges old-fashioned anti-Americanism or did they express something new and different?