The 1954 CIA Coup in Guatemala and Comparisons to the Bay of Pigs

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The 1954 CIA Coup in Guatemala and Comparisons to the Bay of Pigs

In 1954, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz resigned after being targeted by a CIA-orchestrated coup d’état. The United States believed that Arbenz was a Communist, likely with ties to the Soviet Union. The CIA used non-traditional means to displace the Arbenz government. Essentially, it was a coup relying on systematic psychological pressure placed on the Arbenz regime. The coup ultimately achieved its goal of removing Arbenz and inserting an anti-Communist leader.  However, although lauded internally by the United States government at the time, it was by no means an unmitigated success. The CIA’s plan failed on many fronts and was lucky to accomplish its objective. The 1961 invasion of Cuba, known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, was not as fortunate. Plagued by an indecisive President John F. Kennedy and insufficient air support, the attempted coup of Fidel Castro’s Cuba was a complete failure. In this paper, I will argue that the strategies used in Cuba were in large part based on the ones used in Guatemala, and that the Bay of Pigs was a failure because the CIA took for granted that the precarious Guatemalan methods would work, even in a drastically different situation.

         Even though Joseph Stalin had died in 1953, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were high. The United States regarded any Communist country as one being “directed by the Kremlin”. Because the Soviets were seen as an extreme threat to national security, all other states potentially under Soviet sway were likewise seen as threats. When the Central Intelligence Agency learned of Arbenz’s alleged ties to Communism, they were therefore very concerned. The potential for a Communist state in the Western hemisphere was disturbing to say the least. The United States not only feared that Guatemala could be used as a Soviet staging ground, but that Communism would spread to other countries in the region. Beyond that, however, there was another reason to remove the Arbenz government. This reason was United Fruit. The United Fruit Company was a large corporation from the United States but with operations in many third-world countries, notably Guatemala. United Fruit enjoyed considerable profits thanks in part to Guatemalan labor laws and taxes. When the Arbenz government came to power, it enacted sweeping agrarian reform policies, including the expropriation of unused land so that it could be farmed by peasants. The Guatemalan government seized United Fruit’s lands, and United Fruit was only compensated for a fraction of their value. Angered by these new policies, United Fruit heavily lobbied the United States to step in, while at the same time strengthening its case by publicly associating the Arbenz government with Communism. United Fruit knew that if strong enough ties to Communism were perceived, the United States would eventually step in.

        The United States government did indeed step in. President Dwight Eisenhower and his advisors enacted economic sanctions on Guatemala in addition to pressuring Arbenz politically. Arbenz was known as a stubborn and steadfast leader, and was not moved by any pressure from the United States. Outright military intervention was also ruled out. Besides the fact that intervention would be seen as the violation of treaties between the two countries, it would certainly arouse displeasure from the international community. This was especially important considering the United Nations, which the United States had worked so recently to establish. To make a questionable attack on a sovereign nation would certainly fly in the face of many of the reasons the UN was established in the first place. Therefore, Eisenhower and his intelligence team concluded the only solution to the problem would be “direct, covert action.”

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        The CIA’s mission, codenamed Operation PBSUCCESS, did not follow a cookie-cutter model of government coup d’états. In fact, many of the methods used in the Guatemalan affair were experimental. For one, the operation did not seek to unseat an unpopular, dictatorial leader as was the case in most CIA-sponsored coups. Arbenz enjoyed fairly widespread popularity, although anti-Communist propaganda aided by United Fruit was beginning to eat at that popularity. Neither did the operation have a viable opposition force to back. There was no dominating competitor to Arbenz. Therefore, the CIA had to essentially create an insurrection from scratch. They chose exiled ...

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