This preview shows page 1-2-3-4-5-6 out of 17 pages.

Save
View full document
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 17 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience

Unformatted text preview:

Seals 1Tova SealsBruce LusignanEDGEThe 1954 CIA Coup in GuatemalaThe 1954 coup that deposed the democratically elected government of Guatemala has long been acknowledged to have been the result of CIA covert action. Recently declassified documents have shown a new, and more sinister light, on the CIA's involvement in an action that gave birth to some of the most brutally dictatorial regimes in modern history. No one at this point will dispute the original involvement, but there are still those who maintain that this is all water over the damof history and that the US has not had direct responsibility for the actions of a Guatemalan government since the 1954 coup. (Evans-Pritchard)I intend to outline the background of the political circumstances that lead to the coup. This will include Guatemala, the US and the world scene at the time, when anti-communism contended with communism as state ideologies. I will contend that the coup was all but inevitable in the prevailing political climate of 1954. But that still doesn't make it right. We have been finding out for nearly half a century how wrong it was. Opinions have always varied with the positions of their adherents, but I believe there is one thing that can no longer be disputed: the CIA catalyzed a turn for the worse, even to the inhuman, for many Latin American governments by its actions in managing the Guatemalan coup. They provided the essential weapon for the modern national security state, the knowledge of how to organize an efficient apparatus of state repression and terror. ‘The wink and the nod’ that was all somehow acceptable to your primarySeals 2sponsor caused many a dictator to adopt these methods to take and maintain power. Only recently have internal CIA documents become available, allowing researchers to begin to look inside the CIA itself. Partial as these releases are, they supply valuable insight into the machinations of this secretive organization. These documents outline the beginning of the Terror; let's hope we are seeing the end of it.The early 1950s was a time of tension and uncertainty in the world. The ColdWar replaced ‘hot’ war. Humankind had gone from the terror of actual war to the terror of the potential of nuclear war. The situation was aggravated by the ongoing conflict in Korea which pitted the forces of the ‘Free World’ against the specter of international Communism. Anticommunist hysteria gripped the US political scene, mirroring many of the excesses of the Stalinist enemy that it was in struggle with in the international arena. The New York Times of the era carried news about a newly discovered Communist threat almost daily. Sen Joseph McCarthy would even accuse (although he could never prove) the CIA and other units of the Federal government of harboring 130 Communist infiltrators in their midst. (NYT, 6/3/54) J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leader of the US effort to build nuclear weapons, was accused of holding back the development of the hydrogen bomb and being insufficiently loyal. (NYT, 6/17/54) Subversive literature from Russia was said to be "clogging" the Customs Service. (NYT, 6/6/54) An ominous headline in the wake of Memorial Day 1954 read "Memorial Events Made More Somber By Soviet Menace".(NYT, 6/1/54) The dissenting voices were few, with only the muted protest of warnings about an “anti-intellectual fervor impeding” US scientists, as if the only criticism allowed of McCarthyism was that sometimes its wild accusations mightSeals 3slow down defense preparations. (NYT, 6/8/54)The day after the Times reported the coup in Guatemala, it ran a notice that signs ordering civilians off the roads in the event of an air attack were to be taken down. Now that the Soviets had the hydrogen bomb the only hope for city dwellers was to flee to the countryside as quickly as possible. The editorial section had a cartoon, depicting Communism as a rabid dog in the manger of Peace, baring its fangs at the Free World, which was a frightened looking horse. (NYT, 6/20/54) As the coup wound to its quick conclusion the next week, an air raid test was announced for the lower East Side that posited an atomic weapon dropped within New York City. (NYT, 6/24/54) Nearly every aspect of American culture was penetrated by this fear of ‘Reds under every bed’ and it particularly influenced how we viewed developments in the area of international relations. Our views of other countries were almost wholly defined by our perception of whether they were ‘with us or against us’ in the struggle against Communism.Guatemala had experienced a revolution in 1944, which overthrew General Jorge Ubico, a corrupt, brutal dictator. Democracy took root there, but the country as a whole suffered from severely unequal development and was dominated by the US company, United Fruit (UFCO). UFCO sought to maintain the position of privilege that it had enjoyed under Ubico, who had gifted the company with large tracts of land and vigorously suppressed labor organizations. (CIAPBS, pg. 11) Indeed, the company viewed any change as a direct "assault on free enterprise." (CIAPBS, )pg. 16UFCO was supported in this view by an arm of the CIA called the Office ofSeals 4Policy Coordination (OPC). The OPC was directed by Frank Wisner and was formed in 1948 to undertake “covert propaganda and antisubversive operations.” Asearly as August 1950, the OPC warned “that Guatemala may become a central point for the dissemination of anti-US propaganda.” (CIAPBS, pg. 18) Wisner would later be appointed to head the 1954 PBSUCCESS plan that would solve the problem of knocking down the ‘straw man’ he had set up in Guatemala. Wisner's involvement in the creation and definition of the ‘problem’, and then in its ‘solution’, illustrates the enormous possibilities for abuse built into the CIA's charter. (CQ) Its abuse of this rather self-serving system is a recurrent theme in US politics. The Guatemalan Revolutionary government, while acknowledged by the US Embassy as having “an unusual reputation for incorruptibility“, was a thorn in the side of UFCO continuing business as usual. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, a leader in the Army, was elected president of Guatemala in 1951 and continued the Revolution's moderate course. Arbenz had made his fame in the army by helping to put down an abortive coup attempt in 1949 by old guard officers of the army. (CIAPBS, pg. 13) Among the plotters was Lt. Carlos Castillo Armas, who was captured,


View Full Document

Stanford EDGE 297A - Study Notes

Documents in this Course
Load more
Download Study Notes
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view Study Notes and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view Study Notes 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?