The leaders of Guatemala tried everyone-the United Nations, the Organization of American States, other countries individually, the world press, even the United States itself, in the desperate hope that it was all a big misunderstanding, that in the end, reason would prevail.

Nothing helped. Dwight Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had decided that the legally-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was communist , therefore must go; and go it did, in June 1954.

In the midst of the American preparation to overthrow the government, the Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Guillermo Toriello, lamented that the United States was categorizing as communism every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence, any desire for social progress, any intellectual curiosity, and any interest in progressive liberal reforms. 1

Toriello was close to the truth, but Washington officials retained enough contact with reality and world opinion to be aware of the inappropriateness of coming out against nationalism, independence or reform. Thus it was that Secretary of State Dulles asserted that Guatemalans were living under a Communist type of terrorism 2 ... President Eisenhower warned about the Communist dictatorship establishing an outpost on this continent to the detriment of all the American nations 3 ... the US Ambassador to Guatemala, John Peurifoy, declared that We cannot permit a Soviet Republic to be established between Texas and the Panama Canal 4 ... others warned that Guatemala could become a base from which the Soviet Union might actually seize the Canal ... Senator Margaret Chase Smith hinted, unmistakably, that the unjustified increases in the price of coffee imported from Guatemala were due to communist control of the country, and called for an investigation5 ... and so it went.

The Soviet Union could be excused if it was somewhat bewildered by all the rhetoric, for the Russians had scant interest in Guatemala, did not provide the country with any kind of military assistance, did not even maintain diplomatic relations with it, thus did not have the normally indispensable embassy from which to conduct such nefarious schemes. (During this period, the height of McCarthyist logic , there were undoubtedly those Americans who reasoned: All the better to deceive us! ]

With the exception of one occasion, the countries of Eastern Europe had as little to do with Guatemala as did the Soviet Union. A month before the coup, that is, long after Washington had begun preparation for it, Czechoslovakia made a single arms sale to Guatemala for cash, something the Czechs would no doubt have done for any other country willing to pay the price. The weapons, it turned out, were, in the words of the New York Times, worthless military junk . Time magazine pooh-poohed the newspapers report and cited US military men giving a better appraisal of the weapons. It may be that neither Time nor the military men could conceive that one member of the International Communist Conspiracy could do such a thing to another member.6

The American propaganda mill made much of this arms transaction. Less publicized was the fact that Guatemala had to seek arms from Czechoslovakia because the United States had refused to sell it any since 1948 due to its reformist governments, and had pressured other countries to do the same despite Arbenzs repeated pleas to lift the embargo.7

Like the Soviets, Arbenz had reason to wonder about the American charges. The Guatemalan president, who took office in March 1951 after being elected by a wide mat-gin, had no special contact or spiritual/ideological ties with the Soviet Union or the rest of the Communist bloc. Although American policymakers and the American press, explicitly and implicitly, often labeled Arbenz a communist, there were those in Washington who knew better, at least during their more dispassionate moments. Under

Arbenzs administration, Guatemala had voted at the United Nations so closely with the United States on issues of Soviet imperialism that a State Department group occupied with planning Arbenzs overthrow concluded that propaganda concerning Guatemalas UN record would not be particularly helpful in our case .8 And a State Department analysis paper reported that the Guatemalan president had support not only from Communist-led labor and the radical fringe of professional and intellectual groups, but also among many anti-Communist nationalists in urban areas .9

Nonetheless, Washington repeatedly and adamantly expressed its displeasure about the presence of communists working in the Guatemalan government and their active participation in the nations political life. Arbenz maintained that this was no more than proper in a democracy, while Washington continued to insist that Arbenz was too tolerant of such people-not because of anything they had done which was intrinsically threatening or offensive to the US or Western civilization, but simply because they were of the species communist, well known for its infinite capacity for treachery. Ambassador Peurifoy-a diplomat whose suit might have been pinstriped, but whose soul was a loud check-warned Arbenz that US-Guatemalan relations would remain strained so long as a single communist remained on the public payroll.10

The centerpiece of Arbenzs program was land reform. The need for it was clearly expressed in the ail-too-familiar underdeveloped-country statistics: In a nation overwhelmingly rural, 2.2 percent of the landowners owned 70 percent of the arable land; the annual per capita income of agricultural workers was $87. Before the revolution of 1944, which overthrew the Ubico dictatorship, farm laborers had been roped together by the Army for delivery to the low-land farms where they were kept in debt slavery by the landowners. 11

The expropriation of large tracts of uncultivated acreage which was distributed to approximately 100,000 landless peasants, the improvement in union rights for the workers, and other social reforms, were the reasons Arbenz had won the support of Communists and other leftists, which was no more than to be expected. When Arbenz was criticized for accepting Communist support, he challenged his critics to prove their good faith by backing his reforms themselves. They failed to do so, thus revealing where the basis of their criticism lay.12

The party formed by the Communists, the Guatemalan Labor Party, held four seats in Congress, the smallest component of Arbenzs ruling coalition which commanded a total of 51 seats in the 1953-54 legislature.13 Communists held several important sub-cabinet posts but none was ever appointed to the cabinet. In addition, there were Communists employed in the bureaucracy, particularly in the administration of land reform.14

Lacking anything of substance they could accuse the Guatemalan left of, Washington officials were reduced to condemnation by semantics. Thus, communists, unlike normal human beings, did not take jobs in the government-they infiltrated the government. Communists did not support a particular program-they exploited it. Communists did not back Arbenz-they used him. Moreover, communists controlled the labor movement and land reform-but what type of person is it who devotes himself in an under-developed country to furthering the welfare of workers and peasants? None other than the type that Washington calls communist .

The basic idea behind the employment of such language-which was standard Western fare throughout the cold war-was to deny the idea that communists could be people sincerely concerned about social change. American officials denied it to each other as well as to the world. Here, for example, is an excerpt from a CIA report about

Guatemala, prepared in 1952 for the edification of the White House and the intelligence community:

Communist political success derives in general from the ability of individual Communists and fellow travelers to identify themselves with the nationalist and social aspirations of the Revolution of 1944. In this manner, they have been successful in infiltrating the Administration and pro-Administration political parties and have gained control! of organized labor ... [Arbenz] is essentially an opportunist whose politics are largely a matter of historical accident... The extension of [communist] influence has been facilitated by the applicability of Marxist cliches to the anti-colonial and social aims of the Guatemalan Revolution.15

The first plan to topple Arbenz was a CIA operation approved by President Truman in 1952, but at the eleventh hour, Secretary of State Dean Acheson persuaded Truman to abort it.16 However, soon after Eisenhower became president in January 1953, the plan was resurrected.

Both administrations were pressured by executives of United Fruit Company, much of whose vast and uncultivated land in Guatemala had been expropriated by the Arbenz government as part of the land reform program. The company wanted nearly $16 million for the land, the government was offering $525,000, United Fruits own declared valuation for tax purposes.17

United Fruit functioned in Guatemala as a state within a state. It owned the countrys telephone and telegraph facilities, administered its only important Atlantic harbor, and monopolized its banana exports. A subsidiary of the company owned nearly every mile of railroad track in the country. The fruit companys influence amongst Washingtons power elite was equally impressive. On a business and/or personal level, it had close ties to the Dulles brothers, various State Department officials, congressmen, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, and others. Anne Whitman, the wife of the companys public relations director, was President Eisenhowers personal secretary. Under-secretary of State (and formerly Director of the CIA) Walter Bedell Smith was seeking an executive position with United Fruit at the same time he was helping to plan the coup. He was later named to the companys board of directors.18

Under Arbenz, Guatemala constructed an Atlantic port and a highway to compete with United Fruits holdings, and built a hydro-electric plant to offer cheaper energy than the US-controlled electricity monopoly. Arbenzs strategy was to limit the power of foreign companies through direct competition rather than through nationalization, a policy not feasible of course when it came to a fixed quantity like land. In his inaugural address, Arbenz stated that:

Foreign capital will always be welcome as long as it adjusts to local conditions, remains always subordinate to Guatemalan laws, cooperates with the economic development of the country, and strictly abstains from intervening in the nations social and political life.19

This hardly described United Fruits role in Guatemala. Amongst much else, the company had persistently endeavored to frustrate Arbenzs reform programs, discredit him and his government, and induce his downfall.

Arbenz was, accordingly, wary of multinationals and could not be said to welcome them into his country with open arms. This attitude, his expropriation of United Fruits land, and his tolerance of communists were more than enough to make him a marked man in Washington. The United States saw these policies as being interrelated: that is, it was communist influence-not any economic or social exigency of