United Fruit Companys publicity office circulated photographs to journalists of mutilated bodies about to be buried in a mass grave as an example of the atrocities committed by the Arbenz regime. The photos received extensive coverage. Thomas McCann of the companys publicity office later revealed that he had no idea what the photos represented; They could just as easily have been the victims of either side-or of an earthquake. The point is, they were widely accepted for what they were purported to be-victims of communism.

In a similar vein, Washington officials reported on political arrests and censorship in Guatemala without reference to the fact that the government was under siege (let alone who was behind the siege), that suspected plotters and saboteurs were the bulk of those being arrested, or that, overall, the Arbenz administration had a fine record on civil liberties. The performance of the American press in this regard was little better.

The primary purpose of the bombing and the many forms of disinformation was to make it appear that military defenses were crumbling, that resistance was futile, thus provoking confusion and division in the Guatemalan armed forces and causing some elements to turn against Arbenz. The psychological warfare conducted over the radio was directed by E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame, and David Atlee Phillips, a newcomer to the CIA. When Phillips was first approached about the assignment, he asked his superior, Tracy Barnes, in all innocence, But Arbenz became President in a free election. What right do we have to help someone topple his government and throw him out of office?

For a moment, wrote Phillips later, I detected in his face a flicker of concern, a doubt, the reactions of a sensitive man. But Barnes quickly recovered and repeated the party line about the Soviets establishing an easily expandable beachhead in Central America.28

Phillips never looked back. When he retired from the CIA in the mid-1970s, he founded the Association of Retired Intelligence Officers, an organization formed to counteract the flood of unfavorable publicity sweeping over the Agency at the time.

American journalists reporting on the events in Guatemala continued to exhibit neither an investigative inclination nor a healthy conspiracy mentality. But what was obscure to the US press was patently obvious to large numbers of Latin Americans. Heated protests against the United States broke out during this week in June in at least eleven countries and was echoed by the governments of Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile which condemned American intervention and aggression .

Life magazine noted these protests by observing that world communism was efficiently using the Guatemalan show to strike a blow at the U.S. It scoffed at the idea that Washington was behind the revolt.29 Newsweek reported that Washington officials interpreted the outcry as an indication of the depth of Red penetration into the Americas .30 A State Department memo at the time, however, privately acknowledged that much of the protest emanated from non-communist and even pro-American moderates.31

On 21 and 22 June, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Toriello made impassioned appeals to the United Nations for help in resolving the crisis. American UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge tried to block the Security Council from discussing a resolution to send an investigating team to Guatemala, characterizing Toriellos appeals as communist maneuvers. But under heavy pressure from UN Secretary-General Dag

Hammarskjold, the Council was convened. Before the vote, while Lodge worked on the smaller nations represented on the Council, Eisenhower and Dulles came down hard on France and Great Britain, both of whom favored the resolution. Said the President of the United States to his Secretary of State: The British expect us to give them a free ride and side with them on Cyprus. And yet they wont even support us on Guatemala! Lets give them a lesson. 32

As matters turned out, the resolution was defeated by five votes to four, with Britain and France abstaining, although their abstentions were not crucial inasmuch as seven votes were required for passage. Hammarskjold was so upset with the American machinations, which he believed undercut the strength of the United Nations, that he confided that he might be forced to reconsider my present position in the United

Nations 33

During this same period, the CIA put into practice a plan to create an incident . Agency planes were dispatched to drop several harmless bombs on Honduran territory. The Honduran government then complained to the UN and the Organization of American States, claiming that the country had been attacked by Guatemalan planes.34

Arbenz finally received an ultimatum from certain army officers: Resign or they would come to an agreement with the invaders. The CIA and Ambassador Peurifoy had been offering payments to officers to defect, and one army commander reportedly accepted $60,000 to surrender his troops. With his back to the wall, Arbenz made an attempt to arm civilian supporters to fight for the government, but array officers blocked the disbursement of weapons. The Guatemalan president knew that the end was near.

The Voice of Liberation meanwhile was proclaiming that two large and heavily armed columns of invaders were moving towards Guatemala City. As the hours passed, the further advance of the mythical forces was announced, while Castillo Armas and his small band had actually not progressed very far from the Honduran border. The American disinformation and rumor offensive continued in other ways as well, and Arbenz, with no one he could trust to give him accurate information, could no longer be certain that there wasnt at least some truth to the radio bulletins.

Nothing would be allowed to threaten the victory so near at hand: A British freighter docked in Guatemala and suspected of having arrived with fuel for Arbenzs military vehicles, was bombed and sunk by a CIA plane after the crew had been warned to flee. It turned out that the ship had come to Guatemala to pick up a cargo of coffee and cotton.

A desperate Toriello pleaded repeatedly with Ambassador Peurifoy to call off the bombings, offering even to reopen negotiations about United Fruits compensation. In a long cable to John Foster Dulles, the foreign minister described the aerial attacks on the civilian population, expressed his countrys defenselessness against the bombings, and appealed to the United States to use its good offices to put an end to them. In what must have been a deeply humiliating task, Toriello stated all of this without a hint that the United States was, or could be, a party to any of it. The pleas were not simply too late. They had always been too late.

The Castillo Armas forces could not have defeated the much larger Guatemalan array, but the air attacks, combined with the belief in the invincibility of the enemy, persuaded Guatemalan military officers to force Arbenz to resign. No Communists, domestic or foreign, came to his aid. He asked the head of the officers, Army Chief of Staff Col. Carlos Diaz, only that he give his word not to negotiate with Castillo Armas, and Diaz, who despised the rebel commander as much as Arbenz did, readily agreed. What Diaz did not realize was that the United States would not be satisfied merely to

oust Arbenz. Castillo Armas had been groomed as the new head of government, and that was not negotiable.

A CIA official, Enno Hobbing, who had just arrived in Guatemala to help draft a new constitution (sic) for the incoming regime, told Diaz that he had made a big mistake in taking over the government. Colonel, said Hobbing, youre just not convenient for the requirements of American foreign policy.

Presently, Peurifoy confronted Diaz with the demand that he deal directly with Castillo Armas. At the same time, the Ambassador showed the Guatemalan colonel a long list of names of some leaders, requiring that Diaz shoot them all within 24 hours.

But why? Diaz asked.

Because theyre communists, replied Peurifoy.35

Although Diaz was not a communist sympathizer, he refused both requests, and indicated that the struggle against the invaders would continue.36 Peurifoy left, livid with anger. He then sent a simple cable to CIA headquarters in Florida: We have been doubled-crossed. BOMB! Within hours, a CIA plane took off from Honduras, bombed a military base and destroyed the government radio station. Col. Castillo Armas, whose anti-communism the United States could trust, was soon the new leader of Guatemala.

The propaganda show was not yet over. At the behest of the CIA, Guatemalan military officers of the new regime took foreign correspondents on a tour of Arbenzs former residence where they could see for themselves rooms filled with school textbooks published in ... yes, the Soviet Union. The New York Times correspondent, Paul Kennedy, considered to be strongly anti-Arbenz, concluded that the books had been planted and did not bother to report the story.37 Time made no mention of the books either, but somehow came upon the story that mobs had plundered Arbenzs home and found stacks of communist propaganda and four bags of earth, one each from Russia, China, Siberia and Mongolia. 38 Times article made it clear enough that it now knew of the American role in Arbenzs downfall (although certainly not the full story), but the magazine had nothing to say about the propriety of overthrowing a democratically elected government by force.

Castillo Armas celebrated the liberation of Guatemala in various ways. In July alone, thousands were arrested on suspicion of communist activity. Many were tortured or killed. In August a law was passed and a committee set up which could declare anyone a communist, with no right of appeal. Those so declared could be arbitrarily arrested for up to six months, could not own a radio or hold public office. Within four months the committee had registered 72,000 names. A committee official said it was aiming for 200,000.39 Further implementation of the agrarian reform law was stopped and all expropriations of land already carried out were declared invalid.40 United Fruit Company not only received all its land back, but the government banned the banana workers unions as well. Moreover, seven employees of the company who had been active labor organizers were found mysteriously murdered in Guatemala City.41

The new regime also disenfranchised three-quarters of Guatemalas voters by barring illiterates from the electoral rolls and outlawed all political parties, labor confederations and peasant organizations. To his was added the closing down of opposition newspapers (which Arbenz had not done) and the burning of subversive books, including Victor Hugos Les Miserables, Dostoyevsky novels, and the works of