In Latin America: Guatemala and American Politics
H., I.
It is possible that by the time this issue of DISSENT appears, the problem of Guatemala will have been forgotten, pushed aside by some new catastrophe. But forgotten, we are convinced, only...
...Nor do I claim that one can imagine Molotov saying this...
...Directly upon taking power (taking it, that is, from Mr...
...The company refused to accept as compensation 600,000 quetzales in twenty-five-year agrarian bonds...
...He writes from the perspective of a socialist living in Latin America...
...Here was a revolt, clearly without popular backing, led by an army colonel of something less than spectacular liberalism...
...Writing in that journal Mr...
...Only The Reporter troubled to note that the Guatemalan incident "presented the Soviet government with the best possible precedent for Communism to use in future aggressions...
...334 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 Said Molotov to Malenkov: "You know, we don't really have to do anything, we only have to wait...
...Peurifoy), Castillo Armas disenfranchised 72 per cent of the population on the ground of illiteracy...
...Worst of all, predictably, was The New Leader...
...Two possible objections may be anticipated...
...We would be curious to know, however, whether "the good fight" includes, in Mr...
...But that the course taken by the State Department was a classical example of how not to fight Stalinism— indeed, an example of how to insure the ultimate victory of Stalinism while corrupting whatever remains in this world of democratic principles— is proven by everything that has happened since the Castillo Armas coup, and not least of all by the outraged reactions in every free Latin American country...
...They then went on to urge the U. S. to extend economic aid to Guatemala, neglecting what should have been immediately obvious: that economic aid can count politically and socially, from any desirable point of view, only if extended to a government with some faint interest in using it in behalf of the population...
...Its $15,000,000 claim is still pending...
...The Arbenz government, we are told, was receptive to Communist infiltration, hence it had to be removed...
...Most of them, caught in a conflict between their moral impulses and their belated discovery of realpolitik, decided that the U. S. hadn't been sufficiently subtle but that the coup had, alas, been necessary...
...Despairing, apparently, of diplomacy, politics and economic aid, the State Department now wished to proclaim its reliance on military force...
...here we need only add a few words from the perspective of a socialist in the United States...
...It is possible that by the time this issue of DISSENT appears, the problem of Guatemala will have been forgotten, pushed aside by some new catastrophe...
...For it should be remembered that while the Arbenz regime was, apparently, beginning to practise terror, it had not yet hardened into a dictatorship...
...While the new law seems certain to create unrest among peasants possessing land under the old reform, observers are optimistic that there will be no violence...
...But forgotten, we are convinced, only for the moment...
...The "democratic ground rules" are put aside—as they so often are in times of stress—and the liberals who resort to the argument of "Communist infiltration" have no credible way of distinguishing themselves from, say, a Pentagon general...
...Let us accept this view as a working premise...
...Very true...
...Because of the peasant's illiteracy, we are told, they were particularly susceptible to the Stalinists.' Hence, to destroy this influence, the peasants had to be deprived of their vote—a • A theory which should make the Parisian intellectuals entirely immune...
...What happened there is so critical and symptomatic that it will have to be returned to again and again...
...That the new regime should be so openly reactionary—how can this be explained except as a sign of a wilful hardening of political intelligence among those who set U. S. foreign policy...
...Very well...
...I claim that this is what he said...
...though still an objection on the tactical level only...
...and not merely on the verge of becoming such...
...That this, consequently, was a danger to the people of that country, and of other Latin American countries, clearly follows...
...Very well...
...Nicaragua, Paraguay, etc...
...Or does that fall into the department of "regrettable excesses...
...A WORD NEEDS TO BE SAID about the response of the American liberals...
...Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 333 For some years now writers like Sidney Hook have been saying that a fundamental ground for objection to Communists and fascists is that they do not stick by "the democratic ground rules," but believe in the use of armed coups by minorities...
...Reports the New York Times of July 27, 1954: Early last year, the Arbenz government expropriated more than 200,000 acres of the company's holdings...
...If we do, it becomes extremely difficult to understand or justify the support, bemused or stricken, most American liberals gave to U. S. foreign policy vis-a-vis Castillo Armas...
...James' estimate, Castillo Armas' political behavior after taking power...
...John Peurifoy, the U. S. Ambassador to Guatemala, boasted that he had sponsored an armed revolt against a government which, it might be recalled, had been legally elected...
...The second possible objection comes closer to the realities...
...the majority of the Guatemalan newspapers still printed anti-Arbenz material...
...Alba's first article...
...Let us pass by the fact that Castillo Armas fought no fight whatever but was shoehorned into power by Peurifoy...
...332 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 clear way, no doubt, of persuading them that the Stalinists were wrong...
...In the two articles that follow, Victor Alba presents a brief report on the Castillo Armas "revolution" and a speculative discussion of the Latin American problem in general...
...Daniel James declared that "Castillo Armas and his army have fought the good fight—ours as well as theirs"—and we should not begrudge them our praise...
...What was most astonishing was not so much the openness of U. S. intervention as the frank, cheerful desire of Washington that this openness be universally noted...
...American commentators have discussed this action in a way that can lead a sane man to insanity...
...a revolt which overthrew a legally elected government...
...As to the value of this argument (for arguments presented in the name of expediency do not always prove expedient), we refer the reader to the opening sentence of Mr...
...First, that in this case the Arbenz government, as it placed increasing restrictions on civil liberties, was verging on terror, and hence it became justified and necessary to support an armed coup...
...The new government has also "suspended temporarily" the agrarian reform law...
...In the New York Times for July 18, 1954, he was quoted as saying that "people are complaining that I was forty-five minutes off schedule" in overthrowing the Arbenz government—the sort of joke that would have delighted Teddy Roosevelt...
...but in that case the ground of argument shifts very sharply from political morality to the most crass expedience...
...Far more important is the complex of political and moral problems raised by the Guatemalan incident...
...but in that case is it not curious that the United States shows no alarm whatever over the regimes in numerous Latin American countries which are already absolute dictatorships...
...That the Communist Party of Guatemala was growing alarmingly, that it was seeping into governmental and institutional life, seems certain...
...In Latin America—no violence...
...If the use of arms by a minority against a legally elected government constitutes a violation of "the democratic ground rules," what possible alternative is there to condemning both the Castillo Armas rebellion and those who sponsored it...
...Equally astonishing is the fact that the State Department either has not cared or has not been able to prevent Castillo Armas from immediately fulfilling the worst expectations...
...Not all American liberals were as crude as The New Leader, a journal that has developed chauvinism into a fine art...
Vol. 1 • September 1954 • No. 4
