U.S. Backed Guatemela Coup (1963) After Vote of Kennedy Aides
Geyer, George Anne
GUATEMALA CITY Top sources within the Kenr nedy administration have revealed the U.S. instigated and supported the 1963 coup by the Guatemalan military to overthrow the constitutionally...
...AFTER an endless series of bombings, revolts, assassi- n a t i o n s and intercepted coups, on Nov...
...Like Cuba, it is a sym- bol of all the problems of Latin America and all the disasters of American for- eign policy in Latin America...
...American in- volvement.is growing...
...The problems started after Guatemala's 944 revolution against lh' d TictoForgTo...
...The next: day the military moved against Ydigoras, who refused to renounce power...
...According to the Information, President Kennedy was himself unsure about the Ydi g o ras overthrow, but eventually relied on a simple vote of his advisers...
...The American embassy in Gu ate in ala Cia...
...So Ydigoras countered by offering Guatemalan terri- tory to President Eisen- hower for the racing of Cuban exiles, in preparation...
...The situation remains the most touch-and-go in Latin America however...
...Despite the fact that he was pro-American and anti('ommunist, Ydigoras h a d problems w ith Washington and the CIA from the beginnin:t...
...Aides THE STORY of American diplomacy in Guatamala, which has played a major role in shaping present events, has been a story of continuous intervention, especially by the Central Intelligence Agency...
...vhen Juan Jose Arev...
...who had been president ., 1944 to .1950, was a CormnunmsL and Lmat his election must be prevented at all costs...
...They told me I owea t'em $1,800,000, which was the amount Castillo Armas (who had by then been assassinated, had not repaid of the $3 million then had lent him r "I told them that I had no debts to them, that Castillo Armas was dead and that far from being his heir I had defeated his movement at the polls...
...Jacobo Arbenz...
...ex-Governor Iuis MunozjMarin of Puerto Rico...
...As President Eisenhower later admitS he n backedthe invasion of Guatemala by still another colonel, Carlos Castillo Armas...
...Juan Luis Cruz Salaza, CstifA irmaseir...
...Guerrilla strength keeps growing, and they continuously become more daring...
...But the Mendez government is still trying desperately to straddle the two extremes...
...The reason was not to depose Ydigoras, a flamboyant general and dedicated antiCommunist who gave uatemalan land for training exiles for the 1961 Cuban Invasion...
...instigated and supported the 1963 coup by the Guatemalan military to overthrow the constitutionally elected President, Miguljl Ydigoras Fuentes...
...Ydigoras said he asked three things in return for giving Guatemalan land for the invasion 'force: AN END to the "feud" with Washington (which was based on Castillo Armas' unpaid debt...
...Ydigoras said they asked him to learn the revolt -3-(Guatemala - continued) against Arbenz- and to form a government that would "favor the United Fruit Company and the (then American-o w n e d ) nternatioal Railways of C eri ann o pay back a loan which would cover the expenses of the expedition...
...According to inside sources, it nwas 897,000 Ydigoras became president in 1958...
...martin then assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs and now ambas der to Argern- and Richard Itelms, then a A oTlcil and...
...Moscoso argued that Arevalo, who was a member of the democratic left and had pushed reforms during his administration, was no further to the left than ex-President Romul Betancourt of Vcnezu...
...On the contrary, he attempted to control the Communists...
...It is unclear whether the Peralta family was then chosen or whether they proffered their services...
...They added that this point of view was oosed by Theodoro Moscosu then admin-' tratir of the Alliance for Progress...
...According to these sources, who must remain anonymous, the decision to overthrow Ydigoras was made at a meeting of President John F. Kennedy and his top advisers early in 1963 and was pushed y tne American ambassador to Guatemala, John O. Bell...
...In view o tne fight still going on to establish a stable, democratic government in Guatemala and in view of the original concept of the Alliance for Progress to encourage democracy in Latin A m e r i c a, the information writes a new chapter in hemispheric history...
...no director of the CIA...
...You know who they were (the implication was CIA...
...these sources said, argued that these men showed how, once in office, men of the non-Communist left developed reform-minded, progressive administration, and he pointed nut that both had become favorites of President Kennedy...
...He became so intransigent that IU.S...
...aYi o'~'nsidered the "first presirlent of the revolution," came to power...
...His administration led to the far leftist administration of Col...
...R President Kennedy's council, the men who pushed the coup were Bell, who had been a top AID official for many years and is now political adviser to a mimiary umt in Florida...
...It is in these years that the Y igoras political story also beg s. In an exclusvie interview in his home in San Salvador, the general, whose arimi4tration w a s noted both for its democracy and its corruption, told me he was approached before the Castillo Armas invasion by Walter Turnbull, a former ex' live the United Fruit Comnany (whicl olsconsiderable land in Guatemala...
...I OWEVER, wheu the vote was taken, ihe "coup bloc" won out --- it was voted that Ydigoras should be overthrown...
...But Col...
...and in -iy oTTe Arbenz governmenfffl...
...WASHINGTON'S help in settling the dispute over Brit- ish Honduras (which Guate- mala claims . Ydigoras said, however, that once the invasion had failed, only the first point was honored, and that it was only when he threatened to boycott meetings leading to the Alliance for Progress that the sugar quota was assigned...
...largely made up of sensitive, knowl- edgeable people now, is strongly backing the Mendez government...
...To the uninformed, Guate- mala may seem like a small insignificant country, beset by tempests in a teapot...
...History shows that the...
...Edwin IM...
...A SUGAR QUOTA of 25,000 tons a year...
...The Arbenz years now make up one of the most fascinating chapters in recent Latin America history...
...for the 1961 Bay of Pigs in- vasion...
...They constitute the first attempt b3- communism to take over a Latin America country...
...There has never' been any evidence that Arevalo was a Communist...
...aid( officials became pub- licly disgusted...
...He continued his story, saying that soon after his election he was in Washington to meet with President Eisenhower when: "Four men came to see me...
...Turnbull was accompanied by two CIA agents...
...GUATEMALA CITY - Top sources within the Kenr nedy administration have revealed the U.S...
...Moscoso...
...This is because it was followed by a military dictatorship whose unpopularity helped a Castroite guerrilla movement to flourish...
...The military regime headed by Col...
...The Peralta military regime allowed elections to be held last March, and the midrile-road government of President Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegri came into power...
...He was taken to Nicaragua, and has since lived in exile in San Salvador...
...26, arev- alo, then in exie, announced his candidacy for the next elections...
...has now changed...
...They threatened me with a 'conspiracy of si- lence,' and said that' in that case I would get no aid from the United States and that nothing good would ever be written about my govern- ment in the U.S...
...Peral- ta did nothing to further economic development...
...But like Cuba, it is more than that...
...To the ultra-con- servative elements, "commu- nism" was coming again Arevalo then evaded bor der guards and returned to Guatemala for one day in March 1963...
...Y;ooras overthrow marked a total stop in the progress of the country...
...It is well known that the American embassy in Guatemala City openly backed his ultra-conservative opponent, Col...
...ACCORDING to Ydigoras, he refused...
...At t h e meeting, the sources said, Bell argued vehemently th a t ribalo...
...The purpose was to prevent w elw" fUawJdv-ced t, oe an uraiu ent oDesidential vtor , Ja l Jse Atevalo...
...t the amount mf money he CIA gave im fo campaign f has not en disclosed before...
...The position of the U.S...
...After the Castro takeover of Cuba in 1959 and the revo- lution's gradual turn to com- munism, Guatemala, with its background of the Arbenz years, became the major target for Communist subver- sion...
...Enriuge Peralta AzuxdiaTwho was Xi , - eene n and his son Lten led the revolt that culminated in the overthrow on March 31, 1963...
...What worries some critics, however, is that in the last years of his presidency he became practically a prisoner of the army...
...The donothingness and corruption of the Peralta regime, and its inability to do anything about the guerrillas, who flourished under the military dictatorship, have apparent- ly soured Washington on the military option here...
...But the implication is that Castillo Armas agreed to the terms, for this was, in fact, the kind of government that he established...
...In part, the Guatemalan coup led directly to today's problems in this most troubled country in Latin America...
Vol. 1 • February 1967 • No. 1
