ebook img

Operation PBHISTORY: The Aftermath of SUCCESS PDF

35 Pages·2004·0.26 MB·English
by  
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Operation PBHISTORY: The Aftermath of SUCCESS

InternationalJournalofIntelligenceandCounterIntelligence,17:300–332,2004 Copyright#Taylor&FrancisInc. ISSN:0885-0607print/1521-0561online DOI:10.1080/08850600490274935 MAX HOLLAND Operation PBHISTORY: The Aftermath of SUCCESS Save for the efforts to overthrow Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, no single covert action undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War has been more widely written about than Operation PBSUCCESS. The CIA-supported overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzma´ n in June 1954 is a staple in all histories of the Agency, in biographies and memoirs of former officers, and in the academic literature on post-war United States relations with Guatemala specifically, and Latin America in general.1 While deserved, this fascination with PBSUCCESS has left the covert operation that followed on its heels all but neglected. There is, to be sure, an oft-told anecdote derived from PBHISTORY, the cryptonym for the project dedicated to gathering and exploiting Guatemalan Communist documents. As a direct consequence of PBHISTORY, the CIA opened a file on a young Argentinian physician named Ernesto Guevara. Apart from this episode though, the covert operation that followed PBSUCCESS has been relegated to a paragraph here and there or described in few pages at most, when not reduced to a footnote.2 PBHISTORY merits closer attention, and now that documents about the operation have been declassified, it is finally possible to give the operation its due.3 The organic sequel to PBSUCCESS yields many insights. Above all, PBHISTORY represents Washington’s covert effort to justify a covert action ex post facto because of the adverse international reaction to Arbenz’s overthrow. The operation also reveals some of the inner workings MaxHollandwasaResearchFellowattheMillerCenterofPublicAffairsatthe University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. His articles on international events have appeared in a wide range of newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. Mr. Holland’s book, A Need to Know: Inside the Warren Commission,isforthcomingfromAlfredA.Knopf,NewYork. 300 INTERNATIONAL JOURNALOFINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONPBHISTORY:THE AFTERMATHOFSUCCESS 301 of the (then) Plans Directorate, techniques of ‘‘white,’’ ‘‘gray,’’ and ‘‘black’’ psychological warfare as practiced by U.S. government agencies in the mid- to-late1950s,andtheinteragencynatureofwhatwaspredominantly,though notexclusively,aCIAoperation.PBHISTORYalsoilluminatestheAgency’s collaborative relationship with then-sympathetic congressional committees, and the dangers (such as ‘‘blowback,’’ and exposure of intelligence sources and methods) inherent in congressional inquiries striving for publicity. Finally, and despite limitations recognized at the time, PBHISTORY constitutes one of the Agency’s most notable counterintelligence efforts and windfalls in the first decade of the Cold War against Communism. GENESIS Ontheeveningof27June1954,JacoboArbenzGuzma´nannouncedoverthe radio his abrupt resignation from the Guatemalan presidency that had been his since 1950. Although it would take eleven more days to install Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, the successor favored by Washington, with Arbenz’s removal Operation PBSUCCESS had culminated in the desired result. Accordingly, on 30 June, Frank Wisner, the Deputy Director for Plans (DD=P), sent what became known as the ‘‘shift of gears cable.’’ The ‘‘time had come for the surgeons [CIA officers] to step back and [let] the nurses [U.S. diplomats]... . take over the patient,’’ instructed Wisner.4 Within a matter of hours CIA officers in the field started to melt away and the PBSUCCESS infrastructure began to disappear. La Voz de la Liberacio´n (the Voice of Liberation), the clandestine radio station of the insurrectionists, stopped broadcasting just as mysteriously as it had started. YetWisnerwasthefirsttorecognizethattheAgency’sjobwasnotentirely over. The covert triumph opened up several opportunities that the CIA would be utterly foolish to ignore. The time was ripe to recruit agents in both camps: from among Communists (not just Guatemalans but other Latin nationals) now willing to defect, and from ‘‘untainted’’ Guatemalans who might soon play a role in the new government. Recruiting assets from among those who might work in any new or revamped internal security apparatus would be particularly important. In addition, the success of PBSUCCESS promised a paper bonanza, a chance to perhaps expose, as never before, Soviet machinations throughout the Western Hemisphere. It was thought that the coup’s rapidity—it had taken but ten days to crack open the regime—meant that Arbenz and his followers had not had time to destroy incriminating materials that would document the extent of Moscow’s penetration and the workings of international Communism, especially its tactics of infiltration. These could be exploited for all manner of propaganda operations throughout the hemisphere; utilized to ensure the root-and-branch eradication of ANDCOUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME17,NUMBER2 302 MAXHOLLAND Communism in Guatemala; shared selectively with friendly and neighboring anticommunist governments for their use; and finally, provided to the Agency’s own experts, keeping them busy for months if not years. The last of these considerations was not a small one. Although the Communist movement in Latin America had been in existence since at least 1919, because of its clandestine nature it was not easy for CIA to come by such rudimentary information as the ‘‘order of battle’’ of a local Communist Party like the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT). But it appeared extremely likely that PGT records left behind in haste would enable the Agency’s International Communism Division to reconstruct the PGT’s ‘‘collective leadership’’ and organizational structure, and perhaps do the same for Moscow-oriented movements throughout the hemisphere.5 Identifying individuals who were secret Communists would also enable the Agency to monitor or possibly recruit, and if not recruit then neutralize and perhaps manipulate, persons sympathetic to Moscow. And PGT records were only one of several promising possibilities. Besides party headquarters, Wisner envisioned searching the private offices and homes of Communist leaders (and of their friends and relatives) from Arbenz on down; government offices dominated or strongly influenced by Communists; offices of labor and peasant unions, Communist fronts and affiliated organizations; the Foreign Ministry; and the regime’s internal security agencies.6 NegativeWorld Response These reasons alone were more than sufficient to launch what was dubbed PBHISTORY. Yet by 1 July, the operation acquired another acute justification when it became apparent that Western and non-aligned nations’ reaction to Arbenz’s overthrow was continuing to be adverse.7 Arbenz’s secret purchase of weapons from Czechoslovakia, and their arrival in Guatemala in mid-May, had given Washington a propaganda windfall in the weeks leading up to PBSUCCESS. Once Colonel Castillo Armas’s forces crossed into Guatemala on 18 June, however, the tenor of international media coverage changed swiftly and dramatically—influenced to a considerable degree by the Communist media’s saturation coverage.8 Suddenly, Jacobo Arbenz’s only sin seemed to be that he was a courageous ‘‘agrarian reformer’’ willing to challenge the United Fruit Company’s grip over the local economy; simultaneously, Castillo Armas was portrayed as a mercenary leading an aggression against a democratically elected government not to Washington’s liking. ReadingtheseallegationsinCommunistandCommunist-controlledmedia was one thing. When criticisms of this kind were leveled by such normally pro-American voices as Britain’s Labour Party and Sweden’s Social INTERNATIONAL JOURNALOFINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONPBHISTORY:THE AFTERMATHOFSUCCESS 303 Democratic Party, the CIA took notice. Nowhere, of course, was this problem more acute than in deeply nationalistic Latin America. ‘‘No one could recall so intense and universal a wave of anti-U.S. sentiment in the entire history of Latin America,’’ wrote one keen observer in the wake of the coup.9 Mexican students laid a black-draped wreath at the door of the U.S. embassy ‘‘in memory of the Good Neighbor policy,’’ while in Havana, hundreds of young men lined up at the Guatemalan embassy to enlist in the Guatemalan army. As the Agency’s Current Intelligence Weekly for 9 July noted, The Castillo Armas revolution in Guatemala has been almost unanimously attributed by the rest of Latin America to the intervention of Washington acting through the governments of Honduras and Nicaragua... . ‘[A]nti-intervention’ demonstrations and editorials have been widespread and in some cases violent. Many government officials have hinted that Washington either suffers from excessive anti-Communist zeal or is unduly influenced by the interests of the United Fruit Company.10 Worldreactionwassounfavorable,andevensharplyhostiletotheUnited States, that Moscow’s propaganda barrage had to be answered by the CIA’s own ‘‘mighty Wurlitzer,’’ the term Frank Wisner used for the Agency’s formidable array of informational assets, of which the media were a most important part.11 A problem, in other words, that had been created by the CIA’s triumph needed amelioration by further CIA action before PBSUCCESS could produce undesirable and long-lasting effects upon non- Communist governments and public opinion alike. ‘‘Counteracting unfavorable world reaction is a matter of highest priority,’’ observed a PsychologicalnParamilitary Operations Staff memo from early July, ‘‘and it is therefore necessary to undertake with all means at our disposal a world- wide campaign presenting the true facts as quickly and effectively as possible.’’12 Consequently, just as the Agency was doing everything to scrub all traces of PBSUCCESS out of existence, it simultaneously launched a new initiative. Becoming Assertive The‘‘snatchjobondocumentswhilethemelonwasfreshlyburstopen’’began on4July,withthearrivalinGuatemalaCityoftwoCIAofficersandtwofrom the State Department’s Office of Intelligence Research (OIR).13 One officer, Lothar Metzl, was from the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff. An Austrian lawyer who had emigrated to the United States after the Anschluss, Metzl seemed at first glance an unlikely person to be the Agency’s leading expert on international Communism. He had written fourteen musicals for the ANDCOUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME17,NUMBER2 304 MAXHOLLAND Viennesemusicaltheater,andalsoworkedasaplaywrightandsongwriteron Broadway after immigrating. Metzl was equally fascinated by Communist machinations though, dating back to the tumultuous 1930s in Central Europe. Eventually, his study of the Comintern and various national Communist Party organizations turned into his life’s work. Indeed, Metzl’s ability to detect every nuance in Communist Party policy or doctrine was unmatched in and outside the government.14 The initial survey was made in a situation of great confusion, even chaos, and flux over who was in genuine authority, Colonel Castillo Armas having arrived in Guatemala City only the day before. The initial targets were PGT headquarters, Jacobo Arbenz’s personal effects and papers (and those of his briefsuccessor,armedforceschiefColonelCarlosEnriqueDı´az),tradeunion offices, known front organizations, and police agencies. The four-man team was quickly disappointed by what it found. Because no guards had been posted at PGT headquarters, the ‘‘obvious hub of the [Communist] conspiracy,’’ offices had already been plundered systematically by the Guatemalan army and unsystematically by looters.15 Other sensitive party and government offices were in little better shape; what official documents remained were strewn about in heaps, and secret police documents could be purchased from street urchins. One particular disappointment was the team’s inability, despite days of searching, to find any documents pertaining to the Czech arms shipment that had arrived in mid-May. Nor could any documents evincing Soviet control of the Communist movement in Guatemala be found. Stung by accusations that it had acted merely to protect the dividends of the United Fruit Company, Washington wanted proof of an operational link between Guatemala City and Moscow, and not merely evidence of a casual ideological or intellectual affinity. But the Communists seemingly had sufficient time to destroy or remove any especially sensitive documents.16 Notwithstandingtheearlydisappointment,alargenumberofrecords—up to an estimated 150,000, and that figure did not include government files— were judged ripe for exploitation, making it, in quantitative terms, the ‘‘greatest catch of documents ever left behind by a Communist Party and its auxiliaries.’’17 Explicit instructions from Moscow might be missing, but the remaining records would document a strong Communist influence over and infiltration of the Arbenz regime, and depict in considerable detail the structure and personalities of the country’s Communist apparatus, including ‘‘transmission belts’’ like labor unions, peasant organizations, student unions, and youth groups. The cache also promised to yield more information than was already known about overt international connections. In sum, there was every reason to believe that the documents would provide sufficient information about Guatemala’s Communist complex to accomplish its complete ‘‘exposure and destruction.’’18 INTERNATIONAL JOURNALOFINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONPBHISTORY:THE AFTERMATHOFSUCCESS 305 After two weeks in Guatemala, the CIA’s two-man team presented its preliminary inventory and recommendations in Washington on 20 July. The decision to accelerate exploitation of captured Guatemalan documents was made that same day. DD=P Frank Wisner also asked Tracy Barnes, chief of the Agency’s Political=Psychological Staff, to prepare a publication that Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen W. Dulles could pass around at an upcoming National Security Council briefing on Guatemala for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. With the assistance of CIA’s printing shop, Barnes quickly pulled together a booklet from the preliminary inventory.19 The twenty-three documents reproduced included photographs of Arbenz’s library of Marxist literature; Communist Chinese materials on agrarian reform; pages from Mrs. Arbenz’s copy of Stalin’s biography; documents revealing that Arbenz had tried to purchase arms from Italy; and miscellaneous letters and cables revealing the former president’s strong pro-Communist bias. The booklet also contained documents about the last throes of the Arbenz government, including some communications that showed Arbenz rejecting offers in early June to rid his government of Communists in return for the Guatemalan armed forces’ putting up a staunch fight against Castillo Armas. The publication, insofar as President Eisenhower was concerned, buttressed Ambassador John Peurifoy’s famous judgment, initially uttered in a State Department cable after his first long meeting with Arbenz, and soon to be repeated in public testimony before Congress. After a six-hour dinner with Arbenz in December 1953, Peurifoy had reported ‘‘that if [the] President is not a Communist he will certainly do until one comes along.’’20 THE TWO-MONTH PUSH On 4 August, after a series of conferences, it was agreed that the new PBHISTORY team would consist of twelve officers, including three from the State Department, one from the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), and eight from the CIA. The leader of the CIA delegation, and therefore chief of the PBSUCCESS team, was an Agency officer with the pseudonym ‘‘Francis T. Mylkes,’’ who operated under State Department cover.21 The deputy to ‘‘Mylkes’’ would be an enterprising 32-year-old American who normally worked as a newspaper editor in Chile. At one time an aspiring actor, David Atlee Phillips was fluent in Spanish and fresh from working under contract to the CIA during PBSUCCESS. Under the pseudonym ‘‘Paul D. Langevin,’’ Phillips had been the Agency’s chief liaison and advisor to La Voz de la Liberacio´n, one of the most effective tools in the psychological war waged against Arbenz.22 The PBHISTORY task force adopted as its cover name the ‘‘Social Research Group’’ (Grupo de Estudios Sociales). As had been the case with ANDCOUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME17,NUMBER2 306 MAXHOLLAND PBSUCCESS, CIA wanted to retain some semblance of deniability in its dealings with Castillo Armas. The PBHISTORY team consisted of private businessmen and experts from universities, or so Castillo Armas was told.23 At the same time, the Agency was anxious to obtain the new leader’s unstinting support, lest PBHISTORY ‘‘be faced with long ‘man˜ ana’ type of delays.’’24 Ransacking the Foreign Ministry and other sensitive government offices for documents was bound to raise nationalist hackles at some point, so there never was any question but that the Guatemalans would retain ownership of all records. It was hoped, however, that ‘‘through demonstration of the services which the task force can perform for the Guatemalans... fullest [sic] cooperation will be obtained.’’25 One of these services—if not the key one—was to instruct Guatemalans on how to establish a records and filing system that would enable a new, thoroughly professional intelligence service to identify and keep tabs on known Communist subversives. As part of its bequest to the new Guatemala, the CIA was intent on leaving such an organization behind.26 Under prodding (and with funding) from the CIA, on 20 July Castillo Armas had signed a decree creating such an executive agency, responsible only to the governing junta, that would investigate and dismantle the country’s Communist complex.27 The National Committee for Defense against Communism (Comite´ de Defensa Nacional Contra el Comunismo) was not a police force but a nascent intelligence service with certain police prerogatives and functions. In theory, it had power over all military and police authorities and could order the arrest of anyone suspected of being a Communist. The PBHISTORY team would initially assist this nucleus of a new internal security service by helping it create a central repository of information on PGT members, fronts, and sympathizers.28 PBHISTORY officers would instruct Comite´ personnel in the screening, classifying, indexing, and carding of the confiscated documents. Subsequently, and so that it could incorporate new information as it became available, the Comite´ would be taught the rudiments of mail control, logging, abstracting, and cryptic reference.29 Only after all these lessons had been absorbed could CIA depend upon the Comite´ (or a successor service) to conduct the ‘‘back-track’’ investigations necessary to obtain the complete picture of Communism in Guatemala, and ensure that the country was purged of ‘‘all commie influence.’’30 In the meantime, PBHISTORY chairman ‘‘Mylkes,’’ along with the CIA chief of station and Comite´ members, would develop the full framework for a new countersubversive service.31 Although this effort initially depended on CIA funding, Castillo Armas, as well as the Agency, recognized that such financing could prove ‘‘very embarrassing’’ if it became known. The new Guatemalan government would have to supply the operating funds as soon as possible.32 INTERNATIONAL JOURNALOFINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONPBHISTORY:THE AFTERMATHOFSUCCESS 307 The work of sorting through hundreds of thousands of documents was arduous, of course, though made much easier with the assistance of twenty-five Comite´ officials and clerical personnel.33 The North Americans had a private entrance=exit to the offices where the documents were hauled and sorted, so as to preserve the appearance of an all-Guatemalan affair, as the ‘‘Social Research Group’’ operated overtly but without publicity. All documents had to be indexed, a monumental but necessary task if they were going to be useful for name-checks. (By late September, the central index would consist of 15,800 cards).34 Documents from the PGT, Guatemala’s official Communist Party, received the highest priority. Everything handwritten and in typescript was preserved; generally, three or four copies of printed materials were retained. This procedure meant that about fifty percent of the volume of paper gathered was incinerated.35 One aspect which slowed processing, of course, was the need to reproduce documents, since all originals were to remain in Guatemala. The categories of documents that interested U.S. agencies were numerous, and became even longer once the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) heard about the project.36 Accordingly, the Agency arranged for state-of-the-art microfilm and three photostat machines to be delivered to the premises, all of which were driven to their limits. The CIA’s initial disappointment over the quality of the documents was not cured by further hard work. By early September, after much sorting and screening, the percentage of genuinely ‘‘top secret’’ documents was confirmed as extremely low. Retrieved government files made it fairly clear that Arbenz government officials and top Communist leaders had either destroyed or taken with them the most sensitive material. And amid the jockeying for power that persisted for weeks after Arbenz’s departure, one member of the ruling junta had refused to allow the Comite´ to make arrests and search the homes of private citizens, where such materials may have been secreted.37 When he finally emerged as the junta’s undisputed president, Carlos Castillo Armas told the PBHISTORY chief that he ‘‘personally knew that [Guatemalan] Army G-2 [intelligence] files had been burned in their entirety.’’38 By the time the document processing terminated on 28 September 1954, conservative estimates indicated that the ‘‘Social Research Group’’ had plowed through more than 500,000 documents (not including duplicates), a considerably higher number than initially expected. Of this amount, 2,095 documents were considered of sufficient importance to warrant photostating; 50,000 documents of secondary importance were microfilmed; 750 positive photographs were made for immediate exploitation by local and international media; and a small number of original documents were set aside for technical study.39 Duplicates of these ANDCOUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME17,NUMBER2 308 MAXHOLLAND documents,inturn,wereparceledouttotheagenciesparticipatingdirectlyin PBHISTORY, as well as to the FBI.40 EXPLOITATION Even before the processing began, the captured documents were expected to become subject to competing urges. The primary tension would be between exploiting the documents for operational intelligence, and using the information for informational and propaganda purposes. To some degree this tension was replicated in the agencies participating in PBSUCCESS. The CIA, for its part, was most interested in data that would allow it to act against Communism, not only in Guatemala but throughout the hemisphere; it would also have a singular interest in controlling and=or exploiting persons, based on information contained in the documents. The State Department’s greatest interest lay in using the records to reconstruct the pattern and growth of Communist influence and subversion in the years since the 1944 revolution, which had overthrown the 14-year dictatorshipofJorgeUbicoyCasten˜eda.TheequityoftheU.S.Information Agency (USIA) in the documents, meanwhile, was nearly identical to that of the State Department, except for the USIA’s emphasis on information that could be released to inform international opinion. Timing, of course, was everything. The U.S. government was engagedin a global,seeminglyendless,struggleinwhichsuchawealthofinformationwas hardtocomeby.Thedesiretoimmediatelyextractmaximumadvantagewas powerful; yet with respect to counterintelligence, patience often paid dividends. The expectation was that ‘‘Francis Mylkes’’ would favor neither operational needs nor propaganda, but strike an appropriate balance between the two. In any case, in return for inviting State and USIA to participate, the CIA retained two important veto powers. It insisted on exclusive control over relations with the Guatemalan government with respect to the captured documents, and if there were any records that could be used most effectively for clandestine operations, then the CIA reserved the right to deny their public use by either State or USIA.41 Linked Ventures Two preexisting covert operations would be nourished directly by the captured documents: KUFIRE and KUGOWN. Both had been instrumental parts of PBSUCCESS, and they also happened to coincide with the primary tension inherent in the PBHISTORY operation. KUFIRE was the code-name for the program to identify, irrespective of nationality, all Communist party members, front members, and sympathizers who had flocked to Arbenz’s Guatemala. These activists were INTERNATIONAL JOURNALOFINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONPBHISTORY:THE AFTERMATHOFSUCCESS 309 expected to return to their country of origin, or to countries known for their liberal asylum policies, like Mexico. Once safe, presumably these activists would resume fomenting ‘‘trouble and agitation.’’ Via KUFIRE, the CIA was intent on charting their movements and monitoring or frustrating their machinations.42 DavidAtleePhillips’s assignedtaskwasto reviewthecaptureddocuments for KUGOWN purposes. But given the smallness of the PBHISTORY staff and informality of the setting, everyone pitched in as needed. Thus, it fell accidentally to Phillips to order the opening of what would in time become a most important file. In the midst of the sorting operation, another CIA analyst approached Phillips carrying a single piece of paper. ‘‘Should we open a file on this one?’’ she asked, as she handed him the document. It contained biographical information on a 25-year-old physician named Ernesto Guevara who had sought asylum in the Argentine embassy. ‘‘I guess we’d better have a file on him,’’ said Phillips casually, though there was nothing especially alarming or sinister about the physician. In a shorter time than anyone could imagine, however, the ‘‘Che’’ Guevara file would become one of the Agency’s thickest dossiers on a single person.43 Elsewhere in his memoir The Night Watch, Philips recounts generally that the ‘‘The CI-nicks—counterintelligence officers—who worked with me [on PBHISTORY] were ecstatic. These [documents] were pearls which could be fondled for years.’’44 Yet the language in contemporary reports from the PBHISTORY team was far more restrained. Exploitation of the captured documents for KUFIRE purposes resulted in few operational leads for the CIA, and none were fully developed.45 The captured documents, from an operational perspective, were of primary value to the Comite´ and=or its successor. With some Communists still in the government and used to operating clandestinely, the pressing need was to exploit the records for the purpose of exposing them. Reports also indicated that known Communists who initially sought asylum in foreign embassies were already resuming their activities under assumed names.46 KUGOWN’sValue The relationship between PBHISTORY and the Agency’s operation KUGOWN proved far more profitable. KUGOWN was the cryptonym for the propaganda component in the broad program of psychological warfare that had been initiated in the run-up to the coup. During PBSUCCESS, KUGOWN’s targets had been the Arbenz regime, followed by Guatemala as a whole, its Central American neighbors, the rest of the hemisphere, nonaligned countries, and the Western alliance in roughly that order. That list of priorities would remain the same under PBHISTORY (save for the regime) because the pressure to disseminate derogatory information about Arbenz was as intense after the coup as before. ANDCOUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME17,NUMBER2

Description:
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 17: 300–332, 2004 constitutes one of the Agency's most notable counterintelligence efforts.
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.