Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954

223 Pages·2006·16.769 MB·English

by  Nick Cullather, Piero Gleijeses

Secret History

Secret History
the cia’s classified account
of its operations in
guatemala, 1952-1954
second edition
Nick Cullather
with an introduction by the author and
an Afterword by Piero Gleijeses
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
2006
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Preface, Introduction, Afterword, Notes
to Appendixes C and D, and Index
©1999 and 2006 by the Board of Trustees of

the Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cullather, Nick
Secret history : the CIA’s classified account of its operations in
Guatemala, 1952–1954 / Nick Cullather ; with an introduction by
the author and an Afterword by Piero Gleijeses—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8047-5467-5 (cloth : alk. paper). —
isbn-13: 978-0-8047-5468-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Guatemala—History—1945–1985. 2. United States—
Central Intelligence Agency. 3. Guatemala—History—
Revolution, 1954. 4. Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo, 1913–1971. 5.
United States—Relations—Guatemala. 6. Guatemala—
Relations—United States. I. Title.
f1466.5.a688c85 2006
972.8105'2—dc22 2006010315
This book is printed on acid-free, recycled paper.
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition vii
Introduction: A Culture of Destruction xi
Foreword to the CIA Edition 5
Chapter 1: America’s Backyard 7
Chapter 2: Reversing the Trend 38
Chapter 3: Sufficient Means 74
Chapter 4: The Sweet Smell of Success 105
Appendix A: PBSUCCESS Timeline 127
Appendix B: Bibliography 133
Appendix C: A Study of Assassination 137
Appendix D: New Documents 143
(cid:1)(cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4)(cid:5)(cid:6)(cid:7)(cid:5)(cid:8)(cid:9)(cid:10)(cid:11)(cid:12)(cid:4)(cid:10)(cid:13)(cid:14)(cid:15)(cid:3)(cid:14)(cid:5)(cid:4)(cid:10)(cid:7)(cid:2)(cid:10)(cid:16)(cid:4)(cid:17)(cid:5)(cid:18)(cid:1)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:1)Piero Gleijeses xxiii
Index xxxix
Photographs and Maps
Photographs
Carlos Castillo Armas in exile 13
Jacobo Arbenz addressing a crowd in Guatemala City 21
Allen Dulles 30
John Foster Dulles conferring with President Eisenhower 36
Maps
Invasion plan, 18 June 1954 86
Actual invasion, late June 1954 91
Preface to
the Second Edition
The term had not come into general usage when the first edition
of this book was published in 1999, but what occurred in Guate-
mala in 1954 would nowadays be referred to as an example of
“regime change.” Since 2001, the United States has made clear
that it would resort to this measure in response to threats from
terrorism or mass-destruction weapons and to deal with recalci-
trant or “failed” states. The unspoken assumption is that gov-
ernments are interchangeable components, easily detached from
the societies and economies over which they preside, and just as
easily replaced. The architects of Operation PBSUCCESS were
equally certain of this point, and sure of their ability to remove
and rebuild a regime. Readers adapt their understandings of his-
tory in light of new developments, and so, while this book once
concerned a secretive episode in the cold war in Central America,
today it describes an early precedent for the global “path of ac-
tion” pursued in the war on terror.1
Although the administration has, at least publicly, preferred to
draw analogies to the post–World War II occupations of Germany
1George Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington:
The White House, September 17, 2002), p. ii.
viii Preface to the Second Edition
and Japan, and critics have invoked the Viet Nam parallel, there
are reasons to consider the civil wars in Central America a more
direct antecedent to policies pursued in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
U.S. invasion of Afghanistan placed heavy emphasis on the use of
surrogate armies backed by airpower, while the Iraq invasion re-
lied on selective violence to produce psychological effects (“shock
and awe”), the principal techniques of PBSUCCESS. Since 2003,
the Pentagon has modeled its counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq
on methods developed in “dirty wars” in El Salvador and Guate-
mala in the 1980s.2 In the 1950s, it was axiomatic that proximity
justified energetic measures to secure the United States’s “back-
yard” in Central America. Polls show that people in many coun-
tries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa now worry that our
backyard has grown to include them.
As I listen to the administration’s reassurances about U.S. inten-
tions, I hear echoes of the “facts of life” that CIA operatives tried
to impress on the Guatemalan military in 1954: that “the US is
the most generous and tolerate taskmaster going, that cooperation
is studded with material reward, and that the US permits much
more sovereignty and independence in its sphere . . .” This second
edition is occasioned by events which lend the story of PBSUC-
CESS fresh significance for a new generation of nation builders.
Thanks to the release of additional documentation, it is also a
richer story. In 2003, the State Department released a volume of
declassified materials as part of its Foreign Relations of the
United States series, a project which since 1861 has upheld a gov-
ernmental commitment to open diplomacy. FRUS (rhymes with
spruce), as it is called by historians, publishes a substantial as-
sortment of the memos and cables on which U.S. foreign policy is
based. In 1989, the Organization of American Historians charged
that the series had lost its integrity when it issued a volume on
Iran containing no CIA documents or indeed any mention of the
2On the Central American precedent to counterinsurgency policy, see Peter
Maass, “The Way of the Commandos,” New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005;
Robert Parry, “Iraq: Quicksand and Blood,” In These Times, December 26, 2003,
http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=521_0_1_0_C.
Preface to the Second Edition ix(cid:10)(cid:10)
1953 covert operation that overthrew Iranian prime minister Mo-
hammad Mossadeq. The long-delayed Guatamala volume signals
an effort to return FRUS to its original purpose of permitting the
public to gain accurate information on the activities of govern-
ment agencies. It contains a wide sampling of documents from
CIA, State, the National Security Council, and the office of the
President.3 The absence of Defense Department documents related
to military advisers, aid, and Operation HARDROCK/BAKER still
leaves a large gap in the historical record, but the new volume
represents a considerable advance. Additional documentation has
come to light as part of the truth and reconciliation process in
Guatemala and through the efforts of scholars using the Freedom
of Information Act. This new edition includes a new appendix,
Appendix D, with some of the more significant new documents.
The original text has not been revised. I have been conscious
of Robert Shaffer’s description of this book as a “secondary
source that functions also as a primary source,” and so the origi-
nal text and, equally important, the gaps in the text have re-
mained untouched.4 I have received more compliments on the
eloquence of the gaps than on any of the legible passages. Readers
have found they can check their speculations for fit, and search
the blank spaces for clues on the aspects of the operation that the
agency, even after 50 years, prefers to cloak in “plausible deni-
ability.”
Nick Cullather
Bloomington, Indiana
August 2005
3Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Gua-
temala (Washington: USGPO, 2003).
4Robert Shaffer, “The 1954 Coup in Guatemala and the Teaching of U.S. For-
eign Relations,” Passport 35 (December 2004) 3: 5–13.