JACOBO ARBENZ
Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 3:22 pm
Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán (Spanish pronunciation: [xaˈkoβo ˈarβenz ɣuzˈman]; 14 September 1913 – 27 January 1971) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as Defense Minister of Guatemala from 1944 to 1951, and as President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954.He was ousted in a coup d'état engineered by the United States government and CIA and was replaced by a military junta headed by Colonel Carlos Castillo.He went into exile after the coup and died in Mexico in 1971.Born in 1913 Quetzaltenango, he was the son of a Swiss German pharmacist who immigrated to Guatemala in 1901. His family was relatively wealthy and upper-class; his childhood has been described as "comfortable".[1]His father became addicted to morphine and began to neglect the family business. It eventually went bankrupt, forcing the family to move to a rural estate which a wealthy friend had set aside for them "out of charity". Jacobo had originally desired to be an economist or an engineer, but since the family now had no money, he could not afford to go to university. He did not want to join the military, but there was a scholarship available through the Escuela Politécnica for military cadets. He applied, passed all of the entrance exams, and entered as a cadet in 1932. Two years later, his father committed suicide.Árbenz excelled in the academy and was deemed "an exceptional student". He became "first sergeant", the highest honor bestowed upon cadets, that only 6 people received from 1924 to 1944. His abilities earned him an unusual level of respect amongst the officers at the school, including Major John Considine, the U.S. director of the school, and of other U.S. officers who served at the school. Árbenz graduated in 1935.[1]After graduating, he served a stint as a junior officer at Fort San José in the capital Guatemala City and later under "an illiterate Colonel" in a small garrison in the village of San Juan Sacatepéquez. While in San José, Árbenz had to lead squads of soldiers which were escorting chain gangs of prisoners (including political prisoners) to perform forced labor. The experience traumatized Árbenz, who said he felt like a capataz (i.e. a "foreman").[1]In 1937, Árbenz was asked to fill a vacant teaching position at the academy. Árbenz taught a wide range of subjects, including from military matters, history, and physics. In 1943, he was promoted to captain and placed in charge of the entire corps of cadets. His position was the third highest in the academy and was considered one of the most prestigious positions a young officer could hold.[1]In 1938 he met his future wife María Vilanova, the daughter of a wealthy Salvadoran landowner. They were married a few months later. Árbenz stated that his wife had a great influence on him.[1] It was through María that Árbenz was exposed to Marxism. María had received a copy of The Communist Manifesto at a women's congress and left a copy of it on the Jacobo's bedside table when she left for a vacation. Jacobo was "moved" by the Manifesto, and he and María discussed it with each other. Both felt that it explained many things they had been feeling. Afterwards, Jacobo began reading more work by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, and by the late 1940s was regularly interacting with a group of Guatemalan communists.Árbenz excelled in the academy and was deemed "an exceptional student". He became "first sergeant", the highest honor bestowed upon cadets, that only 6 people received from 1924 to 1944. His abilities earned him an unusual level of respect amongst the officers at the school, including Major John Considine, the U.S. director of the school, and of other U.S. officers who served at the school. Árbenz graduated in 1935.[1]After graduating, he served a stint as a junior officer at Fort San José in the capital Guatemala City and later under "an illiterate Colonel" in a small garrison in the village of San Juan Sacatepéquez. While in San José, Árbenz had to lead squads of soldiers which were escorting chain gangs of prisoners (including political prisoners) to perform forced labor. The experience traumatized Árbenz, who said he felt like a capataz (i.e. a "foreman").[1]In 1937, Árbenz was asked to fill a vacant teaching position at the academy. Árbenz taught a wide range of subjects, including from military matters, history, and physics. In 1943, he was promoted to captain and placed in charge of the entire corps of cadets. His position was the third highest in the academy and was considered one of the most prestigious positions a young officer could hold.[1]In 1938 he met his future wife María Vilanova, the daughter of a wealthy Salvadoran landowner. They were married a few months later. Árbenz stated that his wife had a great influence on him.[1] It was through María that Árbenz was exposed to Marxism. María had received a copy of The Communist Manifesto at a women's congress and left a copy of it on the Jacobo's bedside table when she left for a vacation. Jacobo was "moved" by the Manifesto, and he and María discussed it with each other. Both felt that it explained many things they had been feeling. Afterwards, Jacobo began reading more work by Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, and by the late 1940s was regularly interacting with a group of Guatemalan communists.Before his death, Arana had planned to run in the upcoming 1950 presidential elections. His death left Árbenz without any serious contenders in the elections (leading some, including the CIA and U.S. military intelligence, to speculate that Árbenz personally had him eliminated for this reason). Árbenz got more than 3 times as many votes as the runner-up, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes. Fuentes claimed that electoral fraud benefited Árbenz, however scholars have pointed out that while fraud may possibly have caused Árbenz to gain more votes, it was not the reason that he won the elections.[26]The election of Árbenz alarmed U.S. State Department officials, who stated that Arana "has always represented [the] only positive conservative element in [the] Arévalo administration", that his death would "strengthen Leftist[sic] materially", and that "developments forecast sharp leftist trend within [the] government."[27]In his inaugural address, Árbenz promised to convert Guatemala from "a backward country with a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state".[28] He declared that he intended to reduce dependency on foreign markets and dampen the influence of foreign corporations over Guatemalan politics.[29] He also stated that he would modernize Guatemala's infrastructure and do so without the aid of foreign capital.Instability, combined with Árbenz's relative tolerance of Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) and other leftists influences, prompted the CIA to draw up a contingency plan entitled Operation PBFORTUNE in 1951. It outlined a method of ousting Árbenz if he were deemed a Communist threat in the hemisphere.[citation needed]The United Fruit Company - now renamed Chiquita - a U.S.-based corporation, was also threatened by Árbenz's land reform initiative. United Fruit was Guatemala's largest landowner, with 85% of its holdings uncultivated, thus vulnerable to Árbenz's reform plans. In calculating its tax obligations, United Fruit had consistently (and drastically) undervalued the worth of its holdings. In its 1952 tax returns, it claimed its land was only worth $3 per acre. When, in accordance with United Fruit's tax claims, the Árbenz government offered to compensate the company at the $3 rate, the company claimed the land's true value was $75/acre but refused to explain the precipitous jump in its own determination of the land's value.[citation needed]In 1952, the Guatemalan Party of Labour was legalized; Communists subsequently gained considerable minority influence over important peasant organizations and labor unions, but not over the governing political party, and they won only four seats in the 58-seat governing body. The CIA, having drafted Operation PBFORTUNE, was already concerned about Árbenz's potential Communist ties. United Fruit had been lobbying the CIA to oust reform governments in Guatemala since Arévalo's time, but it was not until the Eisenhower administration that it found an ear in the White House. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration was still flush with victory from its covert operation to topple the Mossadegh government in [[Iran] the year before. On 19 February 1954, the CIA began Operation WASHTUB, a plan to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua to demonstrate Guatemalan ties to the Soviet Union.[37]As it happened, WASHTUB was unnecessary. In May 1954, Czechoslovak weaponry arrived in secret into Guatemala aboard the Swedish ship Alfhem. The ship's manifests had been falsified as to the nature of its cargo. The U.S. took this as final proof of Árbenz's Soviet links. The Czechoslovaks supplied, for cash down, obsolete and barely functional German WWII weaponry.[38]The direct contacts between the Soviet Union and the Árbenz Government consisted of one Soviet diplomat working out an exchange of bananas for agricultural machinery. The deal fell through because neither side had refrigerated ships. The only other evidence of contact the CIA found after the operation were two bills to the Guatemalan Communist Party from a Moscow bookstore, totalling $22.95.[38]The Árbenz government was convinced a U.S.-sponsored invasion was imminent: it had previously released detailed accounts of the CIA's Operation PBFORTUNE (called the White Papers) and perceived US actions at the OAS convention in Caracas that year as a lead-up to intervention. The administration ordered the CIA to sponsor a coup d'état, code-named Operation PBSUCCESS, that toppled the government. Árbenz resigned on 27 June 1954 and was forced to flee, seeking refuge in the Mexican Embassy.[citation needed]After the coup, Frank Wisner organised an operation called PBHistory to secure Árbenz Government documents. PBHistory aimed to prove Soviet control of Guatemala and, in so doing, hopefully provide actionable intelligence with regard to other Soviet connections and personnel in Latin America. Wisner sent two teams who gathered 150,000 documents with the help of the Army and the junta of Carlos Castillo Armas, who replaced Árbenz as President of Guatemala. Ronald M. Schneider, an extra-Agency researcher who later examined the PBHistory documents, found no traces of Soviet control and substantial evidence that Guatemalan Communists acted alone, without support or guidance from outside the country.