Operation PBFortune
Operation PBFortune, also known as Operation Fortune, was a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by U.S. President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because land reform initiated by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The US also feared that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists.
The coup attempt was planned with the support of the United Fruit Company and of Anastasio Somoza García, Rafael Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the US-backed right-wing dictators of Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela respectively, who felt threatened by the democratic Guatemalan Revolution, and had sought to undermine it. The plan involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua.
The US State Department discovered that details of the plan had become widely known. US Secretary of State Dean Acheson became concerned that the coup attempt would damage the image of the US, which had committed to a policy of non-intervention, and so terminated the operation. Operation PBFortune was followed two years later by Operation PBSuccess, another covert operation in which Castillo Armas played a prominent role. PBSuccess toppled the Árbenz government and ended the Guatemalan Revolution.
Background
From the late 19th century until 1944, a series of authoritarian rulers governed Guatemala. Between 1898 and 1920, Manuel Estrada Cabrera granted significant concessions to the United Fruit Company and dispossessed many indigenous peoples of their communal land. Under Jorge Ubico, who ruled as a dictator between 1931 and 1944, this process was intensified with the institution of brutal labor regulations and the establishment of a police state.In June 1944, a popular pro-democracy movement led by university students and labor organizations forced Ubico to resign. Ubico handed over power to a military junta that was toppled in a military coup led by Jacobo Árbenz in October 1944, an event known as the October Revolution. The coup leaders called for open elections, which were won by Juan José Arévalo, a progressive professor of philosophy who had become the face of the popular movement. He implemented a moderate program of social reform, including a successful literacy campaign and largely free elections, although illiterate women were not given the vote, and communist parties were banned.
Following the end of Arévalo's highly popular presidency in 1951, Árbenz was elected president. He continued the reforms of Arévalo and also began an ambitious land reform program known as Decree 900. Under it, the uncultivated portions of large land-holdings were expropriated in return for compensation and redistributed to poverty-stricken agricultural laborers.
Some governments in Central America and the Caribbean were hostile to Árbenz and the Guatemalan Revolution. Anastasio Somoza García, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the US-backed right-wing dictators of Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, respectively, felt threatened by Arévalo's reforms. Under Arévalo, Guatemala had become a haven for pro-democracy activists from those three countries. Somoza, Trujillo, and Jiménez had supported Guatemalan exiles working to undermine the Guatemalan government, in addition to suppressing democratic popular movements in their own countries.
The political climate of the Cold War led the US government to see the policies of Arévalo and Árbenz as communist. This conception had been strengthened by Arévalo's support for the Caribbean Legion, and by the 1950s the US government was considering overthrowing Árbenz. The attitude of the United States was also influenced by the Monroe Doctrine, a philosophy of foreign policy articulated by James Monroe in 1823, which justified the maintenance of US hegemony in the region. The stated aim of the doctrine was to maintain order and stability and to make certain that access to resources and markets was not limited. Historian Mark Gilderhus opines that the doctrine also contained racially condescending language, which likened Latin American countries to fighting children. Before 1944, the US government had not needed to engage in military interventions in Guatemala to enforce this hegemony, given the presence of military rulers friendly to the US.
Planning
Somoza's visit
In May 1952, Árbenz enacted Decree 900, the official title of the Guatemalan agrarian reform law. Approximately 500,000 people benefited from the decree. The United Fruit Company lost several hundred thousand acres of its uncultivated land to this law, and the compensation it received was based on the undervalued price it had presented to the Guatemalan government for tax purposes. The company therefore intensified its lobbying in Washington D.C. against the Guatemalan government. The law convinced the US government that the Guatemalan government was being influenced by communists.The US government's Central Intelligence Agency started to explore the notion of lending support to detractors and opponents of Árbenz. Walter Bedell Smith, the Director of Central Intelligence, ordered J. C. King, the chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, to examine whether dissident Guatemalans could topple the Árbenz government if they had support from the dictatorships in Central America.
At this point the US government was approached by Nicaraguan leader Somoza, who had been in the United States on a private visit, during which he made public speeches praising the US, and was awarded a medal by New York City. During a meeting with Truman and his senior staff, Somoza said that if he were given the weapons, he would "clean up Guatemala". Truman's personal military advisor, Major General Harry H. Vaughan, persuaded Truman to explore the opportunity further, and Truman asked Smith to follow up.
Carlos Castillo Armas
Although the proposal was not taken seriously at the time, US Colonel Cornelius Mara flew back to Nicaragua with Somoza to further explore the idea. Somoza persuaded Mara that the plan was feasible, and Mara returned to the US and gave Truman a favorable report. Smith also sent a Spanish-speaking engineer under the codename "Seekford" to contact exiled Guatemalan Army officer Carlos Castillo Armas and his fellow dissidents, who were in Honduras and Guatemala.Francisco Javier Arana had launched an ill-fated coup attempt against Arévalo in 1949. Castillo Armas had been a protégé of Arana, and had risen in the military to become the head of the military academy of Guatemala by 1949. Historians differ on what happened to Castillo Armas following the coup attempt. Piero Gleijeses writes that Castillo Armas was expelled from the country; Nick Cullather and Andrew Fraser, however, say Castillo Armas was arrested in August 1949, that Árbenz had him imprisoned under doubtful charges until December 1949, and that he was found in Honduras a month later.
In early 1950, a CIA officer found Castillo Armas attempting to get weapons from Somoza and Trujillo. He met with the CIA a few more times before November 1950, when he launched an attack against Matamoros, the largest fortress in the capital, and was jailed for it before bribing his way out of prison. Castillo Armas told the CIA he had the support of the Guardia Civil, the garrison at Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second-largest city, and of the commander of Matamoros. The engineer dispatched by the CIA also told them Castillo Armas had the financial backing of Somoza and Trujillo.
Based on these reports, Truman authorized Operation PBFortune. According to Gleijeses, he did not inform the US State Department, or secretary of state Dean Acheson, of the plan. Based upon an examination of declassified documents, however, Cullather has said the CIA did, in fact, seek State Department approval before authorizing the plan, and that undersecretary of state David K. E. Bruce provided explicit approval for it. CIA Deputy Director Allen Dulles had previously contacted State Department official Thomas Mann and the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Edward G. Miller Jr. Both these individuals had said they wanted a new government in Guatemala even if it involved the use of force, but when asked, did not explicitly approve of action to topple Árbenz. Dulles assumed their vague responses implied support, but obtained explicit assent from Bruce before proceeding.
The plot
The details of the plot were finalized over the next few weeks by the CIA, the United Fruit Company, and Somoza. The coup's plotters contacted Trujillo and Jiménez, who, along with Somoza and Juan Manuel Gálvez, the right-wing President of Honduras, had already been exchanging intelligence about the Árbenz government, and had considered the possibility of supporting an invasion by Guatemalan exiles. The two dictators were supportive of the plan, and agreed to contribute some funding.Although PBFortune was officially approved on September 9, 1952, planning had begun earlier in the year. In January 1952, officers in the CIA's Directorate of Plans compiled a list of "top flight Communists whom the new government would desire to eliminate immediately in the event of a successful anti-Communist coup". The assassination plans represented the first time the US had considered assassination in Guatemala. The list of targets had been drawn up by the CIA even before the operation had been formally authorized. They were created using a list of communists that the Guatemalan Army had compiled in 1949, as well as its own intelligence. Nine months later the CIA also received through "Seekford" a list of 58 Guatemalans whom Castillo Armas wanted killed, in addition to 74 others he wanted arrested or exiled. "Seekford" also said Trujillo's support was conditional on the assassination of four individuals from Santo Domingo who were at that point living in Guatemala. The plan was to be carried out by Castillo Armas, and involve no direct intervention from the US.
When contacted by the CIA agent dispatched by Smith, Castillo Armas had proposed a battle-plan to gain CIA support. This plan involved three forces invading Guatemala from Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. These invasions were supposed to be supported by internal rebellions. King formulated a plan to provide Castillo Armas with $225,000 as well as weaponry and transportation. His plan also suggested that Somoza and Gálvez be persuaded to provide air support, in addition to other help. The proposal went to Dulles. It emphasized the relatively small role the CIA was supposed to play, and stated that without the CIA's support, the plot would probably go ahead, but would likely fail and lead to a crackdown on anti-Communist forces.