We Don't Want You

By 1950 the Colossus of the North had become the most powerful nation on earth. Its arsenal and armed forces had engineered the rescue of Western Europe from the Nazis and the defeat of the Japanese in the Pacific. It had mobilized its vast resources to split the atom and manufacture the first weapon of mass destruction. On four fronts it had successfully contained the ambitions of the Soviet Union.

As proclaimed in the doctrine that bore his name, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure," President Harry Truman sent $400 million to Greece and Turkey to prevent their takeover by Communist elements.

When the Soviets imposed a blockade on West Berlin, the United States airlifted thousands of tons of food and other essentials into the beleaguered city until Premier Joseph Stalin relented and reopened access.

Recognizing that a devastated continent was easy prey for the Soviet bear, at the behest of Secretary of State George C. Marshall, President Truman delivered $13 billion in aid to the war-ravaged economies of Western Europe.

In the Far East, when the Cold War turned hot, U.S. reinforcements withstood the onslaught of North Korean and Chinese communists for three years until an agreement could be negotiated guaranteeing South Korea's independence.

Despite these victories, the U.S. defense bureaucracy never felt secure. Any hope of rapprochement with the Soviet Union based on mutual self-interest was undermined by a paranoia that exaggerated potential threats and required warfare readiness. These fears were exacerbated if not justified when the Soviets exploded their own atomic bomb on August 29, 1949. (Swanson, p.77)

Thus was birthed the security dilemma -- "whatever one party to a conflict does to make itself safer inevitably undercuts the perceived safety of the other" -- and its concomitant solution: a lethal arms race. Immediately after the news of the Soviet bomb, President Truman announced a crash program to increase America's repository of nuclear weapons, which grew from fifty to three hundred bombs within a year. On January 31, 1950, ignoring the objections of his Atomic Energy Commission and its General Advisory Committee, he ordered the Defense Department to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. (Carroll, pp. 170-176)

The bureaucracy's fears were codified two months later when Truman was presented a document titled "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security," known ever after as NSC-68. Drafted by Paul Nitze, counsel to presidents from Truman to Reagan and a relentless advocate of military and nuclear strength, it reflected his paradigm of a world divided by "two mutually hostile systems of belief and politics, with one having the unabashed ambition of replacing the other." To achieve its goal of world domination, the Soviet Union would deploy not just its military power but also "whatever means are expedient," such as espionage, subversion, and propaganda, and it would not be constrained by any legal technicalities or moral niceties. (Carroll, p. 182, Gaddis, p. 164)

"Confronted by such dangers, Nitze insisted, free societies would have to suspend their values if they were to defend themselves." By authorizing the same ruthless measures as their adversary, President Eisenhower and his successors essentially endorsed the conclusions of a highly classified CIA report issued in 1954: "There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply." Thus was articulated the rationale, even the necessity, for covert operations. (Gaddis, pp. 164-165)

The bureaucracy's fears were epitomized in the man chosen by President Eisenhower to serve as his Secretary of State: John Foster Dulles. Sixty-five years old in 1953, his world view had been shaped by three powerful influences: his privileged upbringing as the grandson of a distinguished diplomat and former cabinet member; a long legal career advising international trading companies and banking houses; and a profound religious faith from which sprang his anti-communist zeal. (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 111-115)

Foster Dulles had two flaws. Historian Townsend Hoopes called him "an intellectual loner . . . who relied  . . . almost exclusively, in large matters and small, on his own counsel." Stephen Kinzer said, "He shaped important policies without consulting anyone inside or outside the State Department." Secondly, he was stiff, confrontational, and absolutely certain that his course of action, once determined, was the right one. He "scarcely knew the meaning of compromise, and insofar as he understood it, he despised it," wrote one biographer. He "wished neither to meet, accommodate, or negotiate with the enemy." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 116)

During the 1952 presidential campaign, Foster Dulles accused the Truman administration of weakness in the face of Communist advances. "He promised that a Republican White House would 'roll back' Communism by securing the 'liberation' of nations that had fallen victim to its 'despotism and godless terrorism.'" Once in power "he began searching for a place where the United States could strike a blow against this scourge." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 117)

OPERATION AJAX

On May 26, 1908, self-taught geologist and petroleum engineer George Reynolds was awakened from his tent near an outpost in Western Iran by a rumbling noise and wild shouting. He bolted up, ran across a stony plain, and saw one of his derricks spurting oil from the greatest field ever found. Within months, the newly-formed Anglo-Persian Oil Company assumed the concession which had been granted to Scottish millionaire William D'Arcy in 1901 to prospect for oil in most of the country and for which he had paid the Shah a paltry 20,000 pounds plus sixteen percent of his profits. In 1913 the British government bought fifty-one percent of the company, thereby inextricably linking the two. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 48-49)

Within a few years, on the desert island of Abadan at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, arose the world's largest oil refinery; adjacent to it sprawled a bustling city of 100,000 residents, most of them Iranian laborers. While British administrators and technicians enjoyed handsome homes and private clubs, the workers lived in slums built from rusted oil drums that lacked plumbing and electricity. (Kinzer, Shah, p. 50)

Discontent with the company, now Anglo-Iranian, grew steadily during World War II as the amount of oil it extracted swelled to 16.5 million tons in 1945. The following year the laborers at Abadan went on strike. "Marching through the teeming streets, they carried signs and chanted slogans demanding better housing, decent health care, and a promise by employers to abide by Iranian labor laws . . . Bloody rioting left dozens dead and more than one hundred injured." The violence ended only when the Anglo-Iranian directors bogusly agreed to obey the labor laws. (Kinzer, Shah, p. 52)

The rioting at Abadan awakened the slumbering Iranian parliament, the Majlis, which along with a constitution had been forced on the reigning monarch in 1906 by an alliance of merchants, clerics, and populist dissidents. It had never been allowed to function effectively. Now resurgent, in 1947 it passed a law forbidding any further concessions to foreign companies and directing the government to renegotiate its contract with Anglo-Iranian. The author was a fervent nationalist named Mohammad Mossadegh. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 35, 52)

Born in 1882, Mossadegh came from a family that had produced governors, cabinet ministers, and ambassadors. At the age of sixteen he was appointed to his first government poet, tax collector for his home province of Khorasan. He served briefly in the first Majlis before disillusionment with Iranian liberalism drove him first to France and later to Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he became the first of his country to earn a doctorate of law from a European university. Returning to Iran, he joined the faculty of the Tehran School of Law and Political Science and published a book, Iran and the Capitulation Agreements, in which he argued that Iran could develop modern legal and political systems if it imposed the law equally on everyone, including foreigners. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 53-55)

Reelected to the Majlis in 1924, Mossadegh repeatedly spurned Reza Shah's invitations to join his administration as chief justice, foreign minister, even prime minister, preferring to remain an independent champion of Iranian democracy and independence. In 1928, he and others of his ilk were maneuvered out of office by a ruler now determined to suppress all opposition. Mossadegh retired to his country estate sixty miles from Tehran and devoted himself to study and experimental farming. (Kinzer, Shah, p. 60)

The British Army occupied Iran in 1941 and soon wearied of Reza Shah's despotism and presumed collaboration with German nationals. It forced him to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, who was more compliant and, at least initially, less repressive. With the advent of free elections in 1943, Mohammad Mossadegh emerged from obscurity and regained his parliamentary seat with more votes than any other candidate. His 1947 legislation was only his opening salvo against Anglo-Iranian. In 1949 ten members of the Majlis submitted a bill that would revoke its concession. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 45, 61, 68)

The company's answer was a proposal known as the Supplemental Agreement; it guaranteed Iran $4 million annually in oil royalties and included a pledge to train more nationals for administrative positions. The Majlis had no appetite for it. Emboldened by the electoral success of a National Front -- a coalition of political parties, trade unions, and civic groups committed to strengthening democracy and limiting foreign influence -- it countered with a demand for a fifty-fifty split of the oil profits. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 69-71)

Ignoring a warning from its highest ranking Iranian employee that it needed to recognize the "awakening nationalism and political consciousness of the peoples of Asia," the company refused to compromise. In January 1951, a huge crowd rallied to launch a mass movement calling for the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian. On March 8th, one day after the assassination of Prime Minister Ali Razmara, Mohammad Shah's ally in support of the Supplemental Agreement, the Majlis's Oil Committee voted unanimously for nationalization. One week later, all ninety deputies followed suit. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 77-79)

"Mossadegh was now a hero of epic proportions, unable even to step into the street without being mobbed by admirers." When the Majlis convened on April 28th to vote on Razmara's successor, an aging British favorite named Sayyed Zia, Mossadegh stunned the assemblage by announcing he would accept the position of Prime Minister that had been offered him as a sarcastic joke by a right-wing adversary. "The unthinkable had happened . . . the symbol of Iranian nationalism and royal hegemony had arrived at the pinnacle of power." (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 80-82)

The British were outraged at this shocking turn of events, and embarked on a campaign to impugn and undermine Mossadegh. "They considered bribing him, assassinating him, and launching a military invasion of Iran," the last of which they would have carried out had not Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Truman sternly vetoed it. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 119)

They sabotaged their own installation at Abadan to prove oil could not be pumped without their cooperation. They blockaded Iranian ports so no tankers could enter or leave. They introduced a resolution to the United Nations Security Council ordering Mossadegh not to expel their oil company from Iran, a dubious tactic since it induced Mossadegh to journey to the U.S. and make a direct appeal to the delegates on behalf of his country; he convinced the Council to table the resolution. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 119; Shah, pp. 117, 127)

Suddenly a defining figure on the world stage, Mossadegh was named Man of the Year by Time Magazine. It called him an "obstinate opportunist" but also "the Iranian George Washington" and "the most renowned man his ancient race has produced for centuries." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 120)

Mossadegh put social reform at the forefront of his agenda. He "freed peasants from forced labor on their landlord's estates, ordered factory owners to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and established a system of unemployment insurance . . . He supported women's rights, defended religious freedom, and allowed courts and universities to function freely. Above all, he was known even by his enemies as scrupulously honest and impervious to the corruption that pervaded Iranian politics." (Kinzer, Shah, p. 140)

All their schemes having been thwarted, British leaders -- namely, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Minister Anthony Eden -- directed their agents in Tehran, which included a variety of military officers, journalists, and religious functionaries whom they had suborned over the years, to organize a coup to overthrow Mossadegh. It could hardly be kept a secret. Mossadegh got wind of the plan, and on October 16, 1952, shut down the British embassy and expelled all its personnel. (Kinzer Overthrow, p. 119)

British prospects to effectuate change seem to have reached a dead end until propitious news arrived from across the Atlantic. On January 20, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower replaced Harry Truman in the White House and appointed as Secretary of State the staunch anti-communist John Foster Dulles.

The British dispatched their former Chief of Station in Tehran, Christopher "Monty" Woodhouse, to make their case to Foster Dulles. Well aware that the nationalization of Anglo-Iranian would carry little weight with the Americans, Woodhouse chose to emphasize the Communist threat to Iran. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 121)                        

It was a spurious argument. Mossadegh allowed the Communist Party, known as Tudeh, to function freely in Iran, but "in fact he abhorred Communist doctrine and rigorously excluded Communists from his government." According to one Iranian-American scholar, "The party had neither the numbers, nor the popularity, nor a plan to take over state power with any hope of holding on to it." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 121)

Nevertheless, at a meeting of the National Security Council on March 4th, Foster Dulles obligingly delivered Woodhouse's ominous message to President Eisenhower. Mossadegh himself may not be a communist, but "if he were assassinated or removed from office, a political vacuum might occur in Iran and the communists might easily take over." If that happened, "not only would the free world be deprived of  . . . Iranian oil production and reserves, but . . . other areas of the Middle East would fall into Communist hands." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 122)

Rumors of ongoing public and political unrest in Tehran finally convinced Eisenhower that "Iran was collapsing and that the collapse could not be prevented as long as Mossadegh was in power. He stopped inquiring about prospects for compromise. Those around him took his change in tone as a sign that he would not resist the idea of a coup." (Kinzer, Shah, p. 160)

"The State Department did not have the capacity to overthrow governments. For that Foster Dulles would have to enlist the CIA." Since it was currently headed by his brother Allen, its growing expertise in covert operations could be seamlessly melded with the Department's diplomatic resources. On June 14, Allen Dulles went to the White House and secured Eisenhower's formal approval for what would be known as "Operation Ajax." He had somewhat prematurely already mailed the CIA station in Tehran $1 million for use "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 121-123; Shah, p. 161)

Two well-traveled intelligence officers, Donald Wilbur of the CIA and Norman Darbyshire of the British Secret Intelligence Service, were recruited to draw a blueprint for the coup. They selected a retired general, Fazlollah Zahedi, as their titular leader, and handed him $135,000 to "win additional friends and influence key people." An equal amount was allocated to bribe journalists, preachers, and other opinion makers to "create and enhance . . . distrust and fear of Mossadegh and his government." Eleven thousand dollars per week was budgeted to purchase votes in the Majlis, which hardly seemed necessary as thousands of paid demonstrators would be storming the building on coup day. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 123)

To orchestrate the coup, Allen Dulles picked the CIA's top Middle East expert, thirty-seven-year-old Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of the former president and a veteran of the Office of Secret Services since its inception in World War II. Boyishly handsome, supremely self-confident, and described by one historian as "insouciant coolness personified," he would shortly justify his reputation as "an acknowledged master of the clandestine trade." (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 4, 148)

Roosevelt slipped across the border into Iran on July 19th, and immediately went to work fanning the flames of anti-Mossadegh protest. Buoyed by CIA bounty, Mossadegh's opponents in Parliament were on the verge of ousting him by approving a no-confidence resolution when once again he outmaneuvered them. He initiated a national referendum on a proposition that would allow him to dissolve the legislative body. If the reported result -- 99 percent in his favor -- suggested ballot-box stuffing, it enabled him to retain power. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 125)

Roosevelt was discouraged but undaunted. "He would arrange for Mohammad Reza Shah to sign royal decrees, or firmans, dismissing Mossadegh from office and appointing Zahedi as the new prime minister." If Mossadegh rejected the firmans, Roosevelt would instruct the soldiers who delivered them to arrest him. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 125)

Even though the Shah despised Mossadegh, who had relegated him to a figurehead, he was terrified of losing his throne by acceding to the plot. "He hates taking decisions and cannot be relied upon to stick to them when taken," related one British diplomat. "He has no moral courage and succumbs easily to fear." (Kinzer, Shah, p. 6)

Roosevelt tried several ruses to win over the Shah. After gifting her a wad of cash and a mink stole, he arranged to fly the Shah's strong-willed sister, Princes Ashraf, from her chateau on the French Rivera to Tehran; it was a fruitless mission. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 125)

"Next Roosevelt turned to General Norman H. Schwarzkopf, who had spent most of the 1940's in Iran leading an elite military regiment and to whom the Shah felt deeply indebted." Entering the palace, Schwarzkopf was escorted to the center of a large ballroom where the Shah, fearing to be overheard by hidden microphones, whispered that he would not sign the firmans. He said that the army would likely not obey any order of his and that he could not be party to any failed scheme. (Kinzer, Shah, p. 8)

Roosevelt was not ready to concede defeat. After several midnight meetings in back seat of a car parked in the palace compound, he prevailed upon the Shah to sign the firmans, which he did with the proviso that he could immediately depart for his hunting lodge on the Caspian Sea. From there, said the Shah, "if anything goes horribly wrong, the Empress and I will take our plane straight to Baghdad." (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 9-11)

Late on the night of of August 15, 1953, the man chosen by Roosevelt to deliver the fateful decree, Colonel Nematollah Nasiri, commander of the Imperial Guard, drove to the home of Mossadegh's Chief of Staff, Tacqi Riahi, only to find it deserted. Riahi had learned of the coup, and when Nasiri proceeded to Mossadegh's residence, a company of loyalist soldiers was waiting there to arrest him. At 6:00 AM the next morning Mossadegh announced over Radio Tehran that he had foiled an attempt to depose him "organized by the Shah and foreign elements." (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 14-15)  

But Kermit Roosevelt was not to be denied. Ignoring a cable from Washington ordering him to leave the country, he summoned two of his most reliable operatives, Ali Jalili and Farouk Keyvani, handed them a briefcase filled with $50,000, and threatened to kill them if they refused his demand: create chaos throughout the city. (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 126-127) 

"A plague of violence descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs roamed wildly through the streets, breaking shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passersby, and shouting 'Long Live Mossadegh and Communism!' Others claiming allegiance to the Shah attacked them. Leaders of both factions were working for Roosevelt." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p.127)     

Told by the U.S. Ambassador, Loy Henderson, that Americans going about their daily business were being harassed and terrorized -- when in actuality their covert accomplices were the instigators -- Mossadegh sent "police and military units into the streets to restore order, unaware that many of their commanders were on Roosevelt's payroll. Several joined the agitators they were supposed to suppress." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 127)   

Roosevelt chose August 19th as the climactic day. "Groups of rioters attacked eight government buildings . . . the foreign ministry, the army general staff headquarters, and the central police station." According to one CIA staffer, "The mob that came into North Tehran and was decisive in the overthrow was a mercenary mob . . . paid with American dollars." Soldiers and midlevel officers, including Colonel Nasiri, joined the uprising, and brought along with them weapons, tanks, and artillery. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 178-180)

Roosevelt arranged for a tank to pick up General Zahedi at the apartment where he had been sequestered. It drove him through the tumultuous crowd to Radio Tehran, where he stepped to the microphone and proclaimed himself "The lawful prime minister by the Shah's order." The Shah received the news while dining at the Rome hotel where he had fled four days earlier. "Can it be true?" he blurted. He jumped to his feet and exclaimed: "I knew it! They love me!" (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 183-184)

Fighting raged at Mossadegh's house for two hours. Resistance ceased when a column of tanks appeared and unleashed a barrage of shells. Mossadegh fled over a back wall with his comrades, but realizing he could not evade capture for long voluntarily surrendered the next day. He was tried for "inciting the people to armed insurrection," convicted, and sentenced to three years in prison followed by house arrest for life. "My only crime," Mossadegh told his judges, "is that I nationalized the Iranian oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism and economic influence of the greatest empire on earth." (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 185,189, 193)

The suddenly confident Shah landed in Tehran on the morning of  August 22nd. Hundreds of admirers were there to greet him, including Prime Minister Zahedi, who fell to his knees and kissed the monarch's proffered hand. Kermit Roosevelt joined the Shah at the royal palace to toast their triumph. The Shah raised his glass and said, "I owe my throne to God, my people, my army -- and to you." Then Zahedi entered the room and expressed his own gratitude. "We were all smiles now," wrote Roosevelt afterward. "Warmth and friendship filled the room." Six hours later he left Iran forever. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 190-192)

Having done the dirty work of deposing Mossadegh, U.S. officials expected to share the spoils. An international consortium was formed, under which Anglo-Iranian (renamed British Petroleum) sold forty percent of its shares to five American companies and twenty percent to Dutch and French enterprises for $1 billion. Its remaining forty percent ownership amounted to less than the company would have had had it accepted Iran's demands. (Kinzer, Shah, pp. 195-196)

The Shah's thirty-seven-year rule had a dual nature. On one hand, he oversaw the investment of billions of dollars in industry, education, health, and the military, which transformed the country into a global power and produced an unprecedented rise in national and per capita income.

In his latter years, however, he grew increasingly isolated, dictatorial, and intolerant of dissent. He repressed opposition newspapers, political parties, trade unions, and civic groups. Dissatisfied Iranians turned to religious schools, mosques, and the fundamentalists who controlled them as their only avenue for change. They rallied around the radical Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose revolutionary movement became so widespread that in 1979 the Shah was forced to flee his homeland. (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 201-202)

Bitterly anti-Western, Khomeini sanctioned the occupation of the U.S. Embassy and the taking of their diplomats as hostages. Once entrenched, his regime broadened its reach by financing and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorists groups and by encouraging Muslim fanatics like the Taliban in Afghanistan to seize power where conditions were favorable. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 203)

Historian Mark Gasiorowski writes: "In retrospect, the United States sponsored coup d'etat in Iran of August 19, 1953, has emerged as a critical event in postwar world history . . . Had the coup not occurred, Iran's future would undoubtedly have been vastly different . . . U.S. complicity [in the coup and the subsequent consolidation of the Shah's dictatorship] figured prominently in the terrorist attacks on American citizens and installations that occurred in the 1970's and in the anti-American character of the 1978-79 revolution . . . and the embassy hostage crisis." (Kinzer, Shah, p. 213)

OPERATION SUCCESS

Since gaining independence in 1821, "the Central American country of Guatemala had been ruled by a procession of personalistic right-wing rulers who governed on behalf of a tiny European-oriented aristocracy." This "tradition of despotism reached a savage climax from 1931 to 1944 under the megalomaniac General Jorge Ubico." Accused by Time Magazine of running "one of the world's worst tyrannies," he "routinely used his army to intimidate the poor, massacred rebellious Indians, killed labor leaders and intellectuals, and enriched his friends." (Schlesinger, p. 28)

The United Fruit Company, now controlled by "Banana Man" Sam Zemurray and already the largest landowner, employer, and exporter in the country, accumulated even more property and control under the patronage of Ubico. It signed a ninety-nine-year lease on a vast plantation on the Pacific coast at Tiquisate. Ubico exempted the company from all internal taxation, endorsed its fifty-cent-per-day wage rate, and allowed it to take over the country's only Atlantic port at Puerto Barrios and virtually every mile of railroad. (Schlesinger, p. 70)

Growing discontent with the regime propelled thousands of demonstrators into the streets during the summer of 1944. Presented with a petition signed by over three hundred teachers, lawyers, doctors, and small businessmen, Ubico resigned and appointed one of his subordinates, General Fedorico Ponce, to replace him. But the people had tired of strongman rule. In a lightning uprising later known as the "October Revolution," two commanders, Francisco Arana and Jacobo Arbenz, seized major military installations and forced Ponce to relinquish power. Joined by businessman Jorge Toriello, they "formed an interim junta and immediately promulgated free elections -- the first in the nation's history under a democratic constitution."   (Schlesinger, pp. 28-31)

In December 1945, the revolutionaries' candidate for president, a visionary schoolteacher named Juan Jose Arevalo, was swept into office with a resounding eighty-five percent of the vote. During his six-year term the National Assembly enacted a Social Security Law which required employers to provide safe working conditions, compensation for injuries, and basic health care; a Labor Code which allowed urban workers to organize unions, bargain collectively, and strike; and land reform legislation which established clear titles and granted peasants the right to rent unused plantation acreage. (Schlesinger, pp.37-41)

Arevalo's liberal supporters nominated Arbenz, now Defense Minister, to succeed him. Arbenz had distinguished himself at Guatemala's military academy for his brilliant scholastic record and his prowess in boxing and polo. He was strikingly handsome, which somewhat compensated for his lack of personal magnetism and monotonal manner of speech. He was married to Maria Cristina Vilanova, an attractive, vivacious El Salvadoran heiress, who, despite her upper-class background, was a passionate socialist. She embraced and fostered her husband's political career which she saw as a vehicle for addressing Guatemala's endemic social and economic inequality. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 132)

Arbenz was elected president on November 30, 1953, by a two-to-one margin, and immediately went to work on the goal he had proclaimed in his inaugural address: "to convert Guatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state." Among the projects he proposed were a publicly owned port on the Atlantic coast, a highway to the Atlantic as an alternative United Fruit's railroad monopoly, and a hydroelectric plant to compete with the one administered by the U.S. But the initiative he was most proud of was the passage of a genuine agrarian reform law on June 27, 1952. (Schlesinger, pp. 52-54)

"Under the provisions of Decree 900, the government could appropriate and redistribute all uncultivated land on estates larger than 672 acres, compensating the owners according to the land's declared tax value. This was a direct challenge to United Fruit, which owned more than 550,000 acres, about one-fifth of the country's arable land, but cultivated less than 15% of it." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 133)

"Early in 1953 the Guatemalan government seized 234,000 uncultivated acres of United Fruit's 295,000-acre plantation at Tiquisate. It offered $1.185 million, the value the company had declared for tax purposes." Of course the company blanched when its own number was thrown in its face, declaring that it "bears not the slightest resemblance to just evaluation." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 133; Schlesinger, p.76)

To add muscle to its case, United Fruit turned to the State Department, which had no qualms about acting as an agent for a private corporation. On April 20, 1953, the Department delivered a formal complaint to Guatemalan authorities claiming that the seizure of United Fruit property was discriminatory since it comprised two-thirds of the total appropriation; that United Fruit needed fallow acreage as protection against a banana disease that could devastate the crop; and that the compensation was undervalued and neither "prompt or effective" since payment would be in long-term bonds. (Schlesinger, p. 105)

Sam Zemurray had long feared a reformist movement in Guatemala. In the late 1940's he had hired renowned public relations expert Edward Bernays to both polish United Fruit's image and blacken that of the Guatemala government and its leaders. In the spring of 1951 a series of articles appeared in the New York Times "portraying Guatemala as falling victim to '"reds.'" Then Bernays sponsored a number of press junkets to the country that produced glowing profiles of United Fruit and terrifying ones about an imminent Soviet takeover. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 134) 

Among others enlisted by Zemurray to promote his interests were Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who "delivered vituperative speeches denouncing Guatemalan leaders as crypto-Communists"; Washington insider Tommy Corcoran, who lobbied his friends in Congress and the State Department to strike against Arbenz; and ardent right-winger John Clements, whose research firm, Clement Associates, released two reports asserting that Guatemala was ruled by Communists who needed to be overthrown. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 235; Schlesinger, pp. 92, 95)

"The Guatemalan Communist Party was actually a modest affair. At its peak it had only a few hundred active members, no mass base, and no support in the foreign ministry or army . . . The Soviet Union had no military, economic, or even diplomatic relations with Guatemala, and no delegation from the country had ever visited Moscow . . . Not in the vast archive of the files the CIA captured after the coup, nor in any other document or testimony that has surfaced since, is there any indication that Soviet leaders were even slightly interested in Guatemala during the 1950's." (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp.135-136)

Even if such facts had been presented to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, they would have had no impact. "He was convinced to the point of theological certainty that the Soviets were behind every threat to American power in the world . . . He and his colleagues came into office determined to rid themselves of the troublesome regime in Guatemala." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 136)

"The principal evidence offered by the Americans to justify fears of subversion in Guatemala was the land reform program, particularly as it affected United Fruit. One journalist warned that Communists would use the program as a stepping stone to take over the country . . . The American public, heavily conditioned by Bernays's press campaign, had also identified the enemy: Communism." (Schlesinger, pp. 107-108)

As with Ajax, President Eisenhower found all options for moderation foreclosed when confronted by the formidable double team of John Foster and Allen Dulles. Once again, the operation fell under the purview of the latter's CIA. In early August 1953, the 10/2 Subcommittee of the National Security Council officially approved a plot codenamed "Success" to take down Arbenz. (Schlesinger, p. 108)

Kermit Roosevelt having declined, Allen Dulles summoned former college football star Colonel Albert Haney from his post in South Korea and gave him a budget of $4.5 million to conduct the operation. (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 137-138)

Haney established a clandestine headquarters at a military airfield in Opa-Locka, Florida. He planted hidden communication centers inside and outside the borders of Guatemala to jam government airwaves and to broadcast propaganda to the general public. With a nod of consent from dictator Anastasio Somoza, he set up camps in Nicaragua to train an invading army of three hundred exiles and mercenaries in sabotage, demolition, and weapons deployment, and stationed a Liberation Air Force composed of thirty U.S. planes and pilots at remote air strips there and in Honduras to support them. (Schlesinger, pp. 110-111, 114)

To play the role of rebel leader, the CIA plotters first considered General Miguel Ydigoras, one of Ubico's underlings, but rejected him as too corrupt and authoritarian. They settled on Carlos Castillo Armas, a former army officer whose dramatic escape from prison in 1950 after an abortive uprising had earned him a "vaguely heroic reputation." He was picked because he was malleable and, in the words of two observers, "a stupid man . . . who didn't know what he was doing." Flown from his hideout in Honduras to Opa-Locka in October, Castillo Armas accepted without conditions or objections the CIA's offer to head up its "National Liberation Movement," which included a payment of $3 million and funding for ten paramilitary squads. (Schlesinger, pp. 122-123, 126)

The State Department needed its own saboteur in Guatemala City. The resident ambassador, Rudolph Schoenfeld was too passive and collegial to suit Foster Dulles's purpose. Deferring to CIA Chief of Operations Frank Wisner, he snagged John Peurifoy, a brash, flamboyant staunch anti-Communist who had bolstered his credentials battling leftist guerillas in Greece. Peurifoy "spoke no Spanish and knew nothing about Guatemala" except for its exposure to the "Red Menace." But he knew how to manipulate the press to scare a small country. (Schlesinger, pp. 131-133)

Six weeks after his arrival in Guatemala, on the evening of December 16, 1953, Peurifoy had his first and only face-to-face meeting with Arbenz at the latter's official residence. As Arbenz was describing United Fruit's abusive history and failure to pay a reasonable amount of taxes, Peurifoy interrupted him to state: "As long as the Communists exercised the influence which they presently do with the Government, I do not see any real hope of bringing about better relations." (Schlesinger, pp. 136-137)

Peurifoy concluded his memorandum to Foster Dulles on the meeting with the words: "Normal approaches will probably not work in Guatemala," but he was even more harsh when a few days later he cabled: "There appears to be no alternative to our taking steps which would tend to make more difficult continuation of [the Arbenz] regime in Guatemala." (Schlesinger, p. 139)   

In March 1954, at the Tenth Conference of the Organization of American States in Caracas, Venezuela, Foster Dulled laid the groundwork for the impending "liberation." He introduced a resolution declaring that the "domination or control of the political institutions of any American state by the international communist movement . . . would constitute a threat" to the entire hemisphere and require "appropriate action." Guatemalan Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello called the resolution "merely a pretext for intervention in internal affairs" based on a bogus "cataloguing as communism every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence . . . and any interest in progressive and liberal reforms." (Schlesinger, pp. 142-144)

The measure passed with one country opposed (Guatemala) and two abstaining but only after two weeks of Foster Dulles's arm twisting and threat mongering. Dr. Justino Jimenez de Archaga, Uruguay's chief delegate, spoke for many when he confessed he had voted in favor "without enthusiasm, without optimism, without joy, and without the feeling that we are contributing" to anything constructive. (Schlesinger, pp. 144-145)

Through the interposition of Francis Cardinal Spellman, the CIA obtained an audience with the Archbishop of Guatemala, and within weeks observant Catholics were inundated with agency-scripted sermons, leaflets, and radio broadcasts. The message they conveyed echoed the pastoral letter read in all churches on April 9th; it warned the faithful that a demonic force called Communism was trying to destroy their homeland, and called on them to "rise as a single man against this enemy of God and country." (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 138)

Prevented from purchasing arms from Denmark, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, and Switzerland by a U.S.-imposed embargo and increasingly aware of the looming invasion, Arbenz turned to Czechoslovakia, a Communist country, as a last resort. On May 15, 1954, the freighter Alfhem docked at Puerto Barrios. Over the next several days, one hundred boxcars carrying $1 million worth of rifles, ammunition, mines, and artillery pieces left the port for Guatemala City. (Schlesinger, pp. 148-150)

Although most of the equipment was obsolete or inoperative, the State Department and the White House flaunted the incident as evidence of Communist subversion. At a press conference on May 19th, President Eisenhower maintained that the weapons might lead to the establishment of a "Communist dictatorship . . . on this continent to the detriment of all American nations." (Schlesinger, p. 152)

Meanwhile, the CIA's "Voice of Liberation" radio station was engaged in a classic disinformation campaign to spread fear and panic inside Guatemala. It had three specific objectives: to induce the neutrals who comprised sixty percent of the population to align themselves with the anti-Communist movement; to convince listeners that Arbenz wanted to disband the armed forces and replace them with a people's militia; and to create the impression that the entire country was on the verge of insurrection (Schlesinger, pp. 167-169)

American reporters lapped up the propaganda and dutifully submitted accounts of mass arrests and tortures allegedly perpetrated by the Arbenz regime. On June 15 Foster Dulles told a group of them that Guatemalans were living under a "Communist-type reign of terror," but "the great majority . . . have both the desire and the capability of cleaning their own house." (Schlesinger, pp. 11, 166)

Soon after dawn on June 18th, Castillo Armas led his band of rebels across the Honduran border six miles into Guatemalan territory. Other than hijacking a train, ripping up some tracks, and dynamiting a bridge, the contingent did not venture beyond its perimeter position. Castillo Armas was content to wait for orders from the Americans who had recruited him and trained and paid his men. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 141; Schlesinger, p. 22)

In Guatemala City, a C-47 transport plane swooped over the National Palace and dropped thousands of leaflets demanding that President Arbenz resign immediately. Later that afternoon two P-47's -- planes never seen in any Latin American air force -- buzzed low over the main military barracks and the police station, fired several machine-gun rounds, dropped a fragmentation bomb, and then swung out over the Pacific. The air raids continued for several days, hitting fuel tanks and military outposts across the country in an effort to demonstrate that war was underway. (Schlesinger, pp. 7-8, 14; Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 142)

On the evening of June 19th, President Arbenz addressed his countrymen by radio. He declared that "the arch-traitor Castillo Armas" was leading a "United Fruit expeditionary force" against his government. "Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which affected the interests of United Fruit . . . It is completely untrue that communists are taking over the government . . . We have imposed no terror. It is, on the contrary, the Guatemalan friends of Mr. Foster Dulles who wish to spread terror among our people, attacking women and children by surprise with impunity from private airplanes." (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 142-143)

When two of the CIA's planes went down, Al Haney cabled Allen Dulles that Operation Success was seriously endangered and would fail without more air support. Rebuffed by Assistant Secretary of State Henry Holland, Dulles went directly to President Eisenhower and, emphasizing the urgency of the situation, persuaded him to deploy two more planes. Although Eisenhower contended he was acting under the OAS resolution approved the previous March, he was overlooking the language that barred unilateral action without prior consultation among the other members of the organization. (Schlesinger, p. 177)

Foreign Minister Toriello made an impassioned plea to the United Nations for help in resolving the crisis. He introduced a resolution which called for the Security Council to send an investigating team to Guatemala but it was defeated by a 5-4 vote after Eisenhower and Foster Dulles pressured Britain and France to abstain. (Schlesinger, pp. 179-181)

Haney's planes proved to be sufficient to turn the tide. On June 23rd, they unleashed a seventy-two-hour barrage over the countryside, bombing the barracks at Zacapa twice and strafing nearby Chiquimula, thus enabling Castillo Armas to occupy the town and proclaim it the capital of his "provisional government." (Schlesinger, p.182)

Although the most costly engagement of the affair -- there were seventeen deaths and dozens of casualties -- and the rebels' deepest penetration of the country, it was hardly as significant as the picture of war and upheaval painted by CIA's radio operators. "Fabricated reports of large troop movements, fearsome battles, major Guatemalan defeats, and growing rebel strength frightened an already confused and disheartened populace . . .  Actually Castillo Armas never had more than 400 men under his command." (Schlesinger, pp. 182, 184-185)

As conditions grew more desperate, Arbenz's military commanders, who were intimidated by U.S. support of the rebellion and its possible intervention, prepared to abandon him. When Arbenz ordered Army Chief of Staff Colonel Carlos Enrique Diaz to open the army's cache of weapons to civilians who might rally behind him, Diaz refused. (Schlesinger, p. 190)

Resigned to his fate, on Sunday, June 27th, Arbenz sent Foreign Minister Toriello to the American embassy to negotiate the terms of his surrender. Toriello informed Ambassador Peurifoy that Arbenz would relinquish power to a military junta but not to Castillo Armas, whom he considered a traitor. A few hours later Peurifoy met with Diaz and four of his comrade's at the Colonel's home, and agreed on behalf of the United States to recognize Diaz's junta and arrange for a ceasefire once he was assured that Diaz had control of the government and would remove and outlaw all Communists. (Schlesinger, pp. 194-196) 

At four o'clock that afternoon Diaz and two officers called on Arbenz and told him they were deposing him. They promised him "that they would never deal with Castillo Armas and that they would allow him to deliver a farewell message over the radio." Addressing his people that evening for the last time, Arbenz said: "A government different from mine, but always inspired by our October Revolution, is preferable to twenty years of fascist bloody tyranny under the rule of bands that Castillo Armas has brought into the country." Then he left the studio and walked to the Mexican embassy, where he was granted political asylum. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 145)

As far as the CIA was concerned, however, the mission was not yet accomplished.

When its two principal operatives, John Doherty and Enno Hobbing, saw Colonel Diaz take the microphone from Arbenz and proclaim that "the struggle against the mercenary invaders of Guatemala will not abate," they concluded he was unreliable and would have to go. They would replace him with an officer they knew and trusted, Colonel Elfegio Monzon. (Schlesinger, p. 206)

Confronted by Doherty and Hobbing, Diaz insisted that Peurifoy  had approved his assumption of leadership. Hobbing replied, "Colonel, you're just not convenient for the requirements of American foreign policy . . . Our ambassador represents diplomacy. I represent reality. And the reality is that we don't want you." Diaz asked for a meeting with Peurifoy, but succeeded only in arousing his anger by refusing to round up and execute presumed communists and stating he was going to release all political prisoners. He announced the formation of a three-man junta including Monzon, Colonel Jose Angel Sanchez, and himself. (Schlesinger, pp. 206-209)

An outraged Peurifoy stormed back to the embassy and cabled Haney to stage a demonstration. On the afternoon of June 28th, a CIA-piloted P-47 flew over Guatemala City and dropped two bombs on the parade ground of the main military base and several more on the government radio station. With reality closing in, Diaz called Peurifoy to his headquarters again to arrange a settlement with Castillo Armas. He left the room to confer with some other officers, only to reappear a few minutes later with Monzon holding a machine gun to his ribs. "My colleague has decided to resign," said Monzon. "I am replacing him." (Schlesinger, pp. 209-211)

Monzon's tenure was short-lived. Under pressure from Peurifoy, he agreed to share power with Castillo Armas and three others in a five-man ruling junta. But on July 8th, after receiving $100,000 each, Monzon's two allies abruptly resigned, leaving Castillo Armas in control; one week later the United States formally recognized the Castillo Armas government. (Schlesinger, pp. 215-216)

On October 10, 1954, Castillo Armas was confirmed as president of Guatemala with 99.6% of the vote. As his first official acts he ordered the return of all expropriated land to United Fruit, outlawed labor unions, banned all political parties, and arrested thousands of suspected leftists. (Schlesinger, pp. 218-221)

United Fruit may have won the battle to regain its property but it ultimately lost the war. Mired in antitrust litigation, in 1958 it surrendered much of its holdings in Guatemala to local businesses. In 1970 it merged the rest with the conglomerate United Brands, which shortly thereafter came close to bankruptcy due to mismanagement and bribery schemes. Its assets were purchased by Carl Lindner's American Financial Group and the company reemerged as Chiquita Bananas. (Schlesinger, p. 229)

Eighty million dollars from the United States during Castillo Armas's presidency did little for the nation's poor, and his reversal of Arbenz's land reform left less than one percent of those who had been awarded plots still occupying them. His successor, Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes was no better. His decision to allow CIA agents to establish a training base for the invasion of Cuba in 1960 led to the formation of the first Communist-related guerilla groups. (Schlesinger, pp. 236-240)

The rulers who followed heavily militarized the country. Civil society was submerged beneath an ongoing, deadly war between the government's armed forces, the national police force, and right-wing paramilitary groups on one side and leftist guerillas on the other. "Normal political life in the country ceased. Death squads roamed with impunity, chasing down and murdering politicians, union organizers, student activists, and peasant leaders . . . In the countryside, soldiers rampaged through villages, massacring Mayan Indians by the hundreds." From 1966 to 1980, Amnesty International concluded that more than 30,000 were abducted, tortured, and assassinated. By 1996 that number had risen to 200,000. (Kinzer, Overthrow, p. 205; Schlesinger, p. 247) 

During this period "the United States provided Guatemala with hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid. Americans trained and armed the Guatemalan army and police, sent Green Beret teams to accompany soldiers on anti-guerilla missions, and dispatched planes from the Panama Canal Zone to drop napalm on suspected guerilla hideouts. In 1968, guerillas responded by killing two American military advisers and the United States ambassador to Guatemala, John Gordon Mein." (Kinzer, Overthrow, pp. 205-206)

"The overthrow of Arbenz inadvertently encouraged communism: outraged by what had happened in Guatemala, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and their supporters resolved to liberate Cuba from Washington's influence and turn it into a Marxist-Leninist state. When, after they seized power in 1959, the CIA tried" to foment a counterrevolution and organize an invasion, it failed miserably. (Gaddis, p. 166)

The violent coup of 1954 interrupted the evolution of social growth and political maturation in Guatemala. A series of corrupt regimes led by wealthy elites and military strongmen uninterested in national development and improving the lives of their people took control of the country. A cycle of violence ensued and persisted, leaving thousands dead and millions undernourished, impoverished, and illiterate. (Schlesinger, p. 254)

Although the words were spoke to Colonel Carlos Diaz, who had thrust himself into the CIA coup to oust Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, the reality was that the United States national security bureaucracy wanted neither Arbenz (nor his presumptive successor) nor Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in their positions because they were "not convenient for the requirements of American foreign policy." And if those requirements aligned with the economic interests of private companies like United Fruit and Anglo-Iranian Oil, either coincidentally or by design, so be it. 

For Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Dwight Eisenhower, bound by their Cold War preconceptions, just a faint hint of Communist infiltration was sufficient reason for them to order the removal of the undesirables. And if Arbenz and Mossadegh were forced to relinquish power, at least the fate they suffered was no worse than physical or political exile. Other victims of United States foreign policy would not be so fortunate. 

REFERENCES

Carroll, James. House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. 

Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006.

Schlesinger, Stephen, and Stephen Kinzer. Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1982.

Swanson, Michael. The War State: The Cold War Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Power Elite, 1945-1963. North Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.