Jacobo Arbenz, Guatemala

In late 1953, the CIA launched Operation PBSUCCESS to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. They conducted an extensive propaganda campaign to undermine Arbenz, which included promoting a Guatemalan “liberation army” they organized in Honduras. As part of these efforts, the US Navy enforced a sea blockade of Guatemala while American warplanes flew above Guatemala City sowing popular panic and dissent within the army. In the face of this onslaught, Arbenz stepped down and a series of military men took his place, spurring a three-decades-long civil war that cost over 100,000 lives.

Washington’s motivation for the Operation was its worries that Arbenz’s social democratic policies would disrupt the elite-dominated status quo in the region. In 1954, a State Department official was unusually blunt, pointing out that “Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador. Its agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where similar conditions prevail.” In other words, Arbenz represented a threat.

Despite the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) questioning in the House of Commons, External Minister Lester Pearson refused to acknowledge US involvement in the invasion of Guatemala. He said: “To the best of my knowledge, based on information we have received, the attacking forces in Guatemala seem to be Guatemalan, though some non-Guatemalans might be included.” 

Pearson also helped isolate Arbenz. In 1953, External Affairs refused the Guatemalan foreign minister’s request to open embassies in each other’s countries. A similar request was denied again the next year. Prior to Arbenz’s 1950 election, a study by Canada’s trade commissioner in Guatemala claimed that “businessmen and landowners do not have any cause to view the prospect of Arbenz as future president with any optimism.” Northern Shadows (1989) by Peter McFarlane, a history of Canada’s role in Central America, summarizes: “At External Affairs and in Canadian [corporate] boardrooms, the coup [against Arbenz] was chalked up as another victory of the Free World against the [Soviet] Menace.”