The Foreign Service Journal, June 2004

52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 4 reventive action to defend U.S. securi- ty interests is not a concept dreamed up by the current administration. It has been around for a long time. Fifty years ago, the Eisenhower administra- tion helped depose a government in Guatemala that was thought to have communist leanings and the potential to inspire radical upheavals elsewhere in the region. The Cold War dominated international politics in 1954. It was a time when the perceived dangers of the commu- nist movement were at a zenith. Globally, things were not going well for the United States. In the immediate after- math of World War II, the Soviet Union was the world’s only communist state. Within nine years, virtually all of Eastern Europe was run by communist governments, along with China. During that same period, the Korean conflict had ended in a stalemate, and Moscow blockaded Berlin and developed the atomic bomb. To meet the Soviet challenge, the United States became decidedly more interventionist-minded. In 1948, largely with the encouragement of State Department Policy Planning Director George Kennan, the National Security Council approved Document 10/2, which expanded the realm of U.S. covert action. The directive authorized economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demoli- tion and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups; and support of indigenous anticommunist elements. In August 1953, the CIA helped depose an elected Iranian government that had nationalized the country’s oil industry and was viewed as a potential Soviet ally. The Guatemala intervention came less than a year later. Communists had made few inroads in Latin America until then, but some of the elements for a possible com- munist transformation seemed to be in place in Guatemala. The country was led by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, a former military officer democratically elected in 1950 who took office the following year. Poisonous Fruit Arbenz was relatively indifferent to politics but embraced the progressive politics advocated by his Salvadoran wife, Maria. She believed socialist policies were needed in Central America to benefit the region’s impoverished majorities, and the new president moved quickly to implement programs to do that. After he legal- ized the communist-affiliated Guatemalan Labor Party in 1952, communists gained considerable influence over important peasant organizations, labor unions and the governing political party. The centerpiece of Arbenz’s presidency was an ambi- tious land reform program. Like most Latin American land reform programs, Guatemala’s did not go smoothly, however. Campesino attacks on landholders were com- mon, as were land invasions. The local oligarchy staunch- ly opposed the initiative, as did the United Fruit Company, an American conglomerate that possessed vast tracts of territory and was the dominant player in the country’s economic life. As part of the initiative, Guatemala expropriated some 200,000 acres of United Fruit-owned land. Following international law, the government offered compensation 50 Y EARS A GO IN G UATEMALA T HE U.S.- BACKED REMOVAL OF G UATEMALAN P RESIDENT J ACOBO A RBENZ G UZMAN IN J UNE 1954 WAS NEITHER THE FIRST NOR THE LAST SUCH INTERVENTION . B UT DIFFERENT OBSERVERS HAVE DRAWN VERY DIFFERENT LESSONS FROM THE EPISODE . B Y G EORGE G EDDA P