Speaker 1: Honduras June fifteenth, nineteen fifty four. A small army of
Speaker 1: approximately two hundred men is stationed at the Guatemalan border.
Speaker 1: For weeks, they have patiently waited for the CIA to
Speaker 1: greenlight the last phase of operations success. But Carlos Castillo
Speaker 1: Armas has been waiting much, much longer. Since nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: He's been plotting his revenge while his lust for power grows.
Speaker 1: Despite being described by many as an unimposing man, his
Speaker 1: unlikely comeback is remarkable, though only made possible by overwhelming
Speaker 1: outside forces. Liberator, puppet, dictator, oppressor, pick any name you
Speaker 1: like to Armas, they mean nothing. He knows it's a miracle.
Speaker 1: He's even alive. He should have died during coup attempt
Speaker 1: five years ago. Now Here, at the age of thirty nine,
Speaker 1: he has lived through more hell than many of us
Speaker 1: will ever endure. This is the end of the line
Speaker 1: for him, his last opportunity to seize power. One way
Speaker 1: or another, he will succeed in his quest, his hunger sated,
Speaker 1: only to be assassinated by one of his presidential guards
Speaker 1: three years after taking office. This is fru Data, the
Speaker 1: unbelievable story of the nineteen fifty four, CIA sponsored Guatemalan
Speaker 1: COUD Episode four operations success. The CIA knew that to
Speaker 1: turn Guatemalans against their leader, they would need to provide
Speaker 1: a domestic alternative, someone they could prop up as a
Speaker 1: man of the people, a liberator. United Fruit had a
Speaker 1: name in mind. After all, it had to be someone
Speaker 1: they could work with. The front runner in this odd,
Speaker 1: undemocratic primary process was Miguel Idigores Fuentes. He'd been an
Speaker 1: army general under Ubigo's dictatorship until a Revlo was elected
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. He later ran for office in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty and lost the election to Arbanz. Since then,
Speaker 1: he'd moved to El Salvador, where he was extremely vocal
Speaker 1: about the elections being stolen from him, a totally unsubstantiated claim.
Speaker 1: Much like Ubigo, he would have become a corrupt fascist dictator. However,
Speaker 1: unlike his former boss, Fuentes was not an easy man
Speaker 1: to work with. He wasn't willing to play ball or
Speaker 1: blindly accept orders from a foreign government. On top of that,
Speaker 1: he was considered a reputational liability. Rachel Nolan is a journalist, historian,
Speaker 1: and professor. She's the author of Until I Find You,
Speaker 1: Disappeared Children and coercive adoptions in Guatemala.
Speaker 2: When this was famously brutal. In fact, one of the
Speaker 2: reasons that the CIA rejected him as an original candidate
Speaker 2: for the role of dictator Guatemala is that he was
Speaker 2: unpopular after having overseen massacres of indigenous people. The CIA
Speaker 2: was making calculations in nineteen fifty four about who are our.
Speaker 3: Allies in Guatemala.
Speaker 2: They had in mind certain oligarchic figures within the country.
Speaker 2: They were saying, well, he's not very liked. They were
Speaker 2: almost trying to hand pick the successor to Urban's by saying,
Speaker 2: who has a following, who is a credible.
Speaker 3: Leader, who might look like a popular leader.
Speaker 2: Because they were fooling themselves that people wouldn't know it
Speaker 2: would be that it was was THEIA.
Speaker 1: The United Fruit Company pitched a second man, Juan Cordova Serna,
Speaker 1: who was already on the company's payroll as a legal advisor,
Speaker 1: talk about a promotion. Unfortunately, just before they could reach
Speaker 1: an agreement, he was hospitalized with throat cancer, most likely
Speaker 1: courtesy of those cigarettes Edward Burnet's had so successfully advertised.
Speaker 1: In the end, it all came down to Colonel Carlos
Speaker 1: Castillo Armas, a remarkably unremarkable man whose military background would
Speaker 1: help lend credence to the uprising narrative. Armas had actually
Speaker 1: been a member of Arabelo's cabinet until nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: when he quit. After the assassination of Francisco Arana. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, he attempted a coup which failed miserably. He
Speaker 1: was shot, wounded, and left for dead. He was only
Speaker 1: saved because someone heard him moan and rushed him to
Speaker 1: the hospital. Ironically, after being saved, he was sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: Luckily for him, just before his scheduled execution, he managed
Speaker 1: to escape, some say through bribery, others through a tunnel.
Speaker 1: From there, he spent a few years working odd jobs
Speaker 1: in Colombia and Honduras. At some point he was reportedly
Speaker 1: working as a furniture salesman, biding his time for the
Speaker 1: opportunity to strike back. This opportunity finally came when he
Speaker 1: was hand picked to become the next leader of Guatemala,
Speaker 1: Rachel Nolan.
Speaker 2: Again, Castillo Armas was a weak little guy. Even the
Speaker 2: CIA reports about finding a leader a kind of what
Speaker 2: you would call an AstroTurf leader rather than a grassroots leader,
Speaker 2: someone who looks to be grassroots or looks to be
Speaker 2: a popular leader of a counter revolution in Guatemala, but
Speaker 2: is actually directed by the CIA. At first, the CIA,
Speaker 2: who are literally trying to cast people. I mean they
Speaker 2: are thinking, will this guy do well? That guy do
Speaker 2: They're going through different names, and they pass over Castio
Speaker 2: Aaramas because he's too unimpressive. He's been drinking in New
Speaker 2: Orleans for the last decade. He's been outside of the country,
Speaker 2: genuinely attempting on his own to martial account of revolution
Speaker 2: and invade. I mean, he saw himself as a potential
Speaker 2: future leader of Guatemala, but no one took him all
Speaker 2: that seriously. Idiodes Fuantes was taller. I mean, it sounds ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but the CIA loves this kind of thing. It's like
Speaker 2: central casting. He was whiter. There was a long discussion
Speaker 2: about Cristio Aaramas that he had darker skin and so
Speaker 2: would he really be seen as a Caliola like potential leader.
Speaker 2: I mean, these were the racist terms in which it
Speaker 2: was discussed. But the appearance was important. That was part
Speaker 2: of the thing to try to make the coup look real.
Speaker 2: So Costiotamas was an incredibly unimpressive man. Actually, he seemed
Speaker 2: to be what he was, which was someone who would
Speaker 2: never have been there.
Speaker 3: He would never have been in charge.
Speaker 2: Of Guatemala it were not for the push from the CIA.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, back in the States, United Fruit was arranging another
Speaker 1: large delivery of weapons to Central America, easy enough given
Speaker 1: their experience in the field, not to mention the fact
Speaker 1: that they owned more ships than most countries, as well
Speaker 1: as a few railroads and in an active gallantry. The
Speaker 1: CIA had agreed to finance the entire operation with about
Speaker 1: three million in taxpayer dollars equivalent to thirty four million today.
Speaker 1: Once again, the plan was an open secret. In January
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty four, Elite resulted in the Guatemalan press
Speaker 1: publishing correspondence between Castillo Attomas Idigoras Fuentes and the Samosa
Speaker 1: family of Nicaragua. These reports also exposed to the involvement
Speaker 1: of Venezuela El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and the government
Speaker 1: of the North. Certainly it wasn't Canada, but the international
Speaker 1: press did not pick up the story, which went largely unnoticed.
Speaker 1: It was yet another confirmation that overthrowing Autoban's was fair
Speaker 1: game and no one would interfere. Finally, it was showtime.
Speaker 1: The American embassy in Guatemala City was equipped with an
Speaker 1: array of communication devices capable of jamming official broadcasts as
Speaker 1: well as airing clandestine ones. The setup allowed Americans to
Speaker 1: disguise their programs as legitimate national radio frequencies. Equipping an
Speaker 1: embassy with instruments of war was a major violation of
Speaker 1: international law even in the wild fifties. The embassy even
Speaker 1: set up an outdoor sound system that played convincing recordings
Speaker 1: of planes flying over the city to make people believe
Speaker 1: they were under attack. The ambassador himself, John Purifoy, was
Speaker 1: given cash to personally bribe potential military defectors and politicians.
Speaker 1: It was a brazen lack of discretion, one you'd expect
Speaker 1: from the Eisenhower Nixon administration. In fact, Eurofoy publicly stated
Speaker 1: to The Times in January of nineteen fifty four that
Speaker 1: quote public opinion in the US might force us to
Speaker 1: take some measures to prevent Guatemala from falling into the
Speaker 1: lap of communism end quote. Joseph Whipple is a professor
Speaker 1: and former CIA operations officer. He served as the deputy
Speaker 1: chief of the CIA office in Guatemala City from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four to nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 4: This is nine years after World War Two, right, things
Speaker 4: happening in Europe, happening in Asia, and also there's still
Speaker 4: kind of an aura of the Monroe doctrine. This is
Speaker 4: an area of the world where we're not going to
Speaker 4: have any foreign influences. The US is the top dog
Speaker 4: in this area. That's also a factor that took place
Speaker 4: in nineteen fifty four, even into the bay At pace,
Speaker 4: you know, and so on.
Speaker 1: At that point, Autoban's was fully aware that his days
Speaker 1: as president were not His small, under equipped army didn't
Speaker 1: have the means to fend off an attack sponsored by
Speaker 1: the most powerful country in the world. The nineteen forty
Speaker 1: eight US ban on the sale of weapons to Guatemala
Speaker 1: had made the military even weaker than it already was. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Ottomans was forced to make one crucial, unavoidable mistake. Unable
Speaker 1: to purchase weapons from the Western world, he had to
Speaker 1: look elsewhere. On the morning of May fifteenth, nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: a strange event took place in Puerto Barrios the entire
Speaker 1: city had been closed to visitors, and the Minister of
Speaker 1: Defense was roaming the docks with a handful of military officials.
Speaker 1: A Swedish freighter was being hastily uploaded. Its cargo, registered
Speaker 1: as lab equipment, was really a shipment of weapons and
Speaker 1: ammunition from Soviet Czechoslovakia after almost six years of de
Speaker 1: facto embargo. The shipment was not only way to supply
Speaker 1: the military before Castillo Atomos's highly anticipated invasion, it was
Speaker 1: also a way to provide hunters and fishermen with the
Speaker 1: low caliber AMMO they needed for work. The CIA knew
Speaker 1: about the shipment, which they'd been monitoring since before it
Speaker 1: even left Europe. They hadn't stopped it because it supported
Speaker 1: their narrative of Guatemala being in cahoots with the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: It quite literally provided them with a smoking gun proof
Speaker 1: of Communist ties. Had this not happened, the CIA had
Speaker 1: already devised its own plan to smuggle Soviet weapons into Guatemala,
Speaker 1: planting them with the help of the Nicaraguan government. Arban's
Speaker 1: just saved them the trouble. Joseph Whipple again.
Speaker 4: Arbuns himself. I mean, you know, looking back at it,
Speaker 4: he made some big mistakes. I've often thought that the
Speaker 4: fact that he nationalized the United Fruit Company is a
Speaker 4: little bit overemphasized as a reason for American dissatisfaction with him,
Speaker 4: although probably it was a part of it. But you know,
Speaker 4: buying weapons from Czechoslovakia and so on was foolhardy, certainly
Speaker 4: on his part.
Speaker 1: Without skipping a beat, the agency immediately secured more funding
Speaker 1: from the Eisenhower administration and set a date for the invasion.
Speaker 1: Even before that, Just days after the shipment, an American
Speaker 1: led commando unit took the liberty of launching a full
Speaker 1: scale attack on the train carrying the Czech weapons from
Speaker 1: Puerto Barrios to Guatemala City. Their initial plan was to
Speaker 1: blow up the railroad, but heavy rains stopped the explosives
Speaker 1: from detonating. The American troops had no other choice but
Speaker 1: to open fire on the convoay. The resulting gunfight claimed
Speaker 1: the lives of one soldier on each side and left
Speaker 1: many more injured. The train, on the other hand, was
Speaker 1: unscathed and went on to reach its destination. Its cargo
Speaker 1: proved mostly inconsequential for the Guatemalan army. As it turned out,
Speaker 1: it mainly consisted of unusable, outdated World War II leftovers.
Speaker 1: The US felt emboldened to respond by providing the Liberation
Speaker 1: Army with plenty of weaponry. They even dispatched two submarines
Speaker 1: and three aircraft capable of carrying the atomic bomb. With
Speaker 1: the invasions set for June nineteen fifty four, things were
Speaker 1: starting to ramp up. Rachel Nolan.
Speaker 2: There were airplanes used that were only available to US
Speaker 2: military or CIA forces. I mean, if they had been
Speaker 2: more careful, they would have used only hardware or equipment
Speaker 2: that was recognizably Guatemalan.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: So Vicier didn't really take.
Speaker 2: Care to cover its tracks particularly, which is something that
Speaker 2: confuses me.
Speaker 1: Jukobo Atobans was feeling the pressure. Cabinet called countless frantic
Speaker 1: meetings with American officials, offering to renegotiate United Fruits Land compensation,
Speaker 1: but to no avail. On the ground. The propaganda campaign,
Speaker 1: orchestrated by E. Howard Hunt and David ATTLEE. Phillips, was
Speaker 1: bearing fruit. Thousands of flyers and posters were distributed all
Speaker 1: over Central America. They framed Guatemala as a communist stronghold
Speaker 1: that desperately needed to be liberated and castillouaramas As the
Speaker 1: only man for the job. Movies were made and hundreds
Speaker 1: of hours of radio broadcasts were aired, all to spread
Speaker 1: the American narrative. They aired all over, even as far
Speaker 1: as Cuba. It was a different time, but the most
Speaker 1: valuable propaganda was broadcast from inside Guatemala by a clandestine
Speaker 1: radio station called Radio Librecion, a cunning bit of psychological
Speaker 1: warfare to spread fear and disinformation. Every day, the station
Speaker 1: updated fellow Guatemalans on the progress made by Castillo Armas's
Speaker 1: liberation Army and urged them to join the movement to
Speaker 1: oust the communist dictatorship. In reality, Automas's ragtag army of
Speaker 1: mercenaries was numbered in the hundreds and it had yet
Speaker 1: to cross the border into the country. Stephen Kinser is
Speaker 1: a journalist, writer, and professor. He's the co author of
Speaker 1: Bitter Fruit, The untold story of the American Coup in Guatemala.
Speaker 5: The American operation to overthrow the Government of Guatemala PB's
Speaker 5: success was almost entirely psychological. It was not military, it
Speaker 5: was not political. The so called liberation army was just
Speaker 5: a bunch of guys with minimal armaments. So never had
Speaker 5: any intention of fighting and never did fight. The CIA
Speaker 5: had constructed this psychological project. It involved making Guatemalans believe
Speaker 5: that there had been a rebellion within the Guatemalan military.
Speaker 5: So what they did was, for example, paint a few
Speaker 5: planes with the insignia of the Guatemalan Air Force, then
Speaker 5: issue proclamations that would be broadcast on a so called
Speaker 5: rebel radio, which was actually run by the CIA, saying
Speaker 5: that the pilots of these planes had rebelled against Urbans
Speaker 5: and they were fighting for freedom. Meanwhile, these planes would
Speaker 5: drop bombs strategically in places that would be particularly embarrassing
Speaker 5: for the regime, like inside the main military academy. It
Speaker 5: definitely became clear to the generals that the United States
Speaker 5: was behind this and it wasn't going to stop until
Speaker 5: Arbnz was out of office. So there were no military
Speaker 5: confrontations of any significance. It was a matter of putting
Speaker 5: enough pressure on the generals preventing Arbenz from reacting, rather
Speaker 5: than giving him a military challenge that the army would have.
Speaker 3: Had to face.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until June eighteenth, nineteen fifty four that the
Speaker 1: Liberation Army of Castiuantomas finally entered Guatemala through Honduras. He
Speaker 1: personally led a small group of fewer than two hundred men,
Speaker 1: but his overall forces were closer to five hundred. They
Speaker 1: were an ensemble of Guatemalan exiles, Central American mercenaries, and
Speaker 1: even a few Americans, all divided to avoid direct conflict
Speaker 1: with the Guatemalan army. They were few but well armed.
Speaker 1: The CIA had supplied them with plenty of weapons and ammunition.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, they had the benefit of a
Speaker 1: fast work of infrastructure provided by UFC, including several outposts, railroads,
Speaker 1: and even the national telecommunications network. The liberator advanced a
Speaker 1: wapping six miles into the country before receiving orders to
Speaker 1: halt and await further instructions. The CIA was determined to
Speaker 1: make this a bloodless coup. The operation had been over
Speaker 1: engineered for exactly that reason. That same morning, a C
Speaker 1: forty seven aircraft flew over Guatemala City. It dropped leaflets
Speaker 1: demanding Arbenz's resignation and threatening to bomb the capitol. It
Speaker 1: was one of several American led airborne operations, including the
Speaker 1: bombing of fuel tanks in Puerto Barrios which further maimed
Speaker 1: the government's already scarce resources. Arbenz had no intention of surrendering.
Speaker 1: He was fully aware of the CIA and United Fruits
Speaker 1: scare tactics and knew very well that there was no
Speaker 1: such thing as an army of rebels. He was going
Speaker 1: to take his chances and see how far the Americans
Speaker 1: were willing to go.
Speaker 2: Rachel Nolan, the propaganda was directed mostly toward the capital,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of impossible to know what your average
Speaker 2: Guatemalan on the street thought as the coup was unfolding.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a mystery, right, Like, for how long
Speaker 2: did people think of as a real uprising, although the
Speaker 2: newspaper coverage even pretty soon after the event shows that
Speaker 2: it was general knowledge that it was a US backed
Speaker 2: coup fairly quickly. If you ask what the average Guatemalan
Speaker 2: in the country thought, or you mentioned in more rural
Speaker 2: areas outside of the capital, even if they weren't up
Speaker 2: to date on all of the details of who was
Speaker 2: behind the overthrow, it affected their daily life in an
Speaker 2: extreme way. They could have gone from being day laborers
Speaker 2: who were indebted to the owner of the farm to
Speaker 2: owning their own plot of land and they were stripped
Speaker 2: of that possibility once again.
Speaker 1: In a matter of days, the Americans lost three of
Speaker 1: their aircraft. Two of them were caught in crossfire and
Speaker 1: had to be grounded. The other simply ran out of
Speaker 1: fuel and crashed near the Mexican border. The Guatemalan government
Speaker 1: practically had no functioning military aircraft. If the US wanted
Speaker 1: to maintain plausible deniability and continue to push the narrative
Speaker 1: of a domestic uprising, the CIA could not afford to
Speaker 1: leave wrecks of American planes in the country. Meanwhile, on
Speaker 1: the ground, Castillou Attamas and his few hundred mercenaries were
Speaker 1: also failing spectacularly. The Guatemalan armies somehow managed to fend
Speaker 1: off their attacks on the cities of Puerto Barrios and Zacappa.
Speaker 1: Faced with the prospect of a farcical failure, the CIA
Speaker 1: begged the State Department for more airplanes, a flea that
Speaker 1: was rejected so as not to expose American involvement in
Speaker 1: the country. With confidence in Castillo Atamas waning, the CIA
Speaker 1: felt it was time to take measures into their own hands,
Speaker 1: and decided to use the oldest play in the book,
Speaker 1: a false flag operation. A false flag operation is an
Speaker 1: act committed with the intent of blaming another party. To oversimplify,
Speaker 1: the idea is to attack your own people or territory
Speaker 1: and then blame the enemy to have an excuse to retaliate.
Speaker 1: Notable examples include reportedly Julius Caesar staging an attack to
Speaker 1: justify his invasion of Gaul, the Germans killing prisoners dressed
Speaker 1: as Nazis, then blaming Polish soldiers to invade Poland in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, the Soviet Union shelling the village of
Speaker 1: Manila on the border with Finland as an excuse to
Speaker 1: invade Finland also in nineteen thirty nine, and a great
Speaker 1: number of other confirmed or suspected operations throughout history, some
Speaker 1: more controversial than others. This time around, an American pilot
Speaker 1: was hastily instructed to use one of the few remaining
Speaker 1: plans to bomb the Honduran border. Honduras would then claim
Speaker 1: Attoban's had attacked the country despite Guatemala's almost complete lack
Speaker 1: of aircraft, forcing the United States to intervene in defense
Speaker 1: of Honduras. A simple plan if not for the fact
Speaker 1: that Honduran authorities after the bombing had taken place on
Speaker 1: a deserted airstrip near the border, gave contradictory reports about
Speaker 1: the location of the attack. This made the international press
Speaker 1: suspicious and unwilling to run the story, in an act
Speaker 1: of rare restraint for the time. That same day, another
Speaker 1: American pilot tasked with bombing the government's radio station in
Speaker 1: Guatemala City mistakenly bombed the headquarters of an American evangelical mission,
Speaker 1: which was fortunately vacant. At the time of the strike.
Speaker 1: It had become increasingly evident that the entire operation had
Speaker 1: turned into a comedy of errors. Stephen Kinzer, the coupe
Speaker 1: didn't go well.
Speaker 6: Several of the planes that the CIA was using were lost.
Speaker 6: At one point, it almost seemed like the who had failed.
Speaker 6: But two things happened I think that made it succeed.
Speaker 6: First of all, when new planes were needed, Alan Dulles
Speaker 6: went directly to Eisenhower, and Eisenhower approved the dispatch of
Speaker 6: new planes. He later said famously that whenever you decide
Speaker 6: to take the path of violence, of the support of violence,
Speaker 6: it is too late to turn back. You have to
Speaker 6: put in all your resources to guarantee that you succeed.
Speaker 5: So that was important. The other thing that happened had
Speaker 5: to do with our bends. He lost his nerve. He
Speaker 5: didn't handle the crisis well. I later met with Joree Torrieo,
Speaker 5: who was his foreign minister. Torrieo said to me, the
Speaker 5: cabinet should have been in permanent session that whole two weeks. Instead,
Speaker 5: the cabinet never met even once. So our bends did
Speaker 5: not respond well, and I think that turned a CIA
Speaker 5: operation that might have failed into a success.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for Arbenz, who was starting to feel rather hopeful
Speaker 1: about things, the United States had infinite resources. For any
Speaker 1: botched operation, two more would be set up, like some
Speaker 1: kind of clumsy, inefficient hydra. Even the most dismal percentage
Speaker 1: of success would have still resulted in the US ultimately
Speaker 1: winning and overthrowing the Guatemalan government Huckabo. Arbenz never ceased
Speaker 1: to negotiate pleading with the US for a peaceful resolution.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for him, it was never in the cards. CIA
Speaker 1: director Alan Dulles was also pleading with Dwight Eisenhower, but
Speaker 1: for more airplanes. As described in Bitter Fruit by Stephen
Speaker 1: Kinser and Stephen Slessinger, as well as in Secret History
Speaker 1: by Nick Cullither, the President asked Dulles what chances they
Speaker 1: had of succeeding he had not provided the CIA with
Speaker 1: additional aircraft. About zero, Dellas replied, and suppose we supply
Speaker 1: the aircraft? Asked the President about twenty percent, said Dulls,
Speaker 1: If you said ninety percent, I would have said no.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower concluded, and that might have been the exact moment
Speaker 1: the fate of Guatemala was decided. In a last ditch effort,
Speaker 1: Attobenz's government requested that the United Nations investigate the events
Speaker 1: taking place in Guatemala. The Security Council called for the
Speaker 1: immediate termination of any action likely to cause bloodshed and
Speaker 1: requested all members abstain from rendering assistance to any such action. However,
Speaker 1: nothing was done to further investigate the events or to
Speaker 1: ensure the resolution would be respected. In fact, at the
Speaker 1: time of the coup in June of nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: the UN Security Council, whose presidency is held by a
Speaker 1: different member state every month, was headed by the United States.
Speaker 1: Almost certainly, the timing of the coup was no coincidence.
Speaker 1: Emboldened by a lack of international scrutiny, the CIA put
Speaker 1: their new aircraft to work shelling Guatemala's countryside and hitting
Speaker 1: military facilities to support Castillo Atomas's ground efforts forget a
Speaker 1: bloodless coup. The operation had just devolved into a precise,
Speaker 1: nevertheless violent internal conflict. The capital was next. In Guatemala's city,
Speaker 1: the sound of actual air strikes blended in with the
Speaker 1: fake ones blasted by the speakers outside the American embassy,
Speaker 1: a dystopian scene of chaos and psychological warfare. The police
Speaker 1: for Diploma Mussy quickly turned to please for mercy. Arbenz's
Speaker 1: government frantically and repeatedly wired US officials asking for an
Speaker 1: immediate ceasefire, but to no avail. On the contrary, the
Speaker 1: CIA could smell blood in the water and intensified their attacks.
Speaker 1: The Voice of Liberation, the rogue radio station they had created,
Speaker 1: continued to spread rumors of an army in the thousands
Speaker 1: marching through the countryside. Reporters could not verify such rumors,
Speaker 1: so they turned to what had always been their best
Speaker 1: source of information, the United Fruit Company Lafrutera, advised by
Speaker 1: its PR firm in New York City, started circulating pictures
Speaker 1: of alleged rebels who had joined Custeu Onomas's ranks. In reality,
Speaker 1: they were just peasants who had been asked to pose
Speaker 1: with unloaded rifles. They also circulated pictures of mass graves
Speaker 1: alleged proof of Adben's atrocities. The pictures were of dubious origins,
Speaker 1: it wasn't clear where or when they had been taken.
Speaker 1: Radio communications were constantly being jammed or used to spread
Speaker 1: fake rumors. The mercenaries, the few hundred that actually existed,
Speaker 1: started killing farm animals and leaving them on the streets
Speaker 1: to simulate a trail of Mayhem. While mostly overlooked and
Speaker 1: quickly forgotten by the Western world, the Guatemalan coup had
Speaker 1: a profound impact on the people of South and Central America,
Speaker 1: informing the way they viewed the United States and capitalism
Speaker 1: in general. Rachel Nolan, the.
Speaker 2: Anti Gringo sentiment or the anti Yankee sentiment is quite strong,
Speaker 2: and people reference nineteen fifty four. It's not a forgotten memory.
Speaker 2: It's not a submerged history. People talk about Yankee imperialism.
Speaker 2: People are well aware that the abuses and crimes and
Speaker 2: violence of the Civil War was detonated by the nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty four coup. So that's not forgotten or buried history
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 1: One notable example is Ernesto chay Gvada, an Argentinian expat
Speaker 1: whose fame in hindsight makes almost every other character involved
Speaker 1: in this story look like an extra. The impact of
Speaker 1: the Guatemalan coup on schae Gvada's political views, though his
Speaker 1: direct involvement in the story is marginal, changed the course
Speaker 1: of history. It just so happened that Ernesto had moved
Speaker 1: to Guatemala earlier that same year, in January of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, drawn by Ottobanz's promise of social reforms. As
Speaker 1: the coup unfolded in front of his eyes, it would
Speaker 1: be an understatement to say he was saddened and disillusioned,
Speaker 1: seeing that to the United States, the greed of a
Speaker 1: company came before democracy, the well being of millions of people,
Speaker 1: and the future of an entire nation. In correspondence with
Speaker 1: his family, Chey explicitly cited the United Fruit Company and
Speaker 1: capitalism as negative forces disadvantageous to citizens. When the coup started,
Speaker 1: he joined an armed militia affiliated with the Communist Youth.
Speaker 1: He served as a fighter and volunteered as a medic.
Speaker 1: Even after Arbenz's resignation. He continued to fight with rebel
Speaker 1: forces before ultimately taking refuge at the Argentinian embassy and
Speaker 1: fleeing to Mexico, where he would meet Fidel Castro. The rest,
Speaker 1: as they say, is history.
Speaker 2: Rachel Nolan again, I think that the CIA really didn't
Speaker 2: consider what they would now call blowback. A person who
Speaker 2: was sitting in Guatemala City watching this all unfold in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty four was Ernesto Gaevada, later known as Chagavada,
Speaker 2: and he was radicalized by what he saw. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons many historians think that the Cuban Revolution
Speaker 2: took such a hard left turn right at the beginning
Speaker 2: was that they were very reasonably the leadership of the
Speaker 2: Cuban Revolution was very reasonably concerned that the US would
Speaker 2: do in nineteen fifty four, Guatemala, in Havana.
Speaker 3: In nineteen fifty nine, right now, they tried. The Bay
Speaker 3: of Pinks was a failure.
Speaker 2: But chey Evada couldn't have been radicalized by sitting in
Speaker 2: Guatemala City if the CIA had been successful in keeping
Speaker 2: their actions a secret. They were sloppy. It was very
Speaker 2: openly a CIA action. Therefore, a whole generation was radicalized.
Speaker 1: Some say that the CIA's effective use of the Voice
Speaker 1: of Liberation as a propaganda tool inspired Chay to create
Speaker 1: Radio Rabelde years later in Cuba. His first wife claimed
Speaker 1: it was his experience in Guatemala that convinced him of
Speaker 1: the importance of taking arms against imperialism as the only
Speaker 1: effective way to drive change. In addition to that, reportedly,
Speaker 1: by seeing how quickly some of Arbenz's men turned against him,
Speaker 1: Chae Gavada became convinced that an army must be cleansed
Speaker 1: to safeguard the revolution. Doubtedly, though it is not clear
Speaker 1: to what extent, his time in Guatemala made Ernesto Gavada
Speaker 1: all the more convinced that a communist revolution was the
Speaker 1: only way to eradicate imperialist capitalism. It also hardened his
Speaker 1: conviction that change could not be achieved without the use
Speaker 1: of violence. C Chae Gvada's radicalization further highlights how short
Speaker 1: sighted the CIA and uf CO sponsored coup really was.
Speaker 1: It is June twenty seventh, nineteen fifty four. It's been
Speaker 1: a little over a week since the beginning of hostilities
Speaker 1: in Guatemala. At this stage, Castillo Attamas and his men
Speaker 1: are nearly unstoppable, hardly thanks to their tactical savvy, but
Speaker 1: rather because of the gargantuan operation built around them. The
Speaker 1: American press is running stories about Arbenz's government being a
Speaker 1: communist threat that needs to be eradicated. The pr campaign
Speaker 1: by the United Fruit Company leading up to the coup
Speaker 1: has been extremely effective. No Western outlet is reporting on
Speaker 1: the anti American protests that erupted all over South America.
Speaker 1: No one is questioning how in the world a small
Speaker 1: group of a few hundred illiterate peasants turned mercenaries has
Speaker 1: been able to launch a full scale invasion of a
Speaker 1: sovereign nation. No One is batting an eye at their
Speaker 1: dominance of the air, with modern fighter bombers operating from
Speaker 1: multiple neighboring countries on a daily basis. No one is
Speaker 1: investigating the highly sophisticated and widespread broadcast system run by
Speaker 1: those same illiterate peasants. Like any good story, the coup
Speaker 1: benefits from a rather generous dose of suspension of disbelief.
Speaker 1: It's been two days since Arbanz received a disheartening ultimatum.
Speaker 1: This one did not come from the CIA dropping leaflets
Speaker 1: over the National Palace it came directly from his own army.
Speaker 1: Resign or will be forced to strike a deal with
Speaker 1: the enemy. With no one to turn to but the
Speaker 1: people who elected him, Arbanz desperately calls upon the civilian
Speaker 1: population to take arms and fight the invaders themselves, but
Speaker 1: to no avail. People's hope has been lost, smothered by
Speaker 1: the terrifying psychological warfare, the fake reports of military convoys
Speaker 1: headed toward the capital, and the very real ones of
Speaker 1: a civilian Guatemalan ship sunk by air forces in the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: It's all over. Visibly shaken, sleep deprived and Reeking of
Speaker 1: booze Jakabu, Arbenz is finally ready to see step down.
Speaker 1: He calls a foreign minister and asks him to negotiate
Speaker 1: the terms of his resignation. He then tries to announce
Speaker 1: his decision with a speech via radio, but the transmission
Speaker 1: is partially jammed. It will be over a month before
Speaker 1: the CIA allows the speech to be broadcast. Shortly after,
Speaker 1: with no guard to escort him, Jacobo Arban's walks out
Speaker 1: of the National Palace late into the night. A soldier
Speaker 1: spots him and asks him where he's going. He replies
Speaker 1: supposedly meaning I'm going to the front. The young man
Speaker 1: is baffled. The president has clearly lost his mind and
Speaker 1: decided to join the resistance himself. You can't do that,
Speaker 1: he cries, You can't go to the front. Abendz repeats firmly,
Speaker 1: Only this time he points to the street in front
Speaker 1: of him. What he really meant to say was I'm
Speaker 1: going across a colloquial expression. The guard takes a step
Speaker 1: back and watches on as his president crosses the street
Speaker 1: and walks right into the Mexican Embassy, And with that,
Speaker 1: the dream of a functioning democracy in Guatemala ends next
Speaker 1: time on the last Fruit Detas. Fruitetai is a production
Speaker 1: of fourth act studios written and produced by Stefano Dotzac,
Speaker 1: narrated by me Todd Bierstrom, Sound design and original music
Speaker 1: by Reno Marco Solferini, Script editor Nicholas Charleson, original artwork
Speaker 1: by Luca Polini, featuring excerpts of interviews with Stephen Kinser,
Speaker 1: Tommy Sue Montgomery, Rachel Nolan, Richard Nuccio, and Joseph Whipple,
Speaker 1: who we sincerely wish to thank for their time, expertise
Speaker 1: and kindness. Fruititai is based on a number of sources. However,
Speaker 1: we want to mention Bitter Fruit, The Story of the
Speaker 1: American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen Kinzer and Stephen Slessinger
Speaker 1: as the most instrumental book for the making of this podcast.
Speaker 1: A special thank to Boston University and its staff for
Speaker 1: facilitating contact with faculty and allowing recording on campus. You
Speaker 1: can support Fourth ACKed Studios by rating and reviewing fru Deta.
Speaker 1: It'll help more people find it, and it'll help us
Speaker 1: make a new season about a different story we believe
Speaker 1: deserve to be told.