Great Britain’;s Latin American Dilemma: The Foreign Office and the Overthrow of ‘Communist’; Guatemala, June 1954

The International History Review

Volumn 8, Issue 4, 1986, Pages 573-592

  Young, John W ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84963463712     PISSN: 07075332     EISSN: 19496540     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1986.9640425     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. The best and most recent accounts are Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The US in Central America (New York, 1984), pp. 111-26, and Richard Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala (Austin, Texas, 1982)
2. Following elections in January 1954 the Guatemalan Congress included 6 Communists, 45 leftists 2 independents, and 5 rightists
3. F[oreign] R[elations of the] U[nited] S[tates] 1952–4, VoL IV (Washington, 1983), 2-10 and 81–6. These aims were included in policy documents of March 1953 and September 1954
4. Dept. of State, Bulletin, 14 Sept. 1953
5. FRUS, IV, 1041–3, 1046–8, and 1074–86
6. FRUS, 1953-4, IV, 1041–3, 1046–8, and 1074–86
7. Dept, of State Bulletin 25 April 1954 ; FRUS, I952 m 4 IV 270–1, 279–92, 300–1 and 304–6; Eisenhower, pp., 423–4
8. FRUS, 1952–4, IV, 1107–10, 1149–54, 1156–63, and 1170–2; but see 1139–49 for a strong attack on the state department line from Louis J. Halle of the policy planning staff. [Public Record Office], FO 371/108926/1 (1 Feb.)
9. The Americans claimed that the cargo included five aircraft, but even the state department admitted the supplies were probably all for Guatemala’;s own army. FO 371/108733/2 (27 May); FO 371/108962/8, 10, 11, 19, and 45 (17–22 May); FRUS 1959–4, IV, 1111–1
10. FO 371/108962/23 (25 May); FRUS, 1959–4, IV, 1137-9
11. FO 371/108733/4 (29 May) for a request from the office for full information from its representatives on the situation in Central America
12. FO 371/108962/23, 29 and 48 (29 May and 3 June) ; see also 27 (28–30 May); Anthony Eden Full Circle (London, 1960) p. 134
13. Makins was felt by the office to have treated these interviews rather lightly. FO 371/108962/34 (2–4 June); FO 371/108963/40 (5 June) and 49 (2 June) Eden, pp. 134–5
14. FO 371/108936/12 (2 June); FO 371/108939/3 (2 June); Eisenhower, p. 424
15. FO 371/108926112 (8 June) and 13 (15 June). Peurifoy had of course predicted that US pressure on Arbenz might — in the short term — lead to a tightening of his authority
16. FO 371/108936/19 (si June), 24 (aa June), and 3a (33 June); 539 HC Deb. 5 s., cols. 33-5; FRUS, 1953-4, IV, 1174-6
17. A military junta was first established on 27 June, under the army chief, Colonel Diaz, but he was replaced on 29 June at Peurifoy’;s behest-by the strongly antiCommunist Elfego Monzan. Talks were then held with Armas in neutral El Salvador, with the papal nuncio as mediator. FO 371/108926/46 and 48 (28 June); FO 371/108929/83 (28 June); FO 371/108939/193 (26 July). The evidence of FRUS, 1952–4, IV, 1168–9, and Eisenhower, p. 425–6 suggests differences between the CIA and state department over US involvement with Armas
18. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Public Papers of the President, 1954 (Washington, 1960), pp. 604-5; The Diary of James C. Hagerty, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (Indiana, 1983), 28 June; and see also Eisenhower, Mandate, p. 426, which portrays Armas as a ‘farseeing and able statesman’
19. FO 371/108930/134 (8 July); FO 371/108939/309 (i Sept.); FRUS, 1953-4, IV, 1333-6
20. The Shell installation in Guatemala was also hit. FO 371/108926/40 (23 June) and 45 (27 June); Leonard Mosley, Dulles (London, 1978), pp. 347-8 and 459
21. FO 371/108742/3-6 (20 June) and 24–30 (20 June); FO 371/108743/35 (20 June). For a discussion of the legal points see FO 371/112376/1 (29 June-i July); CMND. 9277 (Oct. 1954), pp. 13–52. The Russians really failed to exploit the 20 June meeting: they did not try to have Honduras and Nicaragua condemned as ‘aggressors’
22. FO 371/108749/9 (aa June), 10 (34 June), 19 (33-4 June), 14 (34 June), 15 (aa June), 17 (34 June), and 19 (34 June). Honduras and Nicaragua agreed to accept the IAPC team but Guatemala initially refused: FO 371/108743/88 (34 June); FO 371/108743/36 (a6 June); FRUS, 1958-4, IV, 1178-80
23. FO 371/108749/80 (34 June), and 33 (94 June); FO 371/108743/41 (34 and 39 June); FRUS, 1953-4, IV, 1184-5
24. Those voting against were USA, Brazil, Colombia, Turkey, and Taiwan; those for were USSR, New Zealand, Denmark, and Lebanon. FO 371/108743/33 (35 June) and 34 (26 June); FO 371/108743/43, 48-55. and 60-1; CMND 9277 pp. CMND. 9377, pp. 52-91. Dixon later dissuaded Hammarskjold from circulating a memorandum criticizing the US position: FO 371/108744/74 (30 June)
25. Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival (London, 1966), 38 June
26. Manchester Guardian, 15 Oct., The Scotsman, 22 Oct.; FO 371/108935/243 and 245
27. FO 371/108929/79 (6-7 July); and (for the text of the broadcast) State Dept., American Foreign Policy, 1950-5, Basic Documents (Washington, 1957), pp. 1311-15
28. Elmo Richardson, The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Kansas, 1979), pp. 75-6; Immerman
29. Wilfred Knapp, A History of War and Peace, 1939-65 (London, 1967), pp. 577-8
30. FRUS, 1953-4, IV, 378-9
31. Eden, p. 138