Jacobo Árbenz person
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Guatemalacountry · 56CIAintelligence service · 34United Fruit Companyorganization · 231954 Guatemalan coup d'étatevent · 13Dwight D. Eisenhowerperson · 11United Statescountry · 9Operation PBSUCCESSoperation · 8Cubacountry · 8Carlos Castillo Armasperson · 8Allen Dullesperson · 6Irancountry · 5Frank Wisnerperson · 5Soviet Unioncountry · 5Hondurascountry · 5Fidel Castroperson · 4E. Howard Huntperson · 4Mohammad Mosaddeghperson · 4Che Guevaraperson · 4Nicaraguacountry · 4U.S. State Departmentorganization · 3Czechoslovakiacountry · 3Thomas Massieperson · 3Mexicocountry · 3Francecountry · 3
Claims (40)
Jacobo Árbenz member_of
Guatemala documented
“The recently deposed president of Guatemala was escorted into the Guatemala City airport with his small entourage, including his wife and two children. Arbenz was beloved among his poor country's peasants and workers for their land and labo…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 14:49
CIA overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“and have paid taxes on for years of the entire swath of land, which was a million dollars. And United Fruit just picked up their old lawyer's phone, Alan Dulles and John Foster Dulles, and said, hey, get your boys down here, which is exactl…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Medusa File by Craig Roberts Part 10 @ 32:18
CIA targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“in desperate hopes that someone would understand and end the violence. Nothing helped. Dwight Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, and Alan Dulles had decided that the legally elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, A-R-B-E-N-Z, was communist. Ther…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 6:34
Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“However, soon after the Eisenhower administration came in in 1953, the plan was resurrected. Both administrations were pressured by executives at United Fruit, much of whose vast and uncultivated land the Guatemalan had expropriated by the …”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 22:20
Jacobo Árbenz overthrew
Jorge Ubico book_quoted
“Now, I'm talking annual, guys, $87. Before the Revolution of 1944, which overthrew a guy by the name of Ubeko, dictatorship, farm laborers had been roped together by the army and delivered to farms where they were basically used as indentur…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 16:56
Anti-Communist Popular Front targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“Lorenz came to prominence in 1954 as an organizer of the First American Congress, which was aimed at being anti-Soviet intervention in Latin America. It was held in May 1954 in Mexico City. Its main objective was to denounce the regime of J…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Transnational AntiCommunism&Cold War Part 7 @ 31:16
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“You know, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. And I'll just read this kind of the paragraph summation. It says, he discusses the 54 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Guatemalan President Jacob Arbenz. Perkins presents this event as…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Transnational AntiCommunism&Cold War Part 7 @ 1:11:50
Jacobo Árbenz targeted_for_regime_change
United Fruit Company book_quoted
“which felt threatened by our Ben's land reform policies. So, you know, and obviously I'm not going to go into what Perkins did, but, you know, that's another fantastic book. If you guys don't know about Economic Hitman, you need to read tha…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Transnational AntiCommunism&Cold War Part 7 @ 1:12:19
Albert Haney ordered_assassination_of
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“connotations was the creation of a list of Guatemalans for disposal by the new regime, evidently requested by Al Haney. Now, why is that important? This is a list of people to assassinate. You know, like the list the Democrats are currently…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 10 @ 22:16
Jacobo Árbenz removed_from_power
Guatemala documented
“Arbenz received an ultimatum and resigned before the day was out, taking refuge at the Mexican embassy and asking for political asylum. PB's success had achieved its goal. Despite the success of this unintended strike, that incident had a m…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 10 @ 54:10
CIA overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“Arbenz received an ultimatum and resigned before the day was out, taking refuge at the Mexican embassy and asking for political asylum. PB's success had achieved its goal. Despite the success of this unintended strike, that incident had a m…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 10 @ 54:10
Thomas Massie framed
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“manpower nor the industrial base to do this. In Guatemala, it says that he attended the inauguration of Arbenz Guzman, who they absolutely hated. And while he was there at his inauguration, the democratically elected president of Guatemala,…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Hidden Terrors by AJ Langguth Part 5 @ 1:05:36
Jacobo Árbenz headed
Guatemala host_asserted
“He was offered to be in charge of what's going to happen in Guatemala basically right after that. But he declined going down there. It says the government there was, of course, another democratically elected government that was elected in 1…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 26:44
Operation Fortune targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“In at least one respect, the CIA was carrying on with United Fruit's program. That is, they had already been one CIA paramilitary effort aimed at Guatemala, and that one involved United Fruit. Under a code named Fortune, in the last several…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 38:58
CIA targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“In a mix of military and psychological strategies, a rebel liberation army would be formed and trained in neighboring Nicaragua. There would be covert air support. The rebels would invade Guatemala and intervention by the U.S. Armed Forces …”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 41:55
Carlos Castillo Armas attempted_coup_against
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“The CIA went first to the candidate who was defeated by Arbenz in the 1950 election, Miguel Fuentes. He had already been approached by United Fruit, but was not interested because the United Fruit was already very busy down there. Then Amer…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 47:20
Jacobo Árbenz trafficked
Czechoslovakia documented
“We're never going to find out that we couped the government in Guatemala. So he writes it down in his book that they were terrorists. Just absolutely crazy. All for trying to defend their democracy. One action by the Arbenz government did t…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 50:56
Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“The next day, Eisenhower told a party of congressional leaders that he was ordering the Navy to actually stop any suspicious ship, which, by the way, is illegal. Altham herself was intercepted on the return voyage and escorted to Key West f…”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 54:09
Allen Dulles covered_up
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“that the U.S. had to do something, you know, because it was a communist after all. Alan Dulles is even more forthright in his book called The Craft of Intelligence. This is a quote. In Iran, Amosadeh and in Guatemala and Arbenz had come to …”
▶ The Colonels Corner President’s Secret Wars chapter 6 @ 1:04:35
E. Howard Hunt carried_out_attack
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“as the vehicle actually transporting the Arbenz family was blown up. That was meant for Arbenz. Howard Hunt, one of the principal CIA orchestrators of the Guatemalan coup, later acknowledged that he had helped organize the hostile send-off …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 15:47
CIA covered_up
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“powerful interest, unquote. For the rest of the exiled Guatemalan leader's life, the CIA was determined to strip away whatever thread of respectability still clung to him. The agency's disinformation campaign began immediately after his dow…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 18:53
U.S. State Department targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“They knew about the dynamics of his marriage, as well as the gruesome details of his father's suicide, and that he had once sought treatment for drinking. When their discoveries weren't sensational enough, they embroidered them and sent the…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 19:47
CIA spied_on
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“who by then had taken over as the agency's chief of station in Uruguay. The same guy who overthrew the government they send to Uruguay when they find out Arbenz is going. He continued to track him. A neighbor of the Arbenz family told them …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 22:47
Jacobo Árbenz member_of
Arbenz Family host_asserted
“primarily United Fruit. This is like the labor camps in Germany. The Arbenzes were the Kennedys of Guatemala. Young, rich, good-looking, and dedicated to improving the lives of the people. Arbenz was the son of a Swiss immigrant father and …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 31:50
Jacobo Árbenz overthrew
Jorge Ubico documented
“He said with great sincerity, I would like to be a reformer. They married. Jacobo and Maria Arbenz proved to be a dynamic match. She encouraged his bold entrance into politics in 1944 when he helped lead the plot to overthrow the dictator, …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 33:21
Jacobo Árbenz appointed
Maria Mena host_asserted
“with CIA prompting, as a communist-leaning sorcerer, sorceress. But Arbenz ignored the political chatter and allowed his well-informed wife to attend cabinet meetings. The land reform bill that the new president hammered out and then ushere…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 34:52
United States targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“The couple's Tudor-style home on Long Island was adorned with native fabrics and rugs from the banana colony. United Fruit's cries of alarm about the Arbenz land reform soon produced the same results as the Anglo-Iranian oil conflict did in…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 39:05
John Peurifoy paid
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“tried to bribe Arbenz to fall in line, offering him $2 million in 1954 to stop his land reforms. When that tried and true tactic of winning over or buying Latin dictators did not succeed, Arbenz was physically threatened. And when that too …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 40:13
CIA covered_up
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“in Mexico City hotel bathroom. On June 27, 1954, as he prepared to flee the presidential palace, he made a final radio broadcast denouncing the fire and death that had been rained upon Guatemala by United Fruit and its allies in U.S. ruling…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 42:08
CIA overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“and went up against United Fruit and the CIA. Shea would let her write, I am not Christ or a philanthropist. He wrote that in a letter to his mother when basically she was asking what the heck he was doing. I fight for the things I believe …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 15 @ 58:14
United Fruit Company targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“a sampling of news articles, and this is really just random, and people can verify it for themselves by going to newspapers.com, of the news reporting in 1953 and 54 in Guatemala. Everybody knows today that Arbenz was a liberal. He wasn't a…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Drugs, Oil and War Part 9 b @ 1:35:12
Harry S. Truman ordered_assassination_of
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“on its head and said he was a communist who just was using the nationalist sentiment in his country to take advantage of it. The first plan to topple Arbenz was a CIA operation approved by Truman in 1952, but at the 11th hour, the Secretary…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 21:50
CIA targeted_for_regime_change
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“Murchison Jr. for land. The times and place are intriguing. It was in 1952 that the CIA and United Fruit began to discuss seriously overthrowing Arbenz government in Guatemala. This included a visit and speech in Houston about Guatemala by …”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Mafia, CIA, & George Bush Part 8 @ 45:22
United States overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz guest_asserted
“First off, to sort of back you up, I mean, the cool thing is that these days, you know, in a lot of schools, they teach about the whole story in Guatemala and how we did overthrow Jacobo Benz, our Benz. We covered this. I covered it 20 year…”
▶ Operation Gladio - Guatemala 1953-1954&1962-1980’s @ 1:48:33
United States overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“a sampling of news articles, and this is really just random, and people can verify it for themselves by going to newspapers.com, of the news reporting in 1953 and 54 in Guatemala. Everybody knows today that Arbenz was a liberal. He wasn't a…”
▶ The Colonel’s Corner Drugs, Oil and War Part 9 b @ 1:35:12
Allen Dulles overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz documented
“including the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan and the Cold War strategy of quote-unquote containment. The CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Guatemala's Democratic government was put in motion by Dulles after a CFR study group ur…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 24 @ 42:03
Carlos Castillo Armas overthrew
Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted
“When the coup in Guatemala succeeded in June of 1954, you know, like the next month. However, the CIA began looking cross-eyed at Prito Lorenz. And without funds from the U.S. government, he looked to Brazil to form a close relationship wit…”
▶ Operation Gladio-Revolutionaries for the Right Part 4 @ 18:48
United Fruit Company funded
Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted
“Simply put, he had tried to uplift his people. In doing so, he defied the gods of his country, the almighty United Fruit Company and its powerful friends in Washington, as well as the Guatemalan land barons who had gotten rich by getting in…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 28:58
Jacobo Árbenz overthrew
Jorge Ubico host_asserted
“So they could operate their operations and never fully committed to doing all of it. They also owned the only major Atlantic port and the entire telephone system. Think ITT. In the capital, rulers came and went at the whim of the company. O…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 30:45
Carlos Castillo Armas assassinated
Jacobo Árbenz speculative
“or if any, of the 58 prominent Guatemalans were eventually assassinated. We know Arbenz's name's on it, so it's not actually too far to stretch to think that his name never came off that list. But what is known is that by training and encou…”
▶ The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12 @ 50:15
Mentions (119)
▶ 6:34
in desperate hopes that someone would understand and end the violence. Nothing helped. Dwight Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, and Alan Dulles had decided that the legally elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, A-R-B-E-N-Z, was communist. Ther…
▶ 14:12
or international syndicate as I refer to them. So like the Soviets, Arbenz, who is the reformer, had reason to wonder about the American charges. This Guatemalan president took office in 1951 after being elected by a wide margin and had no …
▶ 14:40
and the American press explicitly began labeling Arbenz almost immediately as a communist. Even though they knew better, they had, and we're going to see, they have State Department cables that illustrate they're doing this on purpose. Guat…
▶ 15:09
The State Department group occupied with planning Arbin's overthrow concluded that propaganda concerning Guatemala's U.N. record would, quote, would not be particularly helpful in our case, unquote, because they voted lock, stock, and barre…
▶ 15:33
The State Department analysis paper reported that the Guatemalan president had support not only from labor and quote-unquote friend professional and intellectual groups, but also among many anti-communist nationalists in their urban areas. …
▶ 16:29
The centerpiece of Arbenz's program was land reform, which of course is what pissed off United Fruit. All too familiar, under developed country statistics and a nation overwhelmingly rule, 2.2% of the landowners owned 70% of the farmable la…
▶ 17:52
and social reforms, you know, all the things that the left says that they're all in favor of. Arbenz had won the support of everyone in his country, almost. When Arbenz was criticized for accepting support, he challenged his critics to prov…
▶ 18:57
Let me see where the number is. 51 seats, sorry. 51 seats, they held four. So you can see there's no communist invasion going on, even by their own definition. Lacking anything of substance that they could accuse the Guatemalan of, Washingt…
▶ 20:52
In this manner, they have been successful in infiltrating the administration, talking about Guatemala, and pro-administration political parties and have gained control of organized labor. Arbenz is essentially an opportunist whose politics …
▶ 21:19
of communist influence has been facilitated by the applicable Marx cliches to the anti-colonial and social aims of the Guatemala revolution. So they inverted Arbenz completely. Arbenz was a nationalist. He hadn't a single cell in his body t…
▶ 21:50
on its head and said he was a communist who just was using the nationalist sentiment in his country to take advantage of it. The first plan to topple Arbenz was a CIA operation approved by Truman in 1952, but at the 11th hour, the Secretary…
▶ 22:20
However, soon after the Eisenhower administration came in in 1953, the plan was resurrected. Both administrations were pressured by executives at United Fruit, much of whose vast and uncultivated land the Guatemalan had expropriated by the …
▶ 25:38
She was Eisenhower's personal secretary. Under Secretary of State and former director of the CIA, Walter Bedell Smith was seeking an executive position with United Front. At the same time, he planned the coup. He was later named to the comp…
▶ 26:10
and a highway to compete with United Fruits Holding. He also built a hydroelectric plant to give them cheaper energy because there was a U.S. company controlling their electricity as well. Arben's strategy was not to do what other ones did,…
▶ 26:35
Arbenz was actually competing with these U.S. monopolies that had taken up business in Guatemala. He did exactly what you would have wanted him to do and try to compete fairly. And for that, he is cued by the CIA for daring to compete with …
▶ 27:06
Foreign capital will always be welcome as long as it adjusts to local conditions, remains always subordinate to Guatemalan law, cooperates with the economic development of this country, and strictly abstains from interfering in the social a…
▶ 27:38
undermine Arbenz every reform. They tried to discredit him and eventually they go to the CIA to depose him. Arbenz was very leery of the multinationals and could not be said to welcome them with open arms only because of what he had seen th…
▶ 29:24
United Fruits board members over the years. That's the syndicate. And the CIA operated as its paramilitary capability. So Eisenhower administration resolved to do the job right the next time that they tried to coup him. It had been almost a…
▶ 34:15
Guatemala military came in for special attention. The U.S. signed mutual security treaties with Honduras and Nicaragua, both countries hostile to Arbenz because, of course, he was making them look bad because they had already sold their cou…
▶ 35:41
All this while Ambassador Purifloy and a group of high-ranking officers called upon Arbenz to ask that he dismiss all communists from posts of the administration. The president assured them that the communists did not represent a danger, th…
▶ 36:10
labor representatives and low labor relation facets of his government. At a second meeting, the officers also demanded that Arbenz reject the creation of a people's militia, which he wasn't even the one that was trying to create that. At on…
▶ 36:42
He refused. On the economic front, contingency plans were made to cut Guatemala off from everything. No credit, no oil supply, no food. And all of that would then, in their hopes, cause a run on any foreign reserves that Guatemala had in ot…
▶ 39:01
A letter was written to Guatemalan Catholic churches calling to attention of every congregation the presence of the devil called communism and demanding people rise up against the single man responsible for bringing communism, i.e. the devi…
▶ 42:49
Guatemala Confederation opens its Congress, period, inferring there's communists in the Guatemala Congress. And then, of course, the CIA continued making its arrangements. The offensive began in earnest on 18 June with planes dropping leafl…
▶ 53:30
an ultimatum from certain Army officers, resign or they would come to the agreement with the invaders. The CIA and Ambassador Parafoy had been offering payments to officers to defect. The Army commander reportedly accepted $60,000 to surren…
▶ 46:53
for Nixon to be installed in the front office. This has zero to do with communism, and it has zero to do with the Chileans, obviously. Their warnings had no effect on the coup plotters in Washington. One of them, David Attlee Phillips, whos…
▶ 16:16
what this author calls right wing groups at a Mexican, at many Mexican universities. Frito Lorenz believed that his country elected leaders that were blind to the spread of international communism in the Americas. In other words, he's just …
▶ 18:20
So at the insistence of CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, there was money that underwrote the first conference that was going to be held in Mexico City in 1954 by Prito Lorenz. And it gave him a platform to begin denouncing Arbenz, basically, as …
▶ 23:24
Chanel's partner, Whiting Willauer, W-I-L-L-A-U-E-R, went from civil air transport to be the U.S. ambassador in Honduras, which, of course, is right next door and where they launched all the operations for Guatemala from, where he helped Un…
▶ 51:39
where his former partner, Whiting Willauer, now U.S. ambassador to Honduras, was playing a key role in the CIA-organized disposition of the Guatemalan president, Arbenz, in other words, overthrowing that government. Willauer and Polly were …
▶ 1:35:12
a sampling of news articles, and this is really just random, and people can verify it for themselves by going to newspapers.com, of the news reporting in 1953 and 54 in Guatemala. Everybody knows today that Arbenz was a liberal. He wasn't a…
▶ 1:35:36
But if you read the newspaper in 1953 or 54, the real problem is the syndicated. I mean, most of these things were syndicated articles from the AP scripts. You got a very different picture of what was going on. And the interesting thing was…
▶ 1:05:36
manpower nor the industrial base to do this. In Guatemala, it says that he attended the inauguration of Arbenz Guzman, who they absolutely hated. And while he was there at his inauguration, the democratically elected president of Guatemala,…
▶ 1:06:05
He had no supporting documentation, no evidence whatsoever, but Guzman had already, Arbenz had already made it well known that he was in support of taking on United Fruit. Man opposed Arbenz land reform, which was basically United Fruit, fe…
▶ 1:06:37
who were basically imperialist colonies of U.S. oligarchs. So, of course, Guatemala was the coup that happened right after the Iranian coup in 1953 that basically overthrew Arbenz Guzman and installed a fascist dictator. Mann was recalled f…
▶ 40:12
So they're going to do counterinsurgency operations because the bad guys are always called insurgents, right? Insurgents, by definition, basically means hostile force. The problem is that in the past, if you go back and you read a lot of li…
▶ 8:13
And in Guatemala and Nicaragua, when they wanted United Fruit out, they demanded millions and millions of dollars. And United Fruit basically had planted bananas. They had upgraded the harbor for their own purposes and put in a rail line, n…
▶ 26:44
He was offered to be in charge of what's going to happen in Guatemala basically right after that. But he declined going down there. It says the government there was, of course, another democratically elected government that was elected in 1…
▶ 30:09
And United Fruit said, no, we want way more than that. And the president, Arbenz, Guzman, said, no, no, we're going to give you what you've been paying taxes on. So they were pissed. So lawyer Thomas Colcoran, who was the I love this. He wa…
▶ 38:58
In at least one respect, the CIA was carrying on with United Fruit's program. That is, they had already been one CIA paramilitary effort aimed at Guatemala, and that one involved United Fruit. Under a code named Fortune, in the last several…
▶ 42:23
the Arbenz government would get panicked and basically they wouldn't have to do much fighting. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala would contribute unremitting diplomatic pressure on Arbenz throughout the process. That's why you know all of the a…
▶ 47:20
The CIA went first to the candidate who was defeated by Arbenz in the 1950 election, Miguel Fuentes. He had already been approached by United Fruit, but was not interested because the United Fruit was already very busy down there. Then Amer…
▶ 47:51
staged in 1959 to overthrow the government. Joining the CIA, Castillo Armas issued a declaration from Honduras in December 1953 that he was going to liberate Guatemala from that dreaded democratically elected government. When the Guatemalan…
▶ 49:51
Reign of terror. So in America, our government was telling our people that the government of Guatemala had executed a reign of terror for arresting the people that are trying to overthrow the democratically elected government. Okay? That's …
▶ 53:03
like one of the U.S. paramilitaries. But as it turned out, that was all for nothing because the Czech had basically sent them old, nasty, non-functional munitions that they couldn't work, they couldn't use at all. So despite Eisenhower call…
▶ 53:36
The actual communist in Czechoslovakia wasn't actually his friend because they didn't even take care of him. They screwed him too. So the useless weapons from Czechoslovakia enabled Eisenhower to come out with his infamous, oh my God, Arman…
▶ 55:12
The Latin press was infiltrated by the U.S. Information Agency. So they're writing articles down there, all lies. And they had, let's see, Arbenz made his invasion on June 18th, riding in old vehicles with about 140 soldiers with him. But t…
▶ 1:02:41
of Frank Wisner and everybody else. So eventually the U.S. taxpayers ends up paying 1.5 million dollars to Lloyd's of London to reimburse them for us sinking the ship. So that didn't do a whole lot and the Guatemalans finally felt pushed to…
▶ 1:04:35
that the U.S. had to do something, you know, because it was a communist after all. Alan Dulles is even more forthright in his book called The Craft of Intelligence. This is a quote. In Iran, Amosadeh and in Guatemala and Arbenz had come to …
▶ 1:05:32
Back when I read it, which was in Air War College, sounds completely plausible. It's a fucking lie. I just told you what happened. Arbenz was not a communist. Neither was Mosaday. But these people lie in these books and say they are. And th…
▶ 7:43
intentions to craft its own psychological warfare plan regardless of how it fit into the overall operation. In late January 1954, there occurred an enormous security breach. Arbenz police recruited a pandemonium diplomat, Jorge Delgado, an …
▶ 8:09
Delgado gave the government copies of correspondence between the rebel leader and others, including Somoza. And for several months, he acted as a double agent, furnishing the Arbenz people more data. Delgado was present, for example, on Jan…
▶ 8:38
The Guatemalans arrested an individual who was the principal link between Castillo Armas and the supposed internal opposition. This internal front happened to be notional, essentially non-existent, but the agent network was real. The Arbenz…
▶ 9:36
to suggestions that his own organization was the source. He denied any need for a security review. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City kept up unremitting pressure on Arbenz throughout these events. Ambassador Parafoy set the tone in January…
▶ 11:02
as well as a quote-unquote journalist, originally recruited in Chile four years earlier, had a flair for colorful language, but was not dumb. He put the key question to Tracy Barnes at their first meeting. Quote, but Arbenz became president…
▶ 12:33
Anti-communist student newspaper, basically El Rebel, began publishing weekly, supported, and partially controlled by the CIA, interior to Guatemala, basically being ran as a CIA proprietary. An agent network codenamed Essence waged a polit…
▶ 18:11
himself lived in a house in Managua directly across the street from the first secretary of the U.S. embassy. On February 10th, al-Haini held a conference to check on all aspects while those things the CIA could control proceeded smoothly. T…
▶ 19:44
but the CIA at large. Two of the cables had been from CIA headquarters, the rest from Haney. Fortunately for the secret warriors, the leak did not reach the ears of the Guatemalan government. It was hushed up almost immediately. The big att…
▶ 21:15
sending pre-recorded tapes that could be broadcast. Sherwood's radio equipment arrived aboard a late black flight. Meanwhile, the State Department developed cold feet about the direction the U.S. was headed. Jack Esterline of the task force…
▶ 24:48
Number one CIA project. In April, the public who paid attention to Central America were diverted by a plot to assassinate Nicaraguan leader Somoza. This would be attributed to the quote-unquote Caribbean League, a loosely organized entity. …
▶ 25:18
It had, however, received some support from the Arbenz predecessor as president of Guatemala. The CIA propagandists now made strenuous efforts to pin all of that on Arbenz, even though he had nothing to do with it. Behind the scenes, Rip Ro…
▶ 28:51
Within days, the CIA was told to report on the impact of the postponement or cancellation of PB's success. Wisner's defense combined elements that would be employed once again when the identical question arose during a CIA operation against…
▶ 31:21
in a paper refocusing the operation. In retrospect, his handiwork is notable for its utter misappreciation of Guatemalans' willingness to rise against Arbenz, while rightly rejecting Castillo Armas' estimates of 40,000 adherents. Wisner pro…
▶ 32:58
Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, which could later be used as an answer to the questions of where all those guns came from, which is why it's so important that they control the countries around the target. So if we get caught, we'…
▶ 36:03
Cabell. Barnes described the status of the various PB success elements. The CIA project seemed to be moving along smoothly. One action by the Arbenz government did play into the preparation for the success. The Guatemalans turned to Czechos…
▶ 37:59
was used by Dave Phillips' radio show. The Arbenz government made a significant error, taking the government radio station off the air for installation of a new antenna. For several weeks, the Voice of Liberation was the only game in town. …
▶ 38:55
They concluded that several hundred were arrested and at least 75 people killed, including persons who had nothing to do with the CIA conspiracy. That was what the CIA reported anyway. Eisenhower made out the Arbenz government as agents of …
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In Guatemala, that they promised the Guatemalan government for operating there, they just finished the railroads to the port like they always do. The ship had a small fraction of World War II vintage British and German small arms. No Russia…
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meeting Assistant Secretary Holland on this matter as late as spring of 1956. In the heat of the action, however, the ship's sinking had a significant psychological impact on the Guatemalans. The bombing broke the political situation wide o…
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Arbenz received an ultimatum and resigned before the day was out, taking refuge at the Mexican embassy and asking for political asylum. PB's success had achieved its goal. Despite the success of this unintended strike, that incident had a m…
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to be the American ambassador to Costa Rica and Honduras. And he is also considered one of the key players in the 1954 operation against Arbenz that we just covered because he was in Honduras, just as a refresher. His specialty was admiralt…
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This kind of mistake had also been made in Guatemala. But thanks to Arbenz panicking and leaving, Sukarno chose to stand his ground. Another problem lay in the disparity in means between the rebels and the Indonesian government. Sukarno, un…
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The mafia left when Castro prohibited gambling. Imagine that. Exappropriation as attempted by Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala became part of the solution. An element of irony existed here since Castro's father had once worked for …
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But his position remained weak. His assets outside the country basically were none. And there was no one inside that liked him. So his plan depended entirely upon anticipating popular support. The CIA judged remote. Wisner could see huge ch…
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had been elected in November of 1950 with more than half of the vote in a free election, you know, a democracy. President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman thereafter acquired even greater popularity. Peasants fully supported his reforms in agricultural…
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in the country's only railroad. They did not like the Guatemalan government's land redistribution program. Beginning in February 1953, Arbenz took back 400,000 acres of the land to give it back to the people. Now, keep in mind, this was not…
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A key difference would be that United Fruit, a principal purveyor of the charge that Arbenz constituted a communist threat to the Americas and a participant in early plots, this time wanted nothing to do with the action itself because Arben…
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and what would need to happen. Commenting on CIA station in Central America, action needed to build up networks, the psychological warfare requirements, and the personnel needed to carry it all out. King advised that diplomatic measures cou…
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were almost identical to what they were training up in Guatemala. The main CIA operative would have been Colonel Castillo Armez working with United Fruit. And the CIA had been meeting with him since November of 1951. You know, grooming him.…
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and to undercover officers or agents outside of it. Honduras only had a pair of DO people in place, but seven were sent from Washington, Caracas, Panama, and a couple more were awaiting approval by headquarters. Stage two provided a prelimi…
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session. And that will take us to chapter seven, where we move to Asia. What do we got? Illini? Hey, Colonel. Yeah, the Guatemalan coup is always interesting. The good news is that by the time you get to the 90s, you know, high school kids …
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Prouty observed Dulles at close hand, marveled at his mastery of the Washington power game. Quote, he simply worked like the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. He eroded all opposition, unquote. September 9th, 1954, as midnight approached,…
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The recently deposed president of Guatemala was escorted into the Guatemala City airport with his small entourage, including his wife and two children. Arbenz was beloved among his poor country's peasants and workers for their land and labo…
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by a smartly dressed crowd of several hundred ill-wishers. He was called an assassin, a thief, a piece of shit, they screamed, because, of course, this is the moneyed class who hated him. Arbenz was fortunate to make it past the venomous cr…
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as the vehicle actually transporting the Arbenz family was blown up. That was meant for Arbenz. Howard Hunt, one of the principal CIA orchestrators of the Guatemalan coup, later acknowledged that he had helped organize the hostile send-off …
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He knew that if the deposed leader was assassinated, we, the CIA, would get blamed for it. Relatives of Arbenz later said they found Hunt's professed concern for the family's security hard to believe, considering his role in the coup. Befor…
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authorities of the new military regime demanded that the ex-president strip to his underwear in full view of the crowd, ostensibly so they could make sure he wasn't smuggling out cash. After his traumatic overthrow, Arben's nerves were shot…
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which had become so packed with political refugees that typhus and other diseases had broken out. At the airport, our bins looked pale and drawn. Every light a flashbulb popped and he visibly flinched. And yet even as he disrobed in full vi…
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It gave the impression that a cold statue was taking off his marble clothes, unquote. They were trying to break him psychologically. Dr. Eric Arbenz, a New York anesthesiologist and grandson of the former president, said. Sorry to interrupt…
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There we go. Thank you. So basically, we're talking about the overthrowing of Arbenz. Quote, can you think of another example like this where the elected leader of a nation was forced to undergo this sort of humiliation to be publicly undre…
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powerful interest, unquote. For the rest of the exiled Guatemalan leader's life, the CIA was determined to strip away whatever thread of respectability still clung to him. The agency's disinformation campaign began immediately after his dow…
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that he had raided his impoverished country's treasury, and that he had sexually captivated by the man who was the leader of the Guatemalan Communist Party. Not a single shred of that was true. CIA operatives had swarmed the presidential pa…
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They knew about the dynamics of his marriage, as well as the gruesome details of his father's suicide, and that he had once sought treatment for drinking. When their discoveries weren't sensational enough, they embroidered them and sent the…
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When Mexico City grew too inhospitable for the Arbenz family, they tried Switzerland, land of his father's birth. But the Swiss authorities demanded that Arbenz give up his Guatemalan citizenship, which he refused to do. So they basically d…
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When he tried to hold a press conference to present his case against the powerful men who overthrew him, French authorities threatened to deport him and his family unless he canceled the event. Arbenz began drinking again, dwelling on his f…
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To the Soviet Union, first to Czechoslovakia and then to the Soviet Union proper. The howling in the press grew louder. Here at last was proof he was a communist. Finally, Arbenz has found asylum in a place he must love, the New York World …
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sounded the same refrain as if following the same conductor, which they were. In fact, Arbenz's misery continued unabated behind the Iron Curtain. He hated the cold and sunless days. He missed the colors and radiance of the tropics. And he …
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But the State Department made it clear that if they took him in, they would be cut off and targeted as well. Finally, Uruguay agreed to host Arbenz, but he was informed that he could not speak, he could not teach, he could not publish, and …
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who by then had taken over as the agency's chief of station in Uruguay. The same guy who overthrew the government they send to Uruguay when they find out Arbenz is going. He continued to track him. A neighbor of the Arbenz family told them …
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Making the surveillance even easier for the CIA, Arbenz and his family had been installed on the same street that Howard Hunt lived on. Some evenings, Hunt and his wife even showed up at the same restaurants where the Arbenz were dining. In…
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He was energized by the revolutionary fervor on the island, which was still luxuriant in the glory of his historic accomplishments. Arbenz was allowed to be a public man again. He was invited to speak at political rallies and to publish in …
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Cuban officials would compare my grandfather's defeat to the heroic Cuban victory over the U.S., Eric Arbenz would said, quote, he was used for propaganda purposes to build up the esteem of the Cuban people. It was humiliating to him, unquo…
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But the Cuban authorities were as leery of the former Guatemalan leader, democratic politics, as the CIA was. During his Cuban exile, Arbenz grew increasingly disenchanted with the island. The family was moved into a small house, a resort t…
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named Che Calvera, who had come to Guatemala to help. Bolden Arbenz's experience in progressive democracy was amongst those who implored the besieged president to arm the people when Arbenz's army officers began to melt around him under the…
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My grandfather knew that the peasants were not trained to fight, so arming them would just result in their death, Arben's grandson said. He loved Guatemala and its people too much to do that. Arben's beloved daughter, Arabella, refused to s…
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at first at the matador, and then she stuck it in her mouth and pulled the trigger. The family had been hounded all over the world, and they were suffering from this ordeal. On top of that, there was a history of depression on the grandfath…
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His dream of national liberation was backed up with guns. Castro and his equally charismatic comrade, Che Cavera, made it clear from the start that they would not share the fate of Arbenz in Guatemala. They would fight fire with fire. Che w…
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and went up against United Fruit and the CIA. Shea would let her write, I am not Christ or a philanthropist. He wrote that in a letter to his mother when basically she was asking what the heck he was doing. I fight for the things I believe …
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To avoid Arben's fate, Castro and Cavera would do everything he had not. Put the hardcore thugs of the old regime up against a wall, run the CIA agents out of the country, purge the armed forces, and mobilize the Cuban people. By militarizi…
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including the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan and the Cold War strategy of quote-unquote containment. The CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Guatemala's Democratic government was put in motion by Dulles after a CFR study group ur…
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Murchison Jr. for land. The times and place are intriguing. It was in 1952 that the CIA and United Fruit began to discuss seriously overthrowing Arbenz government in Guatemala. This included a visit and speech in Houston about Guatemala by …
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because it looks like every other overthrow of a government that we've referred to. But just as a reminder, you had President Arbenz, who had been elected by the Democratic method, but he tried to make United Fruit allow unions and pay a de…
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of Guatemala that they were not farming. They were only farming like less than 20% of what they quote unquote owned and had undervalued it. So they were paying the government almost no taxes for it. And Arbenz wanted that changed. He wanted…
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was just leaving lay there so they didn't have any competition. And Arbenz said, yeah, that's not going to happen. We want to buy that land back and we will give you the value of what you...…
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Lorenz came to prominence in 1954 as an organizer of the First American Congress, which was aimed at being anti-Soviet intervention in Latin America. It was held in May 1954 in Mexico City. Its main objective was to denounce the regime of J…
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Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. And this is 1954. And remember, this is when we overthrow Guatemala. With the CIA-backed coup against Arbenz less than a month away. So just before the CIA goes in and coups him, they have a Congress meeting sayi…
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I'm not trying to dominate. I'm just I'm doing I've been doing a lot of research as you're as you're talking here. And, you know, I want to read this little clip from just a summation of the thing with our bends, because when you said our w…
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You know, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. And I'll just read this kind of the paragraph summation. It says, he discusses the 54 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Guatemalan President Jacob Arbenz. Perkins presents this event as…
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which felt threatened by our Ben's land reform policies. So, you know, and obviously I'm not going to go into what Perkins did, but, you know, that's another fantastic book. If you guys don't know about Economic Hitman, you need to read tha…