The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 12

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Transcript

0:00 Good afternoon, Colonel. Good afternoon. Okay. Wow. Let's get started. We are on, let me go back, I think it's chapter 10, the Dallas Horium. Yeah, chapter 10. It's a long chapter, so we'll get finished with it today. We probably will not get into chapter 11, just FYI.

0:36 And I did want to let everyone know, and Bridget, if you'll remind me at the end, to let everybody know, Warhamster and I are going to change our Thursday at noon show to be Friday at noon from here on, starting this Friday. And at six o'clock today, I will be on the book club with CanCon and Ash continuing.

1:07 delve into the crazy book called Stolen Elections. And then just as a reminder, we have the Alpha Warrior show tomorrow night at 9.30 as well. And then we'll be here at four o'clock for the rest of the week. All right, continuing on with chapter 10, the Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy operated on twin levels.

1:39 psychic violence level and an actual violence level. While the Secretary of State threatened to evaporate entire populations with tactical nuclear strikes, the director of the CIA actually eliminated individuals around the world whenever they were deemed to be a threat to the quote-unquote national security.

2:06 Determined to use the CIA more aggressively than President Truman, who had feared creating an American Gestapo, Eisenhower unleashed the agency, giving Allen Dulles a license to kill that the spymaster utilized as he saw fit. Which is kind of not exactly true. Truman is the one that issued the original opaque.

2:34 National Security Action Memorandum that gave them that authority. Just FYI. Years later, in the 1970s, when post-Watergate congressional committees forced the CIA to account for its legal reign under Dulles, the agency tried to downplay its ruthlessness. CIA witnesses testifying before the Church and Pike committees insisted that while the agency had targeted foreign leaders,

3:03 such as the Congo's Patrice Lumumba, South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and Fidel Castro, its assassins had proved inept or were beaten to the punch, i.e. they weren't responsible, which is a bold-faced lie. Assassination, went the CIA line, was simply not the sort of business at which its people excelled.

3:37 So we'll try, but unfortunately, it was our assets that actually did it and not us. And so we can claim that we bungled it, but we paid the people that did it. In truth, the CIA became an effective killing machine under Dulles. Alan Dulles was an assassination enthusiast throughout his espionage career. From the days of his involvement in Operation Valkyrie,

4:08 plot against Hitler onward. Later in his career, any nationalist leader who seemed a problem for the U.S. interest, not the U.S. interest, the international syndicate's interest, was viewed as fair game. During the 1957 Suez Crisis, as a group of foreign policy officials and the commentators gathered for dinner in the Washington home of Walter Lippmann, the conversation turned to Egypt's defiant leader.

4:38 Nasser. One of the guests jested, Alan, can't you find an assassin? To the group's amazement, Dulles took the comment dead seriously. Well, first you need a fanatic, a man who'd be willing to kill himself if he were caught, said the spymaster. And he couldn't be an outsider. He'd have to be an Arab. It would be very difficult to find just the right man.

5:05 Not difficult at all because they had trained someone on his personal security team to do exactly that. The Dulles brothers assured multinational firms that Washington would stop at nothing to protect their overseas investments. In August of 1956, during yet another period of upheaval in the Mideast, Foster addressed a private meeting of oil executives.

5:35 The Secretary of State assured the oilman that if any sultan or despot were to be as unwise as Mosaddegh and try to nationalize his underground desert treasure, the country would soon find itself the target of an international intervention. Fortunately for Eisenhower, who sought to avoid such costly military operations, his administration would only feel compelled to mount one.

6:06 like sending the Marines into Lebanon in 1958 to ensure the Beirut government remained in friendly hands. The rest of the Americans' imperial mission during the Eisenhower years fell to Allen Dulles. Whispers about Dulles' tactics began making themselves heard in the White House during Eisenhower's first term. In July of 1954, Eisenhower asked a trusted military friend,

6:35 retired General James Doolittle, a World War II hero, to look into the agency and give him a confidential report. After Doolittle finished his investigation in October, the president blocked out an afternoon to hear the briefing. The general told Eisenhower that the CIA was badly managed and that Dulles was way overly zealous. Furthermore, the relationship between Dulles'

7:05 was Unfortunate, an alliance based on blood that allowed the brothers to establish their own largely unaccountable power center within the administration. Eisenhower responded defensively, insisting that he had found the Brother Act beneficial. Yes, because they did all of this shit and he got to pretend that he didn't know anything. As for Allen, he might have his peculiarities, conceded the president.

7:35 But the CIA was one of the most peculiar types of operation any government can have. And it probably takes a strange genius to run it. Ironically, the Doolittle report gave Dulles even more justification for his remorseless shadow war by concluding, quote, it is now clear that we are facing an enemy whose avowed objective is world domination.

8:05 by whatever means and at whatever cost, unquote. Dulles' CIA operated with virtually no congressional oversight in the Senate. Dulles relied on Wall Street friends like Prescott Bush of Connecticut, the father and grandfather of two future presidents, to protect the CIA. According to CIA veteran Robert Crowley,

8:33 who rose to become the second in command of the CIA's action arm, Bush was the day-to-day contact man, Prescott Bush, for the CIA. It was very bipartisan and friendly. Dulles felt that he had the Senate just where he wanted them. The CIA director found the House side of Congress to be equally amenable.

8:56 Each year, Dulles had to go through the formality of making the agent's budget pitch to the Armed Services Panel of the House Appropriations Committee, which was chaired at the time by Representative Clarence Cannon of Missouri. On one occasion, the CIA's congressional liaison, Walter Propheimer, had to track down the elusive Cannon to find out when the year's CIA budget hearing would be scheduled.

9:27 chairman cannon at the capitol's statuary hall alerting the congressman to the fact that dallas would be asking for a 10 increase all right walter you tell mr dallas that he has had his hearing and he got his 10 that was the end of it eisenhower was happy

9:49 happy to have Congress stay out of CIA's business, fearing a repeat of the McCarthy circus if legislators were allowed to probe the agency's operations. The president, who professed to not know anything about the dark side, but knew enough to know he didn't want to know anymore. And remember, the fact that he didn't know is bullshit. How they did this, which we learned in other books, is they set up committees.

10:21 like the committee of 30 or whatever, they all had different names, committee of 40 under different presidents, the National Security Council would convene a meeting of the top level. And someone, and it varied from president to president, and even during their tenure, somebody would be tasked to report back to the president, but they didn't take notes.

10:51 So there was no recorded evidence that the president was ever briefed, but they were always briefed. You just are not going to find in most cases a direct trail of verification that they knew about it because they didn't want it documented. But many of the insiders over time outlined that process and many authors has written about it.

11:17 in books that we've already done or books that I've already read. So they all knew. There's just not a paper trail in most cases. John Eisenhower, who served his father as a White House aide, later blamed the Dulles spy set for manipulating the president. Ike was no match, the younger Eisenhower said, for the slick Ivy League types at the CIA. Dad could be fooled.

11:48 He was better when the guy was in uniform and knew him. But all of those guys from Princeton and Yale, dot, dot, dot, yet throughout most of his presidency, Eisenhower was all too willing to be fooled. He was never fooled. He was always briefed.

12:06 In 1956, to appease critics who charged the CIA was operating with extremely minimal supervision, Eisenhower again ordered a discreet investigation of the agency by national security insiders. This time, diplomat David Bruce, the Wall Street banker statesman Robert Lovett, Eisenhower, and Dulles felt

12:30 There was nothing to fear from this new inspection since Bruce and Lovett were longtime friends of Allen Dulles. But the Bruce Lovett report shocked Dulles, taking strong aim at the CIA's penance for creating political mayhem around the globe. There was an arrogance to Dulles' busy, moneyed, and privileged agency with its obvious fondness for overseas kingmaking, declared the report.

13:00 The freedom that they had been granted and his extremely high-powered machine go barging into other countries, scare the hell out of us, Levitt would later say. But once again, Eisenhower ignored the strong criticism leveled at the spy agency. Dulles' operation was simply too consequential and a component of the president's Cold War strategy for him to rein it in. Unmanaged by the White House and unsupervised by Congress,

13:30 Dulles' CIA grew to become the most potent agency of the Eisenhower era. Dulles was a master at seeding Washington bureaucracies with agency men, meaning putting CIA agents into other government organizations, even though they're not allowed to operate in the United States. He placed his loyalists in top positions in the Pentagon, State Department, and even the White House.

13:58 The CIA became increasingly intertwined with the armed services as military officers were assigned to the agency's mission. And then back again into military post as Allen Dulles' disciples. In the words of an Air Force Colonel, Prouty, who served as the liaison officer between the Pentagon and the CIA from 1955 to 63,

14:24 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, Jacobo Arbenz.

14:49 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 labor reforms. But he was reviled by the Guatemala aristocracy. As he prepared to leave his homeland, Arbenz was showered with abuse.

15:19 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 crowd unharmed. Shortly before he and his family were driven to the airport, a decoy car masquerading for security purposes

15:47 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 party at the airport for the benefit of the press. But Hunt claimed that he had spread the word among his people to let Arbenz leave the country unscathed.

16:14 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. Before he was allowed to board the chartered DC-4 waiting to take him to Mexico City, the first stop in what would turn out to be a permanent exile, Arbenz was subject to a final humiliation.

16:44 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. He and his family had spent 73 days and nights in miserable asylum at the Mexican embassy in Guatemala City.

17:13 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 view of the cameras, he held on to a kind of dignity. Quote,

17:40 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, Colonel, but Rumble hasn't gone live yet. Oh, sorry. Let me see if I can fix that. Okay.

18:19 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 undressed in front of news cameras? The CIA was afraid of him, an educated, articulate reformer who had stood up to the local elite and the U.S. government. He was a big threat to these.

18:53 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 downfall, with a stream of stories planted in the press, particularly in Latin America, alleging that he was a pawn of Moscow, that he was guilty of wholesale butchery of political foes.

19:22 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 palace after he was ousted, collecting official documents, personal correspondence. They knew everything about his private life.

19:47 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 them fluttering around the world. While the CIA did all it could to ruin Arbenz's name, the State Department pressured foreign governments to give the deposed president and his former deputies a chilly reception wherever they turned up.

20:16 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 deported him and he ended up in Paris. They settled on the right bank and his beautiful daughter, Arabella, was enchanted with the city. But every time Arbenz went for a walk, he felt like he was being followed.

20:45 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 final days in Guatemala and his fateful exit from the political stage to avoid a bloodbath. The tragedy was trapped in his head. To escape the hostile environment of the West, Arbenz fled with his family.

21:14 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 Telegram and Sun said. A land from the Iron Curtain where they practice the same sort of democratic regime as his. Newspapers around the world.

21:46 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 soon discovered that he had replaced one sort of surveillance with another. Arbenz had only ended up in Russia because no other country wanted him. He reached out to every leader in Latin America,

22:16 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 he couldn't even work. He was to be an invisible man. But Arbenz still loomed large in the eyes of the CIA.

22:47 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 that their house was under constant watch from a black car parked around the corner.

23:14 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 1960, Arbenz was invited to Cuba, and at last he and Maria felt like they had found a safe place to raise their children.

23:43 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 the Cuban press. But everywhere Arbenz went, he heard the militant slogan, Cuba is not Guatemala. It was painful for him. After the Bay of Pigs,

24:12 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, unquote. The Arbenz met with Fidel Castro to see if they could find a place for themselves in the new Cuba. Arbenz suggested that he could teach at the university.

24:42 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 town safely removed from the political action. The charge of cowardice had haunted Arbenz from the moment he surrendered his office. A young Argentinian doctor.

25:11 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 pressure of the CIA. But the Guatemalan leader was no Che or Fidel. He had lacked the cold-blooded courage to purge his country into a civil war.

25:41 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 stay with the rest of the family in Cuba. Tired of her endless search for sanctuary, she fled back to Paris and began to create her own life and her own tragedy.

26:12 her on a modeling career and even landed her a movie role. She fell in love with the famous Matador, who was equally celebrated. Their stormy love affair provided the international press with another sensational Arbenz story. One day in 1965, after arguing loudly in a cafe in Bogota, Colombia, Arabella rushed outside, returning soon after with a gun. She pointed at

26:41 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 grandfather's side. Arbenz was never the same after the death of his beautiful daughter. She had been a special one, the child with whom he had clashed the most and loved the most.

27:10 The press were merciless, portraying him as a cold and remote father, a man who had sacrificed the well-being of his children on the altar of his ideals. When Arbenz and his family were forced to run the ugly gauntlet at the Guatemalan hotel, he had told his children, don't be afraid, keep your chin up, we'll get through this. But in the end, he couldn't protect them.

27:36 Arabella was buried in Mexico and the Mexican government allowed the family to relocate there. Arbenz still struggled to find means of support and Maria, forced to become the family's provider, had to fly frequently to El Salvador where her father had business interests. In his later years, Arbenz was an increasingly forlorn figure. He frequently visited Arabella's grave.

28:01 It seemed as if he too belonged more in the world of shadows. At the end of January 1971, when Arbenz died a strange and lonely death at 57 in a bathtub in Mexico City Hotel, authorities said he had climbed into the tub, filled it with scalding hot water, and then burned the death or drowned. He reportedly had been drinking, but his wife,

28:31 Maria Arbenz always believed that he was assassinated. In later years, it was revealed that the CIA had compiled a list of assassination targets during the planning for the 1954 coup. Arbenz family was convinced that the agency was still working its way through the list and his father was on it. What had Arbenz done to deserve such a heartbreaking journey through life? A tell of grief?

28:58 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 bed with the United Fruit Company.

29:18 In June of 1952, Arbenz pushed sweeping land reform bill through the nation's legislature aimed at redistributing the heavily rural country's farm acreage. 70% of their entire heritable farmland was in the hands of 2% of the landowners, one of which didn't even belong in the country, and that was United Fruit.

29:46 Among the properties ex-appropriated under the new law and handed over to poor farmers was several, not any of them that they were actually making money off of. So United Fruit went in there and bought up all of this land. They weren't even using the majority of it, but they didn't want the competition. So Arbenz took the land they weren't even using to redistribute it to the peasants. Until Arbenz's election in 1950, the giant company,

30:18 had operated throughout the Caribbean, ran Guatemala like a banana republic, a colony. United Fruit not only owned huge plantations, but almost every mile of railroad track in the country. And not only that, they had promised when they came in there that they would put a functioning railroad through the entire country. They did not. They put in enough railroad.

30:45 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. One of Arben's more cold-blooded predecessors, Jorge.

31:21 Ubico thought of peasants as nothing more than beasts of burden. Before the 1944 revolt that toppled his dictatorship and uprising that Arbenz had helped lead, farm workers were roped together like animals by the army and delivered like chain gangs to the plantations who were first forced to work in debt slavery to the landowners.

31:50 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 a mixed-race mother. They had overcome a sad childhood, including the suicide of his father, to become a rising officer in the Guatemalan army.

32:25 He met his striking dark-eyed wife, the daughter of a wealthy Salvadoran coffee plantation owner, at a dance when she was visiting Guatemala in 1938. The 23-year-old Maria, who had been educated at a Catholic women's college in California and who loved to read and paint, was more cultured than the young lieutenant.

32:51 But at 25, Arbenz cut a striking picture in his uniform. Maria had been born between silk sheets, in her words, but had never been comfortable with the family privileges. Chacabo, who had been raised by an indigenous nanny, was similarly sensitive to the suffering of the Guatemalan native population. When Maria asked him what he would like to do with his life,

33:21 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, Ubico. She fed his hunger for more learning by giving him books.

33:51 Their vision for Guatemala became more ambitious and dangerously radical by the authoritarian standards of the banana colony. As Guatemala made a transition to democracy following the 1944 revolt, Arbenz got increasingly involved in politics. In 1950, he decided to run for president, focusing his campaign on agrarian reform, which he knew was the key to his country's liberation.

34:20 He consulted with Maria's brother, Tonio, who was an agricultural expert. He was also a Mexican economist. Together, they formulated a plan of sweeping land reforms and social progress in Guatemala. After her husband's presidential victory, Maria Arbenz came under fire from his enemies as an evil influence over the newly elected Guatemalan president. They referred to her

34:52 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 ushered through the legislature two years later was actually moderate. Arbenz's government only ex-appropriated

35:22 acreage from United Fruit's huge holdings they weren't using. And it offered the multinational corporation a fair compensation for the seized land. But by Guatemalan's standards, Arben's land redistribution measures were breathtakingly bold. Many of the political colleagues in Arben's reform faction

35:47 feared that he had gone too far, that he would trigger a terrible backlash from United Fruit. The powerful influence of the United Fruit Company could be felt throughout Washington, where the company had high-placed friends and stockholders in both parties. The company advocates were scattered throughout Congress and foreign policy establishment.

36:13 One would have to go back in time to the 17th or 18th century when the Dutch East India Company ruled a far-flung empire with the power to make war, negotiate treaties, hang convicts, and mint their own money to find another corporation that welded that much power. United Fruit was especially well-connected to the Eisenhower administration as the agribusiness giant.

36:41 began lobbying the White House to overthrow Arbenz. Walter Bedell Smith, the president's trusted friend and undersecretary of state, was seeking an executive position with the company, Mr. CIA himself. Henry Cabot Lodge, who argued the United Fruit case against Arbenz as Eisenhower's UN ambassador, belonged to one of the blue-blooded Boston families whose fortunes

37:11 were connected to United Fruit because that's where they were headquartered. John Moores Cabot, who was in charge of Latin American affairs at the State Department, was the brother of the United Fruit's former CEO. When the president's personal secretary, Ann Whitman, was connected to United Fruit, her husband was the company's PR director.

37:38 But United Fruit had more powerful friends in the administration than just the Dulles brothers. The Dulleses had served as United Fruit lawyers from their early days at Sullivan and Cromwell. On the eve of World War I, young Foster made a discreet tour of Central America on behalf of United Fruit, which was growing concerns of labor unrest and creeping

38:09 supposedly communist leanings. And that was derived from the fact that the labor, the actual peasants that were roped together and hauled around to work on plantations were talking about forming a union. That's labor unrest. Upon returning to his corporate spy mission, Foster made a confidential report to his uncle.

38:38 who just so happened to be Robert Lansing, who was not only a former counsel for United Fruit, but Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State. Allen became so frequent a visitor to Guatemala as a legal envoy of United Fruit that he began taking along Clover, who fell under the spell of the country's culture.

39:05 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 Iran. The Eisenhower-Dulles administration moved swiftly to isolate Guatemala, labeling it a Soviet

39:42 beachhead, no Soviets, no communist, but we're going to label it. The Arbenz government foster charge was imposing a communist type reign of terror by unchaining peasants. Ambassador John Purifoy, the Dulles brothers handpicked man in Guatemala,

40:13 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 failed to persuade the leader,

40:43 They just started arranging a coup. The CIA found a disgruntled exiled Guatemalan colonel named Carlos Castillo Armez, who was working as a furniture salesman in Honduras at the time, to lead the uprising. His revolutionary army turned out to be a ragtag band of mercenaries and other unsavory types.

41:10 Castillo Armas led his force across the border into Guatemala, driving a battered station wagon. The real threats to Arbenz presidency came from the bombing raids on the capital with aircraft flown by CIA pilots. This created panic among the population and from the agency's successful campaign to subvert the Guatemalan military.

41:41 One army commander reportedly was paid $60,000 to surrender his troops. When Arbenz realized that his army officers could not be counted on to obey his orders and defend the capital, he knew the game was over. Unwilling to take to the mountains and lead a guerrilla resistance like the one that had worked in Cuba, Arbenz began the long winding descent that would end.

42:08 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 circles. Few of his fellow citizens heard Arvin's farewell address in a last act of sabotage aimed at his government. CIA jammed all of the radio.

42:38 As he signed off, Arbenz declared with certainty that despite his personal downfall, the cause of progress in Guatemala would triumph. The social accomplishments of the past few years, he insisted, could not be undone. History would prove him terribly wrong. After Arbenz was overthrown, Dulles assembled his Guatemala task force in the White House to brief the president of the victory. It had been codenamed PB Success.

43:10 Less than one year after the Iranian coup, the CIA director and his team had won a second opportunity to boast about their successful coup machine. PB's success would forge deep, lifelong bonds among Dulles and his Guatemala crew, which included Richard Bessel, Tracy Barnes, Howard Hunt, David Phillips, and David Morales.

43:40 Many of the team members would be reunited for the Bay of Pigs. In later years, some of the Guatemala veterans would again pop into the spotlight under different notorious circumstances. But when they filed into the East Wing Theater for their Guatemala slideshow, the PB's success team was at the height of glory. The room was filled with the administration's top dignitaries, including the president himself, his cabinet, and Richard Nixon.

44:10 afterward eisenhower ever the soldier asked dallas how many men he had lost dallas told him just one the president said incredible but the real body count in guatemala started after the invasion when the cia-backed regime of castillo armez began to clean the nation of political undesirables

44:34 labor organizers, peasants who had been too eager to embrace Arbonne's land reforms. It was the beginning of a blood-soaked era that would transform Guatemala into one of the 20th century's most infamous killing fields. The stainless coup, as some of the CIA engineers called it, would actually result in a tide of gore, including assassinations, torture, and executions.

45:03 as well as death squads. They massacred entire villages. By the time the bloodletting had run its course, four decades later, over 250,000 people had been killed in a population of less than 4 million. The U.S. press coverage of Guatemala coup offered a sanitized account, one that smacked of CIA manipulation. The leading newspapers

45:33 treated the overthrown Arbenz government as a tropical adventure. In the words of Hanson Baldwin, one of Dulles' most trusted agents at the New York Times, nonetheless, reported Baldwin, the operation was of global importance, global importance for banana plantations.

46:01 This is precisely how Dulles liked his overseas exploits to be chronicled, with serious consequences for the Cold War absent the fact there wasn't a single communist in the entire country. The New York Times publisher, author Hayes Schulzberger, was extremely accommodating to Dulles throughout the covert operation, agreeing to keep foreign correspondent Sidney Grusin, whom Dulles considered

46:31 insufficiently compliant out of Guatemala and even assured the CIA director that Grunson's future articles would be screened with a great deal more care than usual, meaning they always did it. The strangely lighthearted tone of the U.S. news dispatches about Guatemala would seep into the history books about the CIA and Dulles'

47:01 But in truth, Guatemala was devastating. The murderous intrigue began long before the actual coup. As early as January 1952, the CIA had started planning to eliminate top officials of the Arbenz government. Howard Hunt might have wanted to avoid the embarrassment of the Arbenz assassination in full view,

47:33 58 Guatemalan leaders during the planning for the coup. The assassination memo was among several documents relating to the 1954 coup that the CIA released in 1997 during one of the agency's occasional exercises in carefully managed openness, which one critic labeled a brilliant public relations snow job.

48:00 Still, the documents were revealing enough to send shockwaves into the international press. In one of the declassified documents, an unnamed CIA official expressed his confidence on the eve of the Guatemalan coup that the elimination of those in high positions of the Arbenz government would bring about its collapse. Another document, a chillingly detailed 19-page CIA killing manual called the Study of Assassination.

48:29 offered the most efficient ways to butcher Guatemalan leadership. The simplest tools are often the most efficient means of assassination, the manual said. A hammer, axe, wrench, screwdriver, fire poker, kitchen knife, lamp stand, or anything hard, heavy, and handy will suffice. That was actually written down.

49:00 The manual also advised assassins which parts of the body to strike for the most lethal effect. Noting that the puncture wounds of the body cavity may not be reliable unless they hit the heart. Absolute reliability is obtained by severing the spinal cord from the cervical region.

49:26 The authors of the manual did make a passing reference to the mortality of killing elected leaders of a sovereign nation. Murder, the manual said, is not morally justified. Persons who are morally squeamish should not attempt it. That's good to know. The CIA compiled its death list

49:48 with bureaucratic diligence circulating the names of those nominated to die within the agency department and among Guatemalan military plotters and asking for comments as well as suggestions of additional names. They treated it like an inter-office memo. Because the CIA deleted the names on the list when it was declassified, there's no way to tell how many.

50:15 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 encouraging Guatemala's new military masters in the art of political murder, the CIA injected a death spore into the nation's bloodstream that would wreak havoc for years.

50:46 As soon as the dictator, Castillo Armas, was installed in the presidential palace, the CIA began pressuring him to purge Guatemala of Arben supporters. His army rounded up some 4,000 suspected quote-unquote communists, even though they weren't. As they revealed under interrogation, few of the prisoners had ever even heard of the Communist Party.

51:16 or Karl Marx. They had no idea what any of that was. But they were guilty of belonging to a democratic political party, labor unions, farm worker associations. They all had been infected with a dangerous idea of the Arbenz era that they could actually take on United Fruit. They had to be purged. Castillo Armez

51:43 would do everything in his power to purify Guatemala of those thoughts. The CIA, enamored of making ominous lists, helped the new regime assemble a list of subversives that soon grew to 70,000 names. This is exactly what they did in Vietnam later. Eventually, the names on the blacklist amounted to a staggering 10% of the adult population.

52:12 Many of the names came from Arbenz government documents that the CIA had seized when it raided the presidential palace. So basically, anybody that ever attended a meeting was put on a list. In August of 1954, Arbenz announced Decree 59, the beginning of Guatemala's fascist legal structure, which gave his reign the right to arrest those on the blacklist and to hold them for six months without trial.

52:41 Those unfortunate enough to be rounded up, one of them was Jose Bernabe Linares, the notorious chief of the Guardia Judicial, who was known for extracting confessions from prisoners with electrical shock baths. So this Linares guy was the armistice chief.

53:14 torturer. He was known for extracting confessions from the prisoners. He would hook those same electrical leads that we've talked about in these other stories to, they'd place a skull cap on them and shock their head. They also had electrified water that they dipped their body in. Guatemalan journalists who attempted to report on the regime's abuses were themselves thrown in prison and tortured. But as Castillo

53:45 Armez consolidated his reign, the CIA's energetic support, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City continued to cover up the regime, insisting that there was little basis for apprehension that the country was a police state, while they watch it unfold and are part of the training of it.

54:06 The barbarianism spread to the countryside where peasant leaders were summarily executed, setting the stage for Guatemala's future death squads. Exiles reported that the regime was encouraging the rise of vigilante groups, quote, you can go and rob and kill in such and such sector at this address, and you can be sure there won't be any police around to bother you when you do it, unquote.

54:37 The worst massacre at the time took place in, I'm just going to spell this name because I don't know how to say the city, T-I-Q-U-I-S-A-T-E. The center of farm worker activism, where as many as a thousand peasants were seized by soldiers from plantations owned by United Fruit, lined up, machine gunned in open trenches and buried in mass graves.

55:08 Armas' own bloody end came in July of 1957 when he was assassinated by one of his own palace guards. But his death did nothing to abate the slaughter, which continued on and off for decades, reaching new heights during the Reagan administration. One of the military dictators who succeeded Armas vowed, quote, if it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so.

55:38 Unquote. The enormous suffering of the Guatemalan people weighed heavily on the Arbenzes during their exile. It haunted my grandparents every day, Eric Arbenz said. That was another reason there was so much depression in our family. They lived and felt the Guatemalan Holocaust every day. They had tried to bring about a Guatemalan spring and then to suffer not only their own defeat, but to see.

56:08 Everything that was done to their people, it was an overwhelming tragedy. The anguish of the Arbenz family seemed to have no end. In 2004, the Arbenz's other daughter, Maria Lenora, followed the path of her sister and killed herself. She felt as if she was being pursued and persecuted her entire life. Those feelings never went away. After the Eisenhower administration overthrew Arbenz,

56:38 government, the U.S. official boasted that they would turn Guatemala into a showcase for democracy. It became a living hell. That's the end of that chapter. Go ahead, Bridget. Okay, I just, okay. While you, you know, as usual, while you go, I'm following behind you in some of this research. And I did find the assassination manual.

57:15 that you were talking about. Yeah, I've read it. I also want to read, because one of them came from, part of it came from the NSA archive. And Operation PB Success, okay? This is just a brief little thing, but it proves, it drives home a really big point that you've been bringing up for a very long time. A narrative history of the CIA's role planning organization, the execution of the coup that toppled Jacobo,

57:46 Arbenz Guzman, on June 27, 1954. Colather, now a diplomatic historian at the University of Indiana, worked on contract for one year with the CIA, where he was given access to thousands of agency records and secret operational files in order to produce this overview. The result is a surprisingly critical study of the agency's first covert operation in Latin America.

58:15 Beginning with a review of the political and economic and social forces that led to the Arbenz presidency in 1951, the document is an intimate account of how the Cold War concerns convinced President Eisenhower to order the removal of the democratically elected leader. Let me say that again. Democratically elected by the people. By force.

58:45 It also provides countless details of a covert mission plagued by disastrous military planning and failed security measures, according to Collather. Operation success barely succeeded. The CIA scrambled to convince the White House that it was unqualified and all but bloodless victory. However, after Arbenz resigned, Eisenhower called the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Alan Dulles,

59:14 and his senior covert planners into a formal briefing of the operation. Collather's account reveals that the agency lied to the president, telling him that, oh, only one rebel was actually killed. Incredible, the president said, and thus, and it was. At least four dozen were dead, according to CIA's own records. Thus did the Guatemala coup enter the agency lore as an unblemished triumph.

59:45 explains and became the model for future CIA activities in Latin America. In Guatemala, last couple sentences, of course, Operation Success had deadly aftermath. After a small insurgency developed in the wake of the coup, the Guatemalan military leaders developed and refined with U.S. assistance. Let me say it again. With U.S. assistance.

1:00:13 a massive counterinsurgency campaign that left tens of thousands massacred, maimed, or missing. Big key takeaways, they lied to the president. We've talked about it before. They only serve their own interests. So I think they mischaracterized the one person. The one person was our guy. Oh? Yeah.

1:00:47 Eisenhower asked them how many people we lost, and they said one. According to this, we actually lost four dozen, but they said that we only lost one. Yeah. Well, read that sentence again on what the four dozen was.

1:01:15 At least four dozen, well, you're right, at least four dozen were dead, according to CIA's own records. Yeah, but I think that four dozen included people that were Guatemalan. Oh, that very well may be, but it set in motion, with U.S. assistance, a massive massacre. Oh, absolutely. Tens of thousands. No, no, 250 at the end. Ah, gotcha.

1:01:44 Right. 250,000 before they ever had a stable, legitimate government. And even then it was still under the CIA because Guatemala is the country that they trained all of the Cuban exiles to attack Cuba for the Bay of Pigs. That was largely based out of Guatemala. Right. And I also.

1:02:12 posted several of the original documents, including some of the campaign that they went through, and how integral United Fruit was, how it truly was. 100%. 100% driven by, it's very well documented, it all was 100% driven, not really by the president's security concerns or anything like that, but by the success of the United Fruit.

1:02:44 Yeah, so it says right here, afterwards Eisenhower, ever the soldier, asked Dulles how many men he had lost, and Dulles responded, one. Right. Yeah. It's just sickening, you know? Totally. SR, go ahead, and then we'll go to Meganuk. Thank you, Colonel, and thank everyone for attending here on Spaces and on Rumble.

1:03:14 There was one other item, and thank you, Bridget, for all that concerning PB success. There was a previous attempt called PB Fortune on Armas. So this was not just all about a Benz. They got Armas sort of under control, and then we went with PB Success.

1:03:44 For those wondering what's really going on here, that was going on during this entire period of time just for United Fruit. There's no doubt in my mind. Thank you, Colonel. Sure. Yeah, Armas was after Arbenz. Yeah. That's who the CIA installed. Did we lose you, Colonel? That was funny. I thought it was just me. Colonel, you just...

1:04:33 banded out, and then we lost you all together, as far as sound. Yeah, it wasn't just you guys. I'm always plagued by it, so I'm kind of like, automatically assume it's me, you know? Oh, yeah. How you doing, Meganuk? Until the kernel comes back up. Oh, and it just dropped down, Meganuk. Hang on, I'll throw you the mic again. Anyway.

1:05:18 I got a two-parter here, and I wish Colonel was here because she could back me up on this. And thank you guys again for holding another banger space. That CIA kill manual, sounds like they took that from aircraft maintenance manuals because all of us that were aircraft maintenance guys and gals.

1:05:42 Didn't get to carry around weapons. All we had was our 80 and 120-pound toolboxes with shit stuffed in it. But the second part, I was curious, is there any evidence as far as the killing fields? Has anybody went to Guatemala and found any of the mass burial sites? Actually, I do know when Colonel gets back in, I think she's trying to reset.

1:06:11 I'm here. Oh, there she is. You went to the killing fields, didn't you, Colonel? I did. So you you actually they actually went and found all of the mass burial sites. They did not find all of them. But they found they found enough for to back up the evidence for what the book was claiming. Well, now that you're talking two different things, the killing fields as a.

1:06:40 as a name is actually in cambodia um i've read articles of where they found mass graves in guatemala okay so there was backup evidence yes but i've never been to guatemala so no i have not seen them i didn't i didn't infer that you actually went over there and did the digging or anything it's just no but i've actually i've actually been to the killing fields in cambodia

1:07:10 Man, that is crazy. Did you hear my first comment? No, I couldn't hear anybody. I told everybody that it kind of sounded like the CIA had been talking to aircraft maintenance folks, because I think that was one of our tech manuals on how to kill somebody without a weapon, right? It's a lot of the same equipment that we deploy with, that's for sure. Exactly.

1:07:37 Anyway, it was a funny to me. I apologize. Sorry, guys. Anyway, awesome space again, Colonel. Thank you. I'm out. No problem. Anybody else have anything? Nope. All right. Well, that concludes that chapter. The chapter 11 is called Strange Love. We will start it tomorrow. If no one has anything else.

1:08:09 That ain't going to be like the last love chapter, is it? Yeah, it pretty much is. Oh, my God. Thanks for the warning. I probably won't be here tomorrow. Well, it starts off. It's actually where we start talking about the Galen organization. You're definitely not going to want to miss it because it is definitely strange. But it does talk about at least this version.

1:08:36 of um reinhardt galen and how um operation gladio got off the ground so it is a very interesting you know it's a very interesting chapter i'll just say that well if i hear one time out of your mouth dear penthouse i'm done deal um although that's a strange story too um but we'll leave that for a different day um

1:09:04 One of the most interesting figures in, and there's been so many, but there's some that just stick out in your mind more than others. If you guys go to my homepage on X and search the word Warbell, W-E-R-B-E-L-L, that guy has one of the craziest stories of any that we've come across.

1:09:28 He's probably in the top 10 of crazy stories. Obviously, Lyman Lemonsker and William Pauly, given any day or one and two, as far as people I had never heard of that was like everywhere. They're the Forrest Gump of Operation Gladio. Warbell definitely is in the top 10 of crazy stories. And he's woven through.

1:09:57 Operation Gladio all over the place. And tied to all of the porn magazines as well because they killed him. A meeting with all of the porn magazine owners. He literally has one of the craziest stories we've come across so far. But anyway, that's if you're bored. Okay, so that's it for today.

1:10:25 And thank you all for being here. I appreciate it. We'll see you tomorrow at four o'clock and I will be on Badlands Media with King Khan and Ash at 6 p.m. Take care, everybody. Eastern time. Take care.

Entities here

CIA50 Allen Dulles28 Guatemala25 Jacobo Árbenz25 United States23 United Fruit Company22 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état12 Dwight D. Eisenhower11 Maria Mena10 Carlos Castillo Armas10 Cuba7 Operation PBSUCCESS7 Arabella Arbenz6 Study of Assassination6 Mexico5 E. Howard Hunt5 Eric Arbenz4 Arbenz Family4 Trump administration4 France4 Operation Gladio3 U.S. State Department3 James Doolittle3 Mitch Werbell3 Jorge Ubico3 Soviet Union3 Fidel Castro3 Collier3 Bay of Pigs3 Guatemalan Revolution of 19443 Sidney Grusin2 Richard M. Bissell Jr.2 David Bruce2 Uruguay2 Robert Lovett2 Dulles family2 BND2 Vietnam2 Prescott Bush2 The New York Times2

Claims made here

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 2:06

“Determined to use the CIA more aggressively than President Truman, who had feared creating an American Gestapo, Eisenhower unleashed the agency, giving Allen Dulles a license to kill that the spymaste…”

Allen Dulles involved_in Operation Valkyrie host_asserted ▶ 3:37

“So we'll try, but unfortunately, it was our assets that actually did it and not us. And so we can claim that we bungled it, but we paid the people that did it. In truth, the CIA became an effective ki…”

Allen Dulles targeted_for_regime_change Gamal Abdel Nasser host_asserted ▶ 4:38

“Nasser. One of the guests jested, Alan, can't you find an assassin? To the group's amazement, Dulles took the comment dead seriously. Well, first you need a fanatic, a man who'd be willing to kill him…”

Allen Dulles threatened Mohammad Mosaddegh host_asserted ▶ 5:35

“The Secretary of State assured the oilman that if any sultan or despot were to be as unwise as Mosaddegh and try to nationalize his underground desert treasure, the country would soon find itself the …”

James Doolittle spied_on CIA host_asserted ▶ 6:35

“retired General James Doolittle, a World War II hero, to look into the agency and give him a confidential report. After Doolittle finished his investigation in October, the president blocked out an af…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed James Doolittle host_asserted ▶ 6:35

Prescott Bush member_of CIA book_quoted ▶ 8:33

“who rose to become the second in command of the CIA's action arm, Bush was the day-to-day contact man, Prescott Bush, for the CIA. It was very bipartisan and friendly. Dulles felt that he had the Sena…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Robert Lovett host_asserted ▶ 12:06

“In 1956, to appease critics who charged the CIA was operating with extremely minimal supervision, Eisenhower again ordered a discreet investigation of the agency by national security insiders. This ti…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed David Bruce host_asserted ▶ 12:06

Allen Dulles recruited CIA host_asserted ▶ 13:30

“Dulles' CIA grew to become the most potent agency of the Eisenhower era. Dulles was a master at seeding Washington bureaucracies with agency men, meaning putting CIA agents into other government organ…”

Jacobo Árbenz member_of Guatemala documented ▶ 14:49

“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 peas…”

E. Howard Hunt carried_out_attack Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted ▶ 15:47

“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 h…”

CIA covered_up Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted ▶ 18:53

“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 …”

U.S. State Department targeted_for_regime_change Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted ▶ 19:47

“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 en…”

CIA spied_on Jacobo Árbenz book_quoted ▶ 22:47

“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 …”

United Fruit Company funded Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted ▶ 28:58

“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 …”

Jacobo Árbenz overthrew Jorge Ubico host_asserted ▶ 30:45

“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 cam…”

Jacobo Árbenz member_of Arbenz Family host_asserted ▶ 31:50

“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 …”

Jacobo Árbenz overthrew Jorge Ubico documented ▶ 33:21

“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 l…”

Jacobo Árbenz appointed Maria Mena host_asserted ▶ 34:52

“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 ne…”

United Fruit Company funded Operation PBSUCCESS host_asserted ▶ 36:13

“One would have to go back in time to the 17th or 18th century when the Dutch East India Company ruled a far-flung empire with the power to make war, negotiate treaties, hang convicts, and mint their o…”

John P. Cabot Lodge member_of United Fruit Company host_asserted ▶ 36:41

“began lobbying the White House to overthrow Arbenz. Walter Bedell Smith, the president's trusted friend and undersecretary of state, was seeking an executive position with the company, Mr. CIA himself…”

Walter Bedell Smith member_of United Fruit Company host_asserted ▶ 36:41

John Moore Cabot member_of United Fruit Company host_asserted ▶ 37:11

“were connected to United Fruit because that's where they were headquartered. John Moores Cabot, who was in charge of Latin American affairs at the State Department, was the brother of the United Fruit…”

Ann Whitman member_of United Fruit Company host_asserted ▶ 37:11

Allen Dulles member_of Sullivan & Cromwell host_asserted ▶ 37:38

“But United Fruit had more powerful friends in the administration than just the Dulles brothers. The Dulleses had served as United Fruit lawyers from their early days at Sullivan and Cromwell. On the e…”

Allen Dulles spied_on Guatemala host_asserted ▶ 38:09

“supposedly communist leanings. And that was derived from the fact that the labor, the actual peasants that were roped together and hauled around to work on plantations were talking about forming a uni…”

Allen Dulles member_of United Fruit Company host_asserted ▶ 38:38

“who just so happened to be Robert Lansing, who was not only a former counsel for United Fruit, but Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State. Allen became so frequent a visitor to Guatemala as a legal envoy…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted ▶ 39:05

“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 …”

John Peurifoy paid Jacobo Árbenz host_asserted ▶ 40:13

“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 p…”

CIA recruited Carlos Castillo Armas documented ▶ 40:43

“They just started arranging a coup. The CIA found a disgruntled exiled Guatemalan colonel named Carlos Castillo Armez, who was working as a furniture salesman in Honduras at the time, to lead the upri…”

CIA carried_out_attack Guatemala documented ▶ 41:10

“Castillo Armas led his force across the border into Guatemala, driving a battered station wagon. The real threats to Arbenz presidency came from the bombing raids on the capital with aircraft flown by…”

CIA paid Guatemala host_asserted ▶ 41:41

“One army commander reportedly was paid $60,000 to surrender his troops. When Arbenz realized that his army officers could not be counted on to obey his orders and defend the capital, he knew the game …”

CIA covered_up Jacobo Árbenz documented ▶ 42:08

“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 Un…”

Allen Dulles headed Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 42:38

“As he signed off, Arbenz declared with certainty that despite his personal downfall, the cause of progress in Guatemala would triumph. The social accomplishments of the past few years, he insisted, co…”

E. Howard Hunt member_of Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 43:10

“Less than one year after the Iranian coup, the CIA director and his team had won a second opportunity to boast about their successful coup machine. PB's success would forge deep, lifelong bonds among …”

David Atlee Phillips member_of Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 43:10

David Morales member_of Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 43:10

Tracy Barnes member_of Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 43:10

Richard M. Bissell Jr. member_of Operation PBSUCCESS documented ▶ 43:10

CIA trained Guatemala documented ▶ 50:15

“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 wha…”

Carlos Castillo Armas assassinated Jacobo Árbenz speculative ▶ 50:15

CIA installed Carlos Castillo Armas documented ▶ 50:46

“As soon as the dictator, Castillo Armas, was installed in the presidential palace, the CIA began pressuring him to purge Guatemala of Arben supporters. His army rounded up some 4,000 suspected quote-u…”

Carlos Castillo Armas ordered_assassination_of Guatemala documented ▶ 51:43

“would do everything in his power to purify Guatemala of those thoughts. The CIA, enamored of making ominous lists, helped the new regime assemble a list of subversives that soon grew to 70,000 names. …”

José Bernabé Linares member_of Guardia Judicial documented ▶ 52:41

“Those unfortunate enough to be rounded up, one of them was Jose Bernabe Linares, the notorious chief of the Guardia Judicial, who was known for extracting confessions from prisoners with electrical sh…”

United States covered_up Carlos Castillo Armas host_asserted ▶ 53:45

“Armez consolidated his reign, the CIA's energetic support, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City continued to cover up the regime, insisting that there was little basis for apprehension that the country …”

CIA covered_up Operation PBSUCCESS book_quoted ▶ 59:14

“and his senior covert planners into a formal briefing of the operation. Collather's account reveals that the agency lied to the president, telling him that, oh, only one rebel was actually killed. Inc…”

CIA trained Cuba host_asserted ▶ 1:01:44

“Right. 250,000 before they ever had a stable, legitimate government. And even then it was still under the CIA because Guatemala is the country that they trained all of the Cuban exiles to attack Cuba …”

BND founded Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:08:09

“That ain't going to be like the last love chapter, is it? Yeah, it pretty much is. Oh, my God. Thanks for the warning. I probably won't be here tomorrow. Well, it starts off. It's actually where we st…”

Mitch Werbell member_of Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:09:28

“He's probably in the top 10 of crazy stories. Obviously, Lyman Lemonsker and William Pauly, given any day or one and two, as far as people I had never heard of that was like everywhere. They're the Fo…”

Lyman Lemnitzer member_of Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:09:28

William Colby member_of Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 1:09:28