Talk:Operation PBSUCCESS
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[edit] Background section
While I, personally, appreciate your addition, I think there are a number of things that need to be addressed. This mainly has to do with not straying the focus of the article too much from being about the overthrow to being about the UFC. Anything brought up and elaborated upon, in that section or in the article in general, should essentially exist only insofar as it serves the focus of the article, which is on the coup. So information on the UFC is certainly relevant because it gives the reader a full perspective on and characterization of the influence of the UFC in Guatemala up to the point of the overthrow, and to talk about its minimal role in instigating it, but any information that goes beyond this general purpose shouldnt really be included -- in view of the focus of the article. Also, given the companys relatively minor role in instigating the coup, the "background" section should really focus more on background information on Guatemalan history that is strictly relevant to understanding the overthrow: this means information about his legalization of the PGT and Communist-like land reform decrees, which there already isnt enough of. Just overall I think most of the information is more suited for the Decree 900 article. Secondly, I really think you should add some of your sources to the references section, and also should individually footnote those quotations and some of the more questionable facts. This is really important to insure verifiability and to make this article more authoritative in general. --Clngre 19:38, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] thanks for heads up
In Re to older version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_PBSUCCESS&oldid=24173410
Thanks for heads up, I am new to Wikipedia.
My source of the information was the book "Inevitable Revolutions", which talks about America's historical role in Central America. I will add footnotes today
welcome! good job with the footnotes. --Clngre 14:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Extreme Conservative Bias
Personally, I believe that your sources have an extreme conservative and anti-communist bias, especially the way it is described that Operation PBSUCCESS was successful and makes claims it was imperitave to the freedom of guatamalens. It goes on to say that the aftermath of a 30 year military oppression, enormous class gap, Genocide of the natives, and brutal tactics of removing guerrilla freedom-fighters with hundereds of thousands of civilian casualties was an error by the CIA of not realizing their candidate was an oppressive military dictator. It also represents the jacobo arbenz administration as a democratic socialism turned communist dictatorship. In truth Jacobo Arbenz was bringing social reform to a country that had been ruled by an oppressive Oligarchy since the Spanish Conquistadors arrived. He made great advances in human rights and should be honored. Your source also makes light of the UFC's hand in the coup. Arbenz needed to make land reforms in order to bring the social classes closer, 2% of the population owned 70% of the land, giving the few large fruit companies labor monopolies. When Arbenz tried to enact a land reform forcing the UFC to sell 178,000 unused acres, the UFC pulled strings in Washington to end "Arbenz's communist tyrranny". A coup was brought about by ending aid to guatemala, training a guatamalen contra army, bombing government buildings, and bribing guatemalen generals to refuse help to Arbenz. Despite the new reign of oppression and mass-murder, the United states continued to aid Guatemala's government an estimated $229 million dollars throughout the 30 year repression with the sole purpose of protecting US from communism close to home. These facts are backed up by reports by amnesty international, numerous reports in Foreign Affairs and a book writtnen about the 1954 Guatemalen coups, Bitter Fruit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.114.229.90 (talk • contribs).
- I would disagree with only one of your points. I would not say that UFC had that huge of an impact. It certainly brought about a lot of attention of the matter (besides the fact that many senior members of the Eisenhower administration were connected to the company). The reason I would contest any major impact by UFC was the fact that the Justice Department slapped an anti-trust lawsuit on the company in 1954, the same year as the coup, precisely because of its operations in Guatemala, which is rather ironic. Besides that, I think you're right on. I own the book Bitter Fruit (good read regardless of your veiws on the subject). I think I might make some additions and edits to this article. Laserbeamcrossfire
[edit] I find it funny.or strange
So Written,As this entire article has pro-UFC POV. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.94.139.71 (talk • contribs).
- True, the person who guards this article feels that United Fruit Company had little part in the CIA intervention. I don't know enough about the subject to argue this. Travb (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Timeline to be added to the article
I have no illusions anyone will do this. I will add it later.
PBSUCCESS Timeline
18 July 1949 Col. Francisco Arana, Guatemalan armed forces chief, assassinated.
15 May 1950 Thomas Corcoran, United Fruit Company lobbyist, meets with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, Thomas Mann, to suggest action to oust Guatemalan President Juan José Arévalo.
3 September 1950 Case officer [ ] assigned to project [ ] arrives in Guatemala City [ ]establishes contact with [ ]a student group.
11 November 1950 Jacobo Arbenz elected president.
15 March 1951 Arbenz inaugurated.
22 August 1951 United Fruit Company warns employees that any increase in labor costs would make its operations in Guatemala uneconomic and force it to withdraw from the country.
15 September 1951 Windstorm flattens United Fruit's principal Guatemalan banana farms at Tiquisate; United Fruit later announces it will not rehabilitate plantation until it has completed study of economics of Guatemalan operation.
26 September 1951 United Fruit suspends 3,742 Tiquisate employees, refuses to comply with order of Inspector General of Labor to reinstate the suspended employees.
30 October 1951 Walter Turnbull, Vice President of United Fruit, gives Arbenz ultimatum. United Fruit will not rehabilitate plantation without assurance of stable labor costs for three years and exemption from unfavorable labor laws or exchange controls.
19 December 1951 United Fruit announces reduction in passenger ship service to Guatemala.
2 January 1952 Labor Court of Appeals rules United Fruit must resume operations at Tiquisate and pay 3,742 employees back wages.
25 March 1952 Mexico City [ ]begins receiving weekly reports from Castillo Armas.
16 June 1952 Case officer [ ] arrives in Guatemala [ ]
17 June 1952 Arbenz enacts Agrarian Reform Law.
10 July 1952. DDP Allen Dulles meets with Mann to solicit State Department approval for plan to overthrow Arbenz.
7 August 1952. Distribution of land under the Agrarian Reform Law begins.
18 August 1952 DCI gives approval for PBFORTUNE.
2 October 1952 Pan American Airways settles three-month-old strike in Guatemala by raising wages 23 percent.
11 December 1952 Guatemalan Communist party opens second party congress with senior Arbenz administration officials in attendance.
12 December 1952 Workers at United Fruit's Tiquisate plantation file for expropriation of 55,000 acres of United Fruit land.
19 December 1952 Guatemalan Communist party, PGT, legalized.
5 February 1953 Congress impeaches the Supreme Court for "ignorance of the law which shows unfitness and manifest incapacity to administer justice" after the Court issued an injunction against further seizures of land.
25 February 1953 Guatemala confiscates 234,000 acres of United Fruit land.
18 March 1953 NSC 144/1, "United States Objectives and Courses with Respect to Latin America," warns of a "drift in the area toward radical and nationalistic regimes."
29 March 1953 Salamá uprising. Abortive rebellion touches off sup- pression campaign against anti-Communists in Guatemala
12 August 1953 National Security Council authorizes covert action against Guatemala.
11 September 1953 [ ] adviser to King, submits "General Plan of Action" for PBSUCCESS.
October 1953 John Peurifoy, new US Ambassador, arrives in Guatemala City.
9 November 1953 José Manuel Fortuny flies to Prague to negotiate purchase of arms.
16 November 1953 DDP Frank Wisner approves [ ] plan and recommends acceptance by DCI.
9 December 1953 DCI Allen Dulles approves general plan for PBSUCCESS, allocates $3 million for the program.
23 December 1953 CIA's LINCOLN Station opens [ ]
18 January 1954 Alfonso Martinez, head of the Agrarian Department, "flees" to Switzerland. Proceeds to Prague to negotiate arms deal.
[ ] [ ]
25 January 1954 Guatemalan Government begins mass arrests of suspected subversives.
29 January 1954 Guatemalan white paper accuses US of planning invasion. Reveals substantial details of PBSUCCESS.
2 February 1954 Sydney Gruson, New York Times correspondent, expelled from Guatemala by Guatemalan Foreign Minister
Guillermo Toriello. [ ]Wisner, King meet to decide whether to abort PBSUCCESS due to white paper revelations.
19 February 1954 Operation WASHTUB, a plan to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua, begins.
24 February 1954 Guatemala confiscates 173,000 acres of United Fruit land.
1 March 1954 Caracas meeting of the OAS opens.
4 March 1954 Dulles speaks to Caracas meeting.
5 March 1954 Toriello rebuts US charges.
13 March 1954 OAS votes 17 to 1 to condemn Communism in Guatemala. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles briefed on PBSUCCESS.
21 March 1954 Paramilitary training program graduates 37 Guatemalan sabotage trainees.
9 April 1954 Guatemalan Archbishop Mariano Rossell y Arrellana issues a pastoral letter calling for a national crusade against Communism.
10 April 1954 Wisner briefs Assistant Secretary of State Henry Holland on PBSUCCESS. Holland, shocked by security lapses, demands top-level review of project.
15-16 April 1954 Black flights suspended pending top-level review of PBSUCCESS.
17 April 1954 John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles give [ ] the "full green light."
20 April 1954 Paramilitary training program graduates 30 leadership trainees.
[ ] [ ]
1 May 1954 La Voz de la Liberación, Operation SHERWOOD, begins broadcasts.
14 May 1954 Paramilitary training program graduates communications trainees.
15 May 1954 SS Alfhem docks in Puerto Barrios with cargo of Czech weapons.
20 May 1954 Commando raid on trainload of Alfhem weapons. One soldier and one saboteur killed. Further sabotage attempts on 21 and 25 May. All fail. Official Guatemalan radio goes off the air to replace transmitter. not restart broadcasts until mid-June. Nicaragua breaks diplomatic relations with Guatemala.
24 May 1954 US Navy begins Operation HARDROCK BAKER, sea blockade of Guatemala.
29 May 1954 Arbenz rounds up subversives, netting nearly all of Castillo Armas's clandestine apparatus.
31 May 1954 Arbenz offers to meet with Eisenhower to reduce tensions.
4 June 1954 Col. Rodolfo Mendoza of Guatemalan air force defects to El Salvador with private plane.
8 June 1954 Víctor Manuel Gutiérrez, secretary general of the Guatemalan trade union federation, holds a special meeting of farm and labor unions to urge them to mobilize for self-defense.
15 June 1954 Sabotage teams launched. Invasion forces moved to staging areas. Chief of Station [ ] makes cold approach to [ ] prime defection candidate.
17 June 1954 [ ] meets again with [ ]
requests bombing of Guatemala City race track as demonstration of strength.
18 June 1954 At 1700 hours, Arbenz holds mass rally at railroad station. Buzzed by CIA planes. At 2020 hours, Castillo Armas crosses the border.
19 June 1954 At 0150 hours, bridge at Gualán blown up.
20 June 1954 Esquipulas captured. Rebels defeated at Gualán.
21 June 1954 Largest rebel force suffers disastrous defeat at Puerto Barrios.
25 June 1954 Matamoros Fortress bombed. Chiquimula captured. CIA planes strafe troop trains.
27 June 1954 Arbenz capitulates. Castillo Armas attacks Zacapa, is defeated, and falls back to Chiquimula. Agency plane bombs British freighter at San José.
28 June 1954 Díaz, Sணhez, and Monzón form junta at 1145 hours. Refused to negotiate with Castillo. F-47 dropped two bombs at x 530 hours
29 June 1954 Monzón seizes junta, requests negotiations with Castillo Armas. Zacapa garrison arranges cease-fire with Castillo Armas.
30 June 1954 Wisner sends "Shift of Gears" cable, urging officers to withdraw from matters of policy.
1 July 1954 Monzón and Castillo Armas meet in Honduras to mediate differences.
2 July 1954 SHERWOOD ceases broadcasts, begins withdrawal.
4-17 July 1954 CIA documents recovery team, PBHISTORY, collects 150,000 Communist-related documents in Guatemala City.
12 July 1954 LINCOLN office closed.
1 September 1954 Castillo Armas assumes presidency.
26 July 1957 Castillo Armas assassinated.
Signed:Travb (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Role of United Fruit in instigating coup
This seems to be a fairly contentious issue -- or, at very least, contentious enough that a number of anonymous users have taken to deleting the existing information, which claims that their role in instigating the coup was relatively minimal, despite the popular belief to the otherwise. Before anyone reverts the existing information again, I think it would be a good idea that they provide a rationale for it here first or inconjunction with the revert. I do think their role was relatively minimal, and my main source for this is the internally-written CIA history of the coup (no need for any coverup or polemic with something written for the benefit of trainee agents studying case histories), which is remarkably scathing and negative towards the CIA's action in its own right. --Clngre 03:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- I personally believe that the UFC had a much larger role than some may say, but I do believe that the CIA had a larger role in calling for the coup. I believe such evidence can be found in Kinzer and Schlesinger's book Bitter Fruit. Like you, I have not done extensive study on the coup, so I can't go off anything more than what I've read. I do think the edits need to be explained. --Laserbeamcrossfire 07:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
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- Well what does one do in a situation like this? The anonynous user is just obstinately deleting those passages and completely ignoring any discussion on the matter, despite my appeals for that. For the last revert I said to see the talk page before deleting again and I don't know what else to do. I'm hesitant to just revert again because I think he'll return it in kind and it will just go on forever. The only recourse is discussion and he's evidently not open to that.
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- Regarding United Fruit's role, we absolutely should put up any available evidence of a greater role in the coup, if there is some, and accurately represent the issue -- ie, if it is seriously contentious and there is good arguments for both positions, that should be reflected in the article somehow. As far as I know it, the UFC pushed for it as hard as it could but that the decision was ultimately made on different grounds (vis a vis the Cold War) and not expressly for them, with the idea of their direct and complete responsibility in this just being kind of urban legend. It also dovetails nicely with a narrative that a lot of people want to be true (and which I think is, to be clear) of the wealthy, particularly corporations, being the de facto ruling class in the US, as well as being huge proponents of war (a company has a responsibility to its shareholders to make profit! people will yell. It's not their fault, they're just obeying the law!). --Clngre 12:19, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted the reference and quotes that minimize UFC's role in the overthrow fo two reason's. The first is that your supposed source that proves that overthrow was planned before the arbenze governments reforms were implemented seems rather flimsy. In the source section you cite you say the document proves this, but you are not quoting the document itself, only the preface of the document which sounds to me less like hard evidence and more like state department apologetics. You also fail to realize that although there was some preliminary planning to overthrow the abenze government, it was squashed by Truman before the end of his term. The plan was revived in the eisenhower adminstration due to heavy lobbying by the UFC. The second reason I deleted this information is what I consider to be a bias prevalent on wikipedia. It is not a conservative bias, nor a neo-conservative bias, not even a libertarian bias, but a sort of childish contratian bias. It seems partly Objectivist, and partly a somewhat pathological need to defend free-market capitalism. In your last post you said that those of us who disagree with you have need to want this to be true. You say that you agree with this, but in this case it simply isn't true. You seem like a perfectly reasonable person so at this point I have no reason to doubt you in that statement. However, I am somewhat suspicious when at the beginning of the article you say that the UFC played a relatively minor role, even though later in the article you admit they heavily lobbyed the Eisenhower adminstration to take action. Under no circumstances can this be considered a relatively minor role. Relatively minor role implies "Well they didn't like arbenze, but it is more paranoia about communism than anything else". Even if the source you cited was accurate in the way you protray it(Let's remember that this is a document released by the government, so they may have vested interest in twisting the truth a little bit) you still have to admit that UFC played a rather huge role in convincing goverment officials two go along with the coup. There is a gentlemen a few post's back who has a rather invaliable timeline that show's that UFC was concerned about it's operations in Guatemala well before the document you cited was created. I will say that if you wish to restore the document that you feel proves your thesis I will not make any further attempts to delete, I just ask that you fully read more of it than just the introductory parts of it. I also stress some caution from now in using the term relatively minor to decribe the UFC's role. I thank you for this talk and wish to say I meant no disrespect in my actions and I hope you don't take it personally. -user annoymous 9:30, August 20, 2006 (UTC)
- Hi. Thanks for the timely reply! To be clear, when I said a minor role, I meant specifically in the choice to actually launch the coup, not a minor role in that they weren't involved in some signficant ways, which they absolutely were. If we're looking at the "why" with the coup, why it launched and who is responsible, I don't think it's accurate or sufficient to just put it at the it at the feet of UFC. I think the point is that, while the UFC certainly wanted this and certainly worked hard to get it, the ultimate decision to launch the coup was made on different grounds. To put it in other words: would there still have been a coup if the UFC didn't involve itself? I think the answer is yes and that's kind of what I want to get across in the article, and I have no problem accepting that I failed in clearly communicating that and that the message that ultimately got across was that the UFC is irrelevant in this, which would be totally wrong. I have no intention of absolving the UFC on this, their interests in the coup can't be overlooked, but at the same time I don't think one could best explain that "why" by simply pointing to the UFC -- there are much bigger issues at play there. The prevailing calculus was always with regards to the Cold War, I think, and the idiotic decision to launch the coup, especially the way they did it, was more do to Cold War hysteria than overt maliciousness and greed.
- With regards to my source, I don't really accept your characterization of it as suspect or as being an apologetic. The author was an outside expert who was brought in to go through all the CIA's files on the coup and write a narrative history of it, wholly and specifically for internal use. In such a context, there is no need to lie or distort. At the time it was written there was no idea of if or when or how it would ever be published, it was only for trainees and research within the CIA. Moreover, his report was released and published into a book almost by accident -- there was a brief period of post-Cold War openness in the CIA and the censors pretty much let it slip by, and later editions of it actually have some stuff removed. Now, I'm not saying that, therefore, this source is all there is to care about and everything else is inferior to it, I'm just saying theres some information in here that can't be justly ignored.
- Just for full disclosure, I should say that I wrote 99% of the article as it is in its current form. People have since ammended little bits here or there, but pretty much everything you see is my writing, so I can answer for it if need be. --Clngre 15:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you mistook my criticism of your primary source. Although I was suspect of the documents intentions, my main criticism was that your conclusion about the document was based on the Introductory parts of the document and not what was actually in the document. In the actual document itself there are several references to the UFC's influence from the very beginning. It seems to me your also not taking into account the fact it was not just the arbenze government that the UFC was worried about. As you show in your otherwise extremely well written article, the UFC had been worried about there operations in Guatemala since the 1944 revolution. Now I am not disputing that there were those in the intelligence community who were genuinely paranoid about a communist takeover and thought that Guatemala was under the influence of the Soviet Union . I am merely suggesting that they were led to believe this by the UFC. I know your going to say "Well how do you know what people were influenced by back then". However, if you look at your own arguement closely you will see that your doing the same thing by assuming that people's fear of communism was more prevalent than there need to satisfy the UFC. I am suggesting that the two are interlated, fear of communism and the pressure from the UFC. You also seem to disregard a key point in this situation in that the adminstration changed in between the years of arbenze coming to power and the actual coup. Whatever plans may have originated to oust arbenze before Eisenhower came to office were squashed by Truman (as you acknowledge in your article). It was only after intense lobbying from the UFC that the plans to overthrow arbenze were rehashed. I was not specifically questioning the accuracy of your article, I was simply saying it proves very little. I never expected to find a document written by some state department offical that said "Well we don't care about communism, were just out to please the UFC". I simply stating that in specific case of Guatemala the fear of communism was exaserbated by the UFC. Again I know your going to accuse me of trying to read the minds of what people thought over 50 years ago, but as i said it seems to me you are doing the same thing. You suggest in your article that the fear of communism was so dominant in peoples thinking that at best the UFC was nothing more than a sidenote. You acknowledged in your last post that UFC did want arbenze ousted and lobbied hard for it. However, in a few post's back you say there direct role in the decision was an urban legend. This seems to be a contadictory line thinking in my mind. If a group was involved in directly lobbying for something that they desperately wanted, you cannot say there direct involvment was an urban legend. At best you must acknowledge that there involvment was at least equal to the fear of communism. You say that you feel the coup would have happened had the UFC not been involved. I disagree, but for the sake arguement let's say I agree with that assesment. Let's then ask the opposite question that if there had been no fear of Soviet influence in this case and there was just the UFC would the coup still have happened. I would say yes. The contention between you and me seems be about which feeling was more prevalent among those who instigated the coup. In the interest of fairness I'll say that specualting about that is mere conjecture and that either viewpoint could be right, but since I gather that neither of us is psychic or able to magically see back into the past, it is a rather moot point. Again as i said before I will not interfere if you wish to reinstate your source, I just ask that you examine it more carefully. I also suggest that you adjust your POV at the begiining of the article to reflect a more neutral point of view. I would just like to say that on the whole I think your article is extremely well written. user:annoymous 12:30, August 20, 2006 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.210.28.135 (talk • contribs) .
[edit] Needed citations
Speaking about Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the article says that
An intellectual, he advocated social and political reforms, unionization, and land reform. For the latter, Arbenz secretly met with members of the Communist Guatemalan Labor Party (known by its Spanish acronym 'PGT') in order to establish an effective land reform program. Such a program was proposed by Arbenz as a means of remedying the extremely unequal land distribution within the country: in 1945, it was estimated that 2% of the country's population controlled 72% of all arable land, but with only 12% of it being utilized.
This statistic about the percent of land being utilized definitely needs a cited source. There is none.
[edit] "PB"
The article mentions that the 'PB' of PBSUCCESS comes from 'Presidential Board'. I have read in at least two other sources that it refers to the two country digraph that the CIA used to indicate 'Guatemala', however I can't find anywhere where this is indicated for sure? Anyone know?
