Inside the agency itself, few people were aware that the Árbenz-Moscow connection had actually been concocted by United Fruit and the Dulleses.Īs such, the CIA agents who rifled through Árbenz’s possessions were unable to find evidence that he was a Communist or in communication with Moscow. And that meant that Guatemala needed to release official documents and bold declarations into the domestic and international media in order to control the narrative.įirst, CIA agents raided Árbenz’s residence to try to find legitimate evidence that Árbenz was under Soviet control. could officially recognize Castillo Armas’s new regime as Guatemala’s legitimate government. The CIA needed to bring forth “evidence” of Árbenz’s guilt, so that the U.S. government itself release an official statement in support of agrarian reform somewhere else in the world, so that they could refute the story about the U.S. The very day that Árbenz resigned, CIA headquarters telegrammed orders to broadcast something on Radio Liberación to make sure that Guatemalans didn’t think that Castillo Armas was a “UFCO man.” (UFCO had been supplying him and the CIA with transportation, telegraph and radio relays, and publicity assistance from the beginning.) CIA Deputy Director of Plans Frank Wisner released a press release–style memo stating, “The United Fruit Company simply does not figure into this at all.” Two days earlier, the CIA had telegrammed the State Department requesting that the U.S. This effort became its own official CIA operation, dubbed PBHistory. The ultimate stage of the CIA’s info-war playbook against Guatemala, “Consolidation,” was designed to make sure that the U.S.’s preferred version of the events came true - or rather, that it became the official story that journalists and historians would reference moving forward. (Photo courtesy The Center for Mesoamerican Research/Fototeca Guatemala at CIRMA) In his memoir, Phillips described the assignment as a “pleasant” month involving games of bridge and golf with Ambassador Peurifoy, along with gleaning “information to be disseminated abroad … which would demonstrate the extent of Soviet involvement with the regime of Árbenz.” Ambassador Peurifoy accompanied by members of the Guatemalan military, 1954.
This was part of the final task that David Phillips and others from the CIA propaganda team had been assigned: Prove to the world that ousting Árbenz had been a good idea. Journalists from The New York Times and several other newspapers showed up, having been promised juicy evidence that a Communist foothold in the Americas had been averted. Stage 6 in the CIA’s step-by-step plan to overthrow the government of Guatemala.Īfter Jacobo Árbenz went into exile, CIA agents took reporters on a tour of his abandoned home. Need to catch up? Click here to start at the beginning. You’re reading our 7-part true story about the original fake news network.
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