Guatemala and American Politics

In Latin America

It is possible that by the time this issue of DISSENT appears, the problem of Guatemala will have been forgotten, pushed aside by some new catastrophe. But forgotten, we are convinced, only for the moment. What happened there is so critical and symptomatic that it will have to be returned to again and again.

In the two articles that follow, Victor Alba presents a brief report on the Castillo Armas “revolution” and a speculative discussion of the Latin American problem in general. He writes from the perspective of a socialist living in Latin America; here we need only add a few words from the perspective of a socialist in the United States….

What was most astonishing was not so much the openness of U. S. intervention as the frank, cheerful desire of Washington that this openness be universally noted. Despairing, apparently, of diplomacy, politics and economic aid, the State Department now wished to proclaim its reliance on military force. John Peurifoy, the U. S. Ambassador to Guatemala, boasted that he had sponsored an armed revolt against a government which, it might be recalled, had been legally elected. In the New York Times for July 18, 1954, he was quoted as saying that “people are complaining that I was forty-five minutes off schedule” in overthrowing the Arbenz government—the sort of joke that would have delighted Teddy Roosevelt.

Equally astonishing is the fact that the State Department either has not cared or has not been able to prevent Castillo Armas from immediately fulfilling the worst expectations. That the new regime should be so openly reactionary—how can this be explained except as a sign of a wilful hardening of political intelligence among those who set U. S. foreign policy?

Directly upon taking power (taking it, that is, from Mr. Peurifoy), Castillo Armas disenfranchised 72 per cent of the population on the ground of illiteracy. American commentators have discussed this action in a way that can lead a sane man to insanity. Because of the peasant’s illiteracy, we are told, they were particularly susceptible to the Stalinists.* Hence, to destroy this influence, the peasants had to be deprived of their vote—a clear way, no doubt, of persuading them that the Stalinists were wrong.

The new government has also “suspended temporarily” the agrarian reform law. Reports the New York Times of July 27, 1954:

“Early last year, the Arbenz government expropriated more than 200,000 acres of the company’s holdings…. The company refused to accept as compensation 600,000 quetzales in twenty-five-year agrarian bonds. Its $15,000,000 claim is still pending. While the new law seems certain to create unrest among peasants possessing land under the old reform, observers are optimistic that there will be no violence…”

In Latin America�...