ARMY FOR PROGRESS : THE U.S. MILITARIZATION OF THE GUATEMALAN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CRISIS 1961-1969

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the military and political implications of the United States' foreign policy towards Guatemala in the years 1961 to 1969. Guatemala was a key battleground of the Cold War in Latin America in the crucial decade of the 1960s. While greater scholarly attention has focused on the 1954 U.S. backed CIA planned cou~ in Guatemala, the events of the 1960s proved an equally significant watershed in U.S.-Latin American relations. Tue outbreak of a nationalist insurgency in Guatemala early in the decade provided the Kennedy Administration with a vital testing ground for its new counter-insurgency and civic action politico-military doctrine. Tue fear of another Cuba, combined with the growing political and social instability within Guatemala, increasingly drove U.S. policy makers first in the Kennedy and later in the Johnson Administration to adopt a largely military solution in Guatemala just as in South Vietnam with similar tragic results. Relying primarily on Presidential archival materials, government documents, and Spanish publications as the basis ofits analysis, this study demonstrates how 1) the U.S. transmutation of military doctrine and cultures warped civil-military relations within Guatemala, 2) assured the emergence of the Guatemalan military as the dominant force within society, and 3) inadvertently increased the very instability and conflict the U.S. hoped to stem within the region. This project demonstrates that by the late 1960s, due in significant part to U.S.

Annual Budgets of the Public Safety Program, Guatemala 1957Guatemala -1961 Guatemala: 1962Guatemala: -1969 Guatemala 1964Guatemala -1972  I returned to Guatemala for a one month temporary duty assignment...as part of a team to assist the new government in sifting and evaluating the documents left behind when Arbenz and his friends abruptly went into the foreign embassies. The papers we found were an intelligence gold mine, filled with nuggets of information ... The CI-nicks-counter-intelligence officers --who worked with me were ecstatic. These were pearls which could be fondled for years. 8 In 1956 It may be assumed ... that the primary police function of protecting life and liberty and preserving the peace is in reality a secondary function of the police administration and executive management. Operations top level planning, intelligence gathering activities are singularly directed towards alertness and preparedness against 'the threat of the communists' instead of being directed against the army of criminals. 10 Ronald M. Schneider's 1958 orthodox work, Communism in Guatemala, provides a good representation of U.S. fears of communist subversion in the region during the 1950s. But like its 1955 predecessor, Daniel James' Red Design for the Americas: Guatemala Prelude, its scholarship has been called into question for its exaggerated appraisal of the communist threat and its almost exclusive reliance on extreme right wing sources and interviews with Castillo Annas' Liberacionista Army veterans. Post-revisionist historian Stephen G. Rabe has even suggested that the CIA helped finance Schneider's study. 11 Even in this relatively early period, Washington began to view Guatemala as an ideal training ground for the U.S.'s larger security goals in the hemisphere. A 1958 Public Safety memorandum spoke of the director's "pleasure regarding the project for · ' ) third-country training in Guatemala for Ecuadorians in border control methods and scientific surveillance techniques." The same document went on to cite "joint Guatemalan, Salvadoran and Honduran police training exercises near Guatemala City .... "12 Still the government of President Castillo Armas, the U.S. designated leader of the 1954 coup (who had been a furniture salesman in Honduras when the CIA picked him) proved so inept, corrupt and repressive that no amount of American largesse succeeded in halting Guatemala's economic and political slide. When a deranged rightist officer assassinated C;istillo Annas in July 19 5 7,  of State John Foster Dulles sought an end to political anarchy in Guatemala, which had increasingly become an embarrassment to United States' prestige. 14 Y digoras won a plurality of 42% in the 1958 elections , running on a platform of nationalism and political reconciliation . His victory was ultimately decided in the National Assembly with considerable arm twisting by the new U.S. ambassador John J.
Muccio , who conveyed the Eisenhower Administration's "strong desire for a stable and unified government. 1115 Y digoras was therefore somewhat beholden to the United States despite the fact that four years previously th~ CIA had rejected him as a potential leader of the coup on the grounds that he was "too headstrong and unpredictable. " 16  Guatemalan officers, especially the younger reformist ones, expressed outrage.
According to Turios Lima, a young participant in the revolt and later guerrilla commander, the presence of Cuban exiles training in Guatemala: "was a shameful violation of our national sovereignty. And why was it permitted? Because our government is a puppet. 1120 But he emphasized that his reasons for joining the revolt were essentially "the traditional ones of younger officers fed up with corruption, desiring structural changes in the army, nothing really different. 1121 Disgust throughout Guatemala with Y digoras' corruption was universal. In 1958 as his first official act in office Ydigoras increased his own salary to $150,000 a year --the highest for a head of state in the Western Hemisphere. He also granted himself a generous million dollar pension fund. He appointed his daughter ambassador to France and his cousin education minister. 22 Auctioning off the national fincas (government owned plantations) to whomever offered him the largest bribes. the new president sold offices, as one opponent put it "like a street vendor selling tortillas. " 23 Y digoras particularly enraged younger officers by promoting older cronies while obstructing the promotions of lieutenants and captains. He went "colonel crazy" in the late 1950s, jumping favorites several grades, bestowing the rank on civilian bureaucrats and drinking buddies until the Guatemalan Army attained the ludicrous distinction of having 35% of its officers hold the rank of colonel (4.7% of U.S. army officers in the same time period were colonels). In 1960 El Imparcial, Guatemala's most influential newspaper, decried the "lack of discipline [which] increased from top to bottom, consuming social energy and discouraging everyone. " 25 Not all officers, however, were angry at Y digoras for his graft and demoralization of the military. Several senior colonels expressed resentment that they had not been cut in for their fair share of the $50,000 bribe or the $500,000 in additional military aid. 26 16 The Eisenhower Administration's reaction to the rebellion of November 13, 1960, proved swift and decisive. Informed by Secretary of State Christian Herter that the situation was "not good", President Eisenhower decided that "if we received a request from Guatemala for assistance, we would move in without delay. " 27  Barrios overawed many of the insurgents and clearly dispirited rebel morale. Still the revolt had been a close run thing. Disputed reports from among the participants claimed that Cuban exile troops and not loyal Guatemalan soldiers carried out most of the ground fighting against the insurgents . Y digoras apparently mistrusted his own troops . 28 Some 120 Guatemalan army officers and an estimated 3,000 soldiers, over a third of the overall force, participated in the uprising which lasted four days, took over three major military bases and gained control of the country's largest port city. While the revolt started as a nationalist protest against institutional decay and the presence of the Cubans, its bloody outcome further radicalized the survivors. They would return to the country fifteen months later as determined communist guerrillas. Thus in one fell swoop, the United States and Y digoras eliminated nearly all the young reformist idealism within the Guatemalan military. This would be sorely missed when the Kennedy Administration attempted to implement social reforms within Guatemala a year later. 29 Despite Washington's energetic support on behalf of his regime during the crisis, the United States increasingly pulled away from Y digoras after the coup. The slow unraveling of Ydigoras' presidency began in November 1960. A 1959 collapse in the price of coffee, Guatemala's number one export, accelerated domestic disillusionment with Y digoras' economic program He would flounder desperately in his remaining two and a half years in office, trying to divert attention from his personal malfeasance, political unpopularity and economic failure by alternatively calling for invasions of British Honduras (Belize) and Castro's Cuba as well as overdramatizing his extremely modest land reform program 30 After the Cuban Revolution, the Eisenhower Administration began to shift its Guatemalan security policy away from deterring a Moscow-inspired political takeover by a leftist-communist popular front to the suppression of a possible Castro style guerrilla insurgency. Hemispheric defense doctrine, with its emphasis on anti-Soviet submarine surveillance and air patrols , gave way to internal security. 31  Guatemala has been the recipient of exclusive aid under the Mutual Security Program. In addition to moderate military assistance and the existence of an Army Mission and an Air Mission, some $58,000,000 has been made available during the past five years as technical and Special Assistance. This was a consequence of the need to bolster the economy and strengthen the democratic regime which followed the overthrow in 1954 of the Communist-dominated Arbenz Government. 1953Government. 1954Government. 1955Government. 1956Government. 1957Government. 1958Government. 1959Government. 1960 The allocation of funds have been as follows: Army Mission Including Milita(Y Assistance ' $ 67 68 Military assistance to the Army Mission ( column #I) , which included training and equipment, was minimal during the years of the Arbenz presidency , 1953 and1954. In fiscal year 1956, aid increased by about 1,000%. This occurred in conjunction with the massive overhaul of Guatemalan military and security forces (police , secret police , and the new security departments) , by U.S . Army, CIA and FBI advisors. A gradual fall-off of investment then occurred which began to rise noticeably again during the Castro years 1959 and1960. During the years of this admittedly uneven build-up , the Guatemalan Army increased in size by 60%, from 5,000 to 8,000 men . The Guatemalan National Police increased by 50% from 2,000 to 3,000 men . The Public Safety Program records show similar patterns of U.S . investment.

20
FIRST YEAR 57 58 59 60 61  Guatemala (1991) and The American Connection (1985) make a strong argument that the roots of all political repression in Guatemala lay in these crucial Eisenhower years of the mid to late 1950s, but this study will show that the Kennedy influence in the early 1960s was even more pronounced and predominant.

21
One of the ironic outcomes of the Eisenhower Administration's increased military assistance, intelligence and internal security spending in Guatemala was that the network it helped install seemed to know everything that was going on inside of the country except the fact that one-third of the military was about to rise up and overthrow the government . Much of this was due to both Washington and the Guatemalan government's obsession with the small Guatemalan Communist party as the only credible threat to the government.
In hindsight the appraisal made in this internal Office of Public Safety memo, dated June 20, 1960, speaks volumes of the U.S. misappraisal: Tue extent to which military assistance can, by strengthening Guatemala, aid U.S. national security and our foreign policy interests is perceptible but of a rather diverse nature. As of now it is doubtful if Guatemala could be of much help outside the confines of its own frontiers. There is however gradually being engendered a better understanding of free world ideology, a better esprit de corps, and hopefully, we think, slightly less political ambition on the part of those trained in the military. It is true there remains a large group of older senior officers who would like to be President, but junior officers are now learning something about simple military devotion to duty. Training in U.S. service schools has positive benefits not only in the military sense but also has observably had very considerable desirable moral influence on those who have passed through them 35 Largely urban, shopkeepers, craftsmen, managers, low level government functionaries, as well as some small farmers, the ladinos were an important force in the more modem sectors of the Guatemalan economy and supplied the Guatemalan military with most of its junior officer corps. The majority, but not all, allied themselves with the liberal centrist Revolutionary Party (PR) . The Kennedy Administration counted on these ladinos to lead the way towards the modernization and democratization of Guatemala. 9 The largest population group in Guatemala in 1961, making up  are discontented or dying of hunger or distress is a bit of whimsy that history has tolerated few times in real life." 1 9 The Alliance for Progress brought about a huge rise in expectations to the poor of Guatemala which upset the traditional social fabric much more than Castro's largely annoying radio broadcasts. Wealthy Guatemalans certainly regarded Kennedy, with his wild ideas of land reform and progressive tax codes, as a much greater threat to then: In assessing the internal security situation in Latin America we found that civil police forces in many countries needed assistance in police administration, training and operational techniques and particularly required greater mobility and more adequate systems of communication largely related to riot control and other threats to public order. Consequently the public safety program, which is an integral part of the AID program, is designed to meet these requests. 44 Through the Office of Public Safety Program, the Kennedy Administration supplied the Guatemalan police with helicopters, computers , radios, armored cars and machine guns. It furnished the police with millions of rounds of small arms ammunition, thousands of revolvers, shotguns, tear gas grenades, riot batons, shields and helmets, hundreds of walkie-talkies, police cars and wagons, gas masks and bullet proofvests. 45 Students from San Carlos University, as well as labor unions and leftist political parties, frequently demonstrated against the government during the Kennedy years and the Administration wanted always to be fully prepared . As former AID Administrator David Bell testified before Congress in 1963: The police are the most sensitive point of contact between the government and the people, close to the focal points of unrest and better trained and equipped than even military in most cases to deal with both major and minor forms of violence, conspiracy, and subversion. 46 In the opening paragraph of the International Police Academy's catalogue, the Office of Public Safety stated that of all its programs "training has the most enduring 44 effect. 1147 While Academy spokesmen characterized the school's course material as dealing exclusively with "those modern techniques of law enforcement necessary to maintain an effective, responsive and humane police force, 11 48   Contrary to the impression in a cable from Guatemala City this morning, most of the internal security equipment which has been approved has been delivered. Two items, sickening gas and two water tank trucks were not initially approved because it was not thought desirable to associate the United States with these patently repressive instruments. As a substitute new tank trucks , which incidentally must be procured in Germany and are of the type used by the Soviets and East Germans along the Berlin Wall (author's italics) have been sent and are now in Guatemala City ... 55 It is ironic that John F. Kennedy, famous for his 1963 speech at the Berlin Wall condemning Communist tyranny against the people of Eastern Europe , used the exact same instruments of repression against college students and labor unions in Guatemala.
This classified document is also indicative of Kennedy's keen interest in the internal security of Latin American nations. One would not ordinarily suppose that a U.S. president would be concerned with such detailed minutia as the type of crowd control equipment employed against rioters in Guatemala City.
Civic action provided another keystone to the Kennedy Doctrine in Guatemala and particularly emphasized the notion of "winning the hearts and minds" of the Guatemalan people as we)l as vigorously promoting the concept of "nation building." The Pentagon defined civic action as: the use of preponderantly indigenous military forces on projects useful to the local population at all levels in such fields as education, training, public works, agriculture, transportation, communication, health, sanitation and others contributing to economic and social development which would also serve to improve the standing of the military forces with the population . 56 Several questions arise from the definition itself By its very nature civic action The problems that resulted from the Guatemalan civic action program illustrated some of the basic weaknesses and contradictions of the Alliance for Progress and the Kennedy Doctrine in general. Supposed altruism engendered resentment from all sides.
Peasants and Indians exprẽssed suspicion over these projects, particularly road building and the laying of telephone lines in guerrilla areas. In the past, government school and road construction always employed local Indian labor, providing desperately needed income to the rural poor . Now the Guatemalan Army carried out the majority of these construction projects , eliminating civilian jobs. This also angered local ladino construction firm owners. Large landowners complained that irrigation projects made the Indian more self-reliant and less apt to report to work on their plantations.
Landowners regarded civic action built school houses with particular anathema. "Once an Indian can read you can never get him to work. .. he becomes lazy ... no good," one stated in Barizan after the military erected a new school house. 62 Indian and peasant workers felt they could build schools and clinics more cheaply and efficiently than the Army. They pointed to shoddy construction, inflated costs, and graft at virtually every civic action site. Soldiers invariably sold left-over construction materials to local businessmen. Many officers in the Guatemalan Army infused with machismo and a centuries old warrior code deeply resented having to play the part of "glorified construction workers." They felt it denigrated their stature as soldiers to swing picks and shovels. With guerrillas operating openly in the countryside, civic action programs seemed superfluous to them, their job was to kill the enemies of the state. Talented ambitious officers avoided civic action duty.

Incompetent, corrupt ones generally ran the program 63
Because of its relatively low budget, $300,000 -$500,000 per year in the 1960s   Guatemala did not represent the highest number of graduates, largely because alone of all the Central American countries, it maintained a U.S. Green Beret operated counter-insurgency training base on its own territory, secretly established in Maricos in May, 1962. By then Guatemala, unlike her sister republics, did not need to ship so many officers and enlisted men to Panama for the latest, up-to-date instruction. Also of note in the chart is the fact that nearly half of all Western Hemisphere School of the   Guatemala from 1978Guatemala from -1982Guatemala from and 1982Guatemala from -1983 respecti v ely, both attended this school in the early 1960s ). 8  Theoretically we can put vast amounts of arms and riot equipment into Latin American hands today to stamp out rebellion and shoot down the Communist leaders and their followers. But in whose hands would we put these arms? How can we be sure that the riot quellers of today will not be the rioters of tomorrow? What good are arms and security controls in a permanently unstable society? 87 These words could serve as the epitaph for the Kennedy Doctrine in Guatemala.
Senator Edward Gruening, a sharp critic of Kennedy's Latin American policy, stated early in 1962: Latin American military leaders contrary to the Administration's misplaced faith in them, will continue to react to power struggles in their own countries in accordance with their own estimates of the situation, their own ambitions, their vested privileges, and their own heritage . Democracy does not rub off by commingling of individuals or by grants of military assistance. 11 88 Since it would neither fundamentally change its investment and trade policy with Guatemala, nor use its political and economic leverage to force through real agrarian reform, the Kennedy Administration chose the military option together with some largely cosmetic local improvement projects (this is not to say that the people involved in these projects were insincere). It decided ultimately to bet on the Army and the internal security system of Guatemala in order to achieve its over-arching strategic goals . This militarization of policy was by no means unique to Guatemala LATIN AMERICA 1952Fiscal Year 1952195319541955195619571958195919601961  In Guatemala, as in Honduras and El Salvador all the peasants helped and protected the rebels, tried to influence them and win them over to their side. The peasants' motive was not only to offer them solidarity and sympathy but also to win allies and leaders in their struggle for land. The peasants had done this with many rebel leaders over and over again; they had been doing it for years, for centuries. Many of the rebels did not respond but the effort was not in vain; the influence was felt by some, although not immediately. Yon Sosa and Alejandro de Leon's companeros did not jump to conclusions but little by little the peasants won them over. 5 In when he joined the rebels he discovered "not only Communists but also sincere revolutionaries, Catholics, socialists, anarchists and people whose only aspiration was to overthrow the regime in order to replace it with something more equitable. " 9 In the same month of July 1961, Y digoras' government executed one of Turcios Democracy vanished from our country long ago. No people can live in a country where there is no democracy. That is why the demand for change is mounting in our country. We can no longer carry on in this way . We must overthrow the Y digoras government and set up a government which respects human rights, seeks ways and means to save our country from its hardships, and pursues a serious self-respecting foreign policy. 10 This statement contained little in the way of Marxist ideology yet the Y digoras government immediately branded MR-13 a Castro-Communist movement hiding behind a progressive mask "to better dupe naive supporters and lull the United States into complacency . 1111    In an April 3, 1963, news conference, a reporter asked President Kennedy in direct reference to the coup: "Are we going to have any consistent or uniform policy on whether or not to recognize governments that take power by force?" Kennedy replied: "No, we haven't got a consistent policy because circumstances are sometimes inconsistent ... This government that has taken over in Guatemala has indicated that it will eventually provide a return to civilian rule ... " 40 In reality "civilian rule" would not return for three more years. On April 17, 1963      Peralta also fit his new security apparatus into the larger regional context. Here Guerrillas in this period frequently displayed the annoying habit of crossing borders for sanctuary. Despite its attempts to publicize itself as a sort of NATO or SEATO for Central America, the organization was simply a larger regional counter-insurgency mechanism as U.S. Department of Defense documents confirm. CONDECA called for "a greater coordination of military and police operations against Communism" and "an interchange of information and intelligence as a contribution to the fight against regional subversion. " 54 In the first official meeting of CONDECA, held again in Guatemala City in 1964, Peralta, who had come to power in a military coup, praised its potential as "a rampart for the protection of the democratic system " 55 While a supposedly "independent security arrangement" CONDECA proved about as independent as the    proved the natural result of the Mann Doctrine , not just in Guatemala, but in Venezuela in 1964, in Colombia 1964, in Peru in 1965  If you keep giving one group of men more and more guns and you keep giving another group of men more and more books, who do you think is going to become the most powerful? And who do you think is going to become the most frustrated? You Americans have created your own revolution so I cannot feel sorry for you. 13 The The PMA shall lend assistance in cases of emergency , to the owners and administrators of estates, haciendas, agricultural lands, forests and all rural properties ... [and] observes all activity that tends to inflame passions among the peasant masses or in the rural communities and when necessary repress through licit means any disorder that shall occur. 15 In response to the government's ever tightening grip in the countryside, Yon Sosa's and Turcios Limas' guerrilla groups stepped up their attacks focusing on assassinating well-known brutal landlords and kidnapping others for ransom The FAR raised some $500,000 from kidnapping and robberies between 1964 and 1966. 16 These funds helped purchase more weaponry and also funded "the April 12 Front," a student resistance movement in the capital. Not all of Washington's concern over Castroite links with the guerrillas proved unfounded. Castro gave moral and political support, The Peralta regime, despite its effectiveness in reducing corruption has been unable to take any affirmative decisions in the economic and social fields which would have contributed to progress and to reduction of counter-insurgency problems. The Government has been unable or unwilling to eliminate guerrilla groups although sporadically aggressive patrol activity by the military has succeeded in keeping them somewhat off balance ...
The U.S . should undertake in various low key ways, including direct personal contact to make known to Peralta the U.S. view that an early return to constitutional government is essential and emphasizing the U.S. concern that failure to move in this direction enhances the possibility of subversion or civil war. .. Further the U.S. should encourage Peralta to permit all "middle of the road" political parties to present candidates for the presidency. 23 By the fall of 1965, the Peralta government agreed, with some reluctance, to We wonder whether the confidence gap between MM (Mendez Montenegro) and the military-conservatives cannot be bridged . We wonder for example whether MM could not reassure the business community on how far he proposes to go in economic and social reforms and the military establishment on the future status of their programs and control of communist activities. We recognize that the mechanism for accomplishing this may be difficult to assemble ... 27 Through its savage, sudden annihilation of "the 28", the Guatemalan military delivered an unmistakable message to all political parties that it would continue to manage the domestic security affairs of Guatemala . The United States issued no protest against this clear violation of human and constitutional rights and on the contrary congratulated the government "on its recent success in disrupting communist subversive activities. " 28 The government held elections on March 6, 1966, in an atmosphere of fear, terrorism and intimidation .  Peralta and other military leaders have worked out an agreement with Mendez Montenegro under which Mendez will be allowed to assume office in exchange for the following guarantees -1) naming of the Defense Minister and other heads of security departments by the military; 2) a continued and uninterfered crackdown on Communists and subversives; 3) no prosecution of military personnel for past misdeeds. 32 It was later learned that this pact also included the military's right to appoint all These articles, especially the helicopters, are not easy to obtain at this time since they are being utilized by our forces in the defense of liberty in Southeast Asia. But liberty must be defended wherever it is threatened and that liberty is now being threatened ifl. Guatemala. 45 The Guatemalan Air Force designated areas fraught with guerrilla activity zonas The U.S . led rural counter-insurgency campaign, besides wiping out several hundred guerrillas , also killed thousands of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of napalm, mortar and artillery barrages , helicopter gunship raids, and heavy conventional bombing. The death toll was estimated at 4,000, but it would more than double after this strictly military phase of the campaign ended . The Guatemalan Army and its U.S .
advisors committed the classic counter-insurgency error warned against in its own doctrine: Military operations by large bodies of troops, as a non-selective method of applying force are likely to inflict disproportionate hardship on the civil population; it will be compounded if the troops regard themselves as in enemy tenitory and behave accordingly. The result is likely to be popular bitterness which turns fii.endly or neutral elements against the government. Large scale operations directed against guenillas thereby tend by their very nature to strengthen and widen the very insurgency they seek to defeat. When you've got a situation like you have here you need the strongest government you can get. If you use human rights in a country with guerrillas you're not going to get anywhere ... What they do here is declare martial law.
world. Therefore when the United States expressed alarm at escalating paramilitary violence in Guatemala, its criticisms should be judged more as protest against the amount and not the~ of violence employed.
The MLN took out full page advertisements as early as August 26, 1966, in Guatemala's most popular newspaper El Imparcial which warned of the impending "vigilante action ... the MLN cannot prevent the people from acting in self-defense. The government should not ~ be surprised that the citizenry organize themselves for self-defense or take justice into their own hands." 14 On May 7, 1967, just as the counter-terror gathered momentum, another advertisement, this time in La Hora read: The government, the people and the Army have amalgamated into a single fighting force with the object of destroying the guerrillas definitively in a political and armed struggle without quarter which will be a true national crusade! 15 The MLN mounted a concerted effort both in the cities and the countryside to whip up a popular frenzy for its new vengeance campaign. It bussed urban supporters to rural demonstrations where they waved placards reading: "Death to the Guerrillas!" "Long Live the Army!" "We Don't Want to Be Another Cuba!" "Guerrillas, Stop Often pieces of bodies were simply strewn about city streets, leaving it to relatives to piece them together and try and discover who was who. Hundreds of victims simply disappeared never to be heard of again, ten years before the desseperados of Argentina became a cause celebre. 19 The U.S. Army's 1962 field manual Operations Against Irregular Forces, the virtual bible at the U.S. School of the Americas in the early 1960s, included the following list of overt irregular activities that could be used to confront communist insurgents and their supporters: terrorism by assassination, bombing arson, torture , mutilation and kidnapping, provocation of incidents, reprisals, and holding of hostages, the use of chemical or biological agents, the use of booby traps and explosive devices. The black banner that preaches the death of intelligence has been raised many times .. .It seems that the blood of the university is being demanded as the solution to the problems of Guatemala. It seems that giving bands of killers a license to operate is seen as the solution to our problems. 22 approximately 1800 armed civilians under its control but other armed groups are known to be operating semi-independently. These groups have long been a source of concern to rural members of President Mendez's Revolutionary Party (PR) who have complained of persecution and who fear that reported rightist/military plans to expand these groups are motivated by partisan political considerations ... The entire situation brings into serious question the ability of President Mendez, the government or even the Minister of Defense to control the activities of the counter-insurgents ... We find persuasive the Embassy speculation that "in some instances the government can still exercise a degree of control over the activities of the clandestine killer units, both civilian and military" but that it would "be foolhardy to count on it." Mendez may shortly discover, ifhe has not already done so, that survival can have too high a price. 25 The crowning irony of this conclusion was that the United States helped push Buddhists, students, opposition politicians and civilian critics of the Saigon regime -even personal enemies and creditors of the assassins. 28 The program called for the use of murder, ambushes, kidnappings, torture and intimidation against VC leadership, the same "fight fire with fire" rationale employed by right-wing terrorist groups in  Their scheme unco vered , the conspirators searched desperately for scapegoats.
On the same day that the archbishop was released unharmed , the National Police arrested two MANO BLANCO operatives involved in the kidnapping , Raul Estuardo Lorenzana and Ines Mufio Padilla . While in transit to a courthouse , the patrol car holding the two men stopped and the arresting officers abandoned it. A few seconds later another car pulled up alongside the patrol car and fired approximately 200 machine gun bullets into it, shredding the two hand-cuffed prisoners . 42 If the plotters hoped this act would exonerate them, they were mistaken . The whole sordid incident generated widespread public outrage against the security forces , a rare occurrence in Guatemala in the 1960s. Seizing upon this propitious turn of events, President Mendez Montenegro reasserted himself and demanded the resignation of all three conspirators. 43 The military surprisingly acquiesced. Several semor officers, including the retired yet influential Colonel Peralta, felt that military discipline and control had collapsed badly amid the "wild west" tactics of the past year. While Colonel Arana remained extremely popular among his own crack counter-insurgency troops, significant sectors . of the officer corps --the more moderate technocratic and Briefly the right-wing terror abated. In late August, however, on a tip from an informant, the government captured FAR leader Camilo Sanchez. The rebels demanded his release and began a series of savage reprisals against government officials which culminated in the August 28, 1968, assassination of U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein, the first American ambassador ever to be killed in service in history. The rebels apparently meant to kidnap and exchange Mein for Sanchez, but the ambassador ran from the gunmen after they forced his car off the road . They shot and killed him. In 1978, ten years after the assassination, a MANO BLANCO operative, Jorge Zimeri Saffie alleged to the New York Times that right-wing Guatemalan military officers participated in the murder of Mein. Their influence badly diminished by the archbishop kidnapping farce, they hoped to regain the upperhand by committing this outrage which would automatically be blamed on the left. Counter-insurgency doctrine listed staged atrocities as "an often very effective technique for discrediting opposition forces ." Guatemalan paramilitary units were famous for bombing government buildings as a prelude to vicious political crackdowns. Michele Firk, a French socialist who reportedly rented the car used to assassinate Mein, "committed suicide" before the police could bring her to court. She shot hersel.£ which even the CIA report on the incident noted "was an uncharacteristic method of suicide for a woman. " 49 No conclusive proof has ever surfaced of military or right-wing involvement in the assassination of Mein. Zimeri, arrested in Miami for illegal arms sales, when the New York Times interviewed him, may have simply concocted the story to escape prosecution or extradition to Guatemala My personal view is that this country is not going to achieve political and economic stability and democratic government is not going to survive, if government is essentially an absent figure throughout most of the country leaving the work of protecting lives and punishing offenders to private armies, armed crackpots, or burgeoning military caesars making a reputation in the countryside prior to their triumphant entry into Guatemala City. 54 What Breen chose to ignore was his own agency's Office of Public Safety division's contribution to this process. As part of U.S. policy it effectively armed and trained the private armies and crackpots. There is a strong temptation in dealing both with terrorists and with guerrilla action for government forces to act outside the law, the excuses being that the processes of law are too cumbersome, that normal safeguards in the law for the individual are not designed for an insurgency, and that a terrorist deserves to be treated as an outlaw anyway. Not only is this morally wrong , but, over a period, it will create more practical difficulties for a government than it solves. A government which does not act in accordance with the law forfeits its right to be called a government and cannot expect its people to obey the law. 55 Thompson's argument fell on deaf ears in Guatemala. The policy of endless militarization and polarization grinded on. In 1968 Blase Bonpane , an outlawed Maryknoll priest, wrote: "Guatemala smells like South Vietnam in the early 1960s.
There are the same United States military advisors by the hundreds , the same corrupt power structure , the same fear of communism to the point of paranoia, the same heaps of dismembered peasants by the sides of the roads ... " 56 In early 1970 the newly promoted General Francisco Arana Osario, kidnapper of Archbishop Casariego, the "Butcher of Zacapa", returned to Guatemala in triumph to run for the presidency. He was elected a few months later in an election noted for "major voter discrepancies" and "massive intimidation at the polls". In an interview before his inaugural address he promised "to kill every last communist in Guatemala even if I have to turn the whole country into a graveyard. " 57  fleeing their country in 1954, had returned during the relatively "moderate" reign of Ydigoras (1958Ydigoras ( -1963  I don't think people here can appreciate what it's like to come from a poor village in Guatemala and at the age of nineteen go to a place like Fort Bragg. It was the greatest thing in my life .. .I don't think Americans understand how powerful their military is, what a reputation it has as the greatest and strongest Army in the world. Every day at Fort Bragg was like a dream to me to think that I was training and learning from the richest, most powerful people in the world ... The equipment, the money, the food! I don't think my whole country had as much food as was at Fort Bragg ... Some of the people didn't like us. They thought they were better than us but I don't think I really even noticed it. .. At the graduation an important official from the American government came to address us. And all the officers up on the platform in their shiny uniforms and medals with the tanks and armored cars lined up, the band playing and paratroopers jumping into the sky. It was like a miracle. And I thought what an honor it is to be a part of this big fight against the people who were trying to destroy my country, my church and my people. I was sure we would defeat them. How could we not defeat them with the United States on our side?' Young Turcios Lima expressed similar sentiments before he turned to Communism a few years later. American military indoctrination had no long term effects on him For the average, barely literate Guatemalan conscript, however, U.S. training must have been a heady and extremely influential experience. Those who questioned U.S. doctrine and anti-communist ideology probably comprised a small minority of the thousands of officers and enlisted men who went through this process.
More importantly their senior commanders --Peralta and Arana --and the governments .. they served, enthusiastically subscribed to said doctrine and ideology.
Guatemala was a racist authoritarian society for nearly four centuries before the United States intervened in its affairs significantly in the late nineteenth century.
Post-revisionist historians, such as Stephen G. Rabe, Jim Handy and James Dunkerley, have explored the cultural and historical roots of Guatemala's social inequities. Jim Handy convincingly argues that three centuries of Spanish rule in Guatemala proved much more crucial in shaping Guatemalan society than the last hundred years or so of U.S . domination. Yet Guatemalans make a credible argument that they had begun to ascend from their own dark and troubled past during the "ten years of spring," Here we have an ongoing laboratory where we see subversive insurgency, the Ho Chi Minh doctrine being applied in all its forms. This has been a challenge not only for the armed forces but for several of the agencies of government, as many of them are involved in one way or another in Vietnam On the military side, however, we have recognized the importance of the area as a laboratory . We have teams out there looking at the equipment requirements of this kind of guerrilla warfare. We have rotated senior officers through there, spending several weeks just to talk to people and get the feeling of the operation so even though not regularly assigned to Vietnam, they are carrying their experience back to their own organizations in other countries. 2 One of those "other countries" was Guatemala where a disproportionately amount of freshly assigned embassy and military personnel had Vietnam experience. In a September 25, 1968 speech to the Eighth Conference of American Armies in Rio de Janeiro, former Vietnam Commander General William Westmoreland stated: I am pleased to accept this invitation because as military men, I believe that we, perhaps more than any other profession in the public service, recognize the immediate threat to the countries and people we serve that is posed by the sort of thing which is taking place today in Southeast Asia. We know that South Vietnam is a communist laboratory. We know that if aggression under the guise crisis periods such as the 1966-7 counter-insurgency war, bringing the ratio up to an almost incredible 1 to 9.
The In reading the military literature on guerrilla warfare now so fashionable in the Pentagon, one feels that these writers are like men watching a dance from outside through heavy plate glass windows. They see the motions but they can't hear the music. They put the mechanical gestures down on paper with pedantic fidelity. But what rarely comes through to them are the injured racial feelings, the misery, the rankling slights, the hatred, the devotion, the inspiration and the desperation. So they do not really understand what leads men to abandon wife, children, home, career, friends and to take to the bush and live gun in hand like a hunted animal; to challenge overwhelming military odds rather than acquiesce any longer in humiliation, injustice, or poverty ... 5 Between 100,000 to 140,000 Guatemalan civilians would die from political violence from 1960 to 1~94, due in no small part to this myopic tunnel vision of counter-insurgency. 6 The