Lesson 20

---

Question SA-10. Here is the text reference (p. 198/2 & 3):

The United Fruit Company had friends in high places, including the Dulles brothers in the Eisenhower administration. John Foster Dulles at the time was Secretary of State, and Allen was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Company officials lobbied hard, and they persuaded the Eisenhower administration that Arbenz was a dangerous leftist who was threatening U.S. interests in Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. Government cut off military assistance to Guatemala and imposed an arms embargo. In response, Arbenz asked for help from the Soviet bloc and received shipments of arms from Poland.

To the Eisenhower people this was the final provocative act which confirmed their suspicions that the Revolution was becoming a Soviet beachhead in the Hemisphere. The President then authorized the Central Intelligence Agency, supported by the U.S. military, to work with dissident Guatemalan officers to bring down the Arbenz Government. With support from the Somoza regime in Nicaragua the CIA armed a group of exiled Guatemalan military men led by Colonel Castillo Armas, who entered Guatemala at the head of a small group. The Guatemalan army refused to repel the force of exiles, or give weapons to workers and peasants who were willing to fight for Arbenz. Under an intense propaganda and psychological warfare effort (headed by E. Howard Hunt, later of Watergate fame), the Arbenz government collapsed in 1954.