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Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation PBFORTUNE

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Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation PBFORTUNE University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2016 Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation PBFORTUNE, and the Transnational Counter-Revolution against the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952 Aaron Coy Moulton University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Latin American History Commons, and the Latin American Studies Commons Recommended Citation Moulton, Aaron Coy, "Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation PBFORTUNE, and the Transnational Counter- Revolution against the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1533. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1533 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Guatemalan Exiles, Caribbean Basin Dictators, Operation PBFORTUNE, and the Transnational Counter-Revolution against the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1952 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Aaron Moulton University of Arkansas Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies, Spanish, and Mathematics, 2007 University of Kansas Master of Arts in Latin American Studies, 2009 May 2016 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. __________________________________ Dr. Alessandro Brogi Dissertation Director __________________________________ __________________________________ Dr. Kathryn Sloan Dr. Caree Banton Committee Member Committee Member Abstract When U.S. officials in 1952 approved the first Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation to overthrow Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, they unknowingly stepped into a regional conflict that, for nearly ten years, included dissident Guatemalan exiles, Caribbean Basin dictators, and the Guatemalan governments of Arbenz and his predecessor Juan José Arévalo. Since the mid-1940s, exiles and dictators had denounced the Guatemalan Revolution as the product of Mexican, Soviet, and international communism. The anti-communist ideology of Guatemalan exiles, Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Honduran dictator Tiburcio Carías, and Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo facilitated various conspiracies aimed to destabilize Arévalo and Arbenz’s governments throughout the 1940s. For their own reasons, a network of exiles and dictators put into motion a counter-revolution that included subversive ventures and self-proclaimed anti-communists who became patrons for colonel Carlos Castillo Armas in the early 1950s. In 1952, it was this network’s intelligence-sharing and lobbying of U.S. officials that built the foundation of Operation PBFORTUNE. The CIA’s involvement and resources bolstered regional support for Castillo Armas’s plot, thereby radicalizing the network’s dynamics and size. However, the State Department and Agency’s unfamiliarity with the network’s history led to the conspiracy’s abrupt termination while U.S. officials paternalistically blamed the ‘latinos’ for Operation PBFORTUNE’s end. Table of Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 A. Historiography of Anti-Communist Opposition to the Guatemalan Revolution .......... 3 B. Historiography of Operation PBFORTUNE ............................................................... 17 C. Chapter Outline ........................................................................................................... 28 II. Chapter 1: Guatemalan Exiles and Central American Dictators, 1944-1947 ............. 32 A. Dissident Guatemalan Exiles and the Anti-Mexican, Anti-Soviet, Anti-Communist Ideology .................................................................................................................................. 34 B. The U.S. Government, Anastasio Somoza, Tiburcio Carías, and the Guatemalan Revolution ............................................................................................................................... 45 C. Guatemalan Exiles, Central American Dictators, and the Transnational Counter- Revolution ............................................................................................................................... 58 D. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 66 III. Chapter 2: Rafael Trujillo and the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1947 .................... 68 A. Rafael Trujillo and Imperialismo Dominicano in the Caribbean Basin ..................... 71 B. Trujillo and the Guatemalan Revolution ..................................................................... 81 C. Arévalo Breaks Diplomatic Relations with Trujillo and Cayo Confites as the ‘Brigada Internacional Comunista’ ............................................................................................ 87 D. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 94 IV. Chapter 3: Dissident Guatemalan Exiles and Rafael Trujillo, 1947 ........................... 96 A. Colonel Arturo Ramírez and the Invasion Conspiracy ............................................... 98 B. General Federico Ponce and the Air-Bombing Conspiracy ...................................... 101 C. General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes and the Guatemalan Army Conspiracy .............. 106 D. Juan Pinillos and the Dominican Legation in Tegucigalpa ...................................... 108 E. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 110 V. Chapter 4: A Caribbean Basin Anti-Communist Network, 1948-Early 1950s ......... 111 A. General Federico Ponce and Caribbean Basin Officials, 1948 ................................. 112 B. Luis Coronado Lira, 1948 ......................................................................................... 114 C. Manuel Melgar de la Cerda, 1948 ............................................................................. 117 D. General Roderico Anzueto and Colonel Arturo Ramírez, 1949 ............................... 121 E. Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas and the 1950 Base Militar Attack ........................... 125 F. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 131 VI. Chapter 5: Before Operation PBFORTUNE, Early 1950s ....................................... 132 A. The State Department, Guatemala, and the International Cold War, Early 1950s ... 134 B. Miller, Mann, and the New U.S. Cold War-Oriented Policy toward Guatemala ..... 140 C. General Harry Vaughan, Colonel Cornelius Mara, Guatemalan Exiles, and Caribbean Basin Dictators before Operation PBFORTUNE ..................................................... 145 D. The CIA, the Caribbean Basin Anti-Communist Network, and Castillo Armas, Early 1950s ......................................................................................................................... 150 E. Somoza Lobbies for a Washington Visit .................................................................. 157 F. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 163 VII. Chapter 6: Considering Operation PBFORTUNE, 1952 .......................................... 165 A. Somoza in Washington, May 1952 ........................................................................... 166 B. Somoza, Vaughan, and Mara, May – July 1952 ....................................................... 169 C. The CIA, the State Department, and the Conspiracy, Mid-1952 .............................. 175 VIII. Chapter 7: Operation PBFORTUNE, 1952 .............................................................. 182 A. The Conspiracy as Operation PBFORTUNE ........................................................... 184 B. Miller and Zuleta in Panama City, October 1952 ..................................................... 193 C. Blaming ‘the Latinos,’ Late 1952 and 1953 ............................................................. 198 IX. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 202 X. Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 211 A. Archives .................................................................................................................... 211 B. Document Compilations ........................................................................................... 213 C. Memoirs .................................................................................................................... 214 D. Secondary Sources .................................................................................................... 217 I. Introduction In August of 1952, Dominican Ambassador in Mexico City Héctor Incháustegui Cabral wrote to Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. He recounted a handful of meetings with representatives of colonel Carlos Castillo Armas and colonel Roberto Barrios Peña, two Guatemalan exiles who “were searching for assistance, weapons,” to support uprisings and invasions against
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