The United Fruit Company, a U. S. corporation, was also threatened by the Decree 900 Agrarian Reform of the Árbenz Government.

Yet later, when, in accordance with United Fruit Company's tax claims, the Árbenz Government offered to pay the UFC at the misrepresentative $ 3-per-acre rate, the United Fruit Company claimed that the true value of their land was $ 75 per acre, but refused to explain the increase of the financial-worth determination of the agricultural land.

The arms purchase was a response to the US arms embargo ; the Árbenz Government resupplied the Guatemalan armed forces, because it was convinced that a U. S .– sponsored paramilitary invasion was imminent.

The Eisenhower Administration ordered the CIA to effect Operation PBSUCCESS, the coup d ' état to depose the Árbenz Government of Guatemala.

In the early 1950s, the politically liberal, elected Árbenz Government had effected the socio-economics of Decree 900 ( 27 June 1952 ), the national agrarian-reform expropriation, for peasant use and ownership, of unused prime-farmlands that Guatemalan and multinational corporations had set aside as reserved business assets.

The Decree 900 land reform especially threatened the agricultural monopoly of the United Fruit Company ( UFC ), the American multinational corporation that owned 42 per cent of the arable land of Guatemala ; which landholdings either had been bought by, or been ceded to, the UFC by the military dictatorships who preceded the Árbenz Government of Guatemala.

From the dismissive cultural perspective of the CIA, the socio-economic development of Guatemalan society effected by the Árbenz Government was only “ an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the Banana republic ”; thus the geopolitical opinion of the US State Department, wherein the Inter-American Affairs Bureau officer Charles R. Burrows explained the perceived threat to US interests:

Although the Eisenhower Administration ( 1953 – 61 ) had been spying on the Árbenz Government, interpreted his liberal politics and agrarian reform as dangerous to US economic interests, and had planned a coup d ’ état in 1952, there was no feasible excuse for a paramilitary régime change.

The Guatemalan coup d ’ état began with Operation PBFORTUNE ( September 1952 ), the partly implemented plan to supply exiled, right-wing, anti – Árbenz rebel groups with operational funds and matériel, to form a counter-revolutionary army of liberation to depose the Árbenz Government.

Afterwards followed Operation PBHISTORY ( July 1954 ), with the intelligence-gathering remit to find and publish documentary evidence — from the Árbenz Government and from the national Communists of the Guatemalan Labour Party — that would confirm the geopolitical opinion of the CIA: under the Árbenz Government, Guatemala was a pro – Communist puppet state of the USSR, and part of the Soviet hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

In the event, the CIA document-analysis team of Operation PBHISTORY failed, because they found no government or communist documents that supported the mistaken, ideologic assumption, by the US, that the Árbenz Government had been infiltrated by Guatemalan Communists controlled from the Soviet Union.

Furthermore, the PBHISTORY intelligence analyses of the Árbenz Government documents contradicted the CIA ’ s pro-communist-infiltration assumptions ; the document analysis team reported that President Árbenz Guzmán had abided Guatemalan constitutional law by respecting the right of national Communists to form political parties and to participate in national politics, in the senate of the Republic of Guatemala ; and reported that Guatemalan Communists were nationalists, ideologically independent of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

To disseminate the propaganda and the disinformation ( black propaganda ) that misrepresented the Árbenz Government as Communist, the CIA established Voz de la liberación ( Voice of Liberation, VOL ), a radio station that transmitted from suburban Florida, USA — whilst claiming to be in the Guatemalan jungle with Col. Castillo Armas's liberacionista army.

The liberationist propaganda and disinformation misrepresented the VOL as the spontaneous voice of domestic, counter-revolutionary Guatemalan patriots who opposed “ the Communism of the Árbenz Government ”.

In 1952, the Árbenz Government promulgated Decree 900, the agrarian-reform redistribution of farmland ; the landless-peasant majority welcomed the progressive changes to the Guatemalan Old Order of the dictatorships of Manuel José Estrada Cabrera and Jorge Ubico.

As with his predecessor, President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo ( 1945 – 51 ), and because of the liberal changes to the economy of Guatemala, the land-owning upper classes and the political factions in the military, publicly accused President Árbenz of being unduly influenced by the four-man PGT Communist minority in the fifty-six-member senate of Guatemala — a serious personal imputation and political accusation during the Cold War, of which the US Government took serious note.

In March 1953, the Árbenz Government expropriated unused UFC farmlands, for which the company was to be paid US $ 600, 000 — as determined by the UFC ’ s public tax-declaration of the worth of the unused farmland.

Consequently, the United Fruit Company complained to and sought financial redress through the US Government ; and, in 1954, the US State Department demanded that the Árbenz Government pay $ 15, 854, 849 to the UFC, in payment of the true value of its farmland in the Pacific Ocean coast of Guatemala.

In turn, the Árbenz Government rejected the usurious demand for over-payment, as a violation of the national sovereignty of the Republic of Guatemala.

After the 1954 Guatemalan coup d ' état, CIA case officer Frank Wisner organised Operation PBHistory, meant to find and secure Árbenz government documents that might prove that the Soviet Union controlled Guatemala ; and, in so doing, PBHistory meant to provide usable intelligence regarding other Soviet connections and Communist personnel in Latin America.

The messages were meant to turn the Guatemalan Army against President Árbenz, personally, and against Communism, as economic policy.

Most of the radio programming was for the general populace, yet some propaganda specifically was a seditious call-to-arms meant to appeal to the right-wing men of action in the officer corps of the Guatemalan military, whose treasonous complicity was essential to the success of the deposition of the elected Árbenz Government.

The 1954 Guatemalan coup d ’ état ( 18 – 27 June 1954 ) was the CIA covert operation that deposed President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán ( 1950 – 54 ), with Operation PBSUCCESS — paramilitary invasion by an anti-Communist “ army of liberation ”.

The Guatemalan paramilitary invasion was contingent upon the confirmation, by the secret intelligence agencies of the US, that President Árbenz was a Communist ; lack of proof cancelled Operation PBFORTUNE.

Hence, to facilitate unencumbered authorization of the paramilitary invasion, the propaganda campaign of Operation PBSUCCESS exaggerated US Government fears of a Communist Guatemala realised by the régime of President Árbenz, and so facilitated the right-wing counter-revolution that installed Col. Castillo as President of Guatemala in mid-1954.

In the post – War US, the departure of the cautious Truman Administration ( 1945 – 53 ) and the arrival of the adventurous Eisenhower Administration ( 1953 – 61 ), abetted by the right-wing Cold War national political climate, rekindled Presidential interest in covert operations, which reanimated CIA advocacy of a paramilitary invasion of Guatemala to depose President Árbenz and his government.

Besides the military defeat and the jailing of the seditious rebels, the failed invasion provoked the political response most feared by CIA — the Árbenz Government repressed and jailed the anti-Communists connected with the exiled rebels, and all other potentially treasonous right-wing politicians.

Faced with dwindling supplies of matériel, and having noted the unusually armed borders of Honduras, El Salvador, and other neighbor countries, President Árbenz acted upon the intelligence indications of an imminent paramilitary invasion of Guatemala — confirmed by a defector from Operation PBSUCCESS — and bought matériel in the Eastern Bloc.

Throughout the invasion, the Voice of Liberation broadcast false news of a popular, right-wing counter-revolution spontaneously occurring throughout Guatemala ; of great military forces being welcomed, and joined by the local populace, to overthrow the Communist Árbenz Government.

CIA intelligence analyses, of some 150, 000 pages of Guatemalan Government and Labor Party documents, found no substantiation of the key geopolitical premise ( Soviet political involvement ) that justified the secret US paramilitary invasion of Guatemala, and the deposition of the elected Árbenz Government.

On 19 October 1944 a small group of soldiers and students led by Árbenz and Arana attacked the National Palace in what later became known as the " October Revolution ".

Over time, tensions rose between Arana and Arévalo, peaking when Arana was mysteriously killed in a Guatemala City gun battle on 18 July 1949, ultimately leading to a failed revolt that was put down by troops led by Árbenz.

Árbenz was devastated by her death.

The formal apology was made at the National Palace by Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom on 20 October 2011 to Jacobo Árbenz Villanova, his son, a Guatemalan politician.

* Jacobo Árbenz Biography brought to you by the United Fruit Company's " United Fruit Historical Society "

On 19 October 1944 a small group of soldiers and students led by Árbenz and Arana attacked the National Palace, in what later became known as the " October Revolution ".

Over time, tensions rose between Arana and Arévalo, peaking when Arana was mysteriously killed in a Guatemala City gun battle on 18 July 1949, ultimately leading to a failed revolt that was put down by troops led by Árbenz.

Arévalo was succeeded by Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, who continued the agrarian reform approach of Arévalo's government.

As early as 1951, before Decree 900 was promulgated in June 1952, the CIA ’ s geopolitical fear of a communist, political conquest of Guatemala, sponsored by the USSR, prompted the deposition of the liberal Árbenz Government.

Nonetheless, despite the change in Guatemalan military government, further civil unrest prompted two officers, Captain Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and Major Francisco Javier Arana, to lead a final coup d ’ état and depose the dictatorship of the generals.

1954 Guatemalan coup d ’ état: the CIA memorandum ( May 1975 ) which describes the role of the Agency in deposing the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in June 1954.

The combination of President Árbenz Guzmán ’ s political toleration of the Guatemalan Party of Labour ( PGT ) and other leftist politicians, prompted the CIA to prepare the contingency plan Operation PBFORTUNE in 1951, for overthrowing his liberal government, when the CIA could definitively determine that he and his regime were a Communist threat to the Western Hemisphere.

In response to the expropriation of prime-farmland assets, the United Fruit Company asked the US Governments of presidents Harry Truman ( 1945 – 53 ) and Dwight Eisenhower ( 1953 – 61 ) to act diplomatically, economically, and militarily against Guatemalan President Árbenz Guzmán, which, in 1954, resulted in the Guatemalan coup d ’ état that provoked the thirty-six-year Guatemalan Civil War, from 1960 to and 1996, in which were killed 140, 000 to 250, 000 Guatemalans.

Nonetheless, two years later, in June 1954, Operation PBSUCCESS realised the anti – Árbenz coup d ’ état, and installed Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas as President of Guatemala.

Ideologically, to the CIA, President Árbenz Guzmán ’ s toleration for “ known Communists ” made him, at best, a “ fellow traveller ”, a communist sympathizer, and, at worst, a Communist, himself.

To that effect, CIA Director of Central Intelligence ( DCI ) Walter Bedell Smith despatched a secret agent to Guatemala City, to find and investigate potential candidates and organizations who would aid a US coup d ’ état against the liberal Árbenz Government — which included four Communists from the Guatemalan Labor Party.

In September 1951, the US State Department approved Operation PBFORTUNE, a paramilitary coup d ’ état against the Árbenz Government.

Nevertheless, shortly afterwards, shipment of the Soviet weapons for the CIA ’ s army of liberation was postponed — because, in conversation with other Central American heads of state, the indiscreet Nicaraguan President Somoza García had openly spoken about the CIA ’ s planned deposition of President Árbenz Guzmán.

In that context, the US National Security Council revived the Guatemalan coup d ’ état after reviewing the malleability of anti – Árbenz politics, and because of the successful, Anglo – American 1953 Iranian coup d ’ état effected by the CIA and the SIS against the elected Government ( 1951 – 53 ) of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

1954 Guatemalan coup d ’ état: the memorandum that describes the CIA ’ s organisation of the paramilitary deposition of the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, in June 1954.

The jailing of the CIA ’ s Guatemalan secret agents rendered them operationally ineffective ; thus, the CIA then relied upon the ideologically-fragmented Guatemalan exile-groups, and their anti-democratic allies in Guatemala, to realize the coup d ’ état against President Árbenz.