Guatemala into the 1950s

After 1936, the regime of General Jorge Ubico lost its impulse to innovate reforms. Ubico remained close to the United States, informing the U.S. minister at the time of the Munich crisis, in 1938, that "Guatemala will follow the policy of the United States as long as it is not Communistic."

In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt violated the two-term tradition of the U.S. presidency, and Ubico and his supporters were encouraged, seeing the U.S. as placing "the man above tradition" and as good reason for Ubico staying in office.

An example from abroad that Ubico did not like was that of an army sergeant, Fulgencio Batista, seizing control of the government of Cuba, and in December 1940 Ubico accompanied the movement of troops to arrest non-commissioned officers accused of planning to seize power - a conspiracy that has been described as "half-baked."

By the 1940s economic development had brought an increase of clerical white collar and lower management jobs, a growth in lawyers, and small business, serving the growth of the middle class. Ubico was of the landed gentry. When he became president in 1931 the landed gentry was a class supreme in power, and now the middle class was to challenge that power. The Ubico regime remained proud of its accomplishments in the early 1930s, and it was convinced that it was still indispensable in governing the nation. But into the 1940's a new generation of students were less mindful of the Great Depression and the early 30's and looked upon Ubico's regime as old and responsible for contemporary shortcomings.

Unrest in neighboring El Salvador in 1944 stirred Guatemalan students. General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez had made changes to El Salvador's Constitution in 1939, allowing him a six-year rather than four-year term in office. In 1944 the Constitution was revised again so that Martinez could remain in office, and members of the military revolted, unsuccessfully. The military loyal to Martinez suppressed the revolt in a bloodbath. To some in Guatemala the rule of generals looked worse than before, their own General Ubico included. In May, President Martinez resigned in response to a general strike. The new government in El Salvador gave a base from which Guatemalans could operate against Ubico's rule. In June, medical and law students in Guatemala made an issue out of school administration and petitioned for the removal of deans. The Ubico government tried appeasing the students and yielded to the student demands. The students increased their demands. Teachers demanded better wages and were supported by students and others who went into the streets to demonstrate against the government. On June 29, a demonstration in the capital, endorsed by some labor groups and professionals, paralyzed the city, the demonstrators calling for a lifting of restrictions on liberties and a restoration of constitutional rights. The Ubico regime declared martial law. Ubico's regime sent troops to strategic points in the city and crushed the demonstrations. Around two hundred people were killed and wounded. One of the casualties was the leader of the teachers' union movement, Maria Chinchilla, who became a national martyr for those opposed to Ubico.

In October, junior military officers, unhappy with their low pay, joined with students and liberal professionals and overthrew Ubico. The new military junta purged the government bureaucracy and senior army hierarchy. Ubico, his aides and others went into exile, Ubico fleeing to New Orleans. Elections were held in November, and Juan Jose Arevalo, a philosophy professor who returned form exile in Argentina, won the presidency.

In March, 1945, a liberal constitution was adopted. It restricted the power of the Guatemala's landed elite. It extended the vote among men and gave the vote to women. Unions and political parties were allowed to organize, and freedom of speech was guaranteed. Arevalo was a democratic-socialist, favoring what he called "spiritual socialism." He began reforms in health care and education, established a social security system. He encouraged the masses to participate in politics and to join labor unions. Arevalo helped Guatemala become on of the founding members of the United Nations, and he promoted new industry and new agricultural techniques.

During the five years that the Constitution allotted Arevalo to serve as president, there were over twenty attempts by conservative forces to overthrow him. Instead, in 1950, the planned elections took place, and Colonel Jacobo Arbenz, a popular officer who helped defend democracy in 1945, won 65 percent of the vote. Arbenz took office in March, 1951. He extended political freedom, allowing communists to participate in politics. The Ubico regime had flattered the communists by describing them as that regime's principle opponents, perhaps influencing some Ubico opponents to identify themselves as communists. By the time that Arbenz took office, Communists were active in peasant organizations and labor unions.

In June 1952, Arbenz supported a land reform bill for taking unused agricultural land from owners of large properties and giving it to landless rural workers. As a part of this program, 225,000 acres of land was to be taken, with compensation, from the United Fruit Company - a company headquartered in the United States. United Fruit thought the compensation inadequate. The Eisenhower administration disliked Arbenz. Arbenz was thought not a communist himself but too close to communists. His wife was believed to be a communist. Three years of war in Korea had been taking place and anti-Communism was at a high. A secret plan was launched to overthrow Arbenz. Guatemalan exiles were trained in Nicaragua - ruled by the dictator Anastasio Somoza. The CIA agent, E. Howard Hunt was a major organizer of the plot against Arbenz. In an interview with Ann Louise Bardach writing for Slate magazine, he said:

We set up the first Guatemalan operation/shop at Opa-Locka [airport in Miami, formerly an Army base]. There were three barracks, and we used the airstrip to fly in people from Guatemala and to send our people into Guatemala. These were known as "the black flights." They always occurred at night; they are a secret and officially do not exist as having happened."

The exile army, supported by the U.S. and led by an anti-leftist colonel, Castillo Armas, invaded Guatemala across the Honduras-Guatemala border. Arbenz believed that resistance would be futile, and in a radio address he announced his resignation. He turned his office over to a friend, Colonel Carlos Diaz, and he asked for asylum in the Mexican embassy, disappointing those who believed in standing against the invasion.

Hunt has described those under Castillo Armas taking Arbenz as he was attempting to leave the country at Guatemala's airport. "Their hatred for him [Arbenz]," said Hunt, " was palpable." Hunt described himself as intervening and keeping Arbenz from being executed, concerned that the CIA and the United States would be blamed for the murder. Arbenz and his wife were allowed to go into exile to Mexico.

The forces of Castillo Armas quickly took power from Diaz, and Armas became the head of a new government recognized by the Eisenhower administration. The Armas regime created the National Committee of Defense Against Communism and decreed the Preventive Penal Law Against Communism.

In 1958 Armas was assassinated. General Ydigoras Fuentes - the more conservative opponent of Arbenz in the 1950 presidential election, took power. Junior military officers revolted and became the nucleus of a prolonged armed insurrection - warfare to last decades.

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