Compare Two Nations Coups

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Rev Outline part 2

Thesis-The United States felt they had to help overthrow both Chilean and Guatemalan governments for one primary reason. The main reason is that of national security; during the time of the Cold War both Chili and Guatemala were showing promising signs of turning into communist nations. Being the main antagonist to the United States interest the United States would intervene in both Nations and help support a right-wing dictator as to assure that either nation could not harm the United States.

Intro to first topic-Although the United States was involved in both nations coups they both happened in very different ways. Each nation required its own special involvement and handling of the situation to insure successes, to best understand how the U.S. succeed in overthrowing both these nations Governments one has to look at what happened, how it happened, and why it was able to happen.

Compare two nations coups

1.What Happened (Chili)

On September 11, 1973 the Chilean coup was a turning point of the Cold War and the history of Chile. (Rabe, 122) After the long period of social and political issues by the primarily conservative Congress of Chile against the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende, Allende was overthrown in a coup. Nixon and the CIA would play a primary role in bringing down President Allende, helping fund the conservative party and using the CIA to sabotage campaigns and start scare campaigns to help start a coup. They would also help Allende government's replacement with a military junta led by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet. The junta was composed of the heads of the Air Force, Navy, Police Force and the Army. (Qureshi, 133) Pinochet would take over entirely after year after the coup, officially becoming the president in late 1974. Pinochet later assumed power and ended Allende's elected Popular Unity government. 

1. What happened (Guatemala)

The 1954 Guatemalan coup was the CIA covert operation that deposed President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, with Operation PBSUCCESS paramilitary invasion by an anti-Communist "army of liberation". In the early 1950s, the politically liberal, elected Árbenz Government had effected the socio-economics of Decree 900, 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, 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. In response to the expropriation of prime-farmland assets, the United Fruit Company asked the US Governments of presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower 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.

2. How it happened (Chili)

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the Allende Government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party accused the Allende Government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order. For months, the Allende Government had feared calling upon the national police, suspecting them to be disloyal. Gen. Augusto Pinochet later became the Army commander-in-chief. By 7:00 am on September 11 1973, the Navy captured Valparaíso, strategically stationing ships and marine infantry in the central coast and closed radio and television networks. The Province Prefect informed President Allende of the Navy's actions; immediately, the president went to the presidential palace. By 8:00 am, the Army had closed most radio and television stations in Santiago city; the Air Force bombed the remaining active stations; the President received incomplete information, and was convinced that only a sector of the Navy conspired against him and his government. President Allende and Defense minister Orlando Letelier were unable to communicate with military leaders. Admiral Montero, the Navy's commander and an Allende loyalist, was rendered incommunicado. Leadership of the Navy was transferred to José Toribio Merino, planner of the coup. Despite evidence that all branches of the Chilean armed forces were involved in the coup, Allende hoped that some units remained loyal to the government. Only when the armed forces declared their control of Chile and that Allende was deposed, did the president grasp the magnitude of the military's rebellion. Despite the lack of any military support, Allende refused to resign his office. By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. The military would declare they would bomb the presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. The military rebels attempted negotiations with Allende, but the President refused to resign, citing his constitutional duty to remain in office. Finally, Allende gave a potent farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup and his refusal to resign his elected office under threat. Pinochet ordered an armored and infantry force under General Sergio Arellano to advance upon the presidential palace. When the troops moved forward, they were forced to retreat after coming under fire from snipers perched on rooftops. General Arellano called for helicopter gunship support from the commander of the Chilean Army helicopter squadron and the troops were able to advance again. Chilean Air Force aircraft soon arrived to bomb the Palace. First reports said the 65-year-old president had died fighting troops, but later police sources reported he had committed suicide.

2. How it happened (Guatemala)

To initiate Operation PBSUCCESS, the CIA selected the Guatemalan politico-military leader who would succeed Árbenz as President of Guatemala, and establish a pro American Guatemalan government. They would have a choice from three exile candidates and end up with Colonel Castillo, a contemporary of Jacobo Árbenz at the Guatemalan national military academy. As the most politically amenable white-horse caudillo, the CIA appointed Col. Castillo as leader of the Guatemalan army of liberation, the core of Operation PBSUCCESS. Because of the continual bureaucratic postponements of the paramilitary invasion, the CIA worried that their Guatemalan army of liberation, or any other Guatemalan armed rebel-group, might prove over-eager and prematurely launch a coup. The worry proved true on 29 March 1953, when a futile raid against the Army garrison at Salamá, in central Guatemala, was launched by a rebel group associated with Col. Castillo, the Árbenz Government repressed and jailed the anti-Communists connected with the exiled rebels, and all other potentially treasonous right-wing politicians. Most Guatemalans supported the President’s repression, because the exile rebels and the domestic politicians sought to subvert the constitutionally-elected government of Guatemala with the aid of a foreign power, the United States. 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 against President Árbenz.

3. Why it happened (Chili)

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the Allende Government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies along with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party accused the Allende Government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order. For months, the Allende Government had feared calling upon the national police, suspecting them to be disloyal. Gen. Augusto Pinochet later became the Army commander-in-chief. Allende contested the 1970 election with Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez of the National Party and Radomiro Tomic of the Christian Democratic Party. Allende received 36.6% of the vote. Alessandri was a very close second with 35.3%, and Tomic third with 28.1%. In total, 2,954,799 people voted. Although Allende received the highest number of votes, according to the Chilean constitution and since none of the candidates won by an absolute majority, the National Congress had to decide among the candidates. Congress then decided on Allende. The U.S. feared "an irreversible Marxist regime in Chile" and exerted diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure upon Chile's elected socialist government. During his presidency, Allende nationalized US copper firms, nationalized banks and other large industries, and sped up land distribution. Total expenditures for social programs also increased under Allende’s rule; this included health, education, housing, child assistance, and social assistance. Between 1967–1969 and 1973, employment in mines increased by 45% – but, per capita production decreased by 28%. The Allende administration faced other disappointments in its programs.

By 1973, the amount of land in Chile under cultivation fell by 20%. Allende installed a price freeze and increased wages in the industry, which resulted in Chile spending 56% of its export earnings on food. Also, Chile’s trade deficit increased from 1971–1972. Exports fell by 25%, and imports increased by 40%, which caused an economic imbalance. Chronic inflation had been a problem in Chile for decades before Allende’s rule, but Allende’s wage and spending increases caused inflation to double in 1972, and the cost of living increased by nearly 50%. Allende had to deal with labor troubles as well: in 1972, a group of truckers went on strike due to his plan to create a state transportation enterprise. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the participants were small-scale businessmen, some professional unions, and student groups. Its leaders expected to depose the elected government. Other than damaging the national economy, the principal effect of the twenty-four-day strike was drawing Army head, Gen. Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, an appeasement to the right wing.  Gen. Prats supported the legalist Schneider Doctrine and refused military involvement in a coup against President Allende. Despite the declining economy, President Allende's Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 43.2 percent in the March 1973 parliamentary elections; but, by then, the informal alliance between Popular Unity and the Christian Democrats ended. The Christian Democrats allied with the right-wing National Party, who was opposed to Allende's Socialist government; the two right-wing parties forming the Democratic Coalition. The parliamentary conflict at that point had become a double edge sword, between the legislature and the executive branch, paralyzed the activities of government. The CIA paid some U.S. $6.8-$8 million to right-wing opposition groups to "create pressures, exploit weaknesses, and magnify obstacles" and hasten Allende's deposition.

3. Why it happened (Guatemala)

In the geopolitical context of the US–USSR Cold War (1945–1991), the secret intelligence agencies of the US deemed Guatemala’s liberal land-reform nationalization as government communism in Latin America, instigated by the USSR. The intelligence analyses aggravated the fears of CIA Director Allen Dulles that Guatemala would become "a Soviet beach head in the Western Hemisphere", and thus was a backyard challenge to US authority. In the US national context of the aggressive anti–Communism of the Red Scare McCarthy era, the US Government, the CIA, and the American people feared the Soviet Union’s ideological, military, and economic infiltration of the Western Hemisphere. The Eisenhower Administration 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 in 1952. Yet the Decree 900 expropriations from the American fruit companies proved a fortuitous political opportunity, especially as presented by CIA Director Dulles and his brother, John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, who each owned capital stock in the United Fruit Company; their conflation of personal conflict of interest with the Cold War geopolitics of the Western Hemisphere made feasible the secret invasion to change the government of Guatemala by force of arms.

Intro to second topic-

U.S. involvement

1. Why/ how we did it (Chili)

The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Allende in Chile was proven in documents declassified during the Clinton administration; involving the CIA, which show that covert operatives were inserted in Chile, in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda.

The CIA, as recounted in the Church Committee report, was involved in various plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate: It tried to buy off the Chilean Congress to prevent his appointment, worked to sway public opinion against him to prevent his election, and financed protests designed to bring the country to a standstill and make him resign. The CIA, acting with the approval of the 40 Committee, devised what in effect was a constitutional coup. The most expeditious way to prevent Allende from assuming office was somehow to convince the Chilean congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the election. Once elected by the congress, Alessandri was prepared to resign his presidency within a matter of days so that new elections could be held. This first, nonmilitary, approach to stopping Allende was called the Track I approach.

The CIA's second approach, the Track II approach, was designed to encourage a military overthrow, by creating an atmosphere of crisis and disaster a "coup climate" in the country. False flag operatives approached senior Chilean military officers, in "some two dozen contacts", with the message that "the United States intended to cut military assistance to Chile unless they moved against Allende, and that the U.S. desired, and would actively support, a coup."

The CIA provided extensive support for black propaganda against Allende, funneled largely through El Mercurio, but also using other media outlets. Propaganda targeted both the people and the military. Financial support was also provided for anti-Allende political opponents and for organized strikes and unrest to destabilize his government.

The first attempt to engineer a military overthrow of Allende occurred in 1970. The CIA had been in contact with two groups of coup plotters, one group run by retired General Roberto Viaux and a second by active-duty General Camilo Valenzuela. Both groups were attempting to remove Chilean general René Schneider, due to his support for military non-intervention in politics, and thus the appointment of Allende. The Church hearings found that the CIA gave weapons to a group of men who it knew had attacked him twice before, as a test of loyalty so that the CIA would remain secret to their information, but that the weapons provided and the group thereby armed were not the ones who actually killed him.

1. Why/ how we did it (Guatemala)

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 materiel, to form a counter-revolutionary army of liberation to depose the Árbenz Government. The Guatemalan paramilitary invasion was dependent on the confirmation, that President Árbenz was a Communist; lack of proof cancelled Operation PBFORTUNE. Nonetheless, two years later, in June 1954, Operation PBSUCCESS realized the anti Árbenz coup, and installed Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas as President of Guatemala. The CIA used propaganda in the forms of political rumors, air-dropped pamphlets, poster campaigns, and radio. In Guatemala, few people owned radio receivers; nonetheless, Guatemalans considered the medium of radio as an authoritative source of information. As directed by CIA case officers, from Florida, right-wing student groups successfully conducted internal propaganda, such as publishing The Combat, a weekly political pamphlet, covering walls and buses with the number 32 referring to Article 32 of the Guatemalan Constitution, which forbade foreign-financed political parties; the propaganda claims received much attention from the local and the national press. Other psychological warfare techniques included character assassination with signs that read: A Communist Lives Here affixed to the houses of Árbenz supporters; and the month-long daily delivery of false death-notices to President Árbenz, his Cabinet of Advisors, and known Communists.

In due course, the disinformation-propaganda campaign provoked the Árbenz Government to politically repress the Guatemalan right wing, by arresting rightist students, limiting freedom of assembly, and intimidating newspapers. Furthermore, the CIA expected gossip to assist in propagating anti-Communist claims against the elected Árbenz Government. From Florida, The Voice of Liberation radio station, this claimed to be broadcasting from the Guatemalan jungle, transmitted music, "news", disinformation, and anti–Árbenz propaganda. Most of the radio programming was for the general populace, yet some propaganda specifically was a call-to-arms meant to appeal to the right-wing men of action in the officer corps of the Guatemalan military, whose treasonous involvement was essential to the success of the deposition of the elected Árbenz Government. The collaboration of the Guatemalan army was most important, because, as a professional military force, they could readily out-fight and defeat the CIA mercenary army of liberation led by Col. Castillo. Nonetheless, because of the socio-political and military realities, the CIA knew that the Castillo army could not conquer Guatemala with 480 mercenary soldiers. At 8:00 p.m. on June 18th 1954, Col. Castillo's Ejército de liberación invaded Guatemala; in four groups, the 480 soldiers entered the country at five key points of the Honduras, Guatemala border and of the Guatemala El Salvador border. Multiple attacks, along a wide front, were meant to impress the populace that the Republic of Guatemala was being invaded by a military force superior to and of greater size than the Guatemalan Army. The four-group dispersal of the CIA mercenary army meant to minimize the possibility of a militarily decisive rout, and of the coup being stopped, with a single, unfavorable battle. Ten saboteurs, tasked to destroy key bridges and telegraph communications, would hinder the Guatemalan national defense, preceded the main attack force of the liberationist army. Nonetheless, the CIA ordered Col. Castillo to avoid fighting the Guatemalan Army lest the defenders coordinate tactics and either kill or capture the CIA invaders. As psychological warfare, the course of the 1954 Guatemalan coup invasion was meant to provoke popular panic, by giving the populace the impression of strategically overwhelming odds against successfully defending Guatemala, which, the CIA believed, would compel the national populace and the Guatemalan Army to side with, rather than repel and defeat, the invaders led by Col. Castillo. 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.

Thesis rap up

Conclusion