Operation PBHistory
The first phase involved the collection of 150,000 documents from sources including Árbenz's personal possessions, trade union offices, and police agencies.
Following a presentation made to US President Dwight Eisenhower on July 20, a decision was taken to accelerate the operation, and the number of people working in Guatemala was increased.
PBHistory documents were used to support the CIA's existing operations Kufire and Kugown, which sought to track Latin American communists and to disseminate information critical of the Árbenz government.
[7][8][9][10] In 1952 Árbenz began an agrarian reform program that transferred uncultivated land from large landowners to poor laborers in return for compensation.
[11] In response the US-based United Fruit Company, which had large landholdings in Guatemala, intensively lobbied the US government for Árbenz's overthrow.
[16] On June 18, 1954 Carlos Castillo Armas, a Guatemalan army Colonel in exile since a failed coup in 1949,[17] led an invasion force of 480 men into Guatemala.
Media outlets across the world accused the US of sponsoring a coup to reverse Árbenz's agrarian reform in the interests of the United Fruit Company.
"[23][24] Although people within the US saw the coup as a triumph for US foreign policy,[25] CIA officials felt that in order for Operation PBSuccess to be termed a success, further action was needed.
Thus, the CIA was interested in finding documents that would allow it to portray the administration of Árbenz as being controlled by Soviet communists, and thus to justify the coup.
Wisner, who was serving as Deputy Director for Plans at the time of the coup, hoped to recruit agents both from among communists who wanted to defect, and from other Guatemalans who might become a part of the new government.
[30][31] After the presentation, Wisner decided that the examination of the seized documents needed to proceed faster, and so expanded the group of agents working in Guatemala.
Castillo Armas was pressured to create an anti-communist task force, which he did on July 20—creating the National Committee of Defense Against Communism (Comité de Defensa Nacional contra el Comunismo).
The Comité secretly received funds from the CIA, with the understanding that this fact could prove "very embarrassing" and that a new source would eventually need to be found.
[31] It was led by an officer working under the pseudonym "Francis T. Mylkes," and included David Atlee Phillips, who was fluent in Spanish and had been part of the PBSuccess team.
[33] In the period of uncertain leadership that followed Árbenz's overthrow, a member of one of the series of ruling juntas had prevented the Comité from searching the homes of private citizens, and from arresting them, which potentially reduced the number of sensitive documents the CIA had access to.
[40] While the press releases had a substantial impact within Guatemala, the CIA was unable to staunch the continued criticism of the US role in the coup, which came from virtually all countries except for West Germany and the US itself.
[40] Information was sent to press agencies worldwide describing infiltration by the PGT and links among Communists elsewhere; nonetheless, their impact remained minimal.
[40] The lack of attention frustrated the PBHistory agents to the point where they planned to stage a false flag attack on their own headquarters, which would later be described as the work of Guatemala's remaining communists.
PBHistory documents were used in this process, and Castillo Armas became the first head of state to testify before a US Congress committee (although he did so through the use of a tape recording of his testimony).
Dulles constantly worried that their investigation would damage CIA operations, particularly when Hillings visited Guatemala shortly before PBSuccess was to begin.
[51] The OIR produced a 50-page report after five months of work; the State Department considered it the "definitive answer" to the question of how communism had arisen in Guatemala.
[51] The government of Honduras, which had allowed its territory to be used as a "staging area" for the coup against Árbenz, also made use of the PBHistory papers to justify its position.
[52] Historian Kate Doyle stated that the documents uncovered by PBHistory allowed the CIA to create a register of suspected communists.
[53] The documents were described by participants as an "intelligence goldmine"; the register that the CIA left with the Guatemalan security forces contained information on thousands of citizens.
[53] PBHistory documents were used for years afterward to discredit Árbenz (living in exile) and to counter Soviet propaganda about American imperialism in Guatemala.
[25] Though PBSuccess was viewed positively within the US soon after it occurred, the violence perpetrated by the Guatemalan governments supported by the US in the 1970s and 1980s changed the perception of the coup among the US public.
[25] Despite the report produced by the Office of Intelligence Research, by 1957 the CIA realized that its version of the history of the Árbenz government and the coup was not gaining traction.
[56] Political scientist Jeremy Gunn, who was given access to the material collected by the operation, stated that it "found no traces of Soviet control and substantial evidence that Guatemalan Communists acted alone, without support or guidance from outside the country".
[56] The Soviet narrative was further strengthened in 1957, when Castillo Armas was overthrown and replaced with a highly reactionary government which further rolled back the reforms of the 1944 revolution; the Eisenhower administration did not react to the coup in any significant way.
[25][50] Historian Mark Hove has written that "Operation PBHistory proved ineffective because of 'a new, smoldering resentment' that had emerged in Latin America over US intervention in Guatemala.
