1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

Rare card · No. 61389

The democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz was deposed in a coup d'état in 1954, marking the end of the Guatemalan Revolution. The coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala. The coup was precipitated by a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944, after a popular uprising toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Juan José Arévalo was elected president in Guatemala's first democratic election. He introduced a minimum wage and near-universal suffrage. Arévalo was succeeded in 1951 by Árbenz, who instituted land reforms which granted property to landless peasants. The Guatemalan Revolution was an unwelcome development for the U.S. government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist. This perception grew after Árbenz had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour. The U...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Public domain