What if the 1954 coup against Guatemala's President Arbenz fails, next US moves?

If the coup fails, what do Ike and the Dulles brothers do next?

  • a) Harass it ineffectually like Cuba since 63?

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • b) Harass it like Cuba since 63 but get lucky and push out Arbenz and Guatemalan leftism in 3 yrs

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • c) Establish and support “Contra” guerrillas for several years until it topples regime?

    Votes: 3 14.3%
  • d) Establish and support “Contra” guerrillas for years without it ever toppling the regime?

    Votes: 5 23.8%
  • e) Invade with the USMC or US Army and Air Force within weeks or months to change the regime

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • f) Come to a live and let live arrangement with Arbenz

    Votes: 4 19.0%

  • Total voters
    21

raharris1973

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In OTL, everything went wrong for Arbenz and everything went right for the US backed exiles and coup plotters.

What if Arbenz instead mobilized supporters, defeated the coup and consolidated his power?

How does the U.S. respond to this setback?

a) Harass it ineffectually like Cuba since 63?

b) Harass it like Cuba since 63 but get lucky and push out Arbenz and Guatemalan leftism within 3 years or so?

c) Establish and support a “Contra” force based in Honduras for several years until it topples regime?

d) Establish and support a “Contra” force based in Honduras for years without it ever toppling the govt?

e) Invade with the USMC or US Army and Air Force within weeks or months

f) Come to a live and let live arrangement with Arbenz
 

raharris1973

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Thanks for the participation in the poll so far. The Guatemalan coup has been discussed in the past a few times on the board, and some divergences in assumptions about how the US would react to a covert option failing or being unavailable.

For instance in this thread, https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/mccarthyism-if-iran-goes-communist.407511/, other posters and I speculated about option e), an invasion, without questioning its plausibility, in posts #11, #12 and #21.

But on another thread, https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/guatemala-1954-long.76880/, Doug M. made an erudite post that speculated assuming the opposite extreme, that the US would default to a "leave it alone" or "live and let live" approach if the coup failed.

I came up with the "Contra" option based on the experience of Nicaragua in the 1980s of course, and the obvious parallelI with Guatemala as a Central American country with land borders from which guerrillas could attack.

How would Mexico react? I would think that they would not be pleased with a US policy of invasion or subversion of Guatemala, whereas Central American regimes might be actively willing to court Washington and oppose Guatemalan leftism, or could be arm-twisted into being a base for US anti-Guatemalan activity.

A common default response in any thread discussing any hypothetical leftist victory in Latin America is to jump in and insist the US would not tolerate it and quickly crush it. The US would almost certainly probably try in some way, shape or form, but the experience of Cold War Cuba and Nicaragua shows that American success in getting what it wants is not guaranteed.
 
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raharris1973

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Since my parallel thread on a failed coup against Allende got some traction and substantive response, I'm wondering if anyone has some further thoughts on this one?
 
I think it depends on how far left Guatemala goes, and its willingness to "export the revolution". I think the more extreme that Arbenz is, the more reactionary El Salvador and Honduras are going to be, which would push them into the American Camp. However, that also might result in leftist radicalization of the rural population in those countries earlier than OTL, though this may happen anyway depending on what Guatemala looks like going forward. Also, If Abrenz alienates the Catholic Church we will probably see the opposite scenario of what occurred in Central America in the 80's OTL, where priests and Archbishops were killed for calling out the government. I don't know enough of 50s Central American politics to make more detailed observations
 
I think it depends on how far left Guatemala goes, and its willingness to "export the revolution". I think the more extreme that Arbenz is, the more reactionary El Salvador and Honduras are going to be, which would push them into the American Camp.
Árbenz appears to have been rather moderate on the whole, more a Clement Attlee than a Fidel Castro. Sure, he was influenced by Marxism, but there's little indication that he was planning on going far left, certainly not with any great speed. Of course, having the American government attempt to coup him may change this! Historically he did join the communists a few years after getting overthrown, after all.

Now, as for the poll itself...the thing is that this was early in the Cold War, when it was felt quite strongly in the United States that it needed to vigorously contest any possible leftism globally because it might be linked to Moscow or Beijing. Hence the Korean War, the Vietnam War, interventions here and there and everywhere. That tends to lead me towards the idea of the United States invading after the failure of the coup, rather like they did later in the Dominican Republic, especially if the coup is directly linked to the United States. Basically, McCarthy et. al. will probably be screaming their heads off calling for the Marines to go in and roll Árbenz to prevent the spread of communism into the Western Hemisphere, and it might be difficult for the administration to resist this pressure when they can pretty clearly win.

On the other hand, Eisenhower seems to have had a fetish for covert operations and a strong lack of willingness to openly intervene with American troops, so he might manage to put things in the hands of the CIA--which, given the dubious competence of the CIA, probably means that Guatemala is going to be able to tick along more or less according to its own plans. As said in one of the threads you linked, if Árbenz steps down at the proper time and retires from politics, then relations can probably normalize and the United States will probably more or less grudgingly acknowledge the new Guatemalan regime as fine, if not exactly a close friend, especially if whoever succeeds Árbenz cracks down on the communists and makes it clear that Guatemala is no more communist than Britain or France is.
 
Árbenz appears to have been rather moderate on the whole, more a Clement Attlee than a Fidel Castro. Sure, he was influenced by Marxism, but there's little indication that he was planning on going far left, certainly not with any great speed. Of course, having the American government attempt to coup him may change this! Historically he did join the communists a few years after getting overthrown, after all. . .
In fact, I think he pulled a pretty clever fast one when he nationalized United Fruit Company land at values listed on the tax rolls. And of course, because of previous corruption, these land values were greatly under-estimated.

Guatemala truly was a banana republic.

United Fruit later changed its name to Chiquita, and then went through some ownership changes in the early 1970s, so it’s not the same company.
 
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