Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:50:54.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Juan José Arévalo and the Caribbean Legion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Piero Gleijeses
Piero Gleijeses
Affiliation:
Piero Gleijeses is Associate Professor of American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies atJohns Hopkins University, Washington.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On 15 March 1945 Juan José Arévalo became president of Guatemala. His inauguration marked the beginning of an unprecedented democratic parenthesis – ‘spring in the land of eternal tyranny ’1 – a spring that ended abruptly with the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.

Arévalo was an anti-communist, a nationalist, and a reformer. He was an anti-communist who believed that individual communists should not be persecuted unless they violated the law. He was a nationalist who accepted that Guatemala was in the US sphere of influence. He was a reformer who eschewed radical change.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 1-2 , June 1989 , pp. 133 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Aragón, Luis Cardoza y, La Revolutión Guatemalteca (Mexico, 1955), p. 9.Google Scholar

2 Department of State, Office of Intelligence and Research (hereafter OIR), ‘Agrarian Reform in Guatemala’, no. 6001, 5 03 1953, p. 1.Google Scholar The one exception, noted the report, was the land rental legislation passed in 1950 – a mild measure, designed to assist sharecroppers, which was ‘honored far more in breach than in observance’.

3 The term was repeatedly used from mid-1947 in State Department documents.

4 Quotes from Oakley to Miller, Office Memo (‘Alleged Communist Nature of Guatemalan Government’), 3 11 1949, p. 1Google Scholar; and from American Embassy, ‘Communism in Guatemala’, no. 217, 6 05 1948, p. 16.Google Scholar For a document that reflects the US view, see the 120-page analysis prepared by OIR, ‘Guatemala: Communist Influence’, no. 5123, 23 10 1950.Google Scholar

5 ‘Current Relations with Guatemala’, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS) (1950), ii, p. 899.Google Scholar

6 There is no definitive study of the Caribbean Legion. The best treatment is Ameringer, Charles, The Democratic Left in Exile (Coral Gables, Fla., 1974), pp. 59–110.Google Scholar Useful material is included in Corominas, Enrique, In the Caribbean Political Areas (Cambridge, Mass., 1954)Google Scholar and esp. in Unión Panamericana, Departamento de Estudios Jurídicos, Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Reciproca, 5th ed. (Washington, D.C., 1973), i, pp. 33–149.Google Scholar The most important accounts by participants are Arvelo, Tulio, Cayo Confite y Luperón (Santo Domingo, D.R., 1981)Google Scholar; Ornes, Horacio, Desembarco en Luperón (Mexico, 1956)Google Scholar; Vásquez, Alberto Henríquez, ‘Cayo Confites (Ahora más completo y menos dulce)’, 26 articles, Ultima Hora (Santo Domingo, 2 01–13 04 1984)Google Scholar; ‘Cayo Confites y La Lucha Contra Trujillo’, Político: Teoríay Acción (Santo Domingo, 11 1983), pp. 1–28Google Scholar; Arguello, Rosendo, Quiénes y Cómo Nos Traicionaron (n.p., n.d.)Google Scholar; Bayo, Alberto, Tempestad en el Caribe (Mexico, 1950)Google Scholar; Silfa, Nicolás, Guerra, Traición y Exilio (Barcelona, 1980), pp. 175–299.Google Scholar US documents, some published in FRUS (1947–1950) and others located in the National Archives, shed light not only on US perceptions and policies, but also – occasionally – on the activities of the exiles and the governments concerned. Particularly helpful were interviews with the Dominican participants: Miguel Angel Ramírez, Tulio Arvelo, José Rolando Martínez Bonilla (a ‘foot soldier’); with the Guatemalans: José Manuel Fortuny, Juan José Arévalo, María de Arbenz, Ricardo Barrios Peña, Augusto Chamaud MacDonald; with the Costa Rican, José Figueres; and with the Nicaraguan, Edelberto Torres Espinoza.

7 On Cayo Confites, see above n. 6; see also Vega, Bernardo (ed.), Los Estados Unidos y Trujillo – 1947, 2 vols (Santo Domingo, 1984)Google Scholar, and Crassweller, Robert, Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator (Macmillan, 1966), pp. 233–9.Google Scholar

8 For two vivid accounts of the Dominicans' efforts to recover the weapons from the Cuban Government, see Arvelo, , Cayo Confite y Luperón, pp. 120–22Google Scholar, and Vásquez, Henríquez, ‘Cayo Confites’, Ultima Hora, 17 01 1984, p. 10.Google Scholar

9 See especially Silfa, , Guerra, Traición y Exilio, pp. 180–2Google Scholar and ‘Cayo Confites’, Político: Teoría y Acción, pp. 3, 8, 13. Arévalo had lived in Argentina from 1927 to 1934 and from 1936 to 1944.

10 Quote from interview with Arana's close associate, Ricardo Barrios Peña. Some exiles have written accounts, published after Arana's death in 1949, that distort Arana's position into one of active opposition and even slander him as an accomplice of Trujillo. (See Ornes, , Desembarco en Luperón, pp. 90 and 119Google Scholar, and Silfa, , Guerra, Traición y Exilio, pp. 280–9.Google Scholar) Interviews with Fortuny, Charnaud, María de Arbenz, Lt. Col. José Luis Cruz Salazar, Col. Roberto Lorenzana, and Torres Espinoza were very instructive.

11 This hostility was not limited to the dictatorships of the Caribbean. At two major Pan-American Conferences (Rio in 1947 and Bogotá in 1948), Guatemala advocated a policy of nonrecognition of regimes in the hemisphere that had come to power through force, particularly those that had overthrown democracies. The proposal was rejected, but Arévalo adopted it unilaterally. Guatemala was also a vocal critic of the Franco regime. See Frankel, Anita, Political Development in Guatemala, 1944–1954: The Impact of Foreign, Military and Religious Elites (Ann Arbor, 1977; Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1969), pp. 50–68 and 87–91.Google Scholar

12 ‘Al Asumir la Presidencia’, 15 March 1945, in Arévalo, , Discursos en la Presidencia (1945–1948), (Guatemala, 1948), pp. 7–21, quotes pp. 12–13.Google Scholar The two essays are ‘Istmania (Tierras del Istmo)’, written in 193;, and ‘Cultura y posibilidades de cultura en la América Central’, written in 1939; both were first published in Arévalo's, Escritos Políticos (Guatemala, 1945). PP. 12–28 and 57–69.Google Scholar

13 Bishop, Jefferson Mack, Arévalo and Central American Unification (Ann Arbor, 1977; Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State University, 1971), p. 108.Google Scholar

14 See esp. Vásquez, Henríquez, ‘Cayo Confites’, V, Ultima Hora, 17 01 1984, p. 10.Google Scholar

15 Two superb, well documented and dispassionate books that deal with the regimes of Calderón and Picado, as well as with Figueres' role, are Bulgarelli, Oscar Aguilar, Costa Rica y sus Hecbos Políticos de 1948 (San José, 1978)Google Scholar and Bell, John Patrick, Crisis in Costa Rica (Austin, 1971).Google Scholar

16 For the text of the Pacto del Caribe see Bulgarelli, Aguilar, Costa Rica, pp. 307–12.Google Scholar The document was signed by two representatives of each of the three countries targeted; in the case of Costa Rica, however, Figueres signed with the leader of the Nicaraguan faction associated with him, Rosendo Argüello.

17 Ibid., p. 300.

18 See Schifter, Jacobo, Costa Rica 1948 (San José, 1982), pp. 156–64.Google Scholar

19 In a 1972 interview Arévalo stated: ‘It's strange. I knew almost nothing about Figueres. I was first visited in my presidential office by Roberto Brenes Mesen, that great philosopher and writer who inspired the youth of our country. This was in 1947. He asked for help in his struggle against the government of Costa Rica that was infiltrated by Communists.’ (‘No sé si la ayuda que dimos a Figueres en 1948 fué para bien’, Diario de Costa Rica, 31 01 1972, p. 16.Google Scholar)

20 Bell, , Crisis, p. 138.Google Scholar In addition to Bell's, Crisis, pp. 131–54Google Scholar, the best accounts of the uprising are Aguilar, Bulgarelli, Costa Rica, pp. 317–98Google Scholar and Acuña, Miguel, El 48 (San José, 1974).Google Scholar Schifter's Costa Rica 1948 is a well-researched study of US policy towards Costa Rica from 1940 to Figueres’ victory. The ‘Diary (San José) 1948–1949’ of US Ambassador Nathanial Davis is informative, insightful and entertaining (Papers of Nathaniel Davis, Box 1, unpaginated, approximately 200 pp., Truman Libraŕy).

21 Letter from AréValo to Figueres, 27 May 1948, in Bulgarelli, Aguilar, Costa Rica, pp. 414–15.Google Scholar For a scathing denunciation of Figueres' conduct, see Argüello, Quietus – a biased but informative account. For a more balanced version by another participant, see Bayo, , Tempestad, pp. 83–158.Google Scholar Among secondary sources, see esp. Bulgarelli, Aguilar, Costa Rica, pp. 398–432.Google Scholar

22 Arvelo, , Cayo Confite y Luperón, pp. 122–3Google Scholar; see also Ornes, , Desembarco en Luperón, pp. 30–1Google Scholar

23 See Arvelo, , Cayo Confite y Luperón, pp. 130 and 133Google Scholar, and Ornes, , Desembarco en Luperón, pp. 152–5.Google Scholar Confirmed by interviews with Fortuny, Charnaud and María de Arbenz.

24 In addition to many of the sources listed above in n. 6, see also Crassweller, , Trujillo, pp. 241–1Google Scholar; Dominican Republic, Ministry for Home Affairs, White Book of Communism in Dominican Republic (Madrid, n.d.), pp. 105–49Google Scholar; Loeche, Enrique Rodríguez, ‘Por qué fracasó la expeditión a Santo Domingo’ (interview with Ramírez, Miguel Angel), Bohemia (Cuba), 21 08 1949, pp. 58–9, 80–1, 89–90.Google Scholar

25 ‘Current Relations with Guatemala’, FRUS, 1950, 11, p. 899.Google Scholar

26 ‘Waging Peace in the Americas,’ 10 Sept. 1949, State Department Bulletin (07–12 1949), 21, pp. 462–6.Google Scholar Quote p. 463. For a stinging response to Acheson, see Bosch, Juan, ‘Errores de la Política Norteamericana en el Caribe’, Bohemia (Cuba), 16 10 1949, pp. 57 and 62.Google Scholar

27 OIR, ‘Guatemala: Communist Influence’, pp. 63–5.Google Scholar See also above n. ii.

28 Patterson to Secretary of State, 12 May 1949, FRUS, 1949, 11, p. 445.Google Scholar Muñoz Meany was a moderate leftist whose major sins were strong antipathy towards dictatorial regimes and sincere nationalism. For the US view of Muñoz Meany, see also American Embassy, ‘Communism in Guatemala’, p. 17Google Scholar and OIR, ‘Guatemala: Communist Influence’, pp. 43 and 64.Google Scholar

29 Interview with Dorothy Dillon who was a CIA analyst.

30 Memo by Undersecretary of State Webb to Truman, 9 Sept. 1950, FRUS, 1950, 11, p. 912Google Scholar

31 ‘Arévalo, Presidente Demócrata’, Octubre (Guatemala), 7 03 1951, p. 1.Google Scholar See also Arellano, Huberto Alvarado, Apuntes para la Historia del Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Guatemala, 1975), p. 15.Google Scholar

32 Art. 9 of the Pacto del Caribe.

33 Quote from CIA, ‘The Caribbean Legion’, ORE 11–49, 17 03 1949, p. 2.Google Scholar

34 Interview with Figueres. See also Berle Diary, entry of 1 Apr. 1953, Papers, Adolf Berle, ‘Latin America (General 1953–1956)’, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.Google Scholar

35 Diario de Costa Rica, 31 01 1972, p. 16.Google Scholar

36 ‘Al Asumir la Presidencia’, p. 12.