Monsicha Hoonsuwan Critical Book Review U.S.

Interventionism Professor Curt Cardwell 20 October 2010 Shattered Hope, Shattered Dream Within a period of eleven days after Jacobo Arbenz resigned from his presidential post, Guatemala saw five successive juntas occupying the presidential palace before the exiled Guatemalan army officer, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, eventually took over the government. His notoriously corrupt and repressive regime threw Guatemala back to forty years of consecutive military regime and violence that took more than 140,000 Guatemalan lives. Although Arbenzs presidency lasted a mere three years, it represented the hope Guatemalan revolution brought to non-elite Guatemalans, as it challenged the culture of fearthe way of life that portrays torture and death as the gods that determine behavior (383). In Shattered Hope, Piero Gleijeses argues that Arbenzs regime phased out the culture of fear through reforms, mainly the agrarian reform and public work programs, which were viewed by the U.S. as signifying the start of a leftist revolution in Guatemala. The U.S. government, being fearful of the spread of communism, dubbed Arbenz the Red Jacobo who maintained close ties with the communist party and was a communist himself. Consequently, the U.S. government saw the need to overthrow Arbenz not only to address security concerns in Central America, but also to protect economic interests and exercise U.S. imperial hubris. In the end, Gleijeses argues, the CIAs success in engineering the overthrow of Arbenz shattered

many Guatemalans hope of living a new lifea life that is not determined by the fear of torture or death. No other scholarly book unfolds the heartbreaking end of the Guatemalan revolution and Arbenzs unique feat (134)the first true agrarian reform of Central Americaas smoothly as Gleijeses. Owing to his lurid journalistic account based largely on painstaking interviews with witnesses during the Guatemalan revolution leading up to the U.S. ruinous effort in overthrowing Arbenz, each page turns like a good suspense story, although one is most likely able to guess the outcome the minute he or she opens the book. Nonetheless, every good book has its downfall. For Shattered Hope, it is Gleijeses sympathy for the communist president that is apparent in his lurid portrait of Arbenz as a protagonist. The image is painted with careful observation, using information gathered from interviews with not only Arbenzs friends, but also enemies. The result is a two-dimensional, almost saint-like Arbenz whose biggest mistake contributing to the end of his presidency was his naivety. Being a leader whose heart and passion lie solely in the Guatemalan people, Arbenz in Gleijeses narrative seems too fictional, a factor that may raise some questions regarding the authors objectivity and the accuracy of the information he presents. In addition to his heavenly character, Arbenz is a lonely man (134) abandoned on the road to reformation. His original power base, the Guatemalan military, dismissed Arbenz as he advanced toward agrarian reform, while his close ties with the Communist party forced the Guatemalan president to hide his true beliefs from the public. Besides his wife and the leaders of the Communist party, no one else accurately understands Arbenzs private life and, hence, his motivations and intentions behind the reform

programs. Attempts to explain the tragic fate of Jacobo Arbenz by conservative, liberal and radical critics have failed to capture the essence of what the Guatemalan leader really was, argues Gleijeses. Arbenz was not a man driven by ambition and greed. He was neither controlled by the communists nor was he an inconsequential bourgeois unwilling or unable to intensify the revolution. He was, however, a man whose inscrutable personality earned him few friends, but his fierce nationalism and genuine passion for social reform garnered him tremendous confidence in putting forward the most beneficial policy in Guatemalan history. Gleijeses admits Arbenzs political radicalization toward the far-left spectrum, as Arbenz became increasingly crestfallen with the revolutionary parties who failed to bring about necessary changes to the Guatemalan society. Yet, his left-tilting commitment was not involuntary; Marxist theory, argued Gleijeses, offered Arbenz the answer to Guatemalas present social and economic issues, explanations that were not available in other theories, (141) according to Maria de Arbenz, the Guatemalan leaders wife. Besides, argues Gleijeses, Arbenzs passion was an aberration (144) for a middle-class landowner that his presidency could not possibly be led by greed or ambitions. It was also ignorance on the U.S. part that led to the unwarranted fall of the Guatemalan president, Gleijeses argues. The U.S. was too consumed by its hatred of communism that it failed to see the true purpose behind agrarian reform. The communist party or PGTas well as Arbenzbelieved that Guatemala must go through a capitalist stage, where material conditions for socialism are developed through agrarian reform, and eventually, they hoped, would lead to industrialization and the growth of a proletariat. In the mind of Arbenz and the PGT who were well aware of U.S. communism intolerance,

this historic reform would not pose a problem because it would lead Guatemala to become capitalist before it could achieve socialism. Consequently, Decree 900a law that laid down the groundwork for the expropriation of uncultivated land in private estates of more than 672 acres and only if less than two thirds of these private estates were uncultivatedwas passed. In fact, argues Gleijeses, this reform was modeled after the U.S. example in Formosa and Japan, and presented a satisfying result in Guatemala, for one quarter of the total arable land of Guatemala was expropriated with five hundred thousand Guatemalan beneficiaries. Unlike the outcomes in Bolivia, Cuba, Peru and Nicaragua, Arbenzs agrarian reform increased productivity in Guatemalathe success also noted by the U.S. embassy. Another sign showing the underlying capitalist intent was the public works program implemented to reclaim the countrys economic sovereignty from foreign domination through competition rather than expropriation. According to Gleijeses, Decree 900 and the public works program went so successfully that the Guatemalan economy was basically prosperous (167). Hence, Arbenzs reforms were not the equivalent of collectivization and should not become the U.S. governments source of fear against communist takeover in Guatemala. However, Gleijeses argues, there is no convenient villain that contributes to the shattering of hope in Guatemala. Economic reasons played an important part as the United Fruit Company (UFCO), affected by Arbenzs predecessor Juan Jos Arvalos Labor Code and Arbenzs agrarian reform, appealed for help from the U.S. government. Despite Eisenhowers pro-UFCO officials, Gleijeses argues that the influence of the United Fruit Company in shaping American policy towards Guatemala decreased as the influence of the communists in shaping Guatemala increased. The PGT gained influence

during the peak of McCarthyism in the U.S., making the U.S. government less concerned with UFCOs fate and more anxious with growing communist influence in Central America. Furthermore, government reports showed that as the intelligence gathering capability of the U.S. increased, the U.S. government relied less on the UFCOs depiction of the communist threat in Guatemala, eventually marginalizing the UFCOs influence altogether. While economic factors were crucial to the understanding of this story, Gleijeses nevertheless contends that Washington wrongly believed that Arbenzs Guatemala threatened the stability of the region (365), offering a haven for prosecuted communists and destabilizing its neighbors. Most importantly, the fact that Arbenz offered a successful alternative to U.S. capitalism was an insult to U.S. sense of selfrespect (366). As Gleijeses argued, Jos Manuel Fortuny was right: It was not just about economic interests. They (the U.S. government) would have overthrown us even if we had grown no bananas, says Fortuny (7). Arbenz disappointed the U.S. government. He was not an opportunist, nor was he a dishonest and shallow (125) man who would allow self-interest to drive him into the U.S. governments embrace. Gleijeses illustrates to the readers that the U.S. had overplayed the communism threat in Guatemala to protect its economic interests, its influence in Central America and its imperial pride. Of course, Washington was right on one thing: Arbenz was a communist. Yet, he was also the hope of at least five hundred thousand Guatemalans who never owned a piece of land. Their hope came and immediately went away with the resignation of Arbenz and the return of military juntas. No other government was to be blamed for this tragedy except the U.S. government whose self-righteousness robbed the Guatemalan people off their impending prosperity.