Six on Central America: The Big Dig Along the route of the Nicaraguan canal; Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down inside h
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Edited by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh
Natl. Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 4
"Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio-economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'" The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952. As early as February of that year, CIA Headquarters began generating memos with subject titles such as "Guatemalan Communist Personnel to be disposed of during Military Operations," outlining categories of persons to be neutralized "through Executive Action"--murder--or through imprisonment and exile. The "A" list of those to be assassinated contained 58 names--all of which the CIA has excised from the declassified documents.
PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Eisenhower in August 1953, carried a $2.7 million budget for "psychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war. But, according to the CIA's own internal study of the agency's so-called "K program," up until the day Arbenz resigned on June 27, 1954, "the option of assassination was still being considered." While the power of the CIA's psychological-war, codenamed "Operation Sherwood," against Arbenz rendered that option unnecessary, the last stage of PBSUCCESS called for "roll-up of Communists and collaborators." Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed. Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of successive military regimes murdered more than 100,000 civilians."
"Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio-economic reforms that the CIA disdainfully refers to in its memoranda as "an intensely nationalistic program of progress colored by the touchy, anti-foreign inferiority complex of the 'Banana Republic.'" The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952. As early as February of that year, CIA Headquarters began generating memos with subject titles such as "Guatemalan Communist Personnel to be disposed of during Military Operations," outlining categories of persons to be neutralized "through Executive Action"--murder--or through imprisonment and exile. The "A" list of those to be assassinated contained 58 names--all of which the CIA has excised from the declassified documents.
PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Eisenhower in August 1953, carried a $2.7 million budget for "psychological warfare and political action" and "subversion," among the other components of a small paramilitary war. But, according to the CIA's own internal study of the agency's so-called "K program," up until the day Arbenz resigned on June 27, 1954, "the option of assassination was still being considered." While the power of the CIA's psychological-war, codenamed "Operation Sherwood," against Arbenz rendered that option unnecessary, the last stage of PBSUCCESS called for "roll-up of Communists and collaborators." Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed. Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of successive military regimes murdered more than 100,000 civilians."
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 297
Posted - December 2, 2009
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB297/index.htm
"On March 12, 1977, the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande – Romero’s friend and a leading figure of El Salvador’s progressive Catholics – was killed by a military death squad.
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The incident seems to have triggered something in the once-conservative Romero. He began boycotting government ceremonies, saying police weren’t doing enough to investigate his fellow priest’s murder. In protest, he insisted that Grande’s funeral mass, on March 14, 1977, be the only mass celebrated in El Salvador that day.
For the next three years, Romero was among the loudest voices for justice in a country clearly headed toward civil war. That bloody 12-year conflict pitted the authoritarian, U.S.-backed government against the rebel forces of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. At least 75,000 people were killed.
In weekly masses in the San Salvador cathedral, Romero would dedicate part of each Sunday’s service to discussing “the events of the day” – labor strikes, massacres and kidnappings. Because the government tightly controlled Salvadoran media, his sermons, which were broadcast nationwide on the radio, were a key source of news and information.
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In 1980, Romero published an open letter to President Jimmy Carter demanding that the U.S. cease sending military aid to a government that killed its own citizens."
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