Why did the 1954 coup in Guatemala happen?

Also known as Operation PBSUCCESS

Shows causes on the record, then each account's causes side by side.

Not a single settled cause.

3 links · 3 accounts · 18–27 Jun 1954

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A connection is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Over time

Causes Cold War, according to United States government 1947–1991
Causes Cold War, according to Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala, 1952–1954 1947–1991
19501960197019801990

Each account

A to Z, none ranked above another.

Named in 2 of the 3 accounts recorded here: Cold War

According to Bitter Fruit

Guatemala’s agrarian reform, 1952 caused 17 Jun 1952 Scholarship & press 1
The authors’ reading. The CIA’s own historian answers that United Fruit “played only a contributing role in shaping policy.”

According to Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala, 1952–1954

Cold War caused 1947–1991 Primary record 2
The CIA historian’s own conclusion; the CIA says the views in its histories are the author’s.

According to United States government

Cold War caused 1947–1991 Primary record 3 PBSUCCESS, an active plot to oust Jacobo Arbenz and free the hemisphere from the perceived dangers of Soviet-inspired international communism.
The State Department historians’ summary of how Washington saw it: the aim was to free the hemisphere from perceived Soviet-inspired communism.

Proof 3 sources

Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Doubleday, 1982), Doubleday, 1982. Scholarship & press
But the takeover of United Fruit land was probably the decisive factor pushing the Americans into action.
Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala, 1952–1954 (CIA History Staff, Nicholas Cullather; released 1997), Central Intelligence Agency, 1994. Primary record Archived copy
The threat to American business was a minor part of a larger danger to the United States' overall security.
Introduction, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Guatemala, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, 2003. Primary record
PBSUCCESS, an active plot to oust Jacobo Arbenz and free the hemisphere from the perceived dangers of Soviet-inspired international communism.

How this answer is built

Lines on the record come first: sourced links that no one presents as their own account, each with its strongest source. Then every account recorded here gets its own column, A to Z, none ranked above another. A column quotes only that account's own words and shows the strength of its own sources. Disputed lines are listed apart, with the reason, and lines still being verified come last. Neither is counted. Withdrawn lines are never shown.

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