Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Guatemala

173. Telegram From the CIA Station in Guatemala to Operation PBSUCCESS Headquarters in Florida¹

Guatemala City, June 8, 1954, 0845Z

773. Following from Page.

1. K-Program likely remain stalemated until further pattern of PBSUCCESS clearly emerging.

2. Not a ghost of a chance to sway army high command as long as Arbenz regime going through impressive phase of consolidation with oppositional elements fragmentized and subdued.² Government firmly convinced U.S. has abandoned all thought of going it alone and effective collective intervention discounted (Toriello to SWALLOW).

3. Recommend K-Program be brought under Station control soonest and Page be authorized return to ZI. [name not declassified] complex can be handled through Esquire. Contact with Swallow will be maintained by Burnett.

4. If at any future time, high command members should indicate desire talk terms with U.S. representative and if situation of manifest strength then favoring our cause, dispatch of PBSUCCESS representative would pose no problem security or otherwise.

5. Request approval for Page return to HQ not later than 10 June. Esquire leaving for U.S. o/a 9 June on short visit and most appropriate effect turn over at that time.

6. Report on Page/SWALLOW meeting in 8 June pouch.³

1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Job 79–01025A, Box 11, Folder 3. Secret; Routine. Drafted by Page. Repeated to the Director of Central Intelligence.
2. At 4 a.m. on June 8, the Guatemalan Government suspended constitutional guarantees and moved against its internal opposition; see Document 174. Earlier the government had raided the home of a key supporter of Castillo Armas and confiscated incriminating papers.
3. Reference is presumably to a June 7 memorandum from Burnette to Bannister. (Central Intelligence Agency, Job 79–01025A, Box 100, Folder 1) In a June 8 memorandum, Bannister reported that Page had mentioned his name to a Guatemalan contact, thereby linking the Embassy to Page’s efforts to defect high-ranking members of the Guatemalan military: “I consider this a violation of Station security, since he directly implicated the Station in an operation over which we had no control and with which this Station certainly did not wish to be identified at least to an unauthorized person.” (Memorandum from Bannister to Operation PBSUCCESS Headquarters, June 8; ibid.)