Sources

Sources for the Foreign Relations Series

The Foreign Relations statute requires that the published record in the Foreign Relations series include all records needed to provide comprehensive documentation on major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant U.S. diplomatic activity. It further requires that government agencies, departments, and other entities of the U.S. Government engaged in foreign policy formulation, execution, or support cooperate with the Department of State Historian by providing full and complete access to records pertinent to foreign policy decisions and actions and by providing copies of selected records. Almost all of the sources consulted in the preparation of this volume have been declassified in full or in part and are available for review at the National Archives and Records Administration.

The editors of the Foreign Relations series have complete access to all the retired records and papers of the Department of State: the central files of the Department; the special decentralized files (“lot files”) of the Department at the bureau, office, and division levels; the files of the Department’s Executive Secretariat, which contain the records of international conferences and high-level official visits, correspondence with foreign leaders by the President and Secretary of State, and memoranda of conversations between the President and Secretary of State and foreign officials; and the files of overseas diplomatic posts. All the Department’s indexed central files for these years have been permanently transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland (Archives II). The Department’s decentralized office (or lot) files covering this period that the National Archives deems worthy of permanent retention, have been transferred from the Department’s custody to Archives II.

The editors of the Foreign Relations series also have full access to the papers of President Eisenhower and other White House foreign policy records. Presidential papers maintained and preserved at the Presidential libraries include some of the most significant foreign affairs-related documentation from the Department of State and other Federal agencies including the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sources for Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, Guatemala

This retrospective volume on Guatemala, 1952–1954, is a documentary history of PBSUCCESS, the Central Intelligence Agency operation [Page XII] leading to the 1954 coup that removed President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán from power. As such, this volume relies primarily on documents of the Directorate of Operations (DO) at the Central Intelligence Agency. Most of the DO documentation is in Job 79–01025A, a collection that includes extensive records for PBFORTUNE, an initial plan first considered in 1951 to oust Arbenz; PBSUCCESS, the plan as implemented; and PBHISTORY, the project to analyze and utilize documents of the Arbenz government. The majority of the documentation in Job 79–01025A is comprised of internal memoranda and cable traffic, especially telegrams to and from Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters (DIR cables), CIA Stations including Guatemala (GUAT cables), and PBSUCCESS Headquarters in Florida (LINC cables). Additionally Job 79–01025A contains many Agency-generated internal memoranda and intelligence studies, most of it originating in the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division.

Job 79–01025A also includes correspondence, memoranda, and cables to and from Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, the Department of State, and the United States Embassy in Guatemala. The volume includes a few documents from the John Foster Dulles Papers at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, in addition to several reprints of documents published in the Guatemala compilation in Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, Volume IV, American Republics (1983). This retrospective volume supplements the earlier compilation on Guatemala for the Eisenhower administration and together the two volumes provide a comprehensive view of U.S. foreign policy toward Guatemala during 1952–1954, both as it was agreed upon in Washington and as it was implemented in Central America.

Unpublished Sources

Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia

Guatemala Collection, Job 79–01025A

Executive Registry, Job 80–R1731R

Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas

John Foster Dulles Papers

Telephone Conversations

Ann Whitman File

NSC Series

James C. Hagerty Papers

[Page XIII]

Published Sources

Cullather, Nicholas. Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Washington, D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994)

Gleijeses, Piero. Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)

Handy, Jim. Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)

Immerman, Richard. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982)

U.S. Department of State Bulletin, 1952–1959

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952, 1953, 1954 (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953, 1954, 1955)