Office of the Historian

GT–3. Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom)1

Washington, February 24, 1958

SUBJECT

  • Visit of President-Elect Ydígoras Fuentes on Vice President Nixon.

PARTICIPANTS

  • Vice President Nixon
  • President-Elect Ydígoras of Guatemala
  • Other present who did not participate in the conversation:
  • Assistant Secretary of State Roy R. Rubottom, Jr.
  • Chief of Protocol Wiley T. Buchanan, Jr.
  • Ambassador Join Davis Lodge (invited by Vice President Nixon at time of call)
Chargé D’Affaires Asensio-Wunderlich ) Members of President-Elect Ydígoras’ Party.
Señor García Bauer )
Señor Bapez Herrarte )
Señor Alejos )

The Vice President expressed his great pleasure at being able to receive the President-Elect in his office in the United States, recalling his happy and unforgettable experience in visiting Guatemala in 1954 [1955].2 General Ydígoras responded with a warm greeting and expression of pleasure at being in the United States.

The Vice President inquired as to what the President-Elect considered to be his number one problem in Guatemala. The President responded promptly, “communism”. He said that his country, after ten years of rule by Arévalo and Arbenz, had been hurt by communism and that he was going to attack it by trying to offer the people better work opportunities, better food, better housing and better clothing. The Vice President interjected that that sounded like a positive, straightforward campaign which should produce results rather than the usual campaign of being simply “against” something. The President-Elect referred to Guatemala as being like a young lady who has been ill with smallpox and is left with her skin pitted by scars. He said that Guatemala had many [Facsimile Page 2] small scars left from the Arévalo-Arbenz regime and that these would take time to heal. He said that Castillo Armas had [Typeset Page 648] succeeded in “trimming” the Communist inroads, but that the problem would now have to be attacked at its roots.

The President-Elect referred to the role of the Archbishop of the Catholic Church,3 in the last election when Church support allegedly had been given to the Christian Democratic Party. The President-Elect opined that in spite of Church support, which would have been expected to give the women’s vote to Cruz-Salazar who had the support of the Christian Democratic Party, a large number of his approximately 190,000 votes had been from the women. He paid particular respect to the women market workers who had supported him and conveyed their message of greetings to the Vice President and to Mrs. Nixon whom they recalled from their visit to the market in 1954 while in Guatemala.

The Vice President alluded to the fine movement of solidarity against communism effected by President-Elect Ydígoras Fuentes and one of the defeated candidates for President, former Ambassador Luis Cruz-Salazar. The President-Elect acknowledged the compliment and said that while they had been bitter enemies in the campaign, he had “tried to shoot either over Cruz’ head or short of his feet in order not to destroy him and his party since he recognized that he needed their support”. The President-Elect referred to the difficulty of having his own supporters accept the solidarity move by Cruz-Salazar, but hoped that this would be accomplished.

The Vice President said that President Eisenhower was looking forward to meeting the President-Elect at breakfast tomorrow morning. He commented that, since both of them had military backgrounds, they would undoubtedly find much in common, especially in their approach to political problems. The Vice President observed that our President had become great in office after an outstanding military background and he felt sure that the Guatemalan President-Elect would have the same experience. General Ydígoras said that he intended to drop his uniform and hoped to have the Guatemalan military act only as defenders of the country, thereby removing them from politics.

Vice President Nixon and General Ydieoras then departed from the office to the Capitol steps where photographs were taken with the Capitol dome in the background.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 714.11/2–2458. Confidential.↩
  2. Vice President Nixon visited Guatemala, February 12–15, during a good will tour of Central America and the Caribbean area, February 6–March 5, 1955; see Foreign Relations, 1955–1957, vol. VII, American Republics: Central and South America, Document 24.↩
  3. Mario Rossell y Arellano.↩