“We Are Meddling”: anti-Colonialism and the British Cold War against the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944–1954

Abstract

This article reveals how the British government contested the democratic governments of Guatemala from the mid-1940s into the early 1950s. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Guatemalan Revolution inspired a crescendo of anti-colonial sentiment frequently directed toward Belize/British Honduras which British officials denounced as proof of communist influence. In response, the British government unleashed the Information Research Department (IRD) to spread anti-communist propaganda. Not only did Caribbean Basin dictators approach the IRD to participate in a plot to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz’s government, but the intelligence agency networked with and helped Guatemalan anti-communists including university students who joined the regime of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas installed by the U.S. government following the Central Intelligence Agency’s notorious Operation PBSUCCESS.