Buried in the memoirs of Anthony Eden, the former prime minister of Great Britain, is a recollection about the ouster of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 that reveals much about the character of the Anglo-American special relationship during the Cold War and attests to its enduring effect on the course of international events. Eden, trying to explain his mistaken belief that Washington would back Britain during the Suez crisis, claims that the United States reneged on a tacit agreement to support him in Egypt after Britain assisted the United States in removing Arbenz. In Guatemala, Eden writes, “the United States had encouraged the overthrow of a Communist-influenced government…. We had understood her action there and done what we could not to hamper her in the Security Council. The United States was now behaving in a precisely contrary manner towards us. When this point was put to the United States officials, they had no answer.”1