The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World

by Vincent Bevins

According to Louis J. Halle in a note to the director of the policy planning staff, the risk was not that Guatemala would act aggressively. The risk was that Árbenz would provide an example that inspired his neighbors to copy him. The note reads, “The evidence indicates no present military danger to us at all. Although we read public references to the facts that Guatemala is three hours’ flying time from the oil-fields of Texas and two hours’ flying time from the Panama Canal, we may console ourselves that Guatemala’s capability for bombing either is nil. The recent shipment of arms makes no difference to this conclusion, nor would repeated shipments…” The real risk, Halle said quite clearly, was that communist “infection” could spread through the example of independence of the U.S. that Guatemala might offer to nationalists throughout Latin America. It might spread through the example of nationalism and social reform. Finally and above all, it might spread through the disposition the Latin Americans would have to identify themselves with little Guatemala if the issue should be drawn for them (as it is being drawn for them), not as that of their own security but as a contest between David Guatemala and Uncle Sam Goliath. This latter, I think, is the danger we have most to fear and to guard against.41