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

by Vincent Bevins

The People’s Daily paid very close attention to the events in the small country, half a world away. Day after day, the situation in Guatemala was at the top of the front page, and the headlines were clear and precise: “Amerika Menjerang Guatemala” (America threatens Guatemala), and then a long explanatory article, “This Is Guatemala,” featuring a map of the faraway region, and then referring to “American aggression.”37 The US press covered it differently. The New York Times referred to the coup plotters as “rebels,” while calling the Árbenz government “reds” or a “Communist threat,” and saying that the US government was “helping” mediate peace talks, rather than organizing the whole thing. Most historians today would quickly recognize that this small Indonesian communist newspaper reported the events more accurately than the New York Times.