Operation PBFORTUNE

Operation PBFORTUNE, also known as Operation FORTUNE, was the name of a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by US President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because landmark land reform enacted by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The coup attempt was also motivated by US fears that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists. It involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua. The coup was planned with the knowledge and support of Anastasio Somoza García, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the US-backed right-wing dictators of Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and Venezuela respectively, as well as the United Fruit Company. However, the US State Department discovered that details of the plan had become too widely known. US Secretary of State Dean Acheson was worried that the coup attempt would damage the image of the US, which had committed to a policy of non-intervention, and so terminated the operation. Operation PBFORTUNE was a precursor to Operation PBSUCCESS, the covert operation that toppled Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution in 1954.

From the late 19th century until 1944 Guatemala was governed by a series of authoritarian rulers. Between 1898 and 1920 Manuel Estrada Cabrera granted significant concessions to the United Fruit Company and dispossessed many indigenous peoples of their communal land. Under Jorge Ubico, who ruled as a dictator between 1931 and 1944, this process was intensified, with the institution of brutal labor regulations and the establishment of a police state.

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