MATERIAL FOR FULTON LEWIS,JR.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090112-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2013
• Sequence Number: 112
• Publication Date: December 18, 1953
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @
50-Yr 2013/10/29 : CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090112-3
cixe
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @
50-Yr 2013/10/29 : CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090112-3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090112-3 'AWL I
ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET
INSTROCTIONSi" Officer designations should be used in the "TO" column. Under each comment a line should be drawn across sheet
and each comment numbered to correspond with the number in the "TO" column. Each officer should initial (check mark insufficient)
before further routing. This Routing and Record Sheet should be returned to Registry.
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FORM, NO. 51-10 er.Ptri;
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Ur-81165-1 II. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
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SECRET
A
18 December 1953
MEMORANTUM FOR: COL. STANLEY GROGAN
VIA : CPP/OPS
SUBJECT Material for Fulton Lewis, Jr.
Pursuant to a request made to the undersigned by
the DCI on 17 December, there is stataitted herewith bac1o.
ground material on Guatemala. This material is, subject
to approval by the DCI, for the use of Fulton Lewis Jr.
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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STAT
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ILLEGIB
Guatemala can perhaps be called the United Statest "soft
underbelly."
It was once before. The Nazis used Guatemala in the early
stages of World War II as a base for their espionage operations.
The Nazis used Guatemala particularly as a base for gathering
information which helped Nazi submarines sink a great deal of
American tonnage.
Now the Soviets are using Guatemala. In any hot war, unless
the present Guatemalan situation chawes, they will be able to
use the country for submarine warfare espionage, just as the
Nazis did,- .And in the cold war, the Soviets are using Guatemala
far more intensively and effectively than the Nazis ever did.
Letts see what kind of a base the Soviets have in Guatemala.
The President of the country, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, is not
exactly a Communist, but he might as well be one, considering
the services he renders to the Kremlin. He not only lets the
-Communist Party grow, but operate at will. He has told many
people, including American diplomats, that he is 100 per cent
behind the soktalled "social reform" plans of the Communists.
He has also told many people that he can handle the Communists
if they get too ambitious. President Arbenzt attitude toward
the Communists is very reminiscent of certain people who cane(
the Chinese Communists only "agrarian reformers."
President Arbenz ha at ractive, talM1,14%,aergetic
(1.44
wife. She is not quite vita Peron, but she is trying hard
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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to become
?2?
However, her political leanings are very much
i1?.
pinker thanAEvitats. For the last several months she has been
't
taking instruction from Communist indoctrinators.
The top Bed in Guatemala is a bespectacled, mird,looking
man named ,Jose Manuel Portray. He has just spent a few weeks
in the Kremlin.
A conservative estimate is that Fortuny and at least 100
other GuatemalanCommunists have been intensively and carefully
trained in the Soviet Union.
Best guesses on the size of Communist Party Membership
places it between 1,500 and 3,000. This is a much more formidable
and much more cohesive political force than the poorly organized
anti?Communists can muster.
This Communist aggregation has skillfully infiltrated a
great deal of Guatemalan public and private life. In key spots
in the allegedly non?Communist parties, you can find Communists-.
There are Communists in key Government posts. There are
Communists throughout the school system.
The labor field is riddled with Communists. The Red bossman
there is Victor Manuel Gutierrez. Gutierrez in turn is a close
friend and willing pupil of Vicente Lombardo Toledano, the
Mexican who heads up the Communist labor underground throughout
Central and South America. At Gutierrez, bidding, Guatemalan
industrial and rural workers, who would much rather earn a dayls
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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wages, are compelled to strike, particularly against such American
enterprises in Guatemala as the United Fruit Company, the Interna?
tional Railways of Central America, PAL, and the Empresa Electrica
de Guatemala, a subsidiary of American and. Foreign Power Company.
The Guatemalan Communists.dontt confine their activities to
their own country. They train Communist agents and leaders for
other Central and. South American countries. They subsidize sub-.
version throughout Latin America. They provide a haven for
Communists exiled from other.South American countries.
As far as the United States is concerned, the Guatemalan
Communists are among .the loudest shouters about American
imperialism and American intervention. Fortuny, Gutierrez, and
their-friends have as little regard. for the facts about the
United States as Communists anywhere else in the world. They
just say what the Kremlin tells them.
The situation is-bad, but the Guatemalan Communists have
their, weak points. The most important of them probably is
economic. The country depends very heavily on its two principal
export crops, coffee and bananas. Coffee accounts for 80 per
cent of Guatemala's exports. Interestingly enough, the Communists
here have the same weakness that plagued the Nazis. Then Guatemala
during World War II came in on the side of the Allies, it expro?
priated the German?owned coffee firms and-with that the back of
German strength in the country was broken.
Declassified in Part-Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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*040.
? There are internal weaknesses too, The Guatemalan people.,
are strongly religious and that is going to be a factor in
their attitude toward Communism. ET._34011-F-4ee-g?,t-he-Ottateita1an
0 SI ill M -4 MI
61140
24fteety, it is hard to
believe that as fallacious and barbarous a philosophy at
Communism can long be palatable to Latin Americans or any
other people.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29:
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