Eisenhower in War and Peace

by Jean Edward Smith

  Secretary Dulles monitored the planning for the coup closely. After a high-level meeting on the Middle East in late July, he became concerned when Iran was discussed and no mention was made of AJAX. The next morning he called his brother at the CIA to ask if something had gone wrong. According to Allen Dulles’s phone log, “The Secy [JFD] called and said in your talk about Iran yesterday you did not mention the other matter. Is it off? A[llen] W[.] D[ulles] said he doesn’t talk about it, it was cleared directly with the President, and is still active.”51

  At his press conference the following week, Dulles began to set the stage for American intervention. “Recent developments in Iran, especially the efforts of the illegal Communist party, which appears to be tolerated by the Iranian Government, have caused us concern,” said Secretary Dulles. “These developments make it difficult for the United States to give assistance to Iran so long as its government tolerates this sort of activity.”52

  It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the one hand, Kermit Roosevelt and his agents in Teheran were fomenting ever higher levels of violence; on the other, Secretary Dulles was criticizing the Iranian government for not arresting the violence Roosevelt was creating.

  With the country aflame, Mossadegh chose to hold a referendum, which he thought might solidify his power. The blatantly tainted result showed 99.4 percent for Mossadegh. That convinced Eisenhower that a Communist takeover was imminent. “Iran’s downhill course toward Communist-supported dictatorship was picking up momentum,” said Ike afterward.53

  The shah’s cooperation was crucial for the coup’s success. To make the initial overture to Pahlavi, Allen Dulles dispatched retired major general H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of Desert Storm’s “Stormin’ Norman,” to Teheran.b The elder Schwarzkopf had spent most of the 1940s in Iran commanding the constabulary and training the twenty-thousand-man Imperial Iranian Gendarmerie, the country’s national police force. The shah was deeply indebted to Schwarzkopf, and had every reason to trust whatever assurances he gave. Schwarzkopf also had many friends among the senior officers of the Iranian Army and police force. He arrived in Teheran on August 1 “armed with a diplomatic passport and a couple of large bags containing millions of dollars.”54 Later that day he called on the shah at the Saad Abad Palace, explained the details of the coup, and assured him that the United States would give him full support if he cooperated. Schwarzkopf then put the shah in contact with Roosevelt and stepped aside.

  By mid-August, Roosevelt had his team in place and was ready to strike. Protests and riots organized by his operatives had turned the streets of Teheran into battlegrounds. Newspapers and religious leaders were screaming for Mossadegh’s head. According to Donald Wilbur, who headed CIA planning for AJAX in Washington, “anti-government propaganda poured off the Agency’s presses and was rushed by air to Teheran.”55

  On August 15, 1953, the coup commenced. By the nineteenth, after a crescendo of street violence, Mossadegh had been removed from office and was under arrest.c In his Memoirs, Eisenhower hailed the coup as a spontaneous uprising of the shah’s supporters against Mossadegh and the Communists.56 No mention was made of the CIA’s involvement or American complicity. A month later in Denver, Eisenhower met privately with Kermit Roosevelt and awarded him the National Security Medal in a closed-door ceremony. In his diary Ike wrote, “The things we did were covert,” and he acknowledged that the United States would be embarrassed if the CIA’s role ever became known. Eisenhower said that Kermit Roosevelt “worked intelligently, courageously, and tirelessly. I listened to his detailed report and it seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact.”57 d

  ​In the coup’s aftermath, the United States generously provided the emergency financial aid to Iran that had been denied Mossadegh. The new Iranian government responded by agreeing to a new oil concession with an international consortium, with Iran receiving 50 percent of the proceeds. British Petroleum retained 40 percent of the shares in the consortium, five American companies held another 40 percent, and the remainder were divided between Royal Dutch Shell and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles.58 The consortium retained the name Mossadegh gave it—the National Iranian Oil Company—to preserve the façade of nationalization, but its books were not opened to Iranian auditors, nor were Iranians allowed to serve on its board of directors.59

  On March 17, 2000—forty-seven years later—the United States officially acknowledged its involvement in the coup. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking before the American-Iranian Council in Washington, delivered what amounted to an apology. “In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”60

  The success of Operation AJAX encouraged the Eisenhower administration to intervene elsewhere. Under Eisenhower the Central Intelligence Agency became a major instrument of American foreign policy. Its budget increased exponentially, and the overthrow of objectionable regimes became an accepted tool of statecraft. As one biographer put it, “the CIA offered the President a quick fix for his problems,”61 and Latin America had many problems that needed to be fixed—at least as the Eisenhower administration saw it.

  The first target was Guatemala. In October 1944, the country’s fledgling middle class had overthrown the long, brutal dictatorship of General Jorge Ubico, who was closely identified with the United Fruit Company (UFCO), and began an experiment in democracy inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

  In Guatemala, the United Fruit Company (known as “El Pulpo,” the octopus) played an analogous role to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran. It owned 42 percent of the arable land, was exempt from all taxes and duties, controlled the country’s only port as well as its electrical and transportation systems, and owned the telephone and telegraph facilities. The company’s annual profits amounted to twice the total revenue of the Guatemalan government. Most of its vast acreage was kept idle in order not to flood the market with bananas and bring the price down.62

  Mount Eisenhower, a 9,400-foot massif in the Canadian Rockies, midway between Banff and Lake Louise. (illustration credit 22.2)

  Guatemala’s new democratic government soon clashed with United Fruit. The labor reforms instituted by the government, including minimum wage legislation and the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, most of which were patterned on the New Deal, were predictably assailed by UFCO as “Communistic.” Education reforms to combat widespread illiteracy were equally suspect. But the new government struck deep popular roots. In March 1951, when the revolution was seven years old, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the former defense minister, was elected president, winning more than twice the number of votes of all other candidates combined. Arbenz ran on a platform of land reform, and in June 1952, the Guatemalan national assembly enacted legislation providing for the redistribution of idle land held by large landowners. Owners were compensated with twenty-five-year government bonds at 3 percent interest, the value of the property determined by the owner’s own tax declaration for 1952.63

  In March 1953, the Arbenz government expropriated 234,000 acres of fallow land on the Pacific slope belonging to the United Fruit Company. In February 1954, it took an additional 173,000 acres of idle land from United Fruit on the Caribbean coast. From that point on the days of the Arbenz government were numbered. As Kenneth Redmond, president of United Fruit, put it, “From here on out it’s not a matter of the people of Guatemala against the United Fruit Company; the question is going to be Communism against the right of property, the life and security of the Western Hemisphere.”64

  Land reform was a red flag in Washington, and Redmond’s prediction fell on fertile ground. Like the reach of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in London, the tentacles
of United Fruit stretched to the highest levels of American government. Both John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had managed the legal affairs of United Fruit at Sullivan and Cromwell.e Ann Whitman, Eisenhower’s personal secretary, was married to Ed Whitman, the head of United Fruit’s public relations department. Robert Cutler, Ike’s national security assistant, was United Fruit’s banker in Boston. (UFCO was based in Boston.) And Bedell Smith longed to work for the company after he left government service.65 Most important, however, was Thomas G. Corcoran—“Tommy the Cork”—the legendary Washington insider and FDR confidant who was United Fruit’s longtime lobbyist in Washington. E. Howard Hunt, the CIA soldier of fortune who directed the action on the ground inside Guatemala, and who later spent thirty-three months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate break-in, credits Corcoran with winning Eisenhower’s support for the coup.66

  Eisenhower was open to Corcoran’s persuasion. In the spring of 1953—shortly after the Arbenz government had expropriated the land of United Fruit—Ike sent his brother Milton to Latin America to report on conditions. Milton Eisenhower did not visit Central America on his ten-nation tour. His report nevertheless alluded to Guatemala, and emphasized the importance of timely American action “to prevent Communism from spreading seriously beyond Guatemala.” As Milton put it: “The possible conquest of a Latin American nation today would not be by direct assault. It would come, rather, through the insidious process of infiltration, conspiracy, spreading of lies, and the undermining of free institutions.… One [Latin] American nation has succumbed to Communist infiltration.”67

  Milton Eisenhower did not set foot in Guatemala, but he accepted the premise that the land reform of the Arbenz government was the entering wedge of a Communist takeover. Milton’s message was reinforced by the Dulles brothers and Bedell Smith. The precise date when Ike signed on to the coup is unclear. But when Kermit Roosevelt made his report to the White House on Operation AJAX in September 1953, planning was already well advanced. Roosevelt reports that Allen Dulles offered him the assignment leading the coup in Guatemala, but he declined.68

  In one of the early planning sessions, Eisenhower asked Allen Dulles about the chances of success. “Better than forty percent,” said Dulles, “but less than even.” That was sufficient for Ike. He gave Dulles the go-ahead, but reserved the right to cancel the operation if it did not feel right.69

  The coup was code-named PBSUCCESS. Howard Hunt was given operational control while Richard Bissell, the CIA director of operations, managed affairs from Washington. The agency enlisted scores of recruits, primarily mercenaries from Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, while putting together a small air force for what was euphemistically called the “national liberation force.” The mercenaries were paid three hundred dollars a month—ten times the going wage for United Fruit workers in Guatemala. Training took place at a CIA camp in Opa-locka, Florida, and in Honduras. As with Operation AJAX, Eisenhower remained officially aloof, discussing the matter casually over cocktails or at the Sunday brunch that Eleanor Dulles hosted for her two brothers each week.70

  By mid-June 1954, all of the pieces of PBSUCCESS were in place: the mini air force of three planes was ready; additional CIA pilots were standing by in Managua, Nicaragua; a Voice of Liberation radio station was set up in Honduras to broadcast on the rebels’ behalf; and a leader, Castillo Armas, stood ready to command the expedition. Armas had been personally selected by Hunt because, among other things, he had “that good Indian look about him … which was great for the people.”71

  On June 16, 1954, Eisenhower gave his final approval for the coup. At a breakfast meeting with his principal national security officials in the family quarters of the White House, the president listened intently as Allen Dulles laid out the plan. “Are you sure this is going to succeed?” Ike asked. The Dulles brothers, the Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary Charles Wilson, and Robert Cutler all agreed that it would.

  “I want all of you to be damn good and sure you succeed,” said Eisenhower. “I’m prepared to take any steps that are necessary to see that it succeeds. When you commit the flag, you commit it to win.”72

  Operation PBSUCCESS commenced on June 18, 1954, when Castillo Armas’s ragtag “national liberation force” of 150 men crossed the border from Honduras and moved six miles into Guatemala. revolt launched in guatemala: land-air-sea invasion reported: risings under way in key cities, bannered The New York Times.73 The Times was reporting from a CIA handout. American journalists were excluded from the area lest they find out how puny the effort was.74 Armas’s men settled down in a local church and waited for the Arbenz regime to collapse, but nothing happened. The Guatemalan Army remained in its barracks, and the capital city showed no sign of unrest despite occasional bombing runs by the liberation air force. Soon two of Armas’s three planes were out of action. At an emergency meeting in the White House on June 22, Allen Dulles reported that without additional air support the rebellion would collapse. Dulles said that Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza had offered to give Armas two P-51 fighter-bombers if the United States agreed to replace them.75

  “What do you think Castillo’s chances would be without the aircraft?” Eisenhower asked Dulles.

  “About zero,” Dulles replied.

  “Suppose we supply the aircraft? What would the chances be then?”

  “About twenty percent.”

  Eisenhower was convinced. Later he wrote that he knew from his experience in Europe “the important psychological impact of even a small amount of air support.… My duty was clear to me. We would replace the airplanes.”76

  Eisenhower to Somoza to Armas: The national liberation force got its airplanes. Bombing runs over Guatemala City resumed, CIA pilots stationed at Managua’s international airport joined in, the Guatemalan Army continued to remain in its barracks, and by June 27, Arbenz had agreed to resign. He was replaced by a military dictatorship. Aside from the air support, the key to the coup was the CIA’s radio station based in Honduras. The agency had jammed the government station and created a fictional war over the airwaves in which liberation troops were relentlessly moving forward. Arbenz’s defeat was made to appear inevitable.77 The CIA snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

  Eisenhower had recognized the problem of French colonialism in Indochina. He was less cognizant of British commercial imperialism in Iran or American in Latin America. The United States was in an apocalyptic struggle with Communism, and the normal rules of fair play did not apply. Iran and Guatemala were not isolated phenomena. The role of the United States in world affairs was changing. As America’s international reach and sense of obligation increased, the instinct to adhere to traditional democratic procedures diminished. Eisenhower was a leading player in that process.78

  Wartime presidents are not perfect. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, and Franklin Roosevelt authorized the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Eisenhower’s Cold War use of the CIA to topple the legitimately elected governments of Iran and Guatemala represents a similar reaction.

  In Guatemala, Ike listened to the advice of Tommy Corcoran, the Dulles brothers, Bedell Smith, and Robert Cutler and convinced himself that a full-fledged Communist takeover was in the offing. He would have been better advised to heed the message he received from his old friend William Prescott Allen, Texas publisher of The Laredo Times, who visited Guatemala in June 1954. “Yes,” Allen cabled Ike, “Guatemala has a very small minority of Communists, but not as many as San Francisco.”79

  * * *

  a On April 16, 1954, Vice President Nixon, whether speaking on his own or with administration sanction, added to the perception of possible American intervention when he told the American Society of Newspaper Editors that he “hoped the United States will not have to send troops there [Vietnam], but if this Government cannot avoid it, the Administration must face up to the situation and dispatch forces. I personally would support such a position.” RN 152–53.

  b A
1917 graduate of West Point, the senior Schwarzkopf fought at the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I, resigned from the Army in the 1920s, and became the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police (with the rank of colonel). He acquired celebrity status directing the investigation of the Lindbergh kidnapping and later spent several years as the narrator of the popular weekly radio drama Gang Busters. When World War II broke out, Schwarzkopf returned to active duty and was assigned to Iran. See H. Norman Schwarzkopf [Jr.], It Doesn’t Take a Hero: General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the Autobiography 1–40 (New York: Bantam Books, 1992).

  c Mossadegh was tried before a military tribunal for having resisted the shah’s order dismissing him and for “inciting the people to armed insurrection.” Mossadegh defended himself, pointing out among other things that the shah lacked the constitutional authority to dismiss a prime minister unless the Majlis had voted no confidence—which it had not done. “My only crime is that I nationalized the Iranian oil industry and removed from this land the network of colonialism … of the greatest empire on earth.” Mossadegh was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, followed by house arrest for life. He died on March 5, 1967, at the age of eighty-five. No public funeral was permitted. Musaddig’s Memoirs 74, Homa Katouzian, ed. (London: JEBHE, 1988).

  d Eisenhower’s diary entry (October 8, 1953) was revealed by Stephen Ambrose in 1984 in the second volume of his biography of Ike. As an associate editor of the Eisenhower Papers, Ambrose had access to the diary and saw no reason not to publish what he found. But when the relevant volume of the Eisenhower Papers was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 1998, all reference to the coup in Iran was deleted from Ike’s October 8 diary entry. “The NSC deleted a portion of this document,” according to the relevant note. When Robert H. Ferrell published The Eisenhower Diaries in 1981, the October 8 entry is omitted in its entirety. The diary entry was not declassified until May 10, 2010. It reads as Ambrose cited it.