HIS343Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Plausible Deniability, Iranian Revolution, United Fruit Company
Document Summary
Perceived as a unmitigated success: cheap, small but control iranian politics, upheld the doctrine of plausible deniability, ajax = template (for successful covert operations) Ignored underlying concerns: us breaks with commitment to democratic reform, long-term blowback of 1979 revolution [anti-americanism, more violence than anticipated, guatemala(1954) operation pbsuccess. Though perceived as a success, almost failed. United fruit was the largest landowner but lost 2/3 of its land due to the agrarian reform. One of its former lawyers was john f. dulles and the company had a lot of influence in. Washington and formulating the coup against arbenz, providing ,000 to rebels. In guatemala, washington was compelled to act when arbenz turned to the soviet union for weapons in march 1953. Goal: convince jacobo arbenz (president of guatematla) to step down, not to actually physically overthrow him [treverton] Psychological/ political propaganda to undermine army"s support. Deception to fool arbenz that colonel carlos castillo armas is leading a formidable rebel army.
