Carlos Castillo Armas

Anti-Guzman propaganda spread like wildfire.

Thousands arrested and those opposing, such as military officers Carlos Castillo Armas, helped move things along on the ground.

The pressure to resign grew and by June 27, Guzman caved in.

Castillo Armas became president in his place in 1954.

Now, contest is important here.

Arbenz is actively facing a real existential threat, right? A rebel force calling themselves the Liberation Army, commanded by an exiled officer named Carlos Castillo Armas, is massing across the border in Honduras.

That's heavily by foreign intelligence, yes.

Logically, you would assume the regular Guatemalan army would be celebrating.

Charles Heston knows this because he's friends with Dr. Lewis Jolene West, one of the MKUltra doctors.

[suspenseful music] These programs tested various drugs on human guinea pigs.

Army doctors had observed that certain anesthetics made soldiers speak freely while unconscious.

This is the beginning of MKUltra, for those that don't know.

It's not a conspiracy theory.

It's real.

[suspenseful music] The CIA experimented with various truth serums for use in debriefing captured agents, and they were particularly interested in developing a means of controlling or changing human thought patterns.

By the way, I'm gonna let this part play, and I have to go to the little boys' room.

In 1953, the CIA began developing Operation PB Success, a covert effort to remove Arbenz.

The operation involved recruiting and supporting an opposition force led by Carlos Castillo Armas, conducting propaganda campaigns and using radio broadcasts to exaggerate the strength of the rebellion.

In June 1954, rebel forces crossed into Guatemala.

Militarily, they were weak.

They dropped leaflets, staged false attacks, and used paid operatives to spread fear.

Meanwhile, they trained and armed a small rebel force led by a right-wing exiled military officer named Carlos Castillo Armas.

The actual invasion was small, barely a few hundred men, but the psychological impact was massive.

The CIA made it appear like a nationwide uprising was underway.

The leader had to be somebody who was malleable, who would obey CIA edicts and would be loyal to the U.S. government.

The CIA place its bets on a man called Carlos Castillo Armas.

Armas is a charismatic and ambitious Guatemalan colonel Three years earlier, he was involved in a failed military coup.

He'd been locked up by the Guatemalans, and according to rumor, had made a brave escape.

Arbenz stepped down from the presidency and left the country.

Soon afterward, a Guatemalan colonel named Carlos Castillo Armas took power and handed back United Fruit's lands.

For three decades, military strongmen ruled Guatemala.

The covert American assault destroyed any possibility that Guatemala's fragile political and civic institutions might grow.