Documents / FOIA release
This is Volume II, Part 1 of the CIA History Staff's Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, a Top Secret history dated October 1979 and approved for release in July 2011. It looks at how the Agency took part in shaping US foreign policy toward Guatemala and Nicaragua during the anti-Castro program. It covers dealings with President Ydigoras Fuentes and Roberto Alejos, training sites such as Retalhuleu, cover stories, and negotiations with the Somoza brothers for an air base and port. It contains no UFO material.
“Cooper”11 pages
toward the end of 1960 that early in January 1971 Carlos Alejos, the Ambassador to the US, released a statement to the Associated Press from Guatemala's Minister of Defense, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, which claimed that all US military personnel in Guate- mala were official members of the US Military Mission. The Minister of Defense not only stated that US person~ nel were engaged exclusively in training Guatemalan forces for self defense, but he went on to emphasize the GOG's fear of Castro and communist intervention: Guatemala is not an aggressor country, Guatemala is not receiving ten ships every week loaded with war material [sic] and equipment manufactured in Communist coun- tries. Guatemala has no Chinese Communist instructors. Guatemala has no jet Communist planes. Guatemala has no Communist guided rockets and missiles. The only thing Guate- mala has is men with great hearts ready to fight for their independence and political liberties. Batista is not in Guatemald, but Arbenz is in Cuba. 75a/ Even more significant was that the news stories inspired some members of the US Congress to make inquir- ies about CIA involvement; and this, in turn, caused President Eisenhower to express himself very strongly on the constitutional issue of the separation of powers. In a 10 January 1961 meeting of the Special Group, the
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 179 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.