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Ideas & Trends: Iran and Guatemala, 1953-54; Revisiting Cold War Coups and Finding Them Costly [1]
['Stephen Kinzer']
Date: 2003-11-30
SOON after the C.I.A. installed him as president of Guatemala in 1954, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas visited Washington. He was unusually forthright with Vice President Richard M. Nixon. ''Tell me what you want me to do,'' he said, ''and I will do it.''
What the United States wanted in Guatemala -- and in Iran, where the C.I.A. also deposed a government in the early 1950's -- was pro-American stability. In the long run, though, neither Colonel Castillo Armas nor his Iranian counterpart, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, provided it. Instead, both led their countries away from democracy and toward repression and tragedy.
How did this happen? From the perspective of half a century, what is the legacy of these two coups?
Several dozen scholars, including leading experts on Iran and Guatemala, gathered in Chicago this month to consider those questions. Their conclusions were grim. All agreed that both coups -- the first that the C.I.A. carried out -- had terrible long-term effects.
''It's quite clear that the 1953 coup cut short a move toward democracy in Iran,'' said Mark J. Gasiorowski, a historian at Louisiana State University who began studying that coup in the 1980's. ''The United States bears responsibility for this.''
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/weekinreview/ideas-trends-iran-guatemala-1953-54-revisiting-cold-war-coups-finding-them.html
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