75 Facts About Jacobo Arbenz

1.

Juan Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala.

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2.

Jacobo Arbenz was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, and the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954.

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3.

Jacobo Arbenz was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history.

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4.

The landmark program of agrarian reform Jacobo Arbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.

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5.

Jacobo Arbenz was born in 1913 to a wealthy family, son of a Swiss German father and a Guatemalan mother.

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6.

Jacobo Arbenz graduated with high honors from a military academy in 1935, and served in the army until 1944, quickly rising through the ranks.

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7.

Jacobo Arbenz was appointed Minister of Defense, and played a crucial role in putting down a military coup in 1949.

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8.

Jacobo Arbenz took office on 15 March 1951, and continued the social reform policies of his predecessor.

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9.

Jacobo Arbenz's policies ran afoul of the United Fruit Company, which lobbied the United States government to have him overthrown.

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10.

The US was concerned by the presence of communists in the Guatemalan government, and Jacobo Arbenz was ousted in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat engineered by the government of US president Dwight Eisenhower through the US Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency.

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11.

Jacobo Arbenz went into exile through several countries, where his family gradually fell apart, and his daughter committed suicide.

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12.

Jacobo Arbenz was born in Quetzaltenango, the second-largest city in Guatemala, in 1913.

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13.

Jacobo Arbenz was the son of a Swiss German pharmacist, Hans Jakob Arbenz Grobli, who immigrated to Guatemala in 1901.

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14.

Jacobo Arbenz's mother, Octavia Guzman Caballeros, was a Ladino woman from a middle-class family who worked as a primary school teacher.

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15.

Jacobo Arbenz's family was relatively wealthy and upper-class; his childhood has been described as "comfortable".

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16.

Jacobo Arbenz eventually went bankrupt, forcing the family to move to a rural estate that a wealthy friend had set aside for them "out of charity".

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17.

Jacobo Arbenz had originally desired to be an economist or an engineer, but since the family was now impoverished, he could not afford to go to a university.

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18.

Jacobo Arbenz initially did not want to join the military, but there was a scholarship available through the Escuela Politecnica for military cadets.

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19.

Jacobo Arbenz applied, passed all of the entrance exams, and entered as a cadet in 1932.

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20.

Jacobo Arbenz's father committed suicide two years after Arbenz entered the academy.

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21.

Jacobo Arbenz excelled in the academy, and was deemed "an exceptional student".

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22.

Jacobo Arbenz became "first sergeant", the highest honor bestowed upon cadets; only six people received the honor from 1924 to 1944.

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23.

Jacobo Arbenz's abilities earned him an unusual level of respect among the officers at the school, including Major John Considine, the US director of the school, and of other US officers who served at the school.

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24.

Jacobo Arbenz was asked to fill a vacant teaching position at the academy in 1937.

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25.

Jacobo Arbenz taught a wide range of subjects, including military matters, history, and physics.

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26.

Jacobo Arbenz was promoted to captain six years later, and placed in charge of the entire corps of cadets.

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27.

Jacobo Arbenz's position was the third highest in the academy and was considered one of the most prestigious positions a young officer could hold.

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28.

Jacobo Arbenz was "moved" by the Manifesto, and he and Maria discussed it with each other.

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29.

Jacobo Arbenz had been one of the few officers in the military to protest the actions of Ponce Vaides.

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30.

Jacobo Arbenz was one of the leaders of the plot within the army, along with Major Aldana Sandoval.

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31.

Jacobo Arbenz insisted that civilians be included in the coup, over the protests of the other military men involved.

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32.

Jacobo Arbenz initially tried to persuade Arbenz and Toriello to postpone the election, and after Arevalo was elected, he asked them to declare the results invalid.

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33.

Jacobo Arbenz was anti-communism and believed in a capitalist society regulated to ensure that its benefits went to the entire population.

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34.

When Jacobo Arbenz was sworn in as defense minister under President Arevalo, he became the first to hold the portfolio, since it had previously been known as the Ministry of War.

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35.

That first meeting was followed by others until Jacobo Arbenz invited Fortuny to his house for discussions that usually extended for hours.

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36.

In 1947 Arana had demanded that certain labor leaders be expelled from the country; Jacobo Arbenz vocally disagreed with Arana, and the former's intervention limited the number of deportees.

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37.

Jacobo Arbenz kept his silence over the death of Arana until 1968, refusing to speak out without first obtaining Arevalo's consent.

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38.

Jacobo Arbenz tried to persuade Arevalo to tell the entire story when the two met in Montevideo in the 1950s, during their exile: however, Arevalo was unwilling, and Arbenz did not press his case.

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39.

In 1950 the economically moderate Partido de Integridad Nacional announced that Jacobo Arbenz would be its presidential candidate in the upcoming election.

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40.

Jacobo Arbenz carefully chose the PIN as the party to nominate him.

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41.

Jacobo Arbenz's death left Arbenz without any serious opposition in the elections .

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42.

Jacobo Arbenz had only a couple of significant challengers in the election, in a field of ten candidates.

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43.

Jacobo Arbenz was expected to win the election comfortably because he had the support of both major political parties of the country, as well as that of the labor unions, which campaigned heavily on his behalf.

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44.

Jacobo Arbenz was described as having "an engaging personality and a vibrant voice".

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45.

Jacobo Arbenz got more than three times as many votes as the runner-up, Ydigoras Fuentes.

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46.

Jacobo Arbenz declared that he intended to reduce dependency on foreign markets and dampen the influence of foreign corporations over Guatemalan politics.

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47.

Jacobo Arbenz said that he would modernize Guatemala's infrastructure without the aid of foreign capital.

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48.

Jacobo Arbenz set out to reform Guatemala's economic institutions; he planned to construct factories, increase mining, expand transportation infrastructure, and expand the banking system.

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49.

Jacobo Arbenz's goal was to increase Guatemala's economic and political independence, and he believed that to do this Guatemala needed to build a strong domestic economy.

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50.

Jacobo Arbenz had several supporters among the communist members of the legislature, but they were only a small part of the government coalition.

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51.

Jacobo Arbenz drafted the bill himself with the help of advisers that included some leaders of the communist party as well as non-communist economists.

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52.

Jacobo Arbenz sought advice from numerous economists from across Latin America.

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53.

Jacobo Arbenz was motivated to pass the bill because he needed to generate capital for his public infrastructure projects within the country.

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54.

Jacobo Arbenz virtually owned Puerto Barrios, Guatemala's only port to the Atlantic Ocean.

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55.

Additionally, Jacobo Arbenz supported a strike of UFC workers in 1951, which eventually compelled the company to rehire a number of laid-off workers.

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56.

Jacobo Arbenz had begun a public relations campaign to discredit the Guatemalan government; overall, the company spent over a half-million dollars to influence both lawmakers and members of the public in the US that the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz needed to be overthrown.

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57.

CIA operation to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz, code-named Operation PBSuccess, was authorized by Eisenhower in August 1953.

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58.

Jacobo Arbenz had intended the shipment of weapons from the Alfhem to be used to bolster peasant militia, in the event of army disloyalty, but the US informed the Guatemalan army chiefs of the shipment, forcing Jacobo Arbenz to hand them over to the military, and deepening the rift between him and the chiefs of his army.

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59.

Jacobo Arbenz was confident that Castillo Armas could be defeated militarily, but he worried that a defeat for Castillo Armas would provoke a US invasion.

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60.

Jacobo Arbenz ordered Carlos Enrique Diaz, the chief of the army, to select officers to lead a counter-attack.

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61.

The message stated that if Jacobo Arbenz did not resign, the army was likely to strike a deal with Castillo Armas.

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62.

Jacobo Arbenz, utterly exhausted and seeking to preserve at least a measure of the democratic reforms that he had brought, agreed.

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63.

Jacobo Arbenz walked to the nearby Mexican Embassy, seeking political asylum.

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64.

Jacobo Arbenz tried several times to return to Latin America, and was finally allowed in 1957 to move to Uruguay.

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65.

The CIA made several attempts to prevent Jacobo Arbenz from receiving a Uruguayan visa, but these were unsuccessful, and the Uruguayan government allowed Jacobo Arbenz to travel there as a political refugee.

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66.

Jacobo Arbenz arrived in Montevideo on 13 May 1957, where he was met by a hostile "reception committee" organized by the CIA.

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67.

Jacobo Arbenz was visited by Arevalo a year after his own arrival there.

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68.

Jacobo Arbenz left for Venezuela a year after his arrival to take up a position as a teacher.

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69.

Maria Jacobo Arbenz later stated that the couple was pleased by the hospitality they received in Uruguay, and would have stayed there indefinitely had they received permission to do so.

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70.

Jacobo Arbenz flew to Havana in July 1960, and, caught up in the spirit of the recent revolution, began to participate in public events.

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71.

Jacobo Arbenz was offered the leadership of some revolutionary movements in Guatemala but refused, as he was pessimistic about the outcome.

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72.

On one of his visits to Mexico, Jacobo Arbenz contracted a serious illness, and by the end of 1970 he was very ill.

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73.

Jacobo Arbenz'storians disagree as to the manner of his death: Roberto Garcia Ferreira stated that he died of a heart attack while taking a bath, while Cindy Forster wrote that he committed suicide.

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74.

In 1999, the Jacobo Arbenz family went before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to demand an apology from the Guatemalan government for the 1954 coup which saw him ousted.

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75.

In May 2011 the Guatemalan government signed an agreement with Jacobo Arbenz's surviving family to restore his legacy and publicly apologize for the government's role in ousting him.

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