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Operation PBSUCCESS: The Complete History of the CIA's Secret War in Guatemala: The 1954 Coup, Jacobo Árbenz, United Fruit Company, and the Cold War
Paperback
Series: Operations of History, Book 6
General Military HistoryGeneral World HistoryInternational Relations
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 7 2026
Pages: 190
Weight: 0.58
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Featuring historical photographs and written in a flowing, accessible style, Operation PBSUCCESS brings one of the Cold War's most consequential covert operations to life.
In June 1954, Guatemala's elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, resigned as a small rebel force advanced toward the capital. The invasion had not achieved a decisive conventional military victory, yet the government had collapsed.
How had a covert operation involving only hundreds of fighters helped bring down a nation's president?
The answer leads through Guatemala's revolutionary decade, an ambitious land reform, the powerful United Fruit Company, Washington's fear of communism, and a CIA campaign designed to weaken a government from the inside.
Operation PBSUCCESS follows the story from the fall of Jorge Ubico and the rise of Árbenz to the secret planning of PBFORTUNE, the selection of Carlos Castillo Armas, the propaganda broadcasts of the Voice of Liberation, and the dramatic events of June 1954. It also examines the counterrevolution that followed and the coup's complicated relationship with Guatemala's later history.
Rather than reducing the operation to a simple story of American power or corporate interests, this book explores the people, decisions, fears, and competing ambitions that shaped the crisis. It explains how a limited military force could produce an enormous political effect-and why the meaning of success became far more complicated after the president was gone.
Written for readers who enjoy engaging, carefully researched history without unnecessary academic complexity, this book offers a clear and compelling account of a secret operation whose consequences reached far beyond its original objective.
Discover the history behind the coup, the people who shaped it, and the questions that still surround Operation PBSUCCESS.
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