Jacobo Árbenz And Maria Vilanova’s Journey in and out of Power

Guatemala’s second democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, and his politically-savvy wife Maria Cristina Vilanova, were the two most powerful people in a nation on the upswing—until they were overthrown by the CIA.

Below, we give a brief timeline of the Árbenzes’ journey:

Timeline of key Árbenz events

• September 14, 1913: Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán is born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

• April 17, 1915: Maria Cristina Vilanova is born in San Salvador, El Salvador

• 1935: Jacobo Árbenz graduates with high honors from military academy, Escuela Politécnica in Guatemala City, where he attended under scholarship

• 1934: Jacobo Árbenz’s father Hans Jakob Árbenz, commits suicide

• 1935: Jacobo Árbenz joins the national army that same year

• 1935-1937: Jacobo Árbenz serves a stint as a junior officer at Fort San José in Guatemala City, where he had to lead squads of soldiers who were escorting chain gangs of prisoners (including political prisoners) to perform forced labor. The experience traumatizes Árbenz. During this period he meets Fransico Arana.

• 1936: Jacobo Árbenz’s mother Octavia Guzmán Caballeros, dies of poor health

• 1937: Jacobo Árbenz takes a teaching position at la Escuela Politécnica 

• 1938: Jacobo and Maria meet during a Vilanova family trip to Guatemala

• 1939: Jacobo Árbenz and Maria Cristina Vilanova are married

• January 15, 1940: Daughter Arabella Árbenz Vilanova is born

• April 26, 1942: Daughter María Leonora Árbenz Vilanova is born

• 1943: Jacobo Árbenz is promoted to Captain, one of the most prestigious positions a young officer could hold

• 1944 to 1951: Jacobo Árbenz serves as Minister of National Defense in Guatemala

• October 19, 1944: Following the appointment of a puppet junta put in place by Dictator Jorge Ubico himself after resigning, a small group of soldiers and students led by Jacobo Árbenz and Francisco Javier Arana attack the National Palace in what later becomes known as the "October Revolution." During this time, for their own safety Maria Cristina and her children temporarily relocate to El Salvador

• October 20, 1944: The military junta is replaced by another three-person junta consisting of Árbenz, Arana, and an upper-class youth named Jorge Toriello, who had been active in the protests. The junta has been considered by scholars to be the beginning of the Guatemalan Revolution

• December 1944: Guatemala’s first free and fair democratic elections are held. None of the junta members run for office

• December 19, 1944: Ballots are tallied and  a teacher named Juan José Arévalo wins in a landslide with more than 85% of the vote, more than four times as many ballots as the other candidates combined. Arana does not approve of a civilian taking power, but Árbenz and Toriello insist on letting the democratic process win

• 1945:  Jacobo Árbenz is sworn in as defense minister

• November 13, 1946: Son Jacobo Árbenz Vilanova is born

• 1946*: Pacto del Barranco (Pact of the Ravine), a deal struck by the leaders of the revolutionary party, Arévalo and Arana. The terms of the pact are that Arana would refrain from seizing power with the military, and in return, the party would support Arana's candidacy in the next presidential election, scheduled for November 1950 

• 1949: The National Renovation Party and the PAR are both openly hostile to Arana due to his lack of support for labor rights. They decide to back Árbenz instead, as they believed that only a military officer could defeat Arana

• July 16, 1949: Arana threatens a coup against Arévalo, demanding the expulsion of all of Árbenz's supporters from the cabinet and the military. Arévalo informed Árbenz and other progressive leaders of the ultimatum; all agreed that Arana should be exiled.

• July 18, 1949: Arana’s convoy is intercepted by Árbenz and a small force. For reasons still unknown, a shootout ensued leaving Arana dead. Maria Cristina’s chauffeur is identified as one of the men who attacked Arana. Arana's supporters in the military rose up in revolt, but they were leaderless, and by the next day the rebels asked for negotiations. The coup attempt left approximately 150 dead and 200 wounded. Árbenz and a few other ministers suggested that the entire truth be made public; however, they were overruled by Arévalo, who some suspect used Árbenz as a scapegoat

• 1950: Moderate party Partido de Integridad Nacional (PIN) announced that Árbenz would be its presidential candidate in the upcoming election. The announcement was quickly followed by endorsements from most parties on the left, including the influential PAR, as well as from labor unions

• 1950: Jacobo Árbenz totally quits drinking alcohol

• February 20, 1950: Jacobo Árbenz officially declares his candidacy for the presidency.

• November 15, 1950: Árbenz wins more than 60% of the vote, more than three times as many votes as the runner-up, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes

• March 15, 1951: Árbenz is inaugurated as president. In his inaugural address, Árbenz promised to convert Guatemala from "a backward country with a predominantly feudal economy into a modern capitalist state"

• 1951: Árbenz supports a strike of United Fruit Co workers

• June 17, 1952: Decree 900, the Agrarian Reform Bill, is passed by Guatemala’s congress and immediately goes into effect

• 1952: During a banquet in El Salvador, Maria Cristina is warned by President Osorio that United Fruit would become a problem if they pursued agrarian reform 

• 1953: Decree 900 is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, so the Guatemalan Congress later impeached four judges associated with the ruling

• 1953: 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit Co is expropriated under Árbenz's agrarian reform law. The company is offered compensation at the rate of 2.99 US dollars to the acre, twice what it had paid when buying the property, and the market value of what the UFCo had declared on it’s taxes

• 1953: The Árbenzes own land is expropriated under Decree 900

• 1952: UFCo lobbies in Washington for U.S. intervention, particularly through Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who had close ties to the company

• 1952: U.S. President Harry Truman authorizes Operation PBFortune to topple Árbenz, instigated by the U.S. backed Nicaraguan dictator,  Anastasio Somoza García. The operation was quickly aborted

• 1953: UFCo pays for a publicity to discredit the Árbenz government and paint him as a Communist pawn for Moscow in Washington and in the international press

• August 1953: Eisenhower authorizes the CIA to carry out Operation PBSuccess, PBFortune’s replacement. This enabled the CIA to arm, fund and train the “Liberation Army,” a force of a few hundred men led by Carlos Castillo Armas

• January 29 and 30 1954: Árbenz publishes documents containing information leaked to it by a member of Castillo Armas' team who had turned against him

• February 19, 1954: CIA begins Operation WASHTUB, a plan to plant a phony Soviet arms cache in Nicaragua to demonstrate Árbenz ties to Moscow. The operation is a failure.

• March 1954: At the Inter-American Conference held in Caracas, the U.S. State Dept asks the Organization of American States to modify the agenda to include an item titled "Intervention of International Communism in the American Republics", which was widely seen as a move targeting Guatemala. The U.S. government's aim was to pass a resolution condemning the supposed spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. The Guatemalan foreign minister Guillermo Toriello argued strongly against the resolution, stating that it represented the "internationalization of McCarthyism". Despite support among the delegates for Toriello's views, the anti-communist resolution passed with only Guatemala voting against, because of the votes of dictatorships dependent on the U.S. and the threat of economic pressure applied by John Dulles

• May 1, 1954: CIA propaganda weapon, Radio Liberación, begins broadcast. It’s main goals are to discredit Árbenz and his administration and reduce them to Soviet puppets in the eyes of the public, and to legitimize and aggrandize the Liberation Army rebellion. 

• May 1954: Arms from Czechoslovakia aboard the MS Alfheim are delivered to Guatemala, and exploited by the U.S. as proof of the Soviet Union’s involvement in Árbenz’s government

• June 18, 1954: Castillo Armas' force invades Guatemala. The same day, the Guatemalan foreign minister Guillermo Torriello petitioned the United Nations Security Council to "take measures necessary ... to put a stop to the aggression" which he said Nicaragua and Honduras were responsible for, along with "certain foreign monopolies which have been affected by the progressive policy of my government." The Soviet Union was the only country to support Guatemala.

• June 25, 1954: Árbenz announces that the army has abandoned the government, and that civilians need to be armed in order to defend the country; however, only a few hundred individuals volunteered. Seeing this, his defense minister Carlos Enrique Díaz reneged on his support of the president, and began plotting a takeover.

• June 27, 1954: Jacobo Árbenz resigns and goes into exile at the Mexican embassy

• September 10, 1954: the Árbenz family begins their exile in Mexico City

• 28 September 1954: Operation PBHistory––a covert CIA operation that is meant to provide proof of Soviet ties to Árbenz––wraps up with disappointing findings. Very few highly sensitive communist documents were found, including some that the CIA planted themselves

• January, 1955: Confirmed that Árbenz family is in Switzerland, in attempt to obtain Swiss citizenship

• 1955: CIA continues Árbenz defamation campaign in the media, portraying him as “not Guatemalan enough,” weak, a coward, a Soviet puppet, and a murderer. 

• 1955: After Swiss government makes it practically impossible, the Árbenzes drop their citizenship bid and head to Paris, where they are allowed to stay for a year. French intelligence officers monitored them at all times 

• September 1955: Árbenzes move to Prague, but find the language barrier too much, especially for properly educating their children 

• Approx 1955-1957: the Árbenzes briefly live in Russia, during which time they visit China and Mongolia where they are personally welcomed by Mao. 

• 1957: The Árbenzes briefly go back to Switzerland before Jacobo returns to Paris and Maria Cristina goes to El Salvador to take care of affairs. During this time, Jacobo Árbenz’s depression worsens, and he begins to drink heavily

• May 13, 1957-1960: Maria and the children join Jacobo in Montevideo, Uruguay. They are still monitored by the CIA and CIA agents, and false information about him is still being planted in the news media. Jacobo also has to “check-in” with Uruguayan police every 8 days. 

• July 1960: Árbenzes accept invitation from Fidel Castro, and arrive in Havana, where they live for a short while. Jacobo Árbenz finally meets Che Guevara, now a revolutionary leader who was once a young physician who had offered to fight for Guatemala during the 1954 coup. Tired of being accused of trying to mastermind a war from Cuba, and unhappy with the icy treatment from some Cuban officials, the Árbenzes head to Europe once again

• 1961: After failed Bay of Pigs, Jacobo admits to his wife that he regretted even deeper not fighting back

• October 5, 1965: Jacobo and Maria’s eldest, actress and model Arabella Árbenz shoots herself in front of her last lover, Mexican bullfighter Jaime Bravo at a restaurant in Bogotá

• 1965: Family settles in Mexico City following the death of Arabella. During that time they visit the Bahamas, El Salvador, 

• 1970: Mexico grants Árbenzes permanent asylum

• January 27, 1971: Jacobo Árbenz dies, drowning in his bathtub in Mexico City. Maria Cristina is in El Salvador when it happens. She has his remains transported to El Salvador, where he’s buried. 

• December 1995: Jacobo Árbenz’s remains are moved to Guatemala City

• January 5, 2009: Maria Cristina Vilanova dies in San José, Costa Rica

• May 2011: Before the OAS, the Guatemalan government signs an agreement with his surviving family to restore his legacy, the real story, educational programs for their public officials and publicly apologize for the government’s role in ousting him. This included a financial settlement to the family due to the expropriate of the family farm, and pain and suffering damages

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