Secrecy and the politics of selective disclosures: the US government’s intervention in Guatemala

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship debates the signaling function of secrecy and covertness. At the international level, covertness is used to achieve strategic objectives without risking escalation or openly violating international law. Domestically, secrecy is understood as a method to pacify domestic constituencies. These are typically understood as obstacles to the conduct of (covert) foreign policy. Building primarily on archival material, the analysis highlights the role of ‘selective disclosures’ of information regarding covert operations. This article analyses the Eisenhower Administration’s 1954 intervention in Guatemala (PBSUCCESS). We find that the executive used disclosures – and not secrecy – to pacify hawkish domestic constituencies.

In April 1954, CIA Director Allen Dulles met with Senator Styles Bridges (R-NH), Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. This Committee held informal oversight over the CIA in its early decades. After discussing financial matters, ‘Senator Bridges’, Dulles reported, ‘raised the question as to what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in the area generally affected by the project we know as PBSUCCESS’. The Senator’s ‘sense’, Dulles continued, was ‘that we must not allow this Communist threat to develop in our own backyard’. Leading members of Congress had expressed similar concerns. Dulles’ reply is worth quoting at length:

I responded by saying that this was a matter of gravest concern to us, that I couldn’t say anything but that he should not worry. I elaborated slightly by adding that this situation had received and continued to receive policy consideration at the highest levels … I emphasized to Senator Bridges that this was an extremely delicate situation and a very difficult one to handle but that through military aid to neighboring countries and other means I felt that everything was being done that could properly be done to meet the situation. [emphasis added].¹

The exchange exemplifies what has long been understood as the informal – a ‘nod and a wink’ – character of early Congressional oversight of the intelligence community.² And yet the relationship between the Executive³ and Congress at the time of the covert intervention in Guatemala provides interesting lessons for the study of secrecy and covertness.

A rich scholarship has explored the rationales behind covert operations⁴ as well as the signalling function of secrecy.⁵ Discussing signalling, this scholarship has primarily focused on the international stage. When domestic audiences have entered the picture, they have been understood primarily as a (potential) constraint. It is due to the constraints they impose (or threaten to impose) that governments decide to rely on covertness. We argue that this literature should look beyond the lens of constraints.

By investigating the covert intervention in Guatemala in 1954, we posit an additional component to this scholarship – that the relationship between the Executive and domestic audiences is more nuanced and more organic. Domestic constituencies are not simply potential obstacles to the conduct of foreign policy. They are better understood as (un)witting partners, collaborating and/or colluding with the Executive in its pursuit of (covert) foreign policy. This relationship relies primarily – we argue – on the selective disclosure of information.

We assess the nature and role of selective disclosures by examining the behaviour of the Executive and Legislative branches in the months preceding Operation PBSUCCESS. Leading up to the intervention in Guatemala, various branches of the Executive (White House, State Department, and CIA) often working in tandem were able to rely on friendly members of Congress from both parties. At times, US officials from the CIA, the White House, and the State Department provided intelligence and material when they needed to raise the profile of the perceived crisis in Guatemala. While keen to ride the wave of public and Congressional outrage over Guatemala, the Executive also used the selective disclosure of information to stymie the initiatives of more hawkish constituencies when these initiatives endangered the government’s overt or covert objectives. As in the case of Dulles and Bridges, the Executive was able to convince members of Congress to keep quiet(er) by revealing that something was being done. Cumulatively, these selective disclosures meant that the operation was not as covert as generally imagined. In this sense, we do not understand selective disclosures and secrecy as a binary distinction. Selective disclosures are not the opposite of secrecy. Instead, we posit that selective disclosures – and not the use of secrecy and covertness – function as a mechanism to pacify domestic constituencies.

The article makes two original contributions. First, at the theoretical level we highlight how selective disclosures are an important component to understand the conduct of covert foreign policy. This component has been traditionally overlooked in scholarship on covert signalling, on leaks,⁶ on quasi-secrecy⁷ and on exposure.⁸ We define the rationale behind selective disclosures and – based on the scarce archival record – we reach some conclusions regarding their impact and chances of success. Second, at the empirical level, our analysis traces the contacts and communication between the Executive and Congress in the months leading up to the intervention. As Barrett has written, exploring these early exchanges between the Executive (primarily the CIA) and Congress entails collecting ‘glimpses of a hidden history’.⁹ Most of the contact was informal and – as research conducted in Congressional archives has shown – recordkeeping was minimal. Our analysis relies on an exhaustive search for Guatemala-related material in available archives. These include the often-overlooked personal papers of all leading members of Congress, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes, documents from the Eisenhower and Johnson Presidential Library, CIA CREST, Digital National Security Archives, and State Department and CIA collections from the National Archives.

Secrecy, covertness, and domestic constituencies: beyond hawks and doves

In recent years, scholarship at the crossroads of IR and intelligence studies has looked at secrecy,¹⁰ covertness, and at the rationale for covert operations. Cormac and Aldrich have highlighted a new era of ‘implausible deniability’; one in which policymakers put a premium on constructing narratives, on ambiguity, and on strategic signalling, at the expense of deniable operations.¹¹ Revisiting plausible deniability in the US context, Poznansky has distinguished between a ‘state’ type of plausible deniability, shielding the overall government from international audiences, and an ‘executive’ one protecting the role of the president, primarily from domestic ones.¹² As to the rationale of covert operations, O’Rourke has argued that policymakers will opt for covert (as opposed to overt) regime change to avoid audience costs and maintain a façade of respect for domestic and international norms.¹³ Poznansky has similarly argued that policymakers opt for covert operations when they cannot find a sufficiently persuasive legal justification for overt intervention.¹⁴

In this scholarship, an important dimension is the signalling function of covertness. Cormac and Aldrich described covert action as multi-dimensional and covertness as a feature serving different audiences; domestic and international.¹⁵ Carson has perhaps conducted the most extensive study of the signalling function of secrecy and covertness.¹⁶ According to Carson, covertness permits policymakers to act behind the scenes. It establishes a ‘play’ of costs and incentives for the intervener (who must decide whether to intervene overtly or covertly) and for the receiver or the main international adversary (who must decide whether to expose the intervention or collude). In this game, covertness is primarily a method to communicate with an audience.

At the international level, covert intervention signals credible commitment to the intervener’s proxies and to its adversaries.¹⁷ If target countries and adversaries accept to collude behind the scenes, covertness reduces the provocative nature of the intervention and, hence, the risks of escalation.¹⁸ Domestic constituencies also come into play. When confronted with domestic opposition to intervention (dovish constituencies) policymakers may rely on covert intervention, to send credible signals of commitment to their adversaries. This helps policymakers show that they are more hawkish and risk-taking than their domestic constituencies would seem to allow.¹⁹ Alternatively, when an intervention has already occurred, covertness (or collusion aimed at maintaining the fiction of covertness) is beneficial to both the intervener and the receiver to placate hawkish domestic constituencies who might strive for a more forceful and open intervention. ²⁰ Overall, Carson and Yarhi-Milo argue, covertness and secrecy permit policymakers to avoid the ‘domestic political complications’ posed by domestic constituencies.²¹

In this analysis, domestic constituencies tend to remain unspecified, generally understood implicitly as Congress and the public. When their concerns are considered, it is primarily through the lens of members of the executive branch. ²² This understanding is common within scholarship on covert operations.²³ In other words, domestic constituencies and audiences are seen primarily as an actual or potential obstacle to the conduct of (covert) foreign policy. This obstacle is even harder to overcome during periods of divided government, when oversight and (partisan) scrutiny of intelligence activities might be more intense.²⁴

The novel argument made in this paper is that – when it comes to domestic constituencies – the role of covertness is more complex. The relationship between the Executive – the Administration intervening covertly – and domestic constituencies is more nuanced, more organic. Domestic constituencies – primarily the media and Congress – are not mere obstacles to the conduct of (covert) foreign policy. Instead, they act as witting and (in some cases) unwitting partners of the Executive branch. This relationship relies primarily on selective disclosures of information.

The term ‘selective disclosure’ is meant to capture three main facets. Certainly, information that was hitherto available solely within (parts of) the executive branch is strategically disclosed by decision-makers within the Administration to third parties. These disclosures are also selective in terms of content. The amount of information provided is limited, often maintaining a disparity of knowledge and information between members of the Administration and ‘outsiders’. At times, this information provides a partial and biased picture of the reality on the ground. Finally, the disclosure is also selective in terms of recipients. Information is passed to a small number of generally well-connected and powerful individuals – primarily leading members of Congress (and more rarely the media) – and is often not intended to be made public.

As to the rationale for selective disclosures, we articulate two previously unexplored dynamics. First, members of the executive engage in selective disclosure to raise the profile of (and the level of alarm surrounding) a foreign policy issue. These disclosures entail primarily the sharing of information and the provision of material that members of Congress can use – often without acknowledging its source – in public speeches. The aim, here, is to prepare the political ground and to shape Congressional and, in turn, public opinion. As such, the information provided isn’t always accurate, but packaged in ways that favour the Executive’s objectives. Second, when public and/or Congressional clamour risks undermining the covert or overt foreign policy objectives of the Administration, selective disclosures help stymie the initiatives of hawkish domestic constituencies.

As several scholars have suggested, secrecy is not a matter of black and white, but of scales of grey.²⁵ In this sense, selective disclosures do not undo secrecy. Their selective nature entails that these disclosures do not fully expose the details (or the existence) of a covert operation. They do not create a level playing field between the members of the Executive and the Legislative branches. Instead, they maintain disparities of knowledge between the two. Similar disparities are replicated within the legislative branch. Legislators who are trusted enough and powerful enough to receive (partial) information, collaborate and – at times – are manipulated by the Executive. Others – less ‘in the know’ - are left in the dark by the scheming of their senior colleagues. Furthermore, our second type of disclosure, might actually contribute to reinforcing secrecy. The disclosure of partial information to selected targets is, in fact, aimed at preventing full(er) exposures, for example through Congressional investigations, thus keeping the public unaware of the government’s actions.

What we find is that a better appreciation of selective disclosures can help in enriching scholarship on covert action and signalling. Selective disclosures work as a mechanism to pacify hawkish domestic constituencies. These constituencies keep quiet(er) or are convinced to keep quiet not because they are unaware that something is happening – that is not because the operation is happening in secret, behind the scenes – but because they know enough – and are willing to work with the Executive enough – to moderate their clamour and claims. While we do not claim that selective disclosures are in binary opposition to secrecy, it is disclosures surrounding the covert operation and not its secrecy that pacifies domestic hawks.

Having defined the role of selective disclosures, we also distinguish them from similar phenomena in the existing literature. Selective disclosures are different from leaks (as well as from pleaks and plants). The latter primarily refer to voluntary disclosures of information by government officials to the media, not to members of Congress, often aimed at undermining government policy and with the expectation that the information will go public.²⁶ Selective disclosures are also a phenomenon currently not captured by literature on secrecy, openness, and exposure. They happen before the conduct of a covert operations and to protect such operation. This makes selective disclosures different from quasi-secrecy. Quasi-secrecy entails the partial disclosure of information, but this happens publicly, and in the aftermath of an operation. It is aimed primarily at revealing legal and political arguments with the view to legitimate the conduct of covert foreign policy.²⁷ Similarly, ‘performative opacity’ is understood as an ex-post method of revealing information surrounding covert operations, justifying the conduct of such operations but, at the same time, potentially undermining the conduct of future ones and international security. Finally, while selective disclosures entail a transfer of information, they are also different from exposure. Scholarship on exposure has discussed the public disclosure of details surrounding (controversial) covert operation, generally in the aftermath of the operation. As Stampnitzky has shown exposure entails a process of exposure (the transfer of information) and a revelation, that is public acknowledgment of the exposure. This process occurs in the aftermath and – at times – long after the exposed conduct.²⁸

The article explores the role of selective disclosures by looking at the case of PBSUCCESS, the 1954 covert operation to overthrow the government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. The paper showcases the cooperative relationship between the Executive and members of Congress. In the case of Guatemala, the Executive often relied on Congress and, in turn, Congress acted as collaborator in raising the profile of Guatemala as well as the level of alarm as to the threat it allegedly posed. Some resistance did occur, but the Executive was – overall – able to push its agenda through Congressional (public) interventions. This dynamic emerged primarily in early 1954 and later coincided with the Organization of American States (OAS) Conference in Caracas where the US government tried to increase the regional pressure on Arbenz. It also coincided with the Alfhem incident, the delivery of Eastern bloc weapons to Guatemala. While not a catalyst for the invasion, the episode helped to increase the hysteria within Congress and the media,²⁹ a hysteria shaped and exploited by the Executive. The same dynamic, though, also reappeared whenever public clamour regarding Guatemala served the Administration’s foreign policy objectives.

Second, when this clamour risked spiralling out of control, threatening the overt and covert policy objectives of the US government, members of Executive engaged in selective disclosures to stymie Congressional initiatives. This process entailed the disclosure of partial information and potentially a full briefing on the upcoming Guatemala operation. Here, though, the archival record is even scarcer and, only rarely, these disclosures appear on paper. More often, we see ex-post reports of one-to-one meetings detailing how one member of the Executive had been able to convince a member of Congress to desist from pursuing certain initiatives, and/or to convince his colleagues to do so. What is clear is that – as the covert intervention loomed – members of Congress eager to further raise the profile of Guatemala were told that it wasn’t necessary and/or that the situation was in hand. They were given sufficient information to moderate and minimize their hawkish instincts while permitting the executive to ‘do its thing’.

Finally, the existing record for the weeks surrounding the intervention, also points to a cumulative effect of these selective disclosures. Knowledge of the operation was more widespread than generally imagined. Several individuals in both the legislative branch and the media – while maintaining the overall secrecy of the operation – made members of the Executive aware that they knew.

Guatemala and the ‘golden age’ of covert action

Together with the Bay of Pigs, PBSUCCESS remains one of the most studied covert interventions of the early Cold War. A rich scholarship has explored the origins, rationale, conduct, and impact of the covert operation.³⁰ Looking at its domestic context, the ‘crisis’ and intervention took place at time of bipartisan consensus over the role of the United States in the world. Virtually no one – in Congress or in the media – challenged the US international posture and its perspective on the Arbenz government. The venture also coincided with the high point of McCarthyism, which influenced the Administration’s anti-communist posture, and might have spurred the Administration to a more forceful intervention.³¹ The Executive could also take advantage of a high level of trust in the media. This was very much a time of collaboration between newspapers and the executive. Episodes of self-censorship and imposed censorship abounded.³² In this sense, domestic constituencies can be understood as largely hawkish spurring the government towards interventions, at times beyond the US government’s own preferences.

The intervention also took place in what is generally understood as the ‘golden age’ of the intelligence community and the low point for Congressional oversight. Recent analysis has correctly challenged the understanding that Congressional oversight of the intelligence community in the 1950s was absent.³³ A high degree of oversight characterised intelligence collection and analysis, in turn, informing the Agency’s policies and procedures.³⁴ Others have shown how – even in the context of covert operations – a degree of involvement (if not oversight) did exist, but occurred primarily through sub-committees and informal channels.³⁵ In the context of Guatemala, both Immerman and – more explicitly – Barrett have analysed the relationship between the Agency and Congress. Barrett has convincingly argued that regardless of how much they knew, Congress people would have wholeheartedly approved the Agency’s intervention.³⁶

Finally, several scholars have tried to identify a single rationale behind the intervention, from anti-communism to the influence of US corporations on the Eisenhower Administration.³⁷ The analysis that follows shows how a very porous border – several grey areas – existed between branches of the Executive (CIA, State, White House), United Fruit and its lobbyists, and members of Congress. These grey areas often make it harder to establish clear boundaries demarcating different areas of policymaking, as well as to disentangle lobbying from the preparation of the political ground for covert operations.

A cancer in the hemisphere: inflating the threat of Guatemala

From its early months, the Eisenhower Administration had set its sight on revamping PBFORTUNE, the Truman Administration’s aborted effort to overthrow Arbenz.³⁸ Allen Dulles, the new DCI, understood that for the operation to succeed, this time, it needed a much stronger effort to set the political stage. As he wrote in early March 1953, ‘the chances of success would be greatly enhanced if there were a coordinated effort in the political field’. For this, he recommended the replacement of the then US Ambassador with a more combative figure. The President in a press conference should have raised the profile of the threat from Guatemala. The possibility of damaging Guatemala’s coffee exports could be considered. Finally, ‘appropriate speeches might be made by a couple of members of Congress’.³⁹

By March 1953, the political climate was certainly favourable. Throughout 1953, both journalists and members of Congress had been taking several trips to the region, including Guatemala. These trips were often financed – and stage managed – by the United Fruit Company and its extensive contacts in the region.⁴⁰ In the aftermath of one such trip, in November 1953, Senator Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA), denounced the anti-American sentiment prevalent in Central America and the ‘communist encroachment in Guatemala’.⁴¹ A few days later, Hickenlooper met with DCI Dulles for a debriefing. The Senator told the DCI that – in Guatemala – it was time for some ‘positive action’. Dulles was keen to use the Senator to prepare the political ground. The Senator was about to give a speech on the floor reporting on his trip and the Agency aimed to shape its content. ‘Under Mr. Dulles’ prodding’, [emphasis added] the minutes of the briefing read, ‘the Senator agreed that if he had more factual information concerning the activities of the Guatemalan Communists … he would greatly welcome such information and incorporate it in his official address’.⁴²

After the meeting, the Agency agreed to provide ‘notes’ for the Senator’s office. It was understood that the notes – a selective disclosure of information – would have shaped the Senator’s speech and helped in setting the political stage for PBSUCCESS, the covert regime change operation that President Eisenhower had authorised in August 1953. As the memorandum read, the notes for the Senator should be ‘tailorized to fit the PBSUCCESS overt themes in order to gain the profits of bringing before the Congress and the people of the United States the true danger to the latter of unbridled Communist activity on its doorstep’.⁴³ The memorandum compiled for Hickenlooper painted a terrifying picture, a full-blown ‘Kremlin conspiracy’ taking over Guatemala and the rest of the region. ‘All in all’, the notes summarised, ‘Guatemala looms as a formidable Communist bastion and cancer in the Americas’, a ‘soft underbelly’.⁴⁴

In this case, a certain element of manipulation did exist. While certainly concerned about the situation in Guatemala, the Senator had only ‘begrudgingly’ accepted the invitation from Dulles to include CIA-provided material. Furthermore, while the material did make it into the Senator’s speech, the archival record does not permit to assess whether the Senator was aware that the threat presented in the CIA’s notes was – at best – overblown.

Hickenlooper wasn’t alone. Senator Alexander Wiley (R-WI) was one of the fiercest critics of the Arbenz government. Wiley visited Guatemala several times. His personal papers make clear that these visits as well as the information he collected during them, were closely coordinated with United Fruit and its main PR man, Edward Bernays.⁴⁵ After one of these visits, Wiley tried to convince colleagues in the Senate to launch an investigation against Guatemala. As he wrote Theodore F. Green of Rhode Island, chair of the Latin America Subcommittee, an investigation was certain to reveal that ‘Guatemala is going to be a source of Red infection throughout Central America and the sooner we help sterilize that source, the better’. ⁴⁶

In mid-January 1954, Wiley gave a famous speech denouncing Communism in Guatemala and providing 22 pieces of evidence of Communist control over the Guatemalan government.⁴⁷ The evidence, Wiley’s papers make clear, had been collected with the help of United Fruit. The day after the speech Julius Cahn, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Counsel reported to Bernays the excellent reception of Wiley’s speech.⁴⁸ The 22 pieces of evidence were soon re-worked by Wiley and Bernays into a pamphlet to be distributed to the media and Congress.⁴⁹ In turn, the timing of the speech had been agreed with the State Department.⁵⁰ A few days later, John M. Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State, wrote Wiley to compliment the Senator on the speech. The Guatemalan government had been unable to reply, Wiley’s accusations had ‘struck home’.⁵¹

It is clear that – in the same months – some Senators were working to prevent any damage to the informal working relationship between Congress and the CIA. The Agency was faced with the prospect of a more assertive Congressional oversight, based on a bill proposed by Senator Mike Mansfield (D-MT). The bill entailed the creation of a new Joint Committee which would oversee the CIA, undermining the more informal system based on subcommittees of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate. Walter Pforzheimer, the Agency’s liaison with Congress had recommended Dulles to meet with Senator Leverett Saltonstall (R-MA), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. The Agency was getting some criticism in Congress and Pforzheimer suggested the establishment of a subcommittee ‘whose members could defend us where necessary’.⁵² A few days later, Dulles met with the Senator. The criticisms that were emerging against the Agency, Dulles reported, had to do with the fact that Senators did not know enough about its activities; a friendly subcommittee would have been useful. Saltonstall declined the offer. The criticisms were limited, and he preferred to ‘let the “sleeping dogs lie”.’⁵³

An informal working relationship was also proving valuable in the context of Guatemala. Pforzheimer reported to the Deputy Director for Plans Frank Wisner that two Congressional staffers had contacted the CIA’s liaison and reported on the extent of the infiltration of Communism in Guatemala. In turn, the Agency had sent the information to PBSUCCESS operatives.⁵⁴

Furthermore, understanding the importance of preparing the political field for the intervention, Wisner wrote Dulles expressing the concerns of an ambassador from a ‘prominent Central American country’. The ambassador worried that the pressure on Guatemala was coming primarily from Republicans. John Peurifoy the combative US Ambassador in Guatemala was a staunch Republican. The issue was being pushed by Eisenhower Administration officials – also Republicans – and the Congressmen who had spoken out were primarily Republicans. The ambassador worried that the President in his country of posting was concerned that this might be a partisan issue. In the same breath, Wisner also reassured Dulles that the matter was being taken care of. The Agency had contacted a Democratic Senator and had drafted for him a statement.

Again, the aim here was to raise the profile of the US government’s pressure on Guatemala and to signal to the Ambassador and President in the Central American country, to Guatemalan authorities, and to the broader US public that the concern with Guatemala was bipartisan. From the record, we can conclude that the Agency had already been at work to solve the problem. As Wisner reported, ‘a prominent Democratic Senator’ had already agreed ‘to deliver the proposed statement on the floor of the Senate quite soon’.⁵⁵ A few days later, Senator William Fulbright (D-AR) – later a famous critic of the Agency and US foreign policy – took the floor on the Senate. He ridiculed the Arbenz government’s accusations of US plotting and lambasted Guatemalans, guilty of permitting ‘social reform to be dominated by the agents of Moscow’.⁵⁶ The speech reassured that the goal of putting pressure on Guatemala while protecting the rights of US companies was ‘truly bipartisan’.⁵⁷

Caracas: secret disclosures and overt diplomacy

By February, US officials were busy with the preparations for the OAS conference to be held in Caracas, Venezuela. As Schlesinger and Kinzer wrote, highlighting the porous borders between Executive, legislature, and corporations, having briefed the Executives of United Fruit on the development of PBSUCCESS, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ‘revved up a Congressional offensive’.⁵⁸ We now know that such offensive was kept within bounds thanks to the relationship between the Executive – in this case the State Department – and leading Senators. State Department officials worked with Congress to prevent anything that might undermine US diplomacy.

In the same month, Senator Frances Bolton (R-OH) denounced as an open threat to American way of life the Guatemalan government decision to expel three US citizens including two journalists.⁵⁹ Increasing the pressure, Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) tabled a resolution asking the US government to investigate the extent to which Communists controlled Guatemalan economy and society. Chase Smith wanted to know whether Communists were to blame for the recent increase in the price of Guatemalan coffee. If this was the case, her resolution called for an embargo on Guatemalan coffee. On the 9^th, having seen the proposed resolution, Wiley transmitted it to the State Department to ask for an opinion. State worried about the potential impact of the resolution so close to Caracas. As Cabot wrote, the Department was being ‘harassed by such items as Senator Margaret Smith’s bill connecting Guatemalan Communism with high coffee prices’. This, Cabot reasoned, played into the hands of the Guatemalan Communists. Cabot recommended that the president issue a reassuring statement ‘for the coffee-producing nations, with due regard to Congressional and public opinion’.⁶⁰ Chase Smith, in fact, had just raised the government’s inaction on coffee in her newspaper column,⁶¹ and it had been the object of one of Walter Winchell’s popular broadcasts.⁶²

Backchannel communication helped State shelve the idea. Assistant Secretary Thurston Morton replied to Wiley’s request for an opinion. Wiley was reassured that ‘Communist penetration in the Western hemisphere’ was a ‘subject of increasingly serious concern for the Department and that the Guatemalan communists’ activities in the political and economic sphere were closely followed. As to the coffee, though, Morton told Wiley that Guatemala only produced 3 per cent of the world coffee and that the spike in prices was due to a seller’s market, not to Communist shenanigans. Certainly, the US’s reliance on Guatemalan coffee was minimal, and it could have been easily replaced, but a boycott would have sent the wrong signal to other republics in the hemisphere, and the communist could have used it as a propaganda tool.⁶³ After State’s response to Wiley, the issue was largely put to rest, no further investigations were conducted.

At Caracas, after extensive arm twisting, Secretary of State Dulles was able to convince other governments in the region to pass a resolution condemning Communist interference in the Western hemisphere.⁶⁴ In the aftermath of the conference, Dulles was satisfied. He did note the anxiety expressed by other governments that the resolution could be used as a pretext for US intervention, but he saw the resolution as nothing more than an extension of the Monroe doctrine; one focusing more on ideological subversion than on military invasion. Still, he understood that, thanks to the resolution, the US government now ‘could operate more effectively to meet Communist subversion in the American Republics and at the same time avoid the charge of interference in the affairs of any other sovereign state’.⁶⁵

The Congressional reaction to the resolution and to the Administration’s performance at the conference was mixed. Hickenlooper had travelled to Caracas and attended the conference. He reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee how impressed he was by the Secretary’s performance. He also told his colleagues that – at the conference – he had received information from CIA officials on the Guatemalan delegates and had come away even more convinced of the threat posed by Arbenz and his government.⁶⁶ Here, again, the disclosure aimed at raising alarms on Guatemala and – in this case – confirming the Senator’s view of the dangers Arbenz and his government posed. Others weren’t so impressed and criticised the Administration from the right. Representative Donald Jackson (R-CA), chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Inter-American Affairs, compared the inaction (against Guatemala) at Caracas to Munich.⁶⁷

The Alfhem and the military bases: selective disclosures and covert action

This criticism was exacerbated by the so-called Alfhem incident. Perhaps no issue showcased the role of selective disclosures and the interaction between Congressional clamour and covert foreign policy like the events surrounding the Alfhem. By 1953, the US government had imposed a full arms embargo on Guatemala. Threatened by its neighbours and aware that the US government intended to overthrow him, Arbenz tried to purchase weapons from the Eastern Bloc. Czechoslovakia agreed to sell weapons to Guatemala. The weapons, loaded on the Alfhem, departed from Poland and evading US intelligence and a US quarantine around Guatemala’s ports, arrived at Puerto Barrios. Using PBSUCCESS assets, the CIA tried and failed to blow-up the cargo as it travelled through the country.⁶⁸ The weapons turned out to be too old to be of any use. More than the fate of the weapons, it is the domestic controversy surrounding them that is of interest here.

In the early months of 1954, contacts between the CIA and Congress had increased. These contacts can be understood as examples of early – and relatively informal – Congressional oversight. In February, the CIA had briefed the House Appropriations Committee chaired by the stern John Taber (R-NY). The briefing contained details on the Agency’s activities, including covert operations. As Barrett reported, Taber’s notes show a discussion of ‘“pol. + psych”. warfare; “covert” and “overt col[lection]” of intelligence’.⁶⁹ On the 8^th, although the document is still redacted, Senator William Knowland (R-CA) received a briefing on the CIA’s covert operations by the CIA’s leadership including the DCI and the Deputy DCI.⁷⁰ A few days later, the Senator complained that the briefing had not been sufficiently detailed and Dulles agreed to a second, more thorough briefing after a luncheon on the 12^th. This time, the Senator was satisfied, and the Agency moved to organise and deploy professional Congressional briefers to keep leading members of Congress informed on (and on the side of) intelligence activities.⁷¹

In March, with PBSUCCESS preparations encountering difficulties, the Agency felt pressured by Congress and public opinion. In a sense, the campaign to raise the profile of the threat posed by Guatemala had worked too well. A weekly PBSUCCESS meeting asked whether things were ‘going downhill so fast in Guatemala that PBSUCCESS as it now stands may not be enough’. State Department officials recommended to take ‘more calculated risks than before’ including considering the use of assassination squads. The main reason was the ‘much greater pressure’ that could come from Congress or public opinion if the situation in Guatemala were to deteriorate.⁷²

In late March and April, the Executive tried to ease Congressional pressure. On the 22^nd DCI Dulles, appeared at a Special Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss CIA activities. This was in part another response to Mansfield’s proposal for a new Joint Committee and constituted an effort at maintaining the informality of the then existing system. As Pforzheimer reported, ‘the DCI gave a lengthy presentation on current CIA activities’. The DCI’s performance was convincing. In its aftermath, the consensus was that there should be no committee. The Subcommittee indicated ‘the strongest possible bi partisan support for CIA and the protection of its security’.⁷³ As we have seen DCI Dulles also reassured Bridges privately that the situation in Guatemala was in hand.⁷⁴

At the CIA, Wisner still worried that – in case it was decided to discontinue PBSUCCESS – State and the CIA ‘would be immediately faced with the $64 question: “What are we going to do about Guatemala, and what can we do that would be effective?”’ The ‘upper echelons of the Administration’ (likely a euphemism for the President) expected the removal of the Communist threat in Guatemala. Furthermore, Wisner wrote Holland at State, there seemed ‘to exist a considerable degree of expectation in certain quarters of the Congress that something is brewing, and in any case, that something must be done’. Public opinion – then worried about Guatemala – might also crystallise into a more explicit call for action.⁷⁵ Hawkish constituencies were getting even more hawkish.

To prevent further radicalization of Congress and public opinion, the Agency and the NSC worked to quash proposals for Congressional investigations on Guatemala. The Agency reported that Congressman Charles Kersten (R-WI) had written a letter to Robert Cutler of the NSC. According to Kersten, members of his Sub-Committee on Communist Aggression intended to start an investigation of Communism in the Western hemisphere, including Guatemala. This investigation would not start immediately, but in June, after the sub-committee members had returned from their trip to Europe. Kersten, though, had prepared a press statement announcing the intention to investigate. The Agency was clearly opposed. The initial aim was to convince Kersten to desist without revealing the Agency’s opposition. A June investigation might have interfered with PBSUCCESS. The executive settled on the justification that in the intervening months – between the announcement and the investigation – ‘unfriendly propagandists’ might portray the investigation as further US interference.⁷⁶ Ultimately, Cutler told Kersten that – in general – an investigation into Guatemala might be a ‘very useful sounding board for public dissemination of information’, but ‘since there are possibilities of new developments in the Guatemalan situation between now and the end of June’ (emphasis added), Kersten should defer any announcement and get back in touch with him and the DCI later.⁷⁷ No announcement was made. The episode points to a hierarchy in the rationale for selective disclosure. While we don’t know the details of the Kersten-Cutler conversation, we can surmise that preventing the investigation – thus protecting the US government’s covert objectives – took precedence over further raising alarm around Guatemala. A few days later, the President also tried to reassure legislative leaders that Guatemala was under control. ‘Whenever the Reds make a move’, he told them, the US had ‘a good man in Guatemala and … he is watching the situation very closely and giving us constant reports’. The President also called for careful coordination of the activities of Congress and the Executive.⁷⁸

After the Alfhem came ashore on the 15^th of May, Senator Wiley accepted the DCI’s request to denounce the delivery of weapons as part of the Communist global conspiracy. Congress needed little convincing. Several members of Congress in both the House and the Senate took the stage in protest. Fanciful claims and comparisons were made regarding the threat that the weapons posed to the Panama Canal and to the security of the US. ⁷⁹ The media largely went along and stoked this frenzy.

As with public diplomacy, though, when Congressional eagerness threatened to undermine PBSUCCESS it was shut down. The main episode here is the debate surrounding the US military training bases in Guatemala. The issue of the military basis had first emerged back in January 1954, during a House Foreign Affair Committee hearing. Senator Jackson had then told US Ambassador to Guatemala John Peurifoy that many had been questioning the necessity of US bases. Peurifoy’s answer had been quite revealing. He told the assembled representatives: ‘I think something is going to happen pretty soon down there in the way of, perhaps, a little trouble, and I think we want a few friends. These men, I think, have made friends in the Army’.⁸⁰ Jackson had not been persuaded. In February, he publicly denounced the presence in Guatemala of two US military training missions. These, the Congressman recognised, were there to train the Guatemalan army against outside aggression, but there was no longer any reason for them to stay since the military leaders seemed to approve of the Communist-dominated Arbenz government.⁸¹

After the Alfhem, Senator Knowland called Secretary of State Dulles. The Senator ‘questioned the consistency of having a mission and at the same time being concerned about the shipment of arms for the army there’. The Secretary told Knowland that the issue had been raised but the CIA felt that they had gotten an ‘advantage’ out of it.⁸² Having spoken to his brother Allen, Secretary Dulles also called Wisner to report the conversation with Knowland. Wisner responded to Dulles’ concerns that – in the views of the Agency and the Pentagon – the military was the strongest bulwark against Communism. This argument could be used to persuade members of Congress. In the evening of the same day, the issue was settled in a conversation between the Dulles brothers. Allen told his brother that he was opposed to withdrawing the mission. The transcripts read: ‘He (Allen Dulles) will be glad to help on the Hill - talk to Knowland etc. The Sec. said K. didn’t necessarily want them out – he just wanted to know the answer. AWD said the only hope is defection there’ [emphasis added]. Allen Dulles also added that he was going to see Knowland later the same day. While we don’t know what was said at the meeting, the issue of the bases was not raised again.⁸³

Two days later, again, the White House used contacts in Congress to shut down potential investigations of Guatemala. Senator William Jenner (R-IN), Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration intended to investigate the situation in Guatemala. Immediately, the White House contacted Jenner. ‘The Senator’, Cutler wrote, ‘agreed to call off the rumored investigation, without any limitation in time’ and ‘was most cooperative and said he would not wish to cause the Administration any further difficulty in what must already be a difficult situation’.⁸⁴

In the same days, the situation in Guatemala received further attention through the reporting of Sydney Gruson. Gruson was one of the journalists who had been expelled by the Guatemalan government but had later been re-admitted. This time, it was not the Guatemalan government that was displeased about his reporting, but the Dulles brothers. Gruson, who had been helpful in raising the level of alarm surrounding Arbenz, was now writing – or so the Dulleses believed – that Guatemalan communism amounted more to strong nationalism than to a Moscow-dominated conspiracy.⁸⁵ The criticism was probably unfair,⁸⁶ but Gruson had reported the consensus within Guatemala as to the legitimacy of the arms shipment. He had also described – without blaming the CIA – sabotage operations against the weapons cargo as it travelled by train through the country.⁸⁷

In a NSC meeting on the 27^th, Secretary Dulles lamented that Gruson was ‘following the communist line’ and was a ‘very dangerous character’. Allen agreed. The Agency had collected intelligence on Gruson and this showed some ‘very disturbing facts’ in his past. The Attorney general proposed that someone should talk to the editor of the New York Times to do something about Gruson. The President agreed, the New York Times he continued ‘was the most untrustworthy newspaper in the United States, at least as far as the areas of the news with which he was personally familiar were concerned’.⁸⁸ Allen arranged a dinner with Julius Ochs Adler, a former Princeton classmate and cousin of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times. Dulles told Adler that it would have been better if Gruson did not cover the gathering story in Guatemala. Sulzberger agreed and Gruson was transferred.

The (not so) covert operation: Congress’s awareness and support of PBSUCCESS

The case of Gruson and of the military training bases gives the impression that the Executive (White House, CIA, and State Department) was able to maintain full control over key domestic constituencies like the media and Congress. And yet, hiccups did occur. One day after chastising Gruson in the NSC meeting, the DCI met with Congressman Kersten. Kersten mentioned that he had discussed with Vice President Nixon the possibility of a trip to Guatemala, as well as follow-up hearings on the topic. Nixon had told Kersten that the timing was wrong.⁸⁹ Dulles did not express a strong opinion but contacted Assistant Secretary of State Holland who warned Kersten against the trip.⁹⁰ In spite of the Executive’s recommendations, Representative Patrick Hillings (R-CA) of Kersten’s Committee, together with David Keyser (a Committee staffer), and Patrick McMahan, Washington editor of the Mercury Magazine travelled to the region.⁹¹ Before the trip, Kersten notified Cutler, who updated Allen Dulles.⁹² Dulles, in turn, notified the operatives at the CIA base codenamed LINCOLN.

The Agency was not completely unaware of the trip, but in the field problems did emerge. The Congressional delegation reached Honduras and the operating base of Castillo Armas, the man picked by the CIA for the regime change operation. McMahan tried to arrange an interview with Armas using the telephone of US Ambassador to Honduras Whiting Willauer but the Ambassador cut him off. Hillings also wanted to arrange an interview with Armas at the latter’s house but, again, Willauer hijacked the interview as it would have been understood as clear US support for Armas and his men. McMahan was finally able to get an interview on the evening of the 3^rd of June. Furthermore, another journalist of the Chicago Times Jules Dubois was in the area and was on friendly terms with Armas (the two had been together at Leavenworth School). Du Bois gave the impression of knowing a great deal about the operation and he could pose a security threat to PBSUCCESS.⁹³ A CIA operative wrote in alarming tones to the Director summarising the visit. ‘Most serious imaginable flap barely averted thru luck when Congressman and party arrived, prior any notification at [redacted] with avowed purpose congressman interview Calligeris’.⁹⁴ The same telegram complained that the operatives in the field had not received sufficient notice and that the Senator had not been adequately briefed.⁹⁵

In the same days of the visit, another US citizen⁹⁶ offered Armas the option of travelling to the US to explain his position and mission to the US Congress and public. Armas refused saying that he had no papers and that an appeal to the US public might play into communist propaganda that he was a US puppet.⁹⁷ We do not know what Armas told McMahan, nor what was revealed to Hillings, but we do know that the Agency did not trust Armas to maintain operational security. Despite several briefings, he had been providing ‘more accurate information than deceptive to the press’. Overall, it seems unlikely that Hillings knew nothing about US involvement.⁹⁸ A few days after Hillings’ visit, Armas met with another reporter. The latter could spot great activity, several recent Guatemalan exiles, and ‘large quantities’ of US dollars at his base. The journalist checked with Ambassador Willauer and another US contact regarding the nature of the operation, but it seems clear that he understood the level of US involvement and the urgency of the operation since he told Armas to ‘warn him before he started anything’⁹⁹ Four days after this report reached Dulles, PBSUCCESS started with Armas’ ‘invasion’ of Guatemala.

On his return from his not-so-secret trip, Hillings told the press that Guatemalan communists were taking orders from Moscow. He requested the House Committee on Communist Aggression led by Kersten to hold hearings on Guatemala since the ‘cancer’ was spreading and the ‘Red menace in the Western hemisphere is very very serious’.¹⁰⁰ The proposal for a hearing posed a problem for the Administration since it had initially convinced a rival committee (Jenner’s) not to hold hearings on Guatemala. This created a conflict between the two Committees, one that the CIA tried to manage.¹⁰¹ The Agency, though, had bigger problems. In its first days, the operation was not going as planned.

On the 19^th, the President made an emergency return to Washington from Quantico. While the official version was that he did not want to miss Sunday prayer, the reality was that the President wanted to be back in case something went wrong in Guatemala and Congressional action was needed.¹⁰² On the 20^th, Allen Dulles wrote the President that ‘the outcome of the efforts to overthrow the regime of President Arbenz of Guatemala remains very much in doubt’. The main factor was the Guatemalan Army, which had not given any clear indication of loyalty to Arbenz nor of defection. Dulles reminded the President that Armas operation was not a conventional invasion. The force assembled by Castillo Armas was too small and too weak for that the effort relied primarily on psychological impact rather than military strength and on the ability of Armas to ‘maintain for a short time the impression of very substantial military strength’. Dulles stressed the importance of deception through the radio campaign as well as the timing and use of a small number of planes available.¹⁰³

Some debate exists as to how much Congress and – particularly – leading members of Congress knew once the operation went under way. In his history of the CIA in Guatemala, Immermann concluded that members of Congress knew nothing at all. For him, though, the bulk of Congressional activism coincided with the Caracas Conference, but, as we have seen, this was not the case.¹⁰⁴ Barrett, on the contrary, reported Pforzheimer’s view: ‘I’m sure the committees were informed’. The CIA liaison told Barrett in an interview. As Barrett adds, ‘without claiming a specific memory, Pforzheimer says Taber’s House Appropriations subcommittee on the CIA would have been mostly closely consulted, and there would have been “no holding back of details”.’ ¹⁰⁵

Research conducted for this article seems to confirm Barrett’s argument. First, it seems that in early June, at the time of Hillings’ trip, the CIA prepared a briefing providing extensive – but not all – details regarding the operation in Guatemala. While the timing and receivers of the briefing are not specified, it does not seem implausible that they could have been leading members of Congress. The content of the briefing seems to suggest that this was targeted to an audience that knew about the situation in Guatemala but not about the US government’s involvement and its role. The author of the document also seems concerned about leaks of information. All this makes it unlikely that the briefing was for the president.

The briefing read: ‘Entire briefing top secret and more. Danger in relaxing security after operation completed, particularly if successful’. It explained the origins of the operation and its main objectives including sparking an internal revolt, establishing a radio campaign. The operation had various components: internal revolution sparked by Castillo Armas who had been ‘subsidized’ by the CIA, defection of the Guatemalan army, subversion of individual leaders, and a radio campaign. The briefing made clear that the Agency had been careful to maintain plausible deniability. It read:

In considering operation important remember US government hand undisclosed. Established theory of fictional group of rich Americans interested in South America and desirous of eliminating Communism (United Fruit). CIA representatives always dealt with Armas and others as representatives of group and still are known by them in this capacity.

The briefing concluded:

Castillo forces augmented by exiles after Alfhem, but still less than 100 bodies trained in guerrilla operations by CIA … but obvious necessary move immediately or lose psychological opportunity and reports from Guat and outlying regions indicated popular expectation built up by our radio and by events so decision made to move.¹⁰⁶

Whether the briefing was directed at leading members of Congress or not, it seems clear that – by the early days of the operations – news of a CIA intervention in Guatemala had spread. As Pforzheimer reported, on the 22^nd, he ran into Robert Kennedy, then Minority Counsel for the Senate Investigations Subcommittee. Kennedy complained about the lax Congressional oversight of the Agency. ‘His parting comment was that CIA would be in trouble if we didn’t win the war in Guatemala’. A few minutes later, Pforzheimer also ran into ‘Don Surine, of Senator McCarthy’s staff, who remarked that we seem to be doing very well with the war in Guatemala’.¹⁰⁷ Staffers in Congress, then, were at least aware of a CIA involvement in the operation in Guatemala. One should assume that so did leading members of Congress who had cooperated with the Executive throughout the evolving crisis in Guatemala.

Key figures in the media were also in on the action. A State official spoke to investigative journalist Drew Pearson and gave him details on Guatemala, confessing that he could not recall which information was secret and which was (already) publicly available.¹⁰⁸ Pearson was kept informed about the operation in Guatemala by Ambassador Peurifoy. The latter told him that he had already tried twice to start a revolution in Guatemala. The third time seemed likely to work as ‘he (Peurifoy) persuaded six generals to call on President Arbenz and threaten him with revolution unless he gets out’.¹⁰⁹ Finally, William Pawley, Eisenhower’s friend, advisor, and – often trouble-shooter and trouble-maker in Central and Latin America¹¹⁰ - recalled in his unpublished memoirs how Phil Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, told him that the US government was working to ‘assist Castillo Armas in overthrowing the Arbenz regime’. ‘I might as well have been listening to a top secret briefing at State’, Pawley added, but Graham could be trusted not to go public with the information.¹¹¹

Certainly, not everyone was aware. Keyser – the staffer who had been on a trip to the region with Hillings – wrote the State Department on the 25^th complaining about the US government’s alleged inertia. In his view, the ‘liberation’ doctrine the Eisenhower Administration had been professing should have been enough for an open intervention. Officials at State worried about this posture and about its popularity among certain members of Congress.¹¹²

In the latter stages of the crisis, though, State was once again able to rely on leading members of Congress to raise the stakes surrounding Guatemala and signal commitment to allies. On the same day of Keyser’s complaint, Senate Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) proposed a resolution condemning the communist infiltration in the Western Hemisphere and calling for the OAS to deal with the crisis.¹¹³ This was a response to the Guatemalan government decision to denounce the invasion of its territory at the UN. Several governments, including key US allies like France and Britain, had signalled that they might side with Guatemala and ask the UN Security Council to deal with the crisis.

Knowland had already sent the text of Johnson’s proposed resolution to the State Department. Secretary Dulles was initially unimpressed. The resolution seemed redundant since the same conclusion had been reached with the Caracas declaration. Knowland, however, highlighted its signalling potential. It could demonstrate the domestic political consensus on the issue of Guatemala to the ‘visitors’. This referred to the British delegation in the US at the time.¹¹⁴ In the following days, contacts between the Secretary Dulles and Congress continued and the resolution was eventually passed 84 to 1. By the time the resolution was passed, PBSUCCESS had achieved its objective. On the 27^th, after an agreement between Colonel Carlos Enriquez Diaz and US Ambassador Peurifoy, Arbenz surrendered.

Conclusion

On the 28th, in a briefing with the Congressional leadership, the President and Secretary Dulles discussed Guatemala.¹¹⁵ Dulles, hinting at a US role, told the gathered members of Congress that Arbenz’s resignation was a ‘great triumph’ of US diplomacy. He was also effusive in his praise for the role of Congress. The resolution had been a great contribution in ‘impressing on the British’ the extent of the US commitments. He concluded that as a ‘result, the principal advocate of Communism in the Western Hemisphere has been eliminated from the government of Guatemala … The handling of Guatemala has been a real achievement’.¹¹⁶ This article has suggested that – while tactically the achievement had to do with the CIA’s work on the ground – the political environment in Washington also contributed to the success of PBSUCCESS.

Our analysis has challenged extant interpretations that domestic constituencies are primarily an obstacle to the conduct of covert foreign policy. Instead, domestic constituencies – understood here as the media and Congress – are at times witting, at times unwitting, collaborators of the executive. The type of relationship with the Executive often depends on the power and access of members of these domestic constituencies. We have also modified the argument that – when it comes to domestic constituencies – secrecy helps policymakers to pacify hawkish domestic constituencies while achieving foreign policy objectives. Instead, we have highlighted the role of selective disclosures. We have not positioned selective disclosures as the polar opposite of secrecy; they do not completely undo secrecy. Instead, we understood them as a mechanism for the pacification of hawkish domestic constituencies. Hawks are pacified – that is kept quiet(er) – not because they are unaware of what is going on behind the scenes, that is, not due to the covertness of the operation. Instead, they are pacified through the Executive’s use of selective disclosure of information and through the acceptance of the Executive’s requests and positions.

Several features of the Guatemalan case make it particularly interesting to explore selective disclosures. The dominant position of the Dulles brothers at the helm of covert and overt foreign policy meant that – while targeting different recipients and transferring different types of information – State Department and CIA were working towards the same objective. At times, they were helped by White House officials, such as Cutler. The evidentiary record is certainly scarce, but we can identify methods of selective disclosure and the extent of their success.

Much of this selective transfer of information occurred through one-to-one meetings or phone calls. Only some of these were formal and left a trace in the record. Looking at the first rationale for selective disclosures, the Executive often used them to provide information to leading members of Congress, who, in turn, used it in their public speeches. While it could be argued that these occasions represented opportunities for manipulation, the record makes clear that members of Congress needed little convincing. Bipartisan support sustained the Administration’s view of the threat posed by Guatemala. Members of Congress were also receiving similar information from United Fruit lobbyists; a process that also contributed to setting the political stage for US overt and covert intervention. At other times, the record shows disclosures aimed at quashing initiatives that risked undermining US diplomatic and covert foreign policy goals. Here, the State Department worked to prevent initiatives that might embarrass the US government and undermine its diplomacy, such as in the weeks preceding Caracas. The Agency, directly or through other members of the executive, worked to protect its operations and its assets, such as in the case of the military bases. While these types of interventions were successful in preventing Committee-wide actions, they struggle to contain the initiatives of individual members of Congress.

Overall, leading members of Congress were more involved and had more access to the conduct of covert operations than previously thought; the same was true for leading media figures. The covert war in Guatemala was selectively known to leading figures in Washington.

Our understanding about how executives can use selective disclosure to pacify hawkish domestic constituencies provides a significant contribution to scholarship on secrecy in intelligence studies and international relations. It also opens avenues of future research looking at behavior in other contexts. What happens in cases beyond the ‘golden era’ of covert operations? What happens when Congress and the media are less trusting and less pliable? When legislative oversight is more critical or adversarial, does the executive use selective disclosures in the same manner? Similarly, when the legislature and executive are less distinct – as in the case of parliamentary systems – how do these dynamics work? Further research is needed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Research funded by British Academy Small Grant - SRG21\211237.

Notes on contributors

Luca Trenta

Luca Trenta is Associate Professor in International Relations, Department of Politics, Philosophy, and IR, Swansea University

Kevin T Fahey

Kevin T Fahey is a Assistant Professor of Political Science, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

Douglas B Atkinson

Douglas B Atkinson is a Assistant Professor, Political Science, Brigham Young University

Notes

1. Dulles, “Memorandum for the Record, ‘Project PBSUCCESS’”

2. Smist, Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community: 1947–1994, 4–5.

3. Understood here as CIA, White House, and State Department.

4. Cormac and Aldrich, “Grey Is the New Black: Covert Action and Implausible Deniability”.

5. Smith, ‘Secret but Constrained: The Impact of Elite Opposition on Covert Operations’; Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics; Carson, ‘Facing off and Saving Face: Covert Intervention and Escalation Management in the Korean War’; Carson and Yarhi-Milo, ‘Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret’.

6. Pozen, “The Leaky Leviathan: Why the Government Condemns and Condones Unlawful Disclosures of Information,” 522; Perina, “Black Holes and Open Secrets: The Impact of Covert Action on International Law,” 542.

7. Banka and Quinn, “Killing Norms Softly: US Targeted Killing, Quasi-Secrecy and the Assassination Ban”.

8. Vlad, “The Perils of Presidential Openness: Strikes, Secrecy and Performative Opacity” and Stamnitzky, “Truth and consequences? Reconceptualizing the politics of exposure”.

9. Barrett, “Glimpses of a Hidden History: Sen. Richard Russell, Congress, and Oversight of the CIA”.

10. Secrecy has also been the object of extensive ‘critical’ scholarship. See for example Walters, State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary; and Melley, The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State.

11. Cormac and Aldrich, “Grey Is the New Black: Covert Action and Implausible Deniability”.

12. Poznansky, “Revisiting Plausible Deniability”.

13. O’Rourke, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War.

14. Poznansky, ‘Feigning Compliance: Covert Action and International Law’.

15. Cormac and Aldrich, “Grey Is the New Black: Covert Action and Implausible Deniability” 481 and 488.

16. Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics. Looking at assassination, Hanni and Grossman have also discussed ‘theatrical murder’ and the signaling function of the assassination of dissidents in Putin’s Russia. Hanni and Grossman, ‘Death to traitors?’

17. Carson and Yarhi-Milo, “Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret,” 125.

18. Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, 54.

19. Carson and Yarhi-Milo, “Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret,” 135.

20. Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, 12.

21. Carson and Yarhi-Milo, “Covert Communication: The Intelligibility and Credibility of Signaling in Secret,” 135.

22. See for example the concern of members of the NSC for hawkish domestic constituencies at the time of the Korean War. Carson, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, 170.

23. Callanan, Covert Action in the Cold War (London: Bloomsbury, 2020) and O’Rourke, Covert. See also Gibbs’ view on the ‘internal threats’ rationale for secrecy. David Gibbs, ‘Secrecy and International Relations’, 219.

24. Smith, “Secret but Constrained: The Impact of Elite Opposition on Covert Operations,” 686 and 689.

25. Cormac and Aldrich, ‘Grey is the new black’.

26. Pozen, “The Leaky Leviathan”.

27. Banka and Quinn, “Killing Norms Softly”.

28. Stampnitzky, “Truth and consequences?” 5.

29. Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954, 297.

30. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. For an extensive discussion of the role of United Fruit in setting the stage for the intervention see Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations; Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention; Appy, ‘Eisenhower’s Guatemalan Doodle, or: How to Draw, Deny, and Take Credit for a Third World Coup’; Johnston Huntington, ‘Saving Face, Sacrificing Democracy: American Ontological Security and the 1954 Intervention in Guatemala’.

31. Callanan, Covert Action in the Cold War, 125.

32. Hadley, The Rising Clamor, 49–53.

33. Johnson, Spy Watching.

34. Manosevitz, ‘The Intelligence Politics of Early Congressional Oversight of CIA’.

35. Snider, The Agency and the Hill; Barrett, The CIA and Congress, and Barrett, ‘Glimpses’.

36. Barrett, “Congress, the CIA and Guatemala, 1954,” 23.

37. See Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala for the first view, Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, for the second.

38. Cook, “The Declassified Eisenhower: A Divided Legacy,” 221–25.

39. Dulles, “Memorandum RE: PB FORTUNE, March 8, 1953”.

40. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, 115.

41. Tofte, “Chief P/P Ops, Memorandum for the Record, ‘Senator Hickenlooper’s Statement on Guatemala’, November 24, 1953”.

42. Meeting, “Office of the DCI, DCI, CIA Officials, and Senator Hickenlooper, November 28, 1953”.

43. Ibid.

44. Memorandum for Senator Hickenlooper, Subject: ‘Background Information on Guatemala’.

45. See exchange of letters between Julius Cahn and Bernays, as well as Wiley’s public denials that he was in touch with United Fruit. Senator Wiley Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Box 15, Folder 18.

46. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, 115.

47. Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 262.

48. ‘Letter from Julius Cahn (Committee Counsel), to Edward Bernays, 15/1/1954’.

49. ”Letter Bernays to Cahn, Senator Wiley Papers”.

50. ”Memorandum from Jack Neal to Mr Holland (ARA), May 5, 1954”.

51. ”Letter from John M. Cabot to Wiley, February 9, 1954”.

52. Memo Pforzheimer to Dulles, January 13, 1954”.

53. Memorandum, Lunch Dulles – Saltonstall, January 18, 1954”.

54. Memorandum for DDP, 26 January 1954.

55. Wisner, “Memorandum for the DCI, February 1, 1954”.

56. Fulbright, Congressional Record, February 1, 1954.

57. Wisner, “Memorandum for the DCI, February 1, 1954”.

58. Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit, 163.

59. Bolton, Congressional Record, February 3, 1954.

60. ‘Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, February 15, 1954’.

61. See Margaret Chase Smith’s column ‘Washington and You’ in the Lewiston Sun, February 16, 1954

62. ‘Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 15 February 1954’.

63. Morton, “Letter to Wiley, February 23, 1954”.

64. Gleijeses, Shattered, 256.

65. ”189th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, March 18, 1954”.

66. ‘Executive Sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’, Volume 6, 83^rd Congress, 1954, 192

67. Gleijeses, Shattered, 265.

68. ”Memorandum, May 17, 1954”.

69. Barrett, The CIA and Congress, 155.

70. ”Lunch between Senator Knowland and DCI, DDCI, Acting DDP, Acting DDI, and Legislative Counsel for February 12, 1954”.

71. ”Deputies Meeting, February 15, 1954”.

72. ‘Memorandum for the Record, Weekly PBSUCCESS Meeting with DD/P, 9/3/1954’.

73. ”Pforzheimer Diary, April 1, 1954”.

74. Dulles, “Memorandum for the Record, ‘Project PBSUCCESS’”

75. ‘Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, April 4, 1954, Subject: Disadvantages and Damages Resulting from a Decision to Discontinue or Substantially Modify PBSUCCESS’.

76. ”Memorandum from [Redacted] to Wisner, April 22, 1954, Folder Weekly Psych Intelligence Report − 5–12 April 1954”.

77. ”Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Holland) to the Acting Secretary of State, April 20. 1954,” FRUS 1952–1954 The American Republics, Volume IV.

78. ”Excerpt From the Diary of James C. Hagerty, Press Secretary to the President, April 26, 1954”.

79. Barrett, The CIA, 163.

80. US House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Situation in Guatemala and Costa Rica,” 467.

81. Jackson, “Congressional Record, House, February 25, 1954’.

82. ”Telephone Conversation with Knowland, May 18, 1954, 11:38am”.

83. ”Telephone Conversation with AD, 18/5/1954, 5:10pm”.

84. White House Office, National Security Council Staff, Papers: 1948–1961

85. Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles, 380.

86. Gruson, “Guatemala Fails to Grasp US Concerns over Reds”.

87. Gruson, “US Stands on Arms Unites Guatemala”.

88. 199th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, May 27”.

89. ”Dulles as DCI Entry for May 28, 1954”.

90. Ibid.

91. ”Telegram from Director to [Redacted], Info: Lincoln, May 30, 1954”.

92. ”Memorandum, Cutler to Dulles, May 26, 1954, White House Office”.

93. ”Telegram from Director to [Redacted], Info: Lincoln, May 30, 1954”.

94. The codename for Armas.

95. ”Telegram from Director to [Redacted], Info: Lincoln, May 30, 1954”.

96. Potentially Hillings himself or someone with contacts in Congress.

97. ”Telegram from Director to [Redacted], Info: Lincoln, May 30, 1954”.

98. Barrett, The CIA, 163.

99. ”Telegram from [Redacted] to Director, June 14, 1954, Folder Official Routing Slip − 11 June 1954”.

100. The Washington Post ‘Red Plot to Seize Latin America Seen’, June 6, 1954.

101. ”Dulles as DCI, Undated, June 7, 1954”.

102. James Hagerty, Diary Entry, June 19, 1954.

103. McMahan, “Memorandum for the President’, June 20, 1954, Summary of the Situation in Guatemala Prepared by AWD”.

104. Immerman, The CIA, 152

105. Barrett, The CIA, 168.

106. ”Guatemala Briefing, Dated 5/6/1954”.

107. Pforzheimer, Diary 22 June 1954 Entry”.

108. ‘Memo from Robert Woodward (ARA) to Mr Raine and Mr Herron (ARA), June 23, 1954’.

109. Abell, Drew Pearson Diaries: 1949–1959, 323.

110. Holland, “Private Sources”.

111. Pawley, Russia is Winning, 343–44.

112. ”Memorandum for Holland, 25 June 1954, Reports Meeting between R. L. O’Connor and David Keyser”.

113. ”Statement by Democratic Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, 25/6/1954”.

114. ”Telephone Call from Senator Knowland, June 24, 1954, 11:50am”.

115. Appy, “Eisenhower’s Guatemalan Doodle, or: How to Draw, Deny, and Take Credit for a Third World Coup”.

116. ”Meeting with President and Congressional Leadership, June 28, 1954”.