The Final Speech of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán

6/27/54

ARBENZ' SPEECH DELIVERED AT 0310-0320 EST.

Workers, peasants, patriots! Guatemala is going through a hard trial. A cruel war against Guatemala has been unleashed. The United Fruit Company and US monopolies, together with US ruling circles are responsible for ellipsis. Mercenaries have unleashed fire and death, respecting nothing. We all know how cities have been bombed and strafed, women and children have suffered. We know how representatives of workers and peasants have been murdered in occupied cities, especially in Bananera. That was an act of vengeance by the United Fruit Company. We are indignant over the cowardly attack by mercenary US fliers. They know Guatemala has no adequate air force so they try to sow panic. They bomb and strafe our forces preventing operations. Today they sank a ship taking on cotton in San Jose. In the name of what do they do these things? We all know what. They have taken the pretext of Communism. The truth is elsewhere -- in financial interests of the United Fruit Company and other US firms that have invested much in Guatemala. Time will show if what they say is true, but there are those who claim that Guatemala is the cause of what happens. My Government has been called Communist in nature. We have used every means to convince world reactionaries that what US Government circles say is untrue. After thinking it over I have taken a great decision of great importance for our country. I have decided to quit power, turn the executive over to Carlos Enrique Diaz, Chief of the Armed Forces. All social conquest will be kept. I believe that democratic political organizations and all other popular organizations should give him full support. I ask this as my last act as governing man. I have had to fight in very difficult conditions. The sovereignty of a nation is not maintained without material elements for defense. I am thinking only of the people. I think it is my duty to contribute to save what we have gained. The military situation is not difficult, not at all. The enemy commanding barbarous mercenaries is incompetent, cowardly. We have seen this in the few battles fought. The enemy took Chiquimula only by air power. I took presidency with great faith in the democratic system, in freedom, in the idea that economic independence could be won. I still believe the program is fair. My faith in democratic freedom, in the independence of Guatemala has not been lost. Some day the enemy forces will be defeated. I am still a combatant of freedom and progress for my country. I say goodbye with sorrow, but firm in my convictions. These years of sacrifice and fight and the arguments of the enemy have not defeated me. Rather the material elements he has for destruction. Unless we do away with our powerful enemies' pretext Guatemala might be destroyed. I thank deeply for their collaboration the many good servitors of the nation -- the officials, public employees and especially the Civil Guard and Army. I thank you from my heart for the support of PAR, PRG, PRN, PGT, popular organizations like CGTG and CNCG. They have defended the wishes of the people. In my heart I do think I am making a mistake. Only the future can say. Let peace be restored. Let the gains be kept. With the satisfaction of having done my duty I say long live the October Revolution! Long Live Guatemala!

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Arbenz declared "Deep within my conscience I do not think I am making a mistake. The day will come when there will be triumph for loyal Guatemalans under Colonel Dias."

After this resignation announcement, it was announced that the Guatemalan Constitution had been suspended.

Subject: Youth International Party (YIP)

1. Allegedly conceived during a New Year's Eve party on 31 December 1967 in Greenwich Village, New York City, the YOUTH INTERNATIONAL PARTY (YIP) has been referred to as "the first attempt to give social direction to the drug movement." The "founders" of YIP included: Jerry Clyde RUBIN, organizer and leader of numerous demonstrations opposing U.S. activities in Vietnam; Abbot [sic] Howard (Abbie) HOFFMAN, hippie leader at the 1967 Pentagon demonstration; Paul J. KRASSNER, editor of The Realist; Edward SANDERS, leader of "The Fugs," a rock group; Keith R. LAMPE; and, possibly, Stewart Edward ALBERT, active opponent of the Vietnam war.

2. The first published announcement of the formation of YIP appeared in a "throwaway" on a Liberation News Service letterhead as a 16 January 1968 press release datelined New York City, with HOFFMAN, RUBIN, KRASSNER, and SANDERS listed as founders. What the founders had in common was the use of LSD, other mind-expanding drugs, and marijuana. They considered themselves "revolutionary artists" devoted to the "politics of ectasy [sic]." RUBIN has described their politics as "wild in the streets." Both RUBIN and HOFFMAN glory in violent encounter with authority.

3. The YIP has no leaders, no elected officers, no formal structure, no members. It is not a real organization, but has been functioning as a sort of New Left coordinating group, utilizing the extensive underground press network to broadcast "its gospel of protest and ridicule of the establishment." RUBIN, HOFFMAN, and KRASSNER have been described as "non-leaders" who have given "credence" to YIP myths by "their prestige in the news media."

4. In early March 1968, an undated YIP announcement of "an international youth festival" in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in August was distributed. In this, the YIP was referred to as "a new coalition of forces." The announcement urged the public to participate. At a news conference in Chicago on 25 March, spokesman for the New Left and anti-war groups announced a coalition to cooperate with the YIP on the August "love-in" in Chicago. Allen GINSBURG [sic] and Dr. Timothy LEARY had attended the weekend planning conference preceding this announcement as "YIP observers." The YIP then wrote Mayor Daley of Chicago requesting facilities in the parks for "thousands" of young Americans who would be coming to Chicago in August. RUBIN announced on 19 March YIP plans for offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. At a May YIP meeting, HOFFMAN announced there was no YIP movement in Chicago and that the Blackstone Rangers had no interest in YIP plans.

5. On 14 April the YIP held a music festival in Central Park, New York City. On 29 April LAMPE stated at a press conference that the YIP could call up 700 people in a half hour to prevent police from removing striking students from Columbia University. On the evening of 24 May, some 100 hippies led by RUBIN and HOFFMAN harassed police in St. Marks Square.

6. Planning for the Chicago Confrontation continued during June and July. HOFFMAN was the main speaker at a 5 August meeting of Veterans and Reservists against the war in Vietnam. He said that about 1,000 would be "trained" and that the day when the Democratic candidate was nominated would be the "big day." He further stated that the YIP would be dissolved after the Convention as it had been conceived solely for the purpose of countering the Convention. On 10 July a YIP survival manual prepared by HOFFMAN was published in New York in 10,000 copies. The $1,000 for this project came from the Urban Task Force through the Judson Memorial Church.

7. A number of YIPPIES were arrested in connection with the disturbances in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. HOFFMAN and RUBIN were indicted by the Federal Grand Jury in Chicago. Trial is scheduled in October 1969. RUBIN described Chicago as "a high speed, high intensity course in street insurrection."

8. After the Convention, RUBIN and HOFFMAN announced that the YIP would hold another "Festival of Life" in Washington on inauguration day, 20 January 1969. A group of YIPPIES participated in counter-inaugural activities, including the smashing of windows in stores, churches, banks, and other buildings, but they failed in their efforts to break up the inaugural parade.

9. On 13 February 1969, the YIP handled the mailing of several thousand Valentine greetings containing marijuana cigarettes.

10. The relationship between the YIP and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) apparently has never been overly friendly. YIP leader HOFFMAN, in the 3 April 1969 issue of "The East Village Other" charged SDS national office with failure to support the YIP and asserted his own agreement with charges by Black Panther Julius LESTER that the SDS was racist. HOFFMAN asserted that the SDS claimed to be the "vanguard of the white revolution," but had no national officers in trouble with the U.S. Government. He further stated that the SDS goal was similar to that of Castro's Cuba, i.e., everything free. HOFFMAN concluded his article by commenting that his "attack" on SDS was undertaken with the hope of ironing out differences between the YIP and SDS.

11. As of July 1969, the YIP had virtually ceased to exist as a functioning organization.

--CIA report, 1969

CIA Profile: Jerry Clyde Rubin

Jerry Rubin, one of two "Conspiracy 8" defendants who came to the Chicago trial under arrest and in the custody of U.S. marshalls, is a co-founder and leader of the Youth International Party (Yippies), and is said to be the "brains" behind the movement. He was a key leader in the 1967 student sit-ins at Berkeley; acted as coordinator of the October 1967 march on the Pentagon; and is an experienced organizer of war protests.

Rubin has been prominent during the trial, if for no other reason than his unconventional dress in court, a yellow and red-striped polo shirt, and the clowning he has indulged in with fellow Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman. He also, however, has featured as the target of much testimony by witnesses for the prosecution, who have related various incidents of his inciting demonstrators during the Convention riots in Chicago, some of which incidents have been detailed in previous Situation Reports.

Rubin was born on 14 July 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio; graduated in 1956 from Cincinnati's Walnut Hills High School, which is described as having then been "the goal of Jewish mothers with sixth graders"; and in 1961 received an AB degree in American history from the University of Cincinnati. He attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem during 1962-1963; and upon his return to the United States entered the University of California at Berkeley as a graduate student in sociology, but remained for only two months. Thereafter, in the summer of 1964, in a group of eighty-four, he visited Cuba, in violation of State Department regulations, on a trip sponsored by the pro-Castro Student Committee for Travel to Cuba.

It was following this visit to Cuba that Rubin entered upon his New Left career. As one newspaper account expressed it, he became: "Jerry Rubin, public troublemaker, blocking troop trains in California, running for mayor of Berkeley, organizing the march on the Pentagon, getting busted in Chicago." The same April 1969 Washington Post account stated that, "At thirty-one, he lives in a strange man-boy world, completely cynical about manipulating the media, rushing to a TV set so he can see his 'rap' on the evening news, calculating what will drive adults up the wall...(but that) At the same time he is intensely earnest in his role as Marxist preacher to the young."

Rubin, in 1967, was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Berkeley, California, on a platform which opposed the Vietnam war and "American imperialism", and espoused Black Power and the legalization of marijuana.

In the fall of 1967, Rubin and Dick Gregory founded the Youth International Party; and in 1968 Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panther Party suggested that Rubin run for Vice President on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket, on which he was to be the Presidential candidate. (However, at the New York Peace and Freedom Party Convention in July 1968, another was named as "interim candidate for Vice President.") As of August 1968, when the National Democratic Convention began, Rubin was the Chicago organizer for the Youth International Party.

Since launching his new militant career, Rubin has been arrested on a number of occasions: On 24 August 1965, in San Francisco with a group demonstrating against General Maxwell Taylor; on 19 August 1966, in Washington, D.C., for causing a disturbance during a session of the House Committee on Un-American Activities; on 30 November 1966, for demonstrating on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley; on 13 June 1968, in New York City, on a charge of possessing marijuana; and twice in August 1968, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, on charges of disorderly conduct, mob action, and resisting arrest.

Rubin can possibly best be pictured by quoting his own words, notably statements made by him in an article he wrote for Evergreen magazine (May 1969) titled: "A Yippie Manifesto". In this he describes the Yippies as a "revolutionary religious movement" and states that: "The religion of the Yippies is 'Rise Up and Abandon the Creeping Meatball!!' That means anything you want it to mean. Which is why it is so powerful a revolutionary slogan." Rubin promotes the much-quoted Yippie warning, "Don't trust anyone over thirty!", but says: "We are born twice. My first birth was in 1938 but I was reborn in 1964 in the Free Speech movement...I am four years old." According to Rubin, Bertrand Russell, age ninety, "is our leader."

Regarding the war in Vietnam, Rubin has stated: "The purpose of the Vietnam war is to get rid of the blacks. They are a nuisance. America got the work she needed out of blacks but now has no use for them." "It's a psychological war. The old send the young to die for the old." He sees the U.S.A. as "a military bully in Vietnam."

Some of Rubin's Yippie pronouncements:
"We fight to...do what we want to do whenever we want to do it."
"Prohibitions should be prohibited. Never say No."
"Rules are made to be broken."
"Property is theft. What America got, she stole."
"How was this country built? By the forced labor of slaves. American owes black people billions in compensation."
"'Capitalism' is just a polite schoolboy way of saying: 'Stealing.'"
(Money, according to Rubin should be burned and during rallies he often has demonstrated its burning. Wall Street businessmen are "money freaks".)
"America is a loony bin."
"America does not suffer a cold; she has cancer."

Rubin claims that young whites are dropping out of "white society" with its middle class institutions, schools and homes, and forming their own communities. "We are becoming the new niggers. ... Within our communities we have the seeds of a new society. We have our own communications network, the underground press. We have the beginnings of a new family structure in communes. We have our own stimulants." Their long hair, he says, "is vital to us because it enables us to recognize each other. We have whtie skins like our oppressors. Long hair ties us together into a visible counter-community." The "smell", (and by implication of the dirt) of which he says "white society" accuses the Yippies, he dismisses with the statement: "That's what they used to say about the black people, remember? They don't say that about black people anymore. They would get punched in their _____ mouths." Rubin's speech and his writings are larded with the use of four letter obscenities.

Despite his jester-like appearance and "kookie" ideas, Rubin is sometimes a keen analyst of human nature. He has noted that: "We (Yippies) are a new generation, species, race. We are bred on affluence, turned on by drugs, at home in our bodies, and excited by the future and its possibilities. Everything for us is an experience...we live off the fat of society. Our fathers worked all year around for a two-week vacation. Our entire life is a vacation." Another of his observations is: "The economy is closed. It does not need us. Everything is built."

Rubin frequently makes outlandish statements--some of which even he couldn't intent to be taken seriously. Others, he obviously does believe in and it is sometimes hard to tell what he actually means to say. For example: "Everyone in the world should vote in American elections, because America controls the world. The Vietnamese have more right to vote in the American elections than some 80-year-old grandmother in Omaha. ...I am in favor of lowering the voting age to 12 or 14 years. And I am not sure whether people over 50 should vote. It's the young kids who are going to live in this world in the next 50 years. They should choose what they want for themselves."

Rubin, like the other "Conspiracy 8" defendants, has spent much of his time during the last year lecturing to obtain funds; and he has continued his agitating even while on trial. On 14 October, the eve of Moratorium day, eh spoke on the Berkeley campus of the University of California to some two thousand students, following a talk by former Chancellor Dr. Clark Kerr during which James R. Retherford, former editor of a New Left newspaper at the University, threw a pie in Dr. Kerr's face and was arrested. Rubin spoke of the injustices of the Chicago trial--following which five hundred marched to the jail to support Retherford, and a rock was thrown through the Police Department window.

--Central Intelligence Agency report, 1969

CIA Special Report: Democratic National Convention

The following hard information has been received from sources considered reliable and represent the more noteworthy developments in the current demonstration and resistance atmosphere surrounding the Democratic National Convention.

At approximately 4 P.M., 28 August, about one hundred members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference including the Reverends Abernathy and Young, began a peaceful march to the Hilton Hotel. Augmented by thousands of Hippies, the original one hundred marchers soon grew to a crowd of from 3000 to 5000. Upon reaching the vicinity of the Hotel, Hippies in the group attempted to rush the Hilton and the conflict with police and troops was on. Prior to the outbreak of violence, Abernathy and Young left the march and departed for the Convention Amphitheater.

Early in the evening of 28 August 1968, thousands of dissidents gathered in Grant Park, heard speeches and pep talks by Dave Dellinger, leader of the New Left, Tom Newman of the Hippie movement and Dick Gregory. Many of the participants in this rally later moved on the Hilton Hotel and joined in the battle with the authorities.

Jerry Rubin, leader of the Yippies, was arrested during the height of the conflict and charged with inciting to riot. It had been reported earlier that Rubin had been frightened by the rough action and was going to remove himself from the scene.

Other dissident leaders arrested during the course of the day included anti-war spokesman Staughton Lind, Abbie Hoffman, a leader of the Yippies and David Wyatt, an official in both the Yippie and Hippie groups.

Picketing demonstrations, planned by the National Mobilization Committee, are to take place all day Thursday, 29 August 1968 at the following locations: U.S. Army Induction Center, Chicago Police Headquarters, Federal Building, Welfare Offices and major Loop banks that conduct business in South Africa.

Number dissident groups such as the Radical Organizing Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, Womens Liberation, West Side Organization and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference plan meetings and/or demonstrations for Thursday, 29 August 1968.

--Central Intelligence Agency, August 29, 1968

Conversation with U.S. Student Ifshin Reported

[Interview with National Committee Member of the Association of American Students David Ifshin; Montevideo, Uruguay, El Popular, Spanish, 15 October 1971, p 2]

Hours before the government, in one more demonstration of its hatred of liberties and its scorn for rights and constitutional rules, expelled him from the country (the only Americans acceptable in the eyes of the government are inspectors from the IMF or agents of the CIA), we had the opportunity to chat with David Ifshin, former president of the National Association of American Students (grouping student associations of 500 of the 800 universities in his country), who visited Uruguay after participating in the Congress of Solidarity with Vietnam, which was organized in Santiago, Chile by the IUS and the WFDY. Ifshin, who has visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and who currently belongs to the national committee of the Association of American Students, participated at Santiago as an observer for the association.

Question: What are the most important characteristics of the American student movement?

Answer: Until now, the student movement has centered its efforts especially on the struggle against the war in Vietnam and for integration of the black people. Another subject which mobilizes American students is the question of university reform.

Question: What do students demands concerning the reform consist of?

Answer: It is being demanded that the existing competitive system in the universities for achieving better qualifications and better positions be done away with. This is the present system, and it represents an application of the success theory to the university environment. This theory was very important as a factor for mobilization. But it was understood that what is behind this system is the capitalist structure, which finds expression through competition, as in racial discrimination or in the war in Vietnam. Developments in the struggles have brought the students and the black population to understand that the struggle for partial objectives has no future and that it is a question of involving the entire social and economic structure. One of the important elements in helping to clarify the issue was the slaughter at Attica.

Question: Was this reflected in the movement?

Answer: There is one chief contradiction within the students' and people's movement. Having a greater awareness of what the real problem behind each of these expressions is, and beginning to face up to a general questioning of the capitalist structure, there still exist sectors which center their struggle around a particular demand -- some for improvements, others for women's rights, others for the war in Vietnam, and others for university reform. This means that despite a growing awareness of the total problem, difficulties which hold back the development of the movement remain due to this attention to partial demands.

Question: How is this problem met?

Answer: The struggle against the war in Vietnam has been taken at the center, and through this an attempt is made to unify the movement. Last spring one of the largest demonstrations for putting a stop to the war in Vietnam took place. Even the reactionary American press admitted that more than half a million persons took part in this demonstration. Students, workers, union leaders, and even important personalities, congressmen, and senators took part. It was called by the National Action Coalition for Peace and the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice, which not only called for the demonstration, but also for the application of civil disobedience measures. I mention in passing that the association of students belongs to both coalitions.

At the head of the demonstration was the Truckers' Union, one of the largest in the country, which takes part in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, as well as many other unions. In addition -- and for the first time -- veterans of the Vietnam War, in uniform, took part in the demonstration for 5 days, opposing the government and the Supreme Court. This is the first time in the history of the United States that war veterans have participated against a war that was still going on. This protest demonstration continued for a week and was headlined nationally. The Supreme Court order the veterans to withdraw. They refused, and Nixon did not feel encouraged to give the police a public order to throw them out by force, although that was the order requested. There was one point at which the police refused to repress the veterans. For that reason -- because that atmosphere existed -- Nixon did not have the courage to give a public order for them to be thrown out. The veterans camped at night in a park near the Supreme Court. This demonstration took place in Washington. Many of the veterans who took part in it had been crippled in the war.

Even the reactionary press commented in its headlines that the war veterans disregarded the Supreme Court. Many of these veterans appeared voluntarily to accuse themselves as war criminals for having been in Vietnam.

It is becoming understood more and more that the war in Vietnam is not an isolated problem, but only the most severe and the most concrete example of American imperialism: something that can happen in Vietnam, as in Bolivia, Uruguay, or another part of the world.

Question: Particularly, in Latin America...?

Answer: Especially at this time, the subject of Latin America is entering a crucial period, according to [copy unclear; possibly intended to read: as is understandable]. The U.S. Government has not defined a policy for Latin America because it finds no way in which to explain it to the American people. The movement is trying to create awareness, so that people will understand the imperialist maneuver before action takes place and not afterward, as happened in Vietnam.

I think that the conditions are being created and that we are arriving at a point at which it will be possible to restrain aggression, for example, of the Santo Domingo type. Nixon is keeping the U.S. policy more and more a secret and deceiving the American people, because the people's movement is becoming a force capable of checking aggression. The government is going to have to think twice before carrying out an attack or an invasion. Even the U.S. military power has been broken. The Army wants to get out of Vietnam, despite the fact that 10 years ago it wanted to go into Vietnam. It must be said that the morale of the soldiers in Vietnam has hit bottom. More than 20 percent of the soldiers are drug addicts. Of course, Nixon lies to the people. He is trying to sue not soldiers, but mechanized warfare: bombing raids, for example, in order to avoid casualties and the participation of soldiers in combat. He thinks that he can keep the war more or less secret, to the extent that there are no dead soldiers. Our work is directed toward making people understand that the problem is not one of dead soldiers but of imperialist aggression.

Question: What is the government doing about the movement?

Answer: Nixon responds on many levels. The first thing was to say that the movement was violent, irresponsible, and controlled by foreign powers; that is, the use of anticommunism. But it is very easy to answer this, because all the violence of the movement cannot be compared to U.S. violence in 1 day of war in Vietnam. I must say that the attacks against the left have strengthened the left.

In addition, they have again had recourse to supposedly liberal methods, saying that the United States is a free country and that everyone can express himself as long as he is not violent, also that anyone who tries to do something is an extremist. They also accuse the leaders with criminal charges, as in the case of Angela Davis or Bobby Seale, one of the leaders of the Black Panthers, who was jailed with the other leaders, and who was released recently. They try to isolate the leaders of the movement in addition to attempting to frighten the movement.

They also make it necessary to divert forces, since the struggle to liberate the prisoners draws off forces, requires much effort, money, and so on.

Question: What do the American people think of Latin America?

Answer: The American people know very little about Latin America. They have been indoctrinated with false ideas. Many of my leftist friends did not understand why I was coming to Latin America. Only one sector of the left is really aware of what is happening in Latin America. For that reason I think it is very important to coordinate our forces and our movements in order to make more information available concerning what is happening. I think we have much to learn from Latin American experiments such as Popular Unity in Chile, the Broad Front in Uruguay, and the National Assembly of the Argentines. Many people in the United States think Latin America is limited to Bolivia, Cuba, and Mexico. I believe that the meeting in Chile was very important, but I think that more open contacts must be made in order to make better coordination easier.

--Transmitted by the CIA as part of Operation MHCHAOS