Guatemala, 1950 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
In November 1950 the exiled Guatemalan officer Carlos Castillo Armas launched a failed armed assault on Guatemala City in an attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government, striking as Jacobo Arbenz won the presidential election that month. Castillo Armas, a protege of the slain Colonel Francisco Arana who had gone into exile in Honduras after Arana's failed 1949 revolt, had already come to the notice of the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency while seeking arms from Somoza and Trujillo. His November 1950 raid was swiftly crushed and he escaped back to Honduras, but the attempt confirmed him as a rallying figure for the anti-government exile networks. Four years later he would return at the head of the CIA's Operation PBSuccess to depose Arbenz in June 1954, becoming the first of a line of U.
S. backed strongmen.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
09011061950
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Juan Jose Arevalo's government survived, and president elect Jacobo Arbenz took office in March 1951; Arbenz was overthrown only in 1954.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
New York Herald Tribune
Los Angeles Times
Washington Post
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →