Guatemala, 1955 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an attempted military coup in Guatemala on 20 January 1955, in the first months of the government of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, who had taken power in July 1954 through the CIA's Operation PBSuccess that ousted the reformist President Jacobo Arbenz. Castillo Armas headed a counterrevolutionary junta that rolled back the Guatemalan Revolution's reforms, cancelled the agrarian program, restored expropriated United Fruit Company land, purged and imprisoned suspected communists, and disenfranchised illiterate voters, while consolidating personal rule confirmed by a rigged October 1954 plebiscite. His narrow, faction ridden regime faced military conspiracies from the outset.
Any coup attempt in January 1955 came within that instability and did not topple him; Castillo Armas ruled until he was assassinated by a member of his own palace guard on 26 July 1957.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
09001201955- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-90-1955-01-20
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Carlos Castillo Armas survived the attempt and ruled until his assassination on 26 July 1957.
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
CSP
Luttwak
New York Times
Times of India
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 →