On the night of March 30 to 31, 1963, the Guatemalan army overthrew President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, imposing a curfew at 8 pm; gunfire sounded through Guatemala City overnight, and by 6 am the army announced over the radio that Ydigoras, with a year left in his term, had been deposed, with Defense Minister Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia assuming control for the good of the nation. The coup's real target was not the anti-communist Ydigoras but former president Juan Jose Arevalo (1945 to 1951), who had slipped back into the country from Mexican exile days earlier to run in the November elections he stood a real chance of winning. The action was executed mainly by the Guardia de Honor and Mariscal Zavala garrisons in the capital, and accounts hold that the Kennedy administration encouraged and supported the move to block Arevalo.
Peralta suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress, and banned the communist PGT, ruling until power passed to an elected civilian, Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro, in July 1966, while the coup launched the military civilian alliance that dominated Guatemala until the 1980s.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, deposed overnight with roughly a year left in his elected term; he was not physically harmed. The coup was aimed less at him than at preventing Juan Jose Arevalo's electoral comeback.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Enrique Peralta Azurdia (defense minister, coup leader, head of government 1963 to 1966)
Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes (deposed president)
Juan Jose Arevalo (former president whose return triggered the coup)
Catalino Chavez (colonel, first presidential designate, co-leader of the action)
Sources
An army curfew was imposed at 8 pm and gunfire rattled through Guatemala City during the night; by 6 am the army announced by radio that President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, with a year to go in his six year term, had been overthrown, with Defense Minister Enrique Peralta Azurdia in command of a military junta; the coup was designed to prevent the comeback of Juan Jose Arevalo, who had promised to return on March 31 to run in the November elections and had already slipped into the country before disappearing from view.
SOURCE REVIEWEDTIME, Guatemala: Coup Against the Left (contemporary archive report)open source ↗
The coup ousted the Ydigoras administration and installed a junta under Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia that governed until the restoration of civilian rule in 1966, handing power to Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro on July 1; its aim, instigated and supported by the Kennedy administration according to this account, was not to depose the anti-communist Ydigoras as such but to prevent the imminent electoral victory of Juan Jose Arevalo, and the action was executed mainly by the Guardia de Honor and Mariscal Zavala garrisons under Peralta and Colonel Catalino Chavez.
Peralta came to power via the coup overthrowing Ydigoras on March 31, 1963, then suspended the constitution, dissolved the Congress, and banned the communist party PGT; in 1964 he ended press censorship and lifted the state of emergency, and his government continued repressive operations against left-wing rebels in the civil war.
Peralta, defense minister since December 1960 after backing Ydigoras against an attempted military coup, led the overthrow when Ydigoras allowed former president Arevalo to return to campaign for the presidency; as head of government from 1963 to 1966 he launched the military civilian alliance that ruled Guatemala from 1963 to 1986 and strengthened military control in the countryside.
SOURCE REVIEWEDEncyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (via Encyclopedia.com), Peralta Azurdia, Enriqueopen source ↗
Editorial Note
Date discrepancy: the dataset and Spanish language accounts date the coup March 30, the Peralta biography says March 31, and the contemporary report describes an action running overnight from the evening of March 30 into the morning of March 31. The claim of United States instigation is prominent in the secondary literature and attributed to Kennedy administration deliberations; it is recorded here as reported rather than independently established. Arc link: the coup belongs to the same 1962 to 1963 wave of anti-electoral military interventions as Argentina and Peru, enriched in batch 13.
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:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, deposed overnight with roughly a year left in his elected term; he was not physically harmed. The coup was aimed less at him than at preventing Juan Jose Arevalo's electoral comeback..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
“GUATEMALA RULE SEIZED BY ARMY; BAN ON REDS SEEN Defense Minister Is Head of New Regime–Ydigoras Arrives in Nicaragua CHARTER IS SUSPENDED Legislature Dissolved and Political Activity Barred– Capital Generally Calm GUATEMALA RULE SEIZED BY ARMY,” April 1, 1963
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 →