The black Ford carrying the four American military men swung away from the headquarters of the U.S. military mission in Guatemala City, and headed down Avenida de las Americas. Ten blocks from the mission, a dark green sedan carrying three men pulled alongside, and one of them suddenly opened up with a machine gun. "I instinctively hit the dirt," recalled Sgt. Major John R. Forster, who was wounded in the hand. Chief Petty Officer Harry Green caught a bullet in the spine. Sitting in the front seat, Colonel John D. Webber, 47, head of the mission and driver of the car, and Lieut. Commander Ernest A. Munro, 40, chief of the mission's naval section, took the full force of the fusillade and died almost instantly as the car came squealing to a halt. The four Americans were casualties in a fresh outburst of lethal feuding between left-and right-wing Guatemalan extremists that has claimed more than 25 lives in the past month.
In a way, Webber and Munro were the victims of Webber's own success in Guatemala. When the tough career officer arrived in Guatemala 18 months ago, 200 Communist guerrillas were terrorizing the countryside. Webber immediately expanded counterinsurgency training within Guatemala's 5,000-man army, brought in U.S. Jeeps, trucks, communications equipment and helicopters to give the army more firepower and mobility, and breathed new life into the army's civic-action program.
Civilian Collaborators. Toward the end of 1966, as civic-action teams pushed ahead with new roads and schools in the interior and established the first real rapport with the campesinos, the army was able to launch a major drive against guerrilla strongholds in the Sierra de las Minas in north eastern Guatemala. To aid in the drive, the army also hired and armed local bands of "civilian collaborators" licensed to kill peasants whom they considered guerrillas or "potential" guerrillas. There were those who doubted the wisdom of encouraging such measures in violence-prone Guatemala, but Webber was not among them. "That's the way this country is," he said. "The Communists are using everything they have, including terror. And it must be met."
With the war going against them, many guerrillas sought refuge in the capital, joining forces with urban terrorists who had been relatively quiet. Then, early last month, President Julio César Méndez Montenegro ordered an increase in the sales tax and bus fares, and the terrorism that had been largely confined to the countryside flared up in the capital. Communist fire bombs exploded in Guatemala City's two largest department stores, causing more than $1,000,000 in damage.
Looking for Blood. In response, clandestine bands of rightist terrorists went looking for blood. One night they carried off a 26-year-old former beauty queen who was proud of her left-wing sympathies, raped her and beat her to death with rifle butts. Vowing to avenge her murder, leftist terrorists drove up to the home of a Guatemalan army colonel early last week and machine-gunned one of his guards. The next day a leftist lawyer was gunned down with his bodyguard, and a right-wing politician was shot in front of his home. A few hours later, Webber and Munro were killed, caught in the savage crossfire of Guatemalan politics.