An army curfew was imposed at 8 p.m., and during the night, gunfire rattled through the streets of Guatemala City. By 6 a.m., the army went on the radio with an announcement for Guatemala's 3,800,000 people. President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, 67, the cagy old soldier who had only a year to go before completing his elected six-year term of office, had been overthrown. In command of a military junta was Defense Minister Enrique Peralta Azurdia, 54, who was assuming control for the "good of the nation."
The coup was not aimed at Ydigoras—one of Central America's stoutest anti-Castro fighters, though weakened by a corrupt and ineffective regime at home. It was, instead, designed to prevent the comeback of a man cordially hated both by Ydigoras and his soldiers: Juan José Arévalo, 58, President of Guatemala from 1945 to 1951, an anti-Yankee (The Shark and the Sardines) leftist who permitted Communists in his government. Living in exile in Mexico City, Arévalo promised to return to Guatemala on March 31, install himself as a presidential candidate in next November's elections. With Ydigoras constitutionally unable to succeed himself, Arévalo had a chance of winning: coffee prices were high in the late 1940s, and people remember the good times.
Last week, as Arévalo's return drew near, Guatemala was declared in a "state of siege," and travel was restricted. Somehow Arévalo slipped through the net into Guatemala. In a secret interview to newsmen he called himself a democrat: "I do not like Communism and will not be a Communist." Then he disappeared. A few hours later, the military made their move. A communiqué after the coup promised to restore constitutional rights "when the country is ready,'' and "extremists have been eradicated."