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Inside Guatemala, tension rose to the boil. Labor and peasants presented with farms of their own under the land-reform program pledged loyalty to Arbenz and the Communists; the remote Indians, as ever, were mute and apart. But in the capital, which had elected an anti-Communist mayor in 1951, the government discovered "plot" after "plot"—and across the border in Honduras, Castillo Armas was almost ready.
By the dozens, the regime's opponents fled to asylum in foreign embassies; the Salvadorans had barely put 18 such guests on a departing airliner when twelve more showed up. Arbenz clamped on a state of emergency, drastically censored the press and cables. Secret police in black berets drifted everywhere; cops with rifles slung over their backs patrolled the streets on bicycles. The jails filled up with prisoners.
Terrorist killings followed. The body of Alfredo Abularach Sabagg, a salesman who had been inexplicably arrested and jailed a few days before, was returned to his family with the curt explanation: "Suicide." A post-mortem showed one arm broken, the sole of one foot burned, general bruises, and a bullet hole in the back of his head. Secretary of State Dulles spoke out bluntly against this "reign of terror" in a press conference. President Eisenhower added the weight of his disapproval and deep regret.
Quiet Question. All Arbenz' Communist support might do him little good, in a showdown, if his army deserted him. How stood the army? Arbenz had fattened it with increased pay and had given his officers elegant clubs and low-price commissaries. He had trimmed out the despised "line" (i.e., up from the ranks) officers and replaced them with fellow military-school men. The officers were glad to get new equipment, even Red arms —but they had little use for Communism.
Early last week a group of them came to Arbenz' mahogany-paneled office, and their spokesman, Colonel Ruben Gonzalez Sigui, posed a quiet, pregnant question.
"Señor Presidents " he asked, "to what extent is Communist support indispensable to the regime's stability?" He also wanted assurance that the new arms would not be handed out to unions and peasants. Arbenz looked up, pleasantly asked the officers to put their questions in writing, then asked Sigui: "By the way, colonel, what is your position in this matter?" Said Sigui: "I am anti-Communist." Next day Arbenz dismissed him from command. The other officers elaborately denied that they had given Arbenz anything like an ultimatum to break with the Reds.
Arbenz turned next to the diplomatic front, instructing Foreign Minister Tori-ello to demand an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Under this month's president, U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the council met this week for a tense, five-hour session.