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Latin Americans generally assumed that the U.S. was in Castillo Armas' corner and after he invaded Guatemala, a dank breeze of Communist-abetted anti-Yankeeism swept through some of the hemisphere's countries. Students squawked in demonstrations in Panama, Uruguay, Chile Peru, Cuba, Argentina and Honduras: a U.S. flag was burned in Chile. But there was none of that in Guatemala, where the U.S. role was understood and deeply appreciated. As the overthrown regime's victims were dug out of their graves and the luckier survivors emerged from their cells Guatemalans raised grateful cheers for the U.S. and for Ambassador Peurifoy.
Off to Asylum. The Arbenz crowd meanwhile, had scuttled to asylum. Many of them found the Mexican embassy, right across the street, the handiest. There went most of the Guatemalan Congress. There went the major Communists: Presidential Adviser Jose Manuel Fortuny, Labor Leader Victor Manuel Gutierrez, Peasant Boss Leonardo Castillo Flores, Editor Alfredo Guerra Borges. There went ex-Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello.
And there, too, went Jacobo Arbenz—after first forcing the Government Development Bank to extend a second mortgage on his cotton farm for $200,000 payable to his wife. He is also accused of having taken funds from the Treasury. Other government fat cats, who had done their looting earlier, were in the Salvadoran embassy; their six 1954 Cadillacs crowded the ambassadorial courtyard.
Political refugees, by convention, are supposed to get safe-conducts out of the country. But the mob of holed-up Arbenzistas may have difficulties. Opinion has swung violently against the Red regime.
Mobs plundered Arbenz' luxurious house (finding, among more valuable spoils, stacks of Communist propaganda and four bags of earth, one each from Russia, China, Siberia and Mongolia). More ominously, a Communist judge who last year sent four alleged plotters to death without trial was himself executed by a firing squad. That showed that the new junta means business with any Communist criminals it can get its hands on.