{ "item_title" : "Operation PBSUCCESS", "item_author" : [" Duygu Yesilcimen "], "item_description" : "In June 1954, a small rebel force crossed into Guatemala. On paper, it should have had little chance against the country's national army. Yet within days, President Jacobo Árbenz was gone.How did a covert operation built on propaganda, psychological pressure, clandestine networks, air attacks, political uncertainty, and a force numbering only in the hundreds help bring down an elected government?Operation PBSUCCESS takes readers inside one of the most consequential covert actions of the early Cold War, revealing the complex struggle behind the CIA-backed campaign that helped overthrow Árbenz and reshape Guatemala's political future.The story begins long before the invasion. It traces the fall of dictatorship in 1944, the Guatemalan Revolution, the presidencies of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz, and the ambitious agrarian reform known as Decree 900. It examines why land redistribution became so politically explosive, how United Fruit Company became entangled in the growing confrontation, and why Washington increasingly viewed developments in Guatemala through the lens of communist expansion.From the abandoned PBFORTUNE operation to the creation of PBSUCCESS, the book follows the CIA's secret preparations, Carlos Castillo Armas and his exile forces, training and staging operations in neighboring countries, the Voice of Liberation propaganda campaign, covert air operations, and the tense invasion of June 1954.But this was not a conventional military victory.The Guatemalan army remained far stronger than Castillo Armas's forces. The decisive battle was increasingly fought through fear, perception, political isolation, and uncertainty about how far the United States was prepared to go. As pressure mounted, the loyalty of Guatemala's officer corps became more important than territory captured on the battlefield.The book also follows what came after Árbenz: the military juntas, the rise of Castillo Armas, the dismantling of agrarian reform, political repression, and the longer legacy of 1954 in a country that would later endure decades of internal armed conflict.Carefully separating documented events from disputed interpretations, Operation PBSUCCESS avoids reducing the coup to a single cause. United Fruit mattered. Anti-communism mattered. Domestic opposition mattered. So did the decisions made by Guatemalans themselves.For readers interested in CIA history, Cold War covert operations, Latin American history, political warfare, intelligence operations, Jacobo Árbenz, United Fruit Company, and the hidden history of American foreign policy, this book offers a detailed, accessible account of how a secret operation helped change the course of a nation.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/817/251/9798172513305_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "14.99", "online_price" : "14.99", "our_price" : "14.99", "club_price" : "14.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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