In June 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris took a tour of Latin America.

On June 7th, Harris delivered a speech during her stay in the Central American country of Guatemala.

As she delivered her remarks, Harris shared the stage with Guatemala's right-wing president, Alejandro Giamate.

A head of Harris' visit, protesters in Guatemala, took to the streets to complain about recent actions taken by Giamate.

Over the first half of 2021, Giamate has arrested prosecutors and activists responsible for the arrest of a previous Guatemalan president on corruption charges.

According to Reuters, Secretary of State Tony Blinken placed a call on June 4th to his counterpart in Guatemala to officially express the displeasure of the United States with Giamate's actions.

But three days later, Harris was in Guatemala at a podium right alongside Giamate.

She didn't say anything about the crackdown on the Guatemalan left and anti-corruption activists over the past few months.

Instead, as the voice of America, the U.S. government-funded news agency put it,

quote,

Harris emphasizes power of hope to keep Latin Americans from migrating to U.S.

and leave if you come to our border, you will be turned back.

Welcome to Blowback. I'm Noah Colwyn, and welcome to the first bonus episode of season two.

Now, this episode is going to be a brief overview of the American government's successful 1954 covert plot to thwart the Guatemalan revolution

and to overthrow Guatemala's left-wing leader, a Kobo Arbens.

Now, this season of our show is about Cuba.

But, as we talk about in our main story episodes, the Guatemalan coup in the 1950s was a significant influence on how the United States went about trying to stop the Cuban revolution less than a decade later.

It also helps explain a bit about why the leaders of the Cuban revolution made the choices they did, why the Cuban revolution radicalized.

And why the moderates in the bunch were dismissed and eventually discredited.

And perhaps it also explains a bit why, as we're reminded all the time in the U.S., certain political freedoms were curtailed in Cuba.

And furthermore, Guatemala offers a counter-example to the story in Cuba.

As the historian Greg Grandin has noted, Guatemala is where death squads, people practiced in the art of disappearing and murdering political dissidents were created in the 1960s.

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