◆ SpookStack

toward the end of 1960 that early in January 1971 Carlos Alejos, the Ambassador to the US, released a statement to the Associated Press from Guatemala's Minister of Defense, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, which claimed that all US military personnel in Guate- mala were official members of the US Military Mission. The Minister of Defense not only stated that US person~ nel were engaged exclusively in training Guatemalan forces for self defense, but he went on to emphasize the GOG's fear of Castro and communist intervention: Guatemala is not an aggressor country, Guatemala is not receiving ten ships every week loaded with war material [sic] and equipment manufactured in Communist coun- tries. Guatemala has no Chinese Communist instructors. Guatemala has no jet Communist planes. Guatemala has no Communist guided rockets and missiles. The only thing Guate- mala has is men with great hearts ready to fight for their independence and political liberties. Batista is not in Guatemald, but Arbenz is in Cuba. 75a/ Even more significant was that the news stories inspired some members of the US Congress to make inquir- ies about CIA involvement; and this, in turn, caused President Eisenhower to express himself very strongly on the constitutional issue of the separation of powers. In a 10 January 1961 meeting of the Special Group, the