"I reach above me and pull down a file on . It is on the . Why did the US destroy that small country? Because the landless movement and the Left fought to elect a democratic politician - Jacobo Arbenz - who decided to push through a . Such a project threatened to undercut the land holding of the , a US conglomerate that strangled Guatemala. The CIA got to work. It contacted retired Colonial , it paid off brigade commanders, created sabotage events, and then seized Árbenz in the presidential palace and sent him into exile. Castillo Armas then put Guatemala through a reign of terror. 'If it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it,' he said later, 'I will not hesitate to do so.' The CIA gave him lists of Communists, people who were eager to lift their country out of poverty. They were arrested, many executed. The CIA offered Castillo Armas its benediction to kill: A Study of Assassination, the CIA's killing manual, was handed over to his butchers. The light of hope went out in this small and vibrant country."