Operation Washtub

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Operation washtub ( English washtub = washtub ) was an intelligence operation of the CIA under a false flag that in 1954 Nicaragua was carried out and the preparation of the operation PBSUCCESS to overthrow the Guatemalan government of President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán served.

Course of events

Nicaragua played a significant role in conducting Operation Success . From February 1954 the CIA trained pilots on the Atlantic coast in Puerto Cabezas and on the island of Momotombito in Lake Managua and on the hacienda "El Tamarindo" for the invading army of infantry . Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza García had supported US efforts to overthrow the Arbenz government since 1952. On May 1, 1954, a CIA-operated radio station, La Voz de la Liberación ( The Voice of Liberation ), located near Managua , also began broadcasts aimed at motivating the people of Guatemala to revolt.

On February 19, 1954, the CIA set up an arms depot on the Nicaraguan Pacific coast with 40 rifles , two machine guns , six pistols and 20 hand grenades . The weapons allegedly bore Soviet hammer and sickle manufacturing features. The box was found accidentally by Nicaraguan fishermen some time later.

President Somoza went public at a press conference in Managua on May 6, 1954 , stating that the weapons found had been landed from an unknown submarine that had been sighted but not photographed a few days earlier. However, the version presented by Somoza on the origin of the weapons was received with skepticism by the press and the public and did not have the expected propaganda effect , through which the Arbenz government was supposed to work with the USSR.

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