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Exchange of Messages Between the President and President Ydigoras Fuentes on U .S. Naval Aid to Guatemala.

December 02, 1960

[ Released December 2, 1960. Dated November 28, 1960 ]

Dear Mr. President:

I should like to thank you for your very kind message of November nineteenth. The steps taken by the United States Government have enabled us to be in a position to respond to the request received from Your Excellency's Government on November sixteenth for assistance in preventing Communist-directed efforts to intervene in the internal affairs of your country through the landing of armed forces or supplies from abroad. I am gratified to learn that constitutional order is being maintained in Guatemala.

The American people join me in expressing warm good wishes to the Guatemalan people and to Your Excellency personally.

Sincerely,

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Note: The message from President Ydigoras Fuentes follows:

His Excellency

DWIGHT D. Eisenhower

I take pleasure in sending you the cordial greetings and the great gratitude of the people and government of Guatemala for the effective aid you were good enough to grant by ordering a watch on the seas adjacent to Central America by units of the glorious United States Navy, which prevented outside forces from giving support to the Communist-inspired revolutionary movement which, in connection with Fidel Castro, broke out in Guatemala on the thirteenth of the current month in order to overthrow the constitutional and anti-Communist Government over which I have the honor to preside.

This watch you ordered was decisive in stopping the development of the movement and greater bloodshed in my country and preventing eventual establishment of a new Communist government in the Americas.

The people of Guatemala, my Government, and I personally reiterate our friendship and gratitude to the great people of the United States, to its democratic government, and its illustrious President.
MIGUEL YDIGORAS FUENTES

In a White House release dated December 7 it was noted that in response to requests by the governments of Guatemala and Nicaragua the United States had announced on November 17 that "surface and air units are in a position in which they could assist the governments, should it become necessary, to seek out and prevent intervention on the part of Communist-directed elements in the internal affairs of Guatemala and Nicaragua through the landing of armed forces or supplies from abroad." The December 7 release further noted that the emergency which led to their request had passed and that all participating naval surface and air units had been ordered to return to normal operations.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Exchange of Messages Between the President and President Ydigoras Fuentes on U .S. Naval Aid to Guatemala. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/234624

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