Operation Washtub (United States)

Operation Washtub was a clandestine psychological warfare operation conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Guatemala in 1954. It was a component of Operation PBSUCCESS, the broader plan to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán.

The operation involved planting forged documents, purportedly originating from Guatemalan communist leaders, in a carefully staged plane crash in Honduras. These documents were intended to expose supposed Soviet influence within the Árbenz government and portray it as a communist puppet state, thus justifying U.S. intervention.

Specifically, a small, unoccupied airplane was deliberately crashed in Honduras, which was then ruled by a U.S.-friendly government. The CIA then arranged for Honduran authorities to "discover" the wreckage along with the forged documents. The recovered documents were subsequently disseminated to the international press and the Organization of American States (OAS) to bolster the narrative of communist infiltration in Guatemala.

The objective of Operation Washtub was to manipulate public opinion both internationally and within Guatemala, contributing to the delegitimization of the Árbenz government and paving the way for a U.S.-backed coup d'état, which ultimately occurred in June 1954. While the explicit impact of Washtub alone is difficult to isolate from the overall PBSUCCESS campaign, it undoubtedly contributed to the atmosphere of fear and suspicion that preceded the overthrow of Árbenz.

The operation is often cited as an example of Cold War-era CIA covert actions and the use of propaganda to influence foreign governments and public opinion. Its legacy remains controversial, reflecting the complex and often ethically dubious nature of Cold War intelligence operations.