Word: castillos
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...soon as Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas gained power, he suspended the sweeping land-reform program under which the old regime expropriated a fifth (1,600,000 acres) of Guatemala's arable land and handed it over to 83,275 landless peasants. Last week the new President laid down a stopgap program of his own for dealing with the most explosive of Guatemala's problems. Drawn up by Jorge Skinner Klee, 32, a lawyer who took postgraduate work (in anthropology) at Northwestern, the President's decree appears to accept land reform in Guatemala as a necessity, and undertakes...
...these measures there was little sign of the major social overhaul that Guatemala's newspapers and churchmen were hopefully talking about. Making his first speech as president, Castillo Armas concentrated on attacking the old government. He did promise that peasants who have received plots under the Arbenz land-reform law will get their titles outright; until now the government has retained the deeds, both to prevent resale and to keep political control over the farmers.* But the general reaction, even among Castillo's warmest backers, was one of sharp disappointment. They were hoping for a bold, positive program...
...President's hesitation at plunging promptly into drastic reform was rooted, at least partly, in a sense of unconsolidated power. Parts of the regular army, rankling at the defeat Castillo Armas dealt them with a handful of volunteers, subtly oppose him. The dangerous paradox is that he must show leadership within at most six months, or some other officer as anti-Red as he will try to fill his shoes...
...refused to move into the exposed Presidential House, instead renting a small residence more easily guarded by liberation soldiers. But most Guatemalans see the official residence as a solid symbol of power and expect the Chief Executive to live there. The point might be minor, but the effect, as Castillo Armas rounded out his first fortnight in power, was a certain drop in his prestige...
...balance these troubles, Castillo last week heard welcome news from Washington: the State Department recognized his government, making the U.S. the twelfth nation to establish formal relations. If there was any impatience in the U.S. embassy with Castillo Armas' slow start, the recognition covered it well. But some of the President's loyal press was turning cautiously critical. "The country's new leaders," wrote Alvaro Contreras Velez, a strong supporter of Castillo Armas, "must provide a healthy substitute for the pernicious doctrine sown in many minds by the Reds. They must tell us what they offer...