The familiar story of U.S. economic and political penetration in Guatemala is updated and passionately interpreted by the young Uruguayan writer, Eduardo Galeano. Although the author blasts U.S. business practices in Guatemala, he reserves his more devastating and truculent attacks for the U.S. government. Galeano argues that U.S. military aid and advisors, the C.I.A., A.I.D., and the Green Berets have fortified and protected a highly privileged position for the Guatemalan army in the nation’s politics. Credible evidence is juxtaposed with gossip, but even accepting a rather large margin of error and the obvious ideological bias of the author, the report’s indictment of U.S. political meddling raises serious questions about policies not based on clear, long-range objectives.

As might be suspected, Galeano defends the guerrilla movement as the “only possible” solution to necessary reforms and control of the military. Force must be challenged by force, terror met with terror. In analyzing the regime of President Julio César Méndez Montenegro, whom he treats rather gently, he illustrates the line of reasoning. Méndez, a moderate liberal, was elected by an impressive majority, defeating two colonels in the 1966 election. Before Méndez’ victory was publicly proclaimed eight days afterward, the ruling military junta forced Méndez to make important concessions, later publicly confirmed by his vice president. In return for “allowing” Méndez to take office, the military reserved the right to select its own Defense Minister, exert veto power over major appointments, and, control the departmental regimes (all 22 governors appointed by Méndez were colonels).

According to Galeano, the military has also encouraged, supplied, and technically advised rightist terror groups, such as the Nueva Organizacion Anticomunista (NOA) and the Movimiento Anticomunista Nacionalista Organizado (MANO). These organizations strengthen the position of the military by hamstringing the regime and increasing national insecurity and instability.

Galeano concentrates on this aspect of Guatemalan violence, but it should be added that urban friends of the rural guerrillas also raise the level of terror by abductions for ransom, which are followed in macabre counterpoint by the bombing of left-wing “sympathizers homes in Guatemala City. Atrocity becomes in this context a relative judgment. Consistent with his ideological perspective, the author decries the right-wing terrorism, but it can be equally deplorable from the other side. The real victim is Guatemala.

Disregarding Galeano’s bias and discounting some of his questionable evidence, the book still graphically underscores how precarious and unfortunate is the “balance of terror” in Guatemala, and how substantial a role, if perhaps an involuntary one, the United States is playing in maintaining the reality.