Guatemala: Caught in the Crossfire

U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein had just left his residence in the suburbs of Guatemala City after a luncheon honoring a visiting State Department specialist in Central American affairs. He was alone in the rear seat of his chauffeured Cadillac as the big sedan moved north along Avenida la Reforma. A small green Toyota suddenly pulled in front and forced Mein’s car to the curb. A red Buick darted up to block the embassy car from behind. Two men in green fatigues got out of the Toyota and ordered Mein from his car at the point of a submachine gun. He stepped out, then broke and ran. There was a shout: “Kill him! Kill him!” The submachine gunner squeezed off a burst at Mein’s back. The ambassador fell in the middle of the street and died within moments.

Mein, 54, a career foreign-service officer with years of Latin American experience, was well known for his quiet professionalism. In keeping with his taste for unobtrusiveness, he had dismissed an armed escort assigned earlier this year. While his assassination, the first ever of a U.S. ambassador, naturally shocked Washington, Guatemalans were not so startled. Since civilian rule supplanted a rigid military regime in 1966, Communist and right-wing terrorists have killed some 2,000 people in their running crossfire—among them two U.S. military advisers, Army Colonel John Webber Jr. and Naval Lieut. Commander Ernest Munro, who were murdered in Guatemala City last January. The killing of Ambassador Mein ended a promising four-month lull in Guatemala’s violence. It set back hopes for new political stability, encouraged only last month when President Julio César Méndez Montenegro’s moderate reform program won endorsement in countrywide municipal elections.

That moderation became another victim of Mein’s assassins. Méndez not only ordered flags to half-staff in mourning, but also temporarily reimposed emergency government powers, including the right to make arrests without a warrant. Outgoing foreign-press dispatches were delayed and censored. The question remained: Who killed the ambassador? A statement attributed to the pro-Castro Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) claimed that they had tried to kidnap Mein in retaliation for the arrest of an FAR terrorist four days earlier. That was most likely the answer.