CIA Use of Polygraph in 1954 Guatemala Coup

[George W. Maschke]

Two draft reports dated 2 April 1954 of polygraph screening examinations conducted in March 1954 as part of operation PBSUCCESS, a CIA covert operation to overthrow the government of president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala, were declassified (with redactions) this year. The reports, grouped together under the title, "LCFLUTTER - Rough Draft Reports of George E. Filbing," help document the CIA's early reliance on the polygraph and may be downloaded as a single 325 kb PDF file here:

http://antipolygraph.org/documents/lcflutter-02-04-1954.pdf

LCFLUTTER is a cryptonym for "polygraph." The cryptonym LINCOLN used in this document refers to headquarters in Florida. "George E. Filbing" seems likely to be a cover name.

Some additional information on the use of polygraphs in operation PBSUCCESS may be found by searching the CIA's Electronic Reading Room for keywords such as "polygraph" and "LCFLUTTER":

http://www.foia.cia.gov/default.asp

Additional information is also available by searching the State Department's on-line collection of documents on relations with Guatemala from 1952-1954:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ike/guat/

[orolan]

Operation PBSUCCESS overthrew the first democratically elected government Guatemala had ever had, replacing it with a brutal dictatorship that by 1963 was completely in the hands of the military. The massacres and killings didn't stop until 1986.

Let's not do the people of Guatemala any more favors.