Striking for freedom? International intervention and the Guianese sugar workers' strike of 1964

 [1] British Guiana became Guyana with independence in 1966. We have used the names Guiana and Guyana where historically appropriate.

Abstract

This article calls into question the conventional narrative about international meddling in British Guiana, which argues that US intervention against the Leftist government of Premier Cheddi Jagan was the proximate cause for the colony's racial violence as it moved to independence. The authors focus on the violent pro-government sugar workers' strike of 1964 and in particular the role of Jagan's wife, Janet, presenting evidence from retired Cuban intelligence agents that Cuba countered US aid to the opposition by providing paramilitary training to Guianese cadres and laundering financial aid to Jagan's government. This outside intervention turned British Guiana into a Cold War sideshow.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the following organizations for having provided research and travel grants: The Earhart Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Foundation, the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library Foundation for the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Fellowship, and the State Department. In addition, thanks to Cold War History article referees Thomas Field and an anonymous reader for their suggestions, which much improved the article. Waters would like to give special thanks to Dr. Magaly Rodríguez García of the Free University of Brussels, whose kindness and organizational skills allowed Waters to conduct research at the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and university.

Notes

Robert Anthony Waters, Jr. is assistant professor of history at Ohio Northern University and a former civil rights lawyer. His book, Historical Dictionary of United States-Africa Relations was published by Scarecrow Press in 2009. He and Daniels are completing a book on the Guyanese interventions.

Gordon Oliver Daniels is associate professor of history at Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi. His dissertation is entitled A Great Injustice to Cheddi Jagan: The Kennedy Administration and British Guiana, 1961–1963. A native Guyanese, Daniels participated in many of the events recounted in the article.

 [1] British Guiana became Guyana with independence in 1966. We have used the names Guiana and Guyana where historically appropriate.

 [2] Cheddi Jagan Research Centre, Georgetown, Guyana [henceforth CJRC], document #812, 1963 Speech by Cheddi Jagan, n.d., 5.

 [3] Weiner, ‘Kennedy-CIA Plot’, 10, shamed the US government into releasing the Guianese documents in FRUS, 1961 –1963, XII, following the aborted appointment of AIFLD Director William Doherty, Jr. as ambassador to Guyana. For the Lyndon Johnson administration, see FRUS, 1964 –1968, XXXII. The British National Archives (NA) has also released a significant number of documents. Many of Cheddi and Janet Jagan's speeches, articles, and letters are available at the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre in Georgetown, Guyana and at the ‘Cheddi Jagan – Guyana's Hero’ website, http://www.jagan.org. British reports on Guyana and documents from the British NA with commentary are found at http://www.guyana.org, edited by Odeen Ishmael, a Guyanese academic and ambassador. Neither the Guyanese government nor Guyanese political parties have opened their archives to the public and Guyanese labour documents from the period no longer exist. Cuba and Russia also have not opened their archives. Among trade unions, the AFL-CIO, the British TUC, and the ICFTU, have opened files to the public. The AIFLD collection, held by the AFL-CIO, remains unprocessed and the AFSCME files have probably been destroyed.

 [4] Rabe, US Intervention. Reviews in the Latin American, diplomatic, and US fields that reflect the book's preeminent position include Dorn, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe; Calder, Hispanic American Historical Review; Gleijeses, Diplomatic History; Sheinin, International History Review; Ramcharan, Journal of Cold War Studies; and Gambone, American Historical Review.

 [5] Jagan, West on Trial; Jagan's discussion of the CIA's role expanded in later editions as more evidence emerged. See also, Jagan, Forbidden Freedom, which recounts the PPP's early years and the events leading to and immediately following its removal from power in 1953. See also Rabe, Most Dangerous; St. Pierre, Anatomy of Resistance; Mars and Young, Caribbean Labor; Ashton, Kennedy, Macmillan; Drayton, ‘Anglo-American’; Fraser, ‘The ‘New Frontier’’; Parekh, ‘Subversion’; Ramcharan, ‘Cold War’. On the 1964 strike, see Jagan, West on Trial, 305–12; Seecharan, Sweetening, 570–85, 591–4; Rabe, US Intervention, 127–31, 120, 112–3, 138, 150.

 [6] Seecharan, Sweetening; Seecharan, ‘Anatomy of Cheddi Jagan's’. See also Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest’; Waters and Daniels, ‘When you're handed money’.

 [7] Rabe, US Intervention, 127–31, quotation on 127.

 [8] Daniels' personal experience working in a sugar grinding factory.

 [9] Knowles, Trade Union.

[10] Arthur Schlesinger Jr. later described the president's reaction to Jagan's self-professed imprecision on the various strands of Marxism following a White House meeting with the Guianese: ‘Kennedy observed later that this was the one time when his exposition rang false’. Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 776.

[11] Jagan, West on Trial, 11–42. On the question of whether or not Jagan was a Communist, see Seecharan, ‘Anatomy’; Halperin, ‘Racism’, 106–9; Swan, British Guiana; Despres, Cultural Pluralism, 211–5; and Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest’, 285–7. Spinner, Political and Social History, argues that Jagan's Communist rhetoric made US officials miss his moderate and democratic governing. An important work in which Jagan and many of his former party colleagues discuss his communism, favourably and unfavourably, is Birbalsingh, People's Progressive Party.

[12] Waters, ‘Betrayal’.

[13] Seecharan, Sweetening, rehabilitates the MPCA's reputation.

[14] Halperin, ‘Racism’, 109; Moskos, ‘Sociology of Political’, 30, 225; Waters telephone interview with Moskos (30 March 2000); Despres, Cultural Pluralism, 211–5; Janet Jagan e-mail to Waters (10 April 2003); Jagan, West on Trial, 116–8; St. Pierre, Anatomy of Resistance, 96–8.

[15] Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 778. Former PPP leader Eusi Kwayana (born Syndey King) argues in numerous works that Africans responded to East Indian racism. East Indian racism is discussed in Gibson's controversial Cycle of Racial Oppression.

[16] Chase, History of Trade Unionism, 213–4, 217–8, 251–3, 260; Seecharan, Sweetening, 452–4, 463–7; Rabe, U.S Intervention, 128, 110. Wage levels based on the 1962 Reubens Report by Edwin and Beatrice Reubens, quoted in Chase. Chase is the leading expert on the history of the Guyanese trade union movement. The Reubens' figures show percentage increases in the workers' disaggregated wage without including actual amounts of money made for all categories.

[17] Ishmael, Report of the Commission. Rabe, US Intervention, 89–93, argues that ‘the Kennedy administration encouraged and financed the attacks on the Jagan government’; Daniels and Waters, ‘The British Guiana Trades Union Council Strike of 1962’, argue that his evidence is not very strong.

[18] Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan [henceforth Reuther Library], ANG, part 2, box 111, folder 111-9, ‘Guyana’, Basil Blackman, ‘Report: Educational Activities of the Caribbean Council of Labor – October 1961 to September 1963’, n.d., 3–4; Jagan, West on Trial, 11–42, 230–1; Waters interview with Janet Jagan, Georgetown, Guyana (20 November 2001); Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest’; BGTUC, Communist Martyr Makers.

[19] See Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest’; Waters and Daniels, ‘When you're handed money’; Harold Macmillan diary entry (27 September 1962). The diary was kindly given to Waters by Peter Catterall, who is editing it for a two-volume collection.

[20] See Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest’; Waters and Daniels, ‘When you're Handed Money’; Harold Macmillan diary entry (27 September 1962). The diary entry was kindly given to Waters by Peter Catterall, who is editing it for a two-volume collection, Diary entry (17 September 1963).

[21] Waters, ‘Betrayal’. Williams also opposed Jagan out of fear that Guianese conflict between East Indians and Africans could spread to Trinidad and Tobago.

[22] NA, LAB 13/1562, Patrick Keatley, ‘No Independence yet for British Guiana’, Guardian (1 November 1963); Reuther Library, ANG, part 2, box 111, folder 111-9, ‘Guyana’, ‘Less Talk and More Action’, Guiana Graphic (7 January 1964): 1; George Meany Memorial Archive, Silver Spring, MD [henceforth GMMA], RG18-001, Office of the President: George Meany, 1952–80, International Affairs Department: Country Files, 1945–71, [henceforth omitted because all files from this collection are from RG18-001 … 1945–71], box 17, file 2, ‘Caribbean Area: British Guiana, 1963’ [henceforth 17/2], Gene Meakins to Ben Segal, 9 December 1963; Wallace, ‘British Guiana’, 530; Burrowes, Wild Coast, 187–8; Jagan, West on Trial, 307; BGTUC, Communist Martyr Makers, 20. Jagan claims that the strike shut down all the estates, but secret US intelligence cables and Meakins' letters to the AFL-CIO indicate that this was not the case. Reading the Jagan and Meakins works together is amusing because each fills the interstices left by the other. For example, Meakins does not mention the actions by the estate official that precipitated the strike at Leonora and he leaves out that estate management refused to meet with the local GAWU leader, Madray Mootoo (also spelled Madramootoo). Jagan overlooks that, the following month, Mootoo's hand was blown off while throwing a bottle bomb.

[23] Waters interview with Meakins, Greeley, Colorado (27–28 August 2001); GMMA, 17/2, Meakins to Andrew McLellan, 8 January 1964; Agee, Inside the Company, 406; Rabe, US Intervention, 127–31, 112–3, 150.

[24] Waters interview with Meakins; Peters, ‘Man a Witness’; GMMA, box 17, file 3, ‘Caribbean Area: British Guiana, 1964’ [henceforth 17/3], correspondence between Meakins and McLellan; Ishmael, ed., Report of the Commission, ‘Memorandum by the Government on the Background to the February 1962 Disturbances’, para. 38, Appendix 5.

[25] GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan; GMMA, 17/3, report on PPP Conference [no author or document name], 28 January 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, CIA Intelligence Information Cable, ‘Purpose of the Mass Demonstration to be Held by Progressive Youth Organization in Georgetown’, date of information 29–30 January 1964; CJRC, document 42m (1724), unnamed, undated document reporting on 6 March 1962 PNC leadership meeting.

[26] GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan; BGTUC, Communist Martyr Makers, 25; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, BT to secretary of state, 25 February 1964.

[27] GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan. In Communist Martyr Makers, Meakins catalogued and described a vast number of abuses culled from affidavits and newspaper stories. Waters interview with Meakins; Reuther Library, ANG, part 2, box 98, folder 98-11, ‘Gene Meakins’, Meakins to Chuck Perlik, 18 October 1963; GMMA, 17/2, Meakins to Segal, 9 December 1963; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, President's Office, box 9, folder 10, ‘Benjamin Segal, 1964’, Frank Cousins report to the British TUC, 10 February 1964, 5, Document A; GMMA, 17/3, Ishmael to Meany, 5 March 1964; GMMA, 17/3, McLellan to Morris Paladino, 5 March 1964; GMMA, 17/3, ‘Report on British Guiana, March 21–26’ [no author but presumably McCabe, who visited British Guiana during this period]; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, correspondence between Carlson and Rusk or State Department.

[28] Ishmael, ‘The British Declassified Files’, Jagan to Anthony Greenwood [Labour Colonial Secretary], Appendix I, 20 October 1964 (Jagan earlier sent this information to Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home as well: CJRC, document #1015(b), Jagan, letter to Home, Appendix III, 24 June 1964); International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, Netherlands (henceforth, IISH), ICFTU Archive, box 5267, ‘Guyana (formerly British Guiana): Correspondence Concerning Violence on Sugar Estates 1963–1964’, Joseph Pollydore to Jagan, 7 April 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64', CIA Intelligence Information Cable, ‘Attempt by a Group of Professional Leaders to Effect a Reconciliation between the Country's Political Leaders’, 25 July 1964.

[29] GMMA, 17/3, Ishmael to McLellan, 14 March 1964; ILO Report, 3 July 1964, Report No. 83, vol. XLVII, 1965, no. 3 S II, Interim Report, para. 312, 319, found at http://webfusion.ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/libsynd/LSGetParasByCase.cfm?PARA = 5727&FILE = 406&hdroff = 1&DISPLAY = RECOMMENDATION,INTRODUCTION,BACKGROUND#BACKGROUND; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63-7/64’, correspondence between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; Reuther Library, ANG, part 2, box 98, folder 98-11, ‘Gene Meakins’, Meakins, article draft, n.d. On Jagan's use of race to mobilize East Indian support, see Seecharan, Sweetening, 568–75, 579.

[30] GMMA, 17/3, McLellan to Ishmael, 28 February 1964; LBJL, NSF, box 55, Country File, Latin America, ‘British Guiana’, ‘Latin America, British Guiana’, Carlson to Rusk, 8 April 1964; GMMA, 17/3, McLellan to Meakins, 29 February 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, correspondence between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; LBJL, NSF, Intelligence File, box 5, ‘British Guiana Special File’, CIA Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy, Subject: British Guiana, 18 March 1964.

[31] GMMA, 17/3, Ishmael to McLellan, 14 March 1964; ILO, Committee on Freedom of Association Report, United Kingdom (Case No. 406), British Guiana Trades Union Council, 3 July 1964, Report No. 85, vol. XLIX, no. 1 S, Definitive Report, para. 213(b), found at 213(b), http://webfusion.ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/libsynd/LSGetParasByCase.cfm?PARA = 5727&FILE = 406&hdroff = 1&DISPLAY = BACKGROUND,INTRODUCTION,RECOMMENDATION#RECOMMENDATION (accessed 28 February 2010); LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘Latin America, British Guiana’, Carlson to Rusk, 8 April 1964; LBJL, NSF, Intelligence File, box 5, ‘British Guiana Special File’, Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy from the Central Intelligence Agency, 7 March 1964 [handwritten on the top, ‘Destroy’; the last two paragraphs (22 ½ lines) of the document have been redacted]; ILO Report, 3 July 1964, Report No. 83, vol. XLVII, 1965, no. 3 S II, Interim Report, para. 316; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, correspondence between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan.

[32] LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63-7/64’, correspondence between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan; GMMA, 17/3, ‘Report on British Guiana’, 21–26 March [no author but presumably McCabe, who visited British Guiana during this period]; IISH, ICFTU Archive, box 5267, ‘Guyana (formerly British Guiana): Correspondence Concerning Violence on Sugar Estates 1963–1964’, Osmond Dyce (secretary-treasurer of the Caribbean Congress of Labour) to Arturo Jauregui (secretary general of Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers [ORIT]), 26 March 1964; Rabe, U.S. Intervention, 128.

[33] FRUS, 1964 –1968, XXXII, 851–2. The Preface to the FRUS volume states: ‘Editorial notes and additional annotation summarize pertinent material not printed in the volume’. Ibid., vi.

[34] LBJL, NSF, Intelligence File, box 5, ‘British Guiana Special File’, Memorandum for McGeorge Bundy; FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 856–7, ‘Memorandum from the Deputy Director for Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency (Helms) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)’, 18 March 1964.

[35] FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 860, n.3 ‘Telegram From the Department of State [text not declassified] to the Consulate General in British Guiana’, 13 May 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, memorandum, Helms to Bundy, 30 April 1964.

[36] IISH, ICFTU Archive, box 5266, ‘MPCA’, Tom S. Bavin, ‘Report on T.S. Bavin's Visit to B.G., July 31–August 8, 1964’, n.d.

[37] Moses Bhagwan e-mail to Waters (7 October 2009); GMMA, 17/3, ‘Report on British Guiana, March 21–26’ [no author but presumably McCabe, who visited British Guiana during this period].

[38] GMMA, 17/3, Meakins to McLellan, 7 May 1964; GMMA, 17/3, Ishmael to McLellan, 8 May 1964; Waters interview with Meakins.

[39] LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Miner [ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago] to Rusk, 7 May 1964.

[40] Stacey, ‘Violent prelude’; Stacey e-mail to Waters, 25 July 2006; LBJL, NSF, Intelligence File, box 5, CIA memorandum to Bundy, 30 April 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 74, Latin America, Trinidad and Tobago, ‘Trinidad and Tobago, Cables, vol. I, 12/63–10/68’, Miner (Port-of-Spain) to Department of State, 13 January 1964, Bhagwan e-mail to Waters.

[41] LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Melby to Rusk, ‘Organization of People's Progressive Party’, 21 November 1963, 3–6; Birbalsingh, The People's Progressive Party , 117–8; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, cables between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; BGTUC, Communist Martyr Makers, 23; Waters interview with Meakins; Waters interview with Hamilton Green, Georgetown, Guyana (20 November 2001); Hendrix, ‘Jagan Now Fighting’, 8-E; Waters interview with a Guyanese source who does not wish to be named, Georgetown, Guyana (November 2001); NA, DEFE 25/135, ‘The Emergency Situation in British Guiana – Report by Colonel A.W. Cowper, Defence Intelligence Staff, in a Visit to British Guiana 29th June–1st July 1964’, 9 July 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to State Department, 22 April 1964; NA, DEFE 25/135, Luyt to Colonial Office, 25 September 1964 (the British lamented the ineptitude of the local chief of Special Branch because he wasted ‘golden opportunities’ to break the terrorist cells and bring in their leaders, but he could not be replaced for financial reasons).

[42] Waters interview with Janet Jagan; Gleijeses e-mail to Waters (19 July 2002); Bhagwan e-mail to Waters. Gleijeses, who has been given unparalleled access to Cuban government archives and government officials, graciously asked two Cuban ‘friends who are in a position to know’.

[43] Seecharan, Sweetening, 489; Romualdi, Presidents and Peons, 358–9 n.4. See also, Jagan, ‘26th July Movement – Camaguey Indoctrination’, 30 April 1960; Jagan, ‘Why Did Castro Succeed?’, 29 April 1961.

[44] Waters telephone interviews with Osvaldo Cárdenas (19 March 2009 and 31 March 2009); Jon Lee Anderson e-mail to Waters (18 January 2006); Anderson, Che, 396; Amuchastegui, ‘Cuban Intelligence’, 89–93, 98–9; Bhagwan e-mail to Waters. Bhagwan told Waters that Jagan had never gone to the PPP leadership with the idea of providing Castro with military assistance, and he suspected that a majority would have opposed it. Gleijeses has described the difficulty in getting the Cuban government to release any documents, including even those that cast its foreign policy in a good light. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 9–10. Anderson's e-mail to Waters was a translated copy of Anderson's notes from a June 1993 interview with Cárdenas. In Waters’ interview with Cárdenas 16 years later, he told the identical story of Che saying that Cuba owed a debt to Cheddi Jagan, but unprompted, added that Jagan offered to go to Cuba during the missile crisis. Since Jagan was in London throughout the crisis, unsuccessfully negotiating Guianese independence, this more recent version is unlikely. Waters would like to thank Anderson for his kindness in responding to the query despite being on assignment in Afghanistan for The New Yorker, and then digging through old boxes of notes during one of his brief home visits.

[45] Amuchastegui e-mails to Waters (25 March 2005 and 17 April 2005); Amuchastegui, ‘Cuba's Reengagement’, 2–3; FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 937, ‘Memorandum From the Deputy Director for Coordination of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Trueheart) to the Director (Hughes) and Deputy Director (Denney)’, 6 December 1967; Amuchastegui, ‘Cuban Intelligence’, 98–9, 108–9; Anderson, Che, esp. 394–440, 499, 531–612; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 28, 38–52.

[46] Waters interviews with Cárdenas. Although Amuchastegui angrily denied Cuban connections to Venezuela and Surinam through British Guiana (Amuchastegui e-mails to Waters), Cárdenas told several stories with a wealth of detail about his contact with the Venezuelan guerrillas and told a very bland story about his meetings with Bruma.

[47] Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World was Going Our Way, 313; NA, DEFE 25/135, ‘British Guiana’, ‘Record of a Ministerial Meeting at No. 10 Downing Street at 11:45 a.m. on Wednesday, November 25’, 1964; Soroka, Archives of the Communist Party and Soviet State: Fond 89, Opis (Register) 38, Dela (Files) 5, 6. The Fond 89 files were kindly translated by Sergii Chykurliy, a lawyer from Ukraine who was participating in Ohio Northern University's LLM program in Democratic Governance and the Rule of Law.

[48] Waters interview with Meakins; Waters, ‘Betrayal’.

[49] FRUS 1964–1968, XXXII, 860, ‘Telegram From the Department of State [text not declassified] to the Consulate General in British Guiana’, 13 May 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, cables between Carlson and Rusk or State Department, in particular, 8 May 1964.

[50] Waters interview with retired Guyanese reporter Joan Cambridge, Georgetown, Guyana (16 November 2001); FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 858–9, ‘Research Memorandum from Denney (Deputy Director of Intelligence and Research) to George Ball (Undersecretary of State)’, 12 May 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Burdett (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs) to Georgetown, 9 May 1964.

[51] Ishmael, Report of the Wismar.

[52] GMMA, 17/3, correspondence between Meakins and McLellan; CJRC, document #1010, ‘Broadcast by the Premier, Dr. the Hon'ble C.B. Jagan on 30th May, 1964’; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’ [Author redacted], ‘Plans for a Terror Campaign by the Progressive Youth Organization against the United Force and the Portuguese Community’, date of information 27 May–9 June 1964, received in Washington 15 June 1964; LBJL, NSF, Intelligence File, box 5, ‘British Guiana Special File’, Memorandum, Central Intelligence Agency to Bundy, 12 June 1964 [a paragraph of approximately 14 lines was redacted]; Bhagwan e-mail to Waters.

[53] LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, cables between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Bruce to Rusk, 15 June 1964; Waters interview with Meakins; CJRC, document #1014, Jagan, ‘Statement by the Premier, 6/20/64’; NA, DEFE 25/135, Force B.G. to CBFCA, 4 July 1964; NA, DEFE 25/135, ‘The Emergency Situation in British Guiana – Report by Colonel A.W. Cowper, Defence Intelligence Staff, in a Visit to British Guiana 29th June–1st July 1964’, 9 July 1964; Wallace, ‘British Guiana’, 544; FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 865, ‘Gordon Chase of the National Security Council to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)’, 25 May 1964; Bhagwan e-mail to Waters.

[54] NA, DEFE 25/135, Foreign Office telegram, 2 July 1964; NA, DEFE 25/135, Luyt to Colonial Office, 5 July 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to Rusk, 7 July 1964; NA, DEFE 25/135, Luyt to Colonial Office, 7 July 1964; NA, DEFE 25/135, Luyt to Piper, 14 July 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, cables between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; Ishmael, Report of the Wismar; Waters interviews with PNC members with close ties to high-ranking Burnham regime officials, Georgetown, Guyana (November 2001); Ishmael, ‘British Declassified Files’, ‘Note from Premier Dr. Cheddi Jagan to Minister of Home Affairs Janet Jagan’, 3 July 1963. Rabe, US Intervention, does not mention the Sun Chapman.

[55] FRUS, 1964–1968, XXXII, 873, ‘Memorandum From the Deputy Director for Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency (Helms) to the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)’, 17 July 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to Rusk, 17 July 1964; Waters interviews with PNC members with close ties to high-ranking Burnham regime officials; Britton, ‘Research Paper’, Appendix III; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to Rusk, 20 July 1964; Waters interview with Meakins.

[56] GMMA, 17/3, Meakins to McLellan, 24 July 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to State Department, 27 June 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, cables between Carlson and Rusk or State Department; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, CIA Intelligence Information Cable [author redacted], ‘Intention of the Government of British Guiana to Send an Emissary to the US to Discuss US Support of a Coalition Government in British Guiana’, date of information 27 June 1964, distribution date 28 June 1964; LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, CIA Intelligence Information Cable, author redacted, ‘Premier Cheddi Jagan's Discussion with Party Leaders on the GAWU Strike and the Security Situation in the Country’, date of information 23 July 1964, distribution date 25 July 1964; Wallace, ‘British Guiana’, 543; NA, DEFE 25/135, ‘Tape-recorded Report on Situation in British Guiana by GSO1, Garrison British Guiana, dated 11 August 1964’, [GSO1 was appointed to the British Force Commander's staff].

[57] LBJL, NSF, Country File, box 55, Latin America, British Guiana, ‘British Guiana, Vol. I, Cables, 12/63–7/64’, Carlson to Rusk, 28 July 1964; Waters interview with Janet Jagan; Britton, ‘Research Paper’, Appendix I; NA, PREM 13/137, J.O.W. [J.O. Wright] ‘Note for the Record’, 9 November 1964; Ishmael, ‘British Declassified Files’, Jagan to Greenwood, 20 October 1964; LBJL, Vice Presidential Files, 1961–63, box 135, ‘Foreign Relations [British Guiana]’, Carlson to [State Department official J. Harold] Shullaw [re Carlson's 21 October 1964 meeting with British Guiana's governor], 24 October 1964, 2–3.

[58] Ishmael, The Guyana Story, chap. 170.

[59] Spinner, A Political and Social History, 116–218, 181; Jagan, My Fight, 40, 234, 238, 240, 242, 247, 249; Alexander, Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Governors, 212.

[60] See Waters and Daniels, ‘World's Longest General Strike’. On the reasons for the AFL-CIO's work with the CIA, see Carew, ‘American Labor Movement in Fizzland’; Waters and Daniels, ‘When you're handed money’.

[61] Waters interviews with Cárdenas.

[62] LBJL, George Ball Papers, box 1, Memorandum of telephone conversation between McGeorge Bundy and George Ball, 2 March 1964.

[63] Janet Jagan, ‘Reminiscences of Cheddi Jagan–The Man’, 2002.

[64] Rabe, U.S. Intervention, 11, 91, 110, 125, 182–4.

[65] Birbalsingh, The People's Progressive Party , 115.

[66] ‘Janet Jagan: Politics, Party, and the Pursuit of Power’; ‘The People's Progressive Party: A Break with the Past’; Birbalsingh, The People's Progressive Party , 118–9; Despres, Cultural Pluralism, 180–9, 194–5, 222–8.

[67] Scipes, ‘It's Time to Come Clean’. The AIFLD papers have not been processed due to lack of staff, but researchers can now apply to the AFL-CIO for permission to look at the files. Lynda DeLoach e-mail to Waters (27 April 2009). Waters subsequently requested files on numerous topics, including AIFLD's founding, Guyana, personalities and international trade secretariats involved in Guyana, and the CIA. The requests were approved and Waters visited the GMMA during April 2010. The only AIFLD files made available were a total of 13 file boxes of correspondence between AIFLD and Latin American graduates of the AIFLD school in Front Royal, Virginia, 1962–1972. A notation on the inventory sheet says, ‘These Records were retrieved from abandoned storage Building t on GMCLS campus Dec 1993’.

[68] In late 2009, Christopher Andrew published, Defend the Realm, the Authorized History of MI5, The British Secret Service. MI5 has responsibility for security and counter-espionage in British-Guiana. See 459–61, 477–80.