Description
Recent scholarship has debated the signalling function of secrecy, quasi-secrecy, and covertness. Covertness is understood as a method to achieve strategic objectives without risking escalation or openly violating international law. Domestically, secrecy has been understood as method to pacify hawkish constituencies. At the same time, authors have looked at the role of leaks in international relations and their damaging effect for the conduct of a government’s preferred policies.
Building on this existing scholarship, this paper explores signalling mechanisms within the domestic sphere. It highlights the role of ‘selective disclosures’ regarding covert operations. Contrary to leaks, ‘selective disclosures’ help policymakers in achieving domestic political objectives.
To assess this argument, we conduct an analysis of the Eisenhower Administration’s 1954 intervention in Guatemala (PBSUCCESS). We use a novel dataset augmented by archival sources (including the Congressional record, papers from the Eisenhower Library, and the CIA Guatemala series at the National Archives) to conduct an extensive historical analysis. We also employ a series of quantitative tests that hint at the Administration’s contacts and communications with leading members of Congress and mainstream media outlets. We draw on floor speeches from the Congressional Record in the weeks surrounding the operation in 1954 and, using sentiment analysis, test how members of Congress framed the ongoing crises in Guatemala as it happened. Preliminary findings suggest that selective disclosures among elites worked to mute anti-Communist hawks in Congress, potentially through advance notice of the intervention.
