Cuba Archive - Case 1449

Case ID: 1449

Title: Ambassador

First name: John Gordon

Last name: Mein

Suffix: N/A

Aliases: N/A

Name also reported as: N/A

Age: 54

Gender: Male

Date of Birth: Day:10 / Month:9 / Year:1913

Civil Status: Unknown

Date of death/disappearance: Day:28 / Month:8 / Year:1968

Citizenship: N/A

Last known address: N/A

Last known city: Guatemala City

Last known province-TOD: N/A

Last known province current: N/A

Last known country: Guatemala

Location death-address: N/A

Location of death - city: Guatemala City

Location of death province - at TOD: N/A

Location of death province - current: N/A

Location of death - country: Guatemala

Trial held?: No

Docket Number: N/A

Sentence details: N/A

Arrest or detention at time of death: No

Date of arrest: N/A

Imprisoned/Detained: Location: N/A

How long imprisoned/detained: N/A

Death attributed to: Castro regime

Death attribution detail: FAR Guatemalan guerrilla group sponsored by Cuba

Associated Event: N/A

Case description:

Mein was the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, the first U.S. Ambassador to be murdered while in office, killed by the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), a pro-Castro Guatemalan guerrilla group sponsored and supported by Cuba.  
The ambassador was in his chauffeur-driven car when FAR guerrillas ambushed him and ordered him out of his car. When he attempted to run away, two rebels fired at least nine bullets into him with machine guns. In FAR's admission of guilt, they wrote they had intended to kidnap Mein to use him as a bargaining chip to force the release of FAR rebel leader Carlos Francisco Ordoñez, who had been arrested in Guatemala City four days earlier. A CIA intelligence cable sent from Guatemala reports on a French woman, Michele Firk, who committed suicide when police went to ask her about the Mein affair. Firk was Ordoñez's mistress and a member of the French Communist Party. She had had reportedly flown from Paris to assist the rebels in the Main kidnapping and had rented a car used for the ambush. An officer of Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) who defected in Paris in 1969 wrote in his memoir that Firk was among the clandestine contacts of the former chief of Cuba's intelligence center in Paris, (Armando López Orta, alias Arquímides) meaning she would have been an important relationship for Cuban intelligence.
Mein had served as the U.S. representative in Guatemala for three years. Born in Kentucky, he had spent much of his childhood in Brazil, where his father was a Baptist missionary. He graduated from Georgetown University, earned a law degree from George Washington, and worked for five years at the Department of Agriculture before joining the State Department in 1941. After serving in Brazil, Italy, Norway, Indonesia, and the Philippines, in 1965 he had been appointed ambassador to Guatemala by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Mein era embajador de Estados Unidos en Guatemala, el primer embajador estadounidense asesinado en ejercicio de sus funciones, asesinado por las Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), un grupo guerrillero guatemalteco pro-castrista patrocinado y apoyado por Cuba.
El embajador estaba en su coche con su chófer cuando las FAR lo emboscaron y le ordenaron que saliera del auto. Cuando intentó huir, dos rebeldes le dispararon al menos nueve balazos con ametralladoras. En la admisión de culpabilidad de FAR, dijeron que pretendían secuestrar a Mein para usarlo como moneda de cambio para forzar la liberación del líder rebelde de las FAR, Carlos Francisco Ordoñez, que había sido arrestado en la ciudad de Guatemala cuatro días antes.
Un cable de inteligencia de la CIA enviado desde Guatemala informó sobre una mujer francesa, Michele Firk, que se suicidó cuando la policía fue a preguntarle sobre el caso de Mein. Firk era la amante del líder rebelde Ordoñez y miembro del Partido Comunista Francés. Había viajado desde París para asistir a los rebeldes en el secuestro de Mein y había alquilado el coche usado para la emboscada. Un funcionario de la Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) de Cuba, que desertó en París en 1969, escribió en sus memorias que entre los contactos clandestinos del ex jefe del centro de inteligencia de Cuba en París estaba Michele Firk.
Mein había servido como representante de los Estados Unidos en Guatemala durante tres años. Nacido en Kentucky, había pasado gran parte de su infancia en Brasil, donde su padre era un misionero bautista. Se graduó de la Universidad de Georgetown, obtuvo una licenciatura en derecho de la Universidad George Washington y trabajó durante cinco años en el Departamento de Agricultura antes de unirse al Departamento de Estado en 1941. Después de servir en Brasil, Italia, Noruega, Indonesia y Filipinas, Mein fue nombrado embajador en Guatemala en 1965 por el presidente Lyndon B. Johnson.

Sources:

Castro Hidalgo, Orlando. Spy for Fidel (Miami: E.A. Seeman Publishing Inc.), 1971, p. 105;  American Ambassadors Killed (1968 - 1976), CIA and State Department Files. http://www.paperlessarchives.com/american-ambassadors-killed.html; Scott Allen, The 5 Other U.S. Ambassadors Killed by Terrorists; http://mentalfloss.com/article/12520/5-other-us-ambassadors-killed-terrorists; Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History, The Assassination of Ambassador John Gordon Mein, Guatemala, 1968, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, http://adst.org/2013/08/the-assassination-of-ambassador-john-gordon-mein-guatemala-1968/. Jon B. Perdue, The War of the People: The Nexus of Latin American Radicalism and Middle Eastern Terrorism, Potomac Books, 2012. Thomas A. Melville, Through a Glass Darkly: the U.S. holocaust in Central America, Xlibris Corp, 2005; John Gordon Mein. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Cuba more sovietized, Christian Science Monitor, Washington, Jul. 16, 1969, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP75-00149R000400030013-4.pdf

Conflict of Evidence:

Violation Status: Reported: Highly likely / Highly reliable source(s)

Cause of Death: - Terrorism/Attack on civilian

Occupations: - N/A - Management Occupations

External Files: N/A

Relatives in Archive: N/A

Victim Type: - Other

Affiliations: N/A

Other Victims Same Event: N/A

Case Record - John Gordon Mein