This thesis examines US-Guatemalan relations during the first half of the 1960s. At a critical juncture in Guatemalan history, a relatively inexperienced US ambassador, John Bell, subverted democratic systems in Guatemala and helped install a military dictatorship that ruled the country for more than three decades. Ambassador Bell's policies undermined the Kennedy administration's idealistic modernization drive for the region, the Alliance for Progress, and contributed to one of the longest civil wars in the Western Hemisphere.