FOIAWEAR — OPERATION WASHTUB / The Planted Cache Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 063

OPERATION WASHTUB — in 1954 the Agency needed evidence that Guatemala had become a Soviet beachhead. So it made some. A cache of arms was assembled, given a Guatemalan signature down to the small details, and buried on a beach in Nicaragua where it would be found — and then found, on cue, and shown to the press.

The plotters' own file records what was planted and what it was for. “...the cigarettes of Guatemalan origin found together with the weapons…” — the cigarettes were the point: a captured Soviet rifle proves nothing about Guatemala, but a rifle lying beside a packet of Guatemalan cigarettes tells a story any newspaper can print. The same file describes the cover story as it ran: “the story of the unidentified [aircraft] which landed in Nicaragua, caching arms of Guatemalan origin at the shore,” and notes that the discovery was “the subject of President Somoza's press conference.”

A second cable in the same file is businesslike about the results, forwarding “two copies of each of these newspapers” and reporting “news of interest to Operation WASHTUB.” Photographs were published. The masthead of Novedades carried the story. A third file describes the operation itself as “an important element in a scheme to…” — and there the released copy stops, exactly as the Agency kept it.

What the cache actually demonstrated was that the Agency could plant evidence and have it believed. Guatemala was invaded that June. The cigarettes worked.

The artwork shows the cache being planted: two men at an open hole in the sand at dusk, a crate going in, two more waiting, palms above and a boat anchored offshore. In the immediate foreground, drawn larger than anything else in the picture, lies the packet of cigarettes. No faces are depicted anywhere in this design.

The QR code on the front opens the source: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/0000923508 — the released file on the publicity the operation generated in the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan press. Every quotation above is from it or its sister cables.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717, 6.1 oz garment-dyed cotton, S–4XL. Front print only; plain back. Artwork approximately 6.9 × 4.6 in, QR approximately 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Colours: offered in both dark and light garment colours — the burial scene in indigo, sand gold, bone and signal red on Black, Graphite, Espresso, Navy and Pepper, and the same scene struck as a dark ink plate on White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Blossom, Light Green and Chambray.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, tumble dry low. Do not iron the print directly.

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