Short answers, pulled from the story.
The National Committee of Defense Against Communism was formed in Guatemala on the 19th of July 1954. President Carlos Castillo created it at the direct request of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
Carlos Castillo, Guatemala's president, created the National Committee of Defense Against Communism. He acted at the direct request of the CIA and coupled the committee with the Preventive Penal Law Against Communism.
The National Committee of Defense Against Communism could meet in secret and detain anyone it labeled a communist for up to six months. Those charged under the Preventive Penal Law had no right to a defense or appeal, and could not own shortwave radios or hold public office, local or national.
By the 21st of November 1954, the Castillo administration and the National Committee had compiled a list of 72,000 people deemed communists.
Carlos Castillo formed the National Committee of Defense Against Communism to fight alleged threats to his government from people the committee itself named as Communist subversives. Castillo had just taken power through a CIA-backed coup, known as PBSuccess, against President Jacobo Arbenz.
Carlos Castillo was an anti-liberal, anti-communist army officer who helped overthrow dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944 and later tried and failed to overthrow President Juan Jose Arevalo in November 1950. Backed by the Eisenhower administration and the CIA as the self-declared "Liberator" of Guatemala, he overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and was officially declared president on the 1st of September 1954.