Anti-Communist Bananas: The United Fruit Company versus the Guatemalan Revolution.

Whether in podcasts, online articles, TED videos, or its I Wikipedia i page, the UFCO still casts its shadow over Operations PBFORTUNE and PBSUCCESS, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s 1952 and 1953-1954 covert attempts to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz's democratically elected Guatemalan government.[4] Consistently, the overwhelming question driving this media is whether and how the UFCO contributed to the U.S. government's decision. After a few years working for the United Fruit Company (UFCO), lawyer Thomas Corcoran took a moment to gloat. "You know and I know that Communism and not the United Fruit Company is the problem", one UFCO official warned Zemurray, "but unless [the UFCO] can be taken out of the picture and promptly, I think the issue is likely to be confused in the minds" of many observers.[148] Again, the U.S. government and the UFCO's goals overlapped. Internal reports claimed the corporation was pushing against the grain, a lone voice warning U.S. officials about Guatemalan communism.[45] Actually, the State Department repeatedly intervened to prevent any discrimination against U.S.-based corporations.[46] Some lower-level U.S. officials in Guatemala opposed the idea of the U.S. government constantly protecting U.S. companies' interests abroad, but their superiors insisted, "It would be to invite wholesale expropriation of U.S. interests elsewhere in the continent, if the U.S. did not protest" the alleged persecution of the UFCO.[47] Nevertheless, the UFCO felt this was insufficient, for any challenge against its authority was unforgivable. [Extracted from the article]