United Fruit Presents...
UNITED FRUIT PRESENTS... Central America, 1954: Constitutionally elected President Jacobo Arbenz attempts to reaquire for Guatemala, 230,000 acres of land belonging to the United Fruit Company of America (UFC). He offers $2.98 per acre, twice the purchase price, in compensation. The US State Department intervenes and demands $75.00 per acre.
Henry Cabot-Lodge, US ambassador to the UN, has personal holdings in UFC, as does John Lodge, Asst. Secretary of State for Interamerican Affairs, whose brother is a former president of UFC. Secretary of State, John Foster-Dulles's law-firm has advised UFC for many years, and CIA director, Allen Dulles, has been on the UFC Board of Advisors. President Eisenhower's personal secretary is married to the UFC public-relations officer.
When Arbenz can and will not pay he is branded communist in the US-media and public opinion supports his overthrow by a force of mercenaries - especially trained in Nicaragua and Honduras by the CIA. A military dictatorship replaces Arbenz and grants all lands back to UFC.
Amnesty International estimates that, since then, the various US-backed, military regimes in Guatemala have killed 85,000 people. Cuba is another story.
_from the series: A Brief US History, 1985 [18 non-digital, single-exposure, performed photomontages]
