Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

military personnel, and preconceived biased opinions about Soviet Communism to form foreign
policy decisions (Gleijeses, 1991, 100-101). Documents recently produced by the State
Department and CIA reveal there was ample evidence available to the U.S. government that
Guatemala was neither a communist threat to the United States nor was it affiliated with the
Soviet Union. Yet, accusations against communism began during the Arévalo regime, at a time
when the United States knew that “communists faced formidable obstacles in Guatemala… [the
communists] were fewer than five hundred, and their influence rested on the personal patronage
of Arévalo” (Gleijeses, 1991, 122). 18
Moreover, when Guatemalan elites claimed communist
subversion was widespread in Guatemala the United States State Department’s Office of
Intelligence and Research reported that “there is better reason to believe that Communist
infiltration is non-consequential” (Gleijeses, 1991, 122-123). Ironically, when Arbenz was first
elected to office he was viewed as an “opportunist” who could be a “bulwark against
communism” rather than a Soviet sympathizer (Gleijeses, 1991, 127).
Nonetheless, after the ouster of Ubico, U.S. corporations, specifically United Fruit
Company, worked with the U.S. State Department to incite U.S. action in Guatemala. In 1953, in
an attempt to brand Arbenz a communist, United Fruit Company assembled a publication titled
“Report on Guatemala,” this report was distributed to all members of Congress, all members of
relevant bureaucratic committees and press corps. A portion of the United Fruit Company’s
publication states, “A Moscow directed Communist conspiracy in Central America is one of the
Soviet Union’s most successful operations of infiltration outside of the Iron Curtain countries”
(De Soto, 1978, 244). Additionally, United Fruit Company paid for U.S. journalists to travel to
18 Ibid, 122. This was from a United States Embassy report.
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