“The Red Outpost in Central America,” LIFE Magazine, October 1953
Magazine article about Jacobo Arbenz’s policies, 1953 (begins page 169)
Transcript Excerpt
“President Arbenz, an intense, humorless reformer, has two pet programs: land reform and elimination of ‘foreign (i.e. U.S.) monopolies.’ In each aim the Reds are his strongest backers…Arbenz, who is no Communist himself, looks upon the Reds as Guatemalans first and Reds second…
Forever in need of something to hate, Communism finds itself sharing a ready-made target with the obsessively nationalistic President Arbenz in Guatemala. The U.S.-owned United Fruit Company has a long history of unpopularity there. At first it was resented legitimately as an exploiter; since 1945, after recognizing its errors, it has been attacked despite the $2 million it spends each year to better the welfare of its workers….The company has been hated by Guatemalans who accuse it of manipulating dictators, taking its profits to the U.S. and paying imported employees better than native. Many other Guatemalans hate it too for controlling the Puerto Barrios waterfront, where the United Fruit’s white ships dock, and the railroad to Guatemala City, on which, they say, United Fruit gives more consideration to a banana than to a Guatemalan.
Hatred, however, never cost United Fruit anything until last winter when, egged on by the Reds, the government expropriated 234,000 acres of the company’s reserve land. Gloomily watching 2,000 squatters move in, the company was hit again in August when 174,000 more acres were taken. The government has offered to pay, at official tax valuation, a price so low that the company refuses to accept it. Now, though still making money, United Fruit talks about being forced to get out altogether.
The strange Arbenz-Communism partnership has brought some undeniable benefits to Guatemalans. Land is being distributed among people who have always been landless. Livestock and seed loans are being distributed to put the new farmers in business…but the dreams outrun the reality, and then land is littered with the dismal failures of revolutionary boondoggles.”
Questions
Why do you think LIFE Magazine published this article in 1953?
What is land reform, and why might it have been a popular policy in Guatemala?
How would President Arbenz’s policies affect the United States?
Citations
Capa, Cornell [photographer]. “The Red Outpost in Central America” Life Magazine, October 12, 1953.