Editing United Fruit Company (section)

==Land Reform Challenges==
Context of Agrarian Inequality: In Central America, colonial legacies left land concentrated in the hands of elites and foreign companies like UFCO. By the 1940s, 2% of landowners controlled 70% of arable land in Guatemala, with UFCO owning 550,000 acres (42% of the country’s best farmland) but cultivating only 15%. Similar patterns existed in Honduras, where UFCO held 10% of national territory by 1929, and Costa Rica, where it controlled key export zones.

Nationalist Movements: Post-World War II democratization spurred demands for land reform to empower landless peasants. Leaders like Guatemala’s Juan José Arévalo (1945–1951) and Jacobo Árbenz (1951–1954), and Honduras’s Juan Manuel Gálvez (1949–1954) and Ramón Villeda Morales (1957–1963), championed agrarian policies to redistribute idle land, clashing with UFCO’s interests.

UFCO’s Response: UFCO resisted reforms through legal challenges, propaganda campaigns, and political lobbying. It portrayed land reform as communist-inspired, exploiting Cold War fears to align with U.S. anti-communist policies. Its ownership of uncultivated land, used to suppress competition, made it a prime target for expropriation, intensifying conflicts.

Guatemala: Operation PBSuccess (1952–1954)
Land Reform Trigger: Árbenz’s Decree 900 (1952) aimed to redistribute 1.5 million acres to 100,000 peasant families, expropriating idle land with compensation based on tax valuations. UFCO, which undervalued its 550,000 acres at $1.2 million for tax purposes, faced the loss of 210,000 acres (70% uncultivated), receiving $627,572 in bonds. UFCO demanded $16 million, claiming unfair treatment, and launched a PR campaign labeling Árbenz a Soviet puppet, despite the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT)’s limited influence (4,000 members).

Lobbying for Regime Change: UFCO’s influence within the Eisenhower administration was formidable. [[John Foster Dulles]] (Secretary of State) and [[Allen Dulles]] (CIA Director) had ties to UFCO’s law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, while Walter Bedell Smith (Under Secretary of State) sought a UFCO executive role. UFCO hired [[Spruille Braden]], a former ambassador, and [[Thomas G. Corcoran]], a lobbyist, to pressure Washington. Its PR firm, [[Edward L. Bernays]], orchestrated media campaigns, including articles in The New York Times and Time, framing Árbenz as a communist threat. A 1953 UFCO report, cited in Bitter Fruit by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, falsely claimed Soviet arms shipments to Guatemala.

[[Operation PBSuccess]]:  In August 1953, Eisenhower authorized the CIA’s Operation PBSuccess, with a $2.7 million budget, to overthrow Árbenz. Led by [[Tracy Barnes]], [[E. Howard Hunt]], and [[David Atlee Phillips]], the operation used propaganda (Radio Liberación), air raids, and a small rebel force under Carlos Castillo Armas. UFCO provided logistical support, including plantation airstrips and intelligence on Árbenz’s government, per declassified CIA documents (1997). Ambassador John Peurifoy delivered ultimatums, securing Árbenz’s resignation on June 27, 1954. Castillo Armas restored UFCO’s land, banned the PGT, and killed 3,000–5,000 suspected leftists, sparking a civil war (1960–1996) with over 200,000 deaths.

Impact: UFCO regained its holdings but faced long-term backlash, with its role in the coup fueling anti-American sentiment across Latin America. The operation set a precedent for U.S.-backed interventions, influencing Operation Condor’s framework.

Honduras: Resistance to Reform and Political Influence
Land Control: By 1929, UFCO controlled 650,000 acres in Honduras, including 400,000 acres of prime banana land, much of it fallow to deter competitors. Its dominance extended to railroads, ports, and the economy, with 80% of Honduran exports tied to bananas by 1930.

Early Reform Efforts: In the 1940s, President Tiburcio Carías Andino (1933–1949), a UFCO ally, suppressed labor and reform movements. His successor, Juan Manuel Gálvez (1949–1954), a former UFCO lawyer, faced pressure from a 1954 banana workers’ strike (60,000 workers), prompting modest labor concessions but no land reform. UFCO’s influence ensured Gálvez maintained favorable policies, avoiding expropriation.

Villeda Morales and Reform (1957–1963): President Ramón Villeda Morales, a liberal, proposed Decree 6 (1959), a land reform law to redistribute idle land, targeting UFCO’s uncultivated holdings. UFCO lobbied against the law, funding conservative factions and leveraging U.S. embassy pressure. In 1962, Villeda weakened the reform under U.S. threats to withhold aid, per Bananas by Peter Chapman. When Villeda’s reforms persisted, UFCO supported a 1963 military coup led by Oswaldo López Arellano, who ousted him before elections. The coup, backed by U.S. recognition, halted land reform, preserving UFCO’s dominance.

Critical Note: Unlike Guatemala, UFCO’s role in Honduras avoided direct CIA-led coups, relying on economic leverage and local elites. Declassified State Department cables (1960s) confirm U.S. support for López Arellano, but UFCO’s advocacy was less overt than in PBSuccess, as noted in The Banana Men by Lester D. Langley.