This source is a declassified CIA intelligence report dated June 23, 1953, that was produced by an unnamed CIA source in Panama. The report was written during a period of intense conflict, where president of Guatemala Jacobo Árbenz’s land reform law had already stripped UFC of hundreds of thousands of acres of Guatemalan land and the United Fruit Company was trying to convince the United States that Árbenz posed a massive threat to them. This report tracks the UFC’s economic dominance in this pivotal moment across Central America. The purpose of the report was to help the U.S understand the full scope of the UFC’s economic power as it was weighing how to respond to the growing conflict between Árbenz and the company.
This document reflects the point of view of a U.S government official who is trying to grasp just how powerful the United Fruit Company truly is. He even views the UFC in a positive light, as he mentions how they bring employment wherever they go. He also mentions their economic growth and the growth they bring to the countries the company resides in. The larger historical significance is that this document is evidence that the U.S. government was monitoring UFC’s economic dominance across Central America at the exact moment the company was lobbying for U.S. intervention against Árbenz. The document demonstrates how successfully the UFC infiltrated the U.S government as the U.S treated the company’s economic dominance like a national interest. Under no normal circumstances does a government monitor the economic standing of a private company. This source aids me in my project because it provides evidence that the UFC’s information control strategies were successful on the U.S government. Essentially, their information control strageies worked on even the highest levels of the U.S government.
“The United Fruit Company hires more employees and pays more taxes and salaries than any other commercial entity in the Republic, either native or foreign. There are 12,000 employees of the United Fruit Company in Panama with a pay roll of US$8,000,000 and both are growing. The United Fruit Company never closed out entirely its interests in Almirante. During the war it converted some of its lands to abaca in cooperation with the U.S. Government which needed this during wartime to make rope, etc. While this has grown to an annual business of more than US$1,600,000, it is not the regular business of the Company, which prefers to raise bananas. Another crop put in by the Company — cacao — totaled more than US$2,000,000 in exports last year. There are other secondary crops, such as: 1,500 acres of African palms which produce a vegetable oil sorely needed in Panama; 550 acres of mahogany; and some 1,750 acres of teak.”
Source
Central Intelligence Agency. “Position of the United Fruit Company.” Intelligence Report, CIA-RDP83-00423R000700880005-3. June 23, 1953. Declassified. CIA Reading Room, via Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp83-00423r000700880005-3.