con-sara-cy theories

Episode 10: PBSuccess, a coup d'état & bananas 🍌

March 27, 2024 Episode 10
Show Notes Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive the typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

guatemala, guatemalan, united fruit company, united, fruit, coup d'etat, interests, people, company, banana, coup, ufc, talking, propaganda, book, chiquita, episode, henry cabot lodge, written, eisenhower

 

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I'm going to talk about Operation PB success, aka the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, as well as its connections to the Dulles brothers and bananas. Yeah, bananas, like literal peel and eat banana fruit. I also intend to record and publish an episode soon about operations Uppada and George Bush, but not that George Bush, the other George Bush. But no, not that other George Bush, George W. Bush, but not the George W. That you're thinking about. That was the governor of Texas and the President of the United States. No, not that George Bush and somehow supposedly not Poppy Bush either. But another George Bush in the intelligence community, who was a George W. Bush, but not one of the George Bush's that you're thinking of confused yet? Well, just wait, it just gets better and better. So because one informs the other, we can't really talks about the Bay of Pigs invasion, before we talk about this Guatemalan coup d'etat, because they're interlinked and some of the same names, the same people that we find in operations apana, we also find in this Guatemalan coup d'etat, and as I'm reading about all of this, I'm just scratching my head and consternation thinking God, no wonder Kennedy fired these people. The hell were they thinking? Hmm, let's pour ourselves up a nice cold beverage of choice and get ready to saddle up and take this bananas ride. I apologize in advance if you hear some honking and weird animal noises in the background. I don't think that the magic mastering on Buzzsprout is going to be able to sanitize that out my cattle have decided to get really loud in the background. It may at times sound like they're in the room with us. It sounds like I'm outside in the barn sometimes I assure you I am not. But I have to record these episodes on an as I have time basis and this evening, they've just decided to be loud as hell and there's nothing I can do about that. I've been reading this book by Richard Belfield titled terminate with extreme prejudice. And I came to this topic. This will also be at least one other episode. What I'd really like to do is cover this book in its entirety as a book review, but then also have a separate episode to question if these 12 programs are real. I came to this topic by way of Richard Meltzer, and I came to Richard belts are by way of Mark Shaw. So I've been watching a video of Mark Shaw talking about Dorothy Kilgallen on YouTube. And when the video ended, it popped up a video by Richard Beltre, sort of like if you enjoyed this episode by Mark Shaw, then you might enjoy this video with Richard Meltzer. And I'm thinking the comedian, like the stand up comedian slash TV actor, what the hell's he got to do with the Kennedy pop up? Well, as it turns out, he has written books, just like a wide variety of people on this topic, Richard Belzer, had written some books, one of them was called hit list. I have not finished that book in its entirety, it could probably wind up being its own podcast episode. But when I was combing through the introduction, he starts talking about these 12 programs, and more specifically, programs that are made to look natural heart attacks, strokes, a sudden virulent strain of cancer, where someone goes from being completely healthy to within a month or two, they're deceased. Are these real? One of the episodes that I want to record? is, are these twit programs real? Are people just reading too much sci fi? And watching too many Bond movies? Or do these programs really exist? I also intend to record an episode specifically about Judith very Baker, who purported to be a mistress of Lee Harvey Oswald, and some kind of wunderkind when it came to cancer research. And some of the allegations that she makes about programs that she worked on, along with David very, very scary information. If it's true, it is highly, highly disturbing. So I would like to record an episode more specifically about these 12 programs. But funny enough, as I'm getting into this book by Richard Belfield, the very first chapter is never write anything down. Once we get out of the introduction, where he lays the scene of the book, the very first chapter is never write anything down, and he opens up by taking us to a navy airbase in Opa Locka, Florida in 1954. And he talks about how if you just drove by, if you were casually observing, it looks like it's basically abandoned. But in reality behind closed doors behind the scenes, there's this training program that's going on. And the codename is PB success, which of course, we will later know as the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. And so they have this training program. Along with economic sabotage and propaganda, there's going to be this paramilitary operation, in order to get rid of a democratically elected president. There's going to be this coup d'etat that involves paramilitary operations as well as an intensive propaganda strike. The irony, of course, is that this chapter is titled never write anything down. But in reality, there was a Charlie India Alpha training manual for these people that were going to go into this coop. Now I want to read just a little bit to you from this chapter. And I do recommend this book, check it out at your local library or purchase it, I had to purchase it. I couldn't find it anywhere and it took some doing to find a used copy of it, but I did. So I'm on page seven of the paperback. This extraordinary manual was written in 1954 for a few 100 Men, watermelon, exiles and mercenaries from the USA and Central America, scattered and training camps in Latin America. Some we're also taught sabotage and demolition that El Tamarindo the plantation ranch of Anastasio Somoza, the psychopathic, Nicaraguan dictator, while others were given weapons training at Lake Managua. A dozen pilots were stationed at the airstrip at Porto cabezas these men were on a collective mission. Get ready for it this way. This way. These men were on a collective mission Colin to make the world safe from communism and sound for the United Fruit Company, UFC. Oh, the world's largest banana company. You have CEOs headquarters were in Guatemala, but its major shareholders were back in the USA. And crucially, they included Allen Dulles, whose law firm represented the company and who was then the head of the recently formed Charlie India alpha and his brother John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State who was fresh from serving on the company's board of trustees for the Dulles brothers and their fellow Cold War warriors on Capitol Hill. The issue was a clear and present danger to American commercial and political interests. Jacobo Arbenz, the newly elected president of Guatemala had nationalized a small portion of the assets of United Fruit, bad news for the shareholders and an affront to the USA, which regarded Latin America as its own backyard in quote.

 

Somebody made a big mistake of pissing off a large corporation and the Dulles brothers can't be doing that. Naughty naughty. Now when we go to the Wikipedia page for the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, here's the basic summary we can find. The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat was the result of a Charlie India Alfa covert operation codenamed PB success, it deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz and ended the Guatemalan revolution of 1944 through 1954. It installed the military dictatorship of Carlos armas, the first in a series of US backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala and quote, I'm going to butt in here and say this is also a pattern that we see coming from this sort of imperialist organization. We don't care if this leader was democratically elected. We don't care if the population of this country has spoken and said, This is who we want. This is the style of government we want. This is the kind of regime that we want everybody here consents to this and wrong answer. If they are an affront to the west, and or the interests just the corporate America giant interests, somehow, then they have to go we'll see this phenomenon play out again in the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, when Salvador Allende who was a Democratic socialist president of Chile is overthrown on September 11th, by the way, September 11 1973, by a group of military officers that were led by Augusto Pinochet. And then we hear these horrific stories of death squads and torture and people simply being disappeared. If you don't agree with the government, if you're not in line with this authoritarian rule, you just simply won't exist on the planet anymore. This is very scary and disturbing stuff. And it's upsetting to me how few people We'll know it, especially here in the States. It's like people don't even care to know their own history. disturbing. Alright, so we go back to the Wikipedia page for the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944. After a popular uprising toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge tobiko, Juan Jose Our evallo was elected president in Guatemala's first democratic election, he introduced a minimum wage and near universal suffrage and turned Guatemala into a democracy. Oh, the horror. How dare he are Ivalo was succeeded in 1951 by Arbenz, who instituted land reforms which granted property to landless peasants? Also, how dare he? How dare you, sir? How dare you? The Guatemalan revolution was disliked by the United States federal government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist. Well, yeah, of course. Of course, if you are going to do any social reforms towards lifting the peons and the peasants out of poverty, then you're just a G damn commie. There's something wrong with you. Don't these people know don't these peons and plebs know that they're supposed to take part in some dog eat dog meritocracy, dammit, don't they know that? But see, the thing is in us crony capitalism, it's socialism for the rich. They get bought out, you know, if they if they make a mistake, they make a crappy investment. Then they get bailed out to the tune of 100 cents on the dollar. They don't really have to have moral hazard the way that you and I, as common folk have to have moral hazard. No, no, it's socialism and safety nets and too big to fail for them. But the hell was everybody else? So of course, what was this man thinking in his own nation, he was going to give property to landless peasants my God. This perception grew after our bins had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemalan party of labor. The United Fruit Company or UFC, whose highly profitable business had been affected by the softening of exploitative labor practices in Guatemala, engaged in an influential lobbying campaign to persuade the US to overthrow the Guatemalan government. US President Harry Truman authorized operation PB fortune to topple carbons in 1952, which was a precursor to PV success. Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected US president in 1952, promising to take a harder line against communism and his staff members John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had significant links to the United Fruit Company. The US federal government drew exaggerated conclusions about the extent of communist influence among our Obinze advisors, and Eisenhower authorized the Charlie India alpha to carry out operation PB success in August 1953. The agency armed funded and trained a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo armas, after US efforts to criticize and isolate Guatemala internationally, our mass force invaded Guatemala on June 18 1954, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare. I'm gonna pause there and say that, again, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare, do you think that that's something that just went away in the 1950s? I mean, really, think about it. I have mentioned before Michael Aquino's book mind war, and had people argue with me, and and again, I don't know if they're saying that they don't think Michael Aquino actually ever existed. They don't think that the book exists, they don't think that his thesis is real. But to me, those people are the dumbasses. You know, this is a nighttime broadcast, the gloves are coming off. If there is a book, you can go and read the book. You can go and look at Aquino's resume and see that he was clearly part of the psyops division of the military. And then you're gonna still yet sit there and say, Well, this is just a conspiracy theory. This isn't real, then you're a dumbass and you're probably not going to make it because you have your head so far up your own behind that you can't even see what's being done to you. I'm just saying. This included a radio station, which broadcasts anti government propaganda and a version of military events favorable to the rebellion claiming to be genuine news, as well as air bombings of Guatemala City and a naval blockade. This is something that we'll see again with the proposed plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion. They were they were intending to do the same thing to have radio propaganda going out that this anti Castro rebellion was going swimmingly like everybody should just join in there. are going to be victorious this is going to be the way of the future. Obviously we know better. The invasion force fared poorly militarily and most of its offensives were defeated. This is also something that we're going to see repeating itself with the Bay of Pigs invasion. However, psychological warfare and the fear of a US invasion intimidated the Guatemalan army which eventually refused to fight. Now, that's not something that we see in the Bay of Pigs invasion later Arbenz briefly and unsuccessfully attempted to arm civilians to resist the invasion before resigning on June 27 Castillo Armis became president 10 days later, following negotiations in San Salvador, described as the definitive deathblow to democracy in Guatemala, the coup was widely criticized internationally, and strengthened the long lasting anti us sentiment in Latin America, attempting to justify the coup, the Agency launched Operation P be history, a shit you're not operation PV history, which saw evidence of Soviet influence in Guatemala, among documents from the Arbenz era, but found none. Do you think that that doesn't happen in current politics? I wrote over on the job market journal about the government going back and shush. Quietly revising the job market numbers, so that historically, when people go back and look at this time, they're gonna say, Well, of course, the job market wasn't that strong. Of course, it wasn't churning and burning and doing great, all you have to do is look at the numbers. But see, in the moment, you were supposed to believe that the unemployment rate was under 4%. That they're all these multiple jobs, anywhere from one and a half to two open jobs for every one unemployed person. And if you can't find a job, well, it's your own damn fault, because you must not be looking hard enough. People are hiring. Remember with a Triple P loans and every MF you saw had a sign in the window. Now hiring Help Wanted, nobody wants to work anymore. All of Gen Z is lazy. Got a bunch of people on welfare that just want to sit around and get their STEMI checks. Everybody is flush with cash. Bullshit. Yeah, bullshit.

 

So it is, we want to go back later, we've decided what the narrative is. We're going to blame it on Soviets. We're going to say that the USSR had communist influence in this country. Damn it, we had to do it as part of the Cold War. So we're just going to invent it. We've decided what the narrative is. Now we want to make the facts I'm using huge air quotes are the facts comport to it? Not the other way around, which is what it should be. I want to look at the evidence and then derive a conclusion based on what the evidence says no screw that. I want to come to a conclusion first and then mold the evidence to fit that conclusion. As Dr. Moss quickly assumed dictatorial powers, banning opposition parties imprisoning and torturing political opponents and reversing the social reforms of the revolution. nearly four decades of civil war followed as leftist guerrillas fought the series of US backed authoritarian regimes whose brutalities include a genocide of the Maya peoples, and quote, What an awful and horrible thing. You know, and then you think about in light of this, I mean, the the influence of it being done over bananas. Wow. But then wanting to turn around and duplicate this again, you know, not only at the Bay of Pigs, but then also, as I mentioned, in the Chilean coup d'etat, let's just install some military dictator, who will kill and torture, because that's what's better for us. You wonder how these people sleep at night, behaving the way that they do. And as I said in the intro, it's no wonder Kennedy fired several of them. Good God. You I'm thinking of that meeting where James Douglas said he walked out of the meeting and said, and we call ourselves the human race. This is awful. It's just it's awful. So we go over now to the Wikipedia page specifically for the United Fruit Company. When we go there we find the United Fruit Company now Chiquita was an American multinational corporation that traded and tropical fruit primarily bananas grown on Latin American plantations, and sold in the United States in Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston fruit company with minor C Keats banana trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid 20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia and the West Indies. Although it competed with the standard fruit company later dole food company for dominance in the international banana trade it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics, such as Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala, United Fruit, I'm just going to button and say Well, no wonder they came to be known as banana republics look at what was being done to them. United Fruit had a deep and long lasting impact on the economic and political development of several Latin American countries. Critics often accused of exploitative Neo colonialism. And they described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the so called banana republics. After a period of financial decline, United Fruit merged with Eli in Black's AMK in 1970, to become the United brands company in 1984. Carl Linder Jr. Transform United brands into the present day Chiquita Brands International Inc. Quote, over on the job market journal on December 11, I published a blog post titled Conquistador corporations. And I was inspired by an article written by Jared a Brock on medium titled The spirit of colonization has passed from nations to corporations, the damage will be even worse this time. I agree. I talked about how I had gone down the rabbit hole of reading about the death of dag hammer sholde. And how it opened my eyes to the horrors of the way that Belgium and others raped the land in the Congo, in order to access the natural resources, things like cobalt, uranium, copper, silver, and gold. And I talk about how in 1980s, Midwest, white bread America, you don't read about those things. They didn't tell us about those things. When I was a school kid, you have to go and learn about those things for yourself as an adult. And how union miniere in its heyday, the amount of money that it made, like in 1960, it was reported that it had earnings of like $200 million, which adjusted for inflation would be about $2 billion today. So it's not small potatoes, like it when you have that kind of money. You can basically do whatever the hell you want. And my thesis is the crony Scratch one another's backs, the state, the corporation, lather, rinse, repeat, they all kiss each other's behinds, and they all look out for one another. So what Jared a Brock is talking about is that if someone thinks naively that colonialism ended with the fall of the British Empire, they're crazy. The spirit of colonialism passed from governments and monarchies over to corporations and NGOs. I completely agree. And I think that the onus is on individual people to wake up and understand that I pick on Neo lives sometimes because they lick the boots of the state and I cannot figure out why. But I pick on Neo cons as well because they lick the boots of Wall Street in corporate America. And again, I can't figure out why I don't get the appeal. When we scroll down on the Wikipedia page under the tab reputation we find the United Fruit Company is well known for bribing government officials in exchange for preferential treatment exploiting its workers, paying little by way of taxes to the governments of the countries were operated, and working ruthlessly to consolidate monopolies. Latin American journalist sometimes referred to the company as El Pulpo the octopus, and left his parties in Latin America encouraged the company's workers to strike criticism of the United Fruit Company became a staple of the discourse of communist parties in several Latin American countries where its activities were often interpreted as illustrating Vladimir Lenin's theory of capitalist imperialism. The integrity of John Foster Dulles his quote, anti communist motives has been disputed, since Dulles and his law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell negotiated the land giveaways to the United Fruit Company in Guatemala and Honduras, John Foster Dulles, his brother Allen Dulles, who was head of the Charlie India Alpha under Eisenhower also did legal work for United Fruit. The Dulles brothers and Sullivan and Cromwell were on the United Fruit payroll for 38 years. Wow. Because that's not a conflict of interest or anything right. Recent research has uncovered the names of multiple other government officials who received benefits from United Fruit. And here, Wikipedia is quoting again, John Foster Dulles who represented United Fruit while he was a law partner at Sullivan and Cromwell he negotiated that crucial United Fruit deal with Guatemalan officials in the 1930s was Secretary of State under Eisenhower, his brother Allen, who did legal work for the company sat on its board of directors and was head of the Charlie India Alpha under Eisenhower. Henry Cabot Lodge, who was America's ambassador to the UN was a large owner of United Fruit stock and Whitman. The United Fruit PR man was married to Anne Whitman, Dwight Eisenhower's personal secretary If you could not see these connections until you could, and then you could not stop seeing them in quote, so that way with a lot of things as it relates to the military, industrial, military intelligence complex, corporate America, all of these cronies that are little piggies that eat out of the same trough, you don't see the connections until one day you do, and then you suddenly can't stop seeing them.

 

If the name Henry Cabot Lodge sounds familiar, again, you know, can't see the connections until all of a sudden you do and then you can't stop seeing them. If that name is familiar to you, then you may remember that he lost the 1952 Senate campaign to JFK, who was at the time a US representative. Now, JFK later, appoints Henry Cabot Lodge to be the ambassador to South Vietnam. According to James Douglas and his research, it was decision that Kennedy did not necessarily with maybe the best amount of foresight. According to Douglass's research, Bobby Kennedy warns John not to appoint Lodge and feels like within six months, he's going to be causing a lot of trouble for them. John does it anyway, and then later regrets it because lodge goes and does his own thing. Once he's the ambassador, and he's installed there. It's pretty much like this is my game. I'm running it how I want to run it. And that's that. If you scroll down further on the United Fruit company's Wikipedia page, you'll also see a story for March 2007. So that in the grand scheme of things not that long ago, about Chiquita Brands pleading guilty in the United States federal court to aiding and abetting a t e. R. R. O. R. I 's organization, when it admitted to the payment of more than $1.7 million to the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, a group that the United States has labeled as a T word organization since 2001. Under a plea agreement, Chiquita Brands agreed to pay $25 million in restitution and damages to the families of the victims of the AUC. The AUC had been paid to protect the company's interest in the region, in addition to monetary payments to kita, has also been accused of smuggling weapons to the tune of 3000 AK 40 sevens to the AUC, and in assisting the AUC and smuggling drugs to Europe, and quote, what a history here. Wow, Wow, just wow. Now, so if we go over to this page provided by wooster.edu, the United Fruit Company in the 1954 Guatemalan coup we will read in their book bitter fruit, the story of the American coup in Guatemala, Schlessinger and Kinzer were some of the first to argue that the UFC Oh interests were crucial to motivating the US to orchestrate the 1954 coup. Celeste ginger specializes in international affairs and foreign policy and Kinzer as a journalist. Together, they analyze primary sources from before and during 1954 to provide an investigative account that argues that the US acted on behalf of their own business interests. Well, yeah, I don't think it today, you know, and 2024 Is there anything surprising about that? Certainly not to me, back in 54, probably would have been scandalous for people to think that or to know that, but now I think we just all accepted. One chapter focuses specifically on the UFC Oh, and includes information on how various US politicians had a stake in the company, and how you have co marketing warped public perception of the situation in Guatemala. I'm going to butt in here and say, This is how it's done. It's not just about propagandizing, the people that you're victimizing, it's also about propagandizing, the people in this country as well. I mean, I'm very tempted to you know, point out the things that are going on bitwixe Rusia, II Greiner, I mean, I'm just saying what do we really know as the American public about what's going on over there? They could tell us anything. They could they could tell us anything. The conflicts of interest and propaganda that they reveal create a convincing argument in favor of the UFC owes role in advocating for PB success, though they could have considered other perspectives, more the views they provide are well supported and important in building the historiography surrounding the US and the 1954 coup in Guatemala and quote, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's disturbing to think about a fruit company. Being that powerful that the US government would say whatever needs to be done to protect your interests there. Will paper over it any way we want, will say this guy is a commie will say that he's trying to get some sort of nefarious plan against the US, whatever you need, whatever you need. We'll we'll accommodate you and read just a little bit more. Bowen builds off of bitter fruits argument in his article US foreign policy toward radical change covert operations in Guatemala 50 to 54. US foreign policy scholar Bowen uses the research of other political science scholars and declassified government documents to examine the extent of US involvement and the motivations behind it. It considers many perspectives including Cold War geopolitics, but places particular emphasis on our Obinze is agrarian land reform and UFC opposition, like Schlessinger and Kinzer. He finds that a major result of the coup was the securing of UFC Oh interests. Though he disagrees that this was the main motor vote mon main motivator if I can speak right main motivator of most policymakers. Instead the mentality of US politicians, those certainly influenced by you FCO and Charlie Andy Alpha propaganda was centered around political interest, not economic ones. However, he writes that the effect of the US actions was to secure the return of UFC lands regardless of the geopolitical intentions or motives of policymakers. This complicates the story told by Slazenger and Kinzer, suggesting that UFC owes interest may have been less obvious for many decision makers at the time, making their role more covert, in quote, I mentioned before union miniere, being worth about $2 billion in today's money. Let's put this into some perspective. When we go to the New York Times, we can see a snippet from February 25 1954. And the headline is United Fruit net $44,556,264.19 53. an appreciable rise in banana earnings helps the figure in 1952 was 37 point 9 million. When we go to the inflation calculator and just put in 44,000,019 53 is worth what today, we discover that it would be worth more than $521 million in today's money. So we're not talking about small amounts. We're talking about companies, corporations, powerful people in high places that can do whatever they want. And what's really changed when we think about Epstein and his associates and people all saying I just disavow I mean, I met him one time I shook his hand. I saw him at a cocktail party, but I never had anything to do with them. Or one time he gave me a car ride somewhere. One time I wrote on his plane, but none of the girls were there. You have this big massive campaign of disavow Oh, I mean, I maybe I was in a room with him one time, but I didn't know the guy. I didn't participate in orgies. I wasn't involved in any of the trafficking. That's just disgusting. We never did any of that. These people are rich and powerful. Ultimately, they can do whatever the hell they want. And John and Jane Q Public have little recourse. Really, when you think about it. I would highly encourage you look into this information on your own, don't come to your own conclusions, decide what you think about it. This will, as I mentioned, at the beginning, lay the foundation for the types of things that we see happening happening in operations Uppada, aka the Bay of Pigs. No wonder it failed. You know, when we get into the thick of that, no wonder it was a giant disaster. And then Kennedy essentially has to fall on the sword for it and take the heat out in public. But when we get into Bay of Pigs and operations of PATA, all of a sudden we see these weird connections to the other George Bush. Not that George Bush and not this other George W. Bush that everybody thinks of immediately, but some other George W. Bush, right. Okay. Sure. Stay a little crazy. And I will see you in the next episode. 

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