M. M. J.
Professor Becker
Hist 140-01
November 1, 2012
Primary Source Analysis: Declassified Message vs. Memory of Fire
Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire starts with a brief description of United Fruit and how it “can seize whatever land it wants – enourmous unused tracts – and owns the railroad, the telephone, the telgraphs, the ports, and the ships...” (Chasteen 210). Sam Zemurray is appearently the head of United Fruits and “did not believe it was possible” for the Guatemalan government to try and revold from United Fruits which started with the unions right to strike (Chasteen 210).
The president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz takes back his country's land and distributes it to the many people families in Guatemala. This action enraged the U.S. And accused Arbenz of communist conspiracy. But Galeano writes that Arbenz's inspiration did not come from Lenin, if came from Abraham Lincoln's agrarian reform (Chasteen 211).
When Galeano says that United Fruit owns “...the railroads, the telephone, the telegraphs...” (Chasteen 210), I feel that the Declassified Message by the CIA takes over those telegraphs and radios to broadcast either a misunderstanding, or blasphemy against Arbenz. The Declassified Message is riddled with “COMMIE”, “COMMUNISTS” and “ARBENZISM”. It seems as if the U.S. Basically framed this Guatemalan president that was trying to do good for his people, of Communism so that they could bombard him and prove to the people of Guatemala and other Latin American countries that the U.S. Is the Land of the Free, “For God, Father Land, and Liberty!” (Chasteen 194), and that they will always be there, looming over Latin America like a bodyguard, of an adolescent, that is unwanted.
Works Cited
Chasteen, John Charles. Born in Blood and Fire: Latin American Voices. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. Print.