611.14/1–1654
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Cabot)
Subject:
- Farewell Call on President by Guatemalan Ambassador1
- Participants: The President
- Señor Dr. Don Guillermo Toriello, Ambassador of Guatemala
- Mr. John M. Cabot, Assistant Secretary
The Guatemalan Ambassador called on the President to say farewell before returning to Guatemala to become Foreign Minister.
Following an exchange of courtesies, the President made a reference to relations between the United States and Guatemala. The Ambassador seized on this to peddle to the President his oft-told tale of how Guatemala is a victim of “calumny”. He said there were communists in Guatemala but they occupied only a few insignificant positions in the Government. Guatemala had always suffered from dictators but since 1944 it had had a democratic government which was undertaking much needed reforms, notably the agrarian reform.
The President said we had no wish to dominate any country. We regarded our Latin neighbors as sovereign equals, and did not try to interfere in their affairs. In consequence they had always been independent. We hated communism. The President contrasted the status of our neighbors with that of Poland and Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states. Soviet communism was the worst dictatorship the world had ever known, and we were determined to block the international communist conspiracy. We certainly had the impression that the Guatemalan Government was infiltrated with communists, and we couldn’t cooperate with a Government which openly favored communists.
The Guatemalan Ambassador pleaded for greater cooperation. The armed forces had not been infiltrated, yet they couldn’t get ammunition. The Guatemalan airline couldn’t get a permanent contract. The effect of all this was to help the communists. If we helped the Guatemalans more, they would soon get rid of the communists.
The President said that we really couldn’t help a government which was openly playing ball with communists. The people of the United States hated communism and if we helped them there would be a coup against him (this laughingly).
The Ambassador said that the real question was not that of communists in the Guatemalan Government, but of the monopolistic position of the United Fruit in the country. The Ambassador brought out a little map of Guatemala to show the United Fruit’s stranglehold on ports, railways, etc. He went into his usual discreetly distorted indictment of the United Fruit and insisted that this, and not communism in the Government, was the source of the difficulties in relations between the United States and Guatemala. He also brought out two scrapbooks of anti-Guatemalan articles published in the U.S. press.
The President said that we certainly wanted no more than justice for any American companies operating in Guatemala. We would be agreeable to having an international tribunal decide what the rights of the [Page 1097] controversy were. Moreover, we realized that contracts made many years ago were subject to revision under changing circumstances.
The Ambassador continued to harp on the line that the United Fruit, and not the few Guatemalan communists, were the source of our difficulties in relations. Mr. Cabot interjected that avowed communists occupied key positions in the National Agrarian Department, the official press and radio, and other government agencies, and that the highest officials of the Guatemalan Government were openly supporting them and listening to their advice.
The Ambassador continued to press his argument with skill. He particularly mentioned that Sullivan & Cromwell, the Secretary of State’s former firm, represented the United Fruit. The President by this point had risen to indicate the interview was ended. Mr. Cabot, thinking the Ambassador had charged that he had stock in the United Fruit, pointed out that this was untrue.
The President asked about the charges against the United Fruit. Mr. Cabot said there were certainly two sides to that question. The Ambassador said that they paid no taxes, just one cent per stem on bananas. He also mentioned that no immediate compensation had been given for the United Fruit lands seized. The President suggested that perhaps this could be settled by an international judgment, perhaps headed by a Latin American. Mr. Cabot pointed out that we had proposed action along these lines, but Guatemala considered this a matter of sovereignty.
The entire conversation, which lasted half an hour, was in personally friendly terms. The Ambassador presented his case very persuasively—with skillful emphasis and suppression. The President made a very able and convincing exposition of our thesis that the issue is communism in the Guatemalan Government, not the United Fruit question, and that the latter can be decided by international decision.
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In a briefing memorandum for the President concerning Ambassador Toriello’s visit, dated Jan. 15, 1954, Under Secretary of State Smith stated in part the following:
↩“Last month President Arbenz told Ambassador Peurifoy Guatemalan Communists are ‘honest’, follow Guatemalan not Soviet interests, and visit Moscow to study Marxism, not to get instructions. Guatemalan Communists are in fact disciplined agents of international Communism, preaching authentic Soviet-dictated doctrine and openly affiliated with numerous international Communist labor and front groups.
“We have repeatedly expressed deep concern to the Guatemalan Government because it plays the Communist game. Our relations are further disturbed because of the merciless hounding of American companies there by tax and labor demands, strikes, and, in the case of the United Fruit Company, inadequately compensated seizures of land under a Communist-administered Agrarian Reform Law.” (Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower papers, Whitman file, International Series, “Guatemala”)