Comparing Perspectives
"GUATEMALA AND UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY"
Donald Grant - 1955
Writing in the year following the coup, Harvard Nieman Fellow Donald Grant claimed there was an undoubted connection between the Arbenz government and Soviet Russia, arguing that the American intervention sought to protect the US by preventing the spread of communism in “underdeveloped areas.”- Grant’s argument combines International Good Guy and Realpolitik perspectives. He wrote that isolation of the US in a world of communism would not “admit the survival of… ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy,’” underscoring his belief that America had legitimate reason to intervene. Grant also highlighted US desire that Guatemala “develop in a direction [aligned with]...United States policy,” echoing his Realpolitik perspective, where the US acts to protect its own interests. Grant repeatedly uses “we” and “us” to appeal to the nationalistic unity of his US audience to justify the invasion. He uses hyperbole to paint communism as a dire threat, stating that Guatemalan communists had “a monopoly in all fields of social activity,” and “no…action short of a revolution” could stop the control of communists in Guatemala. Consequently, Grant frames the coup as justified in order to preserve US democracy and prevent US political isolation, underscoring his International Good Guy and Realpolitik stances. While Grant’s focus on a singular factor presents a rationale for the intervention, it leaves room to question whether there existed other motives.
[6] Donald Grant, "Guatemala and United States Foreign Policy," Journal of International Affairs 9, no. 1 (1955): [Page 69], https://www.jstor.org/stable/24355574?seq=1.
[7] It is important to contextualize Grant’s writing in 1955, as he did not have the same hindsight or access to then-classified CIA documents as Marshall.
[8] For definitions of US foreign policy perspectives, please see the “Schools of Thought” section under the home page.
[9] Grant, "Guatemala and United," [65].
[10] Grant, "Guatemala and United," [72].
[11] Grant, "Guatemala and United," [67].
"The United Fruit Lobby: Revisiting Truman's Guatemala Policy"
Jonathan Marshall - 2023
While acknowledging that fear over the spread of communism influenced US foreign policy in Guatemala, independent researcher Jonathan Marshall leveraged previously classified government archives to argue that US intervention was substantially motivated by economic interests, propelled by exaggerated accounts of communism in Guatemala, and spurred by personal relationships between actors in the UFCO, CIA, and US government. [12] Marshall’s article aligns with the American Colossus perspective, as he argues that the US acted to protect its economic foothold in Guatemala, while also emphasizing the death and repression that followed the Coup. [13] Marshall pushes “historians to reconsider how business, social, and political relationships…shape how decision makers apply broad ideologies to particular circumstances in ways that may serve corporate or other private interests.” [14] Marshall’s belief that interpersonal commercial relationships influenced US intervention in Guatemala materializes in intimate vocabulary including “huddled,” “close friend,” and “tight.” [15] Language such as “persuasion,” “planted stories,” and “fingerprints all over” shows how propaganda—starting during the Truman administration (1945-1953)—about communist influence in Guatemala was used to justify US intervention. [16] Marshall’s inclusion of declassified government documents prompts the reader to consider how the US concealed the extent to which corporate interests and personal relationships drove the Coup.