Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala

The history of the United States’ involvement in Central American politics is not a happy one, as anyone with a passing knowledge of the area will tell you. This record of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Jabobo Arbenz in 1954 is an incredibly well-told account of what is, sadly, just another tawdry chapter in the story of US abuses in this part of the world.

Schlesinger’s particular brilliance is to make the history seem, not bigger, but smaller. The key protagonists don’t feel like they’re just actors of some impersonal “grand history”, but real people who made stupid real-people mistakes, and did horrible real-people things.

In 2017, Guatemala has an ex-comedian as a President who show more previously posed in blackface and keeps provoking neighbouring Belize with a decades-old territorial dispute. But, good to be reminded that things have been worse. show less

Fruta Amarga es la soprendente historia del afan aventurero de la CIA. Nos relata la Operacion Exito que, con la aprobacion del presidente Eisenhower, el secretario de Estado John Foster Dulles y su hermano Allen; director de la CIA, concibieron y orquestaron para llevar al poder a un gobierno compatible con la United Fruit, derrocando al legitimo gobierno de Guatemala. El plan incluia un embajador empistolado, una campaña de propaganda mkontada en la prensa norteamericana, un andrajoso ejercito nacionalista pagado por la CIA, una campaña de desinformacion a traves de estaciones de radio clandestinas, asi como pilotos norteamericnos mercenarios que bombarearon la cidudad de Guatemala.

Es una dramatica version de una traicion show more cuidadosametne planeada y que puede ser el episodio mas importante en la historia tanto en la CIA como en la actual Centroamerica. show less