The Fish That Ate the Whale

by Rich Cohen

  “The President stated”: Kinzer, Overthrow.

  The ship, a Swedish vessel: Original documents regarding the affair and the surrounding drama in Guatemala can be found on the website of the State Department’s Office of the Historian, http://history.state.gov. These events were covered in several of the above-mentioned books, including Bitter Fruit and Shattered Hope. See also “Swedish Freighter Anchors off Key West”; “Reaction in Other Capitals”; Gruson, “Guatemala Says U.S. Tried to Make Her Defenseless”; Waggoner, “U.S. White Paper Alerts Americas to Aims of Reds.”

  He described it as the place: Anderson, Che Guevara.

  “Our crime is having”: For Arbenz, see Pellecer, Arbenz y yo; Simon, Guatemala; Hunt, Undercover; Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit; Chapman, Bananas; Anderson, Che Guevara; Lewis, “Ambassador Extraordinary”; Kennedy, “Arbenz Blames U.S. for His Fall.”

  “For fifteen days a cruel war”: See Hunt, Undercover; Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit; Gleijeses, Shattered Hope.

  He lived in Montevideo: Arbenz’s wanderings were chronicled by the newspapers of the day. See, for example, “Arbenz Would Be Swiss”; Gruson, “Arbenz to Make Home in Prague.” Pictures of Arabella Arbenz can be found on a website dedicated to Jaime Bravo, http://matadorjaimebravo.com.

  On January 27, 1971: For recent developments, see Malkin, “Guatemala to Restore Legacy of President U.S. Helped Depose.”

  Within a generation: Standard Fruit, a privately owned company based in New Orleans, was purchased by Castle & Cooke between 1964 and 1968, then renamed Dole. See Karnes, Tropical Enterprise.

  19: Backlash

  U.F. was increasingly considered an embarrassment: For this section, see Ambrose, Eisenhower; Tye, The Father of Spin; Hunt, Undercover; Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit; Taylor and Scharlin, Smart Alliance; McCann, An American Company. McCann is especially good on the twilight years, as he was then working with top management at the company. See also “United Fruit Yields in Suit.”

  20: What Remains

  He had the melancholy: Frank Brogan and Thomas Lemann were helpful on Zemurray’s last days.

  21: Bay of Pigs

  Kennedy refused: Many conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of JFK center around this episode—Kennedy’s decision to withhold air power, which meant the death of exiles on the beach at the Bay of Pigs. In several scenarios, the CIA retaliates by recruiting Lee Harvey Oswald, a former employee of United Fruit and a figure in a New Orleans netherworld where Zemurray had been a power. Often mentioned is the fact that in the guest book at the Russian embassy Oswald visited in Mexico City, the assassin’s name appears beside the name William Gaudet, suggesting the men came together. William Gaudet, probably a CIA agent, had been publisher of the Latin American Report, a propaganda sheet bankrolled, in part, by United Fruit. “When Oswald visited the American Embassy in Mexico City shortly before he assassinated John F. Kennedy, the signature appearing immediately next to Oswald’s own on the Embassy visitors’ register is that of William Gaudet,” wrote Thomas McCann in An American Company. “As of this writing [1976], the coincidence has not been explained.” If I am not delving into this too deeply, it’s because I do not want to chase my tail around the ceiba tree.

  It was the company’s last attempt: On the Bay of Pigs, see Kornbluh, Bay of Pigs Declassified; Rasenberger, The Brilliant Disaster; McCann, An American Company; Schlesinger and Kinzer, Bitter Fruit; Anderson, Che Guevara; Kinzer, Overthrow; Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence; Hunt, Undercover.

  U.F. sold 37,440 acres: “Gringo Company.”

  22: The Earth Eats the Fish That Ate the Whale

  William Claiborne, the first governor of Louisiana: Information comes from my trip to the burial ground, as well as Gandolfo, Metairie Cemetery. Also, Findagrave.com.

  23: Fastest Way to the Street

  In November 1969: “They Bombed in New York.”

  “He was monumental”: After leaving United Fruit, McCann worked as a movie producer. In 1975, he made The Watergate Cover-up Trial, a film about Richard Nixon, using the Watergate tapes as a script. (McCann told me this story.) When he needed a desk for Nixon, he used the furniture from Pier 3. In the film, you can see Zemurray’s desk appearing as Nixon’s desk, which seems both right and wrong.

  Members pledged to tax: UPEB fell apart when Ecuador, then the largest banana producer in the world, refused to join.

  “the head had been split”: Black’s suicide was said to be the model for the first scene of The Hudsucker Proxy, the Coen Brothers movie.

  “It’s a hell of a thing to do”: This quote, as well as details regarding the suicide of Eli Black, come from Thomas McCann, our conversation and his book. Sources on Eli Black include Langley and Schoonover, The Banana Men; Chapman, Bananas; Koeppel, Banana; Jenkins, Bananas; Kinzer, Overthrow; Kilborn, “Suicide of Big Executive.”

  More than five hundred people: “Eli Black’s Rites Attended by 500.”

  The mystery was resolved: See “Complaint Names United Brands Company,” which summarizes the charges against the company. Also Cole, “S.E.C. Suit Links a Honduras Bribe to United Brands.”

  Ice-cream men: I tried to interview someone from Chiquita for this book. My request led to e-mail exchanges with Andrew Ciafardini, manager of investment relations and corporate communications at Chiquita Brands International in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the end, my request was not granted.

  More recently, Chiquita was accused: See Gentile, “Families Sue Chiquita in Deaths of Five Men.”

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