Word: bitter
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Today, Schlesinger is pleasantly surprised by the success of Bitter Fruit, now in its third printing. "When we first started the project in 1976, there was little interest in this country for Latin America," he says. "We had trouble finding a publisher, when we did we got almost no advance, and we had to hold down other jobs while we worked on the book...
...relevance of Bitter Fruit. Schlesinger claims, is "almost cerie." He draws a striking parallel between the Eisenhower Administration and President Reagan's Washington. "It seemed inconceivable to me that a government like Eisenhower's with John Foster Dulles could come back into power in this country," he says. "Then you wake up one day and find Ronald Reagan in the White House and Al Haig as Secretary of State mounting the same polemical statements about communism in Central America as Eisenhower...
...their engrossing book Bitter Fruit, Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer tell the previously untold tale of the American coup in Guatemala. Using government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the authors recount in a straight forward but not simplistic manner the details of Arbenz's overthrow For an American. Bitter Fruit makes agonizing reading: the arrogance. Callousness and stupidity of our countrymen is hard to swallow...
...BITTER FRUIT, an invaluable historical narrative, also sounds a timely warning. The parallels between American perceptions of Arbenz's Guatemala and present day Nicaragua are striking. Only this time, the Administration itself is playing the role of United Fruit. Concerned that the Sandinista are best on exporting revolution to neighboring Central American countries, Washington is apparently considering financing a paramilitary group to destabilize the Nicaraguan regime through economic sabotage--and eventually overthrow it. In charge of the group would be--surprise, surprise...
...conclusion to Bitter Fruit, then, remains to be written Like the result of a scary time warp, the Reagan Administration is taking up right where Allen Dulles and his CIA left off. As Schlesinger and Kinzer so effectively argue, this type of policy has no victors--only victims. Eventually, the people of Guatemala, after much senseless bloodshed, will rise up as they did in 1945 and rid themselves of whichever dictator happens to be in power. Then the United States, rightly perceived as the ally of repression, will lose another potential friend to the Soviet camp. The bitter fruit...