Word: guatemala
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Open-Shirt Diplomacy. Peurifoy died as he lived-audaciously, dramatically, at high speed. Though anything but an orthodox diplomat. Jack Peurifoy had performed outstandingly in difficult assignments-Greece, Guatemala, Thailand. He was essentially a political operator-jaunty, backslapping, forever doing favors, confidential with correspondents, quick at sizing up the practicalities of a situation, ever willing to take the apparently radical course from which the highly trained, career-conscious professionals are likely to hang back. Said Peurifoy once: "The State Department was ripe for guys like...
...Sent next to Guatemala, where Communists were fastening their grip on that Caribbean republic, he spent one long evening with President Jacobo Arbenz and cabled Washington: "If he isn't a Communist, he'll do until a better one comes along." When the anti-Arbenz pressure exploded into revolution last year, Peurifoy, sport-shirted and packing a pistol, maneuvered the rival revolutionary chieftains into an agreement and averted a nasty civil war. As the U.S. saluted the ouster of Guatemala's Communists as a major victory, ambitious Jack Peurifoy was off to Bangkok to succeed "Wild Bill...
Topic A in Guatemala City last week was the $25,000 check that an importing firm had issued to the nation's President. When the news broke a fortnight ago that Carlos Castillo Armas had deposited the check to his bank account, he promptly volunteered a calm and reasonable explanation: the $25,000 represented nothing more sinister than the repayment of a personal loan to an old friend, Mario Bolanos García, head of Comercial Guatemalteca. But the explanation left some king-size questions: Why was a personal loan repaid with a check on Comercial Guatemalteca, instead...
...money to Mario Bolanos. Bolanos had reportedly made a lot of money out of the severe corn shortage caused by Central America's spring drought. Back in January, it appeared, Insider Bolanos found out that the government, worried about drought forecasts, planned to lift import duties on corn, Guatemala's basic foodstuff. With a Mexican and two Guatemalans as partners, he set up Comercial Guatemalteca to import corn from Mexico. What with import duties suspended and corn retailing for as much as 15? a lb. (normal price: about 5?), it was a highly profitable venture, though merchants...
...available corn to private dealers). But last week the warrant had not been served, Bolanos was at liberty, and Comercial Guatemalteca was still in business. The government even granted the firm a license to import 4,000 metric tons of frijoles (black beans), now selling at scarcity prices in Guatemala, and 100,000 sacks of cement, also in short supply. Plenty of Guatemalans were still willing to give Castillo Armas the benefit of the doubt, but they were waiting and hoping for a somewhat better explanation of why the President had allowed himself to be backed into such an embarrassing...