Word: lindner
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...Before Lindner bought in, Chiquita Brands was the old United Fruit Co., a ruthless buccaneer that earned a justifiable reputation as a tyrant that bribed officials of foreign governments, used armed force to keep its workers in line and generally mistreated its thousands of dirt-poor laborers on impoverished Caribbean islands and Central American plantations. All of which helps explain why Chiquita was--and is--the world's dominant banana producer...
...would prove to be the first in a series of missteps by the Lindner-controlled company--suggesting at least the possibility that the ensuing banana war was really intended to bail out the Lindners from their costly business mistakes...
...Lindner, a nonsmoking, nondrinking, nonswearing Baptist, has been a major supporter of the Republican Party, its candidates and causes. This may account for the less than enthusiastic response that Lindner received when he first took his banana case to the Clinton Administration early in 1993. In fact, at that time the U.S. Trade Representative's internal memos show that bananas were a low priority for the U.S. government. What's more, USTR and State Department officials had given--and would continue to give--repeated assurances to leaders of Caribbean governments that the U.S. supported European preferences for their bananas...
...against this background that in June of that year, Keith Lindner, then president of Chiquita and one of Carl's three sons in the family businesses, wrote a "Dear Ambassador" letter to Mickey Kantor outlining concerns over Europe's import restrictions. There was little response...
That December, Carl Lindner contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the Democratic National Committee, establishing himself as a generous supporter of both political parties...