As the secretary of state explained, for quite some time the United States had been having difficulties with the elected president of the Central American nation of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. An avowed liberal, Árbenz had shaken up the almost feudalistic culture of his nation through a sweeping land reform initiative. In John Foster’s view, land reform was often the herald of communism. A proposal to overthrow the Guatemalan president had first been broached during the Truman administration, only to be quashed, but in the wake of the gladdening news from Iran, John Foster was ready to
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