Former Guatemalan President Aré-valo published this book in Spanish in 1956. Since then more than one million copies have been sold throughout Latin America. No one knows how many persons have read each copy, but this reviewer knows of eases where the pages were so worn that transparent tape held them together.
Now that this diatribe against the United States government and U.S. businesses in Latin America is available in English, American readers can discover just how bitter anti-Yankee literature gets. But for the historian or scholar of another discipline attuned to Latin American affairs, no such shock will be forthcoming.
Not in the least scholarly, this volume is of value to the Latin Americanist only as a prime example of the type of literature which has been inflaming Latin American students and teachers. Literally millions of Latin Americans accept the Arévalo version of recent history.
Translators were Raúl Osegueda, Minister of Education in the Arévalo administration and Minister of Foreign Relations in the Arbenz regime, and June Cobb, an American socialist who reportedly has earned $1,000 a month translating speeches for Fidel Castro.
New York publisher Lyle Stuart promoted sales for this book in three full-page advertisements in The New York Times. This promotion prompted the United States Inter-American Council, a group of 114 individuals and corporations doing business in Latin America, to protest in a letter to The Times that the advertisements were false political propaganda.
Early in February, Stuart announced that he would sue the Inter-American Council for libel. Such news tends to obscure in the public mind just what the book contains.
Arévalo opens with a fable: Neptune’s prophet admonishes a shark to protect and nurture a sardine. They sign a treaty of friendship. For forty-three pages Arévalo heaps sarcasm on the Organization of American States (Pan American “oceanic law”).
The remainder of the book deals with American activities in Nicaragua, Mexico, within the inter-American organizations, and U.S. businessmen in Chile and elsewhere.
Every cliché in the lexicon of a demagogue turns up, from “Wall Street imperialists” “to the Colossus of the North.” In many instances Arévalo denounces entities no longer in existence. For example, he vents spleen on the House of Morgan, though several years ago this company was bought out by the Guaranty Trust Company.
It comes as no surprise to discover no bibliography nor any footnotes. Yet millions of Latin Americans have echoed Arévalo’s charges without worrying about any documentation. According to Arévalo, there have not been any friendly, idealistic Americans south of the border, only robber barons and thieves. And this man has been lecturing at a university in Caracas.
