320 ChaPter^6
rely more heavily for support upon the Tudeh Party, home to many Communists
and radicals. In the U.S., Eisenhower told the NSC that the U.S. had to take
action in Iran, but he cited the Soviet threat, which was virtually non-existent,
as the justification. “If I had $500,000,000 of money to spend in secret,” the
president observed, “I would get $100,000,000 of it to Iran right now.”^
Then, just after Eisenhower was inaugurated the CIA began its campaign
in Iran, paying opposing groups to demonstrate against Mossadegh. By sum-
mer 1953, the pressure against the government was growing considerably, and
the CIA, using psychological operations similar to those it would soon use in
Guatemala, successfully isolated Mossadegh. In late August, Mossadegh was
overthrown; rather than call out troops to suppress the uprising against him
and harm Iranians, he left office. The Shah of Iran was then placed in power
and the monarchy restored. Over the years, with significant amounts of
American money and a U.S.-backed security apparatus, the Shah would
repress his own people and create a favorable climate for American corporate
interests. In Iran, a nationalist government learned hard lessons about chal-
lenging the U.S. role in the world political economy. A small nation in
Central America would suffer the same lesson at that time too.
From the days of the Monroe Doctrine, in 1823, to the period after World
War II, the U.S. essentially controlled Latin America. That region was par-
ticularly important because of America’s economic interests there. In the
1950s private U.S. investment doubled to $9.2 billion; over 20 percent of all
exports went to the region; American firms produced 16 percent of Venezuela’s
national wealth and 12 percent in Cuba. American companies took huge
profits out of Latin America as well. Kennecott and Anaconda Copper profits
in Chile reached over 50 percent of their total, while in Brazil U.S. corpora-
tions received from 15 to 25 percent of their net earnings. Loans from the
Export-Import Bank, created in 1934 to give government credits to exporters
to sell more goods abroad, rose to nearly $2 billion, while outright economic
aid totaled more than $1.3 billion. There were times, as in Haiti or Nicaragua
in the period around World War I, when American troops did go into those
countries to establish “order,” meaning U.S. control. But often it was done
through businessmen, as in Guatemala, which is a great case study in the way
the American “empire” grew in the early Cold War years.
Guatemala is a small country in Central America, south of Mexico. It is
about 42,000 square miles in area [about as big as Virginia or Tennessee] and