September 9, 2019 • 33 mins
The 1954 coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala was orchestrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Part one will outline the various influences leading up to the coup, including the involvement of United Fruit Company.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Over the next two episodes, we're going to be talking
about something that still has a lot of relevance in
(00:22):
the world today, and that is the nineteen fifty four
coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, which
was orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. It's not
really accurate to say that this caused the coupe, but
one of its biggest advocates in the United States was
United Fruit Company. Sometimes you'll see it described as like
(00:45):
United Fruit Company convinced the CIA to overthrow this government,
and that's fu exactly what happened. It also didn't happen
in isolation. This was rooted in Cold War paranoia about communism,
and it was also part of an overall pattern of
US intervention in Latin America and an overall pattern of
US business interests trying to influence the governments of those nations.
(01:09):
So today we will have an overview of how the
United States relationship to Latin America evolved over the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. This definitely is not every twist and
turn of those decades. It's more like a through line
to put this stuff in context. Plus the stuff that's
going to kind of come up later in the episodes,
and we will talk about how United Fruit Company came
(01:30):
to be such a major player in Guatemala in the
first place, and what was happening in Guatemala that caused
the United Fruit Company to be so opposed to it.
The next time, the second part of this two party,
we will talk about the coup itself and its aftermath.
This school was carried out in nineteen fifty four, but
the United States mentality behind it goes back to the
(01:51):
Monroe Doctrine, which was articulated by President James Monroe in
his December second, eight three annual Address to Congress. This
that's known today as the State of the Union Address,
and the address and the ideas in it were heavily
influenced by Monroe's Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. We
talked about it just a little on our episode on
(02:12):
John Quincy and his wife Louisa. There's obviously a lot
more in the scope of this address, but the basic
ideas of the Monroe Doctrine were these. Number one, the
world had two spheres of influence, the America's where their
own sphere, and the rest of the world was another.
Number two, the Americas were also not open for further
colonization by European world powers. Number three, the US wouldn't
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interfere with the internal matters of other nations. That included
remaining neutral in the face of wars in Europe and
remaining neutral when it came to existing European colonies in
the America's And then number four, if a European power
attacked or attempted to exert control over a nation in
the Western Hemisphere, the United States would view that as
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an attack on itself. One of the mode vations behind
the Monroe Doctrine was the recent independence of several nations
in Central and South America, which had previously been Spanish
colonial territory. The US was concerned about the possibility of
Spain or another European nation trying to recolonize, and the
Latin American nations themselves had the same concerns. In eighteen
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twenty six, Simon Bolivar convened the Panama Congress, which brought
together several newly independent Latin American republics to discuss these
same issues. While the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the Western
hemisphere was off limits to European colonization, it didn't suggest
that the United States should stop its western expansion across
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North America, but also didn't really suggest that the United
States couldn't expand its territory beyond that which happened through
everything from the annexation of Texas to the treaties that
into the Mexican American War in eighteen forty eight and
the Spanish American War in eighteen ninety eight. The Monroe
Doctrine also didn't really discourage the United States from trying
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to extend its influence within the Western hemisphere, including through
what came to be known as the Big Brother Policy.
In eight nine, U s Secretary of State James G.
Blaine spearheaded the first International Conference of American States, and
this was the first in a series of meetings among
the United States and several Latin American countries, and it
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was something Blaine had been advocating for about a decade,
and this led to the creation of the International Union
of American Republics and the International Bureau of American Republics
in eighteen ninety. The Bureau later became known as the
Pan American Union. These conferences and the organization that grew
out of them were meant to improve cooperation among the
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nations involved, including working out matters of international trade, international law,
and dispute resolution. And although it was an international organization,
it was also heavily directed by the United States, circling
back to that idea of the US being the big
brother in this part of the world. The first conference
was held in Washington, d c. Where the Bureau was
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also headquartered. The United States also organized the Bureau and
funded its first year of existence. The Secretary of State
of the United States was also chair of the organization's
governing board, including after Hispanic delegates tried to turn it
into an elected position. The Monroe doctrine was a cornerstone
of US foreign policy until nineteen o four, when President
(05:27):
Theodore Roosevelt articulated what came to be known as the
Roosevelt Corollary in his annual Message to Congress. The Roosevelt
Corollary expanded the Monroe doctrines, who include the idea that
the United States had a responsibility to police the Western hemisphere,
preserving the quality of life in other countries, and taking
direct action to restore and maintain order. Here is a
(05:50):
segment of that address quote. All that this country desires
is to see the neighboring country stable, orderly, and prosperous.
Any country who's people conduct themselves well can count upon
our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows
how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social
and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations,
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it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic
wrongdoing or in impotence which results in a general loosening
of the ties of civilized society may in America as elsewhere,
ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, And in the
Western Hemisphere, the adherents of the United States to the
Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however, reluctantly, in
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flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise
of an international police power. Another aspect of this that
was alluded to briefly in that was the collection of
debts under the Roosevelt corollary, if a country in the
Western Hemisphere had an unpaid debt to one of the
European powers, that European power could not collect the debt directly. Instead,
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it was supposed to go through the United States. The
United States had intervened in various nations in the Western
Hemisphere before this point, including in Panama, where the US
controlled Panama Canal Zone was created in February nineteen o four.
But after this shift in foreign policy, the US intervened
a lot, especially in the Caribbean and Central America. At
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various points, the US occupied Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua,
on and on. There's actually more about US intervention in Haiti,
in the Dominican Republic and the aftermath of that intervention
in our previous episode on the Mirraball Sisters. Yeah, that that,
however reluctantly statement didn't actually play out to seem all
(07:41):
that reluctant. It kind of seems like a cover your
tail phrase. Right, that's all of this. We don't want
to have to do this, you guys, But according to
the rules that we just made. So although Roosevelt's address
had really focused on ideas, like international stability. A lot
of these occupations and police actions and other interventions were
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motivated by protecting US interests in these nations, especially business interests.
A lot of those businesses were major growers of crops
like coffee and fruit, and for this reason, sometimes all
this US military activity in Latin America during this period
is looped together as the Banana Wars. It is also
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during this same time period that the term banana republic
was coined by American writer William Sidney Porter, also known
as O. Henry. Porter, first used the term in a
short story published in nineteen o one, and it's used
to describe a fictional country that was probably based on Honduras,
where he was living at the time. The term conjures
up images of small, impoverished countries governed by harsh and
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often corrupt military dictatorships and dominated by one key agricultural export,
like bananas. The term banana republic has a lot of
disparaging connotations, but it also reflects the reality of what
was going on in much of Latin America. Many of
these nations were reliant on one key export like bananas,
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with that one industry being very tightly controlled by United
States businesses, and as those businesses tried to keep conditions
favorable to their own interests in these countries, they contributed
to ongoing instability and corruption in the nations where they
were operating. Makes this kind of a weird name for
a clothing retailer. Yeah, I have often over the years
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wondered how they landed there. Well, it kind of goes
up against the cherry pop and Daddy songs zoot suit
riots in terms of historical Why did you do this? Yeah,
I guess it sounded good to someone at some point
in time. But this practice of direct intervention in international
affairs took a pause after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president,
And we're gonna get to all of that after we
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first paused for a little sponsor break. In his March fourth,
ninety three inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt articulated what
came to be known as his good neighbor policy. To quote,
in the field of world policy, I would dedicate this
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nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and because he does so, respects
the rights of others. This aligned with a proclamation signed
at the seventh International Conference of American States on December
twenty six that same year. Article eight of this proclamation
was that quote no state has the right to intervene
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in the internal or external affairs of another. So, with
this reduced focus on intervention, the United States started pulling
troops out of the nations that was still directly occupying,
including Haiti and Nicaragua. Roosevelt's administration also encouraged favorable depictions
of Latin Americans and of Central and South America in
the media. The career of past podcast subject Carmen Miranda
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was tied of this whole idea, and she became something
of an international spokesperson for the ideals of the good
neighbor policy. Overall, the countries in the Caribbean and Central
America saw this change in attitude with both relief and
suspicion after so many decades of direct military intervention by
the United States, But it didn't last long. After World
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War Two, things shifted once again, and once again the
shift was outlined in a president's annual address to Congress.
This time the president was President Harry S. Truman, and
in his March twelfth, nineteen forty seven address before Congress,
he outlined the idea that the United States would intervene
to help democratic nations that were being threatened by authoritarian forces,
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whether those forces were coming from within or without. This
Truman doctrine grew out of events taking place in Greece,
but a similar mindset was also driving US foreign relations
in the America's In the spring of nineteen forty eight,
the ninth International Congress of American States was held in Bogota, Columbia,
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and at this conference, the Pan American Union was reorganized
as the Organization of American States or o a S,
and a lot of the ideas that were part of
the Monroe and Truman doctrines became part of its formal charter,
basically applying these same ideas to all of the o
S member states. The charter also built on the Rio
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Security Pact of nineteen forty seven, which was also called
the Inter American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, and in that
nineteen countries signed an agreement that an attack on any
American state would be viewed as an attack on all
the signatories. This was at the start of the Cold War,
and at this conference, the O a s also passed
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Resolution thirty two, known as the Preservation and Defense of
Democracy in America. This resolution read, in part quote, in
order to safeguard peace and maintain mutual respect among states,
the present situation of the world demands that urgent measures
be take in to prescribe tactics of totalitarian domination that
are inconsistent with the tradition of the countries of America,
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and prevent agents at the service of international communism or
of any totalitarian doctrine, from seeking to distort the true
and the free will of the peoples of this continent.
The republics represented at the ninth International Conference of American
States declare that, by its anti democratic nature and its
interventionist tendency, the political activity of international communism or any
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totalitarian doctrine is incompatible with the concept of American freedom,
which rests upon two undeniable postulates, the dignity of man
as an individual and the sovereignty of the nation as
a state. This resolution also condemned quote interference by any
foreign power or by any political organization serving the interests
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of a foreign power in the public life of the
nations of the American continent. It also condemned quote methods
of every susp him tending to suppress political and civil
rights and liberties, and in particular the action of international
communism or any totalitarian doctrine. And this is where things
take something of an ironic turn. The United States approved
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this resolution, which condemned international communism because of quote, its
anti democratic nature and its interventionist tendency. But not long
after the resolution was passed, the United States started intervening
in other nations democracies, and not necessarily because they were
under any kind of communist or totalitarian threat. In another shift,
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the US increasingly handled these interventions not through direct actions,
but through covert operations through the newly established Central Intelligence Agency.
The first big example of this came in nineteen fifty three,
when the CIA orchestrated a coup that overthrew the democratically
elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Massadek. The major issue
(14:59):
was that Masadek hald started nationalizing British oil fields in Iran,
and the CIA launched the coup with the approval of
the British government. So this coup wasn't really about protecting
Iran's democratic election from authoritarian forces. It was about protecting
oil interests. For the most part, the CIA admitted its
role in and of course this is an entire other
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story with ramifications that are still affecting the world today,
but the fact that it was successful kind of made
the CIA more okay with doing more things like this
in the future. The CIA orchestrated coup in Guatemala was similar.
It was ostensibly about stopping the spread of communism in Guatemala,
but one of its biggest advocates was United Fruit Company,
(15:43):
which had a monopoly on Guatemala's banana industry. So we
have to backtrack for just a moment and talk about
both bananas and United Fruit Company. Zo bananas are the
most popular fruit in the United States today, with apples
being a close second. Until the end of the nine
teenth century, most Americans had never even seen one. Then
in eighteen seventy, Captain Lorenz o'doal bought a hundred and
(16:06):
sixty bunches of green bananas in Jamaica for a shilling
a bunch. He took them to Jersey City and sold
them for two dollars a bunch, which was a huge profit.
He grew this into a business and along with several
other men established Boston Fruit Company in eighteen eighty six.
Soon multiple companies based in the US were buying up
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land in the Caribbean and establishing banana plantations, and when
they started running out of available land in the Caribbean,
they expanded into Central America. Boston Fruit Company and other
similar businesses didn't have much trouble buying the land that
they wanted. Likely mentioned earlier, The countries where they were
doing business tended to be small and impoverished and governed
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by dictatorships, so a lot of times the decision to
sell this land was being made unilaterally. Often the land
wasn't being used for anything else, so the governments were
happy to have the money or it or a government
might give up the land in exchange for the fruit
company providing some new infrastructure like roads or railroads or
a port. And all of this ties back to the
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banana republic idea that we mentioned earlier. In Boston Fruit
Company merged with railroad ventures owned by Minor C. Keith,
and this newly formed company was called United Fruit Company.
The combined railroad slash banana plantation model meant that the
company could establish a monopoly on growing the fruit and
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on transporting it and anything else in the territory where
it operated. And this enterprise was already pretty large, holding
more than two hundred thousand acres of land in the
Caribbean and Central America. A little over sixty tho acres
of land were used as banana plantations. This finally brings
us to the history of Guatemala, which we will get
to you after another sponsor break. Now we finally get
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to how all of this connects specifically to Guatemala. So
as a quick overview of Guatemalan history. Spain began conquering
and colonizing what's now Guatemala in the sixteenth century. Guatemala
was a Spanish colony for more than two hundred years,
although in some of its more remote areas the indigenous
Maya had pretty limited contact with the Spanish. Guatemala declared
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its independence from Spain in eighteen twenty one. From there,
it was briefly part of the Mexican Empire, and in
eighteen twenty three it became part of the United Provinces
of Central America, which also included Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,
and Nicaragua. The United Provinces began to fracture in eighteen
thirty eight after a colera epidemic and an uprising, and
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it dissolved by eighteen forty. The uprisings leader Raphael Carrera
became president of Guatemala and after abolishing elections, became president
for life in eighteen fifty four. Again, we are really
us hitting highlights here for some context. For the next
several decades, Guatemala was governed by a series of dictatorships,
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which were occasionally interrupted by shorter term governments, and specifics
of these dictatorships could really change from one administration to
the next. For example, the Catholic Church was very powerful
in Guatemala from eighteen twenty three until eighteen seventy one,
but when a more liberal administration took over in eighteen
seventy one, the Church was stripped of a lot of
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that power. In general, though, these dictatorships were all known
for human rights abuses and for maintaining control through oppressive
policies and the use of a standing army and secret
police force, regardless of whether you might classify them as
liberal or conservative. Throughout all of this, while there were
some advances in things like public health and the nation's
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overall economy. Outside of the aristocracy, Guatemala's people lived in
poverty and without a lot of basic civil rights. This
was often particularly true for indigenous people and for the
descendants of enslaved Africans. People of both indigenous and Spanish ancestry,
known in Guatemala as Ladinos, often had more social mobility,
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but overall it was socially and economically very stratified, with
multi layered hierarchy based on racial, ethnic, and class disparities.
For decades, any gains in civil or human rights tended
to be very small and short lived in these decades.
After becoming independent, Guatemala became a major producer of coffee,
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which was grown on large plantations, and as this happened,
Guatemala shifted away from growing crops that were grown on
smaller farms, like indigo and coconeal. As part of this shift,
fewer and fewer Guatemalans owned their own land as it
was sold or seased to be consolidated into large coffee plantations,
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and the shift happened very quickly. In eighteen sixty one,
coconeal made up seventy one percent of Guatemala agricultural exports.
Ten years later, coffee was at fifty percent and coconeal
was down to thirty three. That was a trend that
continued over the next couple of decades. The country also
increasingly exploited the indigenous population as a source of cheap
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or even unpaid labor for these growing plantations. For decades,
the peasant class, which was mostly indigenous, was subject to
debt peonage, in which people were forced into unpaid labor
in order to pay off debts, and Guatemala's economic conditions
meant that in rural areas, landless people were very likely
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to be in debt. United Fruit Company's presence in Guatemala
started to increase around the turn of the twentieth century.
In Guatemalan President Manuel Estrata Cabrera gave United Fruit Company
a ninety nine year lease on land in exchange for
finishing a railroad from the Guatemalan capital to the port
of Puerto Barrios, which United Fruit comp He also controlled.
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He also put United Fruit Company in charge of the
country's postal service. United Fruit Companies presence continued to grow
in Guatemala after nineteen o one, with the company following
a similar pattern of acquiring land for banana plantations that
we talked about earlier. After Dictator Jorge Ubiko came to
power in nine he granted the company another ninety nine
(22:23):
year land lease. Part of this agreement included United Fruit
Company agreeing not to pay workers more than fifty cents
a day so that other workers wouldn't demand more money
as well. Three years later, youb Go abolished Guatemala's debt
peonage system, which had been keeping much of its indigenous
population effectively enslaved. He was praised for abolishing that system,
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but in its place, he implemented a vagrancy law that
required landless people to work for at least a hundred
and fifty days a year. He also passed a law
that exempted landowners from prosecution if they hurt or killed
someone while defending their property. So, because this work was
legally mandated, and because landowners were empowered to use this
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kind of force under the idea of defending their property,
people had virtually no negotiating power when it came to
things like their pay and their working conditions. So even
though this effective enslavement system didn't exist anymore, United Fruit
Company still had access to very cheap labor. While Ubiko
was in power, Guatemala and United Fruit Company became even
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more interconnected. By the nineteen forties, of the nation's arable
land was being controlled by United Fruit Company. To look
at it another way, less than half a percent of
Guatemala's farms measured more than one thousand one acres, but
plantations of that size were taking up about half of
the country's farmland, and most of those plantations belonged to
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United Fruit Company. By this point, United Fruit Company had
become Guatemala's largest employer, and it had a monopoly over
Guatemala's banana trade. It also controlled the railroads and the utilities,
and the port at Puerto Barrios. United Fruit Company worked
out a lot of these deals in the nineteen thirties
thanks to John Foster Dulles. He was working at United
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Fruit Companies law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. United Fruit Company
was such a massive presence in Guatemala and the United
States was such a big part of United Fruit Company
that a lot of Guatemalans thought that the two were
basically the same thing. But then on July one, ninety four,
things started to change. Jorge Ubiko was forced to resign
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after a popular uprising in general strike that was largely
led by teachers, intellectuals, workers and students. Another general, Federico Pontse,
became interim president. He promised an election to confirm his presidency,
but by October of that year seemed pretty clear that
no election was coming. Protests and demonstrations continued, and on
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October he was overthrown in a coup led by Major
Francisco Arana and Captain Jjobo Our Bends Guzman. This was
a start of what came to be known as the
Guatemalan Revolution or the October Revolution, and it followed the
overthrow of military dictatorships in both Ecuador and Al Salvador
in May of that same year. This wave of revolutions
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had been inspired in part by World War Two, and
the Allies focused on the ideals of democracy and human rights.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four Freedom's Speech, which was his nineteen
forty one State of the Union address, was particularly influential.
In that speech, he had expressed the idea that every
person in the world had the right to the freedom
of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want
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in the freedom from fear. One Jose Arevalo won the
election that was held in December of nine with more
than eighty five percent of the vote. He had run
on a reform platform that aligned with these ideals and
with the protests and demonstrations that had led up to
the October evolution. A committee of fifteen was formed to
draft a new constitution, which went into effect in March
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of nineteen forty five. Because Guatemala had been ruled by
military dictatorships for so much of its post colonial history,
this constitution limited the power of the executive branch of
the Guatemalan government. It established Guatemala as a representative democracy,
with the presidency limited to one six year term, and
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former presidents were ineligible for re election for the next
twelve years. Military officers had to resign at least six
months before election day if they wanted to run for office.
The new constitution also outlawed discrimination and guaranteed quote life, liberty,
equality and security of the person, of honor and of property.
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Juan Jose Arevalo was inaugurated as President of Guatemala in
March of nine, just a few days after this new
constitution was signed, and he had a lot to get
done in his one six year term. The changes he
and his administration tried to make were ambitious and sweeping.
He was focused on addressing the issues that had led
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to the October Revolution and had been part of those
protests and demonstrations, especially agrarian reform, improving the educational system,
protecting labor rights, and reinforcing this newly established system of
democracy in Guatemala. The Arrable of government disbanded the secret
police and purged Torbecou's former supporters from office. They changed
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the oath that soldiers had to take upon entering military
service to include protecting the principle of democracy, not just
protecting the nation. The administration allowed freedom of speech and
a free press, and multiple political parties emerged. It was
totally different from the previous one party systems that tended
to be under although the Communist Party was banned. Voting
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rights were expanded, although women who could not read still
could not vote. Other initiatives included equal pay laws and
legal equality between husbands and wives. Guatemala's largest university was
also put under its own control rather than being controlled
by the government. Previous administrations had, for example, tried to
use this government control of the university to try to
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keep students from learning about the pro democracy movements that
were happening elsewhere in Latin America. In the nineteen forties,
new labor laws at a forty hour work week and
established paid leave after giving birth to a child, as
well as a social security system. Employers were also required
to pay people in actual money rather than in script.
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In nineteen forty seven, a new labor code established collective
bargaining rights, including the right to strike. The new labor
code also established labor courts to settle disputes, an increased
minimum wage, and other worker protections. In ninety eight, the
Arrevolo government started trying to improve the condition of Guatemala's
small farmers and landless citizens by passing a law that
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forced large landowners with cultivated land to rent it to
people who had no land of their own. The government
also redistributed land that had been confiscated from Germans and
Nazi sympathizers during World War Two. All of this was
just incredibly ambitious, and it didn't go flawlessly. The Arravla
administration started to struggle about halfway through his term, as
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some of the projects bogged down in bureaucracy and in
general it became harder to build on the earlier gains,
but overall, this could not have been more different from
the dictatorships that had governed Guatemala for most of its
post colonial history. However, many of Guatemala's elite were not
happy about these changes, and the Arrevalo administration had to
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fight off seemingly continual coup attempts. US business interests were
not happy either. United Fruit Company and US officials denounced
many of arravlos policies and programs as communism, and they
started looking for a way to get rid of him,
which is what we will talk about next time. Do
you have some listener mail in the meantime? I do.
(30:03):
This actually came in vias some tweets from John and
John's first tweet in this couple of tweets that he
sent us was regarding our thalidomide episode. He tweeted us
after part one came out and said something I hope
you discussed an episode two is how the crisis led
to women being virtually excluded from decades of medical testing
(30:26):
and all the terrible downstream effects. Shocked to discover while
researching this Cracked article, I wrote a couple of years
back and then sent us the link as well to
the article on Cracked. So at that point we had
recorded an edited episode two, but it was not live yet,
and we talked in that episode a little bit about
how medical testing evolved in various ways that that affected
(30:48):
drug testing and medical ethics. We didn't talk about this
specific aspect of it. It's one of those things where
I had things in my notes about it and about
especially how still today a lot of pharmaceutical testing is
carried out on male test subjects, and then the dosages
are kind of extrapolated from that based on body weight,
(31:08):
which doesn't account for physiological sex differences at all. But
there was so much stuff to cover in that episode
and not enough time to get to all of it,
and that was one of the things that wound up
being cut. So Yes, after the the litamide disaster, there
was also another drug that was called die ethel stillbstrall
or d S. This is a synthetic estrogen that was
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given during pregnancy to try to prevent miscarriages and premature labor.
But not only was it not effective at preventing these things,
that also caused issues for the developing fetus, including an
increased risk of some cancers of the reproductive system and
fertility and reproductive issues later in life, especially among women.
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Some of these issues can also be passed down to
their children. So after these two issues, in seven, the
FDA issued a guideline called General Considerations for the Clinical
Evaluation of Drugs and it recommended excluding quote pre menopausal
females capable of becoming pregnant from all phase one and
early phase two clinical studies. And that guidance didn't really
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change until three So that's more than twenty years of
of female patients being completely excluded from this kind of
testing and even now, uh, I mean it's been now
decades since that happened. Female patients are way underrepresented in
drug testing and this has enormous and far reaching consequences
(32:36):
on what drugs are available and which adverse reactions are
caught ahead of time. It goes on and on. So
thank you John for that. We also got a couple
of emails that were also about um the the d
e S drug disaster, which has not gotten as much attention,
I think, as as the litamide has. So if you
(32:58):
would like to email us, we're history podcast at how
stuff works dot com. We're also all over social media.
Missed in History. That's where you will find our Facebook, Interest, Instagram,
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(33:41):
your favorite shows
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry.
Over the next two episodes, we're going to be talking
about something that still has a lot of relevance in
(00:22):
the world today, and that is the nineteen fifty four
coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, which
was orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency. It's not
really accurate to say that this caused the coupe, but
one of its biggest advocates in the United States was
United Fruit Company. Sometimes you'll see it described as like
(00:45):
United Fruit Company convinced the CIA to overthrow this government,
and that's fu exactly what happened. It also didn't happen
in isolation. This was rooted in Cold War paranoia about communism,
and it was also part of an overall pattern of
US intervention in Latin America and an overall pattern of
US business interests trying to influence the governments of those nations.
(01:09):
So today we will have an overview of how the
United States relationship to Latin America evolved over the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. This definitely is not every twist and
turn of those decades. It's more like a through line
to put this stuff in context. Plus the stuff that's
going to kind of come up later in the episodes,
and we will talk about how United Fruit Company came
(01:30):
to be such a major player in Guatemala in the
first place, and what was happening in Guatemala that caused
the United Fruit Company to be so opposed to it.
The next time, the second part of this two party,
we will talk about the coup itself and its aftermath.
This school was carried out in nineteen fifty four, but
the United States mentality behind it goes back to the
(01:51):
Monroe Doctrine, which was articulated by President James Monroe in
his December second, eight three annual Address to Congress. This
that's known today as the State of the Union Address,
and the address and the ideas in it were heavily
influenced by Monroe's Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. We
talked about it just a little on our episode on
(02:12):
John Quincy and his wife Louisa. There's obviously a lot
more in the scope of this address, but the basic
ideas of the Monroe Doctrine were these. Number one, the
world had two spheres of influence, the America's where their
own sphere, and the rest of the world was another.
Number two, the Americas were also not open for further
colonization by European world powers. Number three, the US wouldn't
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interfere with the internal matters of other nations. That included
remaining neutral in the face of wars in Europe and
remaining neutral when it came to existing European colonies in
the America's And then number four, if a European power
attacked or attempted to exert control over a nation in
the Western Hemisphere, the United States would view that as
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an attack on itself. One of the mode vations behind
the Monroe Doctrine was the recent independence of several nations
in Central and South America, which had previously been Spanish
colonial territory. The US was concerned about the possibility of
Spain or another European nation trying to recolonize, and the
Latin American nations themselves had the same concerns. In eighteen
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twenty six, Simon Bolivar convened the Panama Congress, which brought
together several newly independent Latin American republics to discuss these
same issues. While the Monroe Doctrine asserted that the Western
hemisphere was off limits to European colonization, it didn't suggest
that the United States should stop its western expansion across
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North America, but also didn't really suggest that the United
States couldn't expand its territory beyond that which happened through
everything from the annexation of Texas to the treaties that
into the Mexican American War in eighteen forty eight and
the Spanish American War in eighteen ninety eight. The Monroe
Doctrine also didn't really discourage the United States from trying
(04:02):
to extend its influence within the Western hemisphere, including through
what came to be known as the Big Brother Policy.
In eight nine, U s Secretary of State James G.
Blaine spearheaded the first International Conference of American States, and
this was the first in a series of meetings among
the United States and several Latin American countries, and it
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was something Blaine had been advocating for about a decade,
and this led to the creation of the International Union
of American Republics and the International Bureau of American Republics
in eighteen ninety. The Bureau later became known as the
Pan American Union. These conferences and the organization that grew
out of them were meant to improve cooperation among the
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nations involved, including working out matters of international trade, international law,
and dispute resolution. And although it was an international organization,
it was also heavily directed by the United States, circling
back to that idea of the US being the big
brother in this part of the world. The first conference
was held in Washington, d c. Where the Bureau was
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also headquartered. The United States also organized the Bureau and
funded its first year of existence. The Secretary of State
of the United States was also chair of the organization's
governing board, including after Hispanic delegates tried to turn it
into an elected position. The Monroe doctrine was a cornerstone
of US foreign policy until nineteen o four, when President
(05:27):
Theodore Roosevelt articulated what came to be known as the
Roosevelt Corollary in his annual Message to Congress. The Roosevelt
Corollary expanded the Monroe doctrines, who include the idea that
the United States had a responsibility to police the Western hemisphere,
preserving the quality of life in other countries, and taking
direct action to restore and maintain order. Here is a
(05:50):
segment of that address quote. All that this country desires
is to see the neighboring country stable, orderly, and prosperous.
Any country who's people conduct themselves well can count upon
our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows
how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social
and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations,
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it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic
wrongdoing or in impotence which results in a general loosening
of the ties of civilized society may in America as elsewhere,
ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, And in the
Western Hemisphere, the adherents of the United States to the
Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however, reluctantly, in
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flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise
of an international police power. Another aspect of this that
was alluded to briefly in that was the collection of
debts under the Roosevelt corollary, if a country in the
Western Hemisphere had an unpaid debt to one of the
European powers, that European power could not collect the debt directly. Instead,
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it was supposed to go through the United States. The
United States had intervened in various nations in the Western
Hemisphere before this point, including in Panama, where the US
controlled Panama Canal Zone was created in February nineteen o four.
But after this shift in foreign policy, the US intervened
a lot, especially in the Caribbean and Central America. At
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various points, the US occupied Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua,
on and on. There's actually more about US intervention in Haiti,
in the Dominican Republic and the aftermath of that intervention
in our previous episode on the Mirraball Sisters. Yeah, that that,
however reluctantly statement didn't actually play out to seem all
(07:41):
that reluctant. It kind of seems like a cover your
tail phrase. Right, that's all of this. We don't want
to have to do this, you guys, But according to
the rules that we just made. So although Roosevelt's address
had really focused on ideas, like international stability. A lot
of these occupations and police actions and other interventions were
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motivated by protecting US interests in these nations, especially business interests.
A lot of those businesses were major growers of crops
like coffee and fruit, and for this reason, sometimes all
this US military activity in Latin America during this period
is looped together as the Banana Wars. It is also
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during this same time period that the term banana republic
was coined by American writer William Sidney Porter, also known
as O. Henry. Porter, first used the term in a
short story published in nineteen o one, and it's used
to describe a fictional country that was probably based on Honduras,
where he was living at the time. The term conjures
up images of small, impoverished countries governed by harsh and
(08:47):
often corrupt military dictatorships and dominated by one key agricultural export,
like bananas. The term banana republic has a lot of
disparaging connotations, but it also reflects the reality of what
was going on in much of Latin America. Many of
these nations were reliant on one key export like bananas,
(09:07):
with that one industry being very tightly controlled by United
States businesses, and as those businesses tried to keep conditions
favorable to their own interests in these countries, they contributed
to ongoing instability and corruption in the nations where they
were operating. Makes this kind of a weird name for
a clothing retailer. Yeah, I have often over the years
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wondered how they landed there. Well, it kind of goes
up against the cherry pop and Daddy songs zoot suit
riots in terms of historical Why did you do this? Yeah,
I guess it sounded good to someone at some point
in time. But this practice of direct intervention in international
affairs took a pause after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president,
And we're gonna get to all of that after we
(09:51):
first paused for a little sponsor break. In his March fourth,
ninety three inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt articulated what
came to be known as his good neighbor policy. To quote,
in the field of world policy, I would dedicate this
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nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and because he does so, respects
the rights of others. This aligned with a proclamation signed
at the seventh International Conference of American States on December
twenty six that same year. Article eight of this proclamation
was that quote no state has the right to intervene
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in the internal or external affairs of another. So, with
this reduced focus on intervention, the United States started pulling
troops out of the nations that was still directly occupying,
including Haiti and Nicaragua. Roosevelt's administration also encouraged favorable depictions
of Latin Americans and of Central and South America in
the media. The career of past podcast subject Carmen Miranda
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was tied of this whole idea, and she became something
of an international spokesperson for the ideals of the good
neighbor policy. Overall, the countries in the Caribbean and Central
America saw this change in attitude with both relief and
suspicion after so many decades of direct military intervention by
the United States, But it didn't last long. After World
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War Two, things shifted once again, and once again the
shift was outlined in a president's annual address to Congress.
This time the president was President Harry S. Truman, and
in his March twelfth, nineteen forty seven address before Congress,
he outlined the idea that the United States would intervene
to help democratic nations that were being threatened by authoritarian forces,
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whether those forces were coming from within or without. This
Truman doctrine grew out of events taking place in Greece,
but a similar mindset was also driving US foreign relations
in the America's In the spring of nineteen forty eight,
the ninth International Congress of American States was held in Bogota, Columbia,
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and at this conference, the Pan American Union was reorganized
as the Organization of American States or o a S,
and a lot of the ideas that were part of
the Monroe and Truman doctrines became part of its formal charter,
basically applying these same ideas to all of the o
S member states. The charter also built on the Rio
(12:23):
Security Pact of nineteen forty seven, which was also called
the Inter American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, and in that
nineteen countries signed an agreement that an attack on any
American state would be viewed as an attack on all
the signatories. This was at the start of the Cold War,
and at this conference, the O a s also passed
(12:43):
Resolution thirty two, known as the Preservation and Defense of
Democracy in America. This resolution read, in part quote, in
order to safeguard peace and maintain mutual respect among states,
the present situation of the world demands that urgent measures
be take in to prescribe tactics of totalitarian domination that
are inconsistent with the tradition of the countries of America,
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and prevent agents at the service of international communism or
of any totalitarian doctrine, from seeking to distort the true
and the free will of the peoples of this continent.
The republics represented at the ninth International Conference of American
States declare that, by its anti democratic nature and its
interventionist tendency, the political activity of international communism or any
(13:30):
totalitarian doctrine is incompatible with the concept of American freedom,
which rests upon two undeniable postulates, the dignity of man
as an individual and the sovereignty of the nation as
a state. This resolution also condemned quote interference by any
foreign power or by any political organization serving the interests
(13:51):
of a foreign power in the public life of the
nations of the American continent. It also condemned quote methods
of every susp him tending to suppress political and civil
rights and liberties, and in particular the action of international
communism or any totalitarian doctrine. And this is where things
take something of an ironic turn. The United States approved
(14:15):
this resolution, which condemned international communism because of quote, its
anti democratic nature and its interventionist tendency. But not long
after the resolution was passed, the United States started intervening
in other nations democracies, and not necessarily because they were
under any kind of communist or totalitarian threat. In another shift,
(14:36):
the US increasingly handled these interventions not through direct actions,
but through covert operations through the newly established Central Intelligence Agency.
The first big example of this came in nineteen fifty three,
when the CIA orchestrated a coup that overthrew the democratically
elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Massadek. The major issue
(14:59):
was that Masadek hald started nationalizing British oil fields in Iran,
and the CIA launched the coup with the approval of
the British government. So this coup wasn't really about protecting
Iran's democratic election from authoritarian forces. It was about protecting
oil interests. For the most part, the CIA admitted its
role in and of course this is an entire other
(15:22):
story with ramifications that are still affecting the world today,
but the fact that it was successful kind of made
the CIA more okay with doing more things like this
in the future. The CIA orchestrated coup in Guatemala was similar.
It was ostensibly about stopping the spread of communism in Guatemala,
but one of its biggest advocates was United Fruit Company,
(15:43):
which had a monopoly on Guatemala's banana industry. So we
have to backtrack for just a moment and talk about
both bananas and United Fruit Company. Zo bananas are the
most popular fruit in the United States today, with apples
being a close second. Until the end of the nine
teenth century, most Americans had never even seen one. Then
in eighteen seventy, Captain Lorenz o'doal bought a hundred and
(16:06):
sixty bunches of green bananas in Jamaica for a shilling
a bunch. He took them to Jersey City and sold
them for two dollars a bunch, which was a huge profit.
He grew this into a business and along with several
other men established Boston Fruit Company in eighteen eighty six.
Soon multiple companies based in the US were buying up
(16:27):
land in the Caribbean and establishing banana plantations, and when
they started running out of available land in the Caribbean,
they expanded into Central America. Boston Fruit Company and other
similar businesses didn't have much trouble buying the land that
they wanted. Likely mentioned earlier, The countries where they were
doing business tended to be small and impoverished and governed
(16:49):
by dictatorships, so a lot of times the decision to
sell this land was being made unilaterally. Often the land
wasn't being used for anything else, so the governments were
happy to have the money or it or a government
might give up the land in exchange for the fruit
company providing some new infrastructure like roads or railroads or
a port. And all of this ties back to the
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banana republic idea that we mentioned earlier. In Boston Fruit
Company merged with railroad ventures owned by Minor C. Keith,
and this newly formed company was called United Fruit Company.
The combined railroad slash banana plantation model meant that the
company could establish a monopoly on growing the fruit and
(17:32):
on transporting it and anything else in the territory where
it operated. And this enterprise was already pretty large, holding
more than two hundred thousand acres of land in the
Caribbean and Central America. A little over sixty tho acres
of land were used as banana plantations. This finally brings
us to the history of Guatemala, which we will get
to you after another sponsor break. Now we finally get
(18:02):
to how all of this connects specifically to Guatemala. So
as a quick overview of Guatemalan history. Spain began conquering
and colonizing what's now Guatemala in the sixteenth century. Guatemala
was a Spanish colony for more than two hundred years,
although in some of its more remote areas the indigenous
Maya had pretty limited contact with the Spanish. Guatemala declared
(18:25):
its independence from Spain in eighteen twenty one. From there,
it was briefly part of the Mexican Empire, and in
eighteen twenty three it became part of the United Provinces
of Central America, which also included Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,
and Nicaragua. The United Provinces began to fracture in eighteen
thirty eight after a colera epidemic and an uprising, and
(18:47):
it dissolved by eighteen forty. The uprisings leader Raphael Carrera
became president of Guatemala and after abolishing elections, became president
for life in eighteen fifty four. Again, we are really
us hitting highlights here for some context. For the next
several decades, Guatemala was governed by a series of dictatorships,
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which were occasionally interrupted by shorter term governments, and specifics
of these dictatorships could really change from one administration to
the next. For example, the Catholic Church was very powerful
in Guatemala from eighteen twenty three until eighteen seventy one,
but when a more liberal administration took over in eighteen
seventy one, the Church was stripped of a lot of
(19:28):
that power. In general, though, these dictatorships were all known
for human rights abuses and for maintaining control through oppressive
policies and the use of a standing army and secret
police force, regardless of whether you might classify them as
liberal or conservative. Throughout all of this, while there were
some advances in things like public health and the nation's
(19:50):
overall economy. Outside of the aristocracy, Guatemala's people lived in
poverty and without a lot of basic civil rights. This
was often particularly true for indigenous people and for the
descendants of enslaved Africans. People of both indigenous and Spanish ancestry,
known in Guatemala as Ladinos, often had more social mobility,
(20:11):
but overall it was socially and economically very stratified, with
multi layered hierarchy based on racial, ethnic, and class disparities.
For decades, any gains in civil or human rights tended
to be very small and short lived in these decades.
After becoming independent, Guatemala became a major producer of coffee,
(20:32):
which was grown on large plantations, and as this happened,
Guatemala shifted away from growing crops that were grown on
smaller farms, like indigo and coconeal. As part of this shift,
fewer and fewer Guatemalans owned their own land as it
was sold or seased to be consolidated into large coffee plantations,
(20:53):
and the shift happened very quickly. In eighteen sixty one,
coconeal made up seventy one percent of Guatemala agricultural exports.
Ten years later, coffee was at fifty percent and coconeal
was down to thirty three. That was a trend that
continued over the next couple of decades. The country also
increasingly exploited the indigenous population as a source of cheap
(21:17):
or even unpaid labor for these growing plantations. For decades,
the peasant class, which was mostly indigenous, was subject to
debt peonage, in which people were forced into unpaid labor
in order to pay off debts, and Guatemala's economic conditions
meant that in rural areas, landless people were very likely
(21:37):
to be in debt. United Fruit Company's presence in Guatemala
started to increase around the turn of the twentieth century.
In Guatemalan President Manuel Estrata Cabrera gave United Fruit Company
a ninety nine year lease on land in exchange for
finishing a railroad from the Guatemalan capital to the port
of Puerto Barrios, which United Fruit comp He also controlled.
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He also put United Fruit Company in charge of the
country's postal service. United Fruit Companies presence continued to grow
in Guatemala after nineteen o one, with the company following
a similar pattern of acquiring land for banana plantations that
we talked about earlier. After Dictator Jorge Ubiko came to
power in nine he granted the company another ninety nine
(22:23):
year land lease. Part of this agreement included United Fruit
Company agreeing not to pay workers more than fifty cents
a day so that other workers wouldn't demand more money
as well. Three years later, youb Go abolished Guatemala's debt
peonage system, which had been keeping much of its indigenous
population effectively enslaved. He was praised for abolishing that system,
(22:46):
but in its place, he implemented a vagrancy law that
required landless people to work for at least a hundred
and fifty days a year. He also passed a law
that exempted landowners from prosecution if they hurt or killed
someone while defending their property. So, because this work was
legally mandated, and because landowners were empowered to use this
(23:09):
kind of force under the idea of defending their property,
people had virtually no negotiating power when it came to
things like their pay and their working conditions. So even
though this effective enslavement system didn't exist anymore, United Fruit
Company still had access to very cheap labor. While Ubiko
was in power, Guatemala and United Fruit Company became even
(23:32):
more interconnected. By the nineteen forties, of the nation's arable
land was being controlled by United Fruit Company. To look
at it another way, less than half a percent of
Guatemala's farms measured more than one thousand one acres, but
plantations of that size were taking up about half of
the country's farmland, and most of those plantations belonged to
(23:54):
United Fruit Company. By this point, United Fruit Company had
become Guatemala's largest employer, and it had a monopoly over
Guatemala's banana trade. It also controlled the railroads and the utilities,
and the port at Puerto Barrios. United Fruit Company worked
out a lot of these deals in the nineteen thirties
thanks to John Foster Dulles. He was working at United
(24:16):
Fruit Companies law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. United Fruit Company
was such a massive presence in Guatemala and the United
States was such a big part of United Fruit Company
that a lot of Guatemalans thought that the two were
basically the same thing. But then on July one, ninety four,
things started to change. Jorge Ubiko was forced to resign
(24:37):
after a popular uprising in general strike that was largely
led by teachers, intellectuals, workers and students. Another general, Federico Pontse,
became interim president. He promised an election to confirm his presidency,
but by October of that year seemed pretty clear that
no election was coming. Protests and demonstrations continued, and on
(24:57):
October he was overthrown in a coup led by Major
Francisco Arana and Captain Jjobo Our Bends Guzman. This was
a start of what came to be known as the
Guatemalan Revolution or the October Revolution, and it followed the
overthrow of military dictatorships in both Ecuador and Al Salvador
in May of that same year. This wave of revolutions
(25:20):
had been inspired in part by World War Two, and
the Allies focused on the ideals of democracy and human rights.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four Freedom's Speech, which was his nineteen
forty one State of the Union address, was particularly influential.
In that speech, he had expressed the idea that every
person in the world had the right to the freedom
of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want
(25:43):
in the freedom from fear. One Jose Arevalo won the
election that was held in December of nine with more
than eighty five percent of the vote. He had run
on a reform platform that aligned with these ideals and
with the protests and demonstrations that had led up to
the October evolution. A committee of fifteen was formed to
draft a new constitution, which went into effect in March
(26:06):
of nineteen forty five. Because Guatemala had been ruled by
military dictatorships for so much of its post colonial history,
this constitution limited the power of the executive branch of
the Guatemalan government. It established Guatemala as a representative democracy,
with the presidency limited to one six year term, and
(26:26):
former presidents were ineligible for re election for the next
twelve years. Military officers had to resign at least six
months before election day if they wanted to run for office.
The new constitution also outlawed discrimination and guaranteed quote life, liberty,
equality and security of the person, of honor and of property.
(26:46):
Juan Jose Arevalo was inaugurated as President of Guatemala in
March of nine, just a few days after this new
constitution was signed, and he had a lot to get
done in his one six year term. The changes he
and his administration tried to make were ambitious and sweeping.
He was focused on addressing the issues that had led
(27:07):
to the October Revolution and had been part of those
protests and demonstrations, especially agrarian reform, improving the educational system,
protecting labor rights, and reinforcing this newly established system of
democracy in Guatemala. The Arrable of government disbanded the secret
police and purged Torbecou's former supporters from office. They changed
(27:29):
the oath that soldiers had to take upon entering military
service to include protecting the principle of democracy, not just
protecting the nation. The administration allowed freedom of speech and
a free press, and multiple political parties emerged. It was
totally different from the previous one party systems that tended
to be under although the Communist Party was banned. Voting
(27:52):
rights were expanded, although women who could not read still
could not vote. Other initiatives included equal pay laws and
legal equality between husbands and wives. Guatemala's largest university was
also put under its own control rather than being controlled
by the government. Previous administrations had, for example, tried to
use this government control of the university to try to
(28:13):
keep students from learning about the pro democracy movements that
were happening elsewhere in Latin America. In the nineteen forties,
new labor laws at a forty hour work week and
established paid leave after giving birth to a child, as
well as a social security system. Employers were also required
to pay people in actual money rather than in script.
(28:34):
In nineteen forty seven, a new labor code established collective
bargaining rights, including the right to strike. The new labor
code also established labor courts to settle disputes, an increased
minimum wage, and other worker protections. In ninety eight, the
Arrevolo government started trying to improve the condition of Guatemala's
small farmers and landless citizens by passing a law that
(28:58):
forced large landowners with cultivated land to rent it to
people who had no land of their own. The government
also redistributed land that had been confiscated from Germans and
Nazi sympathizers during World War Two. All of this was
just incredibly ambitious, and it didn't go flawlessly. The Arravla
administration started to struggle about halfway through his term, as
(29:20):
some of the projects bogged down in bureaucracy and in
general it became harder to build on the earlier gains,
but overall, this could not have been more different from
the dictatorships that had governed Guatemala for most of its
post colonial history. However, many of Guatemala's elite were not
happy about these changes, and the Arrevalo administration had to
(29:42):
fight off seemingly continual coup attempts. US business interests were
not happy either. United Fruit Company and US officials denounced
many of arravlos policies and programs as communism, and they
started looking for a way to get rid of him,
which is what we will talk about next time. Do
you have some listener mail in the meantime? I do.
(30:03):
This actually came in vias some tweets from John and
John's first tweet in this couple of tweets that he
sent us was regarding our thalidomide episode. He tweeted us
after part one came out and said something I hope
you discussed an episode two is how the crisis led
to women being virtually excluded from decades of medical testing
(30:26):
and all the terrible downstream effects. Shocked to discover while
researching this Cracked article, I wrote a couple of years
back and then sent us the link as well to
the article on Cracked. So at that point we had
recorded an edited episode two, but it was not live yet,
and we talked in that episode a little bit about
how medical testing evolved in various ways that that affected
(30:48):
drug testing and medical ethics. We didn't talk about this
specific aspect of it. It's one of those things where
I had things in my notes about it and about
especially how still today a lot of pharmaceutical testing is
carried out on male test subjects, and then the dosages
are kind of extrapolated from that based on body weight,
(31:08):
which doesn't account for physiological sex differences at all. But
there was so much stuff to cover in that episode
and not enough time to get to all of it,
and that was one of the things that wound up
being cut. So Yes, after the the litamide disaster, there
was also another drug that was called die ethel stillbstrall
or d S. This is a synthetic estrogen that was
(31:30):
given during pregnancy to try to prevent miscarriages and premature labor.
But not only was it not effective at preventing these things,
that also caused issues for the developing fetus, including an
increased risk of some cancers of the reproductive system and
fertility and reproductive issues later in life, especially among women.
(31:51):
Some of these issues can also be passed down to
their children. So after these two issues, in seven, the
FDA issued a guideline called General Considerations for the Clinical
Evaluation of Drugs and it recommended excluding quote pre menopausal
females capable of becoming pregnant from all phase one and
early phase two clinical studies. And that guidance didn't really
(32:14):
change until three So that's more than twenty years of
of female patients being completely excluded from this kind of
testing and even now, uh, I mean it's been now
decades since that happened. Female patients are way underrepresented in
drug testing and this has enormous and far reaching consequences
(32:36):
on what drugs are available and which adverse reactions are
caught ahead of time. It goes on and on. So
thank you John for that. We also got a couple
of emails that were also about um the the d
e S drug disaster, which has not gotten as much attention,
I think, as as the litamide has. So if you
(32:58):
would like to email us, we're history podcast at how
stuff works dot com. We're also all over social media.
Missed in History. That's where you will find our Facebook, Interest, Instagram,
and Twitter. You can come to our website, which is
Missed in History dot com. Or you will find show
notes for all the episode but Holly and I have
ever worked on, and a searchable archive of every episode ever.
(33:19):
And you can subscribe to our show in Apple podcast
the I heart Radio app, and anywhere else you'd like
to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(33:41):
your favorite shows
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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