The United Fruit Company decided to take advantage of this during the 50’s when they accused one of their main competitors of being communist.
That competitor was Guatemala whose main export was bananas, and the United Fruit Company managed to convince the US government of their communist ways.
The United Fruit Company claimed that the President of Guatemala was pro-Soviet and gave the evidence of him expropriating unused "fruit company lands" to landless peasants. That’s right, the hysteria over Communism was so great that two United States presidents mistook helping the poor for being an enemy state.
The two presidents who were convinced were Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.
Eisenhower was so convinced that he ordered Operation Success, a coup of the democratically chosen Guatemalan government, installing pro-business government of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas which lasted for three years until his assassination by a presidential guard.
For 36 years the country stayed in a civil war that finally ended when the Guatemalan people created a new constitution and elected Vinicio Cerezo president
