ABSTRACT
During the course of World War II, Latin American nations, especially those in the Caribbean and Central America, delivered the food and raw materials that the United States had requested for its war effort. The United States virtually ignored Central America until its internal political development came into conflict with US "national security." When Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh, an Islamic nationalist, nationalized Iranian oil in 1953, Eisenhower ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple him and replace his government with one friendly to US interests. The CIA-orchestrated coup in Guatemala gave notice to reformists and revolutionaries throughout Latin America that any attempts to create more equity in the social order, particularly those that threatened the low overhead of US businesses in the Latin countries, would incur the immediate wrath of Washington's covert enforcer.
