Is That Legal?

The "State of Things" interview was very interesting.

It's not so well known that the US pressured Central and South American countries to deport German, Italian, and Japanese nationals to the US for internment in US camps.

There are a couple of interesting twists to how this played out in Guatemala. Guatemala had been ruled through the 1930s -- with US approval -- by dictator Jorge Ubico. Guatemala did not immediately enter WW II, but (despite local resentment against US commercial interests at all levels of society) Ubico declared war against Germany and Japan in 1943-- a convenient pretext for governing under "emergency war powers".

However, Ubico undermined his US support by resisting US calls to deport German nationals -- much of the coffee plantocracy was of German descent. Ubico also lapsed into occasional praise of Franco even as the Allies were fighting Franco's Civil War backers.

Finally, in 1944, as his domestic support was waning, a law was passed acceding to the US request for deportations. German nationals owned most of the largest plantations, and they were confiscated by the state and run as state farms. Despite these machinations, Ubico succumbed to a popular revolution in 1945.

A final twist comes in the Arbenz land reform of the early 1950s. Arbenz was able to minimize initial opposition to the reform by distributing the confiscated German farms first. Of course, the military eventually undid the popular revolution and the land reform with CIA assistance in 1954.

Nice. I caught the 9:00 pm broadcast.

I also caught the 9pm one. Very good!

I heard the early broadcast. Interesting personal/ professional connection.