Question

Which type of policies made the U.S. leaders believe that Jacob Albernaz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, is a communist sympathizer?

a) Economic policies
b) Social policies
c) Foreign policies
d) Domestic policies

Answer 1

U.S. leaders believed Jacobo Árbenz was a communist sympathizer due to his domestic policies, particularly land reform and the legalization of a communist labor union, which aligned with the Cold War era containment goals of the U.S. despite being within a legal capitalist framework.

Step-by-step explanation:

The type of policies that made U.S. leaders believe that Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala, was a communist sympathizer were his domestic policies. Árbenz initiated a land reform program that threatened the interests of the United Fruit Company, an American corporation with significant landholdings in Guatemala. His government's decision to offer compensation for the expropriated land based on the company's own tax filings was seen by the Dulles brothers and others in the U.S. government as a move towards communism. Additionally, the legalization of the Guatemalan Party of Labor, a communist labor union, further fueled these suspicions. It's important to understand that during this period, U.S. foreign policy was heavily influenced by the goal of containing communism, and redistributive land reforms, even when executed within a legal and capitalist framework, were often misconstrued as moves towards a communist state.