Sam “the Banana Man” Zemurray and the fruits of his labor
To my sister, Sharon, for thirty-five years of New Orleans
Power is based on perception. If you think you got it, you got it, even if you don’t got it. —Herb Cohen,You Can Negotiate Anything In my beginning is my end. —T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” There’s always a guy. —Jerry Weintraub, in conversation
Contents Frontispiece Title Page Dedication Epigraphs Preface Map Prologue Green 1:Selma 2:Ripes 3:The Fruit Jobber 4:Brown to Green 5:Bananas Don't Grow on Trees 6:The Octopus 7:New Orleans Yellow 8:The Isthmus 9:To the Collins 10:Revolutin'! 11:To the Isthmus and Back 12:The Banana War Ripe 13:King Fish 14:The Fish That Ate the Whale 15:Los Pericos 16:Bananas Go to War 17:Israel Is Real 18:Operation Success 19:Backlash Brown 20:What Remains 21:Bay of Pigs 22:The Earth Eats the Fish That Ate the Whale 23:Fastest Way to the Street
Epilogue A Note on Sources and Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Also by Rich Cohen Copyright
Preface Samuel Zemurray, who led the United Fruit Company for roughly twenty-five years, from the early 1930s to the mid-’50s, was an emblematic figure of the American Century—those decades that saw the United States grow from a regional power into an empire. In Sam the Banana Man, as Zemurray was known to friends and enemies alike, the story of the age is collapsed to the scale of a single life: the ascent from humble origins, the promise and ambition, the sudden, dazzling, disorienting wealth, the corruption, brutality, propaganda, wars, and overreach—and the grinding late-day melancholy. When he arrived in America in 1891 at age fourteen, Zemurray was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty- nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between, he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and the owner of plantations on the Central American isthmus. He battled and conquered United Fruit, which was one of the first truly global corporations. United Fruit, in its day, was as ubiquitous as Google and as feared as Halliburton. More than a business, it was the spirit of the nation abroad, akin to the Dutch East India Company, its policies backed by the threat of U.S. gunboats. As the president of United Fruit, Zemurray became the most important man in Central America—he could change the course of history with a phone call—a symbol of the best and worst of the United States: proof that America is the land of opportunity, but also a classic example of the Ugly American, the corporate pirate who treats foreign nations as the backdrop for his adventures. In South America, when people shouted “Yankee, go home!” it was men like Samuel Zemurray they had in mind. * I first learned about Zemurray as a sophomore at Tulane University. The Banana Man had been a generous donor to Tulane, and many of the buildings on campus are named for him or members of his family; the university president lives in the mansion on St. Charles Avenue where Zemurray spent some of his best years. I was transfixed by the story the moment I heard it in a seminar taught by Joseph Cohen, a relation to me in spirit alone. Unlike lectures in other classes, this was
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