Operation PBSuccess: The CIA-led coup in Guatemala to protect United Fruit
By 1953, the United Fruit Company, which is now known as Chiquita Brands International, had a big problem. For many years, they had full control over 42% of Guatemala’s land. They took advantage of the country’s dependence on banana production to support its economy.
However, a democratically elected leader swore that one day he would usurp their dominance, so the United Fruit asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower for help.
After Eisenhower approved, the CIA developed Operation PBSuccess, which was a covert operation that planned on displacing Guatemala’s democratically elected leader, Jacobo Árbenz, with one that had the back of the United States, Carlos Castillo Armas, with an illegal seizure of power.
Heart Attack Gun: The U.S. Government’s operation to assassinate world leaders
On September 17, 1975, there was an extraordinary hearing that happened in the U.S. Senate. Following the Watergate scandal and the erosion of trust in many American institutions, many citizens requested to know what the CIA had been up to. Idaho Senator Frank Church organized a whole committee to find out.
So not only did this committee uncover many covert operations such as MK-Ultra, but it also discovered diverse government operations known as Project MKNAOMI. Analysts with Project MKNAOMI were developing weapons, such as “heart attack guns”.
Project Thor: The covert operation that proposed putting weapons in space
It all happened during the Vietnam War. The U.S. deployed “Lazy Dog” bombs from airplanes, which were basically solid steel pieces with fins that resembled giant bullets rather than explosive bombs. Ever since that point, a version of this idea has been kicked around on a much bigger scale.
The idea was called Project Thor. However, instead of dropping steel pieces from 3,000 feet, the U.S. Air Force devised a plan to drop enormous “telephone pole-sized” tungsten rods, that measured 20 feet long and one foot in diameter from outer space.
Also, instead of reaching speeds of 500 miles per hour as their predecessors did, the so-called “Rods from God” would turn out to be so fast, that they could smash into the earth 10 times better than the speed of sound.
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