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In 1954 the land reform encouraged by Jacobo Arbenz’s democratic government posed a direct threat to the economic interests of the United States and to President Eisenhower’s administration. Using the communist threat as a pretext, the diplomatic body managed to legitimate a coup d’état within the main international organization by playing with the different charters governing them. By promising to implement a Marshall Plan in Latin America, US diplomacy managed to bring the entire subcontinent into the Cold War. The 1954 coup d’état enabled American diplomacy to establish its presence in every field and to contribute to the polarization of the world by reasserting their position as leaders of the Western bloc.