checks out elsewhere, including this, which brings up the Octopus:
Zapata and United Fruit--the "Octopus"?
Reports in the business section of the Houston Chronicle shed some insight on what was happening with Zapata, even though Bush has alleged that he sold his 6% interest in the company in 1966. According to a Houston Chronicle article by Albert T. Collins on January 20, 1969 (the date Richard Nixon was inaugurated), Zapata Norness, Inc. (formerly Zapata Off-Shore) had been seeking to acquire United Fruit Co. stock by offering to exchange one share of convertible stock for every share of United Fruit stock tendered to it. A competing offer to purchase stock had been made by AMK Corp., which was recommended by officers of the fruit company. The following week, after Zapata had already received almost 31,000 shares, AMK Corp.’s chairman, E.M. Black, and Zapata Norness reached an agreement whereby AMK would pay Zapata $3.8 million to withdraw from competition for United Fruit. AMK would buy all United Fruit stock which Zapata had purchased, in cash up to $3 million and would execute a promissory note for any amount in excess of the $3 million, payable at 6-7/8% interest in 10 equal annual installments.
Eli M. Black, who became the CEO of United Fruit as a result of AMK’s acquisition, in 1975 "fell" to his death from his office on the 44th floor of New York's Pan Am building. A week later it was disclosed he had paid $1.25 million into a Swiss bank account on behalf of the president of Honduras in exchange for a $1-a-box banana export tax reduced to 25 cents. Two weeks later the government of Honduras fell, and the company' stock hit its lowest level of the century. Black’s son, Leon Black, who as of 1996 was head of Apollo Advisors, used to head Drexel Burnham Lambert's mergers and acquisitions department. He once declared his purpose in life was to create the robber barons of the future, according to Mother Jones.
After Eli Black’s death in 1975, Carl Lindner took over United Brands and appointed Max Fisher as chairman. Fisher amassed his fortune as a bagman for the "Purple Gang" that smuggled Sam Bronfman's booze from Canada into the speakeasies of the Midwest. Fisher made his "legitimate" fortune in the oil retail business in Michigan, through Keystone Oil, Aurora Oil, and Marathon Oil and then became one of the first Jewish businessmen who was a major donor and fund-raiser for the Republican Party. In 1984 Cincinnati financier, Carl H. Lindner, who owned 65% of the company, installed himself as chairman, put his son Keith in charge of Chiquita and moved the headquarters to Cincinnati, where he nursed the company back to financial health.
A somewhat different account of those years is evident in an article written by Monica Perin for the Houston Business Journal (see
http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1999/04/26/story2.html ), which is quoted below. It contains no reference to David Murdock, the biggest shareholder, nor does it mention anything about the attempt to buy United Fruit.
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/lindaminor/lm3,19,02harvardtoenron,pt1.htmBronfman, Lindner, Marley, Hensley....McCain, anyone?
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