I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the Eisenhower administration's policy/policy-making in the Third World (viewed through the lens of Richard Nixon, but that's another issue).
I also have a tendency when answering questions here to write a gross amount of text, so I'm going to focus solely on Guatemala. One main reason is that the answer here is more clear cut, as the coup to overthrow Mossadeq was a very messy affair (by which I mean far more complex and clunky than the popular image).
The first thing I want to establish is that while United Fruit certainly pushed for the Eisenhower administration to act against Árbenz, the key people were not primarily or even significantly motivated by United Fruit's position. The same people that authors like Stephen Kinzer (The Brothers, 2013) argue were pushing for the coup so as to benefit United Fruit or "American business", namely John Foster and Allen Dulles, actually complained about United Fruit and hoped its power in Latin America could be curtailed. I.e., John Foster Dulles strongly disliked that there was an "understanding" that U.S. administrations acted for the benefit of the Fruit Company in Latin America. Indeed, even Allen Dulles agreed that the United Fruit Company had caused the administration so many headaches it needed to be made subordinate to Latin American states (so long as those states were friendly), and considered the post-coup plans the CIA had to serve the dual purpose of bringing regional stability and bolstering the cause of weakening the Fruit Company. Allen Dulles argued that eventually Latin American states would become stable and strong enough that anti-trust suits would become unnecessary as the Fruit Company would have its power smashed by those Latin American states.
I understand it's a rather bold claim I'm making - that the coup to overthrow Árbenz was not primarily done for economic reasons (long-story-short, the coup took place because Eisenhower and Dulles would not allow big C communist footholds in Latin America and through both his own actions and the administration's treatment of him Árbenz was acting more and more like he was or would like to be in league with the U.S.S.R.), but I'll provide sources for that and am willing to argue it more fully if someone with an economic/marxist/revisionist bent wants to dive down that hole. Keep in mind that I'm not arguing the administration had a sophisticated understanding of Latin American politics (it didn't), nor am I arguing that economics did not play any role (they obviously did).
The basic answer to your question dove-tails with some of my sources.
Answer: Yes, a well-informed and well-read American would have likely guessed or concluded the coup occurred due to the influence of United Fruit. Many of the notes Richard Nixon took in preparation for his various (sometimes disastrous) missions abroad were based on newspapers.As concerns Latin American affairs, Nixon was in a kind of impossible competition with President Eisenhower's brother, Milton - who was somehow considered an expert on the region seemingly based on the fact that he'd travelled the region and been feted by the upper class - in trying to have more influence and better press coverage for his missions abroad.
Still, Nixon and his staff gathered and analysed press coverage of various events, including the lead up to the overthrow of Árbenz and the aftermath. While they only had sparse direct access to more local papers (the CIA and State Departments had more, but tended to summarise these in wires to Nixon's staff if requested), what they did have access to showed that Árbenz's overthrow was portrayed in communist or socialist papers as a direct result of American imperialism and for the benefit of United Fruit. The basic point I'm making is that a well-read and attentive person in 1950s America could likely have connected the dots and concluded Árbenz's overthrow was in some way related to his actions against United Fruit. What's more, administration officials were aware of this appearance.
At the 202nd meeting of the NSC under Eisenhower, President Eisenhower urged the Attorney General and Justice Department to proceed with a variety of proposed anti-trust suits (some against oil companies in the Middle East), including against the United Fruit Company for its actions in Latin America and Guatemala specifically. John Foster Dulles also supported the anti-trust suit for the very reason that it would detract from the notion common amongst Latin American nations and others that the "sole objective of the United States [sic] foreign policy was to protect the fruit company." To summarise, the Eisenhower administration knew it appeared that United Fruit could basically call in the U.S. government to take care of any problems it encountered in Latin America - this was seen as very bad by the Eisenhower administration for a variety of reasons but namely because the U.S.S.R. could leverage that appearance to create instability and because it led to mistrust between Latin American leaders and American officials. The key point during this meeting was that Eisenhower and others wanted the anti-trust suit to be brought after the coup, so it did not appear that the administration was removing Árbenz despite him being perfectly correct about United Fruit's abuse of its power.
This probably reads like a mishmash of poorly thought-out policies and often conflicting goals. That's because it was, and even officials were aware of it at the time. At the 204th meeting of the NSC, Eisenhower's advisers, including Dulles and Nixon, pointed out that the administration regularly failed to provide aid beyond military aid or anti-communist support; which would not address let alone resolve issues in states like Guatemala or Indochina. However, coups were cheaper than wars, and when you're not considering long-term consequences or simply reacting to the spectre of Communism, they make a lot of sense.
For the NSC meetings (you might be able to find these in FRUS, I'm not certain).:
Discussion at the 202nd Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, June 17th 1954, 12, 202nd Meeting of NSC, June 17, 1954, Box 5, NSC Series, Ann Whitman File, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
Discussion at the 204th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, June 24, 1954, 11-12, 204th Meeting of NSC, June 24 1954, Box 5, NSC Series, AWF, DDEL.
For Nixon's notes see:
Handwritten Note, Trip File 1955 Feb 12-15 Guatemala, Box 5, Executive Branch Files, Pre-Presidential Series 325, Richard Nixon Pre-Presidential Materials, Richard Nixon Library.
A couple nuanced evaluations of the coup can be found:
Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999)
or
Roberto Garcia Ferreira, “The CIA and Jacobo Arbenz: History of a Disinformation Campaign” Journal of Third World Studies 25, No. 2 (Fall 2008), 61
For an old old old counter-argument to what I've written see
Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1982)
Note that I might edit this post if I catch glaring formatting errors, but otherwise I will leave it - argumentative warts and all.
Edit: I'd like to also thank the kind person who thought my ramblings were worthy of Gold. Thank you very much, you made me smile.
Finally a question I feel I can actually answer, since I recently completed a research paper on the topic of Mossadegh's coup. I relied heavily on press and magazine sources to try an capture American popular perception of Mossadegh and related how this perception was informed by Cold War attitudes.
As a previous reply noted, the Mossadegh coup and it's lead up is far too complicated to adequately explain in a comment. I can give you an idea of how Americans understood Mossadegh and by extension how they understood the coup.
From the beginning of the nationalization crisis in 1951 to the coup in 1953, the situation in Iran was generally framed as heavily volatile, with many articles stressing the danger of communist subversion by the Tudeh party. Mossadegh, who the leader of the National Front party which included nationalist liberals and leftists, was often portrayed as toying with forces he could not control. Mossadegh's tendency to weep and faint became a focal point for derision in American press as "evidence" of his weakness and effeminacy. One article in the Houston Post labeled him a "Fainting Francis" or "Weeping Willie".^(1) Another Time piece asks "What ails Mossadegh" and answers that his " “tantrum-my temperament” and “excitability" were to blame.^(2) Perhaps the most potent image of Mossadegh in American minds came from Time's 1951 Man of the Year piece. The article was hardly an honor for him, as it highlights his “tantrums”, calls him “peculiar”, and compared him to a “willful little boy.” The article paints a picture of an infantile, neurotic, and thoroughly foreign leader who has the entire world worriedly watching his shifting and unpredictable will.^(3) This sort of understanding was the standard in the press throughout the nationalization crisis.
American perception of Mossadegh as effeminate, indecisive, and naïve would have been benign without the additional hyperawareness of so-called anarchy on the streets of Tehran. Iranian politics was certainly characterized by mob violence, riots, and assassinations brought on by political turmoil, unemployment, and occasionally foreign (sometimes US sponsored) subversion. In the McCarthyite era, American reaction to exposure to images of turmoil were almost anaphylactic in nature. Newspapers and magazines built on this fear and created a feeling that Iran was close communist takeover. Americans, who at home were chasing communist ghosts, believed that Iran, along with much of the world, appeared to be in the process of burning. This conviction in conjunction their disbelief in the capability of fainting Mossadegh to handle the threat led the US to justify toppling Mossadegh.
Newspapers were more blatant in their depiction of Iranian chaos than they were of Mossadegh’s weakness. Just glancing at headlines written by one New York Times contributor Michael Clark, a person got a sense of disorder: “Iran Kept in Turmoil by Oil and Communism”^(4), “Terrorism Called Silent Ally in Triumph of Mossadegh”^(5), and “Mossadegh, Home Again, Faces Growing Crisis” to name a few.^(6) A common theme was to conflate nationalism with turmoil. One New York Times article contended that, like Arab nationalism, Iranian nationalism was conceptually unlike western nationalism or patriotism. Instead, the author espoused that Iranian nationalism was fanatical, religiously motivated, and prone to violence. Mossadegh, meanwhile, was painted as stirring forces over which he had no control. This article fits within the larger trend of growing American antipathy toward third world nationalism as a dangerous and chaotic force. Mossadegh was typed as unwittingly playing with a dangerous fire which he would not be able to extinguish.
Magazines also contributed to the sense of chaos in Iran. In the wake of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, Life published an article headed by “False God Dies, Crisis is Born.” The subsequent pages featured pictures of contenders for Soviet leadership, leftist agitation across the world, and communists executing landlords in China. Iranian political violence is included with photographs labeled with “confusion brings conflict” and “blood to Iran.” American fears would have been undoubtedly been aroused by the photographs. The subsequent article, “The Anglo-American Job” argues that Washington and London had to work together with “energy and political resourcefulness” to solve worldwide instability and prevent collectivist domination.^(7) To any reader the situation did not require a nuanced understanding; the world was in danger and action had to be taken. The positioning of the Iranian pictures next to those of communist subversion around the world forced a connection between Tudeh-inspired violence and the monolithic danger of world communism. Life magazine’s call for cooperation between the two powers, directly following images Mossadegh and riots in Tehran, was almost prophetic considering the MI6 and the CIA were sowing the seeds of the coup at the time of publishing.
Evaluation of the press’ characterization reveals that a dominant narrative that Mossadegh was an incompetent leader and that Iran was in chaos established itself in the first year of the crisis. Alternate, less alarming, and more neutral descriptions existed, but they were subsumed in the months following Mossadegh’s visit so that by 1952 Americans thought of him as a threat to security.
To more directly answer your question, I would contend that the average well-inforemed American would not have pieced together that the US facilitated the coup or have noticed the involvement of oil companies. Certainly they would have understood that oil men were heavily involved as it was no secret that George McGhee, a former Texas oilman turned diplomat, attempted to facilitate a deal between the British and Iranians. However, in light of the press' focus on communism, questions about Mossadegh's character, and American Cold War attitudes, I doubt they would have saw an economic motive behind his overthrow. Even among scholars now it is debated whether anticommunism or oil forced US intervention (I land on the anticommunism side).
Works Cited
Paul Gallico, “Several Good Reasons for Being Thankful”, Houston Post, (November 18, 1951)
“What Ails Mossadeq?” Time 58, (October 29, 1951), 43.
1951 Man of the Year: Mohammed Mossadegh,” Time 59, (January 7, 1952), 18-21
Michael Clark, “Iran Kept in Turmoil by Oil and Communism”, New York Times, (April 29, 1951)
Michael Clark, “Terrorism Called Silent Ally in Triumph of Mossadegh”, New York Times, (November 29, 1951)
Michael Clark, “Mossadegh, Home Again, Faces Growing Crisis”, New York Times, (November 25, 1951)
Edward Crankshaw, “False God Dies, Crisis is Born,” Life 34, (March 16, 1953), 20-33 and Walter Lippman, “The Anglo-American Job”, 34
Secondary Source
Balaghi, Shiva. “Silenced Histories and Sanitized Autobiographies: The 1953 CIA Coup in Iran.” Biography 36, no. 1 (2013): 71–96. https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2013.0009.
Jacobs, Matthew F.. Imagining the Middle East: the Building of an American Foreign Policy, 1918-1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Abrahamian, Ervand. The Coup 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian
Relations. New York: New Press, 2013.
Ansari, Ali M. The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.
Collier, David R. Democracy and the Nature of American Influence in Iran, 1941-1979.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2017.
Elm, Mostafa. Oil, Power, and Principle : Iran’s Oil Nationalization and Its. First edition.
Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 1992.
Heiss, Mary Ann. Empire and Nationhood : the United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil,
1950-1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Little, Douglas. American Orientalism : the United States and the Middle East Since 1945.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Gasiorowski, Mark J. “U.S. Perceptions of the Communist Threat in Iran During the Mossadegh
Era.” Journal of Cold War Studies 21, no. 3 (2019): 185–221.
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