The war ends and between 1945 and 1950 a new world order is born.  The United Nations organization (UN) is created and with it, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which governments swear to protect.  However, an economic structure is also created, planetary institutions that would mark the economic and political destiny of the world even today.  In this way that institutions of Bretton Woods rise up, in a luxurious hotel in New Hampshire, U.S.A. where the World Bank (WB) is founded and the International Monetary Fund (the IMF) established the U.S. dollar as the currency of world trade.  These would pave the way for increased wealth for transnational big businesses.  The institutions of Bretton Woods would play an essential role in the leap to the neoliberal model in the 70’s and with that, all that we endure today.  As well, another very important instrument is born: The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which, in 1995, would be converted into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

THE FIFTH STEP, POSTWAR

We resume in 1949.  General Einsenhower offered a Coca-Cola soda to Soviet general Georguis Konstatinovich Zhukov and he loved it.  Zhukov wanted more but he requested that it not be in Coca-Cola bottles as a Soviet general could not be seen drinking a symbol of American imperialism.  Einsenhower gave General Clark the responsibility of passing this on to President Truman and he had research done in search of a chemical that would eliminate the colour of Coca-Cola’s liquid and he had the drink put into a traditional bottle with a cap bearing a red star in the center.  From this, the so-called, “White Coke Episode” arose and it is said that it was considered to be a state secret for several years while the Cold War was in place.

In 1950 Coca-Cola did not have even one director of colour, Georgia being a southern state with a black majority.  Half the decade would pass until, in the magazine, Ebony, edited by and for people of colour, the black race first appeared.  In response to the criticizism that Coca-Cola was bad for one’s health, the company began sporting events and they continue to do this today.  In this year, Coca-Cola presented its first television commercial.  In 1952, during the Olympic Games in Helsinki, it donated one of the refrigerators to the Soviets and four years later, in Melbourne, the same Soviet team consumed 10 766 bottles.  In 1953, the world had consumed its first 76 000 million litres of Coca-Cola, its production was at 2 million barrels and it was spending $30 million (U.S.) on advertising, more than what some countries today spend on combating their poverty.

In 1954, Ray Kroc bought the hamburgers stands along the highways from the McDonald brothers and partnered up with Coca-Cola to sell its soda in the restaurants.  One year later, in a study published in 1955 it was concluded that more than 20 000 gas stations throughout the U.S. said that: “drivers stop to fill up on gas, go to the bathroom, drink a Coca-Cola and continue on their way”.  In this same year the actress, Joan Crawford, a movie artist and one of the Coca-Cola girls in the 30’s, married the president of Pepsi.  For his part, then vice-president Richard Nixon, one of Coca-Cola’s old boys and a supposed addict to the soda, signed a “pre-contract” with Nikita Kruschov, leader of the Soviet Union, to introduce Pepsi into the Russian territory.

Despite being the national drink of the U.S.A. and the advertising and its high consumption, Coca-Cola continued to receive criticisms that the soda damaged the health of adolescents.  According to some consulted sources, Coca-Cola did not lose one legal case presented against it for this reason.  In one of the cases, the company declared that:  “… the only way in which the product could harm a child seriously would be if somebody threw a bottle at a window and it fell on top of him (…)”.  So, the consumption continued to grow.  In 1960 the American people were consuming 40 000 Coca-Colas per minute and thirty years later this what the world was consuming per second (according to some sources the present Coca-Cola consumption is more than 45 000 bottles per second).  In this year, its design and profile are officially recognized by the Patents Office as a Registered Trademark.  As well, in this year, as Fanta arrived to the United States, the Coca-Cola company, for the first time, acquired another company, the Minute Maid Company.  Here begins a new level of preying on the competitors that were absorbed bit by bit.

In 1961, almost 15 years after the war ended, the soda could finally be bought freely in Japan where previously it could only be acquired on the black market or through the American soldiers located on bases on Japanese lands.  To this end, the Coca-Cola company selected Mitsubishi, Kikkoman, Kirin, Fuji and Sanyo as the companies to bottle and distribute its sodas.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the owners of the Woolworth restaurant in Greensboro, U.S.A. refused to serve Coca-Cola and hamburgers to four black students provoking protests.  A little while later, the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), demanded that the company have black people appear in the advertisements for Coca-Cola. 

J. Paul Austin was the tenth president of Coca-Cola in 1962.  He was a Harvard University law graduate and he spoke Spanish, French and Japanese.  His presidency was relevant because of his friendship with Jimmy Carter who he helped in his campaign to be governor of Georgia, with the company putting planes and limousines at the disposition of the campaign.  The governor travelled to many countries strengthening trade with his state.  To this end, Coca-Cola’s black people advised Carter in all of the countries.  They were like ambassadors.  With their help, Carter had information about the life, culture, politics and economic situations of every nation.

John F. Kennedy was such a fan of Coca-Cola that in 1963 he offered the American ambassadorship in England to Robert Woodruff, the president of the company. But “the Boss” turned down the offer.  This is the year when the famous movie director, Billy Wilder, directed for the company one of Coca-Cola’s most famous films:  “One, Two, Three”, a satire about the company in Eastern Germany and Coca-Cola’s anti-Communist phobia.  Hence, we see in the following decades a political class more closely linked to the interests of transnational corporations than to their own people who granted them power.  And the Coca-Cola company would be especially mixed into the political doings and social reactions.  In 1968, the Arabs boycotted Coca-Cola for having allowed the soda to be bottled in Israel.  It was a strong hit to the company since the Arab world was an important customer.  One journalist made the company’s Coca-Cola stand from Morroco to Pakistan look like the new oasis.

In 1969, the gross income of the Coca-Cola company was $1 300 million (U.S.), producing a profit of more than $121 million (U.S.), of which $100 million (U.S.) was spent on advertising, the equivalent of 82.6% of the profits being reinvested in advertising.  One year later, in 1970, Coca-Cola was the product present in the most number of countries:  130 nations.  Nonetheless, in this decade, the great world-wide crisis of the external debt of “peripheral”, “undeveloped” or the so-called “Third World” countries took place.  All of them are indebted to the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  With so many interest payments, they had already paid back more than the original capital debt.  Some governments refused to pay.  So, the institutions of Bretton Woods began to tighten the screws and to oblige the countries to open up their markets to transnational companies.  So begins the era of the neoliberal model and with it the application of Structural Adjustment Policies.  Governments that refused suffered military coups with the help of the United States.  The military dictators were then responsible for opening the doors of their countries to big capital.  Herein begins the competition and ambition of the transnationals with public companies and the privatization of the raw materials necessary to increase their profits.  The problems of union workers, bottlers and suppliers worsened.  From this moment forward we see the closeness of the Coca-Cola Company with the military and paramilitary forces of other countries; and a great increase in the violation of human rights.

Richard Nixon becomes president of the United States (1969 a 1974). With strong ties to the interests of Pepsi-Cola, he signs a contract with the Soviet Union to bottle the soda for the first time.  Coca-Cola then acts more aggressively in its propaganda and it creates what will be the best advertisement in the history of advertising in the context of the war against Vietnam and the rejection of the American people of the policies of its government.  At the top of a hill in Italy, Coca-Cola brought together 200 youth from all corners of the world, appropriately wearing the national dress of their country and holding a bottle of Coca-Cola, singing together: “I’d like to make the world a place …/ I want to teach the world to sing …/ to send a message of peace …”.   This advertisement premiered on television in 1971 causing a world-wide reaction.  It was said that a television commercial had never managed to unite so many values and feelings in one minute.  The British musical group, New Seekers, recorded the song on record and they managed to sell more than a million copies.  For many years, advertising circles have considered this advertising commercial to be the best ever made.  Even so, ten years would pass due to the exclusivity that Pepsi-Cola had in the Soviet Union  before Coca-Cola would manage to get an exclusive contract as the sponsor of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, at a cost of $10 million (U.S.).

In 1972 the first illustrated catalogue of Coca-Cola collectables was published.  The collector fans began.  In 1975 the Coca-Cola Clan was born uniting all of the collector clubs.  Suddenly, old publicity objects, restaurant trays, calendars, any object bearing  its mark, acquired quite a bit of value.  According to one of the sources we consulted, the number of objects collected and polled by the company in 1992 was more than three million different objects.  In this year a new club was born: The Group of Seven (the G-7), the seven most developed and industrialized nations in the world.  The G-7, controlling Bretton Woods’ institutions and to which the world was indebted – Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States at its head – began to impose conditions to turn the planet around.  The transnational companies were ready to devour the market, the state companies and the natural resources of their debtors.

In the middle of the electoral race for the U.S. presidency in 1974 Jimmy Carter contracted the services of a specialist of the Coca-Cola company for publicity services to strengthen his image in the final stretch.  The Mexican Coca-Cola president, Vicente Fox, would arrive more than twenty years late to the political marketing to buy presidencies.  But we’ll look after this business personality later.  Returning to the year 1974 when Jimmy Carter boasted: “We have our own State Department representation in the Coca-Cola company.  They give me advance reports on a given country, describing its problems, who its leaders are, and this in addition to introducing me to the leaders of these nations”.  During the 1976 presidential campaigns, Paul Austin presided over a banquet at which Carter confessed to worried business people that his discourses regarding the atrocities and the perpetual alliances between capitalists and politics were simply talk.  “I will still be allied with the companies”.  Carter appointed a number of Coca-Cola representatives:  Charles Duncan became the Sub-Secretary of Defence (before changing to Energy Secretary); Joseph Califano obtained the Ministry of Health, Education and Welfare, among others.  The business people of Coca-Cola took power and years later they were the managers of the armaments and pharmaceutical industries, among others.

In 1977, the government of India asked the company to state its formula as a condition for allowing the company to distribute the soda in the country.  Coca-Cola refused and it withdrew losing 400 million potential consumers.  Years later, thanks to Rajiv Gandhi, Coca-Cola returned to India.  In the same year the price of sugar fell.  Coca-Cola used millions of tonnes of sugar annually making it the world’s largest consumer.  The Coca-Cola company pressured Carter to approve a law that allowed the local businesses of Georgia to pay four cents to the dollar for a kilo of sugar, in this way subsidizing the company with public funds.  Some congressmen called this initiative the “Coca-Cola project”.  According to some sources consulted, in this same year, the president of Coca-Cola, Paul Austin, travelled to Cuba with the goal of trying to negotiate with Fidel Castro with whom Coca-Cola had a case pending (the Cuban government) for $27 million (U.S.).

One year later, in 1978, Coca-Cola arrived at an agreement with communist China to bottle the soda just days before the U.S. normalized its diplomatic relations with the country.  Curiously, Mao Zedong, in his Red Book, described Coca-Cola as, “the narcotic of the running dogs of capitalism”. Hence, China was added to the list of more than 1 200 bottling plant locations distributed in 135 countries.  For its part, the government of Bulgaria also signed a contract to bottle Coca-Cola as did other communist countries such as Yugoslovia, Czechoslovakia and Romania.  During the Vietnam war Coca-Cola built bottling plants in Danang and Saigon.

The policies of Structural Adjustment began to be felt in the life of the workers.  The lowering of salaries, the freeing up of price controls for basic products and, in general, the gradual decrease in workers’ rights began to have their destructive effects.  In this way, two years later in Guatemala, Coca-Cola had its first death.  On January 2^nd, 1980 the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) announced that the Coca-Cola union worker, Pedro Quevedo, had been murdered.  A few months later, in May, another four members of the union were assassinated.  In many Latin American countries, infuriated protesters tore down the signs where Coca-Cola was sold and they changed the advertising posters of the company to: COCA-COLA: THE ZING THAT KILLS!  With this death began the company’s wave of terror against its union workers.

YOU AREN’T GOING TO BELIEVE THIS...

-          The first time that Coca-Cola crossed the Atlantic for commercial reasons it was aboard the German hot-air balloon, Graf Zeppelin.

-          In 1955 Richard Woodruff retired from the company.

-          In 1963 TAB, the first drink without sugar, appeared on the market.

-          In Switzerland they wanted to ban Coca-Cola because it contained phosphoric acid.

-           In Brazil it was said that Coca-Cola produced cancer and made youth impotent while Japan said that it left women sterile.  In the Philippines, the rumour was that it made one’s teeth fall out and that an employee at the San Miguel beer plant had fallen into the Coca-Cola tank giving a new flavour to the drink.

-           - In Morocco, Pepsi addicts attacked Coca-Cola consumers for being “independents”.  In Chamula, Chiapas fans defending both brands murdered one another.  But there are other stories.  In Barbados, it was said that Coca-Cola turned copper into gold.  In Haiti, an elderly person came back to life when her nephew gave her Coca-Cola to drink.  In Russia, women used the soda to combat wrinkles and they exchanged it for stockings.

-           - In 1945 Egypt didn’t know what a Coca-Cola was.  In 1950 it was bottling more than 350 million bottles a year at its six factories.  People stated that the liquid was made with pig blood.

-           The lawyer in charge of the “strange ingredients” cases was Perry Wilbur Fatting, a biologist who studied the effects caused by ingesting insects that had been “marinated” in Coca-Cola.  He studies all of the poisonous and small animals that could “accidentally get into” a bottle of Coca-Cola including the Black Widow.

-           The Ridiculous:  Coca-Cola Defence Groups have been created.  The Coca-Cola Club Collector’s Club of Spain was founded in 1990 and today it has one hundred members.  Its founders were Albert Molina, Joan Bonet, Xavier Prats and Jordi H. Rubi.  During its early years, TangaWorld organized two meetings a year to auction and exchange Coca-Cola related objects.  Albert Molina has travelled to more than 100 countries to acquire objects for his collection.  His museum is made up of more than 7 000 different objects.  The Coca-Cola collector’s club in the United States currently has 6 000 members.  The Assembly of the International Club of Coca-Cola Collectors celebrated in Atlanta in 1991, brought together so many people that one hotel was not enough to lodge the entire convention.

-           The Absurd:  The huge Coca-Cola sign at the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta has 1 407 light bulbs and 580 neon tubes.  It measures 9 meters in height, 80 meters in width and it weighs 12 500 kilos.  The globe outside rotates on a 22° axis, the same as Earth.  It is one of the most visited museums in the world.

-           The first Coca-Cola vending machine that was installed in the old Soviet Union is located in the lobby on the Mezdunarodnaya Hotel. 

-           The largest Coca-Cola truck is in Sweden:  it is 24 meters long with a four axle trailer.  The largest trucking fleet in the world belongs to Coca-Cola.

-           The only way to transport Coca-Cola to the so-called “Japanese Alps”, at almost three thousand meters in height, is by helicopter.  The strong winds and the steep slopes do not allow the helicopter to land so it stays in the air and lowers the cargo in nets.

-           The Shatin bottling plant in Hong Kong is the tallest in the world.  It has 25 floors.

-           Valentin Lachica, a Philippine of 73 years, never closes his kiosk in San Fernando de la Union before he has sold 50 cases of Coca-Cola.  Normally these transactions are done daily and he is open for 12 hours periods.

-           The northern-most country that bottles Coca-Cola is Norway where sales reach farther than the Arctic Circle.  The southern-most country is Argentina where sales to the Antarctic are distributed through its bottler in Tierra del Fuego.

-           On a normal day in the United States, 66 million people drink Coca-Cola.  The place where the largest volume of Coca-Cola sales are made is the Varsity Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia.  Three million consumers are served each year.

-           It has been said that there are many politicians that were or are great Coca-Cola consumers:  King Faruk of Egypt; Hussein of Jordan; Ike Eisenhower; Richard Nixon; Lyndon B. Johnson, King Faisal of Iraq; the princesses of Holland; Cuban  dictator, Batista; Fidel Castro; John F. Kennedy; the Sultan of Morocco; and Mexican president, Vicente Fox.  And in addition to you?  Who else do you know?

Sources: Luis Capilla, “Multinationals, the Voracious Planetary Octopuses”; Coca-Cola Company; Joan Bonet; Tanga Word; CokeWatch; Polaris Institute; Mark Pendergrast, “God, Country and Coca-Cola”; Alison Gregor, “Coca-Cola: The Global Religion”; “Coca Cola, A Business Story of Terror and Crime”, Sinaltrainal/Rebelión, September 3, 2002; The Swiss Support Group, “Colombia Never Again”; Sinaltrainal; Information Bulletin on Trade and Development, No.10, April 2002, Guatemala.

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