14-00000
104-10179-10232
2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992
SECRET
6 November 1963
MEMORANDUM FOR: Chief, Special Affairs Stall
SUBJECT
1 AMWORLD--Project JMHART
1. Chief, WH/7 has tentatively offered the services of CIA
contract personnel assigned to this project--principally those of the
¿Director of the Panamerican Foundation, Mr. Curtis Wilgus--to serve
as a channel to ex-President Figueres and Foreign Minister Oduber
in promoting the acceptability of AMWORLD and AMBIDDY-1 by the
moderate left. Under the terms of the JAHART Project, CIA, through
Curtis Wilgus, will be able to influence the composition of the student
body of the School for Inter-American Development. It is proposed that
Wilgus would tell Figueres and Cuuber that it is intended to also enroll
Cubans in the school and that in the opinion of Wilcus they should be
drawn from exile organizations known to be dedicated to democratic
principles, such as Artime's MRK, Manolo Ray's JURE, the MRP
and MDC. It is unlikely that Figueres and Oduber would demur.
any case, their demurrals could be overruled. The prominent mention
of the MRR as a cradle of democratic ideas and the actual inclusion of
students selected by Artime would postulate acceptance of the MMR and
of Artime as exponents of a political philosophy acceptable to the mode -
rate left. Any excoriation of Artime for having allied himself with the
Somozas would be blunted if the MRR forms a part of the student body
(and conceivably the faculty) of the School of Inter-American Development.
In
2. I intend to suggest to Artime that he pay his respects to
Figueres in Cambridge, of course without alluding to the school project.
The purpose of the call would, quite frankly, be to butter up Figueres.
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-2.
All the information I have been able to gather suggests that the combi-
ition of Munos Marin/Figueres, as far as Washington is concerned,
is unbeatable and that Artime has little choice but to align himself with
their way of looking at things--or at least to pay lip service to it.
Another angle I would like to explore is President Betancourt.
The more I read of his accomplishments as president, the more im-
pressed I am. T. hat would you think of having Artime, armed with a
letter of introduction from Figueres, pay Betancourt a call before he
relinquishes the presidency. Artime's approach would not be that of a
supplicant or solicitor of support, but that of a young man making a
pilgrimage, sitting at the feet of a revolutionary who has been successful,
absorbing knowledge of how it was done. He could ask Betancourt, after
he is out from under the daily grind of government, to address himself
to the problems of post-Castro Cuba. He could invite him to chair a
seminar attended by the MRR leadership. The objective would, of course,
be to involve Betancourt in the affairs of the MRK, without putting his
name on the masthead and without asking him to contribute anything but
reflections of his lustre as a Latin American leader who bequeathed his
country a constitutional and democratic regime. Undoubtedly Artine
will have to cast off ideological ballast in order to accommodate his
reluctant sponsors (l'igueres, Betancourt), but Havana "vaut bien une
messe." As a minimum objective, Artime would in any case have to
strive to neutralise the latent animosities of the moderate left, denying
Manolo Kay an unchallenged ascendancy in monopolizing its support,
which he can probably set for the asking.
4. A welcome by-product of the resuscibation of JMHART,
is "Combate, an influential periodical with strong readership appeal
in Latin America among elements of the moderate left, edited by
Monje. A German national named Dr. Erich Herzog who is a member
of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has been lecturing
in San Jose on an "Ideological Inquiry into Communism," his program,
indirectly sponsored by the Federal Republic, will be absorbed by
JMHART. Ile wields considerable influence in molding the thinking of
Central America's left of center leadership. The First Secretary of
the Israeli Embassy in Guatemala has also been mentioned as influential
among the intellectual alite. A Puerto Rican named Santiago Pollante
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3.
(President of the Assembly) is Munos Maria's man in sponsoring
JMHART, and is quoted as having referred to Figueres as the guiding
light, overshadowing all others.
ec: WH/7
SAS/SO/SB
SAS/50/AR
DC/SAS/MOB
SECRET
سان
Henry D. Hecheher
SAS/SO
01
2.'T'Y.
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449
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