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The clearest case to me of the CIA affecting directly negotiations with another Chief of State was Ydigoras. I think that was frankly unavoidable and inescapable, because we had almost constant problems of a kind of opera- tional nature. Here we were training a force that [Col.] Jack Hawkins once characterized to me as the most powerful military force from Mexico to Colombia in his [Ydigoras's] country. He himself faced a lot of domestic opposition -- at one time they tried to overthrow him, as you remember. He wanted to get this [Cuban] group out of there as soon as possible, and I am sure that you have seen a lot of the traffic and memoranda of discussion; but it seems to me really to characterize especially the period in November-December (1960) when Torn Mann wanted to get the Brigade the hell out of Guatemala and Ydigoras would have welcomed it. There was no place for them to go. I still remember that we even talked about ferrying them to that training site I lin I ~ which was a measure of the des- peration -- or desperate desire -- to get them out of there [Guatemala]. We talked again about trying to find a remote site in the continental US., but Tom Mann with the State Department would have none of that. In that period when sort of cQnstant operational problems with Ydigoras were all wrapped up in the larger question of where this training activity could be carried on and how it could be made less obtrusive -- I think it was just inevi- table that Agency representatives found themselves dealing directly with Ydigoras. Richard M. Bissell to Jack B. Pfeiffer 17 October 1975 - viii -