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Alejos, Guatemalan Ambassador to the United States, signed the document.* Once this document was completed -- and even be- fore he had CIA1s firm requirement in hand -- General Erskine, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Special Operations) -- issued instructions that active mili- tary personnel would be made available as requested by· CIA. 73a/ In his formal request to the Office of Special Operations, on 5 January 1961, where he spelled out the detailed requirements for Special Forces personnel for the project, Jake Esterline neatly summarized the situ- ation that had finally been resolved: Because DOD desired certain agreements between governments before it was willing to act affirmatively on the original [16 November 1960] requirement, the Agency, with the approval and concurrence of the Department of State, negotiated an agree- ment with the host government which \ * Appendix 2 contains copies of the complete set of documents involved in this episode of the Special Forces Trainers, and clearly illustrates the degree to which nits were picked on what to the pragmatist would appear to have been a relatively simple matter. Included in Appendix 2 are the four versions of the Memor~ndum of Agreement which Esterline initially at- tempted to negotiate with Ydigoras and the series of memos related to the Memorandum for Record which Ambas- sador Alejos eventually signed per the request of the Department of State.