◆ SpookStack

DORE T™ Conditions actually got worse. In September the training camp was plagued by torrential tropical rains, shortages of food and supplies, plus trouble with agitators and hoodlums among their recently arrived trainees, who were not being screened and assessed as the first ones had been. The training base chief got into disfavor with Headquarters apparently because of his blunt cables asking for assistance. ("My men are going - hungry and barefoot.") Request for Missions ll. In October the infiltration teams that had been selected from among the trainees worked out detailed opera- tional plans for themselves, complete with maps, propaganda handouts, and resistance operations. When the base announced that about a hundred men were ready to go, Headquarters replied that it was proposing the illegal infiltration of the teams in November by boat. (Actually, the only boat the project had at this time was the 54-foot "Metusa Time".) Headquarters further cabled that it was engaged in preparing a general plan for the employment of the infiltration teams but that the details were not yet ready. The base chief was recalled in October, and thereafter the training base had a new chief each week for five weeks. One trainee was put into Cuba legally at the end of October. - 128 -