◆ SpookStack

key figures in the FRO. According to Esterline's report of the meeting "it was never said in so many words that CIA, in effect, is supporting these people, it was implicit in President Ydigoras's attitude that he well understood that support is being given to these people through indirect means."* In playing his own game of plausible deniability, Ydigoras point~d out that the less he knew of the operation, the better would be his denials to the Organization of American States (OAS) or others who were concerned that anti- Castro activities were being mounted within his country's borders. It was also during this first session between Chief, WH/4 and the Guatemalans that plans were made to introduce Esterline to the Guatemalan ambassador * Arthur Schlesinger put the situation quite accu- rately in the following comment: \ The Frente was appropriately named: it was a front and nothing more. While its members talked among themselves, CIA was engaged in a recruiting drive among Cuban refugees in Florida and Central America. It had also persuaded President Ydigoras of Guatemala to permit the estab- lishment of a secret training camp and air base in the Guatemalan mountains."3a/ - 5 - TO~CRET