Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation- Volume 2- Part 1

Robertson's on-going dialogue with Somoza con-
tinued throug0 December, quite successfully from the
standpoint of acceptance of Agency proposals for de-
veloping Puerto Cabezas. Robertson noted that aside
from the political discussions which could not be es-
caped, every point raised by the engineering advance
party was agreed to by Somoza. 32/
Even though the Agency's representative ln Nica-
ragua was making good progress, the same apparently
did not apply in Headquarters area. On 28 December
1960 the Chief of WH/4 was requesting action on the
part of the A/DDP/A to get a formal policy decision.
The question of the quid pro quo's requested by Somoza
apparently had been put to Assistant Secretary Mann,
and according to Chief, WH/4, Mann was
rather cold on the subject, with the inevi-
table result that nothing had happened. I
would appreciate, therefore, if you [C.
Tracy Barnes, A/DDP/A] in your role as
coordinator would take the matter up with
Ambassador Willauer. We are now at the
point that we must obligate funds and com-
mence rehabilitation of JMTIDE if we are
to meet the 15 February - 1 March deadline.
The record verifies that both Napoli and Robert-
son acted in a highly commendable manner during the
touchy negotiations with the Central American dictator.
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