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

TOP fRET
supervising the re-creation of Puerto Cabezas tipped
the local Americans off as to who was behind the
activity at the airfield. Rip was particularly high
in his praise of the Agency engineer who both reduced
the time for getting the operation in order and also
had saved money in the process. In reporting on his
activities through mid-January Robertson made one
complaint which he voiced as follows:
In the future, I would suggest that the
size of such groups be cut to a minimum.
There is something uncommon about a group
of four men, of whom only one is occupied
(to the eyes of observers) and only one of
which knows the business for which they
are there. In reality, one engineer would
accomplish all that is being done at TIDE
with the exception of course, of commo. 47/
In terms of security at JMTIDE, Robertson also
had some other problems which he seemed to have handled
very well, especially considering that they concerned
US military representatives in Nicaragua. The Chief
of the US Military Assistance Group to Guatemala, in
the course of an inspection of National Guard facili-
ties, had come into the TIDE area; and upon his return
to Managua had prepared a report on the activities and
installation. The US Ambassador requested that this