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

Esterline's failure to get Ydigoras to sign the
Status of Forces Agreement must have gone down hard
with Agency representatives because of the extreme
difficulties that had been encountered in reaching an
agreement with the Department of Defense, particularly
the Army representatives, to undertake the negotiations
in the first place. Richard D. Drain, who was Chief
of Operations for the project at the time, in an oral
interview with the author, told some other details of
the story which are believed worth repeating here be-
cause Drain was involved in the negotiations with DOD
and was responsible for drawing up the actual agreement
which it was anticipated Ydigoras would sign. To the
question of whether he had drawn up the agreement, Drain
responded:
Jesus, yes. On self-destructing paper.
Well, this was all typical of the idiocy
that prevailed because of the failure of
Mr. Nixon to succeed Mr. Eisenhower. From
the time the vote was in -- the first Tues-
day after the first Monday in November --
up until JFK took the oath on January 20,
personnel and the details involved in the negotiations
with the GOG at the time. As will be pointed out sub-
sequently, what Esterline did sign was the agreement
with Carlos Alejos, Guatemalan Ambassador to the United
States.