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

Alejos, Guatemalan Ambassador to the United States,
signed the document.*
Once this document was completed -- and even be-
fore he had CIA1s firm requirement in hand -- General
Erskine, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (Special
Operations) -- issued instructions that active mili-
tary personnel would be made available as requested by·
CIA. 73a/ In his formal request to the Office of Special
Operations, on 5 January 1961, where he spelled out the
detailed requirements for Special Forces personnel for
the project, Jake Esterline neatly summarized the situ-
ation that had finally been resolved:
Because DOD desired certain agreements
between governments before it was willing
to act affirmatively on the original [16
November 1960] requirement, the Agency,
with the approval and concurrence of the
Department of State, negotiated an agree-
ment with the host government which
\
* Appendix 2 contains copies of the complete set of
documents involved in this episode of the Special
Forces Trainers, and clearly illustrates the degree
to which nits were picked on what to the pragmatist
would appear to have been a relatively simple matter.
Included in Appendix 2 are the four versions of the
Memor~ndum of Agreement which Esterline initially at-
tempted to negotiate with Ydigoras and the series of
memos related to the Memorandum for Record which Ambas-
sador Alejos eventually signed per the request of the
Department of State.