69. Memorandum of conversation, April 17, between President Kennedy and Ambassador Escalante1
SUBJECT
- Call on the President by Costa Rican Ambassador
PARTICIPANTS
- The President
- Ambassador Manuel G. Escalante of Costa Rica
- Acting Assistant Secretary Wymberley DeR. Coerr
At the President’s request, Costa Rican Ambassador Manuel G. Escalante paid his first official call on the President, who expressed his pleasure at the visit. The Ambassador said that President Echandi was most pleased that his representative had been invited to the White House and considered it a great honor.
President Kennedy inquired regarding the Costa Rican Government’s program of land reform, expressing much interest in it. The Ambassador responded enthusiastically that the government was working on a program to settle some 1500 families in an area soon to be opened up in the northern part of Costa Rica. There followed a brief discussion of Costa Rica’s main export products—which the Ambassador identified as coffee, bananas, cacao and sugar in that order. The Ambassador said that Costa Rica was most pleased to receive the recent increase in its sugar allotment. With regard to bananas, he briefly mentioned that the Presidents of Costa Rica and Panama would shortly hold a meeting on the border between those two countries in an effort to achieve some progress in stabilizing the banana market. He said that President Echandi was very glad that the United States was sending Ambassador Turkel as an observer.
- Costa Rican land reform program. Official Use Only. 1 p. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Costa Rica, January–August 1961.↩