79. Letter from Telles to Edwin M. Martin, May 311
The end of my first year in San José has happened to coincide with the end of the Echandi Administration and in consequence stimulated my Country Team and me to make a review and general assessment of our standing and achievements here, which has been rather sobering.
In essence it has shown that the greatest obstacle with which we have had to deal in the pursuit of our objectives has been the failure of the Department of State to act positively on our recommendations, in consequence of what has impressed us as an almost automatically negative attitude by the Department towards our suggestions, though possibly the Embassy’s failure to adequately and forcefully present our recommendations has also played a role. In support of our analysis, we have compiled a balance sheet, noting the principal recommendations made by the Embassy and Country Team over the course of the past year, and the response of the Department in each case. (To twenty- [Typeset Page 205] five proposals made by the Embassy, the Department’s response was negative thirteen times, the Embassy received no reply or replies so late as to destroy the effect of the proposal eight times, and affirmative exactly four times.) Since this is all water over the dam, and since this all happened prior to your taking office, I will not burden you with a copy of this information now. However, if you so desire it, I will be more than glad to send it to you.
As a result, the outgoing Echandi Administration made an effort to by-pass the Embassy with many of its requests. In turn this made it difficult, in some instances, to obtain their cooperation to our urging for actions and policy which we wanted but which they found inconvenient or untimely. Fortunately, I was able to get close to both former President Echandi and his Foreign Minister on a personal [Facsimile Page 2] and friendly basis and we were able to obtain necessary results in this manner. On several occasions, as I found it necessary, I made certain action-decisions and assumed all responsibility. This was particularly true during the recent presidential campaign in Costa Rica. In the final analysis what counts is results. We had a free, peaceful, honest and most democratic election, and today we have in Costa Rica probably the most stable government and ideal democratic country in Latin America. Presumptuously, we here in the Embassy would like to feel that we contributed a little through our activities to the outcome and favorable results.
I know that my experience has not been particularly novel (Echandi was already thoroughly soured on what support he could expect from the Embassy before I arrived in Costa Rica), and my purpose in writing you now on this subject is not simply “to kick a dead horse” or to demand any retribution. However, I am asking in all sincerity for a change in attitude in the Department to coincide with the change of administration which has just taken place here in Costa Rica. President Orlich has assured me on various occasions both before his inauguration and since he has been in power that he will seek out my counsel and the assistance of my people on projects on which he desires U.S. Government aid, and that he will not by-pass the Embassy on these matters. He has already gone out of his way on at least one occasion to confirm this declared policy in deed. Many of the avowed objectives of the Orlich Government will represent changes in GOCR policies that bring Costa Rica directly into line with aims which the U.S. has been seeking here for a year and sometimes more, and I have the highest hopes that by cementing our relations with Orlich and his ministers at the start I will be able to make myself and my staff here of infinitely greater value to the U.S. and to the Department than was ever possible under the previous Costa Rican Government in consequence of Echandi’s regrettable experience. To be successful, how[Typeset Page 206]ever, I must have confidence that the people in the Department who are directly interested will listen to our views and our recommendations, and that in the case of the latter, that they will try to see how these recommendations can be carried out rather than responding automatically with reasons why they can not.
Specifically, there are three immediate issues which face us on which our stock could very well rise or fall for the remainder of this administration:
1) An Orlich visit to Washington and to President Kennedy during calendar year 1962—In response to Orlich’s known desire and even intent to come to the U.S. “for talks with President Kennedy and other high officials” we have proposed such a visit, received the usual negative response, modified our initial request to permit a less formal type of visit, and are still awaiting a reply. Meanwhile, Orlich as a President-Elect got red carpet treatment from the Chief of State or at least Foreign Minister of every country he visited in Europe and the Near East from Queen Elizabeth to Prime Minister Ben Gurion, which made a profound vivid impression on him, and against which he will certainly weigh our ultimate response. Orlich takes for granted that we will make the necessary arrangements and has indicated in a personal letter to President Kennedy that he plans a trip to the U.S. in the near future.
[Facsimile Page 3]How the Department can arrange this visit, what category of presidential visitor Mr. Orlich should be are implementing details which the Department can arrange more wisely and appropriately than we. However, I cannot urge too strongly that the Department find a way to respond favorably to this first major request of Mr. Orlich.
2) From all indications, the Costa Rican Government is faced with a difficult and serious fiscal and budgetary problem. The IMF representatives have been here and conducted their limited study of the situation. We were not provided with a copy of the IMF report. The Embassy is now studying the data made available through the local Government, and holding conferences with the Costa Rican officials in order to realistically determine as closely as possible the problem and possible solution for recommendation to Washington. We have consistently for several months recommended to the Department three things. First of all, the determination of the exact fiscal problem by capable technicians. Second, the study of the tax structure and laws by qualified technicians and last, qualified technical help on the budgetary matter. This is all well in line with the Alliance for Progress, and in order that an adequate economic plan may be developed. According to the information provided by IMF to the Government here, the IMF people have made similar recommendations. We have very carefully analyzed the report provided to the Costa Rican Government by IMF on the fiscal situation. I might add that while the study made may well serve the IMF purpose, [Typeset Page 207] I am not satisfied with the limited information provided towards determining the exact fiscal condition.
We will soon submit our thinking and recommendations to the Department on the fiscal problem as well as our request for immediate technical assistance on the tax and budget matters. We will need and will greatly appreciate your assistance and support as this is a problem of great concern to President Orlich and his Government, and I strongly feel that it is a matter which we should also consider important towards maintaining a stable situation here through the improvement of both their poor fiscal condition and economic progress.
3) U.S. policy in dealing with Figueres—It seems paradoxical that the spectre of U.S. high level attitudes towards Figueres should constitute a problem now that his party is in power, but we strongly suspect that such will be the case. As you certainly are aware, probably the most important single factor in queering the Embassy’s relations with former President Echandi (at least during the past year) was the adulation and special treatment publicly accorded his arch enemy Figueres on every possible occasion by prominent members of the Kennedy Administration, including the President himself. I and my staff did everything possible to make clear to the Department the regrettable effects of this policy on our relations with the GOCR, but to no avail.
In assuming the presidency Mr. Orlich has been emphatic in his rejection of local gossip to the effect that he is a puppet of Figueres who will in fact run Costa Rica. Both I and the members of my staff believe that the next few months may well see the development of a significant split within the Liberación Party between the comparatively middle-of-the-road progressive thinking of Orlich and the demagogic, social-welfare-regardless-of-cost “liberalism” of Figueres. There is currently little question in our [Facsimile Page 4] minds that strong U.S. backing of Orlich in such an event will represent the soundest policy for the U.S. Hence I urgently recommend as a matter of basic U.S. policy that the personal regard in which prominent members of the current Administration in Washington hold Figueres as a “hemisphere leader” not be permitted to upset our relations with the new President and Government of Costa Rica as it did with the last. I can offer no specific operational guidance for the present except to request that urgent recommendations from the Embassy on this subject in the future be given sympathetic consideration at the top level.
In conclusion I should like to say in a spirit of respect but of heartfelt sincerity that I believe it imperative that the Department should have more confidence in the experience and judgment of the Ambassadors and experienced career officers in the field if we are going to move ahead and meet the many challenges we face in these countries. Frankly, my first year’s experience in San José has led me to question the need [Typeset Page 208] for an Ambassador or senior officers if all we are to do is to carry out judgments and decisions made in Washington without regard for our carefully considered opinions. I believe that despite its small size and lack of certain elements of power, Costa Rica, and the freely given support of successive governments of Costa Rica in international questions, are more important to the U.S. than some of our leaders appear to recognize, and I fear greatly that our Government’s current attitude for taking Costa Rica for granted in the absence of dramatic problems of the sort we face elsewhere in the hemisphere may ultimately lead to the generation of these very problems in our relations here, when through a little inexpensive positivism on our part towards Costa Rica we could so easily avoid them altogether.
I believe firmly that the time and the situation are ripe for Costa Rica to become a shining example of the reward to be achieved from close cooperation with the U.S. under the Alianza para Progreso, in dramatic contrast to the restrictions and actual want which are being even more clearly demonstrated in Cuba as the result of dependence on the communist system and the Soviet Bloc.
With best personal regards,
Sincerely,
- End of year assessment: DOS failure to act on Embassy recommendations and lack of confidence Department has shown in Embassy; Orlich visit to Washington; Costa Rican fiscal and budgetary problem; U.S. policy in dealing with Figueres. Confidential. 4 pp. DOS, CF, 611.18/5–3162.↩