REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES Enclosure to despatch No. 379 of August.
a from the Legation at San José. MEMORANDUM ntracite Authority Stateletter Wahr by me NARA Cate 2498 WONO The following paragraphs summarize parts of a conversation in the course of a luncheon that had on August 17, 1938, at the Hotel Europa with Dr.
Calderon Guardia, Vice President of Congress and one of four likely candidates for the presidency of the Republic in 1940, and Mr. Mena Solorzano, formerly Nicaraguan da, Chargé Affaires at San José and now Minister of Nicaragua at Tegucigalpa, who has been visiting his wife family in San José for several weeks. OOM 0510 COMMUNISMS IN CENTRAL AMERICA co E18 Pane Mr. Mena Solorzano said that there are residents in Honduras several thousand communist refugees from Salvador, who form a coherent and purposeful group seeking to undermine the Carias regime, and set up in Honduras a government favorable to communism. He then developed the idea that this group, financed by Russia through Mexico, seeks to communize all Central America. Once secure in Honduras, the communists would operate against the existing governments of Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua, being aided by Mexico, which would thereby establish hegemony over Central America. Mr. Mena said that the Government of Guatemala bad made confidential representations to the Government of Honduras in regard to the situation, and that both Salvador and Nicaragua are uneasy about it. So Upon my remarking that whatever might be the situation in the other Central American countries, it seemed to me that fundamental conditions in Costa Rica were adverse to the spread of communism in this country, Dr. Calderonco a 314 RIA RODE 108. e Guardia e are