REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. DECLASSIFIED Authority Stateletter Puhe BymL, NARA Date 24981 Met No.
Azerican Ombassy, San José, Costa Rica October 18, 1943 EL CENTRO PARA EL ESTUDIO DI PROBL, MAS NACIONALES Prepared by Livingston Watrous FOTOMTRAR 02V13038 HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION The present Centro Para El Estudio de Problemas Nacionales (Center for the Study of National Problems)
is the outgrowth of an idea conceived, early in 1940, by a group of young Costa Rican intellectuals and law students. This group, ortuitously thrown together by the common age of its members, was further integrated by their discovery that they shared largely similar attitudes concerning the political and economic affairs or Costa Rica, waong those who were at that time studying all the issouolu da Dorecho (Law School) and who felt e unifying force or their community of interests were numbered the following: Gabriel DINGO, abian DOBLES, Gonzalo FACIO Segreda, curigo FACIO Brenes Daniel ODUBER, Jorge ROSSI, Fernando FOURNIER Tiernan GONALSZ Gutiérrez, and Alberto CHAS, These, joined by Isaac OFEIFA, Roberto FERNANDEZ Durán, Cani po PALACINO Rafael ZUNIGA Alvaro GONZALEZ Alvarado, and Oton ACOSTA Jiménez, were the nucleus from which the Centro was to grow.
818. 00 1891 One of the salient characteristics of this group is that they almost all are from well known Costa Rican families, which assures then attention from at least the upper stratum of this country social structure, Also, de ny of them are independently wealthy or are from wealthy families, and it must be lept in mind that the political and economic history of Costa Rica has up to the present been influenced to no sluall degree by the attitude olhe wealthy ani socially prominent class.
Finally, the group was and is youna, extremely intelligent, and apparently entirely sincere, The main factor which brought the Centro into being as a unified entity was the common conviction of its founders that no material progress could be achieved to wards making Costa Rica a progressive and stable denocracy without a clearly defined policy in economic and political