REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES DECLASSIFIED Authority Statele ferah2 y me NARI Date 2498 TRAL LEGATION OF THE MOAN DESK UNITED STATES OF AMERICA LEGATION OF THE VOV 1948 MT San José, Costa Rica, ever October 25, 1943. 18 TOUR 00 o No. 7236 them to the in bine AL RELATIONS SOO 03 ER ON POLITICAL RETO Subject: Presidential Campaign SIAI Neolit 1) Political Meetings Forbidden until 20 1943, December 13; 2) Cortés faction emphasizing Communist influence in Picado party. Picado, in radio address, endeavors to 24 Or Die probudiobhat this influence is not harmful.
WENT OF ST commun IATMENT OF STATE 27 37 375 PM RECEIVED DEPARTMENT OF STATE MUNICATIONS VISION HD RECORDS NOV CONFIDENTIAL.
18. 00 07 CE 9631 00 313 The Honorable The Secretary of State, Washington, Sir: a pril 189 simi Referring to the Embassy despatch no. 706 of October 21, 1943, have the honor to report that political meetings have been forbidden until December 13 or sixty days prior to the February elections. While Señor Cortés has not yet announced publicly his acceptance of this order, it is believed that it will be difficult for him to contest it. This ruling, which was mentioned in the Embassy despatch cited above, was an outgrowth of the Heredia disorders and will undoubtedly have a calming effect on the local political situatiom.
Observers, however, are generally inclined to regard the period between now and December 13 as the quiet before the storm.
OS HWL Office of the Chief Clerk PHOTOGRAPHIC SECTION LOV S 1943 In the meantime, the Cortés party continues to base its campaign largely on two charges: first, that the Government forces are using high handed methods in order to assure themselves of victory in February, and second, ve en Picado and Mora has given communism the whip hand in the Partido Republicano Nacional, a de velopment which in their opinion will have the gravesti consequences to the country in the years to come to Department of State As the Department is aware, there is widespread fear of communism among the well to do people here; these persons do not consider that the recent transformation of the Communist Party into the Vanguardia Popular has altered in the slightest the fundamentally revolutionary objectives of Mora and his followers. For years the Cammunist Party here has been a sort of bugaboo, with the influential classes inclined to regard it with apprehension but with the feeling thertone was small and not im a position to achieve its ends. The formal union between the reorganized Communist Party and the Administration