VELASCEU Authority Stateletter in her 8: ML Cate 24 18 REMONA reform is strictly realistic. In a recent conversation with a member of the Embassy staff he stated that his policy was based on practical considerations, since it was his party which had, in the past, suffered most greatly from frauds at the polls.
In connection with Vanguardia Popular, it is interesting to note that organization reaction to the President ill concealed efforts to attract the support of the Right. Mora is too shrewd a politician not to realize that Picado would greatly like to have a reserve of strength on which to rely in the eventuality of a rupture of their alliance, but it is the policy of the Vanguardia to profess ignorance of any Presidential attempt at rapprochement with the Right, and to maintain that Picado is interested solely in the furthering of their common legislative program. Thus, for example, when the DIARIO DE COSTA RICA published the statement of León Cortés (reported in my despatch No. 2011 of October 27) which by indirection admitted that there were negotiations between the President and some of the Cortés followers, Mora was quick to reply, in an interview printed in LA ULTIMA HORA of October 27, to the effect that he was certain of the untruth of any such allegation.
Another factor tending to increase confidence in the administration good intentions was the announcement on October 30 by the Minister of Government of the abandonment of censorship within the country. Censorship in general, and internal censorship in particular, has been one of the features of the Government which has most readily lent itself to charges of dictatorship from the opposition, and the DIARIO has more than once complained publicly that correspondence addressed to it had been delayed by governmental order. The Embassy knows of at least one instance in which this did, in fact, happen. Therefore, the liſting of the domestic censorship should prove to be a unifying influence.
Despite the instances of the administration consolidation of its position cited above, it should not be assumed that the opposition has abandoned its attempts to embarrass the President and his followers.
Acción Demócrata has kept up its sporadic sniping at the Government (with an occasional burst against the Good Neighbor Policy. and the DIARIO and the HORA continue to comment sarcastically upon topics of the day. In this connection, a rumor has reached the Embassy from several sources to the effect that the President told the editors of the DIARIO that unless they ceased their campaign against him he would be forced to resign and turn over the Government to the First Designate to the Presidency, Francisco Calderón Guardia. While it is difficult to believe that Picado would take such a step, it is possible that he may have hinted at the action in the knowledge that conservative circles intensely dislike the ex President brother. On the other it