REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES DECLASSIFIED Authority State Letter Wahz Bime MARS Cate 2498 enclosure No. 1, Despatch No. 132, March 19, 1948 American Embassy, San José, Costa Rica.
RESTRICTND Page said that relations with the Northern Railway. the English railway. were not so satisłactory, largely, he felt, because the present general manager, Green, was unsympathetic to the legitimate rights of the laborers and belonged to the old school of representatives of large corporations who believe in abstracting all possible revenue with the least possible return to the country or the workers. With reference to the difficulties which Ünited Fruit Co. were said to be experiencing from time to time in Guatemala, he said that he felt that this may perhaps be due to the newness of the labor organizations which have grown up only since the fall of Ubico since the company is the same and has the same policies. He said that it could be noticed that new and younger labor leaders were often inclined to make excessive demands and not to come to satisfactory a greements through discussions and compromises. Mora said that the main difficulty that the labor organization encountered here was with the minor employees of the company, largely Costa Ricans, who were desirous of presenting a good record to their superiors, and that in those cases he found it possible always to go direct to the superiors and to work out a satisfactory So With regard to his own participation in the Vanguardia Popular, Manuel Mora said that when he was a student of about 18 years of age he had become a Communist and had founded the Communist party in Costa Rica.
He said that he always regretted that with the enthusia sm of youth he had not had sufficient insight to have followed a more moderate and more essentially Cos Rican course. He said that he and Betancourt and a group of students and workers had enthusiastically accepted the Communist precepts and that he had gone so far as to propose himself for presidency, although being only 20 years of age and lacking 10 years of the necessary 30, as prescribed by the Constitution. His general remarks in this connection were rather to attribute his so called Communist days to youthful excesses, but he made no explanation of the change which he alleges took place with the foundation of the Vanguardia Popular.
in reference to the general question of international Communism and the occurrence of the nanies of Rudolfo Guzman and Arnoldo Ferreto, he said that the former, Secretary General of the CTCR, is not Communistic but that he had been so called because of his championship of the laborers, and because he had once visited Russia. Guzman had been selected to make that trip in the middle thirties in place of Carmen Lira who could not go. Mora said that of course such invitations had been extended to prominent persons in various countries RESTRICTED