REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES CECLASSISED Authority Stateletter Inhz 8: Memes Catz 24981 Desp. No. 323 American Embassy San José June 30, 1948 ONFIDENTIAL ditions have bee suficiently stabilized it would not be particularly nouswortor should permission be given Mora to return to the country Aside from his possible allegiance with MOSCOW, he is a man of considerable intellectual distinction whose knowledge of social and labor conditions within the country might prove useful.
It would be interesting but not perhaps particularly profitable to comment at length on the memorandum prepared by Dr. Calderon entitled El caso de Costa Rica. It is in general a rehash of his thesis of an innocent babe inthe woods villainously done in the eye by a group of fascistminded conspirators and has been commented upon in many recent des patches from this Embassy.
That Benjamin Odio was named Foreign Minister immediately upon installation of the Figueres government was andoubtedly a political mistake which gave Calderon a sembwance of justification for his allegations of fraud on the wart of his opponents. The other judges of the Electoral ibunal, Guzman and Vargas, were presumed by Dr. Calderon the be impartial until such time as their decisions were ontrary to his wishes. The case of Koberg has already been commented upon and needs no further treatment here, nor do his figures giving the extent of the purported frauds in Puntarenas, Limon and Guanacaste. The entire analysis which he has prepared is that of a disgruntled political.
leader who did not receive sufficient votes to be elected That there were frauds on both sides has never been doubted by the Embassy and it is impossible to conceive that Calderon, who through Picado controlled the major part of the electoral machinery, was entirely lily white while his opponent can be painted in nothing but the darkest colors. That Mora joined forces with Calderon for the former own particular is probably true and there is, of course, no doubt of the original statement made by Archbishop Sanabria concerning Catholic participation in Vanguardia Popular. That that statement was never denounced in explicit terms is unimportant when one considers the encouragement given by Archbishop Sanabria to Father Nuñez in the formation and development of a rival labor organization, the Rerum Novarum.
Moreover, the Archbishop in fact, as reported in the Embassy despatch no. 3072 of April 2, 1947. retreated from his ori.
ginal ition in sufficiently clear terms so as to leave relati ly little doubt in the minds of any thinking Catholics as to their obligations vis a vis Vanguardia.
on page of his memorandum, Dr. Calderon states that arrangements for the termination of the civil conflict were made behind his back and that he never would have accepted a capitulation. During the course of the conversations at the Mexican Embassy he was unbending displaying a very unrealistic vim and was quite apparently seeking any means possible of avoiding this final determination of the matter.
Nevertheless, no arrangements whatever in a political sense CONFIDENTIAL were made