HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch noi 159, Ápril 22, 1949, San José, Costa Rica.
American Embassy, Enclosure no. UNCLASSIFIED Indians are all Ulatistas. He said the Calderonistas had taken away all their uns so they could not hunt and once the guns had been taken away the Calderonistas took all their land but they are all good latistas guns back. couldn help wondering whether they wanted Their guns to resume hunting or to repossess their lands.
In fact, a political agent had been in the neighborhood for on the wall of our house were two Ulatista postars from the last campaign and the local electoral register was posted in the schoolhouse. It contained about 150 names. The teacher told me that until the present government came in, Guatu so had always reported more than 400 votes and always for the government in power.
Around dusk the Indians began to stream off, or rather should say stagger off, to the village and we got our babgage ready for an early start in the morning. It had been terrifically hot and sticky all day and we wore all badly in need of a bath but there was just no way of getting one.
For some time before starting this trip we had heard vague rumors of a variety oL white cacao supposed to be found in the Guatuso country. He asked everyone about it and got conflicting stories. Some said there was much and sone said they had never heard of it. Finally one nan, brighter than the rest, said: You mean cacao indio. Yes, we have that, both pods and seeds. It is somewhat sweeter and has inore oil than the regular variety. It has no market so we don cultivate it. We did ind it there. got one pod to send to Dr. Bowhan in Turrialba to find out whether it really is cacan and whather it has any value for plant breeding purposes. They told us there was another tree with many pods 10 leagues away but there was no time for a 30 mile hike in search of a possibly non existent tree, April 14 Good Friday.
We were up at daylight and got our baegace packed into one long dugout canoe with two peddlers, and passengers and paddlers into another and started off at 6:30 a.
The eighth passenger was Pancho Montelban who had contracted to supply the canoes for the trip from Guatu so to Los Chilles. Pancho is quite a character and well known throughout the district. He travels up and down the rivers buying cacao; he has a small finca of his ow, he runs what passes for a hotel at 103 Chilles; he is Nicaraguan vice consul there; he is undoubtedly Somoza secret agent; smuggling is certainly not beyond him; and, he is known to have killed several men. šut withal he is very pleasent traveling companion and a genial host. He is said to be the man who killed Noguera Gomes some years ago when the iment granted permission for the Nicaraguan national guard to enter Costa Rican territory in search of Gomez after he had been defeated in a revolutionary attempt in Nicaragua. The story goes that the guard finally cap tured Gonez and companions and that Pancho, on orders of Somoza. 12ot them all in cold blood.
The canoe UNCLASSIFIED