Office of the Historian

68. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy0

Washington, March 20, 1961.
1.

CIA expects agreement on a selection of a Prime Minister tonight. Manuel Ray, the liberal leader, has indicated that he will back Miro Cardona, which makes the latterʼs selection almost certain. The group will then go ahead and pick up a cabinet.

The group may very likely make an announcement on its own almost immediately. I suggested that some liberal newspaperman, like Arnold Beichmann, be put in charge of its public relations. Everything possible ought to be done in the next few weeks to build up the status and dignity of the Government-in-exile as a functioning organization.

2.
On the question of timing of the US White Paper,1 both Mann and Tracy Barnes (CIA) think that it should not come on the heels of the Government-in-exile. Barnes feels that the Government-in-exile must be given a little time to take root on its own. Mann feels in addition that the White Paper would constitute, in effect, a rejection of the recent Argentine demarche;2 the State Department has been warned that this might lead to an overthrow of the Frondizi government; so Mann would much rather delay the White Paper until there is time to compose the Argentine situation. We should have the draft in nearly final form by Friday;3 but release ought to be delayed, it is presently felt, until the end of the month.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.4
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, Schlesinger Papers, Cuba 1961, Box 31. Secret.↩
  2. See Document 79.↩
  3. See Document 53.↩
  4. March 24.↩
  5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩