267. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President
Kennedy1
Washington,
March 8,
1962.
SUBJECT
- Memoranda on British Guiana to State and CIA2
The point of these two memoranda is that both State and CIA are under the impression that a firm
decision has been taken to get rid of the Jagan
government.
The desired effect is to make sure that nothing is done until you have
had a chance to talk with Hugh
Fraser.
The attached memcons will give you an impression of current British
attitudes.
British Guiana has 600,000 inhabitants. Jagan would
no doubt be gratified to know that the American and British governments
are spending more man-hours per capita on British Guiana than on any
other current problem!
[Page 549]
Attachment4
Memorandum From the President’s
Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to the Ambassador to the United
Kingdom (Bruce)
SUBJECT
I had lunch today with Iain
MacLeod and Reginald
Maudling. The subject of British Guiana came up; and
MacLeod made the
following assertions:
- 1.
- Jagan is not a Communist. He is a
naive, London School of Economics Marxist filled with charm,
personal honesty and juvenile nationalism.
- 2.
- The tax problem which caused the trouble was not a Marxist
program. It was a severely orthodox program of a Crippsian”
sort appropriate for a developed nation like Great Britain
but wholly unsuited for an immature and volatile country
like British Guiana.
- 3.
- If another election is held before independence
Jagan will win.
- 4.
- Jagan is infinitely preferable to
Burnham. If I
had to make the choice between Jagan
and Burnham as head
of my country I would choose Jagan any
day of the week.”
Maudling was rather silent during this conversation not, I think,
because of disagreement, but because he preferred to let MacLeod take the initiative. He
did say jovially at one point, If you Americans care so much about
British Guiana, why don’t you take it over? Nothing would please us
more.” As we were breaking up Maudling expressed privately to me his
puzzlement over the Secretary’s letter to the Foreign Minister. I
said I was returning to Washington at the end of the week. He said
it might be a good idea for us to have a talk before I go back.
Arthur M.
Schlesinger, jr.5
[Page 550]
Attachment6
Memorandum From the President’s
Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to the Ambassador to the United
Kingdom (Bruce)
SUBJECT
I had a talk this afternoon with Maudling, the Colonial Secretary, on
the subject of British Guiana. He expressed total bafflement as to
what the next steps might be. So far as independence is concerned,
he thinks that the preparatory conference should be held as
scheduled in May but that actual independence will certainly be
postponed, perhaps as long as a year. He sees no point in holding
elections before independence because he believes that an election
campaign would only rekindle the racial animosities without changing
the composition of the British Guiana Government.
[less than 1 line of source text not
declassified] He does not regard Jagan
as a disciplined Communist but rather as [less
than 1 line of source text not declassified]. He says that
he would not trust Jagan [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. He
added that it is his understanding that Burnham is, if possible, worse. He is reluctant to
take any action which will make Jagan a martyr.
He does not feel that Britain can consistently dislodge a
democratically elected government.
His general view is that Britain wants to get out of British Guiana
as quickly as possible. He said that he would be glad to turn the
whole area over to the United States tomorrow. [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] He added that
he is thinking of sending his Parliamentary Secretary, Hugh Fraser, over there next week to
make an on-the-spot report. This has not been cleared with the Prime
Minister but if Fraser should
go he would probably stop in Washington on his way back.
Maudling said at one point that while he himself thought it
inconceivable, “responsible people” had said that CIA had played a role in stimulating
the recent riots. I said that this of course was inconceivable and
that I could assure him that this was not the case.
He mentioned the Foreign Secretary’s letter and conveyed the
impression that it had given the Cabinet great pleasure. He repeated
[Page 551]
with particular relish
the sentence that the British might be willing to delay the
independence process in British Guiana if the Americans would not
insist on expediting it everywhere else. I took the occasion to
correct Lord Home’s
apparent belief that the revolution of 1954 had brought the Ydigoras
regime into power in Guatemala.
We also had some conversation about Trinidad. Maudling, [1 line of source text not declassified]
warned me to expect more trouble over the Chagoramas Base. Maudling
said that he had taken a drive past the base and could not see why
we needed it so desperately. He also said that Williams was
disturbed over what he regarded as the American failure to finance
certain projects mentioned in the Agreement with Trinidad. Though
the language of the Agreement commits the United States only to
participate” in the financing, Williams insists that Ambassador
Whitney assured him that this was a form of language adopted to make
things palatable to Congress and that the United States would in
fact underwrite the project completely. Maudling says that the
failure of the language to state the extent of participation leads
him to believe that Williams may be correct on this point.
Arthur M.
Schlesinger, jr.7
