288. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Schlesinger) to President Kennedy1
SUBJECT
- British Guiana
On September 5 a meeting was held at Mr. Moscoso’s office to discuss the aid program to British Guiana. Mr. Burdett represented the State Department.
The following considerations were involved:
- 1)
- the Administration can not be put in the position of working to strengthen a quasi-Communist regime in British Guiana—and this is all the more true in view of recent developments in Cuba;
- 2)
- our covert plans in British Guiana will be much facilitated [1 line of source text not declassified], which requires a minimum of continuing contact with the Jagan regime; and
- 3)
- should our covert program succeed, we would wish to be in the position of being able to give the successor regime immediate aid, which requires the completion before that time of certain economic and engineering feasibility studies. (The question of the covert program was not, of course, brought up at the meeting, but was very much in Burdett’s mind when he set forth State’s position.)
The conclusion, agreed to by everybody, was as follows:
a) that we should go ahead with certain economic feasibility studies as follows:
| Hydroelectric economic feasibility | $ 75,000 |
| Topographic and geological survey at Tiger Hill (engineering feasibility) | 150,000 |
| DEB Highway Development | 100,000 |
| Ebini Agricultural Area (Support to UN Soil Survey—Preplanning of Land Settlements—Water Conditions) | 100,000 |
| Economic Study of New Amsterdam | 60,000 |
| Architectural Study for Outpatients Clinic for Georgetown Hospital | 80,000? |
This amounts to about half a million dollars. The AID bill budgets about $1.5 million for assistance to British Guiana. Moscoso brought this British Guiana item up on two occasions before committees on the Hill this summer, and no one asked any questions about it. The feasibility studies are invisible so far as immediate impact is concerned, and if anyone heard about them, going ahead with them would be defensible in terms of congressional clearance and approval.
b) that we should postpone until mid-November the asking of bids for the test cut of the Berbice Bar at New Amsterdam. This project, which would cost $860,000, would require a public call for bids in the U.S. and would be highly visible in British Guiana. The feeling was that we should go ahead with the project after November on the ground that this would show what U.S. aid could do if there were a government we really wanted to aid.
c) that certain engineering studies required for the DEB Development Scheme be started as soon as the preliminary economic feasibility studies are completed. These studies are necessary if we are to have an aid program ready for quick action in the event of a Jagan defeat.