Word: williamsons
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Astonishing Question. The plot began to take shape in 1968, when one Earl J. Williamson was assigned to the American embassy in San José as a political officer. Williamson, 55, also served as CIA station chief. While he was attached to the U.S. embassy in Havana during the Batista era, he had married the vivacious niece of a wealthy Cuban sugar baron. The Williamsons moved in wealthy San José circles, where Pepe Figueres was considered a "Communist" by some because of his social reforms. Williamson and his wife made no effort to hide their dislike for the President...
...Ambassador to Washington Rafael A. Zúñiga visited Assistant Secretary of State Charles Meyer and bluntly asked: "Is the U.S. plotting the overthrow of Don Pepe?" Meyer expressed astonishment, and a few days later, State Department Troubleshooter C. Allan Stewart was dispatched to San José. Still Williamson was not recalled...
Last October the Costa Rican government received intelligence reports that Williamson was actively abetting a right-wing antigovernment plot. The State Department was asked to quietly arrange his transfer. Nothing was done...
...coup in early January, Figueres' government put the 3,000-man civil guard on full alert. Contingency plans called for Figueres to be whisked to the hills to protect him from assassination. The coup did not come off, but the following week San José once again requested Williamson's recall. Last week the CIA man and his wife finally departed. At the same time, Ambassador Walter C. Ploeser, a conservative former insurance executive, began cutting the AID program's personnel and trimming the Peace Corps (though Costa Ricans wanted it expanded). He also says he plans...
Overzealous Actions. Washington sources suggest that Figueres engineered the whole plot story to get rid of Williamson and Ploeser, a Nixon appointee. Don Pepe is, after all, an emotional man; only two weeks ago, he slapped a student for razzing...