Cryptonym: DTGODOWN
104-10211-10045: DISPATCH: MEXICAN PROGRAM
10/28/63, from Win Scott to Chief KUWOLF, and DTDORIC/QKOPERA/DTGODOWN slugline: "From 21-25 October Keith J. Bastear and Geoffrey T. Huyette met with Mexico Station officers and Edward G. Tichborn to discuss the further development of the DTGODOWN program. The major focus was on the creation of a Mexican intellectual journal." They were seeking the "target core for the DTGODOWN program. They are the center of the advanced group of intellectual thought in Mexico" GPBEFIT is a central figure in this plan. It is thought that he could bring Saul Bellow into the project, and would be useful in tending Robert Lowell. "It was agreed by all save Huyette that small groups of approximately two intellectuals without wives would be lost. Huyette, however, has evidently committed himself to en masse trip by the Trillings, Lowells, Podheretz and the Epsteins.
104-10098-10091: OPERATIONAL - MEXICAN PROGRAM
Adrian B. Maslott post to Mexico City station, 10/31/63: "KUWOLF is very pleased with the successful talks concerning QKOPERA programming held in Mexico City by HQs, Station officers and HUYETTE and TICHBORN...HUYETTE says that GPBEFIT is working with Iden A to ease Ramon Xirau out of Iden B. She wants to replace Xirau with someone like Juan Rulfe, she feels Xirau has so many commitments that he is not able to devote sufficient time to Iden B...FYI, GPBEFIT has been commissioned by Iden C to do a study on "Two Revolutions" (Cuba and Algeria) and plans a trip to Cuba and Algeria in January and February. We will discuss this and other problems concerning GPBEFIT when QKOPERA staff agent WINTERROWD visits HQs early in November." GPBEFIT has been commissioned to do a study of "Two Revolutions" (Cuba and Algeria) and plans a trip to these countries in January and February.
Reel 46, Folder F: MEXI dispatches
At p. 54, the redacted version of the above document can be seen and placed in context: http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55296&search=Hmmw#relPageId=54&tab=page
http://terceravia.mx/2017/07/la-revista-cultural-mexicana-encargo-la-cia-a-ramon-xirau/
The Mexican Cultural Magazine Commissioned by the CIA for Ramon Xirau - by Jose Manuel Vacah, 7/24/17: Leading international journals were supported...London's Encounter magazine by the poet Stephen Spender; the French Preuves de François Bondy; the Italian Time Present of Ignazio Silone; the Spanish Cuadernos, by Julián Gorkin, and Mundo Nuevo, directed by Emir Rodríguez Monegal...(those in charge were) unaware of where the funding came from. Mexican writer Guillermo Sheridan points out in his article "The CIA Plans a Mexican Cultural Magazine": "Nuevo Mundo had been appearing for a while when...it was revealed that its source of funding was the CIA...the CIA sponsored some Mexican magazines, almost all of little relevance in cultural or political terms, except one that is very prominent...the journal Diálogos, which began its publishing activity in 1964 under the direction of the Mexican poet and philosopher, of Spanish origin, Ramón Xirau. According to Sheridan himself...the founding of this magazine "was part of the DTGODOWN project, that is, the American side of the Congress for the Freedom of Culture (CCF) which had its headquarters in Paris. Its operators in Mexico were gentlemen called Geoffrey T. Huyette and Edward G. Tichborn...This project, as reported in a classified document, aimed to create a magazine for Mexican intellectuals to evaluate "the Mexican Writers Center and various cultural personalities of Mexico," as well as "an alternative based on free exchange of ideas that is favorable to the West [pro-west]. "In the list of objectives of the program explains the importance of creating the 'cultural magazine' as a counterweight to Siempre! and the 'monopoly that the extreme left has in the cultural sector of Mexico'...The DTGODOWN program targeted the following writers: Juan García Ponce, Raúl Ortiz y Ortiz, Antonio Alatorre, Juan Vicente Melo, Margaret Shedd (the director of the Mexican Writers Center), Jorge Ibargüengoitia and Ramón Xirau..."
http://www.letraslibres.com/mexico/historia/la-cia-planea-una-revista-cultural-mexicana
Guillermo Sheridan, 7/7/17, The Mexican Cultural Magazine Commissioned by the CIA: Mr. Edward Tichborn (note: true name Henry Lopez) passed for being a prosperous lawyer, executive of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, friend of the culture, investor in the cinema. He had arrived in 1960 and a year later had already infiltrated business environments and, in his spare time, intellectuals and academics, about whose activities he reported. I also had deals with our old friend June Cobb, the "Mysterious Gringa" and obeyed orders from one "Keith Bastear" who asked me if he would not be one of the names of the 86th super agent for cultural affairs in Latin America, Keith Botsford, whom I already referred to before. On page 4 of this document, Tichborn says that, after working on electoral issues in Latin America, he is a CIA full-time agent in Mexico since 1961, where I help Mexico Station by creating and administering the magazine [name testado] addressed to Latin American intellectuals and reporting on activities and attitudes of left-wing intellectuals (...) His file indicates that he tried to make an in-depth study of the PRI, which he abandoned in 1967 for the resistance of their contacts to discuss sensitive issues and to present it with other informants.
QKOPERA/DTGODOWN: "This foundation type proprietary supported individuals and international organizations involved with cultural matters. To give the entity substance and provide funds for day-to-day administration, the Agency started the organization with a substantial grant which was invested in income producing securities. At the time the agency withdrew its support (sometime between 1965-1975), the assets of the entity were given to its witting Board of Directors with the understanding that approximately 60% of the portfolio of investments would be retained by the organization to sustain its continued operation without Agency support, and 40% of the proceeds of the portfolio would be immediately granted to other organizations and activities which fostered the objectives of the QKOPERA project."