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July 15, 1978
MANN
1. I approached the questions about Desmond [Desmond Hoyte, Guyana Minister of Development] but he purposely changed the subject to some long story about Dwyer’s wife. Before I could get back to my question, the telephone rang and he was off on several more calls. I will bring it up again. There was no “appropriate” time to discuss my questions so I got the response I anticipated. If he is not mellowed to start with, it is nearly impossible to get him into discussions about PT without him accusing me of interrogating him. I don’t care what he accuses me of, but our discussions are dead-ends without the appropriate timing.
2. He is meeting with Aurora [Rodriguez] this A.M.
3. He finished the speech for the PM this a.m. – I think it may be a Cabinet speech or executive party address. It is an appraisal of the Referendum issue and the effects it may have on the political climate in Guyana.
4. He is drinking at 10:20 AM today.
5. He smelled strongly like booze when he came home last night.
6. He said he took the girl (a friend of a friend) (it’s not so, but it is what he is claiming to me)
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to what he thought was an informal reception in Washington. It turned out to be a large reception. (It is against protocol for diplomats to take anyone but their wives to such functions because it could result in scandal.)
7. He plans to stay another week.
8. I am starting to get bitchy. My initial desire to do a good job is getting thwarted by the repulsion. I am trying to be nice, but oh christ… I am writing this as a self-confrontation to keep objectives foremost in my mind. I am reading Decent Interval and I read of a female communist agent who bit off her tongue and spit it at her interrogator to keep from revealing any information. I guess I can do as much.
9. So far, he has been nice, but familiarity will soon set in and he’ll be his usual mean self.
10. Sharon & Debbie have been good about seeing me often and I talk to Sandi several times a day so the contact with sanity has been a relief I can’t explain. I could be in an interrogation room with no one, so my plight is simple compared to other comrades in other
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parts of the world.
11. He is now showing some interest in Sharon. He finds her intelligent and a challenge. He is asking me who she fucks. I said, “no one.” That makes her even more interesting to him. He thinks Debbie is fucking Tim Carter. His theories on who is fucking who is always black men with white women and black women with white men. What makes people so sick? He is, by no means, an exception in Guyana.
12. He said, a few days ago, that he thot Harriet [Tropp] should come into town and teach American law at University of Guyana as a way of integrating into society. He said much of American law affects Guyana in its precedents. I told him Harriet was one of our main administrators. (I definitely know of the problems in putting any of our “intellectual set” in Georgetown, but if we ever want to consider employment for any of them, Mann could be used to place them through his contact with the Prime Minister.)
13. Wilbur Bascom, the former general manager of the Co-op Bank, was fired for embezzlement. While under investigation, they put a tax on him for $54,000 to keep him from leaving, because
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at that time, they had no evidence against him. He went to a lower eschelon [echelon] tax clerk and wrote a check from a different bank and paid his tax. That night he got on a plane with his tax exit certificate and left the country.
14. Last night I had a scare. I called Debbie to get some information on the letters I am writing. She asked me if I placed an overseas call. I said no, but find out if someone in that house is using my name. Maria had asked Sandi to call. I thought someone was trying to frame me. With all that has gone on, I got very paranoid that I was being framed. It is funny on reflection, but it sure wasn’t last night.)
((((If this sounds rambling, I’m sorry, it always ends up a diary instead of a report.))))
15. Neil Cheong gave Mann a gift (worth $5000) to give to the Prime Minister. I don’t know what it was, and according to Mann, the PM was very pleased. I think it was a watch with gold and diamonds. It was probably an indirect bribe so that Cheong can either get his money out or get import license for
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