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Meeting with Fred Wills, Minister of Foreign Affairs, February 10, 1978
[Editor’s note: The following pages also appear here at at D-1-I-11(1) – (2).
[Minor spelling errors have been retained.]
[Handwritten notation: “10/2/78”]
MINISTER WILLS 2/78 (after we revealed to him what Paula [Adams] overheard between Perm. Sect. Collins and Bunny Mann [Laurence Mann, Guyana’s ambassador to the U.S.] about Wills)
– said he talked to [Prime Minister Forbes] Burnham last night about the Bunny Mann/Collins incident, he said that there were still gray areas to clear up with Burnham. He couldnt get a word in at first with Burnham because Burnham had all the facts. Collins and Bunny had gotten to him first and complained about Wills.
– Bunny has direct access to Burnham
– Wills has a plan tho to get to Burnham through a woman who once had an affair with Burnham, a Miss Collins. She no longer is having an affair with Burnham but he Burnham has a sympathy for her and she has direct access to him
– however Miss Collins has total loyalty to Wills and he will tell her to talk to Burnham in his favor. (Strange that Bunny has more access than Wills and was believed at first)
– Wills knows how to have her bring up the subject of Wills to Burnham
– this is the time for Bunny and Collins to be reposted in their positions/Wills said they don’t necessarily (???) want his job but they want to shack up the Foreign Ministry so that Burnham will have his mind off them and (in other words not repost them)
– Wills had a problem with Burnham as Wills couldn’t deny that the facts that Bunny and Collins mentioned were true/he did spend time alone with Tumminia [Frank Tumminia, Guyana Desk of the State Department] and it was a long time. (However, he had arranged the visit with Tuminia through channels and Collins had helped in the arrangements as Tumminia requested to talk toWills.
– Wills was worried that Burnham would be suspicious of the fact that Wills was talking so long to an American (who could be CIA), he said he couldn’t prove what he talked about, it was about us and a book that they had read in common. He said however the subject of PT didn’t come up with Burnham.
MINISTER WILLS Friday 10/2/78
– Tim Carter wrote up adequate notes on this however I wanted to clarify one point
– the fact that the Human Rights report stated nothing about PT was mentioned to be positive for us because they would have indicated the Stoen matter as a violation of Human Rights if that was considered to be so. However, it was mentioned that PT could have been mentioned as a positive indication of Human Rights in Guyana. The fact that Americans were allowed to immigrate and were supposedly treated fairly (supposedly only because we know what hassles we’ve gone thru). The fact that PT wasn’t mentioned as a positive factor for Human Rights was Wills thought because US is embarassed about US citizens leaving the US to find a “better” home. It wasn’t negative for Guyana but just a shame wills said that it wasn’t indicated as a Positive.
– Wills also stated that Israel was given a poor rating on Human Rights ratings
– Wills said there is no way to keep Marcie’s [Marceline Jones] visit to Washington a secret from Bunny. He’s going to try to think of ways to deal with the fact that bunny might try to mess up her visit and he’ll think of things that Marcie can say that will help
– he did state she could how Guyana is a great place for the recognition and protection of human rights and the law.
– Wills told us to definitely tell Mingo [Vibert Mingo, Minister of Home Affairs] that the Interpol report about guns is what caused our crates to be held up even tho the crates were all checked and okeyed before this report came out and yet the report was believed.
– Wills wants us to write Burnham and Reid [Ptolemy Reid, Deputy Prime Minister] about the situation with Collins and Bunny talking about him and Tumminia/ however Paula felt that we should be careful about any mention of Bunny to Burnham. Bunny saw Burnham 3 times recently/ I said well maybe Burnham chewed him out as Wills told us that Burnham did chew out Bunny for “fornicating” when he was supposed to be doing official business. Paula said “Well, that may [be]
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– 2-
true but each time Bunny has seen Wills, he has come back in good spirits and that is not a good sign.
WE WERE TOLD TO TELL WILLS THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WHICH WE DID
– JJ is being isolated, shot at, people are working on it to get him
– some of the government people (PNC) are working very closely with the US and we have been told by one (who is friendly to socialism and who is black and not pro-Jagan [Cheddi Jagan, Guyana opposition leader]) that they are destined to replace the old staff. We look at such reports with a jaundiced eye but thought we should pass it on to you
– this person said that others in government will be removed to make the staff more cohesive
(WHEN WE TOLD HIM THE ABOVE MESSAGE, WILLS DIDN’T TAKE IT TOO SERIOUSLY, HE SAID HE’S HEARD SUCH THINGS, BUT HE’S ALSO HEARD THE OPPOSITE; HE JUST KEEPS ON WORKING) – I think he didn’t take it seriously as he had just met with Burnham and was told that Burnham would chew out Bunny because Bunny was “fornicating” when he should be working for the government.)
WILLS CONVERSATION 8/2/78 Re Bunny Mann
– he said that he was very concerned that Bunny would talk where Paula would hear his conversations/ he said that facts Paula related were true so the info must be true
– he said he thought he had Bunny “covered”
– he said the Key positions of power were in our camp (PT), all governments are oligarchic and the oligarchic power (Wills, Burnham, Reid) are pro-PT
– he said Bunny was trying to get his job/ later he said that he wasn’t so but Bunny was just trying to shake up Wills job
– he referred to Paula’s work as “your people’s intelligence service”
– [Registrar K.W.] Barnwell he said is the Registrar of the Supreme Ct and he controls all orders (CODE NAME IS RODNEY FOR HIM)
– makes him feel “blue murder” that Paula has to endure Bunny’s use of her body
– Wills knows that Bunny is the source of the rumors that say Wills is sleeping around
– Wills said “The PM must fire him.” Wills said, “Reid has a campaign against Bunny”
– Wills said, “The child must stay.
– he said that Burnham told Bishop thru Mingo that Bishop should back PT (Wills talked to Mingo while we were in the office or pretended to, some of his calls are real because he did call the GAC [Guyana Airways Corporation] on our behalf as they told us he did, he did call [Justice Cecil] Kennard about the swimming pools, he did call Davis head of Guysuko [Guysuco, or Guyana Sugar Company] and he once did call Mingo because Mingo told us he did, but some may be phony.)
– Wills said there is no way John [Victor Stoen] will leave this country
– Wills refuses to be left alone to fight for socialism in So. America (this is grandiose but if Wills feels a little insecure about his job with Burnham listening to Bunny, he may feel it is in his interest to have us giving him info about Bunny and other info that could help in his job)
– Wills said he knows where he can retire to (Jonestown)
– If in any case, as we askedwhat would happen during an appeal, Wills said the situation would be stayed pending an appeal (he didnt bring this up, we did as we said we wouldn’t allow the child to be taken)
– if nothing is ever served there will be no problem (we mentioned the people that sell out their grandmothers), he said they could serve papers but they’d have to go thru a proceedure all over again of getting the judge to sign and the registrar has to stamp it. Wills said he will not allow that to happen tho.
– he said Burnham wants Bunny to be brought back home to Guyana (if reposted)
– Bunny’s only friend is McCabe [Rex McKay, Guyanese lawyer]
– Bishop (Judge) is a Rotarian as are Blacken [John Blacken, US Embassy Official] and [Tim] Stoen
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Meeting with Vibert Mingo, February 6, 1978
MINGO 6/2/78
– he can’t come with [California Lieutenant Governor Mervyn] Dymally to Jonestown, he has Parliament on Weds
– he has received a complaint about our people going door to door collecting donations at Linden and Georgetown, they need legal permission from the police to do so (I spoke to Attorney Clarke about this and he had told me this law about this was rarely implemented)
– Mingo made a call to Cde. Roberts at GAC [Guyana Airways Corp.] to seek if he could help us with Dymally’s flight/Cde Roberts wouldn’t do it but said he would personally fly Dymally into the interior and out but wouldn’t do the rest of the trip/ he said he didn’t know much about us and were we religious (we said we’d bring in some material on us, and we were humanitarian)
– he said he goes to church but isn’t religious
CRATES
– he said he couldn’t help us as Hope [Frank Hope, Minister of Finance] is locked up in a room and no-one can get to him. he said Wills will have to speak to him/Mingo doesn’t want to interfere with this tho he called White for us about the swimming pools and told White that Dr. Reid has an arrangement with PT to come to Mingo
– he stressed to White that swimming pools were needed for agriculture for water storage as the No. WEst has dry periods
– White was not particularly nice to him and asked why Mingo was interferring
– Re; John’s [John Victor Stoen] custody case, he said “justice must not only be done but appear to be done” /we’d just have to wait for a decision on this
GOVT WITHIN A GOVT
– he said that regarding our school it must be registered, the fact that we have written out our program and submitted it or have gotten assurances that aren’t in writing don’t mean we have done the procedure officially and it must be in writing
– he said some have accused us of being a govt within a govt. (said when we asked who had said that, “I’m not supposed to tell you that”)
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[Handwritten heading: “around 6/2/75?”]
WILLS, WHEN HE MENTIONED THAT THE MOTHER HAD THE PRESUMPTION OF THE RIGHT OF THE CHILD/ AFTER HE TALKED TO TUMMINIA
– he said it bastardizes the child when you consider the case of the “real” unmarried father over the “legal” father
– however, our rebuttal would be by showing all the interests of the child are not properly cared for by the mother
– he said that he gave Tumminia [Frank Tumminia, US State Department’s Guyana Desk Officer] a good word about us but didn’t oversell us, Wills said “acted like he didn’t give a damn” but that was Wills’ way of showing Tuminia he really did like us but didn’t want to oversell (This is typical William double talk)
– Wills told Tumminia about the [SF District Attorney Joseph] Freitas letter, said Freitas must be a Nixon (Wills said that), We told Wills that we heard from Tumminia that Wills wasn’t partisan on our side. Wilss countered by saying that if he Wills commmnicated to Tumminia that he was partisan, he’d be throwing out just what Freitas would want and that wouldn’t help our case.
– regarding the Stoen case, he knows (after we mentioned that it is non-negotiable) that it is not.
– we mentioned that it would involve 1000 deaths/that’s when he changed the subject and talked about giving up smoking. I later confronted him about doing so and he said he did so to avoid crying. Said that when a subject gets emotional he will change to a lighter subject as a “defense mechanism”
– he said he had received 50 Guyanese letters in support of PT (he knows they aren’t phony. They were overwhelmingly positive. All saw it as a case of US vs Guyanese sovereignty
– said that Minister [Hubert] Jack had given everyone in the Cabinet a copy of the letter of Tim signing that he had asked JJ to “sire” a child/also he had copied the letter about Tim’s transvestitizm and given that out. A joke was make, “You have to conceed this man is a Christian gentleman as there is no greater gift than to give your wife to your friend” (this joke was made to Reid)
– regarding [Minister Fitz] Carmichael, Wills felt that Min. [Vincent] Teekah (of Education) and McCoy had set up a visit of Carmichael to upset the visit of Tumminia and [US Charge d’Affaires John] Blacken. But Wills called Teekah and he didn’t know anything about the visit so Wills guesses Carmichael did it on his own.
SIR LIONEL [LUCKHOO]/VISIT AFTER THE INCIDENT REGARDING BLACKEN AND TUMMINIA
– he feels that if Blacken said anything about no paper being served, it is because Wills talked to him (that was just his opinion)
– but in regard to the case, he thinks everything is favorable, I needn’t worry my head about it. They can do nothing, can do nothing unless they serve papers. There are no orders seeking to do so
WILLS RE BURNHAM:
– he said that “if Burnham was CIA that would be a great disappointment” but Tumminia you could expect to be CIA as he is working for the US govt./it struck us funny that he would even mention Burnham being CIA even if it was hypothetical
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WILLS 30/1/78
(answers were given to the weaknesses he felt PT had and he talked about Tumonia [Frank Tumminia, US State Department’s Guyana Desk Officer] Caribbean affairs officer from us and other matters)
FREITAS LETTER
– we told him that we didn’t believe Freitas wrote the letter, as Tim could have taken Freitas’ stationary and written it himself/ people from US don’t believe Freitas wrote it
– Wills said that he is a lawyer and Freitas is a lawyer/the countries US and Guyana have the same basis of law, British, and Freitas should know better than that to ask Wills to use his political influence, it’s an impertinance and he’s writing Freitas a letter to that effect. He’s telling Freitas “you should know that it’s against the constitution” (he said he showed the letter to Tumonia and Blacken and told Tumonia it is unfair interference and Tumonia agreed
TUMONIA AND BLACKEN
– Wills talked to them and the discussion was about PT
– Wills told Tuminia that PT is important to Guyana for two reasons, migration and agricultural production, and the psychological reason that Guyana has a psychological sympathy for people who can’t tolerate the system. Blacken and Tuminia understand this (Wills is sure of this), Blacken understands that Guyanese came as indentured laborers and thus they are more internationalists than nationalists
– he said Tumonia is Italian or Green
– Wills said to Tumonia that there is a problem with the US State Dept, Guyana and PT and prevention of aid, Tumonia denied this (but Wills said that Tumonia’s denial is “political posturing”
– he said that the Freitas letter switched the heat to him on this case (To Wills)
– he claimed that Tuminnia brought up the question of human rights in regard to the Stoen case (tho Tim Carter thought Wills brought up the question of human rights) We’ll have to check this out
– Wills did say to Tumminia “you’re using the human rights issue in the Stoen case as a deterrent
ISSUE OF STOEN CASE
– he said (Wills did) that the issue of John is not settled by a claim that JJ is the father but whether Grace Stoen is a fit and proper mother/ the presumption is in favor of the mother. Wills says he himself doesn’t think she is a fit mother.
FOREIGN AID
– he said the US stopped aid to Uganda because Uganda let the Palistaneans land a plane/said that at first both US and China and USSR pumping aid into Uganda but they stopped when the Palistinians landed the plane (don’t know about USSR but China and US stopped/he said the Jewish lobby in the US stopped it)
– We stated that it didn’t seem like they would stop aid over this one small thing and that they’d have to have other reasons to do so and he agreed that it would be a flimsy excuse and they’d have to have other reasons/also he said that US has already signed for aid, it’s an official agreement Loan at 8 1/2% that Ambassador [John] Burke, one is for 2.5 million and one for 10 million, it’s thru the Commodity Credit Cooperation
– he says that Tuminia looks at one issue at a time in regard to PT, like the Stoen case, and the Oliver case. Wills said he told Tuminia you can’t divide up the issues or you defeat them in detail and erode them slowly/ he says you must look at each problem in the total context
– Wills showed Tuminia Freitas’ letter/ Tuminia agreed that the letter was wrong for Freitas to ask political influence in the case
– Tuninia he said is a faceless person (a bureaucrat)
BLAKEN
– Wills says that Blaken got the Ripkin award for standing up on several things/he said that Brazil was torturing people/he’s tried to get changes in policy/ did work
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in Africa and promoted a treaty with Panama/he wanted to build bridges in Guyana when [Henry] Kissinger said hands off
BURKE (Ambassador)
– he was in Tiland (spelling??) when there was fascist coup/he was the #2 man there and Wills said that man is usually CIA
– he’s an Isolationist and thought Nixon was a great guy/Burke said nothing about us when Wills saw him [American Consul Richard A.] (McCoy) today
– Wills says he has to live with the fact we exist
(Tim Carter told Wills that McCoy was a blabber mouth which I didn’t think was too cool to do as I worried it would get back to McCoy)
– Will s accused the US embassy of being unconcerned with American Citizens in their midst (he said he talked to them about this), Tim Stoen Wills says is a waste of his time
Norman [Ijames] (becoming a pilot)
– he told the man that interviewed Norman and said “we don’t need pilots right now” don’t say that
– Wills will forward Norman’s resume to Hamilton Green who handles jobs (Dept of Labour)
– pilots are striking (they get free air travel on holidays, other employees get $1000 for holidays but no free air travel/ the pilots want free air travel and the whole $1000 also (which Wills said was rediculous)
CUBA AND RUSSIA
– Wills said he knew of their trip to seeus and he cleared it
– he said that he could u-derstand for our security why we would want them to come
– he said the Soviets are positive to us in their speech 98% positive but 2% they look at us like the US Solzinetzins [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and dissident], dissidents/ I asked how they could do that because of our leaving a capitalist country/ he said well it is in their self-interest which was slightly different but in other words in their self-interest to see that people would be leaving the American system, to see socialists “escaping” from the US
– he said that the Ambassadors from cuba and Russia are personal friends of his
– SOAP
– he said we should perfect our soap and show it to ministers and others
ANSWERS TO HIS ALLEGATIONS OF OUR WEAKNESSES
– he said one of our weaknesses is that we expect total assurances, he understands we want assurances in the area of John, our doctor, our school and customs tho-some people are only prepared to give a qualified committment and instead of asking for total assurance we should say, “How far are you prepared to go?” otherwise some would say nothing at all rather than give a qualified answer
CUSTOMS:
– he can assist in a qualified way, it’s not his jurisdiction and you have to put the issue to the Finance Minister, [Frank] Hope now is into finance raising because of the budget being now and he has to show increase in production
– he said it was rediculous we were being penalized for being communal and packing that way/ when we said we were quoted an old English law, he said, “The law is not as important as the application of law”
– he said it’s unproductive to argue with a man like White, don’t buck him, he’s a system’s man, he said he will bring up the issue of customs tomorrow in Cabinet with Burnham and later there should be a meeting with Wills, Burnham and Hope over it
– Hope and Wills are both senior ministers so it’s a problem telling Hope anything, Wills, Hope, King, Hoyt, Jack, Reid, Green, Marxian, and Canard are all Senior Ministers
– Mingo, Teeka [Vincent Teekah], Nacimento [Kit Nascimento] are jr. Ministers
– you can’t give a senior minister an order, they are supposed to cooperate so can make suggestions
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OUR WILLINGESS TO TAKE A STAND WITH WILLS IF HE EVER IS THREATENED
– he seemed moved by this
SAID WE DON’T SIFT THRU INFO (REACT TO EVERYTHING)
– we over-react for instance when Hass [Jeff Haas, Stoens’ attorney] came to town
– we assume the worst and then dissapate our resources (like the threat of a hunger strike and yet nothing happened to us at that time)
– we react to the arrest of JJ and yet nothing can happen to JJ because of the papers not being served
WILLS:
– he is upset that we ever question his motives (if you question him too much)
UPSET THAT WE ASKED FOR OUR WEAK POINTS AND THEN WOULD COME BACK WITH REPORTS
– said if I had not had a dialogue with you in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to go thru all this
– don’t give me your California Hard Sell, I am already committed to you
WE ARE VULNERABLE
– said we could be infiltrated/we said it would be too hard work at the farm and a lot of structure
– he said “Balderdash”, men have infiltrated prisons and have lived prison life in order to do CIA work, they have worked in hard labour in Siberia to get credibility
– it’s important enough (our cause) in terms of the destruction of the big image of the US/ for us to leave the US is bad for PR for the US
– we are the first clear example of a socialist group in US history, we not only say it but live it/ this is bad for the US
– he said a woman could come in with a drug problem and appeal to our humanity/she would be sent to Jonestown, later she might have to go to Georgetown and would have drugs on her and get herself arrested and it would look bad for Jonestown
– however he has checked it out (His intelligence) and as far as he knows we are OK, but we are too wide open. Everyone has their weaknesses and he says ours is that we are humanitarian and thus vulnerable tho he said JJ has the capacity to evaluate people
– he said a technique to get us would be a sham attack to divert our energies and weaken us
– use of diversion, it might not be in the main attack
– he said all the above is hypothetical, he doesn’t think it will actually happen
– like an old person, a cripple/we are overtrusting and could fall for something like that, CIA studies you and looks at your weakpoints
– he did say what would be hard for an agent is to live under such solidarity and under that “moral force”
– another factor that might mean the CIA couldn’t do too much with us is that they are dispersed all over/their ability to concentrate on PT is limited because of their work in Angola, Ethiopia, Europe, Turkey etc.
– we said that we would go with Wills and if he were replaced we’d say “the hell with whoever replaced him”/he said -“see that’s what I mean you don’t sift thru things, first we should see if the person replaced him because Wills was tired or sick or if the person was a good person/he said we are oversuspicious of things. We said that unless Wills told us that he was tired or sick, we would wonder why they replaced such a good socialist
– he said our methods are good for California but not good automatically in Guyana
QSL’s
– he did ask why we were telling him all this (what did we want), we explained about good will for Guyana etc. He said that JJ did make a virtue out of necessity (JJ used his time well and tho he was limited in moving around, JJ was making good use of the situation)
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– we said that JJ talked to a man who was a racist and when JJ finished the man admitted yo have to learn to live with all races
– Wills first jumped on this and was hyper-critical. He said that it is still a racist statement to just say you have to live with all races, racists say that. We said that this statement was a long way from how the man started in talking and Wills finally admitted that if you can move a man somewhat from his initial position it helps
WILLS SAID HE WAS TOTALLY COMMITTED TO US
– we don’t have to tell him about how we share oil with the community, we don’t have to reinforce with illustrations that we are socialistic, he knows that
– we oversell, others would have terminated the interview with us; others that might not be as committed as he
– seeing PT didn’t reinforce or increase his feelings for or against us as he already had a strong feeling for us, it was an emotional reinforcement to see it tho
– asked if JJ sent us to tell him all this (about our weaknesses and the rationalizations etc.) or not (I said it was my decision as he was kind of negative about it)
Specific examples of our overreactions
– our actions “We shall not be moved” type actions
– we should have 98% trust of him, he knows he’s too proud and his vanity gets hurt, he knows he’s touchy, he will work on it
– we have few weaknesses anyway
– Tim Stoen
– Wills said he’s a sexual pervert, he lives for passion