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Robertson's on-going dialogue with Somoza con- tinued throug0 December, quite successfully from the standpoint of acceptance of Agency proposals for de- veloping Puerto Cabezas. Robertson noted that aside from the political discussions which could not be es- caped, every point raised by the engineering advance party was agreed to by Somoza. 32/ Even though the Agency's representative ln Nica- ragua was making good progress, the same apparently did not apply in Headquarters area. On 28 December 1960 the Chief of WH/4 was requesting action on the part of the A/DDP/A to get a formal policy decision. The question of the quid pro quo's requested by Somoza apparently had been put to Assistant Secretary Mann, and according to Chief, WH/4, Mann was rather cold on the subject, with the inevi- table result that nothing had happened. I would appreciate, therefore, if you [C. Tracy Barnes, A/DDP/A] in your role as coordinator would take the matter up with Ambassador Willauer. We are now at the point that we must obligate funds and com- mence rehabilitation of JMTIDE if we are to meet the 15 February - 1 March deadline. The record verifies that both Napoli and Robert- son acted in a highly commendable manner during the touchy negotiations with the Central American dictator. - 120I TOP iCRET