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Government had agreed to be hospitable. Housing and office space: were arranged for the executive committee members and their families and for a project case officer and his secretary. | iy: Mexico City was reactivated for support duties, such sii end the moye was made. ’ 22. However, the Mexican Government appears not to have kept its word, and the Cubans were gubjected to surveillance end other heressment. Within a few weeks it beceme evident that .the situation was intolerable, and everybody moved back: to Miami, which is where the Cubans wanted to be in the first place. : “ The Bender Group 23. ‘The man responsible for laying the groundwork of the FRD, arranging a long series of meetings among ‘the Cubans, and persuading them to merge their differences and issue a joint manifesto, was the chief of the project's political section. He was known to the Cubans and inevitably to the press as “Frank Bender". ‘The Bender Group, for reasons of plausible denial, purported to be composed of U.S. business- men who wanted to help overthrow Castro. The Cubans do not seem to have cared whether this was true or not, but the guise irritated them because they wanted to be in direct touch with the U.S. Government at the highest level possible.