VALIDITY STUDY OF NIE 80-54: THE CARIBBEAN REPUBLICS, PUBLISHED 24 AUGUST 1954

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00400R000300100068-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 68
• Publication Date: April 26, 1957
• Content Type: STUDY

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP82-00400R000300100068-9
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IAC-D-100/35
26 April 1957
Validity Study of NIE 80-54:
The Caribbean Republics,
published 24 August 1954
1. ME 80-54 raised the question as to whether existing regimes
could bring themselves to promote sufficient social and economic
progress to maintain a modicum of stability in the area or whether
static repression would lead to an eventual violent explosion. Since
1954 developments have been along the line of the first alternative,
although, as predicted, there has been no substantial improvement
in basic conditions. The Communists in the area have tended to play
the game more cautiously than prognosticated in ME 80-54.
2. NIE 80-54 estimated that Soinoza and Perez Jiminez were
unlikely to become reconciled to the continued existence of the
Figueres regime in Costa Rica, and identified this antagonism as the
greatest present threat to stability and order in the region. It did not
specifically predict the filibustering attack on Costa Rica early in
1955, with their covert support, or Perez JiminezI subsequent with-
drawal from Central American affairs. Neither did it predict the
imprOvement in Costa Rican-Nicaraguan relations subsequent to the
assassination of President Somoza of Nicaragua. ME 80-54 pointed
up the instability in Honduras which eventually led to the fall of the
government, but it did not anticipate the collapse of the Magloire
regime in Haiti. The 1954 estimate did not foresee the transfer of
the target of non-Communist subversive activity from the Central
American region to Cuba. Perhaps one reason for this failure was
the degree of confidence with whi6h the political fortunes of Batista
were viewed at that time.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/08/15: CIA-RDP82-00400R000300100068-9