CONTINUATION OF DISPATCH SECRET DISPATCH 5961

continue to tabicize and thus abet the irreconcilability of the Latin CD parties because there are no interests at all. ODCA leader Calderón appears to recognize the need for at least some basic ideological common ground among ODCA-member parties. But no signal success has been achieved in this direction to date and even now it is not all sanguine that even modest progress will be made in this regard in the foreseeable future. Reporting on the Congress of the World Christian Democratic Union (WCDU) held in Lima in April 1966 indicates clearly that the Latin American parties will not submit without combat to any effort (whether initiated by the European financial backers of the CD movement or by ODCA) that aims at imposing standards and controls that will impinge on their complete freedom of action.

15. Formation of Central American Regional Grouping. The Central American CD parties met in El Salvador in July 1966 to establish a smaller regional grouping, the Union Demócrata Cristiana de Centroamérica (UDCCA). This action does not appear to reflect any over-all pique with ODCA (the relations of Cerezo and Rafael Caldera with the Central American parties appear close and cordial) but rather a desire to establish a smaller and more cohesive unit that can better address itself to the problems common to the area and, to a lesser extent, to the individual CD parties. UDCCA is composed of five parties (in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama), with the possibility that a sixth party will be formed in Honduras.

V - EUROPEAN CD ROLE AND INFLUENCE

16. The European Christian Democratic Union (ECDU). The European CD parties were first to establish a regional organization, the Nouvelle Equipe Internationale (NEI) in 1947. The NEI never played a major role in World Christian Democratic affairs. From the outset the Latin American parties maintained the closest relations with individual leaders of the CD movement in Europe, particularly those involved in financial operations with its sister parties and ICUS in Latin America. The NEI became progressively less significant and in recent years was virtually moribund. But in mid-1965 the organization was revamped and re-christened as the European Christian Democratic Union (ECDU). Its newly elected President, Mariano Rumor, Secretary General of the Italian PDC, appears intent on making the ECDU a strong organization which will at least match the Socialist International in stature.

17. European Financial Support to CD Parties. The two organizations which have contributed most heavily to the support of the Latin American CD parties and related activities are the Institute for International Solidarity (IIS) and the International Solidarity Foundation (FIS). Between them they will contribute an estimated $100,000 to $150,000 to the CD parties and ICUS during Calendar Year 1967. It was recently reported that the CDP party of Venezuela will receive $50,000 for the 1968 elections from FIS at the rate of $16,000 per year commencing in 1966.

18. The IIS, The Institute for International Solidarity, headed until recently by Dr. Peter Kolb (the new Director is not yet identified), is an arm of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Like its

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