duty to warn

The investigative team over at Muckrock, through a recently declassified file, refreshes our memory of the ill-received goodwill tour that vice president Richard Nixon (previously here, here and here) undertook in 1958 through Latin America. The Central Intelligence Agency faulted Communist infiltration of student protest groups to account for the indignities the entourage encountered on nearly every leg of their whistlestop mission, and the near diplomatic disaster of the trip overall prompted Congress to open an inquiry into the CIA on the grounds of criminal negligence in failing to prepare the vice president adequately for how unpopular his presence would be received. Much more to explore at the link up top.