AMONG THE LEGENDS which clutter popular accounts of Baja California one of the most persistent asserts that the United States almost obtained the peninsula through conquest and diplomacy in the war with Mexico but failed through the bungling of negotiations by President Polk's agent to Mexico, Nicholas Trist. In spite of assertions of successful conquest, long printed accounts of those entrusted with the effort tell a contrary story. Confronted with the evidence, an eminent American historian wrote several years ago, "it seems astonishing to me that the serious students missed the solid reasons for freeing Trist from any blame for not obtaining Lower California."'