WISE PEOPLE - REPORT ABOUT INSURGENCY IN EL SALVADOR

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05083594
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: November 14, 2022
• Case Number: F-2022-00154
• Publication Date: March 10, 1982

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DCI
10 March 82
WISE PEOPLE
We are here to brief you on what we now know about insurgency in
El Salvador and how it is run. We will then take questions on El Salvador.
Later, if you wish, we will show you the evidence of the military buildup in
Nicaragua and the massacre of Indians which was shown to the press yesterday.
Here with me today are (b)(3)
(b)(6)
Admiral Inman, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
Dewey Clarridge, Chief/Latin America Division, Directorate of Operations
Director/African and Latin America Analysis, Intelligence
Directorate
Constantine Menges, National Intelligence Officer for Latin America
Military Analyst in Middle America-Caribbean Division,
Intelligence Directorate
(b)(3)
(b)(6)
Chief/Middle America-Caribbean Division, Intelligence
Directorate (b)(3)
(b)(6)
Special
Intelligence Operations Research Officer,
Operations Intelligence Center, Operations Directorate
All of them have worked on assembling this picture and will be available
(b)(3)
(b)(6)
to bring you their
insights and respond to your questions. (b)(3)
(b)(6)
have
been to Europe to brief our Allies on the Nicaragua buildup
and
has just returned from 4 weeks of traveling around El Salvador. (b)(3)
(b)(6)
Hue and cry in press for evidence of external control - can't meet without
losing sources. Last week I presented the El Salvador evidence to two intelligence
committees. All members seemed satisfied and Chairmen Goldwater and Boland issued
statements characterizing the evidence as compelling - comprehensive - overwhelming.
They concluded that the President is acting on good solid information.
3124;
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1
n commi
That the El Salvador insurgency is supported externally is not a new
discovery.
- March of 1980, the Defense Department told a House committee that
Cuban support for the extreme left in El Salvador and Guatemala includes
"advice, propaganda, safe haven, training, arms" and "men and material which
transit Honduras, aircraft landings at remote haciendas" with weapons from
Cuba.
- 17 January 1981, in approving lethal military aid for El Salvador,
the Carter Administration stated that its purpose was to "support the Salvadoran
government in its struggle against left-wing terrorism supported covertly with
arms, ammunition and training and political and military advice by Cuba and
other communist nations."
During my watch, for 14 months I have had a steady diet of reports and
photos showing a flow of supplies and trained men from Cuba and Nicaragua
into El Salvador and Guatemala by road in large trucks through Honduras by
small plane from Nicaragua to small landing fields in El Salvador by sea
from Nicaragua to El Salvador mostly across the Bay of Fonseca.
In February 1981, the State Department put out a White Paper detailing how
leaders of diverse Salvadoran guerrilla factions had been brought to Havana and
promised financial and military support if they would unite�luut-a�Salia_clacan_,
co yvageeettev+
K.�(p11.-aad.li
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some '200 tons of weapons, US rifles with serial numbers matching those left
behind in Vietnam, Russian hand grenades and Chinese grenade launches, German
G-3 rifles, along with other weapons and ammunition brought by air, sea and
trriit-a4Imsatittmalost - and how subsequently
2
T91�3_SE--C-Ril
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large truck into El Salvador. The media did a lot of nitpicking on the
details of this White Paper, but in April of 1981 Fidel Castro told Wisnewski,
the Deputy Chairman of the German Socialist Democratic Party, that the State
Department White Paper was essentially accurate.
In early 1980, instructions went out from Moscow on a new propaganda
policy which would stress the militaristic policies of the United States,
including the charge that we were poised to invade El Salvador. Meetings in
Mexico City and Havana with Soviets and Cubans had the Salvadoran insurgents
establish the FDR (Democratic Revolutionary Front) to represent the insurgency
abroad and the DRU (United Revolutionary Directorate) as the central command
of the insurgents.
In April, the insurgents met at the Hungarian Embassy in Mexico City
with representatives of East Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Vietnam, Hungary, Cuba
and the Soviet Union to work out cooperation et4 the supply of weapons. In
June of 1980, the head of the Salvadoran Communist party traveled to Moscow
and then to Vietnam, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Ethiopia
to get commitments for weapons, training and financial assistance. In June 1980,
there was a further meeting in Havana in which the propaganda themesand the
channel through which it would be communicated worldwide were laid down.
We saw all this unfold brilliantly in 48 public meetings held around the
world between the 13th of January and the 10th of March of 1981. Those meetings
have continued around the world and into the United States. I think you will
get an idea of how thoroughly and comprehensively it was done by looking at
this listing of meetings held outside the US during an 8-week period around
this time last year.
TO CRET
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We substantially intensified our efforts to find out what was happening
in El Salvador itself and were able to apply
o identify planes, ships and trucks bringing
(b)(1)
(b)(3)
arms into the country. We have worked with the El Salvador and Honduran govern-
ments to train intelligence officers and security officers to identify infiltration
routes and develop methods to interdict and reduce the flow of arms over those
routes. We have identified over 150 guerrilla camps, we have traced a sophisticated
communications network through which insurgent tactics and strategies are directed
from Managua, and we have succeeded in learning the strategy and directives which
the El Salvador insurgents use to seek political propaganda and military objectives.
The picture laid out before you this afternoon will disclose a well-organized
and sophisticated structure which is the work not of peasant revolutionaries,
but of professional and experienced revolutionary leaders. You will see them
sending plans, directives and supplies from Managua to the guerrilla bands in
El Salvador and receiving requests for help and reporting results to Managua.
The El Salvador briefing will be presented to you
First,
who sifts and puts together this
our Central America operations room, will describe the
how they are supplied. Then Dewey Clarridge will give
in three segments.
material every day in
insurgent forces and
you an overview of the
capabilities we have developed there to help the Salvadorans gather intelligence
and interdict the supplies sent in from outside. Finally,
will
show you how the insurgency is directed from Managua and give you the plans,
objectives and propaganda themes sent from Managua to El Salvador in the very
words used by those who command and control the attack against the government
in El Salvador.
01140,
fr4f4 404r-
TO RET ,
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(b)(3)
(b)(6)
(b)(3)
(b)(6)
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�
APPENDIX.
Demonstrations and Protests Against U.S. Policy in El Salvador
DAtE PLACE NO. SPONSOR
13 Jan. Montreal 40 Comite Unitaire Dd Solidaritd Path-
Salvadon
16 Jan. - Bern '
16 Jan.
Panama City
�
, �
800 ."Usual' run of left-wing youth and
third world interest groups, mostly
-Swiss but with a smattering of Latin
' American participants
Federation of Panamanian students,
Revolution Student Front. There was
� also an attempt to firebomb the Embassy.
16 Jan.
Sydney
40-
.
16 Jan.
Managua
300
17 Jan.
Georgetown
40
17 Jan.
Brussels '
250
��
19 Jan.
Bilbao
40
20 Jan.
Barcelona
50
20.Jan.
Vancouver
75'El
20 Jan.
Wellington
8
20 Jan,
Quito
unk
other.Leftist groups.
"AiiSifilian Socialist WM-Met Party" .
v:- (Trotykyite) (NOTE: Some Chileans were
' to participate, according to permit,
'but were.not seen at site.-
� -
All U.S. Citizens, Vainly Maryknoller's,
and others describing themselves .as
tourists.
d�
PeciPle Progressive Paftj, (Pro-Soviet
"A, small local Trotskyite_partyt"dnd
Members of the Faculty of Theology
of the University of Deusto
Liga Comunista Revolucionaria,
Movimiento Comunista de Catalunja
Salvador/Nicaragua Support
Committee. .-�
Nicaragua Sol idarity*Committee
Leftist students from Catholic
IMM� � University
.r.
� 40.
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, )
.20 Jan. Rome
22 Jan.
USUN
22 Jan. Bilbao
� 22 Jan. Bogota
22 Jan. Managua
22 Jan. *San Jose unk
24 Jan. Stuttgart 80
�
24 Jan.
-Calgary .2(10.
29 Jan. Vienna *
29 Jan.
�
Dusseldorf .100
Unk Coriimittee of solidarity with the
Salvadoran People. Speakers included
Brazilian labor leader and Communist
"Lula" Uruguayan Ernesto Gogi, and others
200 � Committee in Solidarity with the People
of El Salvador
35
Communist Party of Euskadi, Basque -
Regional Branch of Spanish Communist Party.
� �
Colombian Communist Party (pro-Soviet)
15 Group describing itself as American
Professional people.from New York and
California
Unidentified group, mainly foreigners.
The Government of Costa Rica subsequently
expelled 16 foreigners including 3 U.S.
citizens for demonstrating illegally.
� Amnesty International, Association of
German Catholic Youth, Action Committee
*Stuttgart, Communist.Party of Chile,
Latin American Comm., Stuttgart, Movement
of.the Revolutionary Left, Socialist
Party of Chile, Socialist Party CNR,
Chile. �
�
Committee of Friends of El Salvador -
New Democratic Party, the U.S. Association,
the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights
in Latin America � .
1,500 Anti-U.S. campaign spearheaded by
Austrian Communist Party.
�
Working Group for El Salvador, Neuss;
Central America Committee, Wuppertal;
Nicaragua Information Office, Wuppertal;
Initiative Group for the Third World,
Neuss;
Torking Group of BDKJ For The Politics
of Development;
ASTA (Combined German Student:Committee);
Professional Group of the PH,-Neuss;
�
I. -
�
�
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� 29 Jan. Dusseldorf 100 (Cont!d.)
Evangelical Stud� ent Committee, Dusseldorf;
Working Group for Alternatives in Social Work
� The Foreigners Group, Bilk;
Action Movement for Housing, Dusseldorf;
Independent Medical Group;
Biker-Base Central Book Assn.;
Saegewerke, E. V.;
Children's Book Store in Wuppertal, Third
�World Section; ;
� � Provincial Association for the North
�
Rhine-Westphalia "The Green Ones"
.(An Environmentalist Political Party);
Free International University,
� ."
31 Jan. Mexico' � 10,000 (Not attributed by Embassy report)
31 Jan. � Frankfurt 15,000 Informationsstelle El Salvador. Marchers
-.included several hundred masked leather-
jacketed rowdies" and "a number of orderly
� Turks and Chileans." The keynote speaker
was. Karsten Voigt. There. were acts of violenc
31 Jan, Stockholm 400 Guatemala-El Salvador Committee. Vast
majority of demonstrators were Latin
Americans, from Latin American exile groups.
3 Feb. Milan Telephone threat against U.S. Consulate in
Milan By group calling itself MOVEMENT OF
28 FEBRUARY. Caller said in Spanigh that-
U.S. must cease giving arms to Salvadoran
Ounta or his organization "will take
measures against you."
6 Feb.
10 Feb. San Jose
�
10 *Feb. Mexico
10 Feb. Lima
�
Melbourne unk Nicaragua Reconstruction Committee,
Socialist Workers Party, Spartacist
League of Australia, International .
Socialists, Communist Party of Austi'alia.
Partido Revolucionario de Los Trabajadores.
Demonstration followed series of radio
announcements claiming Feb. 10 would be
day of world-wide demonstrations against
El Salvador by the Fourth International
"Partido Mundial-De Los Trabajadores."
- �
150 . Partido Obrero Socialista, Liga Obrero
.� Marxista, Partido Marxista De Mexico,
Juventud Democratica Mexicana
15 "Leftist and Communist Demonstrators,
-organized and led by Senator Cesar Napuri
(POMR) and Diputado Enrique Fernandez (PST)
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10 Feb.
10 Feb.
1
10 Feb.
Organisation Communiste Internationaliste.
Nnattributed
Protest letter delivered by reps of
Internationaler Arbeitskreis Frankfurt.
10 Feb. Lima 15 Persons representing various political
parties, including the trotskyites.
11 Feb. Quebec. 8 Communist Party - These demonstrators -
showid up during a driving rain storm for
demonstration.
�
13 Feb. Perth 6
� 14 Feb. Amsterdam 2,500
Paris
500
Hamburg
10
Frankfurt
5
17 Feb. Dublin
Unattributed (Perth 0030)
El Salvador Committee, together with the
the support of other local anti-American
protest groups and United Uruguayan Group
� In Solidarity With El Salvador.
International :: Communist League,
Convenclon Nacional de Trabajadores del
. Uruguay, IK3 - Grupo Combate.
35 El Salvador Support Committee. (Note:
the Embassy in Dublin reported this was
the Fifth demonstration by this group.)
20 Feb. Oslo 200 Nnattributed.
25 Feb. Paris 1,000 Comite.Soutien au Peuple du Salvador,
Comite du Nicaragua, Comite du Guatemala.
(all these groups were organized by the
Organisje 4E Internationale, a Trotskyist
group).
26 Feb. Stuttgart .15 Same groups as Jan 24 demonstration.
26 Feb. Rome 35 Partito Democratic� Unione Proletario
Movimiento Laboratori Per II Socialism�.
"Among the group were six parliamentary '
reps of the POUP.
27*Feb. Edinburgh 75 Latin American Solidarity CaMpaign Of
Edinburgh. Some damage Was done to the
Consulate door-by battering it.
23 Feb. Vancouver 500- --El-Salvadorillicaragua Committee.
�
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MI%
28 Feb. Quebec
6 Mar. Adelaide
3 Mar.
500 Quebec/E1 Salvador
30 Socialist Party of
Workers Party, Comm
Australia.
(NFI)
Australia, Socialist
unist Party of
Copenhagen 1,500 "Several Danislvpolitica1 organizations
from Center-left of Communist"' Chile-
Nicaragua Allende-Uruguay. Committee.
10 Mar. Toronto
200
El Salvador Support torndttee.
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