CENTRAL AMERICA - THE SOVIET VIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R002700220048-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2007
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: September 29, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/05: CIA-RDP83M00914RO$2700220048-1 STAT
Central America
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the Soviet view
In the past few days, Democrats on the
House Intelligence Committee have attacked
the administration's Central American pol-
icy by implying that it rests on CIA reports
cooked up by the Agency to please the White
House. That's a cheap shot. The administra-
tion has not needed intelligence reports to
worry about Central America. What the
Soviet press says is worrisome enough.
A clear signal of Soviet ambitions in Cen-
tral America and the Caribbean came at the
February 1981 meeting of the 26th Soviet
Party Congress. There, the Soviets, for the
first time, placed Cuba under the same pro-
tective umbrella they extend to all mem-
bers of the "socialist community of states."
This protection was again emphasized in
March 1981 at a Soviet-Polish Party meet-
ing and, in April 1981, at the Czech Party
Congress in Prague. Pravda, the Soviet Com-
munist Party newspaper, reported it all.
Following that, the Soviets issued a clear
warning to the U.S. to keep hands off Cuba.
That was carried in November 1981 by both
Pravda and the official newspaper of the
Soviet government, Izvestia, as well as by
the Soviet news agency, TASS. '
The Soviets have shown a recent interest
in Nicaragua, as well. Their journal devoted
to Latin American affairs, Latinskaia Amerika,
had paid little attention to Nicaragua even
as late as 1979, but the first three issues of
the 1980 journal all had articles on Nicaragua.
One of those pieces reported a roundtable
discussion by Moscow's Latin American
experts. In it, the journal's editor, Sergo
Mikoyan, revealed rising Soviet confidence
in the effectiveness of externally stimulated
and conducted armed insurrections in Latin
America, especially Central America. .
On Dec. 7,1981, the Soviet Ambassador in
Nicaragua hinted, for the first time, at
Moscow's willingness to bring the Sandinista
regime under the same protective wing now
covering Cuba and other Bloc nations.
Spanish and French news agencies carried
that statement.
And on March 19, 1982, the authoritative
Soviet foreign affairs journal, Novoe Vremia,
described the Central American scene as a
series of countries that could fall, one by
one, to the "socialist system" That was the
Soviet version of the domino concept - and
the Soviet vision of the future. "Central
America," the article said, "has become the
epicenter of the political storms of the (Latin
American) continent, a sort of compass."
Somebody should tell the House Intelli-
gence Committee.