LETTER TO MICHAEL D. BARNES FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83M00914R002800050048-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 27, 2007
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: August 5, 1982
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For Release 2007/03/27: CIA-RDP83M00914R002800050048-9
Central Intelligence Agency
OEXA: 82-1918/a
Honorable Michael D. Barnes, Chairman
Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs
Committee on Foreign Affairs
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
I appreciate this opportunity to clarify for you the quote from
me in The Wall Street Journal on 16 July 1982 about U.S. assistance to El
Salvador during that country's recent election process.
As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, I am sure you were aware of and understood
the U.S. Government's concern that El Salvadoran citizens be allowed to
vote without fear of intimidation from the guerrilla forces, who had made
no secret of their intention to do everything in their power to disrupt
the elections. Indeed, you will recall on the evening of the national
election, the entire U.S. television audience saw how the guerrillas
succeeded in aborting the election in the provincial capital of Usulatan
by terrorizing its citizens.
I have in some talks, and in this instance in response to a question
from a Wall Street Journal writer, explained the nature of the kinds of
special activities undertaken in support of the President and U.S. policy
in today's world. The way I was quoted in the Journal was taken out of
context and interpreted falsely by Mr. Robert E. White in his article
"Certifying El Salvador," which appeared in The New York Times on 27 July
1982. As I indicated to The New York Times in my letter to The Editor,
which was printed on 30 July, the assistance to which I alluded was to
help the Salvadoran Government protect El Salvadoran citizens from being
intimidated from voting. My second objective was to describe the purposes
of the kinds of assistance now undertaken as special activities as a
contrast to the popular perceptions of special activities of the past. In
the case of El Salvador, assistance included (1) providing the Salvadoran
Government with information and capabilities which helped it reduce the
supply of weapons from Cuba and Nicaragua and resist guerrilla attacks
intended to destroy the election process, and (2) providing Salvadoran
election authorities with invisible ink which helped to keep the identity
of the voters from the guerrillas and thereby avoided their retaliation
against the citizens who had exercised their right to vote.
P
0
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I have publicly expressed my concern on more than one occasion
during the past year about the methods guerrillas use to take advantage
of underlying social and economic discontent to disrupt democratic
processes in small beleaguered nations. Most recently, in a speech
to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, California, on 21 May 1982,
I used El Salvador to illustrate my concern in a way that I believe
gets to the heart of your question:
El Salvador provided an example of how we can help these beleaguered
nations defend themselves. The training of El Salvadoran troops
and officers.in the United States imparted new capabilities to
the government Army. The success of the recent elections in
El Salvador came largely from developing new intelligence
sources and showing the El Salvadoran Army how to use
intelligence to break up guerrilla formations before they could
attack provincial capitals in order to stop the voting. This
resulted in the American television audience seeing in living
color Usulatan, the provincial capital nearest Nicaragua, with
its streets empty and its inhabitants huddled behind closed
doors as guerrillas fired their rifles at doorways. Then,
a minute later, this television audience saw in the rest of the
country long lines of people patiently waiting in the hot sun
to cast their vote. That contrast in a few minutes wiped out
weeks of distortion and propaganda about what has been
happening in Central America.
Today, El Salvador has a new government and a vote of the people
has overwhelmingly rejected the insurgents, organized,, supplied
and directed from Nicaragua and Cuba, in their attempt to stop
the election. Next door in Honduras, a democratically elected
civilian government, to which the military are fully subordinated,
presides over a free and open society. Nicaragua can't stand
this contrast to its own militarized and totalitarian society
in which opposition forces, free expression, and civil liberties
and human rights are being stamped out. So instructions have
gone out and Communist and extreme leftist elements in Honduras
have begun to hijack airplanes, plant dynamite in buildings and
otherwise lay the groundwork for revolutionary violence in their
determination to see that free democratic government does not
succeed in Central America.
If I can be of further assistance to you on this matter, please
let me know.
Sincerely,
William J. Casey
Director of Central Intelligence
 Approved For Release 2007/03/27: CIA-RDP83MOO914R002800050048-9
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