A SECRET WAR FOR NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2006
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: November 1, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN

OPERATION?p1IIfJRRVTTVM0P4F?
News Bulletin
Item from NEWSWEEK, page 42.
A Secret War
For Nicaragua
A covert operation to restrict the flow of Cuban arms
to El Salvador expands into a larger plan to undermine
the Sandinista government in Managua, miring the
Reagan administration deeper in Central America.
T he smoky bar in Tegucigalpa was a
cousin to Rick's Cafe in "Casa-
blanca," a nightly gathering place
for the dangerous and the desperate in Hon-
duras. Squeezed into a corner one evening
last week were four Argentine military ad-
visers, speaking machine-gun Spanish and
occasionally stealing furtive glances around
the room. A half-dozen Americans stood in
a loose line at the bar, drinking beer and
talking too loudly about guns. In the center
of the room, grouped around a table that
listed far right, were seven men drinking
rum. One of them wore a gold earring. He
explained that the seven men were Nicara-
guan exiles who belonged to various fac-
tions of la contra, a band of counterrev-
olutionaries trying to topple the leftist
Sandinista regime. They were ready to
move toward Managua, one of the men said.
"We just need to hear from The Boss that
it's time to go." Who was The Boss? The
man with the earring was impatient with
stupid questions. "He's the man you call
'Mr. Ambassador'."
The envoy in question was John D. Ne-
groponte, the American ambassador in
Honduras. Official sources told NEWS-
WEEK last week that Negroponte is oversee-
ing an ambitious covert campaign to arm,
1 November 1982
Item #5
American airman preps Hondurans during
train and direct Nicaraguan exiles to inter-
cept the flow of arms to leftist guerrillas in
El Salvador. But the operation has another
objective: to harass and undermine the Cu-
ban-backed government of Nicaragua. The
project traces back to Jimmy Carter's ef-
forts to support Nicaraguan moderates.
Ronald Reagan added the task of cutting
the Cuban-Nicaraguan arms pipeline to El
Salvador. The plot, launched mostly with
popguns and machismo, now threatens in-
stead to destabilize Honduras, to fortify the
Marxists in Nicaragua and to waste U.S.
prestige along the tangled banks of the Coco
River. Worse, U.S. officials concede there is
Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
 Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
John Hoagland-Gamma-Liaison
joint maneuvers: A mushrooming commitment
a danger that the operation could provoke a
Nicaraguan counterattack on Honduras
that could drag the United States directly
into the conflict. "This is the big fiasco of
this administration," says one U.S. official.
"This is our Bay of Pigs."
Reports of secret operations along the
Nicaraguan-Honduran border have circu-
lated for months. But NEwswEEK has un-
covered extensive details of a campaign that
has escalated far beyond Washington's
original intentions. Administration sources
told NEWSWEEK that there are now almost
onnel serving in Honduras-
50 CIA pers
certainly the longest manifest in Central
America. That team is supplemented by
dozens of operatives including a number of
retired military and intelligence officers.
Argentine military advisers are supporting
the operation in Honduras; separate anti-
Sandinista activities are underway in Mexi-
co and Venezuela.
Camps: The fighting forces are drawn
from 2,000 Miskito Indians, an estimated
10,000 anti-Sandinistas in Nicaragua itself
and an assorted group of former Nrt~ of uan
-
National Guardsmen and suppo
posed dictator Anastasio Somoza. They
have set up 10 training camps divided be-
tween Honduran and Nicaraguan territory.
Their hit-and-run forays against Nicara-
guan bridges, construction sites and patrols
are designed to harass the Sandinistas while
erate
d
CIA operatives cast around for mo
uan leadership. Among
ra
Ni
g
ca
new
the United States tried to cultiv ate Eden Pas-
tora-the former Sandinista hero known as
Commander Zero--after he resigned from
the government in July 1981. That effort
failed. "Pastors is a man who would not
accept a penny from the CIA," swears one
associate. "If he did, I would killhim."
The operation posed some very disturb-
ing questions: did it violate the spirit if not
Hitting the silk: p~n bails
nolp out behind his A~ r Releas
 ow
Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
Mario Ruiz
the letter of congressional restrictions on
dirty tricks-and would it only make a bad
situation in Central America even worse?
A congressional-committee spokesman
said that CIA Director William Casey
(who personally inspected the operation in
Honduras) had adequately briefed con-
gressional oversight committees. But some
congressional sources complained that the
CIA's briefings had been bland and disin-
genuous. And others wondered pointedly
whether the administration had used ap-
proval for plans to cut off the flow of
Cuban arms to rebels in El Salvador as a
cover for a more reckless plot to topple the
Sandinistas. "This operation's just about
out of control and people are getting pan-
icky," said one source. According to one
U.S. official, Secretary of State George
Shultz was "fuming" over the mess. Said
another, "Only Shultz can change it-if
there is still time."
Moderates: Washington's covert in-
volvement in Nicaragua began even be-
fore Somoza fled the country. In
1978, with the dynasty nearing collapse,
Jimmy Carter signed a "finding," as
required by post-Watergate law, au-
thorizing under-the-table CIA support
for democratic elements in Nicaraguan
society, such as the press and labor
unions. The Carter administration cor-
rectly recognized that with the Somoza
regime crumbling, Cuban-backed leftist
forces would try to squeeze out more
moderate elements. American financial
support for Nicaragua's opposition
forces has continued, and it remains
one of the many items on the CIA's
yearly "Classified Schedule of
Authorizations."
After the Sandinistas seized power
anyway, the Reagan administration took
office worried that NicaA-AwdlV_,or
come a platform for Cuban-sponsored sub-
version. Ronald Reagan's first national-se-
curity adviser, Richard Allen, set to work on
plans to harass the Sandinistas. Former Sec-
retary of State Alexander Haig and Thomas
0. Enders, assistant secretary of state, be-
came increasingly concerned that the San-
dinistas were providing weapons to leftist
rebels in El Salvador-much of the hard-
ware shipped across Honduras. In several
meetings, a well-placed administration
source says, Enders spoke about the need to
"get rid of the Sandinistas." "The driving
forces behind this operation were Haig and
Enders," said one insider. "Both the agency
and the Pentagon had qualms."
joint Action: At first, the administra-
tion's planning focused entirely on how to
cut the Salvadoran rebels' supply lines from
Cuba and other communist nations through
Commander Zero: 4 rebuff to the CIA
Bosir-Gamma-Liaison
Nicaragua and Honduras into El Salvador.
Haig directed then State Department coun-
selor Robert McFarlane to prepare a series
of option papers. Senior Defense Depart-
ment officials rejected a blockade of Cuba or
Nicaragua, pointing out that much of the
arms traffic moved by air. Administration
officials say McFarlane then asked the CIA
to explore possible covert action against the
rebels' supply lines, an option that proved
more promising and less politically risky
than the direct use of U.S. forces. Early on,
Haig's ambassador at large, Gen. Vernon
Walters, and other officials discussed possi-
ble joint covert operations with conservative
Latin American governments, including
Argentina, Guatemala and Honduras.
Last December Reagan signed his own
"finding," expanding on Carter's and au-
thorizing the CIA to contact dissident
Nicaraguans in exile and to conduct po-
litical and paramilitary operations to in-
terdict weapons shipments from Nicara-
gua to Salvadoran guerrillas. A second
document, known as a "scope paper,"
outlined permissible operations and
their estimated cost. In its first stage, the
plan was to create a 500-man, U.S.-
trained paramilitary force at a cost of
$19.9 million. Argentina would train an
additional 1,000-man force. "The focus
was on action which would interdict the
flow of arms to guerrillas in the friendly
countries," said one source who has read
both documents. "Nowhere does it talk
about overthrow." But one senior offi-
cial involved in the decisions conceded
that "there are secondary and tertiary
consequences which you can't con-
trol"-such as the fall of the Sandinista
government.
As U.S. officials tell it, the size of the
W 1'?6,}if? Honduras doubled,
t if `dtlo`Itt'S0, with orders to
 Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
help interdict the arms supplies by training
the Honduran intelligence and security
forces in intelligence gathering and interro-
gation, providing logistical support for
raids into Nicaragua, aiding the Honduran
coast guard and helping the Argentines and
other non-Nicaraguans train anti-Sandinis-
ta Nicaraguans in sabotage operations us-
ing small arms supplied by the Americans.
Washington had used Honduras once be-
fore as a base for a destabilization program:
in 1954, when the United States toppled the
reformist government of Jacobo Arbenz in
Guatemala. In the view of the Reagan ad-
ministration, Honduras itself had become
dangerously vulnerable to the Cuban-
backed spread of communism. Honduras
had managed to remain relatively calm and
largely unaffected after the 1979 Nicara-
guan revolution by simply looking the other
way as Cuban-Nicaraguan arms passed
through to El Salvador. "There was kind of
an understanding that if we looked the other
way, the subversivos wouldn't look our
way," said one Honduran Army officer.
'Spearhead': That changed when John
Negroponte arrived. He was handpicked
for the job and reported to Enders, with
whom he had worked in Southeast Asia
during the Vietnam War and later under
then national-security adviser Henry Kis-
singer. "Negroponte is the spearhead," said
one Washington insider. "He was sent
down there by Haig and Enders to
carry out the operation without
any qualms of conscience."
Negroponte forged close ties
with powerful Hondurans, espe-
cially the commander of the
armed forces, Gen. Gustavo Al-
dofo Alvarez, who is still the
most powerful Honduran in the
country despite the election in
January of President Roberto
Suazo Cordova, the first civilian
president in nine years. "They
discuss what should be done, and
then Alvarez does what Negro-
ponte tells him to," a member of
the military high command said
matter-of-factly. The two appear
to dislike each other personally,
said one aide to Alvarez, because
"they both run the Army, al-
though only one of them has the
title for that job." Alvarez's G-2
military-intelligence agents act as
liaisons to the contras and Al-
varez himself reports to Negro-
ponce. In addition, two officials in
Washington said, Alvarez's mili-
tary is the main conduit for small
arms being delivered to the Nica-
raguan exiles and is the main link
to Argentine military advisers in
Honduras. Alvarez has reason to
cooperate: in the past two years,
John Hoapand--Gamma?Liaison
President Cordova: A struggling democracy
total U.S. assistance to Honduras DETAIL I-
has totaled S187 million. A 578.3
million aid package hafklbjpngved r.Releas& Te I
posed for 1983.
Miskito Major
camps ^ Sandinista
A Contra
camps
military
bases
Anti-
O Refugee AVE Sandinista
camps actions
Airstrip
A BORDER BATTLE ZONE
$4 : -- ,
The interdiction project proved more dif-
ficult than expected. The rebel supply lines
were elusive: as the Honduran Army
cracked down on arms shipments across
land, the leftists began receiving aid by sea
and air. At the same time, the Sandinistas
undertook a massive military buildup. Un-
der the new pressures, the plan spread be-
yond its original bounds. "It became clear
that cutting the roads from Nicaragua
wasn't enough," said one source. "It was
necessary to raise the cost to the Sandinistas
and the Cubans of meddling in El Salvador."
Problems: That meant, at the least,
cross-border harassment-and that, too,
proved more difficult than Washington
planned. First, according to sources in Hon-
duras, the Argentines reduced their partici-
pation in the covert training program and in
the overt training of the Honduran Army
after the outbreak of the Falklands War.
(Washington officials said, however, that
there were about 20 Argentine trainers in
New Honduran
milQary tamp
0
r
NOW
Cabetas
airfield 4: `?
Gracias
a Dios
 Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
Susan Meiselas-Magnum
Sandinistas hold guardsmen during the civil war: Can the Somocistas come back?
the country last week and that the numbers
had not changed appreciably during the
Falklands War.) Then the Miskito Indians,
who had been forcibly driven from their
homes along the Honduran-Nicaraguan
border, proved eager but unpromising mod-
em soldiers. "The Indians aren't very quick
Our Man in Tegucigalpa
learners," says one knowledgeable source.
Such problems soon led to strange bedfel-
lows. When the covert policy was first de-
veloped, direct U.S. dealings with exiled
Somocistas were officially ruled out. "Our
guidelines are pretty damn firm," says one
senior U.S. official. "At no time has there
John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador in Honduras, doesn't
look like the Ugly American. At 43, he is tall and baldish; his
manner is studiedly bland. His deliberate, pause-filled conversa-
tion, says one frequent dinner guest, "prompts a keen desire for
coffee." But another who knows Negroponte better calls him "a
Machiavelli-only shrewder." He is street smart. He speaks
fluent Spanish, French, Greek and Vietnamese. He reads Shake-
speare. Says one Honduran official who has followed his prog-
ress, "He must love 'Julius Caesar'."
Negroponte's 12-month tenure in Honduras has been a bit
imperious. At the Inauguration of President Roberto Suazo
Cordova last January-the first civilian president in nine
years-a messenger handed the new leader a four-page letter
from the U.S. Embassy drafted by the new American ambassa-
dor. Encouraging a prompt "revitalization" of the ailing econo-
my, the letter-using the imperative form of
Spanish-directed the government of Hondu-
ras to take 11 specific actions, such as reducing
taxes on mining companies and lifting some
price controls. The government dutifully com-
plied with many of the demands. Negroponte's
influence steadily grew, and, it appears, so did
his involvement in covert action against Nica-
ragua. "I'm not saying that the guy who gives
all the orders here, even for covert ops, is
Negroponte," says a Western source who
knows. "But that guy wears Negroponte's suits
and eats his breakfast. Do you get the picture?"
Negroponte's arrival in Tegucigalpa was
something of a surprise. Few expected an am-
bassador of quite his caliber. "Anyone who
tuut" Was
doesn't know me he says y
INTERNATIONAL
been any authorization to deal with the
Somoza people." But Negroponte, under
pressure from Haig and Enders to produce
some successes against the Sandinistas,
turned to the only promising group avail-
able-the Somocistas. "It was Negroponte
who began dealing with the guardsmen and
the Somocistas," says one U.S. official.
"That wasn't the original plan. He had to
improvise." Sources in both Washington
and Honduras say the ambassador has been
careful to deal with the Somocistas through
intermediaries to preserve his deniability.
Asked about U.S. support for Somocistas or
other contras last week, Negroponte said:
"No comment, no comment and a big fat no
comment." Of his own contacts, he said,
"The only Nicaraguan I know personally is
the Nicaraguan ambassador to Honduras.
The only Nicaraguan I deal with in any
official way is the ambassador."
At the same time, the Reagan administra-
tion looked for a leader around whom to
build the opposition. No one connected
with the hated Somocistas would do. The
most attractive candidate was Pastora-
Commander Zero. After leaving the gov-
ernment in 1981, he suddenly surfaced in
Costa Rica last April, denounced his former
But no one has ever called him an underachiever. "Knowing this
administration's preoccupation with Central America and its
worries about Honduras in particular, he set out to make a mark
in Honduras that would be noticed all the way to the top," says a
colleague who has known him for years.
Career. Educated at Exeter and Yale, Negroponte joined the
Foreign Service at the age of 21 and rose quickly. He was a
favored political officer in Saigon at the height of the war in
Vietnam. He was sent as an emissary to the Paris peace talks,
where he insisted that the United States was giving up too much
to the communists. The young Negroponte was rewarded with a
post at the National Security Council. After a falling-out with
his onetime mentor, Henry Kissinger, who was then national-
security adviser, Negroponte was exiled to Ecuador as political
counselor, but he bounced back to become U.S. consul general in
Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since coming to Honduras, Negroponte has worked hard to
establish himself as something more than our man in Teguci-
Negroponte The proconsul
Applewhite-AP
galpa. Fellow envoys are particularly galled by
his habit of sending upbraiding cables when he
disapproves of their actions. His efforts have
not been as successful as he might have hoped:
Hondurans in frequent contact with the ambas-
sador say he was "deeply disappointed" and
"personally hurt" that President Reagan chose
to make Costa Rica his only stop in Central
America during a planned five-day tour of
Latin America at the beginning of December.
The ambassador maybe in for more disappoint-
ment. "His obsession to get to the top fast will be
the very thing that brings him crashing down,"
concludes a foreign diplomatic colleague in
Honduras. "The question is whether he might
not bring a policy and the fragile government of
00U$ '2m*M'$W-6
BETH NISSEN in Tegucigalps.
 Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
INTERNATIONAL
comrades as "traitors and assassins" and
announced: "I will drag them with but:
lets from their mansions and Mercedes-
Benzes." The CIA first tried to cultivate
Pastora after he left the Sandinista gov-
ernment, but he would not cooperate.
After Negroponte began to deal with the
Somocistas, any chance of recruiting
Pastora probably was lost.
Alienated: Negroponte now has fro-
zen him out of the action. Pastora and
other disillusioned Sandinistas, such as
former junta member Alfonso Robelo,
have been told that "Honduras is closed
to us, we cannot work here," says one of
them. NEWSWEEK has learned that Pas-
tora has made two clandestine trips to
Honduras since spring to try to win sup-
port and establish base camps. Both
times he was kept under virtual house
arrest by the military. "He couldn't
make a phone call, let alone organize a
contra group," says one Honduran mili-
tary officer. "The orders came from Al-
varez himself that our American friends
did not want this guy to have any part of
the game." As a result, despite Washing-
John ricara-NEws
Clark, Enders: `Get rid of the Sandinistas'
manding position among competing contra
groups. They also developed their own pri-
vate plan numero uno: to move the contra
camps that remain in Honduras across the
border into Nicaragua, then move the
camps already established in Nicaragua far-
ther down toward Managua and, finally,
past the capital into the south. When the
time is right, the Somocistas say, they will
draw their loose circle of camps together in
toward Managua and force the Sandinistas
out. And then? "Come the counterrevolu-
tion, there will be a massacre in Nicaragua,"
promises one contra officer. "We have a lot
ton's intentions, Negroponte has alienated
the only group likely to attract widespread
support inside Nicaragua. "There's no
question that Nicaragua is ripe for a
change," said one European observer in the
region. "But the U.S. is supporting the only
wrong, the only truly evil alternative."
After Negroponte and the Somocistas
became partners, the new American allies
began to force Washington's hand. The So-
mocistas bivouacked in Honduras were al-
ready trained soldiers, backed by wealthy
exiles in Miami. With the added boost of
tacit U.S. support, they soon took a corn-
of scores to settle. There will be bodies
from the border to Managua."
That obviously was not what Wash-
ington had in mind. Despite the dirty
little war on the ground, there is little
support in Washington either for a mas-
sive contra invasion or for a border war
between Nicaragua and Honduras. In-
stead, the constant pressure on Nicara-
gua from the border areas is designed to
keep the four-year-old Sandinista gov-
ernment in a jumpy state of alert. While
U.S. officials maintain that the primary
objective of the operation remains cut-
ting off the supply routes, they also hope
that a threatened Sandinista government
will bring itself down by further repress-
ing its internal opposition, thereby
strengthening the determination of mod-
erate forces to resist. If that happens,
says one U.S. official in Central Amer-
ica, "then the Sandinistas will fall like a
house of cards in a wind."
Thin Line: Although the Reagan ad-
ministration and the Somocistas dis-
agree on strategy, U.S. involvement
with the contras has escalated. When
equipment-helicopters and radios, for
example-breaks down, Americans re-
pair it. Americans established the guerril-
las' training regime, and arming the con-
tras was easy: the massive American
buildup of the Honduran military freed
older Honduran equipment, which was
shipped off to counterrevolutionary bases.
The Americans were soon treading the thin
line between instructing insurgents and
plotting the missions they were being
trained for. Though Americans are express-
ly forbidden to go out on operations, one
veteran of other paramilitary operations
said: "Inevitably that happens.. . You lose
your credibility with the people you're
GETTING IN DEEPER-A TIMELINE FOR TROUBLE
APRIL 1982. Eden pastors, the legendary
Although the United States has steadily increased its military and economic commitments in
"Commander Zero" who defected from the
surfaces in Costa Rica;
Sandinistas in 1981
Central America, the troubled region has only grown more volatile.
,
the CIA tries unsuccessfully to enlist him to
1978. The Carter administration authorizes
AUGUST 1981. U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Enders visits Managua and promises
lead the Honduran-based opponents of the
Sandinistas. At about the same time, U.S. Am-
the CIA to support moderate opposition
groups in Nicaragua opposed to the dictator-
aid and U.S. noninterference in Nicaraguan
bassador Negroponte makes contact with for-
'
Anastasio Somoza.
ship of Gen
affairs if the Sandinistas will end their support
s Nicaraguan Na-
mer members of Somoza
.
for the Salvadoran leftists. The Sandinistas
tonal Guard living in exile in Honduras.
i
h
ff
JULY 1979. Leftist Sandinista guerrillas top-
er.
gnore t
e o
ple Somoza and seize power. Hoping to Influ-
DECEMBER 1981. At an OAS meeting in St
AUGUST 1982. U.S. Air Force C-130s ferry
once the Sandinistas, the Carter administre-
Lucia, the Nicaraguan foreign minister out-
Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border
lion continues U.S. aid
rages Haig by flatly denying Managua is help-
where they can protect the anti-Sandinista
li
hi
i
W
MARCH 1980. The junta in El Salvador an-
Ing the Salvadoran rebellion. The Reagan
administration announces it will train 1,500
on.
ng-
at
as
forces from Nicaraguan reta
ton plans to increase military aid to Honduras
surge In in left- ghht wigrivn .Conon-
n violeolenc ce. -
g-
surge - and
Salvadoran government troops; secretly, it
to $40 million in fiscal 1983. The Nicaraguan
ambassador in Washington tells reporters a
a
Nicaragua, which it
to
aU.S.aid
b
authorizes a $20 million CIA plan to create a
0-man paramilitary force based in Hondu-
50
virtual state of war exists between Nicaragua
cks g
baackup
loftisb
Salvadoran
ms to cut off Nicaraguan supplies to the Sal-
'
and Honduras.
JANUARY-MARCH 1981. The Reagan ad-
s unofficial goal: to
vadoran leftists. The plan
ministration takes office as the Salvadoran
undermine or overthrow the Sandinistas.
OCTOBER 1982. Reagan sends letters to
"
leftists launch a major offensive. U.S. Secr-
tary of State Haig declares Washington will
FEBRUARY 1982 Reagan unveils the $350
million Caribbean Basin development plan
great
Mexico and Venezuela expressing his
interest" in their recent proposal for restoring
i
t
i
i
f
.
peace along the Nicaraguan-Honduran bor-
commun
s
not remain pass
ve
n the face o
"
subversion and threatens to "go to the
MARCH 1982 The Sandinistas declare a
fully verifiable re-
der and his support for a
source"-Cuba. The United States sends
state of emergency after antigovernment
gional agreement"that will ban arms imports
more military advisers and increased military
puetrilIU Infiltrating from Honduras dyrwnite
use of foreign advisers in Central
and the
aidto EI Salvador. -
two
mo
 7
Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
INTERNATIONAL
training if you hole up entirely."
Negroponte insists that his strategy pre-
cisely follows Washington's orders. But
other sources claim that Negroponte cen-
sors embassy cables so that Washington will
only know what he wants it to know, and
that he seems to operate with little interfer-
ence or second-guessing from superiors.
"Haig and Enders gave Negroponte full
autonomy," said one high-level insider in
Honduras. Added another: "A lot of us
think the ambassador should have a little
more E.T. in him-that he should phone
home now and then. But I'm sure his con-
tention would be that 'home' would say,'Go
ahead and do what you think is best.' He
only has to answer to himself."
In either case, virtually every knowledge-
able official says that the operation needs
firmer restraints. "It is reminiscent of the
cable that went out, 'Order turkeys for the
division' but got garbled so we ordered a
icopters and SAM-6 and SAM-7 anti-
aircraft missile batteries. Tons of
arms also arrived to supply a beefed-
up 25,000-member Sandinista Army,
backed by an unprecedented 80,000-
strong civilian militia. Photographs
from U.S. spy planes showed the San-
dinistas lengthening airfields at Puerto
Cabezas, Montelimar and Bluefields to
carry MiG-21 fighters. U.S. officials
claim that 50 Nicaraguan pilots are
being trained in Bulgaria to By the jets in
at a time of the Sandinistas' choosing-
threatening to overtake Honduras's air
superiority in Central America.
Despite Cuban and Nicaraguan de-
nials, the administration remains con-
vinced that Salvadoran insurgents are
supplied through Nicaragua with air,.
land and sea shipments of arms. Evi-
Castro and Sandinistas in Havana (1979): Guns, training and a talent for revolution
The Cuban Connection
division to Turkey," said one official.
The Hondurans themselves fear that
their country might slip into the Central
American line of fire. In September Hon-
duran leftist guerrillas took more than 100
businessmen and officials hostage for eight
days in San Pedro Sula. Tegucigalpa was
blacked out after a power plant was dyna-
mited. The Hondurans say they have evi-
dence that both operations were master-
minded by Salvadoran and Nicaraguan
leftists. The Hondurans also claim to have
dence has been harder to deliver, but in
one U.S. example, Honduran police
reportedly intercepted a truck coming
from Nicaragua in January 1981 that
carried Salvadoran rebel supporters,
100 U.S.-made M-16 rifles, 50 81-mm
mortar rounds and 100,000 other rounds of rifle ammunition.
U.S. intelligence also charges that Nicaragua helped establish
one of Honduras's new rebel bands, the Morazanist Front for the
Liberation of Honduras.
The United States draws a formidable picture of the Cuban-
Nicaraguan threat. But some experts are not so impressed.
During a recent visit to Nicaragua, Lt. Col. John Buchanan, a
retired Marine Corps pilot and critic of U.S. policy, was flown on
an inspection tour in a Nicaraguan Air Force Cessna that
crashed after landing. Buchanan found the Sandinistas' T-55
tanks decidedly ill-suited to tropical warfare. "With friends who
would supply you T-55s," he told one Sandinista commander,
"who needs enemies?"
Rhetoric: The Cubans have repeatedly offered to help the
United States ease tensions over Nicaragua and throughout
Central America-but Castro has always insisted on ground
rules, including an end to U.S. covert assistance to Nicaraguan
counterrevolutionaries. Critics charge that Washington's
alarmist rhetoric has distorted American perceptions. Wayne
Smith, retired head of the U.S. interests section in Havana,
observes: "We have tended to exaggerate the level of Cuban
involvement and assistance in El Salvador-but there is no
question there has been some." The Sandinistas argue that the
U.S. hostility forces them to take any allies they can get. "Some
people here say Cuban assistance is an excuse to maintain a
Sandinista dictatorship," says Father Xavier Gorostiaga, direc-
tor of the Institute of Social and Economic Research in Nicara-
gua. "But in Nicaragua we say this is the only way to survive."
JAMES LeMOYNE with JOHN WALCOTT in Washington
Approved For Release 2006/05/25: CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
Nicaragua's Sandinistas have always had their reservations
about Fidel Castro. But the revolutionary bond between them is
tight. U.S. officials say some 4,000 Cuban doctors, teachers and
other civilian specialists help make Nicaragua run, while 2,000
military advisers bolster the police and Army. Cuban backing
has fueled Nicaragua's own, extensive military buildup. And
Cuban support has bolstered Nicaraguan assistance to leftist
guerrillas in El Salvador. As Assistant Secretary of State Thomas
Enders sees it, revolutionary Nicaragua has become little more
than "a forward base of operations" for Cuba.
. The administration has argued its case in a Haig-era report
ominously titled "Cuba's Renewed Support for Violence in
Latin America." According to the report, Castro helped unite
the three Sandinista rebel factions under an effective fighting
command in 1978. Cuba then pumped arms and advisers to the
rebels through bases in Costa Rica. After the Sandinista triumph
in 1979, Juliin Lopez Diaz, the head of Cuba's support mission
in Costa Rica, became the first Cuban ambassador to the new
Sandinista regime. "Nicaragua really did something to the
Cuban leadership," says one U.S. official. "It was a psychologi-
cal shot in the arm for Castro and his guerrilla elite."
Unprecedented: The Sandinistas promptly netted S28 million
in military equipment funneled through Cuba from the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, according to U.S. sources. The mil-
itary buildup included 25 Soviet-made T-55 and T-54 tanks, 12
Soviet BTR armored personnel carriers, light airplanes, hel-
 Approved For Release 2006/05/25 : CIA-RDP84B00049R001202830014-6
INTERNATIONAL
cracked six safe houses in the past two
months and found huge stocks of weapons
and literature that connects the caches with
the Sandinistas.
Any more violence could touch of a
confrontation over security measures be-
tween General Alvarez and the still un-
steady civilian government. Guerrilla
attacks already have led to growing re-
pression. For the first time in Honduras's
modern history, right-wing death squads
now appear to be operating. "There is a low
level of violence and subversion now, and it
would be an easy step to more aggressive
government actions than are needed," wor-
ried a U.S. official-"followed by more
aggressive subversion." America's secret
war might thus have the intended effect-
in the wrong country.
The operation has stirred up its intended
target as well. The Sandinistas have used the
contra attacks as an excuse to spend an esti-
mated $ 125 million on defense this year,
beefing up the. Army and civilian militia
while attacking what remains ofa free press
and private business. But Sandinista repres-
sion has not led to a noticeable upsurge of an-
ti-Sandinista activity inside the country-
perhapsbecause Nicaraguans now only see a
choice between the Sandinistas and the
hated U.S.-backed Somocistas. "Our oper-
ations along the Honduran border have only
played into the hands of the Sandinistas,"
says one dismayed U.S. official.
Terrified': But other American officials
see light at the end of the tunnel. The Sandin-
ista leaders are "terrified to their Marxist
cores," says one. They have made their first
attempts in months to try to re-establish
communication with the private sector-
and with the United States. U.S. Ambassa-
dor to Nicaragua Anthony Quainton, who
had been refused any official meetings with
the Sandinista leaders, was astonished to
find junta member Bayardo Arce waiting
for him, unannounced, in the Foreign Min-
istry recently. On the verge of panic, one
source said, Arce asked, in effect, "What is
the price we have to pay to stay in power?"
Tensions could peak within the next few
weeks. On Dec. 5 the United States and
Honduras will begin joint military maneu-
vers near one of the most sensitive stretches
of the Nicaraguan-Honduran border. The
five-day maneuvers will include the U.S.
Army, Navy and Air Force; they will simu-
late the freeing of an army garrison from
cross-border invaders. A growing number
of people on both sides of the border fear
the simulation might preview a real war.
Ronald Reagan will be visiting nearby
Costa Rica on Dec. 4. Two months after he
authorized the operation against Nicara-
gua, Reagan was asked how he felt, general-
ly, about covert action to destabilize re-
gimes. His answer: "No comment."
JOHN BRECHER with JOHN WALCOTT and
DAVID MARTIN in Washin on and
Approved For Releas in 5/25: CIA-RDP84B00049ROO 1202830014-6