SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S CENTRAL AMERICA SPEECH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00364R001302210016-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 17, 2007
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: July 13, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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THE DIRECTOR OF $A 9CU -ti,.-R. -gi, -tz
y
t i rr ? u rci+c-r`e I
13 July 1983
NOTE FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
Attached is some suggested language for the
President's forthcoming speech to be given on
18 July 1983.
STAT
Constantine C. Menges
NtO/PPT
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UNGLASSIMLI)
13 July 1983
CCM
Suggestions for the President's Central America Speech
In order for my balanced program in Central to succeed, the Congress must
provide the administration with the capacity to act decisively and the foreign
aid resources we request. So far total expenditures for Central America
during my administration in calendar years 1981 and 1982 have been for
economic assistance and for military assistance. In fiscal year 1983
which ends in little more than two months from now I have requested the
Congress to provide economic aid and in military aid, an amount
which is about amour worldwide economic aid and % of our
worldwide security assistance. However, so far Congress has provided only a
small portion of the resources I have requested. This is illustrated by the
fact that for El Salvador in fiscal year 1983 I requested $220 million in
economic aid but so far the Congress has only provided $40 million and of $170
million in military aid requested Congress so far has only provided $6
million. We cannot help friendly governments defend themselves unless
Congress is willing to actually provide the resources which are necessary in a
timely fashion.
A major obligation of national leadership is to foresee potentially
dangerous trends in foreign affairs and take timely action to prevent them
from posing ever larger threats. My program for Central America is
comprehensive and deals with all facets of the problems and at the same
time: our efforts on behalf of democratic institution building, reform and
economic improvement will help the people in these countries live better while
we simultaneously use our security assistance to prevent the Soviet Union,
Cuba and Nicaragua from creating more communist dictatorships.
However, if the Congress fails to provide my administration with the
capacity to implement this program the events in Nicaragua since July 19, 1979
clearly foreshadow the enormously increased challenge and costs that would be
needed to prevent all 100 million people from Panama to the US border from
coming under communist control. Consider the military buildup in Nicaragua--a
country of, 2.4 million people with Soviet bloc and Cuban help has built a
military force of about 70 thousand (compared to the 10 thousand members of
Somoza's national guard), 36 new military bases and quantities of military
equipment such as tanks, mobile rocket launchers, armoured personnel
cariers. If all of Central America came under communist control it would have
a population 10 times that of Nicaragua and there is every reason to expect
that its military forces would also be 10 times those of Nicaragua or about
700 thousand men. In case you think this is inconceivable, consider the fact
that communist Cuba with a population of 9 million has military forces
totalling 225 thousand including 40 thousand military personnel in Africa and
several thousand in Nicaragua--communist Cuba has a military force second in
Latin America only to Brazil, a country with a population 12 times larger.
UNCLASSIFIED
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UNCLASSIFIED
Even more threatening in the future if we fail to stop communism today in
Central America would be the momentum of subversion as new communist
governments cooperate with the Soviet bloc and Cuba against their neighbors.
This is again illustrated by the actions of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua
where within weeks of taking power they established training camps and arms
shipment facilities to help the communist guerrillas of El Salvador and
Guatemala. As my administration has documented publicly and as the House
Intelligence Committee has publicly agreed, this Nicaraguan cooperation in the
export of subversion has expanded during the last four years and it has also
involved actions against democratic Honduras and democratic Costa Rica which
long preceeded the growth of the anti-Sandinista forces.
If Central America with a combined population of 24 million became
communist there is every reason to expect that the new communist governments
there would do exactly what the Sandinistas and Nicaragua have done since July
19, 1979: they would permit Soviet bloc and Cuban advisers to enter their
countries and have them take control of the population and they would
cooperate with the extreme left within neighboring countries such as Mexico
and Panama and elsewhere in Latin America in order to bring communists or pro-
Soviet regimes to power there also. The resulting costs of dealing with this
export of subversion and military buildup by a communist Central America would
be enormous both in the risks to world peace inherent in the likely scale of
confrontation with the Soviet bloc and in the degree of the military and
economic resources which the US would have to allocate in order to contain
communism and destabilization at that point.
This is the choice before the nation today: whether the Congress will
provide my administration with the resources and flexibility necessary to end
this threat through a prudent balanced strategy today or whether a far more
serious threat will face this country within several years.
UNCLASSIFIED
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