MACNEIL-LEHRER NEWSHOUR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200910013-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 20, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000200910013-4
MacNEIL-LEHRER NEWSHOUR
20 October-,,1,983
LEHRER: As predicted by the Democartsin charge, the House voted this afternoon to
cut off covert CIA aid to the contras, the anti-Sandinista groups fighting a guerrilla
war against the government of Nicaragua. The vote was a close 227-to-194, in favor of
the Boland-Zablocki amendment to an intelligence funding bill. The legislation
authorizes $50 million in overt assistance to stop the arms flow from Nicaragua to
leftist guerrilla forces in El Salvador but none on the covert slide of Honduras and
Costa Rica-based rebels seeking to bring direct miritary and economic trouble to the
leftist Nicaraguan government. And today the contras hit-another Nicaraguan economic
target. They raided -an agricultural center 100 miles north of the capital, leaving
grain silos and tractors destroyed, the local bank $80,000.. poorer and.32 Nicaraguan
soldiers and civilians dead. On the U.S. aid .question it is considered unlikely the
Republican-controlled 'Senate will go.along -with the Bouse:;action. So, :today's -vote
-.may be more symbolic than real in its impact. That impact was the -.focus