SOLARZ/INTERVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200940003-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 6, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/27: CIA-RDP88-01070R000200940003-2
6 November 1983
SOLARZ/
INTERVIEW BRINKLEY: John, thank you. Coming next, Rep. Stephen Solarz
from New York, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who has
been a critic of the whole Grenada operation.
BRINKLEY: Mr. Solarz in New York, thanks very much for coming
in and talking with us. Delighted to have you. SOLARZ: Good
to be here, David.
BRINKLEY: Here with me are George Will of ABC News, and Sam
Donaldson, ABC News White House correspondent. Mr. Solarz, you
have been critical of the Grenada operation. What, if you were
making the decisions, what would you have done? SOLARZ: Well,
my position David., has been that, if in fact it can be
demonstrated that the Americans on Grenada were in jeopardy, or
if it becomes clear that Cuba was transforming Grenada into a
base for aggression and subversion in the Caribbean, then what
we did was justified. But at least, as of a few days ago, it
was by no means clear that the lives of the students were in
jeopardy. My understanding is, for example, that the
authorities on Grenada had offered on several occasions to
permit the Americans who were there to leave, and we apparently
made no serious effort whatsoever, to contact the authorities in
an effort to make an arrangement for the students on the island
to leave. In to far as the extent to which Cuba was attempting
to utilize Grenada as a base for aggression and subversion in
the Caribbean is concerned, --I want to hear what the
Congressional delegation which has just visited Grenada has to
say. If the arms we've discovered there were clearly far in
,excess of any legitimate requirements on the part of the
Grenadian militia, then I think a good case can be made that we
had a responsibility to protect the other Democratic countries
of the Caribbean from Cuban aggression. But so far, it seems to
me, that case has not yet been definitively established.
BRINKLEY: So if the Reagan administration's description of this
operation turns out to your satisfaction, you will support it?
SOLZARZ: If the arguments which have.been advanced by the
administration turn out to be, once the press and the Congress
has had an opportunity to examine them, to be accurate, then I
think what they did made sense, but I think we have to keep a
couple of things in mind. For one thing, the administration, as
you know, in fact prohibited the press from going'ADnto the
island until after the invasion was already well underway, and
then, the reporters who were there, were clearly restricted in
..terms of their access. Secondly, I think we do have to
recognize that while we have clearly succeeded in making
possible the restoration of democracy on Grenada, which is
unquestionably a plus, that we've also paid a very heavy price
for what we've done. We've generated very serious concerns on
the part of our allies in Europe at a time when'we're about to
proceed with the deployment of the Euro-missiles. That has
created great problems with friendly governments in that part of
the world. We've clearly produced an intensification of
anti-Americanism in Central America. We have acted in ways
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that the international community considers to be a clear
violation of international law. I think that what concerns me
really about what's happened in Grenada is the extent to which
the administration appears to have used force first and
diplomacy second, rather than diplomacy first and force second.
DONALDSON: Mr. Solarz, you said a moment ago that if there was
a threat to the hemisphere' that was clearly established from
Grenada, we did the right thing. I want to ask you about
Nicaragua. Is there not a threat to the hemisphere clearly
established there? Should we not then go into Nicaragua?
SOLARZ: I think it would be a very serious mistake for us to go
into Nicaragua. There would be no significant support for such
an.undertaking on the.part of the other countries of the OAS.
It would be a violation of our treaty and charter obligations.
I think that the differences which we have with Nicaragua, which
are very serious ones, are differences which can be resolved at
the negotiating table. The Nicaraguans have in effect, said to
us, that they would be prepared to enter into an agreement in
which, if we undertook not to destabilize them, they would
undertake not to destabilize the other countries of the region.
We've never really seriously explored that offer, and I think we
ought to see whether they're really serious because if they are,
then the necessity for any additional military actions would be
obviously unnecessary.
DONALDSON: Well now, you say you think it would be a mistake.
Do you have any fear that the administration, now having
succeeded in Grenada, will say, 'Let's just go ahead, we're on a
roll,' and do-something more in the way of taking military
action against, say, Nicaraga? SOLARZ: I think that is indeed,
Sam, a very real possibility because I can conceive of
circumstances in which the administration would, in :effect,
solicit an invitation to invade Nicaragua from some of the other
countries of the region. I have in mind El Salvador, Guatemala
and Honduras. And then say that in response to that invitation,
they had taken such an action. Were we to do so, I think it
would be a real diplomatic catastrophy for.our country. It
could lead to a wider war in the region, and particularly in the
absence of having made every effort to exhaust the diplomatic
and political possibilities for resolving our differences with
Nicaragua, I think it would be clearly and utterly unjustified.
WILL: But Congrressman, you do seem to be accepting, as a
sufficient reason for the use of military force by the United
States, the fact that if it is established that there is an
export of terrorism or revolution to destabilize other nations.
Then, why then, since that clearly, most people think has been
established with regard to Nicaragua, do you oppose even covert
aid, as it's called now, to carry the fight back to Nicaragua?
S rMZ Because I think that our covert operations a ainst
Nicaragua have been not only ineffective,
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3.
but counterproductive. They were originally justified on the
.grounds that this was the only way to stem the flow of arms from
Nicaragua to the rebels in El Salvador. Yet it's fairly clear
over a year after these operations were launched that we haven't
succeeded in doing so, and I think they're counterproductive in
the sense that they have enabled the Sandinistas in Nicaragua to
legitimize and justify their repression. They've produced an
increase in anti-Americanism throughout the hemisphere, and
they've created the very real possibility of a larger regional
conflict into which we could be very easily sucked in.
WILL: Congressman, as you use the word counterproductive, isn't
then your objection, prudential or moral? Are you saying it's
not wrong, but it just isn't working? And if it could work,
would you be for it? SOLARZ: Well, in a certain sense George,
I'm saying both. It's prudential in the sense that it clearly
hasn't enabled us to achieve our objectives, while it has
resulted in an intensification of repression in Nicaragua in in
the creation of serious diplomatic problems for our country both
in the hemisphere as well as in Europe, but also, moral in the
sense that it seems to me that the resort to force always ought
to be the last option we use rather than the first. For over a
year now, the Nicaraguans have been saying that they are
prepared to reach understandings with us at the negotiating
table which would presumably result in a reduction of tensions
in the region and an end to the flow of arms from their country
to El Salvador. Yet we've never really been willing to sit down
at the negotiating table with them and resolve those differences-
peacefully.
BRINKLEY: Mr. Solarz, thank you very much. Thanks for coming
in. SOLARZ: Thank you.
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