NICARAGUA/FRANCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201150003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 6, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150003-8
1Vlsl; 1V1Cit!'1'LT 1Vt;W5
6 April 198
NICARAGUA/ UTLEY: Squeezing Nicaragua is one of the main goals of
FRANCE the Reagan administration. Among the weapons are mines
laid along Nicaragua's coasts to stop shipping. Today it
was disclosed that France has offered to clear those mines
and that Nicaragua has accepted the offer. And as Fred
Francis reports, that's causing some unhappiness in
Washington.
FRANCIS: Administration officials are indignant over thge
French offer to clear the mines from Nicaraguan ports.
One State Department source said it was perhaps unwise for
the CIA to lay the mines, but the French have no business
interfering. Another said, we have made it brutally plain
to France to butt out. Publicly, the administration is
asking France not to take sides. JOHN HUGHES (State
Department Spokesman): ire have all along been concerned
with the large Soviet and Cuban military relationship with
Nicaragua, and we would not favor any nation's
contributing to Nicaragua's ability to export revolution.
FRANCIS: The ports of Corinto and Sandino were?mined by
CIA-sponsored rebels in January, and again last month.
Rebel sources say that a~mothership controlled by the CIA
supplies the mines to small attack boats. Half a dozen
ships have been damaged, including a Soviet tanker. The
mines, which are basketball size,_are detonated by a
ship's vibration. The CIA's strategy is to paralyze the
Nicaraguan economy. But congressional critics are now -
saying how can the administration war Iran not to mine the
Persian Gulf, yet condone the CIA's mining of Nicaraguan
xaters. Fred Francis, NBC News, the State Department.
Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150003-8