THE NICARAGUAN REBELLION AND THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201160011-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: April 17, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
DATE April 17, 1984 7:30 P.M. CITY Atlanta, Ga.
SUBJECT The Nicaraguan Rebellion and the CIA
ANNOUNCER: From Washington, Crossfire. Tonight, the
Nicaraguan rebellion and the CIA. The host for Crossfire, on the
left, sitting in for Tom Braden, Joe Rauh. On the right, Pat
Buchanan. I the crossfire, Adolfo Calero, Nicaraguan rebel
leader.
PAT BUCHANAN: Last week's political firestorm in
Washington involved a sharp Senate rebuke to the President of the
United States and a threat to terminate all covert funding of the
Nicaraguan rebels known as the Contras. The reason? Senate
anger over CIA involvement in the rebel mining of Nicaragua's
ports.
Tonight's guest is the supreme commander of the Contras,
the President of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force.
JOSEPH RAUH: Well, Mr. Calero, I'm an old American
liberal that's fought communists on the left and fascists on the
right. Now, your Nicaraguan Democratic Front accepts support,
you have people in your movement who were in the old Somoza
regime. I know you weren't, but you have people in there that
were.
Isn't it a fact that the old Somoza regime, the old
fascist regime was far worse than the Sandinista Marxist crowd?
ADOLFO CALERO: Well, I wish it had been, because we
would have a lot better regime than we have now, in as far as
having the Somozistas in our midst. Somoza's dead.
RAUH: Yeah, but you've got a lot of their old people
with you now. All the reporters have said that.
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CALERO: Wait a second. Wait a second. He's dead. He
had no doctrine. He had no philosophy. What we have in our
forces, Nicaraguans decided to bring about democracy in our
country. We have some former National Guardsmen, but...
RAUH: The National Guardsmen are Somoza people.
BUCHANAN: What percentage?
CALERO: By the same token that you cannot accuse the
Germany Army of being Nazi, you cannot accuse the Nicaraguan Army
of being Somozista. We have less than one percent National
Guardsmen in our force. And out of 400 platoon leaders, less tha
30 are National Guardsmen.
RAUH: Well, 30 is a pretty number of National Guards-
men, old Somoza crowd. Couldn't you get rid of them?
BUCHANAN: Joe, did you object to the old -- the
ex-Nazis serving in the German Army or the origin of NATO?
RAUH: Are these people -- are you saying that the
Somoza people are now great democrats? Is that your point?
CALERO: I'm saying that Somozista is dead, is buried
with the bones of the dictator. What we have now is 18-year-
olds, 19-year-olds, 8000 men...
place.
CALERO: Oh, they were 12, 13.
BUCHANAN: Let me ask you this, Adolfo Calero, the key
question. If the Senate -- some say it behaved like a rabbit
warren last week, it panicked. There's a threat by Tip O'Neill
not to let a single dime for the Contras come out of the Congress
of the United States. If all your economic and military assis-
tance from the United States, from the CIA and elsewhere, is cut
off, what happens to your movement?
CALERO: Well, you are speculating on something that
hasn't happened. And I would say that I'm pretty sure that we
are going to continue to be supported, as he has been in the
past. The Senate has already voted for the support. The House
has voted against it. In the conference they have agreed...
BUCHANAN: Tell the American people out there...
RAUH: You get 75 percent of your material from the
United States. Time magazine reported that you get 75 percent.
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Actually, it says in Time, also, that you got 8000 in the field,
and without our help you couldn't keep 2000 there.
Just following up Pat's question, if that were to slow
down or stop, aren't you gone?
CALERO: Well, I'll tell you something. I don't think
that this country is going to abandon us. I don't think that
this country is going to leave us inside of Nicaragua with an
empty bag. And if that should happen, if that should come about,
which I don't believe it will come about, there will be thousands
of people killed. Not only our troops, but the civilians who are
aiding our troops. And you can be sure that in no time at all --
300,000 Nicaraguans have left Nicaragua -- half a million will
leave Nicaragua.
RAUH: But isn't it a fact that the CIA started your
operation? It's reported all over that the first 200 Contras
were all on the CIA payroll. Isn't that right?
CALERO: Look, we are not the creation of the CIA, nor
anybody. Nobody can create a patriotic effort of thousands of
men trying and struggling for freedom and democracy.
payroll?
RAUH: Why were the first 200 Contras on the CIA
CALERO: That's -- I mean the fact that reporters speak
about that doesn't mean that it's true.
RAUH: Well, the CIA apparently speaks about it, or
reporters wouldn't have it, Mr. Calero.
BUCHANAN: Tell the American people why you think the
United States should continue to support with weapons, materiel,
ammunition, assistance your organization inside -- which is
fighting inside Nicaragua right now. What is the national
security interst of the United States that's involved here?
CALERO: We're fighting Soviet expansionism. If
Nicaragua should really fall to the communists, Salvador, Costa
Rica, Guatemala, all of Central America will fall to communism,
as it has happened in Eastern Europe that country after country
has fallen to communism. The Soviet Union every 30 years has
expanded itself in territory the size of Alaska since the Duchy
of Muscovy.
RAUH: Let me ask you this. President Reagan says that
the reason we're there helping you is so we can stop supplies
going to El Salvador. But your purpose is to overthrow the
Sandinista government. How can you work together? One wants
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to stop guns to El Salvador and the other one wants to knock off
the Sandinista government.
CALERO: That's what young and old liberals are saying.
But the fact is that we are the containing force in Nicaragua.
We're keeping the Sandinistas at bay in Nicaragua. If it were
not for us, they would not only send material supplies to
Salvador...
RAUH: Are you trying to get rid of the Sandinista
government? Are you trying to overthrow the Sandinista govern-
ment, or not?
CALERO: Listen to what I'm saying.
RAUH: I am listening.
CALERO: If we did not keep the Sandinistas at bay,
there would not only be material supplies to El Salvador, but
there would be also men, Sandinistas, Nicaraguans, fighting in El
Salvadaor...
RAUH: But are you trying to overthrow the Sandinistan
government, or not?
CALERO: We are trying to oblige, to force the Sandinis-
tas to fulfill the commitments they made to freedom and democracy
back in 1979 to the Nicaraguan people, to the Organization of
American States, and to fulfill their own program.
BUCHANAN: How can you win? How can you win? They're
got a hundred thousand troops and militia under arms. They've
got 3000 Cuban military advisers in there. They've got hundreds
of East German and Soviet advisers, technicians. You, yourself,
have said 8000, 10,000 troops. The highest I've ever seen given
for the entire Contra force is 18,000. That gives the Sandinis-
tas at least a five-to-one advantage as of right now, and an
advantage that's building. How can you win?
CALERO: That five-to-one advantage is not enough in the
type of guerrilla [war] we are conducting. And Somoza, in 1979,
in May 27th, 1979, he had 50,000 people cheering him on. And a
month and a half later he...
BUCHANAN: But he never had a hundred thousand troops
under arms.
CALERO: But the Sandinistas never had 17-18 thousand
troops.
BUCHANAN: Against him.
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CALERO: No, never. Never.
BUCHANAN: But again, how do you defeat an army -- look,
what I'm giving you is a historic example. There has never been
a case where a communist regime has installed itself for four
years, police apparat, controlled the military, that that
government, communist regime, has ever been dumped over. It has
never happened. The only case...
RAUH: It was dumped over in Grenada.
BUCHANAN: The only case is Grenada, outside interven-
tion by a superpower.
So, what you're trying to do is something that no
indigenous force, even supplied from the outside, has ever been
able to do.
CALERO: Well, the Persians were stopped in Marathon,
and no one had been able to stop them before. The Arabs were
stopped in tours by Charles Martel in the year 700-and-something.
No one had stopped them before. And we Nicaraguans are going to
stop the communists in Nicaragua.
BUCHANAN: Can you win without a bloodbath, in this
sense? Look...
RAUH: Can you win without American troops?
CALERO: We can win democracy for Nicaragua with our own
troops and material support from the democratic countries in
order to offset the massive flow of arms that...
[Confusion of voices]
BUCHANAN: ...and the Ortega brothers, these are
Castroites. These people are communists. They're not going to
surrender power. Again, there's no communist government that I
know of that has, after a revolution has come in and held free
elections and allowed the voters to throw them out. That has
never occurred. They've always been thrown out -- I mean they
have never -- it's been tried by military force, but it has never
been done.
How, exactly, does this war end?
CALERO: Well, how, exactly, did this war begin? This
war begun because the Sandinistas, rather to give freedom and
democracy to the Nicaraguan people, tried to repress the Nicara-
guan people. That's how it began.
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RAUH: Well, I thought it began by the CIA putting on
their payroll 200 of your people.
CALERO: No. No, sir. Look, no organization, no matter
how great the CIA is, they cannot create patriots. They cannot
create...
BUCHANAN: People don't die for the CIA in Nicaragua.
CALERO: Not Nicaraguans. Maybe Americans do.
RAUH: Would you be able to go on today without the CIA?
CALERO: We would be able to keep on going with the
support of the American government, which has been giving us
support, and which I am sure...
RAUH: The CIA has done everything for you. It was just
revealed today that the CIA blew up that gasoline dump. You guys
didn't do it, the CIA did it for you. It was just revealed this
morning.
CALERO: Well, Commandante Bermudez was on the boat the
attacked Corinto on October 10th of 1983. And we can assure
that, we can attest to that, and we can prove that.
RAUH: But CIA had nothing to do with that, even though
they now concede it.
RAUH: Well, it was in the morning paper that the CIA
RAUH: You don't have any question that the report this
morning was correct, that the CIA was in there to blow up all
that gasoline?
CALERO: Oh, my.
RAUH: Well, on the mining. Isn't it true the CIA did
all the mining?
CALERO: Are 8000 Nicaraguan members of the CIA fighting
patriotically to establish democracy in our country [unintellig-
ible]? And there are 3000 Miskc'$ (?) Indians that have been
kicked out of their natural habitat by the Sandinistas also
fighting for the CIA?
RAUH: You didn't answer my question about the mining,
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though. Didn't the CIA do the mining?
CALERO: The CIA didn't. There was no American citizen
involved in the mining of the Nicaraguan ports.
BUCHANAN: Okay, Joe. We'll take that up when we come
RAUH: Our guest tonight on Crossfire is Adolfo Calero,
the head of the Nicaraguan Democratic Front, a leader of the
Contras, and a very distinguished gentleman in his country.
But what I can't still understand, Mr. Calero, is you're
saying that the CIA had nothing to do with the mining, when the
CIA has admitted it and has said they've stopped it.
CALERO: .I have said that the mines were laid by FDN,
and there was no American citizen involved in the mining, in the
actual, in the direct mining, in conducting those speedboats that
mined the port.
RAUH: What you're saying is the CIA handed the guy a
mine and he put it down? I can't quite understand. When the CIA
admits they've done it, you're saying they didn't.
CALERO: President is the Reagan is the one who requests
the support. So, I mean, we will say that President Reagan laid
the mines. Would that be it?
RAUH: No, no. I said the CIA. I didn't say they laid
the mine, I said they've admitted responsibility.
But let me ask you this question. You said in Honduras
this, and I quote, that the Nicaraguan Democratic Front reserves
the right to start up the mining again.
Now, the CIA has said that they're stopping it. Are you
going ahead without them?
RAUH: I said in Honduras that we assert the right, our
right, to mine Nicaraguan ports to offset the flow of Soviet
weapons into Central America. I repeat it.
BUCHANAN: Are you going to establish a government-
CALERO: Well, that's an option we have open. There've
been the way -- our troops have been conducting themselves -- the
way the civilian population has been reacting and coming over as
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volunteers to our forces, we are not far from the day when we
will be able to impose democratic conditions on the Sandinistas.
BUCHANAN: You've said, look, if you use the Miskito
Indians, you use your forces, you use Commander Zero forces on
the Southeast Coast, I guess, which have taken over a town down
there, what have you got, 15,000 combatants?
CALERO: Yes, we have 15,000, plus more volunteers
coming in every day.
BUCHANAN: Is there any plan to take any provincial
capital and establish yourselves there?
CALERO: Well, we have taken a whole lot of territory.
We have not gone into the cities, except on a few occasions. We
don't want to inflict unnecessary harm on the civilian popula-
tion.
BUCHANAN: Why don't you take -- the Sandinistas have
said, "Look, come on back. There's an amnesty. We'll hold free
elections." Why don't you take them up on it?
CALERO: Well, to begin with, the amnesty was just a
farce. A lot of people...
RAUH: Why was it a farce? Why would an offer of
amnesty be a farce?
CALERO: Well, because we were excluded from the
amnesty. That is why it is a farce.
RAUH: Well, if you put down you're arms you're not
excluded from going back.
CALERO: But, look, we have made four peace initiatives,
four peace offers to the Sandinistas. We have offered to lay
down our arms if they will fulfill the commitments to democracy
that they made.
BUCHANAN: What would it take for you all to lay down
your arms, to come into town and say, "Okay. We're back and we
want to have a democratic" -- what would it take?
CALERO: What it would take? For the Sandinistas to
lift up the state of emergency which cancels out all the civil
and political rights of Nicaraguan citizens. Two, stop the
censorship of the press. Two -- three, I mean, to have freedom
of expression, to have freedom of religion, to separate the state
from the party organization, like they have. I mean it's a
confusion, like in Russia, in the Soviet Union. Party, state,
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army, police are all the Sandinistas, which is equivalent to say
the communists, the Red Army, the Red government.
BUCHANAN: What you're saying is, "Dismantle your
Marxist-Leninist state and have a democracy, and we'll come
home."
CALERO: Right.
BUCHANAN: And they say -- what's wrong with that?
RAUH: Well, you know that the Marxists are not going to
give up being Marxists, any more than anybody else is going to
give up anything.
But let me ask you a question...
CALERO: Communists are not going to give up being
communists.
RAUH: Well, that's right. And neither are facists
going to give up being facists. And that's what we've got in El
Salvador that you're trying to protect.
CALERO: Look, I'm trying to protect democracy. I'm
trying to protect freedom.
RAUH: Well, we can agree on that. The three of us will
all agree on that.
CALERO: I'm fighting for freedom against the Sandinis-
tas, the same way as I opposed the Somoza dictatorship.
RAUH: Well, let me ask you this. You said -- I think
this was in one of your interviews -- that you just are a group
of peasants and workers. You, yourself, own several hotels in
Nicaragua, or did before the Marxists came in. You had the
Coca-Cola franchise. You're a rich man. I think that's all
right. I admire you for it.
CALERO: That's a lie. That's a lie.
RAUH: You don't own several hotels?
CALERO: That's a lie, sir. That's a lie. I was
general manager of the Coca-Cola franchise in Nicaragua. I had a
few shares in the Hotel [unintelligible]. And by a few, I mean
an investment of a few thousand dollars. And I had a few shares
also in a Datsun distributorship, after 30 years of work.
RAUH: So the briefing papers that we were given saying
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that you had these hotels and franchise are all wrong, huh?
CALERO: Well, I'm very sorry. Apparently...
RAUH: You're a poor man, like the peasants and workers.
CALERO: No, I am not a poor man. I should not be a
poor man because I have worked for 30 -- honestly worked for 30
years. And there is no one who can say anything about my
business conduct or my personal conduct.
And that's a lie. That's a lie. And I can prove it is
RAUH: Well, I just say that that's the briefing papers
we were given.
CALERO: Well, I'm very sorry.
RAUH: Let me ask you this. You believe in mining the
harbors. What good does this do the people of Nicaragua to have
ships that are aimed there, not with guns, not with materiel
--after all, the mine can't tell what's on the ship. You blow up
ships, you blow up depots, you blow up radio towers. What good
does that do the people of Nicaragua?
CALERO: Okay, I'll tell you. The mining. A mining
operation is part of any war. And there is a war going on in
Nicaragua, a war involving about 60,000 people, of which 15,000
are fighting the Sandinistas and 45, the rest, is fighting for
the Sandinistas, including about 10,000 Cubans that are in
Nicaragua. Mining, the mining of a port will halt the importa-
tion of more weapons.
RAUH: It halts everything else, doesn't it? It means
that the people don't get food, don't get the other things they
need.
CALERO: No. No, sir. Because 150 miles from Managua
there is a port in Costa Rica where they can unload food, they
can unload medicine. But what they cannot unload if mines are
present is explosives, because nobody in his right mind, captain
in his right mind will come with a ship loaded with explosive
into a place that he knows is mined.
BUCHANAN: Adolfo Calero, thank you very much for coming
on Crossfire.
RAUH: I think it's perfectly clear that the Contras
couldn't get on without the CIA. I don't think we should be
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there. It seems to me that we're getting into another Vietnam,
and I think it's very dangerous.
BUCHANAN: Joe, George Washington was a lot wealthier
than our guest tonight. The American Army had far more support
in French troops and money from the King of France to win our
revolution than he's getting right now. I can't understand why
you liberals don't support freedom down there when it's being
fought for in Nicaragua. Why?
RAUH: I don't believe this can be compared to what we
had for our declaration...
BUCHANAN: Why not? They're fighting for their country.
RAUH: We were fighting for local self-government.
They've got local self-government. You may not like the govern-
ment, but they've got it.
BUCHANAN: It's Marxist-Leninist. That's local self-
government?
RAUH: Well, this is the answer now.
From the left, sitting in for Tom Braden, this is Joe
Good night for Crossfire.
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