THE ADMINISTRATION KNOWS ABOUT NICARAGUA-BUT ISN'T TELLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620048-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 13, 2010
• Sequence Number: 48
• Publication Date: March 31, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620048-2
STAT
WASHINGTON POST
31 MARCH 1983
The Administration Kiio
Nicaragua
but Isn't
e~lr~g
Since the fighting Began-=and aloe scdpe
Nobody is absolutely sure what. is going like everything else, is in doubt-all tpueriea like the flowering of the plot, the admin-
on at the Nicaragua-Honduras border, ex- istration says. that' our purpose-as not to
have been shrugged off. Secrets Hof State.
200 "verthrow the Sandinistas hut. merely to
cept gents possibly the CIA, which is said to have George P. Shultz put his brick it%t6t' tone-
200 agents there. On your nightly news you wall when he airily told a c(ingre itinal' give them a hard time. Their real rationale,
can see wounded peasants-some are dead. committee that it was a secret ;n tter:.for " t course, is that if Nicarxi iia .tends arms
a to the rebeLs in'El Salvador, it must expect
But don't expect to find out from anybody the Intelligence committees. to -et some back.
in this government if the United States is The administration's messagey'to ixitin I~;rklkitrick is ever ready to air her well-
involved. America is quite stark; even brutaL{;a left,
It's no wonder the Reagan administra- and we'll get you. 11emember Chile known view that any right-wing dictator-
Besides, if the padmits t#tat we ship is preferable to the left-wing kind.
tion,.Beginning with the president, thinks president Most recently, she told the American
"nu comment" will suffice about events are subsidizing the raids,'he could -admit to
breaking the law. The so-called- Boland Legion that the only-difference that -counts
which, to the rest of the world, lossault pi- Amendment,. passed last December, forbids between the Somocistas and the Sandinis-
the , by whom the Somocistas were over-
Sandinista likes U.S.-backed armed assault on ! tas, to supply military training, or advice
the Sandinista government. tis that Somoza was friendly to the
They've gotten away with so much so " ? ? of support for the "purpose of over- thrown,
United States while the Sandinistas' .na-
throwing the government of Nicaragua."
'-far, they would be silly to be self-con- tional anthem has a line calling the United
scions now. After all, no Americans are dy- But the only member of the administr:' States "the enemies of mankind." The pos-
ing. .ion-to be challenged directly on the point, sibility that 40 years' of American support.
-UN. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick ?ight have guided the lyricists,is left out of
Fifteen months ago, when The Washing-
-appearing on the "McNeil-Lehrer Repithe e(uation.
tun Post published an article about a $19 -.gild Rep. Michael i). Barnes (D-Md.), one 13ut at a meeting of the National Secu=
million covert campaign to destabilize the .,of few congressmen still in town during the r;ty histitute for Women at fort McNair,
Marxist regime in Nicaragua, the admin= .Faster recess and the only one so far to Kirkpatrick limited- herself' toto -a -disembo-
istration did not trouble to deny it. It was Bject,.zliat "absolutely that no law is being weling remark .about the U.N.'
,not then the taxpayers' business to know if, - ' ..,,
providing arms, 'training and lo- -broken." In her most withering manner, she Council . debate-during which - several
they were p-trai reproached him for' even suggesting it. ' friendly nations voiced skepticism that the
were
gistical support to anti-Sandinista rebels.,.',",-,-. Like a lot of people, however, Barnes is military actions now taking place
Nor is it now that what is officially called .t not convinced. If we are not, breaking do-. spontaneous:7 She likened .'-it to ?.gang
"a spontaneous uprising" seems to- be in Mestic law, he says, we are violating the ra}> !hich may .have jarred some mem-
progress. Orgiinizatiim of American States treaty, hers of her audience, but probably nobody
Reagan's only deference to possibly ad= which forbids the subversion of any govern- at the White.House, where they like strong
verse public opinion about sponsoring more meat in the area, for "whatever reason. stuff. ..
bloodshed in an area that has more than its When it bothers to explain what looks
share was the postponement, during his
December visit to Latin America, of joint
Honduran-U.S. military maneuvers along
the Nicaraguan border. The exercises were
held last month.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/13: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100620048-2