CASTRO'S COVERT GAMBLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201040017-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: August 3, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/01: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201040017-8
AI'iCLE
APPEARED
ON PAGE_ C
CORD MEYER
Castro's
covert
gamble
Career professionals in the
State Department and in
the intelligence agencies,
who have no political axes
to grind, are becoming
increasingly concerned that Fidel
Castro is planning to exploit the
foreign-policy differences toward
Central America that divide Demo-
crats and Republicans in this pres-
idential election year.
After the brief flowering last
spring of a bipartisan foreign-
policy consensus in the Kissinger
Commission's report, the Demo-
cratic convention launched a
sweeping attack on President Rea-
gan's alleged militarization of
policy, demanded an end to all sup-
port to the contras fighting in Nica-
ragua and was equivocal about
future military aid to President
Jose Napoleon Duarte's newly
elected government in El Salvador.
Always aware of vulnerabilities
within the American body politic
and quick to take advantage of
them, Castro has moved astutely on
three fronts. Flattering the Demo-
cratic hopes for peaceful diplo-
macy, Castro was conciliatory in his
recent speech on the 31st anniver-
sary of the Cuban revolution and
promised that negotiations could
lead to "reducing tensions in our
area and internationally"
In contrast to this soft talk for
foreign consumption, Castro in his
home-front propaganda has rallied
flagging enthusiasm with calls for
emergency training measures to
deal with the danger of a U.S.
attack. Exercises have been con-
ducted on how to cope with an
American occupying force, and
Cuban army veterans have had to
report on Sundays for special
training, as if invasion were immi-
nent.
WASHINGTON TIMES
3 August 1984
But it is on the third front of clan-
destine political and para-military
action that Castro has moved most
boldly to exploit Democratic oppo-
sition to crucial elements of the
Reagan strategy. Responding to the
growing probability that the Demo-
cratic majority in the House of
Representatives will succeed in
blocking all U.S. aid to the contras
in their fight against the Sandinista
regime, Castro has reacted typi-
cally by increasing his covert inter-
vention in El Salvador.
According to U.S. career
officials, there is hard. convincing
evidence from secret sources that
Castro has personally intervened to
persuade the Marxist leaders of the
Salvadoran guerrillas to launch N
Znalor offensive this September
against President Duarte's new
government before it can consoli.
date itself. The Cuban leader
reportedly has promised to supply
through Nicaragua the additional
logistical support needed for the
Salvadoran guerrillas to regain the
initiative.
The Democratically engineered
defeat of any U.S. aid to the contras
will give Castro two important
advantages. Cut off from American
supply lines, the newly unified
leadership of the 10,000 anti-
Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua will
have difficulty continuing more
than a token action. Relieved of the
necessity of defending their border
regions from heavy rebel attack,
the Sandinista army and its Cuban
advisers will be able to devote full
time and attention to infiltration of
supplies to the Salvadoran guerril-
las.
Reagan officials also fear that,
relieved of most of their defensive
duties, thousands of trained,
Spanish-speaking Sandinista army
regulars can be disguised as Salva-
doran guerrillas and infiltrated into
El Salvador to turn the tide of battle
this fall. As long as they were well-
supplied, the contras served to keep
the Sandinista army tied down
inside Nicaragua.
Another facet of Democratic
opposition to the Reagan adminis-
tration's strategy explains the
urgency of Castro's demand for a
September offensive. Although the
prospects for congressional
approval of substantial economic
and military aid to El Salvador in
fiscal 1985 have improved as the
result of Mr. Duarte's successful
lobbying effort, the House Demo-
cratic majority seems dug in
against the administration's
request for $116 million in emer-
gency military assistance now.
If this aid is denied or sharply
reduced, the Salvadoran army will
face the September guerrilla offen-
sive without the additional helicop-
ters and ground transportation it
has been promised and desperately
needs. All the more reason,
therefore, for Castro to gamble on
this window of vulnerability and to
present the Reagan administration
with a deteriorating security
situation in El Salvador as the date
of the U.S. presidential election
approaches.
Before the Democratic candi-
dates welcome this unfolding 'sce-
nario as helpful to their election
chances. they have to consider a sit-
ting- president's considerable
ability to shape events and domi-
nate the news., 'or example, L'xe-
ident Reagan could well decide to
its exposure o intelligence
sources in order to reveal the
detailed nature of our knowledge of
astro s intentions.
Simultaneously, Mr. Reagan
could call both houses of Congress
into emergency session before the
election to vote up or down on addi-
tional emergency assistance to El
Salvador. Playing into Castro's hand
is no way to win an American elec-
tion.
Cord Meyer is a nationally syndi-
cated columnist.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/01: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201040017-8