EX-REBEL LEADER ALLEGES CIA VOW TO AID OVERTHROW IN MANAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100026-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: November 27, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100026-1
STAT
~~,1 +r WASHINGTON POST
27 November 1984
I Ex-Rebel Lea der Alleges GATbitoAitI
Overthrow in Managua
By Edward Cody and-~ that existed between the CIA and "An adrmunistration source . ex-~
the rebels committed to
Dicke
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th
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over
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ww:aeo. r~ faap~ s ,mg the Managua government.
? , MIAMI, Nov. 26-Late in 1982,!
-as Edgar Chamorro recalls it, an
thoritative sounding CIA official told
?hiin the Reagan administration had
decided to help Nicaraguan exiles
overthrow the Sandinista govern-
ment. -
? "1 remember hq said he was speak-
ing on behalf of the president of the
United States, who was very inter-
ested in getting rid of the Sandinis-
tas," Chamorro said in a review of his
two years as a top leader of the U.S.
backed Nicaraguan insurgency.
The official, who introduced him-
self as "Tony, " had flown down from
Washington to hold the meeting with
-Chamorro and similar sessions with
other prospective rebel chiefs in a!
hotel suite overlooking Biscayne
Bay, Chamorro said, and he was tell-
ing the determined exiles exactly
what they wanted to hear about U.S.
policy toward their homeland.
Channorro's recollections of
pledges of support for overthrowing
the Nicarguan government are con-
tested by some of his colleagues but
:corroborated by others. Still others
avoided the issue.
The version given by Chamorro,!
after he was dismissed last week
from the rebel movement's top!
leadership, constitutes one man's
version of an exercise in ambiguity:
U.S. policy in support of anti-San-
dinista rebels. Over the past two
years, according to congressional
testimony, administration officials
and rebel leaders, the policy has.
been like a mirrored ball: radiating
definitions and goals that are
shaped by and for the angle of the
participants.
1 can imagine they, would tell;.
them what they thought was nec-
essary to get them mobilized, an I
administration official said of the
CIA briefings to the rebels, which!.
he said explained U.S. objectives
and the "distinctions of motivations"
Congress soon will have to try
again to decide what U.S. objectives
should be and whether they merit
renewal of the U.S. funding cut off
fast spring. Those involve expect;
the Reagan administration, armed!
with its triumph at the polls, to
make a concerted effort to keep the
ti-Sandinista rebellion going by
reviving CIA financing.
Congress refused new funding in
February. The rebels have said the
CIA pipeline ran dry in June but has
.been refueled by almost $3 million
:raised elsewhere.
' Congress and the American pub-
lic were given a variety of explana
tions for the covert war as circum-i
!'stances changed, but`they were
ever told what Chamorro says he
.vas told-that the aim of the op-
eration all along had been to topple
the Sandinistas by force.
? When the administration origi-
nally went to Congress for funds in
December 1981, the policy was de-
'scrsbed as a campaign to interdict
arms supplies from the Sandinista
government to Salvadoran guerril-
las, according to a report in May
1983 from the House Permanent;
Select Committee on Intelligence.
But "interdict" had a wider mean-I
jng than simply seizing arms ship-
ments, the report said. The idea
also was to show the Sandinistas
Shat their attempts to promote sub-'
xersion in El Salvador would be met
by'subversion at home.
'The end purpose of this support
'has been stated to be the interdic-
tion of arms flowing through Nic-
aragua into El Salvador," the deport:
Said in a review of the program'sI
3istory. It has also been explained;
4$ an attempt to force the. Sandinis-
'tas to turn away from support of; the l
Salvadoran insurgency. i
plained that Congress was given a
4escription of the interdiction cam-
.sign in both its meanings from the
start of CIA support for the rebels.,
f ` "From the beginning, we had'
seen it (the insurgency) as a coun-I
terpoint for Nicaragua's actions, to
snake them cease and desist," an ad-I
~nuustration source explained. He!
added, It would have defied logic;
pr anyone to think that the sole
purpose of an anti-Sandinista pro-
.gram was to intercept arms tray
sting down a trail."
But the report said the adminis-
sration also supplied a third level of
meaning to Congress. In this defin-
tion, the insurgents would not only
prevent something-arms ship-
ments-they also would produce
'something-increased willingness
within Nicaragua to meet U.S. de-
jnands for regional talks and democ-
zatization. "Later, other goals-
bringing the Sandinistas to the bar-
~aining table and forcing the sched-'
~hling of promised elections'-were
;added as ends to be achieved," the
report said.
But one definition the program'
was not supposed to have was over-
throwing the . Nicaraguan govern-
ment. The then secret fiscal 1983
intelligence authorization budget
bill contained a congressional re-
striction in its classified annex bar-
ring use of the money "to over-
throw the government of Nicaragua
or provoke a military exchange be-
tween Nicaragua and Honduras."'
The prohibition, fast attached when
the authorization was vdted in se-
cret in April 1982, became public as .
the Boland amendment in Decem-
ber that year. According to Cha-'
morro, it was about six months af-
ter the secret prohibition, and just
before the amendment of Rep Ed-
..y
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201100026-1