HAIG CLAIMS PROOF OUTSIDERS DIRECT SALVADOR REBELS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000202230092-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 92
• Publication Date: March 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202230092-3
NEW YORK TIMES
3 MARCH 1982
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
cAlthough selling Hawk mobile art-
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1- R0011 tiaircraft missiles to Jordan could poi-
.
1 id ? I. i from becoming buyers of Soviet arms.
to keep such moderate Arab countries I
01,71DTIS DNECT
; He did not say whether he favored such
! sales to Jordan.' ?
SALVAD OR ,thPZDLiQ ilotiegh thnleeshPealantintgowlnat:siiprvenesed
tol
concentrate on East-West relations,
al-itch of the questioning was about the
Caribbean region.
Mr. Haig said that preventing Com- ,
munistdomInation of the Caribbean and
Central American region was "In the
vital interest" of the-United States, but
he tried to reduce apprehension that th
AdministratiOn was planning any direc
military move. ,
- When Representative Stephen J. S
larz, Democrat of Brooklyn, asked if h
meant ,that he favored -using milita
orce to prevent armed Communist
takeovers, he replied: "No, not at all. I
don't know of any official of the execu-
.
tive branch who has suggested for a mu.
ra ent that consideration was being Tim
for the direct involvement of American
forces in Salvador."
In answer to a question from Repre.
sentative Lee H. Hamilton, Democrat of
Indiana, Mx. Haig said the United States
had "overwhelming and irrefutable"
evidence that the insurgents in El Salvo-
dorwere controlled exal directed by DO
.Salvadorans vitside the country., .
He declined toprovide detallaahew-
ever. saying it would jeopaatit
'price sources. Later, howevie, Senator
Barry C-oldvrater, . Republic-an of.
zona chairman of the Intelligence Com-
rnitteei said that on Feb. 25 William J.
Casey, Director of Central Intelligence,
and others briefed his comrnittee and
"left no doubt that there is active in-
volvernent by Sandinista Government
officials in support of the Salvadoran
gamine movement:" r-
"This suppon,'the said, "includes ar-
rangements for the use of Nicaraguan
territory for the movement of arms and
munitions to guerrillas in .EI Salvador.
the continuing passage of guerrillas in
and out of Nicaragua for advanced
training in sabotage and other terrorist
tactics and the presence, of high-leve1.
guerrilla headquarters elements in
Nicaragua.
' Mr. Casey, in this week's issue of U.S:
!News 84 World Report, is reported to
have said that the insurgents were being
directed from Nicaragua with the help
of Cuba, Vietnam, the Palestine Libera!
tion Organ1s:4ton and. the Soviet Union.
The magazine quoted Mr. Casey as
saying that "thiswhole El Salvador in-
surgency is run out of Managua by pro-
fessionals .exped
itexp
.guerrilla wars.' . d.? ?
.Mr.. Haig-went to some 'lengths to
lrebut the argument that El Salvador.
I would become"another Vietnani." .
4nest there are stream 'parallels between
? ..1 thin has been done to sug-
k mUch
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000202230092-3
PREDICTS PUBLIC SUPPORT
Evidence of Foreign Control Is
'Overwhelming, Irrefutable,'
He Tells House Group
By BERNARD GSVERTZMAN
Special to Tbe.1Crw'York Ilmos
WASHINGTON, March 2?Secretary
of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said
today that the United States had "over-
whelming and irrefutable" evidence
? that the insurgents in El Salvador were
controlled from outside that country by
non-Salvadorans. -
? Testifying before the House Foreign
. Affairs Committee, Mr. Haig sought to
' rebut the contention of the Salvadoran
guerrillas that their insurgency was an
? autonomous Salvadoran effort without
- external assistance but he did not
specify who the noraSalvadorans were.
? Mr. Haig, in a vigorous def enseof the
Administration's approach to the Cen-
tral American and Caribbean regions
and in the face of some skeptical and
hostile questioning, also predicted that
Americans would support the ,Adrairds-
traton's policies so long as they were
convinced "that we are going to succeed
and not flounder as we did in Vietnam."
Comments on Poland .
On other matters, Mr. Haig made
these points: ae
Tile Administration will be ready in
a few weeks to open negotiations with
the Soviet Union on strategic arms re-
duction but will do so only when the "cli-
mate, the conditions" for such talks ex-
isted, by which he meant after the situa-
tion in Poland improved.
? inhe United States will not .do busi-
ness as usual with either Poland or the.
Soviet Union "while repression in Po-
land continues," and further sanctions
will be undertaken if the Polish situation
did not improve: .
dor and to Vietnam some years ago,"
Mr. Haig said. "I think this is a terrible
distortion of reality and one which over-
looka a number of fundamental differ-
ences." .
Ile said that "first and forernest" was
the "strategic Importance" of Central
America to the United States because of
its prominence in American trade and
the fact that half of American oil moves
through the Caribbean and the Panama
Canal. In time of trouble in Europe, the
area would be crucial, he suggested, to
shipping supplies overseas.;
"So this is a vitally iraportant region
and it is a region today that Is plagued
by two extremely urgent dangers," he
said. "One is social-economic resulting
from the inflated CCSt of 'mere& to those
governments, sometimes twentyfold,
and the simultaneous decline in the
remuneraticn for their one- or two-prod?
uct etoixnades. - '
- "Secondly," he said, "it is the willing-
ness of the Soviet Union and Cuba to
manipulate these human tragedies in
the Interest of spreading totalitarian
Mr. Haig said that the trouble during
the Vietnam era was that the Govern-
ment neverdecided if that region was or.
Was not vital to American interests. If it
;had decided it was, he said, "I believe
.theyartuld have taken actions cerain en-
suratewiththat judgment"
"If they had concluded negatively,
than we would never have become in-
volved in the first instance," he said. -
"Now let me tell you I come down on
the side of,- in such. an assessment Ln
. Central America, that the outcome_ tif
I thedituation there is inthe vital interest -
forthe American people and must be so
'dealt with,"Mr. Haig said.
"Now it is an area of vital intert to*
athe American people and, as r said re-
!cently, I know the American people will
'support what is prudent and' necessary,.
'providing they think we mean what we
.mean and that we are going to succeed'
and not flounder as we did in Vietnam,"
he said. .
Mandst-Leninist ideology." a: