DEBATE HAS AN APOCALYPTIC TONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302490053-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: March 20, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

WASHINGTON POST
20 March 10?36
Debate Has an Apocalyptic Tone
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302490053-7
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
It may have been through gritted
teeth at times, but House members
managed to call each other "gentle-
men" yesterday as they shouted fa-
miliar arguments about Central
America while the gavel banged of-
ten in a freewheeling debate on aid
to Nicaraguan rebels.
"I don't expect this debate is go-
ing to change a single vote. I feel
like Simon Bolivar plowing in the
sea," Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.)
said, referring to the 19th-century
Latin American liberator who said,
"Who seeks to govern Latin Amer-
ica plows the sea."
Nevertheless, Hyde was among
the most fiery prophets of disaster
if Congress rejects President Rea-
gan's request for $100 million in aid
to the counterrevolutionaries,
known as contras.
If the measure is defeated in to-
day's vote, he said, wagging a fin-
ger Toward the Democratic side of
the aisle, "history is going to assign
to you folks the role of pallbearers
to democracy in Central America.
And that's not McCarthyism, that's
accountability."
Part of the gallery applauded, just
as others there had applauded ear-
lier when Rep. Ronald V. Dellums
(D-Calif.) said he had "been red-
baited, intimidated, harassed and
harangued" for his opposition to the
aid program. "We are not at war
with the Nicaraguans," he said. "We
have a better idea-democratic de-
bate and the rule of law."
The chairman of the House Per-
manent Select Committee on n e -
linence, Lee H. Hamilton (0-Ina.),
spoke for many critics w e he said
that, having spent million in
U.S. aid since 1982, the con ras
have given the Nicaraguan govern-
ment an excuse to increase repres-
sion even as the rebels hold no ter-
ritory in Nicaragua an ave no
public suoDort ~TWnere In-Latin
America.
"These policies have not worked,
and [Reagan] is asking us to expand
that policy," Hamilton said.
One Republican critic, Rep.
Stewart B. McKinney (Conn.), said,
"We, are, by our actions, by our
statements, by our movements,
making more communists in Cen-
tral America and Latin America
than is possible for [Nicaraguan
President Daniel] Ortega to make."
Several Democrats argued that
the $100 million could be better
spent at home. "I can't go back to
my district and tell people who can't
get safe and sanitary and dtcent
housing that we can't do that for
you because we're sending $100
million to the contras," said Rep.
Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.).
House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip)
O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) earlier called
the decision ? "a Tonkin Gulf vote"
that could lead to U.S. troops in
Central America just as President
Lyndon B. Johnson used the 1964
Tonkin Gulf resolution to send
troops to Vietnam.
"I see this leading to war,"
O'Neill said. "I see a quagmire down
there."
Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.)
agreed, saying, "The United States
of America, with our great tradi-
tion, should not be in the business
of funding a grinding, low-level,
dirty little war under conditions
which at best we can play to a tie."
Aid supporters focused on abuses
by Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista
rulers and on their ties to the Soviet
Union and Cuba.
Rep. Don Ritter (R-Pa.) started
one heated exchange when he com-
plained that Democrats "haven't
said a single word about the Soviet
threat." He asked Rep. James L.
Oberstar (D-Minn.), "Is the gentle-
man concerned about Soviet and
Cuban infiltration?"
Oberstar responded, "Why
doesn't the gentleman ask to go to
the source in Cuba and the Soviet
Union?"
"Does the gentleman propose
making war on Cuba and the Soviet
Union?" Ritter shouted as the gavel
pounded.
"That's what the gentleman is
asking for," Oberstar shouted back.
Earlier, House Minority Leader
Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) rejected
the 'argument that more aid means
eventual U.S. troop involvement.
"Let's put that notion to rest," he
said.
Republicans argued that, on the
contrary, sending more aid will pre-
vent U.S. troop involvement later.
Nicaragua is educating its young in
revolution, said Rep. Danny L. Bur-
ton (R-Ind.). "Our children will have
to face it five or 10 years down the
road. They will have to fight an
army of zealots," he said.
Rep. Elwood Hillis (R-Ind.) was
one of many members who have
had no previous visibility in the na-
tional debate but offered detailed
arguments.
It's no secret that the Ni-
caraguan communists have invited a
substantial number of subversive
groups to use that country as a base
for their future operations," he said,
naming East Germany, Bulgaria and
Libya as well as Cuba and the So-
viet Union.
The debate had its poetic mo-
ments. Rep. George W. song
quoted part of a popular from the 1940s. "Managua, Nica-
ragua, is a wonderful spot-for ter-
rorists and Soviet bases," he said.
Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Calif.)
displayed sheaves of reports, most-
ly from the administration, defend-
ing the aid program. "I'll become an
adjunct of the Government Printing
Office" to get them out, he said.
"Read it and weep, and vote with
the president tomorrow," he added.
In a reference to recurring re-
ports of pending compromise pro-
posals, Rep. William B. Richardson
(D-N.M.) urged that the House de-
mand legislative language for any
agreement rather than accept a let-
ter or an executive order.
He said he erred last year in
hacking Reagan's request for $27
million in aid on the strength of a
letter of promises that have not
been kept. "Beware of letters that
don't mean anything," he said.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302490053-7