UNCLE SAM AS 'DESTABILIZER'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404560016-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: November 5, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404560016-7
BOSTON GLOBE
ARTICLE APPEARED 5 NOVEMBER 1982
ON PAGE
Uncle Sam as `destabilizer~
. An extraordinary cover story in the current that regime. "We are not.waging a secret war,
Newsweek confirms some.of the most sinister, or anything approaching that," declared the'
persistent rumors about..; American actions in senior national security official, in. perverse log
Central America. Drawing on sources In Wash- ic.
ington and.Central America, the Newsweek re- ,;
re .
port exposes a clandestine US terror campaign Today the main elements of the contras a
airhed.at "destabilizing," and ultimately over- exiled followers of the despised Nicaraguan ddic-,.
throwing, the revolutionary Sandinista regime tator, Anastasio Somoza.:Somocista sources in
now-in power in Nicaragua. Honduras spoke freely to Newsweek about their
,`11e operation depicted in Newsweek is run plan. culmi-
nate to launch a campaign that would culmi in the liquidation of the Sandinistas. They
from Honduras. uras. The man who directs it is
America's Ambassador to "Honduras',*' John wereonly waiting, to get the-_word..from. "The.!
Ne onte, whose career includes a stint, as Boss" Ambassador. Negroponte.d' Come the.,;
lip counterrevolution,, there will be znassacrejn
political officer in Saigon during the worst days Nicaragua, promised one of their guerrilla offi-
of to American war effort in Vietnam. Negro- cers "We have a ilot of scores to settle: There
ponte flew in a year 'ago with a hefty staffbf will be "bodies.from the border to Managua."
covert operatives composed of -some 50- CIA
agents as well as American n and Argentine -Candid US officials discuss their preference
"military advisers." for a scenario that has the current sabotage ac-
The ambassador.and..his covert contingent, tions forcing the Sandinistas to retaliate, with
working through the high command. of the an -extreme repressiveness, which in turn' Honduran military, have assembled a guerrilla would serve to mobilize a broad coalition of dis-.
fighting force of some 10,000 Nicaraguan exiles affected sectors of Nicaraguan society. Another i
and about 2000 displaced Miskito Indians who option is to finance a Honduran -invasion of
operate out of 10 different "training camps" jo- Nicaragua. Commander Alvarez, who sits atop =
cated 'on both sides of the Honduras-Nicaragua the pyramid -of military power in Honduras,
border. This anti-Sandinista guerrilla army has been complaining that Ambassador Negro-
has'been paid, armed, trained and directed by ponte has been prodding him toward just such
the United States, an unacknowledged projec- a "crazy" adventure. The Godfather of the Hon-
tioti`of American power and American policy: duran army does not want his charges to die in
~Fo maintain the figleaf of "deniability, '' Am- a futile endeavor, and he does not want to en-
danger the cozy system of institutionalized
bassador Negroponte issues his orders to the
graft
counterrevolutionary band - known as la con-
tra:---through an intermediary, Gen. Gustavo The American officials who blew the' whistle
Aldofo Alvarez, the strongman who is com- on America's dirty covert war in Central Amer-
mand'er of the armed forces in Honduras. When ica for the most part were acting to stop a poll
they' are unleashed inside Nicaragua, the am- cy they feel cannot work. They went public for
basal or's saboteurs are sent on missions to pragmatic motives. The American people owe'
blow".up bridges, demolish construction sites these officials, and Newsweek, a certain grati-
and ambush army patrols. tude.
rrom the beginning, Administration offi Now that.a sovereign people knows what is
cials"have called the. covert war; against Man- 'being done in.its name; it is entitled to go be-
aqua an attempt to interdict the transport of yond pragmatism and to ask -whether such.
arms supplies from Nicaragua to leftist guerril- things are tolerable politically and morally.
las~,ipZl Salvador. Even after the Newsweek ex- Does America have the political right to Impose
pose-appeared, a "senior national secimity?offi- a. succession of military dictatorships" and
cial;~'-while admitting that the CIA had armed gangster governments on the sovereign peoples
and -trained a paramilitary band-of Nicaraguan of Central America? Do Americans want the
exiles and was providing financial support for moral responsibility for another bloodbath like
political opponents of the Sandinista regime, those of Chile in 1973, Brazil in 1964, or Guate-
insj5.ted that there was no intention to topple mala in 1954?
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404560016-7