FIGHTING FOR THE THIRD WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404580010-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: October 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404580010-1
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE 11I,
Perspective
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
5 October 1983
A forum-ideas, analysis, opinion
Fighting, for the Third World
By Richard Nixon Rea I Peace
More than three billion people live in the develop- This is the fourth excerpt
ing nations of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East , Richard Nixon's new book,
and d Asia, the vast majority of them in abject for the West."
poverty. Their average per capita income is $600 a 9Y
'
year; compared with. $10,000 in the United States.
'Their societies are starkly divided between the very--
rich and the very poor. Their governments are
seldom democratic and often corrupt.
Revolutionary change in the Third World is inevi-
. table. The question is whether change will come by
-peaceful means or by violence, whether it will
destroy or build, whether it will leave totalitarianism
or freedom in its wake.
Although the Soviet Union is the source of many of
the conflicts in the Third World and profits from
most of them, it is not the only cause. Still, in
virtually every region-the Middle East, Persian
Gulf, Southeast Asia, the Asian subcontinent, Latin
America-the Soviets are involved in doing what they
do best: making bad situations worse.
Since the West is moved to outrage in matters of
sharp black and white, the Soviets have learned to do
much of their dirty work in gray areas. Their recent
victories-in Yemen, Ethiopia, Angola and Nicara-
gua-have been sleig~hlrt-of-hand, back-door operations
in which their involvement was hidden behind local
forces or proxies.
Aggression by proxy is a low-cost and low-risk
enterprise that can be carried out on a vast scale. An
indication of the success of this tactic is that nine
countries and 100 million people have come under
Soviet domination since 1974.
We should be just as aggressive
-in promoting American ideals and
in assisting our friends in the Third
World as the Soviets are in
promoting and assisting theirs. At
? a time when the Soviet Union's
entire strategy is based on using
.covert rather than overt tactics, for
instance, it would be the height of
.stupidity for the United States to
castrate the CIA.
in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas
would have been hard-pressed to
take power without the backing of
-the Soviets and Cubans. And al-
though there would have been a
? err ilia insurrection in El Salva-,
- dor without .outside support, the
guerrillas could not survive without
the weapons they receive through
Nicaragua, again from the Cubans
and the Soviet bloc.
from former President
"Real Peace: A Strate-
f
Eventuall Wit roads and supply
lines lead back to Moscow. Ship-
ments from the Soviet bloc have
been intercepted en route to Cen
. tral America. Crates marked
"medical supplies" have been
found to contain arms. Here in a
nutshell is the essence of the Soviet policy in the
Third World: the weapons of war wrapped in the
empty promise of peace; the promise of soothing
misery, the reality of exacerbating it.
The Soviet challenge is total. Our response must be
total. We must provide military and political support
to governments threatened by Soviet-supported revo-
lutionary forces.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404580010-1