FOR COVERT ACTION . . .

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505290022-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: July 19, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505290022-8
ARTICLE ARPL .RED NEV, YORK TIMES
C, _N PAa 4- . / 19 July 1983
For Covert Action. ~.
By Don Ritter
WASHINGTON - The House of
Representatives will soon be consider-
ing a bill amending the Intelligence
Authorization Act for fiscal year 1983
that would cut off funds for any covert
or overt United States support for the
contras, or couterrevolutionaries,
fighting against the Sandinista regime
in Nicaragua. This vote will be one of
the most important in this Congress,
and if it goes the wrong way it could Is-
gitimize the "Brezhnev- Doctrine"
here in our hemisphere.
The Soviet policy now commonly
known as the Brezhnev Doctrine
means that the Soviet Union is pre-
pared to do whatever is necessary to
keep its sister socialist states from
leaving the family. On its own bor.
ders, whether it's Hungary, Czecho-
slovakia, Poland or Afghanistan, the
Soviet Union holds most of the cards.
But enforcing the Brezhnev Doctrine
in Africa or Latin America presents
them with other problems. .
On this side of the world, in the
U.S. help vital to
Nicaraguan contras
Western Hemisphere, the United
States has the home-court advantage.
One would think the Monroe Doctrine
- outlined by President James Mon-
roe in a speech to Congress on Dec. 2,
1823 - would hold sway. The United
States, according to the Monroe Doc-
trine, would prevent the big auto-
cratic European powers of the time -
including, ironically, Russia - from
imposing their tyranny on the newly
independent and still weak Latin
American countries.
The Monroe Doctrine served as the
cornerstone of United States relations
with powerful European adversaries
in Latin America for nearly a century
and a half. But today the Soviet Union,
by its actions in Cuba and through
Cuba in Central and South America, is
challenging our historic guarantee to
protect Western Hemisphere nations
against European interference "for
the purpose of oppressing them or con-
trolling in any other manner their des-
tiny."
If the essence of the Brezhnev Doc-
trine is to prohibit nations in the
Soviet sphere of influence from escap-
ing superpower domination, the es-
sence of the Monroe Doctrine is to pre-
vent superpowers from subjugating
less powerful countries. The differ-
ences between the two doctrines are
central to the way we as a nation ap-
proach the most critical part of Cen-
tral America today, Nicaragua.
Recent decisions by two Democrat.
iccontroiled House committees, the
House Select Committee on inteW-
gence and the Foreign Affairs Com-
mittee, endorsed legislative language
known as the Boland-Zablocki bill.
This has remarkable implications.
Boland-Zablocki, in essence, sup.
ports the Brezhnev Doctrine and re-
futes the Monroe Doctrine, turning
history upside down in our own back-
yard. Boland-Zablocki, by cutting off
all our support, covert or overt, to
those fighting the Cuban-Soviet sister
regime in Nicaragua, makes the
United States the enforcer of the
Brezhnev Doctrine. We, not the Soviet
Union, would serve as the ultimate
constraint an those fighting for
greater freedom for Nicaragua.
"Socialist" Nicaragua is the arms
depot, the nerve center, the training
ground for the Soviet-Cuban backed
"revolutialL-without frontiers," to
quote Sandinista leadership itself.
Yet, if Boland-Zablocki becomes law,
it is the Americans who will prevent
Nicaragua from reverting from Sovi-
et-style socialism, the Americans who
will be pulling the rug from under
those we have supported. If Boland-
Zablocki becomes law, we Americans
will be the chief carriers of Brezh-
nev's legacy in the Western Hemi-
sphere as his heirs move closer and
closer to East-Europeanizing our
southern border. While Americans of
another era could take pride in mak-
ing the world safe for democracy, a
newer breed could claim credit for
making the new world safe for Com-
munism.
To those who seek to undercut Nica-
raguan opposition to the Marxist
Nicaraguan regime, the resolute com-
mitment to freedom and our hemi-
spheric interests embodied in the
Monroe Doctrine are obsolete. Well, a
fair number of House members just
don't believe that for a moment, so the
battle over Boland-Zablocid in the full
House is going to be very different
than it was in committee. Party lines,
Don Ritter, a Republican Representa- strong during the contest in commit-
tive from Pennsylvania, speaks Span- tee, will blur on the floor. I predict
ish and Russian and has traveled there are just not enough Democrats
widely in Latin America and lived for In the House who will vote for Leonid
a year in the Soviet Union. Brezhnev over James Monroe.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505290022-8