ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505380041-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 41
• Publication Date: March 16, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 16, 1986
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE NATION
THE PRESIDENT: My fellow Americans, I must speak to you
tonight about a mounting danger in Central America that threatens the
security of the United States. This danger will not go away; it will
grow worse, much worse, if we fail to take action now. I am speaking
of Nicaragua, a Soviet ally on the American mainland only two hours
flying time from our own borders. With over a billion dollars in
Soviet-bloc aid, the communist government of Nicaragua has launched a
campaign to subvert and topple its democratic neighbors.
Using Nicaragua as a base, the Soviets and Cubans can
become the dominant power in the crucial corridor between North and
South America. Established there, they will be in a position to
threaten the Panama Canal, interdict our vital Caribbean sea lanes,
and, ultimately, move against Mexico. Should that happen, desperate
Latin peoples by the millions would begin fleeing north into the
cities of the southern United States, or to wherever some hope of
freedom remained.
The United States Congress has before it a proposal to
help stop this threat. The legislation is an aid package of $100
million for the more than 20,000 freedom fighters struggling to bring
democracy to their country and eliminate this communist menace at its
source. But this $100 million is not an additional $100 million. We
are not asking for a single dime in new money. We are asking only to
be permitted to switch a small part of our present defense budget --
to the defense of our own southern frontier.
Gathered in Nicaragua already are thousands of Cuban
military advisers, contingents of Soviets and East Germans and all
the elements of international terror -- from the PLO to Italy's Red
Brigades. Why are they there? Because, as Colonel Qaddafi has
publicly exulted: "Nicaragua means a great thing, it means fighting
America near its borders -- fighting America at its doorstep."
For our own security the United States must deny the
Soviet Union a beachhead in North America. But let me make one thing
plain. I am not talking about American troops. They are not needed;
they have not been requested. The democratic resistance fighting in
Nicaragua is only asking America for the supplies and support to save
their own country from communism.
The question the Congress of the United States will now
answer is a simple one: will we give the Nicaraguan democratic
resistance the means to recapture their betrayed revolution, or will
we turn our backs and ignore the malignancy in Managua until it
spreads and becomes a mortal threat to the entire New World?
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Will we permit the Soviet Union to put a second Cuba, a
second Libya, right on the doorstep of the United States?
How can such a small country pose such a great threat?
Well, it is not Nicaragua alone that threatens us, but those using
Nicaragua as a privileged sanctuary for their struggle against the
United States.
Their first target is Nicaragua's neighbors. With an
army and militia of 120,000 men, backed by more than 3,000 Cuban
military advisers, Nicaragua's armed forces are the largest Central
America has ever seen. The Nicaraguan military machine is more
powerful than all its neighbors combined.
This map represents much of the Western hemisphere. Now
let me show you the countries in Central America where weapons
supplied by Nicaraguan communists have been found: Honduras, Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala. Radicals from Panama to the south have
been trained in Nicaragua. But the Sandinista revolutionary reach
extends well beyond their immediate neighbors. In South America and
the Caribbean, the Nicaraguan communists have provided support in the
form of military training, safe haven, communications, false
documents, safe transit and sometimes weapons to radicals from the
following countries: Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Argentina,
Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic. Even that is not all, for there
was an old communist slogan that the Sandinistas have made clear they
honor: The road to victory goes through Mexico.
If maps, statistics and facts aren't persuasive enough,
we have the words of the Sandinistas and Soviets themselves. One of
the highest-level Sandinista leaders was asked by an American
magazine whether their communist revolution will -- and I quote --
"be exported to El Salvador, then Guatemala, then Honduras, and then
Mexico?" He responded, "That is one historical prophecy of Ronald
Reagan that is absolutely true."
Well, the Soviets have been no less candid. A few years
ago, then Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko noted that Central America
was, quote, "boiling like a cauldron" and ripe for revolution. In a
Moscow meeting in 1983, Soviet Chief of Staff, Marshal Ogarkov,
declared: "Over two decades -- there are Nicaragua" -- I should say,
"there was only Cuba in Latin America. Today there are Nicaragua,
Grenada, and a serious battle is going on in El Salvador."
But we don't need their quotes; the American forces who
liberated Grenada captured thousands of documents that demonstrated
Soviet intent to bring communist revolution home to the Western
hemisphere.
So, we're clear on the intentions of the Sandinistas and
those who back them. Let us be equally clear about the nature of
their regime. To begin with, the Sandinistas have revoked the civil
liberties of the Nicaraguan people, depriving them of any legal right
to speak, to publish, to assemble or to worship freely. Independent
newspapers have been shut down. There is no longer any independent
labor movement in Nicaragua nor any right to strike. As AFL-CIO
leader Lane Kirkland has said, "Nicaragua's headlong rush into the
totalitarian camp cannot be denied but -- by anyone who has eyes to
see."
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Well, like communist governments everywhere, the
Sandinistas have launched assaults against ethnic and religious
groups. The capital's only synagogue was desecrated and firebombed
-- the entire Jewish community forced to flee Nicaragua. Protestant
Bible meetings have been broken up by raids, by mob violence, by
machine guns. The Catholic Church has been singled out -- priests
have been expelled from the country, Catholics beaten in the streets
after attending Mass. The Catholic primate of Nicaragua, Cardinal
Obando y Bravo, has put the matter forthrightly. "We want to state
clearly," he says, "that this government is totalitarian. We are
dealing with an enemy of the Church."
Evangelical pastor Prudencio Baltodano found out he was
on a Sandinista hit list when an army patrol asked his name: "You
don't know what we do to the evangelical pastors. We don't believe
in God," they told him. Pastor Baltodano was tied to a tree, struck
in the forehead with a rifle butt', stabbed in the neck with a bayonet
-- finally his ears were cut off, and he was left for dead. "See if
your God will save you," they mocked. Well, God did have other plans
for Pastor Baltodano. He lived to tell the world his story -- to
tell it, among other places, right here in the White House.
I could go on about this nightmare -- the black lists,
the secret prisons, the Sandinista-directed mob violence. But, as if
all this brutality at home were not enough, the Sandinistas are
transforming their nation into a safe house, a command post for
international terror.
The Sandinistas not only sponsor terror in El Salvador,
Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras -- terror that led last summer to
the murder of four U.S. IM iarines in a cafe in San Salvador -- they
provide a sanctuary for terror. Italy has charged Nicaragua with
harboring their worst terrorists, the Red Brigades.
The Sandinistas have even involved themselves in the
international drug trade. I know every American parent concerned
about the drug problem will be outraged to learn that top Nicaraguan
government officials are deeply involved in drug trafficking. This
picture, secretly taken at a military airfield outside Managua, shows
Federico Vaughn, a top aide to one of the nine Commandantes who rule
Nicaragua, loading an aircraft with illegal narcotics, bound for the
United States.
No, there seems to be no crime to which the Sandinistas
will not stoop -- this is an outlaw regime.
If we return for a moment to our map, it becomes clear
why having this regime in Central America imperils our vital security
interests.
Through this crucial part of the Western Hemisphere
passes almost half our foreign trade, more than half our imports of
crude oil, and a significant portion of the military supplies we
would have to send to the NATO Alliance in the event of a crisis.
These are the choke points where the sea lanes could be closed.
Central America is strategic to our Western alliance, a
fact always understood by foreign enemies. In Worla War II, only a
few German U-boats, operating from bases 4,000 miles away in Germany
and occupied Europe, inflicted crippling losses on U.S. shipping
right off our southern coast.
Today, Warsaw Pact engineers are building a deep water
port on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, similar to the naval base in
Cuba for Soviet-built submarines. They are also constructing,
outside Managua, the largest military air field in Central America --
similar to those in Cuba, from which Russian Bear Bombers patrol the
U.S. east coast from Maine to Florida.
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How did this menace to the peace and security of our
Latin neighbors, and ultimately ourselves, suddenly emerge? Let me
give you a brief history.
In 1979, the people of Nicaragua rose up and overthrew a
corrupt dictatorship. At first the revolutionary leaders promised
free elections and respect for human rights. But among them was an
organization called the Sandinistas. Theirs was a communist
organization and their support of the revolutionary goals was sheer
deceit. Quickly and ruthlessly they took complete control.
Two months after the revolution, the Sandinista
leadership met in secret, and, in what came to be known as the
_"72-hour Document," described themselves as the "vanguard" of a
revolution that would sweep Central America, Latin America and
finally the world. Their true enemy, they declared: The United
States.
Rather than make this document public, they followed the
advice of Fidel Castro, who told them to put on a facade of
democracy. While Castro viewed the democratic elements in Nicaragua
with contempt, he urged his Nicaraguan friends to keep some of them
in their coalition, in minor posts, as window dressing to deceive the
west. And that way, Castro said, you can have your revolution and
the Americans will pay for it.
And we did pay for it. More aid flowed to Nicaragua from
the United States in the first 18 months under the Sandinistas than
from any other country. Only when the mask fell, and the face of
totalitarianism became visible to the world, did the aid stop.
Confronted with this emerging threat, early in our
administration I went to Congress and, with bipartisan support,
managed to get help for the nations surrounding Nicaragua. Some of
you may remember the inspiring scene when the people of El Salvador
braved the threats and gunfire of communist guerrillas, guerrillas
directed and supplied from Nicaragua, and went to the polls to vote
decisively for democracy. For the communists in El Salvador it was a
humiliating defeat.
But there was another factor the communists never counted
on, a factor that now promises to give freedom a second chance -- the
freedom fighters of Nicaragua.
You see, when the Sandinistas betrayed the revolution,
many who had fought the old Somoza dictatorship literally took to the
hills, and like the French Resistance that fought the Nazis, began
fighting the Soviet Bloc communists and their Nicaraguan
collaborators. These few have now been joined by thousands.
With their blood and courage, the freedom fighters of
Nicaragua have pinned down the Sandinista army and bought the people
of Central America precious time. We Americans owe them a debt of
gratitude. In helping to thwart the Sandinistas and their Soviet
mentors, the resistance has contributed directly to the security of
the United States.
Since its inception in 1982, the Democratic Resistance
has grown dramatically in strength. Today it numbers more than
20,000 volunteers and more come every day. But now the freedom
fighters' supplies are running short, and they are virtually
defenseless against the helicopter gunships Moscow has sent to
Managua.
Now comes the crucial test for the Congress of the United
States. Will they provide the assistance the freedom fighters need
to deal with Russian tanks and gunships, or will they abandon the
Democratic Resistance to its communist enemy?
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In answering that question, I hope Congress will reflect
deeply upon what it is the resistance is fighting against in
Nicaragua. Ask yourselves, what in the world are Soviets, East
Germans, Bulgarians, North Koreans, Cubans and terrorists from the
PLO and the Red Brigades doing in our hemisphere, camped on our own
doorstep? Is that for peace?
Why have the Soviets invested $600 million to build
Nicaragua into an armed force almost the size of Mexico's, a country
15 times as large, and 25 times as populous. Is that for peace?
Why did Nicaragua's dictator, Daniel Ortega, go to the
Communist Party Congress in Havana and endorse Castro's call for the
worldwide triumph of communism? Was that for peace?
Some members of Congress ask me, why not negotiate?
That's a good question, and let me answer it directly. We have
sought, and still seek, a negotiated peace and a democratic future in
a free Nicaragua. Ten times we have met and tried to reason with the
Sandinistas. Ten times we were rebuffed. Last year, we endorsed
church-mediated negotiations between the regime and the resistance.
The Soviets and the Sandinistas responded with a rapid arms buildup
of mortars, tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships.
Clearly, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact have
grasped the great stakes involved, the strategic importance of
Nicaragua. The Soviets have made their decision -- to support the
communists. Fidel Castro has made his decision -- to support the
communists. Arafat, Qaddafi and the Ayatollah Khomeni have made
their decision -- to support the communists. Now, we must make our
decision. With Congress' help, we can prevent an outcome deeply
injurious to the national security of the United States. If we fail,
there will be no evading responsibility -- history will hold us
accountable. This is not some narrow partisan issue; it is a
national security issue, an issue on which we must act not as
Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans.
Forty years ago Republicans and Democrats joined together
behind the Truman Doctrine. It must be our policy, Harry Truman
declared, to support peoples struggling to preserve their freedom.
Under that doctrine, Congress sent aid to Greece just in time to save
that country from the closing grip of a communist tyranny. We saved
freedom in Greece then -- and with that same bipartisan spirit we can
save freedom in Nicaragua today.
Over the coming days I will continue the dialogue with
members of Congress, talking to them, listening to them, hearing out
their concerns. Senator Scoop Jackson, who led the fight on Capitol
Hill for an awareness of the danger in Central America, said it best:
on matters of national security, the best politics is no politics.
You know, recently one of our most distinguished
Americans, Clare Boothe Luce, had this to say about the coming vote.
"In considering this crisis," Mrs. Luce said, "my mind goes back to a
similar moment in our history -- back to the first years after Cuba
had fallen to Fidel. One day during those years, I had lunch at the
White Mouse with a man I had known since he was a boy -- John F.
Kennedy. 'Mr. President,' I said, 'no matter how exalted or great a
man may be, history will have time to give him no more than one
sentence. George Washington -- he founded our country. Abraham
Lincoln -- he freed the slaves and preserved the Union. Winston
Churchill -- he saved Europe.' 'And what, Clare,' John Kennedy said,
'did you believe -- or do you believe my sentence will be?' 'Mr.
President,' she answered, 'your sentence will be that you stopped the
communists -- or that you did not."
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Well, tragically, John Kennedy never had the chance to
decide which that would be. Now, leaders of our own time must do so.
My fellow Americans, you know where I stand. The Soviets and the
Sandinistas must not be permitted to crush freedom in Central America
and threaten our own security on our own doorstep.
Now the Congress must decide where it stands. Mrs. Luce
ended by saying, "Only this is certain. Through all time to come,
this, the 99th Congress of the United States, will be remembered as
that body of men and women that either stopped the communists before
it was too late -- or did not."
So tonight I ask you to do what you've done so often in
the past. Get in touch with your Representative and Senators and
urge them to vote yes; tell them to help the freedom fighters -- help
us prevent a communist takeover of Central America.
I have only three years left to serve my country, three
years to carry out the responsibilities you entrusted to me, three
years to work for peace. Could there be any greater tragedy than for
us to sit back and permit this cancer to spread, leaving my successor
to face far more agonizing decisions in the years ahead? The freedom
fighters seek a political solution. They are willing to lay down
their arms and negotiate to restore the original goals of the
revolution, a democracy in which the people of Nicaragua choose their
own government. That is our goal also but it can only come about if
the democratic resistance is able to bring pressure to bear on those
who have seized power.
We still have time to do what must be done so history
will say of us, we had the vision, the courage and good sense to come
together and act -- Republicans and Democrats -- when the price was
not high and the risks were not great. We left America safe, we left
America secure, we left America free -- still a beacon of hope to
mankind, still a light unto the nations.
Thank you and God bless you.
END 8:22 P.M. EST
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