REAGAN APPEALS FOR EXTRA AID TO EL SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505390126-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 126
• Publication Date: May 10, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP96-00552R000505390126-2 STAT
For Extra Aid
To El Salvador
WASHINGTON POST
10 May ? 1984
our hemisphere
then the United
,
Sta
tes has a legal right and a moral
Rea an duty to help resist it .... It would
Appeals
g be profoundly immoral to let peace-
loving friends depending on our help
be overwhelmed by brute force if we
have any capacity to prevent it," he
said.
Reagan said the leftist regime in
Nicaragua had, with Soviet and
Cuban help, become the main base
for subversion and terrorism in the
hemisphere and imposed "a commu-
nist reign of terror" within its own
borders
By Lou Cannon
WuAtn`ton Post 8taft water
President Rea an last night appealed
g g ppealed for increased He He described the U.S.-sponsored
military and economic aid for El Salvador, saying in a guerrillas opposing the Sandinista
nationally televised address that the United States has regime as "freedom fighters." But he
both a strategic and moral interest in resisting "commu- did not mention U.S. aid to these
nist subversion" in Central America. so-called contras, and aides said he
Speaking as the House moved toward a vote, possibly deleted a passage-which spokes-
today, on additional military aid to the embattled Sal- _ man Larry Speakes had announced
vadoran government, Reagan said that the alternative to would be in.the speech-saying that
continued U.S. assistance "will be a communist Central the contras had exerted "positive
America with additional communist military bases on the pressure" against Nicaraguan aid to
mainland of this hemisphere, and communist subversion ; leftist guerrillas in El Salvador.
spreading southward and northward." Reagan also made no mention of
request on the House floor. Covert U.S. aid to the contras and
House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), the activities of the death squads are
leading opponent of the request, said that Reagan was "a the two most controversial aspects of
very forceful speaker" and stood a good chance of stop- I administration policy in Central
ping a Democratic alternative putting restrictions on fur- ! America6
ther aid. Reagan's speech tonight, although
But when O'Neill was asked whether the House would similar in tone and content to the
also agree to funds for U.S.-sponsored guerrillas opposing defense he made of his policies in a
the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, he re- televised joint address to Congress
plied, "I would doubt it very, very much. 13 months ago, all but abandoned
Reagan portrayed "communist subversion" as the most his recent attack on Congress for
important issue in Central America. "If the communists supposedly undermining administra-
can start war against the people of El Salvador, then El tion policies in Central America and
Salvador and its friends are surely justified in defending Lebanon.
themselves," he said. A senior administration official
"If the Soviet Union can aid and abet subversion of said that Reagan himself had de-
leted every critical reference to Con-
gress contained in a draft submitted
to him, apparently as part of a "bi-
partisan" strategy for dealing with
Central America as a national inter-
est rather than a partisan one.
He was also careful to reiterate
and regain control over the election-year debate on Cen-
tral America and to cast his foes as "new isolationists."
Even before he spoke, his congressional opponents
acknowledged that he would likely succeed at least in the
short run and sway votes in favor of the Salvadoran aid
Reagan's half-hour speech was an effort to redefine
the right-wing "death squads" in El
Salvador, except to say-despite
congressional testimony to the con-
trary-that the "small, violent right
wing" in that country was not part of
the government
that there are no plans for using
U.S. combat troops in Central Amer-
ica, a point on which his political
advisers are particularly sensitive in
an election year.
But Reagan also made clear that
he intends to stand by his policies in
the region despite surveys that show
them to be unpopular. He said, as he
has before, that Central America is
"of great importance" to the United
States, and illustrated his point with
a color graph showing that El Sal.
vador is slightly closer to Houston
? than Houston is to Washington.
" .. Communist subversion
poses the threat that 100 million
people from Panama to the open
border on our south could come un-?
der the control of pro-Soviet re-
gimes," Reagan said.
Underlying Reagan's appeal, said
a senior official who briefed reporters on the speech beforehand, was
the conviction that the Soviets, hav-
ing achieved nuclear parity with the
United States, were now engaged in
"low-order" wars throughout the
world at small risk to themselves.
Tracing U.S. policy back to the
anti-communist actions of President
Harry S Truman after World War
II, Reagan insisted that "subversion"
could be stopped, at least in the
Western Hemisphere.
"Communist subversion is not an
irreversible tide," Reagan said. "We
have seen it rolled back in Venezue-
la, and most recently, in Grenada.
And where democracy flourishes,
human rights and peace are more.
secure. The tide of the future can be
a freedom tide. All it takes is the will
and resources to get the job done."
Quoting President John F. Ken-
nedy, who he said understood the
problems of Central America and
the long-term goals of the Soviet
Union, Reagan said that the United
States was engaged in "a long twi-
light,struggle" to defend world free-
dom. .
He painted the struggle through-
out the hemisphere as one between
democracy and communism. El, Sal-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/09: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505390126-2