PRESIDENT ADMITS AIDING GUERRILLAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400091-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 91
• Publication Date: April 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400091-9
ON
WASHINGTON POS-r
15 APP'L 1983
'resident Admits
Aiding Guerrillas'
By Lou Cannon '- +
and Patrick E. Tyler
wushington Post SLiff Writers
President Reagan yesterday ac-
knowledged U.S. support of anti-
government guerrillas in Nicaragua
but said his administration was
"complying fully" with a congression-
al prohibition on activities aimed at
overthrowing Nicaragua's leftist San-
dinista regime.
"Anything we're doing in that area
is simply trying to interdict the sup-
ply lines which are supplying the
[leftist.] guerrillas in El Salvador,"
the president said at a brief news
conference. "But the 'picture today is
that Nicaragua. with its protests that.
somehow someone is trying to over-
throw there, is, as a revolutionary
government, trying to overthrow the
goy 'rnment of ... E! Salvador
A hi--h administration official said
later that "part of the interdiction"
way the use of sophisticated Air-
borne Warning and Control System
tA?'ACS; aircraft to spy on air traf-
fic in and out of Nicaragua. The
planes, based at. Tinker Air Force
Base, Okla., are refueled in midair
over Mexico and are blanketing Nic-
aragua with radar surveillance from
the safety of' international waters in
the Pacific, officials said.
While Reagan publicly insisted in
the White. House briefing room that
his administration is obeying the law
in Central America, Secretary of
State George P. Shultz and national
security adviser William -P. Clark
were making the same argument in
the Capitol to Rep. Edward P.
Boland (D-Mass.), chairman of the
House Permanent Select Committee
on Intellii,ence.
arnstNi
caragua
'Boland is the author of an amend-
ment bearing his name that prohib-
its U.S. assistance "for the purpose"
of overthrowing the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment or provoking military con-
flict between Nicaragua and neigh-
boring Honduras.
The 35-minute meeting was de-
scribed by administration officials as
"a good, friendly consultation on our
policy in El Salvador and Nicaragua"
in which Boland did not assert that
the Reagan government is violating
the law. They described Boland as
"cordial and non-committal, as we
expected." -
But a congressional source said
Boland "expressed a very serious
amount of concern" among commit-
tee members about whether the ad-
ministration was complying with, the law.
"I don't think it was a meeting to change
anyone's position," the source said.
Each side listened carefully to the op-
posing concerns and agreed at the end of
.,the meeting that Shultz would return
Wednesday to testify before the full com-
mittee in closed session. Clark does not
plan to testify. in keeping with what the
White House described as a long tradi-
tion.
Reagan made his comments on Central
America at a news-conference called to
celebrate the Senate confirmation of
Kenneth L. Adelman as director of the
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
But reporters ignored that- announce-
ment and all their questions except one
were about administration policy ii, Cen-
tral America.
The president, after first saving he
couldn't say anything except , that the
administration was "complying with the
law," launched a vigorous defense of his
policy and do attack on the "completely
Marxist" government of Nicaragua. ,
We are not doing anything to try. and
overthrow, the' Nicaraguan government,"
Reagan said. Nicaragua today has
created the biggest military force in all of
Central America and large parts of South
America .an army of some 25,000
backed.by a milita of 50,000, armed with
Soviet weapons that consist of heavy
duty tanks. an air force, helicopter gun
.ships, fighter planes. bombers and so
forth ...."
Reagan said this Nicaraguan armed
force was opposed by a few thousand
Miskito Indians and ' guerrillas 'and
-added, "I -don't think it's reasonable to
assume that that kind of a force could
nurse any ambitions that they can over-
throw that government with that great
military force."
In previous intelligence and State De-
partment reports, the administration has
never asserted that the Nicaraguans pos-
sess an air force of any significance. The
air force is mainly a few old trainers and
civilian propeller planes, although Nic-
aragua has received modern artillery and
heavy tanks from Cuba and the Soviet
Union, according to these reports.
Reagan attempted to turn around crit-
icism that the United States is support-
ing efforts to overthrow the leftist Ni-
caraguan government by insisting Nic-
aragua is trying to overthrow the elected
government of El Salvador by supplying
arms to leftist insurgents. The president
hinted that he would take action to pre-
vent this if permitted, but said "what I
might personally wish or what our gov-
ernment might wish still would not jus-
tify us violating the law of the land."
White House counselor Edwin Meese
III also reflected administration unhap-
piness with the Boland amendment at a
breakfast meeting with ' reporters. He
said. "It is the responsibility of the pres-
ident to conduct foreign policy; limita-
tions on that by the' Congress are im-
proper as far as I'm cor}cgrned
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505400091-9