IN CENTRAL AMERICA, REAGAN WOULD RATHER FIGHT THAN LISTEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100630010-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: April 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100630010-0
PSTAT
Irt Central America
Reathiou
Ratlie
Former secretary of state Edmund S.
Muskie wondered about it. Gen. David Co
Jones, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. was "uncomfortable" with it.
Nonetheless, they, and David Rockefel-
ler, too, signed the report of the so-called
Linowitz Commission, which says in black
and white that the United States should sit
down and negotiate with all parties, includ-
ing Nicaragua, Cuba and the Soviet Union,
to'bring an end to the bloody chaos in Cen-
ex-
tral America. thon are going to question the ex-Somoza Ve enced overt and covert U.S. interven-
Negotiation is a bad word at the White guardsmen who are leading the expedition tion, it would be useful to provide unmis-
House-unless it's about long-term grain as to whether they intend to overthrow the takable assurances that the U.S. will refrain
sales to the Soviets. It is "not bloody like. government. If they say yes, it will still be from reverting to these pactices," the re-
l
"
y,
as Eliza Doolittle would say, that any-
one in the White House will pay the slight-
est heed to the recommendations of a dis-
tinguished group of U.S. and Latin-Amer-
ican citizens who spent six months study-
ing the economic and human misery in
Central America.
From administration noises on the eve of
his dramatic speech to a joint session of
Congress, it appears that the president
would rather fight than switch.
U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick,
the "La Pasionara" of our Latin American
policy, said on the David Brinkley show
that the Soviets and their friends are pro-
viding far more aid to their side than we
are to ours.
House Minority Leader Robert H. Mi-
chel (R-111.) triumphantly heralded the
Brazilian interception of a Libyan plane
loaded with arms for Nicaragua as."a gift
from God," which means, apparently, that
Americans are about to be convinced that
if they fail to support President Reagan
they can expect a Red invasion of Texas.
Reagan has been hinting that he will not
take the rap for "losing" El Salvador. If it
goes down, he will lay it. on Congress, which
is resisting his demands for $110 million in
emergency aid to the country and quibbling
over his secret, although televised, CIA op-
eration in Nicaragua.
He knows it is child's play to bully Con-
gress. He has effortlessly shifted the discus.
sion on Nicaragua from whether his course
is right to whether it is legal.
Awro sky because they deny activity in the
n
J%Ary But the answer of Linowitz and Richard.
ON PAcz- A -_R_ 26 APRIL 1983
WASHINGTON POST
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other exchanges would produce a hemi-LP, . ) " -.& A'---! - - - -
nited
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Supposedly, the co . ' ~?? u
ngressmen who are have to take a non-int ration pledge,
stance of a guided tour of a covert opera. be fashioned. in a region that has often
okay, because Reagan insists it is nothing port said.
more than a violent civics lesson-he just The real reason, said Linowitz, for con.
" sidering the commission's sensible solution
wants to harass the Sandinistas into a is that the present policy is just not work-
more democratic form of government."
From. the Reagan point of view, the real h"g You have to focus on an alternative," he
flaw with the Li.nowitz Commission, which said
was co-chaired by Sol Linowitz, negotiator But Egan has turned a deaf ear to all
of the Panama Canal treaties, and former previous suggestions for negotiations. He
Ecuadorean president Gaio Plaza, is its would rather stay the course, even, -appar-
premise: "The persistent poverty of two- ently, if it means sending in the Marines to
thirds of the people of Latin America is the teach Latin America about democracy.
major cause of the Hemisphere's social un-
rest .... Poverty, inequality and injustice
lead to political protest and polarization."
According to Reagan theology, the
source of hemispheric unrest is the Soviet
Union. If the Kremlin and its Cuban cat's-
paw stopped their arms shipments, the
forces of good people-like Roberto D'Au-
buisson, the little Salvadoran killer, and
President Rios Montt of Guatemala, the
born-again peasant-slayer, would bring
peace and order to their people. -
Elliot L Richardson, former secretary of
defense, chaired the panel on security and
lobbied hard for the "many-sided dia-
logue"-between the governments and op=
position movements in El Salvador, No.
aragua and Guatemala; between each of its
neighbors; between Cuba and all the coun-
tries of Central America; "and between the
U.S. and Cuba and the U.S. and Nicaragua
respectively; as well as between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union."
Muskie told Linowitz that he thought
the Soviets would never come to such a
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100630010-0