CIA DIRECTOR WILLIAM CASEY, IN A SPEECH PUBLISHED FRIDAY, SAID THE SANDINISTA REGIME IN NICARAGUA HAS TAKEN 33 OF THE 46 STEPS INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS SAY ARE ON THE SOVIET BLUEPRINT FOR SEIZING AND CONSOLIDATING POWER.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100670029-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 8, 2010
• Sequence Number: 29
• Publication Date: May 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/08: CIA-RDP90-008068000100670029-6
United Press International
17 May 1985
CFA Director William Casey, in a speech published Friday, said the
Sandinista regime in Nicaragua has taken 33 of the 46 steps intelligence
analysts say are on the Soviet blueprint for seizing and consolidating power.
Casey also said, Soviet and Cuban objectives are to use Nicaragua as a
" beachhead " and a "launching pad " to subvert the rEst of Central and South
America.
The CIA director first delivered the speech at an invitation-only meeting
of the Metropolitan Club in New Yark May 1. The Washington Times published the
text Friday, and a CIA spokeswoman said she did not believe its contents had
been reported before.
Casey said analysts had studied "totalitarian regimes " in Cuba, South
Yemen, Ethiopia, Angola, Grenada, and Nicaragua and "identified 46 indicators
of the consolidation of power by a Marxist-Leninist regime."
Nicaragua, he said, " in 5 years has accomplished 33." Those 33 steps have
included taking control of the military, the media, education systems and the.
secret police.
The American intelligence community, Casey said, has concurred " in recent
months in four national estimates " of Soviet and Cuban objectives in the
hemisphere.
"The Soviet Union and Guba have established and are consolidating a
beachhead an the American continent, are putting hundreds of millions of dollars
worth of military equipment into it, and have begun to use it as a launching pad
to carry their style of aggressive subversion into the rest of Central America
and elsewhere in Latin America," he said.
To back his argument, Casey said there are now an estimated 6,000 to 7,500
Cuban advisers "and several hundred other Communist and radial personnel in
Nicaragua " besides a local military farce of b5,000, militia and reserves of
nearly 120,000, and Soviet tanks, armored vehicles, state of the art
helicopters, patrol boats and an increasingly comprehensive air defense.
Primary communist objectives Casey said, are the Middle East oil fields and
the "isthmus between North and South America.."
"Today we see Nicaragua becoming to Central and Latin America what Beirut
was to the Middle East for almost 15 years since 1970 when Lebanon became the
focal point for international and regional terrorists," Casey said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/08: CIA-RDP90-008068000100670029-6