THE GOOD GUYS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830007-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: October 15, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

~STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830007-8
or Pi;~: 3 Z 3
tober 10 cover splash. In Central America, the magazine re-
porce, the agency is spending some .S80 million this year on
mibiar-v operations, propaganda, destabilization and har-
assment, including a disinformation campaign to convince
the Salvadoran people "that the-guerrillas, not the Army,
are the real bad guys." And in a story that appeared in The
Times on October 6, Jeff Gerth convincingly demonstrated
that one of the planes used in last month's air raids on
Managua had been owned by a C.I.A. proprietary company,-
the lnvestair Leasing Corporation. -
Unfornutately, such revelations seem to have lost -the .
power to stir Congress to remedial-action. -Legislators, fear-
ful of a backlash from a.jingoistic.clect azc, are disinclined.
to buck the President on any-isstsehe:defines as a'?nazional
security'.' matter. No strong words-'have yet beers beard from
.tie leading Democratic Presidential candidates, -who might
be expected to pursue similar.policies if thou-had-the oppo7-
tuninv. A.ftrr-all, C.I.A. global skulduggery is as hallowedz
Democ, atic t adition as it is.2 Republican.one. -:
Only a popular grass -roots movement against the warwill
create the political conditions for etid.ingit.. That,process-ha
begun-this is not, after -all, -an utterly silent generation-but it will take time and, perhaps, fresh encounters with the
consequenc:=, of imperial adventure. It was the nightly news-
cast body count-ours, not theirs-thai finally forced the
United Stater-out of Vietnam. But despite the geographic
proximity, - Central -A.mericz still seems far away from
Central Park. = - -
NRTI0
15 0csober 1983
aving failed to make a convincing case 'for his
tbeon' that the trouble in Central America
stems from the flow of arms and rebellion from
Nicaragua to El Salvador under the aegis of the
Soviet Union, President Reagan now stands truth on its
head and makes his -own war in the reverse direction-,In
fact, the trouble begins with the United States, which is
flying arms and exporting counterrevolution from bases in
El Salvador to contro outposts in Nicaragua. This is Amer -
ican_aggression on a grand scale, and it-is. crassly hypoerit-
icai fo- he President-to tell the world otherwise.
Some small comfort may be found in the lingering skep;,
ticism of the mainstream media under .a barrage of White
House propaganda. If Americans learned one lesson from
the Vietnarn era it is that the government cannot' be trusted
to tell the t; uth about foreign affairs. The result is that
secret wars, covert cps and disinformation campaigns still
make legitimate news stories. _
--Thus The New York Tirrxer reported on October 2 that
"the Central Intelligence Agency is using 2 Salvadoran Air
Fore: base and some Salvadoran. pilot to resupply the
United States-backed rebels in Nicaragua," and Newsweek
rediscovered "the secret warriors" of the C.I.A. in it Oc-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200830007-8