A ROLE FOR THE CIA IN EL SALVADOR?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000200870002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200870002-9
STAT
Or'gan,izing. Notes
A Role for the CIA in El Salvador?
As the Reagan administration seeks to increase mili-
tary and economic aid to the junta in El Salvador,
allegations of a different kind of American involve-
ment-CIA covert operations-are becoming more fre-
quent and alarming.
Particular attention has been focused on possible CIA
responsibility for developing a February 23 State De-
partment "White Paper" which "proves" that the Soviet
Union and Cuba have provided substantial aid to
Salvadorean leftists. The evidence has been used as a
major lobbying tool by the Reagan administration to
increase aid to the junta. It has also served as a
rationale for labeling opposition to current American
policy as "communist orchestrated."
According to ex-CIA officers Philip Agee and Ralph
McGehee-who have attacked the White Paper in recent
articles-the document resembles propaganda pieces
they saw prepared during their service with the Agency.
Agee and McGehee have attacked the paper for inac-
curate translations, inconsistencies, and in some cases,
for deliberate fabrication of evidence. In the past, the
CIA has used similar documents and press releases to
"prove" Communist infiltration in Guatemala (1954),
Indonesia (1965), Chile (the late 1960's) and Vietnam,
among other places.
In late January, reports of a series of Soviet-Cuban
sponsored guerilla raids into El Salvador from Nicar-
agua were widely circulated. In an article published in
the March 23,1981 issue of The Nation, Ralph McGehee
wrote that, after the guerilla raids, "two Salvadorean
government officials resigned, charging that the `two
invasions' were staged in order to justify the sending in
of American troops:; McGehee characterized the re-
ports as a "probable CIA deception operation."
Adding to speculation about possible CIA involve-
ment in El Salvador, CIA supporters and critics have
drawn parallels in the media between US efforts to aid
land reform in El Salvador, and the Phoenix Program in
Vietnam, carried out a decade ago under CIA direction.
US encouragement of Salvadorean land reform has
come chiefly from the American Institute for Free Labor
Development, founded in 1962 as a joint effort of
American labor and multinational corporations to en-
courage social and educational development in the third
world. In the past, AIFLD has been the subject of some
controversy, carrying with it charges of complicity with
the CIA in Latin America.
Finally, the Reagan administration's hasty attempt
to push Congress toward repealing the five-year-old
Clark. Amendment ban on CIA covert operations in
Angola, further increases skepticism about the extent of
US "aid" to troubled areas of the world, especially El
Salvador. (See Organizing Notes, Vol. 5, No. 3.)
On the Homefront:
Reagan Views the Opposition
Protest against American intervention in El Salvador
has been intense in the past few months. Ronald
Reagan had a few words to say about opposition to his
policy in a March 29 interview with the Washington
Post:
... But I do think that we have to recognize that the
campaign against what we're doing, the helping of El
Salvador, is a pretty concerted and well-orchestrated thing,
propaganda that I think has confused a great many people
and many well-meaning people ... it's even been world-
wide. And you find the same slogans being used in demon-
strations in European countries about the United States in
El Salvador. You find it here ... There were some of those
demonstrators in Canada on our recent trip. Incidentally,
that's another thing we've done in these first 48 days. The
placards were the same. The slogans were the same there.
And you can't, when we have been able to establish with
our white paper that this is Soviet-backed, that it is Cuban-
backed, the surrogates of Cuba are in the front line in
providing the material, training of the guerilla fighters, all
of these things, you have to assume that they must also
have a hand then in the propaganda.
.~ a npaign or Political Rights
202 Massachusetts Avenue K.E Washington, D.C 20002 - [phone]
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200870002-9