HOUSE OKS MILITARY AID FOR SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090020-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: May 25, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201090020-1
Y
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE 1,4
:House OKs
military aid
for Salvador
By Alfonso Chardy
bWWr.r WuI l.jt.n arr i
WASHINGTON - The House of
Representatives yestefOy- ave es-
en Reagan a split ec s on
central America po e up-myog
more milita aidfor Salvador
re ecting additional funds -for CIA-
b a Nicaraguan rebels describ??-e
b Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. as
"marauders, murderers, rapists .
By a vote of 267-154, the Democrat-
ic-controlled House first endorsed
the administration's. long-pending
request for $61.7 million to resupply
the Salvadoran armed forces, said to
be running out of bullets and other
materiel to fight leftist guerrillas.
But the House then handed Reagan
a setback, voting 241-177 to kill his
$21 million request for the Nicara-
guan counterrevolutionaries, or con-
tras.
And in another vote yesterday, a
day after it passed a measure to virtu-
ally ban US. combat in Nicaragua
and El Salvador, the House approved
an amendment to expand those
curbs throughout Central America.
The House adopted by voice vote
an amendment that prohibits expen-
ditures for "delivering weapons fire
upon an enemy" in Honduras, Mexi-
co, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama
and Belize.
In the case of the contras funding,
Senate Republican leaders Howard
H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee and Te&
? Stevens of Alaska said they expected
an attempt to be made to reincorpo-
rate the $21 million in covert funds
when the package came Op for a
Senate vote, perhaps before Congress
begins its Memorial Day recess to-
day.
Of the $61.7 million approved for El
Salvador, only $29.7 million actually
will be available to the country. The
balance, $32 million, will go toward
replenishing a White House contin-
gency, fund the President used last
month to dispatch emergency mili-
tary aid to the Salvadorans.
Congress also released an addition-
al $19 million to military aid for El
Salvador yesterday as a result of the
guilty verdict in the case of four U.S.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
25 May 1984
churchwomen slain there in 1980 by
national guardsmen. The money,
part of a military.assistance package
approved late last year, had been
held up pending' & verdict in the
case.
The favorable House vote on Salva-
doran aid was attributed to the May 6
election of moderate Christian Dem-
ocrat Jose Napoleon Duarte and the
president-elect's effective lobbying
on Capitol Hill this week.
In fact, a bitter opponent of in-
creased military aid to El Salvador,
Rep. Clarence D. Long (D., Md.),
changed his mind on the issue and
yesterday personally offered the mo-
tion endorsing the administration's
request.
'This action should send a message
to the Salvadoran military that con-
tinued American support depends on
their continued support not only for
Duarte's presidency but -of the re-' ders of the churchwomen.
forms he pursues," Long said.
But Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D.,
N.Y.), one of the liberals who voted
against the aid package yesterday,
said Duarte's election was not
enough of a guarantee that human
rights would improve in El Salvador.
Although the vote on increased aid
to El Salvador was bipartisan, the
vote on the contras funds went large-
ly along party lines.
As the debate began on Nicaragua,
Re u cab anand Democrats broke
off negotiations 0" romise
Bement t at wou have ven
the CIA about $6 million to shut
down is covert operation and with-
raivthousands of its secretly fi-
nanedrebels from Nicaragua.
Instead, the House voted to elimi-
nate the full $21 million, on a motion
offered by Rep. Edward P. Boland
(D., Mass.), chairman of the House
Committee on, Intelligence, who said
that "what is needed is a vote to end
this senseless war."
'He added: "We simply- must not
appropriate one more penny for this
deadly war ... a program which has
turned Central America into an
armed camp."
.,But Republican leader Robert H.
Michel of Illinois said a vote against
the CIA funds would "weaken the
United States before the world."
Earlier, O'Neill (D., Mass.) predict-
ed to reporters that the House would
reject the $21 million because the
contras, described by Reagan as free-
dom fighters, "have been marauders,
murderers, rapists, paid Hessians."
Boland's motion yesterday said the
CIA no longer cou use any funds
to
rect or indirectly an
military or paramilitary operations
b nation government or aniza-
on or n v ua in Nicaragua."
The reference to "any nation" was
included to prevent the CIA from
channeling funds to the ntr
oug any other countries
Con-
smional sources say the CIA bas
uproaclied t Israel and Saudi
Arable aout a posses of Iidfn_g
t icon as case Congress denied
dff
ona funds for the covert pro-
.grw? -,
The additional $19 million Con-
gress released to El Salvador yester.
day had been held up by legislation
drafted by Rep. Long and Sen. Arlen
Specter (R., Pa.). Both said they were
plekaed by the verdict convicting
five national guardsmen of the mur-
In another development, adminis.
tration officials reacted angrily to
the surprise approval by the House
late Wednesday of an amendment to
prohibit the introduction of U.S.
combat troops into El Salvador or
Nicaragua unless there were "a clear
and present danger" to the United
States, its embassy or US. citizens in
those countries.
"The action erodes the President's
ability to act as commander in
chief," said a White House aide, re-
ferring to the 34144 vote on the
amendment submitted by Rep. Thom-
as S. Foley (D., Wash.). Foley and
other supporters of the amendment
said they were simply holding Rea-
gan to his word that he would not
send troops to Central America.
The White House reaction came
before Yesterday's House action that
would enlarge the ban on U.S. com-
bat aid in Central America.
In any event, the votes were seen
as largely symbolic exercises, be-
cause the measure is expected to be
killed in the Republican-controlled
Senate. The amendments were at-
tached to the 1985 defense authoriza-
tion bill.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201090020-1