U.S. SAW THREAT BY CUBA, SOVIETS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090035-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: July 29, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
P Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090035-5
STAT
AITMLE APPEARED
ON PAGE I A
soviets
MIAMI HERALD
29 July 1983
U.S. saw threat by
By ALFONSO CHARDY
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A flurry of
hints that Cuba and the Soviet
Union were preparing to expand
their military role in Nicaragua led
President Reagan to increase the
U.S. military presence in Central
America, according to Pentagon
and National Security Council offi-
cials.
"All our indications were that
Cuba and the Soviet Union were
preparing major military moves in
Nicaragua, and so we had to move,
too," one NSC official said Thurs-
day.
"Our move was a pre-emptive
strike, so to speak," said a Pentagon
official who, like other sources
knowledgeable about the situation,
agreed to talk on condition that
they remained anonymous.
Administration officials. admitted,
however, that there's been no hard
evidence that Cuba is mobilizing
troops or warplanes to intervene in
Central America.
And congressional critics sug-
gested Thursday that U.S. intelli-
gence analysts may have "misread"
the evidence under-pressure to sup-
ph? proof for Reagan's hard-line
stance on the region.
The Reagan Administration sur-
prised the American public, and -an
gered critics Monday when it an-
nounced that it would dispatch 19
U.S. warships,-_ancluding two air.
craft ._carriers ,itnd 3,000 to 4,000
.ground troops to Central America
for maneuvers .that Will last six
months.
Reagan Tuesday described the
deployments as "routine exercises."
But senior administration officials
privately said they are meant to
show support for U.S. allies in the
region; step up U.S. pressures on
Nicaragua's Sandinista rulers to
moderate their Marxist stance; and
prove to U.S. foes that Reagan can
act decisively in Central America, -
despite congressional opposition to
his policies.
Pentagon. State and NSC officials
interviewed this week said that
while these factors explain what
Reagan wants the maneuvers to ac-
complish, they do not explain his
decision to order the exercises.
In fact, they said, Reagan's key
reason for deploying the U.S. forces
was the U.S. perception that Cuba
and the Soviet Union were planning
a significant escalation of their mili-
tary roles in Nicaragua.
State Department sources said
U.S. ambassadors in Latin America
have been instructed to tell "trust.
ed" leaders in the region that Rea-
gan has fresh intelligence data sug-
gesting such an escalation.
The Cuban moves are to be de-
scribed as amounting to a direct
challenge to vital U.S. interests and
national security, said the sources,
who saw the cables sent to the
American diplomats.
Alarm bells in CIA
NSC and Pentagon officials said
hints of the Cuban and Soviet build-
ups in Central America began flow-
ing into U.S. intelligence agencies
10 to 15 weeks ago.
Officials said alarm bells began
ringing at CIA headquarters in
Langley, Va., in May when photo-
graphs snapped by an SR71, a
high-flying spy aircraft, showed
about 400 Cuban marines practicing
"sophisticated amphibious land-
ings" on beaches near the Cuban
port of Mariel, 25 miles west of Ha-
vana.
The CIA's chief aerial photogra-
phy analyst, John Hughes, conclud-
ed that the Cubans were practicing
an invasion of a foreign country,
not a defense of their own beaches,
the officials said.
Administration officials said they
initially interpreted the Cuban ma-
neuvers as preparation for an inva-
sion of some Caribbean mini-state.
Now, however, they believe the Cu-
bans may have been practicing for
landings in Nicaragua, and perhaps,
even Honduras, a staunch U.S. ally.
At about this same time, the offi-
cials said, Hughes reported that
four Soviet merchant ships were
photographed unloading military
equipment at Nicaragua's Pacific
port of Corinto.
Administration jolted
The Administration was further
"jolted," the officials said, when the
National Intelligence Daily (NID) -
a CIA journal distributed to senior
policymakers - reported June 1
that Cuban army Gen. Arnaldo
Ochoa Sanchez had been in Nicara-
gua since early May.
The NID report said Ochoa had
been instrumental in negotiating,
organizing and leading the deploy.
ment of Cuban troops to Angola in
1976 and to Ethiopia in 1977, total-
ing about 42,000 soldiers.
"Ochoa's record in Angola and
Ethiopia is such that one needs to be
cautious," said one NSC official.
The NID June l report said that
the Soviet-trained Ochoa apparent.
ly was in Nicaragua to compile a re-
port for Fidel Castro on whether it
would be feasible to send Cuban
troops to Nicaragua.
Officials who read the NID re-
ports said one July issue noted that
1,200 Cuban military advisers had
arrived in Nicaragua in recent
months, raising the total of Cuban
civilian and security advisers there
to about 5,500.
Soviet military role
Finally, said one NSC official,
U.S. diplomats around the world
noticed in recent weeks that their
Cuban counterparts were "probing"
to assess how Reagan would react
should Havana send troops or Sovi-
et-made MIG warplanes to Mana-
gua.
"We took this as a further sign
that the Cubans were up to some-
thing," the official noted.
While all this was going on, U.S.
intelligence agencies were report-
ing an ongoing expansion of the So-
viet military role in Cuba and Nica-
ragua.
Undersecretary of Defense Fred
We advised the Senate Foreign Re-
lations Committee last March that
Moscow had shipped 63,000 tons of
arms to Cuba in 1981 and 68,000
tons in 1982 - the highest yearly
totals since the Cuban missile crisis
in 1962.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090035-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090035-5
Ikle also said that the number of ..It may be that Ochoa is there to
Soviet military advisers in Cuba in- help the Sandinistas organize them-
creased by 20 per cent in 1982, up selves better" to fight the CIA- ;
to 2,500. In addition, he said, the backed Nicaraguan guerrillas oper-
Soviets have 6,000 to 8,000 civilian ating along the borders with Hon-
advisers and a 1.700-man combat duras and Costa Rica, he said.
brigade in Cuba. Democratic sources on the House
By last week, the Pentagon had Intelligence Committee, meanwhile,
said they believed U.S. intelligence
revised upward the number. of Sovi- "misread"
et civilian advisers in . Cuba to analysts may have the
8,500-10,500. The Pentagon also evidence.
said that in the first six months of They pointed to a panel report
1983, approximately 20,000 metric Sept. 22 which accused American
tons of military equipment were intelligence agencies of sloppy and
shipped from Moscow to Cuba. politically biased interpretations,
Administration sources noted and added, "The conclusions of that
that while Soviet shipments to report still apply."
Cuba this year are running below The report said that "the envi-
the 1982 level, U.S. intelligence cir- ronment in which analytic thought
cles suspect Moscow may be divert- and production decisions occur is
ing some weapons from Cuba to under pressure to reinforce policy
Nicaragua. - or perhaps to oppose it - rather
than to inform it."
Pentagon and NSC officials re- According to the report, the intel-
ported Wednesday that nine Soviet ligence community has often sug-
bloc shiploads of arms have already gested "greater certainty" about an
been delivered to Nicaragua this interpretation of evidence "than is
year and another 13 are on the way I warranted by the evidence."
- compared to five in all of 1982. 1
1982 shipments
The 1982 shipments included de-
liveries of about 270 military trans-
port trucks, 12 BM21 mobile multi-
ple rocket launchers, 25 T54 and
T55 tanks, four tank ferries, one
small patrol boat, MI8 helicopters,
AN2 transport planes, armored per-
sonnel carriers, eight 122mm how-
itzers and a sophisticated communi-
cations interception facility.
Administration officials say that
taken together, these signs of the
expanding Soviet and Cuban mili-
tary activities in Nicaragua trig-
gered Reagan's decision to send
U.S. troops on maneuvers in Cen-
tral America.
Critics of Reagan's policies in
Central America believe, however,
that the Administration's analysis
of Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan in-
tentions in the region is erroneous.
Cuban officials claim the number
of the advisers in Nicaragua is only
"several dozen." There is specula-
tion in some official Cuban circles,
however, that the true figure is
probably between 500 and 1,000.
These circles also speculate that
it was no accident that Ochoa was
seen in Nicaragua: His trip and the
amphibious maneuvers were an os-
tentatious response to Reagan's
saber-rattling - in effect Fidel Cas-
tro's indication that he had some
cards to play in a high-stakes poker
game with Reagan.
Robert Leiken, director of the So-
viet-Latin America Project at
Georgetown University Center for
Strategic and International Studies,
said Thursday that he doubted Cuba , I
was preparing to dispatch troops to
Nicaragua.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201090035-5