TELL ME NO 'NICARAGUAS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201200017-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: April 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201200017-2
ARTICLE APPEAR`~D
0 PAG)` .
Richard Cohen.
Tell Me No
Wpshington loathes the word lie. In-
stead, it prefers such imprecisions as
"misspoke," "political rhetoric" or, in
con&essional testimony, "to the best
of my recollection." In that spirit, let
,.me propose a new word for a state-
menf that is-ahem-at variance with
the'fifcts: a Nicaragua.
A -recent "Nicaragua" was the
president's charge that the Sandinistas
were. "using Stalin's tactic of gulag
relocation.... " Stalin? The Gulag?
What's this man talking about? The
Sandinistas are moving people out of
combat areas. That may or may not be
a nice- thing to do, but it is a long way
from Josef Stalin and his prison sys-
teni
r Similarly, the president stretched
things a lot when he called the contras
"our `brothers" and "the moral equiva-
lent.' df the Founding Fathers." A whop-
per ' bf a "Nicaragua" there. Unless
Washington, Jefferson and the venerable
Mr. Franklin did some raping on the
way to Valley Forge, the contras are
something less than their moral equiva-
lent. In fact, they are a mostly peasant'
.army created not by Nicaraguan dissi-
dents, but by the CIA, and whose signifi-
cant leaders are former officers of the
brutal National Guard.
Still another "Nicaragua" is the re-
peated assertion that the Sandinista
regime is ruthless and tyrannical. It is
not by any means a democracy, and it
may, in fact, be heading toward a com-
munist dictatorship, but it is not there
yet-not by a long shot. In fact, com-
pared with El Salvador, Nicaragua has
an admirable record on human rights.
The Sandinistas do not drag people
out of their homes and decapitate
them in gullies.
Yet another "Nicaragua" is the ca-
nard that Nicaragua poses a military
WASHINGTON POST
3 April 1985
Nicarag~as'
threat to its neighbors. In fact, Nicara-
gua's army of 40,000 is smaller than El
Salvador's and not significantly larger, if
the 20,000-man civilian militia is includ-
ed. It has hardly any air force, and its
tanks, Soviet-built T54s and 55s, are 25
to 30 years old-sitting ducks against
modern anti-tank weapons or the re-
pectable air forces of Honduras and El
Salvador. Moreover, the Sandinistas
must know that even a feint toward a
neighboring state would bring the wrath
of Reagan down on them. Talk about
making his day!
So what's going on? Why is the presi-
dent (and his Charlie McCarthy of a vice
president) so exaggerating the faults
and the capabilities of the Sandinistas
and the attributes and vulnerabilities of
their enemies? Why is the administra-
tion's rhetoric so out of proportion to
the facts? In other words, why so many
"Nicaraguas" about Nicaragua?
The answer is Cuba. It's the monkey
on the administration's back. The crea-
tion of a communist state in our hemi-
sphere is to Reagan's brand of conser-
vatism what the treaty of Versailles was
to a generation of Germans-a sellout
and a humiliation. Reagan will not per-
mit it to happen again, not again allow
what he thinks is the inescapable nature
of Marxism to be camouflaged by gains
in literacy or health, declarations of
peaceful intent, promises of an eventual
democracy and the seemingly limitless
ability of some Americans, particularly
liberals, to be taken in by all this.
You may want to argue with some or
all of that, but it is a legitimate enough
theory. The trouble is, though, it's not
what the president tells the American
people. Instead, in the manner of a par-
ent talking to a child, he dispenses with
ambiguities and subtleties and even with
the future tense. In rhetoric, he has
created a Nicaragua that is already a
Cuba and he treats it as such. He makes
war against it, forces it to militarize and
then cites that very militarization as evi-
dence of aggressive designs. He plants
mines in the harbors, sabateurs on land
and then cries totalitarianism when the
Sandinistas respond with a state of
emergency.
Maybe in the end the president will
be able to vindicate his own exaggera-
tions. Given his actions and the pro-
clivities of the Sandinistas, Nicaragua
may well end up being another Cuba,
and then we can all wonder who's to
blame-the United States for its hos-
tility or the Sandinistas for causing
that hostility. In the meantime,
though, Nicaragua is a long way from
becoming a Cuba. To declare other-
f wise simply forecloses policy options
-and hastens the day when a he fi-
nally becomes the truth.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP9O-00965ROO0201200017-2