SENATORS SOFTEN CUBA RESOLUTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900050-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: May 10, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900050-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE Af7
THE WASHINGTON POST
10 May 1982
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
STAT
Senators Soften Cuba Resoluti
The surprising' deletion by the Sen
ate Foreign Relations Committee of
key phrases in reaffirming the, anti-
Cuba resolution passed in 1962 shows.
how far that key committee has wa-
tered down its will and determination
despite Fidel Castro's recent inroads
into Central America. -
The new edition of the 1962 resolu-
tion pulls teeth out of the version
pushed by President Kennedy; which
passed with only one dissenting vote
during the Cuban: missile crisis.
Deleted were the wordn'including the.
use of arms" in the resolution's pledge
to resist' Cuban,. subversion or aggres-.;
Conservative anger at the commit
tee's surgery points' the. Senate to
showdown vote on the Kennedy-era;
resolution versus the watered-down
edition. The White House is moving
quietly to make sure the 1962 language
gets strong Senate approval on grounds.
that passage of the committee's text
would signal U.S. weakness. ?
A private ? letter from William 13:' -
Clark; President Reagan's National Se--
curity Council assistant, to Sen. Steve .
Symms, the 1982 sponsor of the 1962
resolution, shows intense presidential
141-
interest Clark wrote Symms: April 29:
that he "enthusiastically" endorsed
Symms' resolution "as, an, abiding ex-
pression of the Reagan administra:
tion's policy toward Cuba."-.-.
Similar support .has come from De-
fense undersecretary. Fred. Ikle, who
wrote Symms in late April. that his
resolution is "important to U.S. poli-
cy," and from the State Department
Pentagon lobbying teams have been.
deployed to help push the 1962 ver-
sion; Sen. John Tower, chairman of the
Armed Services Committee, may tack
the amendment to the defense authori- ,
zation bill now before the Senate.,,,,,':-13.tt.'',
In the -Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, a different opinion rules.
Voting'down the Symms-1962 text, th'e
committee, under. Sen" Charles H.
Percy, punched one hole after another
in the 1962 language, giving the resolu-
tion the appearance of a leaky umbrel-
la. It promises U.S. action not against
an "offensive military threat" but only
against one that is "serious."
Equally eye-catching was the corn-
.-mittee's curious decision to overrule its i
own staff and rewrite a section of a
companion resolution pledging U.S.
'support for negotiations in FA Salva-
dor. The stafficirallt promised U.S. ef-
forts "to reduce ..the't flow of arms into
El Salvador."
The committee lot Ind those words oh-
iecttonable and &kited them. T e rea-
thev miff tit be uetad b
anti nim unist atin states? as an
0
!
in it I i
kOv ?
Cubaunnincar
, Indeed, concern over the taint of
what Sen.. Paul Tsangax,Called "anti-
Castro jingoism" clearly affected both
, him and other liberal Democrats, in-
cluding Sens. Claiborne Pell and Chris-,
topher Dodd. T. genes told usi
"There's a kind of [`the Russians are
coming, the Riasna are . coming'
. shrillness in Symra 5' rhetoric." That
ostensibly led the MI ierals both to tone
down the - 1962 Cula . resolution and
weakenthemitdlYIlxiugh talk in the
one dealing with El Salvador.
But it is questioisable whether so
- tortured an explanation wilt suffice in
? this election year. Ati the height of for-
mer president Cartes strenuous effort
Jo entice Castro out cif the Soviet orbit
and into the inter-/ lmerican system,1
- such a dilution of the Cuban resolution
might have been pollelcally, palatable.
The dovmward,trce Id since then has
harde4ed suspiCions of most Americans
voters about Castro s Cuba. Even
apologists for Nicaragua's Sandinista
regime now agree it is under the con-
trol of Marxists greatly influenced if
not totally directed by Moscow and '
Havana. The Cuban-Nicaraguan effort
to unseat El Salvador's anti-commu-
nist regime by supporting the pro-
Marxist insurgency has been the prin-
cipal focus of Reagan administration
Caribbean' policy sinceThe beginning.
Given those circumstances, senators
In the Synpus camp confidently claim
that the 1962 version of the anti-Cuban
, resolution Will be approved by the Sen-
ate over thet committee's draft. Admin-
istration officials agree, but they want
no cliffhanger decision that will dan-
gerously inflate doubts about U.S. will
and determination es exhibited in the
Foreign Relations Committee.
That was subtle point of a letter
fromi a StatefDepartmert official back-
ing Symms' fesolution- Its impact on
Cuba and 'the unacceptability' of
Cuban behavior," wrote Deputy Assist.:
ant Secretav Stephen Bosworth,
would directly4depend on the strength
it showed in Congress. ,
01982, Efleld Enterprises, Inc.
,
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301900050-7