WHY THE CONTRAS WHY THE COVERT WAR IN NICARAGUA EVOLVED AND HASN'T SUCCEEDED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: March 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
Aiding the Contras
Why the Covert War
In Nicaragua Evolved
And Hasn't Succeeded
Mishaps and Bad Judgments
Have Plagued Program,
But Gains Have Occurred
The Umpire and the Salesman
WALL STREET JOURNAL
5 March 1985
Congress to cut off funds last year, forcing attack, Nicaragua shot down one of its own
the Contras to turn to private contribu- r.47 Planes, according to the CIA sum.
tions.
The Project," as CIA many,
dubbed the Contra personnel The CIA officers involved in the Contra
dub e the
scrutin ogram, will face in- program were enthusiastic and sometimes
months as Congress debadung, the next
tes w ether tofre wrote eccentric. One, a retired Army major who
some financing. Interviews with Contra chl ?a- controversial CIA manual on psy-
leaders, Reagan administration officials, black, acka' warfare himself if "the entirely
members of Congress and their aides. and Death"; and called himself "the Priest n-
U.S. intelligence officials may the Contras used a less prete
some lessons for the next round ofpAmerdie "Davey" for him: "the Umpire.
senior CI." Duane
can policy in Central America. They also ? Clarri r s senior s of ofs iuits
reveal new details about how the CIA ran ran the program, sport a rt
p b decorated ts first big Paramilitary his jeep
program in more with a post-Grenada bumper sticker that
than a decade. Some highlights:
-American goals in the Contra pro- read: "Nicaragua Next."
gram were confused. The Reagan adminis From its first days in office, the Reagan
tration originally sold the program to Con- a test administration
ofrU.S. viewed Central n coma o-
gress
gress as a way to harass Nicaragua and to The situation to ability
re contain commu-
arms shipments to FI Rnil-i r
nism. The situation there
d
tins an
most Contra rushed weapons into 1l 51, as Nicaragua
Rc~
And O^` to cerzs leaders from the beginning held the truck. To p l Salvador by the
slog cporters -'T WALL STREETJOURNAL broader goal of removing the Marxist gov- question load the new hether to usetAmer the
Jose Fr?anc:sco Cardenal still has the ernment in Managua. The official CIA to- powetroa wasn't t Nicaragua to use
its patron
cogeared sition was a Catch-22: The secret war y o and its patron
,eared index card d that the Central Intel didn't violate a 1982 congressional ban Y covertly.
ligence Agency man in Miami gave him Cuba, bu. how-overtly l>.f~re 1A rCards a;'s first meeting in July against overthrowing the Sandinistas be about what
An internal debate rage q,- e . rn? `a CIA contact in Tegu- cause the Contras weren't strong enough to bd in early 1981
- strategy the should adopt.
Alexander Ha]g, then t secretary of
the :9galpa, Honduras. win. that the U.S. .
he
i cdura cted the Nicaraguan ex -The program got off to a bad start st e ateso , argued should "go to
i!e ' he card a to arrive at g7 p.m. at the Hotel when the CIA turned to a surrogate, the _ the urce" by pressuring Cuba directly.
i =onda in
rive catalpa and take the right-wing military dictatorship in Argerr= After M Haig rosined a set of tough l Se-
airs_not the elevator-to Room ke tina, to organize and train the Contras. The tart' options against Cuba at a National Se
ock say should 1not on the door and Room, 03 He am Argentines already had a small training runny Council meeting in mid-1981, one
early." The CIA mar. would respond, "No. member turned to another and whist
pr b?ram for the Contras in Honduras, and
You are exactly on time. " The rendezvous by working with them the U.S. shielded its pered: "Did you hear "Did I heard? This
You like x ockwo d " hened a rendezvous own involvement. But the heavyhanded Ar- guy toet us into a war." direct channel between the this op ned of the gentine approach tainted the movement in g Instead of going to the source, the Rea.
-leader
Contras and ben CIA station in Teguci- the had few eyes of many alternatives, since the Nicaraguans. CIA The at U.S. the ban administration decided to go to the
~aipa. CIA. Officials viewed covert action as a the The CIA's secret war against the Marx time didn't have any reliable paramilitary sensible middle course between doing path. Sandinista government in Nicaragua capability of its own, trig and declaring war. But the precise
bas rare ?y worked so smoothly. From its -e CIA planners, eager to show results strategy wasn't well formulated. The CIA,
once they bebop n,nninv the says one IT
start in 1981, the agency's Contra
s nff;n;o1 ____ ..
program
has been plagued by mishaps and political
misjudgements. The troubled history of the
program shows that, however adept the
CIA may be at arranging secret meetings
abroad, it has considerable difficulty try-
ing to r un a covert war from an open soci-
et; like the U.S.
Gains and Losses
The Contra program has achieved some
military gains. The often brutal covert war
has hurt the Nicaraguan economy and put
pressure on the Nicaraguan government to
negotiate with the rebels and the U.S. It
..as also reduced the flow of arms into El
Salvador. But there have been heavy polit-
ical and diplomatic losses. Political prob-
lems in 1t'ashn on, especially the CIA's
Brained rclaticns with Congress, under-
ni:ned support for the program and led
that sometimes backfired politically. In ads
dition to training the Contras, the agency
used a separate and secret paramilitary
force composed of what were called
UCLA-unilaterally controlled Latin as-
sets-to mine harbors and raid targets in
Nicaragua. A U.S. Official
tha nrnor- who helped run
..
re-
sometimes -overzealous.,, peatedly about developing aVrbroadeeco-
'The Priest of Death' nomic and political strategy in Central
A secret CIA document lists 19 such op. America, in practice the emphasis was on
military pressure,
erations in early 1984
and
h
.
t
e intensity of
the attacks and the level of U.S. involve-
ment are larger than previously reported.
Americans flew-and fired from-a heli-
copter launched from a CIA "mother
ship." A fixed-wing U.S. plane provided so-
phisticated radar guidance for the night-
time attacks. In the turmoil following one
The crisis nature of the pro
ra
I
g
m put
pressure on the CIA to find a quick fix. The
administration's immediate worry was to
cut down arms shipments to leftist Salva.
dorans, and this put a priority on military
action-rather than politics-in building
the Contras as an insurgent movement.
Anri alth
h .L_ _ .
oug
Conbntld
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
President Reagan approved the basic The head of the Argentine training mis- Marine officer with extensive aramilitarv
elements of The program: In early 1981, he sion in Honduras was Col. Osvaldo Rihrirn I AY
a'reed u, be_ir -Ph!:, itm,o th ('rA P
c galpa, living in a large house, distributing
'road political -action e.fortin Latin Amer
ica: a November 1981 directive committed American money and dispensing what CIA
:he U.S. to "assist" %n developing an and. officials viewed as unsound military ad-
Sandinista g..erri!la army, vice. For example, since his own experi-
ence was in urban rather than rural com-
e, war in Central America revived an bat, he advised the Contras to mount a pro-
old Problem for the CIA. Agency officials Tarn of urban terrorism. The CIA wanted
p
ca
appeal (and reduce
don't ii :e r;:r.r,ing secret armies because to cultivate a popular insurgency in the the rightist Argentine aural by bringing in
1 I
:.oe programs usua:ly don't stay secret and countryside. I well-known Nicaraguans with good anti So-
b' The se feet. Political leadership often gets The Argentines also apparently toler? ! moza credentials. The head of the CIA's
crl ]feet. From the outset, the Contra pro ated a practice of killing prisoners. A for. Central America task force visited Miami
gran carried these same risks and wor mer Contra official describes the informal in November 1982 to interview candidates
pied many career CIA officials. rule for dealing with captives: If a pris. for the new FDN board of directors. He
Bad Track Record oner has ammunition when captured, let called himself "Tony Feldman."
him live, since he hasn't fought to the last (Mr. Clarridge has been identified in
The U.S. track record hasn't been very bullet; if a prisoner hasn't any ammuni- print previously by the As
good: In Cuba. Indonesia
Laos and K
i
i
,
soc
ur? L
ated Press,
on, kill him. (To stop the killing, CIA offi- the Washington Post and The Wall Street
d:stan? the CIA has recruited guerrilla ar- cers ordered in mid-1982 that all prisoners Journal as director of the CIA's Latin
mies and the:;, when the political winds be brought back to base for interroga- American division. Other CIA operatives
changed back tome, abandoned them. One tion. I changed
veteran. bemoaning the discussed in the article are identified !)y
cutoff of funds to the Contras, says rue- Coordination Difficulties the code names they used in dealing
with
full-,': "We leave them hanging'
anging every The CIA's goal was for the Contras to Contra leaders.) time" coordinate with insurgents inside Nicara- Edgar Chamorro, who joined the new
A more immediate problem for the CIA gua, but that proved difficult. One U.S. of. leadership, remembers the pitch this way:
~'as the lack of paramilitary skills at the ficial recalls: "The moderate opposition "Feldman said that he was speaking on be
agency. During the 1970s, CIA training was in flight. We would make contact with half of the U.S. government. He said that
camps and bases had been closed and the people in Managua and ask them to help the president was interested in finding a
agency's param%litary experts, derided by us and they would say, 'Can you get me a solution to the problem. He said it was im-
the brass as "knuckle draggers," had been green card?' " to live in the'
he U.S. Portant to do it before the election year. He
Purgrd? A special covert-action unit, To supervise the expanding American spoke in very confident terms. He said that
known as the International Activists Divi- i effort, the director of central intelligence" the Sandinistas must go."
slop
w??
littl
\\'illi
C
..
7
a.rri
e more than a shell, staffed
asey, named Mr. Clarridge head
by wary survivors of the 1970s. of the Latin American division of the
'When we started up the program, you agency's directorate of operations. The
couldn't find five guys who knew what they Contra program to some extent had been
were doing in terms of organizing a resis- thrust on the CIA, but Mr. Casey, who
ranee o,eration," says a U.S. official who helped run covert operations during World
helped manage the program. To gain ex- I War II, was determined to make it work.
pertise quickly, the agency tried to lure He seemed to have found a soulmate in
back the old-timers, the "hairy neck Para- Dewey Clarridge, an ambitious, hard-
military types," offering them one-year charging intelligence officer.
contracts. The agency also began acquir. Mr. Clarridge impressed the CIA direc-
ing the assets-boats, airplanes, helicop- for as an activist in an agency that had be-
ters and Third World nationals-for the se- come cautious and demoralized during the
cret strike force that would later be used 1970s. He had served most recently in
to mine Nicaraguan harbors. Rome, where he had won points by giving
La Tripartite an elegant late night supper for Mr. Casey
known as La Tripartita. The idea was to
combine American money, Argentine
trainers and Honduran territory to create
a guerrilla army known as the Fuerza De-
mocratica Nicaraguense, or FDN. Later,
the U.S. financed other guerrilla groups
operating from Costa Rica.
The FDN embodied the political ten-
sions that have plagued the Contras from
the beg nning. Founded in August 1981, the
group combined a rightist military leader-
ship, directed mostly by people who had
been Nova! to deposed Nicaraguan dictator
Anastasia Somnza? with a moderate politi-
c''. leadersh:p. I: wasn't a comfortable
c,arr::ue.
in 1981. tie had little background in Latin
America but much enthusiasm.
"Dewey is more responsible than any-
one for what success there was," says one
U.S. official. "But Dewey cut corners and
rammed things through. He crossed the
line from being a professional intelligence
officer to being an advocate."
The program was managed in Washing-
tor, by a "restricted interagency group,"
or RIG. The group was headed by the as-
sistant secretary of state for Latin Amer-
ica, initially Thomas Enders and later
Langhorne "Tony" Motley. Other mem-
bers were U.S. Army Gen. Paul Gorman,
representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
i was later replaced by Navy Vice Adm. Ar-
I Moreau; Lt. Col. Oliver North, a
"I called him the Salesman," says Air.
Chamorro of the CIA official. He recalls
that Feldman even promised that there
would be a Lear jet to fly the Contra lead.
ers from Honduras to Miami on the week-
ends to see their families. Not on%y was
there never a Lear jet; the Contras waited
nearly a year for the CIA to provide a sim-
1 ple cargo plane that could drop supplies to
the fighters inside Nicaragua.
The Unveiling
The repackaged FDN was unveiled at a
Dec. 7, 1982, press conference. To avoid
awkward questions to Mr. Cardenal from
reporters, a group that Feldman charac-
terized as "sharks," the CIA asked the for-
mer FDN leader to get out of Miami for
temperament and back ound, a ^ V-
risk-takers. ggressive
Leadership Recast
As the American role increased during
1982, the CIA decided to repackage the
FDN leadership. The aim was to broaden
the group's
oliti
l
I
Continued
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5
f Lie dad. The nee{ FDN leader was a :;
caraguan businessman named Adolfo Ca-
;ero.
CIA h :ndlers arranged a public-rela-
'nr,s tour fur the ;;emu FDN directors, Air.
C hamorro ssys. They were packed off to
,.4e'
he = n:ted : o-is to meet with represen-
tatives of ncr.alig ;led countries, and in
March 1953 theyntraveled to Europe to
meet with non-Marxist European social-
I fists. For the European trip the agency pro-
vided each director with $150 a day in ex-
pense money, delivered in a bulging atta-
che _case.
The real action was taking place in
Honduras, w? ere the FDN was building a
large guerrilla force. By early 1983, an es-
timated 7,000 FDN fighters were based in
camps along the Honduras-Nicaraguan
border, and they were beginning to --t
o
Boxes of Cash
The Americans provided the monev-
$300,000 a month-and it arrived every two
weeks in cash. in large boxes filled with
C.S. dollars. Honduran lempiras, and Nica-
raguan cordabas, according to Mr. Cha?
morro. The fighters were supposed to live i
on $1 a day. The FDN directors, who Ij
mostl
y stayed in Miami, were receiving I
about $2,000 P. month.
,,,s- 1n51ae:Nicaragua. The fine Project was expanding rapidly in support for any paramilitary effort. So
did more than just harass Sandinista mid-1933, despite a 19S2 congressional ' they began planning, in mid-1983, what
troops. They raided villages, burned crops, amendment specifying that CIA covert would prove the decisive operation of the
destroyed roads and blew up bridges. By money couldn't be used to "overthrow" the
CIA estimates they killed 55 Cuban ad- Sandinistas. The amendment was a warn- borset war: the mining of Nicaraguan har
visers in 1984. ing shot from Congress of its growing un-
The Contras never controlled their own splitting the country in two and establish-
weapons and logistics. The Americans sup- ing a Contra shadow government.
plied guns, ammunition, uniforms and But the optimism faded, at least offi-
most other military gear-apparently- to cially. An internal report by the CIA in-
make sure the guerrilla army didn't grow- spector general in early 1953 concluded
faster than Congress had authori
that th
d
i
'
'
ze
.
e
rlhen
nsurgency couldn
t succeed at its
Congress cut off funds in 1951, the Contras current levels. A June 30 National Intelli-
suffered from their lack of logistics train- Bence Estimate, representing the collec-
ing. Live judgment of the intelligence commu-
"They didn't know how to buy rifles or nity, was even blunter. It said the Contras
webbed belts or any of the things they would have difficulty holding large popula-
needed,'' says a C.S. official. Lion centers, let alone toppling the Sandin-
Mr. Chamorro gives most of the CIA op- istas.
eratives in the field high marks. "George," Conservatives were angered by the in-
the CIA officer with whom he maintained telligence estimate, but it also served Mr.
daily contact, was "first-rate" and "a Casey's purposes by giving him a shield
bright young man with liberal ideas," he : against criticism that he was trying to
says. The veteran officer who ran the overthrow the government. CIA officials
training camp, "Col. Raymond " was " me .., . _.
ease about the direction of the program.
Mixed Assessments
Within the CIA there were mixed as-
sessments about the Contras' prospects.
An internal planning memo prepared in
1982 had set out a timetable leading to the
fall of Managua by Christmas 1983. Later,
CIA officers encouraged the Contras to at-
tack the Rama Road, a route for arms
shipments from the port of El Bluff to
Managua, and there were even dreams of
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403040018-5