IN THE CONTRA CHASM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503970001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503970001-0
WASHINGTON POST
18 March 1986
In the Contra Chasm
Two 'Lar Heroes, Battling on Opposite Sides on the Hill
By Myra MacPherson
Washington Post Staff Writer
John Singlaub and Charles Liteky are men of war.
Fragments of shrapnel, war's small reminders, remain in
their bodies. Both have heroes' medals. Both still feel a
call to patriotism and honor.
Today they are advocates on opposing sides of the
battle over aid to Nicaraguan rebels (contras)-the
contentious issue that, once again, is high drama on
Capitol Hill and in the White House. President Reagan
heavily lobbies for his proposal to provide the rebels
with $100 million-$70 million of it military assis-
tance-to fight "the malignancy in Managua." There
are closed meetings and press conferences, White
House sessions and arm-twisting phone calls, charges of
scare tactics and redbaiting.
Watching it unfold and playing their own part to influ-
ence the outcome, Singlaub, a retired major general,
and Liteky, a congressional Medal of Honor winner,
remember past battlegrounds, the killing and dying that
shaped their views.
Many members of Congress are uncomfortable with
absolutes; in the growing grayness of the Nicaraguan
struggle there are no easy "good guys versus bad guys."
Their decision hinges on whether they buy Reagan's
claim, or the opposing view that contra aid means cer-
tain escalation.
However, for Singlaub, of the far right, and Liteky, a
former chaplain now of the religious left, certitude is
strong. They are archetypal combatants, representa-
tive of the high passions and opposing views to be heard
tomorrow as the House begins debate.
Despite a slight limp, a reminder of long-ago para-
chute jumps, Singlaub stalks the halls of Congress with
a quickness that belies his 64 years. Singlaub's hair has
never been released from its stiff military brush cut
except for a time during World War II while running
covert operations in France, when he disguised himself
as a Frenchman, a cover that would have been blown as
soon as the enemy heard his flat American accent.
Singlaub is remembered as the chief of staff of U.S.
troops in Korea who was relieved of command after
publicly denouncing President Carter's plan to remove
troops from Korea. Now he is chairman of an anticom-
munist brigade that raises millions from private citizens
to fund the contras. He is welcomed in Reagan's White
House and meets with aide Pat Buchanan, whose
heavy-handed tactics ("the Democratic Party will reveal
whether it stands with Ronald Reagan and the resis-
tance or Daniel Ortega and the communists") incensed
many on the Hill, who charged "McCarthyism."
You can't have a revolution these days without a pub-
lic relations firm and Singlaub is shepherded by two
'Clews Communications consultants from press confer-
ence to TV shows, from White House meetings to Capi-
tol Hill.
A consultant suggests that Sing au appear on one
show with a representative of the Soviet Embassy. "Lis-
ten! I'm fed up with giving time to those miserable pro-
pagandists." Singlaub makes nervous facial grimaces as
he sits like a coiled spring in the
office of Rep. Richard Cheney
(R-Wyo.), an ally who says the votes
aren't there yet. Singlaub, brow fur-
rowing on a sharply chiseled face,
says fervently that this is the result
of "sophisticated disinformation on
the part of the Sandinistas."
He dismisses the argument for
negotiating through the Contadora
process as a "very clever stalling
ploy." There is urgency in his voice.
"A congressman, has got. to know
that if he votes any delay, votes
against this proposal, it will guaran-
tee that U.S. troops are going to
have to be used there."
Cheney says, "The biggest prob-
lem is getting access to the Demo-
cratic side of the aisle." Singlaub
nods eager assent as Cheney says,
"We will be aggressively working
the members and maybe we will ask
you to pick up the phone."
Meanwhile, Charlie Liteky (pro-
nounced Lit-key) is approaching the
Capitol with 200 other protesters.
Forming a long line, they carry
cross after cross with the name, age
and date of death, documented kill-
ings by the contras, such as Victori-
ano Reyez, age 55, killed this Janu-
ary. Liteky, 55, a tall, slim, graying
man in a brown suit, wearing bifo-
cals, stands next to a woman in a
wheelchair holding her cross-Be-
nigo Hernandez Calderon, killed
12/27/85, age 16.
A huge sign says, "Sorrow:
10,000 killed. Hope: No Contra
Aid."
"My name is Charlie Liteky," he
begins. "I'm a Vietnam veteran. For
my service in Vietnam, Congress
gave me the highest military award.
I tell you that, in case anybody won-
ders if I'm sbft on communism,"
Liteky adds dryly, a pointed refer-
ence to the redbaiting frequently
directed toward those who oppose
contra aid. "I'm here to plead
'remember Vietnam' and get out
before it's too late. Not a single
country in the world has joined
Reagan in his embargo. I am
appalled at the documented atroci-
ties." His voice rising, Liteky says,
"We are making another quagmire!"
He repeats the story of a woman
he met recently in Nicaragua: "I
spoke with a mother whose son had
been mutilated by the contras. She
placed her hand on my chest and
said, 'Go to President Reagan.
Place your hand on his chest. Ask
him to stop killing us.' "
The Witness for Peace group
forms a large cross on the Capitol
steps. Remembrances of yesterday
are in the lined faces of such pro-
testers as William Sloane Coffin.
Liteky's tenor voice joins the group
singing "Amazing Grace."
When such religious groups are
mentioned to Singlaub, he replies
that Sandinista leader "Tomas
Borge calls them his army of useful
fools."
Debate over Nicaragua has esca-
lated into fights over which side
commits the most atrocities. And a
new form of body count has
emerged-whether there are more
former Sandinistas or Somocistas in
the contra brigade. (Singlaub says
Somoza's old national guard, which
specialized in death squads, com-
prises "only 1 percent" of the con-
tras; Liteky argues "that 1 percent
happens to be the leaders among the
contras"). Members of Congress
and activists on both sides compare
anecdotal information to prove, on
the one hand, that the Sandinistas
are oppressive, lying communists
and, on the other, that the contras
are rapists and murderers.
As the struggle for votes contin-
ues, Singlaub and Rep. Robert Dor-
nan (R-Calif.) sit in the corner of the
Capitol Hill Club, assessing the val-
ue of their morning's press confer-
ence with Alvardo Baldizon, a for-
mer Nicaraguan deputy interior
minister who defected to the United
States. Baldizon claims that East
German-trained Nicaraguans, dis-
guised as contras, had slaughtered
civilians. "Killing their own people
to make a political point!" exclaims
Dornan.
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Singlaub, a covert warrior in
three wars, and Dornan, who calls
himself a "strong Reaganaut," are
comfortable with spook-speak: If
Baldizon turned out to be a 'double
agent' it would probably kill the
bill," says Dornan, who adds that he
carefully "grilled" him. Singlaub
agrees: "I tried to 'break him' but
too many things checked out."
Singlaub first discerned a red
menace as a UCLA undergraduate
before World War If. A communist-
led group tried to get control of the
newspaper, he says. Singlaub
thwarted them by dragging two
football players out of practice to
vote against their candidate for edi-
tor.
His continuing experiences were
"very disillusioning"; French resis-
tance soldiers "more interested in
collecting weapons to fight for com-
munism after the war than they
were in getting the Nazis out. I
thought, 'Maybe this is a real threat
to the United States.' Then in China
I found the same thing, Chinese
more dedicated to the Communist
cause than in getting the Japanese
out of their country."
During the war, Singlaub first
trained for the Office of Strategic
Services at Washington's Congres-
sional Country Club. "I saw a lot of
the club from four inches above
grass level. We were snooping and
pooping the whole time."
Singlaub led a three-man team
that parachuted into occupied
France to help organize resistance
units. He received his first war
wound when "a German sniper bul-
let went into a slate house and scat-
tered a lot of fragments in my face
and nicked my ear." After the war,
in laub ran es ions a op eiis
in anc uria ina, Mon o is and
i eria. During t e Korean War
ri
CIA mission and later a combat bat-
talion commander. He was wounded
again and receive t e i vet tar.
Once described as a "thoroughly
professional soldier," Singlaub is
unburdened by perplexing complex-
ities. While Liteky became increas.
ingly troubled by the toll of war,
Singlaub sees killing during war as
"the purpose of the exercise." He
defends backing dictators such as
Anastasio Somoza and Ferdinand
Marcos, who managed to give
wretched excess a bad name. "But
Marcos was the guy we had to pay
the money to because he was elect,
ed!" Even after Benigno Aquino was
murdered? He protests, "The thing
that has to be learned is that you do
not insulta leader in public."
As for Somoza, says Singlaub,
"the best intentioned dictators go
bad. I was among those who sug-
gested that he had 'outlived his use-
fulness,' but for God's sake don't
sponsor an organization that has as
its leaders known Marxists." And
the national guard? "The contras
don't have enough of the well-
trained Somoza national guard. We
need their talents."
? VIII!'
bodia_ . in?laub ad uu
ds "I've been
us of it but I had 2.!hin m d?
with Operation Phoenix"
the CIA-
2 - - ,.~ ......,,n, vi aIX)u[
namese ssassm<
bons. M sure ~t displeased the
c~rmunts i osop v o
etratm? enemv territory is a philoso-
nhv I norm ....?
Talk turns to the practice of high
officials lying about U.S. involvement,
as they did during Vietnam. "If you're
going to have it covert, it has to be
covert. If it's exposed inadvertently,
there has to be some way it can be
'plausibly denied.' For example, our
ambassador in Korea would say, 'I
know nothing about it [Singlaub's
covert operations].' And he didn't.
He arranged that. Had me deal
directly with Philip Habib, who was
the minister counselor, instead.
'That whole idea has been lost
with respect to operations in Nica-
ragua."
Charles Liteky belongs to an
opposing force that Singlaub terms
"fuzzy-minded liberals," but there
was a time when both, no doubt,
would have been comfortable with
each other.
Liteky, a Navy brat, long
believed in the U.S. role in Viet-
nam. His father, a military career-
ist, was severely wounded during
World War II when his ship was hit
by a kamikaze attack. Still he man-
aged to climb into the cockpit of the
burning Zero and cut the label out
of the pilot's glove for a souvenir.
"He was this big macho man,"
recalls Liteky. "He would fight at
the drop of a hat. Usually there is a
time between the element of dan-
ger and the sense of fear. But with
my father, before the fear came in
him, he would react in a very bom-
bastic way." Liteky laughs. "Conse-
quently, he always won." Today,
Liteky recognizes that his soft-spo-
ken gentleness is a form of rebellion
against his father's combativeness.
Coaches were grooming Liteky, a
star athlete, for football scholar.
ships when he disappointed them by
entering the seminary. That kept
Liteky from the Korean War; when
Vietnam came along, he went
eagerly.
"I believed everything I was
doing. I was very much against
communism. I still am. I hold no
brief for the Sandinistas. I just dis.
agree very much with the way this
administration is handling it."
Liteky was one of the few chap-
lains who followed the troops into
battle, administering last rites to
dying young men.
In 1967, the weaponless, priest
crawled under fire to within 15
meters of an enemy machine-gun
nest, flipped over on his back, wres-
tled a bleeding and moaning man
onto his chest and started digging
backward, with his elbows and
heels, for about 30 yards to the
landing zone. He then stood and
dragged the soldier another 40
yards to Medivac choppers. Then
he went back for another trapped
man. A soldier in Liteky's company
once recalled it:
"All afternoon he was bringing up
stretchers, ammunition, water. He
rose right up like a man deranged,
in full face of rockets and small-
arms fire, to direct in rescue heli-
copters. He took off his flight jack-
et, and then his fatigue shirt, and
threw them over the faces of
blown-away comrades." Despite
shrapnel wounds from neck to feet,
Liteky carried more than 20 men to
the landing zone for evacuation.
When President Johnson draped
the congressional Medal of Honor
around Liteky's neck in 1968, John-
son said, "Son, I'd rather have one
of these babies than be president."
A year ago, Liteky appealed at a
Hill press conference for a negotiat-
ed settlement in El Salvador and
Nicaragua. A congressman angrily
interrupted. Liteky softly tried
again: "I believe in the preciousness
of all innocent lives." But the con-
gressman shouted on, "It makes me
sick to hear people like you question
the motives of the contras!"
Once again, Liteky goes from
congressional office to congression-
al office. The swing vote will be cru-
cial (Liteky, unused to Hill talk,
calls them the "swingers"). Some,
like Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), lis-
ten respectfully. "I think like you on
the issues," says Spratt, "and then I
listen to the other side ... "
J%.
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'Calk of Nicaragua is the talk of
blind men touchin arts of the ele-
phant: "
I was the front man for that," says
Spratt. feel was used." ter
mein ers o Congress feel the
ac min is ra ion did not bar am
goo( aith. And Litek tells Sprat , '"l' a administration said its intent
was not to overthrow the govern-
ment o icarartua and then the
CIA manual talked of overthrowing
the government and then Larry
SpPakes came out and said that was
the nitent F_-.-said I was going to try
to not let this deception happen
again." Spratt nods in frustration
and says, "You can't get anything
clear from the administration. I was
just asking [Defense Secretary Cas-
parl Weinberger what is the mili-
tary plan of action. His answer was
that the purpose [of the contras) is
to 'stabilize' the country." The
phrase makes everyone in the room
laugh.
Liteky sighs and introduces a
familiar argument; the oppression
and poverty that fostered Marxist
revolt. "What about the hypocrisy of
all this? Why weren't we concerned
about 'freedom and democracy'
when Somoza was in office?"
The former priest adamantly dis-
putes Reagan's assertion that sup-
porting the contras will keep U.S.
troops out of Nicaragua. "No one
believes the contras on their own
can overthrow the Sandinistas."
Unlike in Vietnam, Liteky feels,
"the major [Nicaraguan) towns
could be occupied by American
troops in just a few weeks. But
that's just the beginning. The guer-
rillas flee to the hills, and they begin
again to operate a guerrilla-type
warfare."
Liteky is patiently trying to tell
Rep. Dornan that he is not for the
Sandinistas. He says nothing about
his heroism when he tells Dornan
that he was with the 199th Light
Infantry Brigade in Vietnam. Dor-
nan brightens. "I went out with
them in the field [as a broadcast
journalists and they gave me their
wristwatch, an $18 special. They
had a black commander!" "That's
right," Liteky says quietly, "Briga-
dier General Davis."
"Say," Dornan starts again, in full
Rotarian chitchat, pointing to Lite-
ky's lapel pin, "[s that a J for Jesuit?"
No, says Liteky, it is a sword beaten
into the shape of a plowshare. "It
was made from the remains of a
fighter plane." Dornan's triumphant
response: "It's aluminum, then!"
t e n mistas
On the Hill there is generally a
bemused reaction when Liteky
mentions morality and nonviolence
as he now does with Dornan. "I'm
not a great advocate of the Sandi-
nistas," he begins for the hundredth
time. "But that doesn't mean we
have to be complicit in that kind of
immorality. I am not responsible for
what they do, but I am responsible
for what my tax money is backing in
Nicaragua." His voice fills with pain.
"I think they are guilty of some of
the most atrocious atrocities. I am
talking of the morality of it all."
'T'heir dissimilar quests take Sing-
laub and Liteky away from their
homes for long periods. Singlaub's
tax-exempt Council for World Free-
dom-the U.S. chapter of the
World Anti-Communist League-
has raised a large part of the esti-
mated $10 million for medical and
nonlethal aid for the contras. U.S.
law prohibits private funding for
arms and ammunition, but Singlaub
says "there is nothing illegal about
banks sending money to overseas
accounts-and then we can buy
arms over there. You just can't
deduct it from your taxes."
Singlaub says he has rid the coun-
cil of its fringe element. "We had a
Mexican chapter that was reallly
kooky. Blamed everything on the
Jews. Even accused Pope John Paul
of being a Jew. They were thrown
out."
Singlaub's wife shares his senti-
ments on the contras. They met
during World War II when she was
a Navy ensign working in Navy
intelligence. They live in Colorado
and have three children.
Liteky gave up his job with the
Veterans Administration in San
Francisco to devote himself to his
Central America cause in Washing-
ton for the next six months. His
wife Judy, a former nun, remains in
San Francisco where she is active
with the Sanctuary Movement.
An anguishing search for a per-
sonal sense of sanctity led Liteky to
leave the priesthood. The struggle
began about the same time Liteky
began to wrestle with America's
presence in Vietnam. "I was a hero
and a chaplain to boot and all these
laymen wanted to hear my rationale
for Vietnam. I spoke a lot." Then
one day a comment from someone
in the audience changed Liteky's
life. "He said I was going to have to
rise above," says Liteky, using the
phrase that has stayed with him all
these years, " 'the assumptions of
your subculture.' I realized that my
Catholicism holds for a 'just war'
theory."
It took him six years to leave the
priesthood. "I began my appeal to
the pope three times and twice I
had to stop the process. It was too
emotional for me." Finally, he real-
ized, "I was dying emotionally. I had
the choice of fading the anxiety of
leaving or live with the depression
of staying. [ felt I was living a lie."
Liteky is impervious to the
guarded responses from the elected
officials of Washington when he
says he might consider a fast to dra-
matize his views. He has a home-
made sign that says, "For God's
Sake Stop the Killing," He intends
to walk the streets with it. What
would he say to those who think he
is just another picketing loon in
Washington? "I would talk to them
about the lunacy of what we are
doing in Central America."
Yesterday, down.by the Reflect-
ing Pool, Singlaub christened a
Medivac helicopter, paid for by
funds raised by the Conservative
Digest and bound for Central Amer-
ica. Phrases like "on behalf of the
military man" and "the lonely foot
soldier" flowed: "Now at isolated
outposts in faraway places, he lis-
tens with thirsty ear for the sound
of a distant trumpet . . . let us at
last ignore the senseless din of
those who have counseled retreat
... "Singlaub quoted John F. Ken-
nedy's "proudest boast-'Ich bin
ein Berliner.'
"As we face a communist menace
at our own back door," continued
Singlaub, "those who love liberty
more than life can say with equal
pride and equal right, 'Yo soy una
contra!'
"Venceremos!"
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