THE HOMELESS AND CONTRAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100021-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: August 18, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100021-2
MT p D
ON PAGE 1.3=I
MARY McGRORY
The Homeless
And Contras
' T MAKES YOU think - even in
August - when you learn, within
a short space of time, that
Americans have contributed $25
million to the contras of Nicaragua,
while the Washington shelter for the
homeless, a few blocks from the
Capitol, took in a couple of bob, to be
exact, $200, from a group of summer
interns.
The Republican practice of giving
alms for arms is well known.
Conservative Republicans, as a
group, sympathize much more with
weapons failures than human failures.
They puddle up whenever they think
the MX, for instance, is about to die.
Their instinct, when confronted with
a plane that won't fly or a gun that
won't fire, is to give it another
hundred million or so and murmur,
"There, there."
The contras appeal to them on two
levels of their being: They like
weapons and they are fighting off the
communist invasion, which lurks as a
clear and present danger in the minds
of all right-thinking right-wingers.
A Mrs. Ellen Garwood of Dallas,
Texas, who recently contributed
$65,000 for a helicopter for the
contras, spoke for all the militants
when she said, "We're about to go
under unless we keep those freedom
fighters going."
The grateful contras have
named the chopper after her. It
will be known as "Lady Ellen."
What a hint to the homeless, if
they would only take it. They
could be fed from the same hand
if they played their cards right. Of
course, they never do play their
cards right, and that's one of the
reasons rich Republicans have no
time for them.
Also, let's face it, they smell
bad, they drink cheap wine, they
have wandering wits and they are
losers. Deep in the conservative
psyche lurks the thought that the
homeless have willfully and
deliberately chosen their fate.
WASHINGTON POST
18 August 1985
Had they invested more wisely,
diversified their portfolios, they
would not be stumbling into the
shelter at Fourth and D on these
nights of blast-furnace heat.
They are freeloaders; the
contras are free-enterprisers.
The federal government is going
to close the homeless shelter on
Aug. 31, giving the homeless a
chance to seek alternative
solutions - that is, to pull up
their socks.
B ut the shelter need not be
closed. A happy ending is
possible, with just a little
image adjustment. All the
homeless need to do is give their
nameless shelter a name, one that
would describe its new role as a
contra training camp. You can see
the Mrs. Garwoods of the country
reaching for their checkbooks.
For that matter, why not call the
place "The Ellen Arms."
The homeless would train for
battle in the shelter basement. I
suggest that when they are
hardened and ready, they call
themselves the "Oliver North
Brigade," after the commandante
in the White House, the Marine
colonel on the National Security
Council staff who runs the secret
war secretly and deserves a little
recognition.
Of course, all of this would be
announced at one of the most
sacred of Washington insitutions,
the fund raiser, which would be
held at the shelter. That would
end the quarrel between Mitch
Snyder, who runs the shelter and
says it needs $10 million in
repairs, and the federal
government, which thinks $2.7
million is enough. The committee
for the Freedom Fighters Ball
(dress, combat fatigues) could
settle that in seconds.
Republicans are extremely
sentimental about refurbishing
interiors. They could repair the
roof, put in air conditioning, paint
the walls with one appeal from
William Simon, Jeane Kirkpatrick
or some other spiritual leader of
the contra cause.
I think the decor should be
martial: jungle-chic, say, masses
of potted palms with grenade
launchers cunningly concealed in
their midst. The door prize? Easy.
Two weeks at the front as the
guest of Col. Enrique Bermudez,
the contra commander and
commie-killer, with one health-
clinic leveling and one raid on a
coffee cooperative guaranteed.
I'm not so sure about the
evenin s entertainment, which
should be a demonstration of the
military skiUs learned by the
shelter clients. Many them
fight unseen demons a oo deal
of the time, and might not look
too s Perhaps t e CIA, which
is excluded by law from
administering ub]ic charity
rem votes on ess,
mi t be able to to to a hand in
motivation and mm as ttering.
The homeless shelter would
become a model which Ronald
Reagan last November promised
it to be. Those left behind could
engage in the voluntarism that is
so advocated by the Reagan
administration. They could help
with the mailings of the contra
committee, appeals for more
funds to ensure that the American
way of life will be preserved in
this hemisphere.
:Mary McGrorv is a Waching!me Post
Columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100021-2