WHEN TO FURNISH AID FOR A FREEDOM FIGHTER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504350005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: June 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504350005-3 STAT
M
By c
WASHINGTON
I n 1821 John Quincy Adams, in a
famous Fourth of July address, urged
his fellow Americans to be friends of
freedom everywhere but not to go abroad
"in search of monsters to destroy."
In the last few weeks Washington
politicians in both parties have seemed
determined to stand Adams' advice on its
head: They want us to prove that we are a
friend of freedom by acting to destroy all
the monsters through a program of sup-
porting right-wing efforts to overthrow
left-wing governments.
But this is a disastrous road already
well-traveled during the 1950s, a "libera-
tion policy" enunciated during the Dwight
D. Eisenhower presidential campaign of
1952. "We will abandon the policy of
containment and will actively develop
hope and resistance spirit within the
captive peoples," announced the next
secretary ? of state, John Foster Dulles.
The Unite States would "LnIPARh" itA
friends to fight the o ression of commu-
m m r
Administration issued a secret directive
authorizing the Central Intelligence
Agency to the extent practicable in rean
dominated or threatened by international
communism, to develop under d
resistance an acilitate covert and guer-
rilla o erations." Then little more than a
year ater, moQ certainly for internal
reasons and not because of any CIA
success Poland and Hungary did rise up.
The United States found, to its humilia-
tion, that it could do nothing. The Hun-
most brutal forms of repression in Eastern should flow the following guidelines:
Europe for another decade. Yet, that First, domestic support will be high if
history notwithstanding, pressure is an administration is able to help the
mounting in Washington for the United victims of direct aggression. The contras
States to develop a "Reagan Doctrine" in Nicaragua are not fighting a foreign
that would call on this country to work, to invader. The Khmer Rouge attacked
overthrow pro-Soviet governments Vietnam before the latter invaded Cam-
throughout the world bodia. The Afghans are victims of Soviet
Richard L. Armitage, assistant secre- aggression.
tary of defense for international security Second, international support will be
affairs, in early May informed the sub- high if U.S. policy is seen in support of
committee on foreign operations of the regional efforts to deal with an act of
Senate Committee on Appropriations that aggression. The Reagan Administration is
the "enemy of our enemy will be assured right to be concerned about Democratic
of our friendship if he shares our values in efforts to provide direct assistance to the
his opposition to our enemy." Seri; Bob Khmer resistance. This is a fight of
Kasten (R- Wis. ), the subcommittee greatest concern to China and the Assn. of
chairman, has suggested giving the Presi- Southeast Asian Nations (Indonesia, Ma-
dent an unrestricted "rebel fund" to fund laysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thai-
insurgents he finds worthy of support. land). They have enough resources to
The Democrats are also getting in on support whatever degree of resistance the
the act. The House of Representatives, Khmer people are willing to undertake.
controlled by the Democrats, recently Third, U.S. policy is less likely to cause
reversed its earlier decision to deny the us trouble if national interests are seen as
Administration money to fund the effort more important than partisan ideology.
by the contras to overthrow the govern- The goal should not be to look for undem-
ment of Nicaragua. Rep. Stephen J. Solarz ocratic governments to overthrow but to
(D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Asia identify interests compelling enough to
subcommittee, has proposed an amend- defend. America needs cudgels, not cru-
ment that would provide $5 million in sades. Even then, Realpolitik must be
funding for the non-communist insur- tempered by morality or at some point
gents in Cambodia. domestic support will disappear. It is right
Something like a political stampede is to assist Afghans trying to regain control
taking place within Washington policy of their own country. It is immoral to fund
circles. The last time this type of political Afghan insurgents simply for the purpose
movement swept Washington the country of tying the Soviets down in a bloody
got in a great deal of trouble abroad. How insurgency or fighting till the last Afghan.
to prevent this from happening again?
Virtually no one opposes assistance to Charles William Maynes is editor of For-
garian freedom fighters frantically radi- Afghan resistance groups struggling eign policy magazine.
oed for help. None came. Secretary of against the brutal Soviet occupation of
State Dulles then publicly declared that their country. Yet the Administration is
the United States could not assist the less than enthusiastic about efforts by
Hungarians because that would -require Solari to provide direct U.S. aid to the
American troops and such a move "would insurgents in Cambodia and many Demo-
precipitate a full-scale world war." crats are opposed to the Administration's
Eisenhower's policy of direct action desire to provide direct aid to the contras
against communist states was - a tragic in Nicaragua. From these differences
mistake that provided hard-liners
throughout the Warsaw Pact with a
plausible external reason to entrench the
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/24: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504350005-3
LOS ANGELES TIMES
When to Furnish Aid fora Freedom
Fighter