REAGAN RALLIED FOR AID TILL THE HILL SURRENDERED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870009-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: January 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870009-2
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WASHINGTON POST
1 January 1087
Reagan Rallied for Aid
Till the Hill Surrendered
Initial White House Doubts Were Oreircome
By Joanne Omang
W.t.hmgrn Put 'r rtt Writer
The spring of 1983 was a critical
season in U.S. foreign policy. Con-
gress was openly rebelling against
President Reagan's "secret" aid to
contra rebels fighting the govern-
ment of Nicaragua and the presi-
dent, always formidable in any po-
litical tussle, decided to abandon the
silence he had kept for more than
two years on the issue.
In a speech to a joint session of
Congress on April 27,. Reagan cast
El Salvador's war against leftists in
Cold War terms. Less than a month
later, he referred to the Nicaraguan
contras as "freedom fighters." Rea-
gan had stepped into the ring with
his gloves off.
In the nearly four years since
then, he has occasionally backped-
aled but has never completely left
the fight.
As former and current officials
connected with the U.S.-contra re-
lationship see it, Reagan eventually
wore Congress down in his repeat-
ed call for substantial military as-
sistance to the contras. He became
the administration's most effective
propagandist in painting an image of
Nicaragua's Sandinistas as Soviet
vassals and in depicting the contra
cause as a Latin reincarnation of the
American Revolution.
Moreover, they said, Reagan
stamped the issue with the impri-
matur of his authority and convic-
tion, giving those who worked for
THE CONTRA
COMMITMENT
Second of Two Articles
him the creative certitude of true
believers.
Convinced that communism in
the Western Hemisphere must be
thwarted and that the contras were
the only weapon at hand, Reagan
aides would subsequently undertake
secret actions that became bitterly
controversial when di_,clo,ed: in
1984, the the Central Intelligence
Agency's mining of Nicaraguan har-
bors, late last year the diversion to
the contra cause of profits from
U.S. arms sales to Iran.
The vigor with which Reagan
became the contras' champion was
ironic given initial White House res-
ervations.
When the news broke in March
1982 that armed rebels had con-
ducted raids against the Sandinis-
tas, conservatives in and out of Con-
gress-unaware that the United
States had secretly aided the ef-
fort-urged Reagan to lead a na-
tionwide campaign for public sup-
port for the "freedom fighters," ac-
cording to several who made the
appeal.
But his advisers, notably special
assistant Michael K. Deaver, re-
fused. They were wary of the un-
pleasant resonance between Cen-
tral American jungles and Vietnam.
"Deaver hated this issue. He didn't
want Reagan messing with it and
ruining his popularity," said Peter
Flaherty, head of Citizens for Rea-
gan, an independent lobby formed
in 1980 to support the Reagan
agenda.
Even the State Department had
been unable to persuade the White
House to allow Reagan's photo-
graph to be taken with El Sal-
vador's Jose Napoleon Duarte in
early 1982, when Duarte's party
was running for survival against
extremists of the left and the right,
according to a senior official at the
time.
One important episode occurred
in late 1982 when then-U.N. Am-
bassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, al-
ways influential with Reagan, re-
turned from a trip to Nicaragua and
urged him to speak out "on the stra-
tegic importance of the region to
the United States," Kirkpatrick re-
called in an interview. A lobbyist
close to the debate said Kirkpatrick
also argued that Reagan alone could
ignite Americans, sympathies tor
the contras. Kirkpatrick, however,
denies making that case.
Contra supporters on Capitol Hill
were also increasingly convinced-
as they repeatedly told the White
House-that only Reagan's person.
al popularity and influence could
overcome increasing congressional
wariness about U.S, involvement in
Central America. The House had
voted in late 1982 to bar govern-
ment spending for the purpose of
overthrowing the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment.
Reagan's fiery speeches in April
and May 1983 were accompanied
by a deeper involvement in the
contra issue by the State Depart.
ment and the CIA, according to of-
ficials involved at the time. A wary
Secretary of State George P. Shultz
was "dragged into it kicking and
screaming," an aide recalled, and
began echoing Reagan's alarms.
Contras 'Sell' Their Case
The CIA intensified its efforts to
clean up and unite the squabbling
Nicaraguan resistance groups into
something resembling an army, us-
ing what a Senate source called "a
combination of money, threats,
force and promises."
Former contra Edgar Chamorro,
testifying to the World Court in
Nicaragua's 1984 suit over U.S.
mining of its harbors, said, "CIA
officials told us we could change the
votes of many members of Con-
gress if we knew how to 'sell' our
case and place [opponentsl in a po-
sition of 'looking soft on commu-
nism' . They told us exactly
what to say and which members of
the Congress to say it to."
A new Office of Public Diplomacy
was established in the State Depart-
ment, after a brief turf struggle
with the National Security Council,
to promote the Central American
Policy with the press and public.
Faith Ryan Whittlesey's Office of
Public Liaison in the White House
began to hold briefings for conser-
vative activists; one frequent speak-
er was Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, an
NSC staff member later accused of
secretly diverting money from Iran-
ian arms sales to the contra cause.
"The idea was to make the con-
tras over into something to vote
for," a Republican lobbyist said.
"Congressmen won't give money to
an idea."
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i ne operating tneory of the Of-
fice of Public Diplomacy was that
the administration view had not
reached middle America because a
biased press had given prominence
to U.S. church groups' attacks on
contra human rights violations and
because of liberals' praise for San-
dinista social reforms.
The office dispatched speakers
nationwide and produced short his-
tories of the Sandinistas, stressing
their Cuban and Soviet links and
their mistreatment of Nicaragua's
Indians in 1981 and 1982. There
were glossy reports on the disputes
with then-Archbishop Manuel
Obando y Bravo and on the incident
in March 1983 when Sandinista
supporters booed and embarrassed
Pope John Paul II for refusing to
pray for soldiers killed fighting the
contras.
Heat From the Hill
For selected journalists there
were also confidential documents
that bolstered the administration
position and sought to discredit crit-
ical human rights reports.
On July 8, 1983, Reagan met
with his Cabinet under a new sense
of urgency over the deteriorating
situation in El Salvador, new Soviet
military shipments to Nicaragua
and rising complaints from Con-
gress that lawmakers were not get-
ting the full story.
Intelligence committee members
were increasingly impatient with
the administration argument that
aid to the contras served only to in-
terdict Nicaraguan arms shipments.
There were too many contras for
such a modest task, the members
complained, and the rebels were
boasting to television cameras that
they would soon be in Managua,
Nicaragua's capital.
Those feelings exploded with the
July disclosure of major U.S. mil-
itary maneuvers in Honduras, Nic-
aragua's northern neighbor. Out-
raged House moderates led a 228-
to-195 vote on July 28 to cut off all
undercover aid to the contras. As
expressed by Ren. .
(D-[nd.), the House be ieved that
the effort Is not working, it risks a
wider war, it is opposed by the
American people and it is against
the American character."
The July 8 Cabinet meeting
launched ? the National Bipartisan
Commission on Central America,
chaired by former secretary of state
Henry A. Kissinger, which "took the
heat off Reagan and let him back
out of the picture for six months," in
the words of a commission official.
In November 1983, the Senate
agreed to limit 1984 contra funding
to $24 million, also barring further
spending for the rebels from other
government sources. Revelations in
the spring of 1984 about the mining
of Nicaragua's harbors killed the
1985 request, and the last military
aid checks went to the contras in
May 1984.
) That month, Lt. Col. North and
ewey Clarridge, head of the CIA's
Latin bureau, visited contra camps
fin Honduras to offer assurances
that the United States would not
abandon them, although North did
not say specifically where the sup-
port would come from, according to
several rebels.
The administratioh was taking
heat from conservatives, who felt
the White House had been too re-
strained in its enthusiasm for the
contras. "Everybody knows that
when Ronald Reagan presses Con-
gress and appeals to the people, he
gets what he wants. We felt he
should have made a full-court press
from the beginning." said F. Andy
Messing Jr., a friend of North's who
heads the conservative National
Defense Council Foundation.
Because of the congressional pro-
hibition on official U.S. support,
true believers outside the govern.
ment tried to come to the contras'
aid, often with encouragement from
officials such as North. The Stanton
Group of conservative activists,
meeting often at the house of new-
right leader Paul Weyrich was "th
e
, catalytic element" in building pri-
vate support for the "freedom fight-
ers," who sometimes spoke at the
gatherings, according to Messing.
Among those present from the
beginning in mid-1984 was retired
general John Singlaub. head of the
World Anti-Communist League,
who later claimed to be coordinat.
ing the private effort in the "under-
"
standing
that the White House did
not disapprove of his work.
North, Messing said, served as
an information hub" to whom all
the participants reported, in the
knowledge "that the data would be
put to good use." But North issued
no instructions to those providing
private aid, Messing insisted. "We
did it ourselves, out of frustration
with the administration."
House and Senate select commit-
tees and independent counsel Law.
rence E. Walsh are probing what
other avenues North and his col-
leagues in the NSC, CIA and else-
where may have pursued to help
keep the contras a?ve during the
fund cutoff. It appears certain that
some of the same figures running a
contra weapons resupply operation
were also helping North sell weap-
ons to Iran in an attempt to free
American hostages held in Leba-
non. Investigators suspect that
profits from the U.S. arms sales to
Iran helped finance the contra re-
supply missions.
At one point in 1984, North pro-
posed an all-out TV fund-raising
campaign to be led by the president,
according to several sources. But
the administration was not about to
buck negative polls on the contra
program by discussing Nicaragua
before the 1984 presidential elec-
tions.
The Democrats were not eager
to bring it up either, fearing Repub-
lican charges that they were soft on
communism, according to Rep. Mi-
chael D. Barnes (D-Md.), outgoing
chairman of the House Foreign Af-
fairs subcommittee on Western
Hemisphere affairs and a leading
critic of the contras.
In May 1984, the administration
had a stroke of luck. Congressional
favorite lose Napoleon Duarte was
elected president of El Salvador,
eventually taking the situation
there off the front pages. Reagan's
staff considered the possibility that
the administration might take over
the Contadora peace process-then
foundering in Washington's faint
praise since its January 1983 cre-
ation by Mexico, Venezuela, Pan-
ama and Colombia-and send Rea-
gan into the 1984 elections with the
mantle of peacemaker.
Langhorne P. Motley, successor
to Assistant Secretary of State
Thomas 0. Enders, leading propo-
nent of "long-term rollback" nego-
tiations, talked Shultz into going to
Nicaragua after Duarte's inaugu.
ration to open bilateral talks. The
move stunned conservatives, but it
foundered on Nicaragua's refusal to
make any concessions, Motley said.
"The only way we got it [Shultz's
trip] to happen was to keep it secret
from the NSC until it was too late to
stop it, and then there was no way
we were going to get any position
changes out of them [the NSC" to
carry the talks forward, Motley
said.
After Reagan's landslide reelec.
tion, Democrats were even less ea-
ger to take on the president. "Our
whole strategy after that was to
postpone an up-or-down vote for
two years," Barnes said. "We just
didn't have the votes if Reagan had
ever presented it that way."
STAT
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved
ideas tor dealing with Nicaragua, all
of which were rejected. A sea block-
ade of Nicaragua had been studied
closely at the Defense Department,
but the two carrier battle groups it
would have required-more than a
dozen ships-were considered too
expensive and a risky diversion
from Mediterranean commitments,
according to two Pentagon sources.
Surgical strikes on Nicaraguan
targets were often suggested, "but
mostly in angry moments," and
were viewed as a last resort, pos-
sibly against any attempt to intro-
duce Soviet MiG warplanes into the
country, the Pentagon sources said.
Several administration conser-
vatives, notably former ambassador
to Costa Rica Curtin Winsor, had
argued that diplomatic recognition
of Nicaragua should be withdrawn,
but intelligence officials said the
embassy in Managua was very use-
ful to them. The State Department
said its envoys could hardly pro-
mote negotiations if there were no
ambassador to do the talking.
Economic sanctions against Nic-
aragua had been proposed as early
as 1982, but the Treasury and
Commerce departments opposed
them as unenforceable, according
to an NSC official. After the aid cut-
off in 1984, "we pushed it as some-
thing that could be done to show
the Central American allies we
were still serious," an official said.
As each proposal was considered
and rejected, the White House kept
coming back to what it perceived as
an imperative need for military aid
to the contras, at virtually any cost,
according to officials familiar with
the debate.
Nicaragua's image had deterio-
rated as repression increased in the
country, and the contras had im-
proved under CIA tutelage as its
forces grew. Putting together the
House's fiscal 1986 funding bill for
U.S. intelligence activity in the
spring of 1985, "we got the shock of
our lives when the majority sudden.
ly favored allowing [the CIA to
give) advice and intelligence to the
contras," an intelligence committee
source said.
In early 1985, a top Republican
House strategist said, GOP leaders
were warning the White House that
military aid "just wouldn't fly ...
and we suggested humanitarian aid
as a compromise. But they had to
be convinced by defeat that they
couldn't get it."
'Just a Matter of Tin?'
That occurred when a proposed
package of $14 million in military
aid, in reality a meaningless token
... -U vIL, Ill L 41Paui Ql rtpru 1J8.7.
However, not one lawmaker in the
Keagan "came out charging" last
spring, Flaherty said, making
speech after speech that presented
the issue as a choice between him-
self and Ortega.
The handwriting was on the wall:
The House approved $100 million
in contra aid on June 25 by 221 to
209.
"The guys in the middle just got
tired of being beaten up on by both
sides," Barnes said. "They knew
Reagan was going to come back and
back and back on this. He was ob-
sessed by it .... He just wore ev-
erybody out."
The Reagan luck held in the Sen-
ate, where the Republican leader-
ship was able to overcome a poten-
tially deadly liberal filibuster
against contra aid by tying it to eco-
nomic sanctions against South Af-
rica, which the liberals supported. It
passed 53 to 47.
Congress had acquiesced to the
military aid proposal, though the
embrace was hardly enthusiastic.
Renewal of the plan this year would
have been a question mark in any,
case, but chances have been dimin-
ished with the Nov. 4 election of a
Democratic-controlled Congress,
The Iranian arms-contra aid scandal
may have undercut the contras by
association, according to House an,
alysts.
But administration officials said'
they detect no sign yet that sup-
porters are abandoning ship; the
White House is determined to sep-
arate the scandal from the rebel
cause and retain a program propo.
nents still regard as crucial to U.S.
strategic defense.
Elliott Abrams, assistant secre-
tary of state for inter-American af-
fairs, said recently that the furor
over private aid and diversion is
irrelevant. "That period is over as
of October anyway," Abrams said.
"Now the U.S. government is fund-
ing the contras."
The first test of congressional:
sentiment is to occur Feb. 15, when,
the final $40 million of the $100:
million is scheduled to be released.
Congress could block disbursement.
with a joint resolution of disapprov-
al, but it is subject to presidential:
veto, which in turn can be overrid-'
den by a two-thirds majority.
The debate is less than two.
months away.
floor debate had said anything to
defend Nicaragua, and the admin-
istration noticed.
"I was saying, 'Listen to these
great speeches! This is terrific!' and
we were losing the vote and every-
body thought I was nuts, but I knew
that was it. After that it was just a
matter of time," said retired colonel
Lawrence L. Tracy, a Latin Amer-
ica specialist from the Defense De-
partment detailed to the Office of
Public Diplomacy.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Or-
tega helped things along by disclos-
ing that he made a visit to Moscow
on April 28, four days after Con-
gress had refused Reagan. Al-
though the visit had been planned
long in advance, it looked as though
he were thumbing his nose at Con-
gress.
House Minority Leader Robert
H. Michel (R-Ill.) could see the'
opening. He asked for and got-a
meeting a few days later that. jp_
cluded all the major administratjpq,
players: Shultz, White House chief
of staff Donald T. Regan. national
security adviser Robert C. McFar-
lane, speechwriter Patrick J. Bu
chanan and top House Republicans-
"We said let's deal in the artt-of
the possible," the GOP strategicb
said. The meeting drew up a pack-
age of nonlethal aid to contras that
was dubbed "humanitarian," the
strategist said. "If we hadn't done
that, the contra aid would have died
completely."
On June 12, 1985, the contra
announced in El Salvador that then
had formed the United Nicaraguan
Opposition (UNO) with a democrat-
ic political program. On the same
day, the House narrowly approved
$27 million in nonlethal aid to the
rebels, with the proviso that mili-
tary aid would have a high priority
the following spring. Michel went to
the White House.
'A Nice Round Figure'
"He said he was tired of rounding
up votes and telling people $14 mil-
lion would save the world. He said
let's give 'em enough to win, and
let's make a really major pitch. The
$100 million was a nice round fig-
ure," recalled Peter Flaherty, head
of Citizens for Reagan.
Reagan agreed. He proposed an
unrestricted $70 million in military
aid that the CIA could again man-
age, $27 million in renewed human-
itarian aid, and $3 million for a hu-
man rights office to guarantee
contra good behavior.
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A CONTRA CHRONOLOGY: RECENT HISTORY
MARCH: White House launches a
public relations effort in support of the
contras.
wiz: rvanonai Security Council create,
a bipartisan commission to make
recommendations for U.S. policy in
Central America (the Kissinger
Commission), and authonzes increased
U S. presence in the region. Later in
the month, major troop exercises in
Honduras are revealed. Congress reacts
strongly.
JULY 28: First House vote to cut off
NOVEMBER: Congress votes $24
million in assistance to continue
through mid?1984. This will be the last
military aid authorized until October
1986.
rcumuA Y: Central Intelligence
Agency spearheads contra mining of
Nicaraguan harbors.
MAY: Jose Napoleon Duarte is elected
president of El Salvador, allowing the
administration to turn its attention more
fully to the situation in Nicaragua.
FALL 1984-SPRING 1985:
Administration makes repeated,
unsuccessful attempts to secure
military aid for the contras.
1985
APRIL 24: House and Senate defeat a
Package of military aid for the contras.
mni 1: U.J. imposes economic
sanctions against Nicaragua.
JUNE 12: United Nicaraguan
Opposition, the contras' political
umbrella roup, is formed. On the same
o_.
Sedate votes its approval in August.
NOVEMBER: White House authorizes a
aid
for contras.
1986
COMPIIEO BY JAMES SCHWARTZ. ORAPM$C BY MARTY BARRICX-r4f WASHINGTON POST
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