CONTRAS: OUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740056-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: February 25, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740056-2
LOS ANGELES TIMES
25 February 1986
Contras: Our First Line of Defense
With Help, They Will Keep the Soviets at Bay Terrorists, Too
By JOHN K. SINGLAUB
Congress must speedily approve military
aid to the freedom fighters of Nicaragua
(sometimes called contras). Further delay
will only condemn these brave individuals
to a slow defeat and allow the consolidation
of a communist state on the American
mainland.
Such a consolidation would pose a direct
threat to the security of the United States
and would only hasten the day when U.S.
troops will have to be sent to Central
America, no matter who is President.
This threat is twofold. First, the occupa-
tion of the Soviet bases now under con-
struction in Nicaragua would give the
Soviet Union the ability to cut off the
strategic sea lanes that pass through the
Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Our
North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies
and the American forces that are now
based in Europe depend on these sea lanes
for resupply and reinforcement. Soviet
support for the. Sandinistas is consistent
with their long-time strategic goal of
decoupling the United States from our
allies in Europe.
A lesson from World War II dramatizes
this problem. In 1942 the Nazis sank- 263
merchant ships in the Caribbean and the
Gulf in just one eight-month period. At that
time Cuba, the West Indies and Central
America were all in friendly hands. Nazi
submarines had to operate from bases in
France, 4,000 miles away. Imagine the
situation with Soviet bases in Cuba and
Nicaragua and communist control of the
Panama Canal.
.Soviet bases in Nicaragua are a threat
during peacetime as well. The Soviets are
now able to fly intelligence-gathering
flights over the Eastern Seaboard from
bases in Cuba. Bases in Nicaragua would
give them, for the first time, the ability to
fly all along our West Coast.
We also should not fail to remember that
we live in a nuclear age. Should the Soviets
attempt to place missiles in Nicaragua, as
they did in Cuba in 1960, the world could
again be brought to the brink of nuclear
confrontation. Why even take such a
chance?
The second part of the threat comes not
from. conventional or nuclear forces, but
from irregular warfare in the form of
terrorism. Since 1979 Nicaragua has wel-
comed terrorists from groups as diverse as
the Palestine Liberation Organization, the
Italian Red Brigades, the Baader-Meinhof
gang and the Basque ETA.
Nicaragua is the only nation in this
hemisphere with a public-works project
named after a terrorist. Two years ago
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega dedi-
cated a new geothermal plant to the
memory of Patricio Arguello Ryan, a
Sandinista who was killed while participat-
ing in a PLO hijacking of an Israeli El Al
airliner over Europe in 1970. Most recently
the Sandinistas were implicated in aiding
the M-19 terrorists in the bloody siege of
Colombia's Supreme Court.
Lenin's dictum that "the purpose of
terrorism is to terrorize" is being taught
to young leftists from throughout this
hemisphere. Helping to turn Nicaragua
into a terrorists' mecca are advisers
from Libya, Syria, Iran, Bulgaria, Cuba,
East Germany, North Korea and Vietnam.
The problem that this poses. for the
United States was illustrated to me during
an evening that I spent with immigration
authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border
near San Diego. That night more than 2,000
illegal immigrants were apprehended while
trying to cross; another 2,000 were estimat-
ed to have made it. The Immigration and
Naturalization Service reports that people
from all over the world are flocking to
Mexico in hopes of crossing the porous
border. U.S. authorities are catching an
increasing number of Palestinians, Asians
and Africans.
The terrorists who are harbored: by
Nicaragua are a diverse lot, but they :are
united in their hate of this country.
Operating here is their ultimate dream, and
unless the freedom fighters are successful,
it is only a matter of time before the
terrorists will be among us.
In addition, we will suffer a security
threat from illegal immigration of the
ordinary kind. Should the communists
destabilize Mexico, as is their professed
goal, millions of refugees will try to enter
this country.
Today tens of thousands of Nicaraguans
sit in refugee camps waiting for the United.
States to help provide them with the
wherewithal to liberate their nation. While
it is morally correct for us to assist those
who fight to bring political and economic
justice and political plurality to Nicaragua,
it is also in our national interest to deny the
Soviets and the international terrorists this
base for operations against the American
people.
Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub (Ret.) is the
chairman of the U.S. Council for World
Freedom, and of the World Anti-Communist
League. During the last two years he has
worked with the contras as an adviser and
in arranging financial support.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740056-2