CENTRAL AMERICA/U.S. AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201150023-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2008
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: April 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150023-6
NBC NIGHTZY :1E'w'S '
11 April 198+ "
CE}dTRAL AMERICA BROKAW: Good evening. The CIA mining of the ports in
/U.S. AID Nicaragua remains an explosive political issue tonight.
House Speaker Tip O'Neill today called it terrorism at its
worst. A State Department official, however,~defended the.
right of the United States to mine those harbors.
However, that did not persuade the House Foreign Affairs
Committee. It overwhelmingly approved a resolution
similar to the one passed by the Senate last night, a
non-binding resolution calling for no more money for
mining operations. Marvin Kalb tonight on the
increasingly bitter fight between Congress and the
administration over Nicaragua policy.
KALB: The'vote was heavily one-sided, 32-te-3, the
non-binding resolution reading, 'No funds shall be
obligated or expended for the purpose of planning,
directing, executing or supporting the mining of the ports
or territorial waters of Nicaragua.' Afterward, a leading
critic predicted the House would now cut off all funds for
covert operations against A'icaragua. REP. MICHAEL BARNES
(D-Md.): It's an extraordinarily had policy, and it never'
should have been started. And it certainly should be be
ended.
KALB: Earlier, Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam
appeared before the committee, denying that the mining was
an act of war and defending it as an example of collective
self-defense, a position that excited rage or opposition.
REP. GERRY STUDDS (D-Mass..): kfiat the hell are you doing?
kfiat are you doing with and to our country?
KALB: President Reagan, visiting a Missouri auto plant,
brushed aside the overxhelming 'sense of the Senate' vote
last night in opposition to the mining. UNIDENTIFIED.
REPORTER: Sir, you must have some reaction to the Senate
vote? REAGAN: To what? UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You must
have some reaction to the Senate vote? REAGAN; You
wouldn't wanna hear it.'
KALB: That vote followed a long justification of the
mining policy by CIA Director William Casey. SEN._ ROBERT
BYRD (D-W. Va): I think it was pathetic.
KALB: And Byrd is nox proposing new confirmation hearings
for the president's top advisers if he gets re-elected.
BYRD. ...departmental heads, and I'm including the CIA
director in this as well as the OMB director. .They have
tremendous power, and they oughtta have to, they oughta
have to pass, ah, a test the second time.
Confinued
Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150023-6
 Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150023-6
a.
KALB: Officials here say that Secretary of State Shultz
had reservations about the mining, but once again, he lost
out to Defense Secretary Weinberger and CIA Director
Casey, whose hard-line position was ultimately adopted by
the president. Marvin Kalb, NBC News, the State
Department.
CENTRAL AMERICA BROKAW: An administration official claimed today that
/U.S. AID the mining stopped two weeks ago. But in Nicaragua
tonight, the Sandinista government is keeping the issue
alive, claiming the ports there are under siege. Mike
Boettcher is in Nicaragua tonight.
BOETTCHER: The port of Corinto is Nicaragua's economic
heart. Seventy-five percent of the crops, raw materials
and manufactured goods that Nicaragua needs and sells pass
through Corinto. Because it is economically strategic,
Corinto was the prime target of CIA-supported
anti-government rebels who tried to shut it down with
submerged mines. The Nicaragua navy claims freighters
waiting to enter this harbor were used as shields 'by rebel
speedboats launched from a spy frigate that attacked and
laid mines as they left. The crew of this Panamanian
freighter said their ship was attacked on three
consecutive pitch-black nights by small boats. They kept
a souvenir bullet on the ships bridge. The crex of the
~Hille Oldendorf was also attack, but its crew says their
ship was fired~on by Nicaraguan patrol boats, which
mistakenly thought they were being attacked during a
harbor blackout. Nicaraguan officials say they will do
whatever it takes to keep Corinto open. An old fishing
bolt, now used as a mine-sweeper, stands ready to search
for mines, the hard way, by running into them. The
Nicaraguans don't think the mining operation is over. As
one top port official in Corinto put it, 'If the
CIA-backed rebels had the audacity to mine our ports in
the first place, how can we believe they still stop now?
Mike Boettcher, NBC Nexs, Corinto, Nicaragua.
BROKAW: At the same time in Washington today,
administration officials who would not let their names be
used said the mining was designed to cut off what they
described as a steady flow of arms and ammunition from
Nicaragua to those guerrillas in E1 Salvador.
Approved For Release 2008/12/10: CIA-RDP88-010708000201150023-6