CIA CHANNELED $2 MILLION INTO SALVADOR VOTING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620039-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: May 11, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620039-8
A:R T I CI,B APPEARED
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
11 May 3 984
CIA Channeled
$21V~illian Into'
Salvador doting
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
The House and Senate Intelligence committees
yesterday received what one member of Congress
called "sobering" reports from the CIA indicating
that the agency channeled an estimated $2 million
into elections in El Salvador over the past two
years. '
Sources familiar with the briefings stressed that
the CIA had portrayed its participation as a non-
partisan effort to help streamline election logistics,
provide media advice and technical assistance and
to ease the financial burden on interest groups
such as trade unions and peasant cooperatives.
- - However, they acknowledged that the chief
_beneficiary of the aid was Christian Democratic
Party candidate Jose Napoleon Duarte, who is
narrowly leading rightist Roberto D'Aubuisson in
the presidential runoff race in unofficial returns.
Although the Reagan administration was for-
mally neutral in the election, many of its members
privately regarded a Duarte victory as crucial to
winning congressional support for aiding the gov-
ernment of El Salvador in its war against leftist
.guerrillas. D'Aubuisson has been linked to death
squad activity and key Democrats swore to block
all aid if he becomes president.
The sources said CIA officials, in maintaining
that their aid was nonpartisan, said D'Aubuisson's
Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party
received no direct aid because it was considered
well-funded by wealthy Salvadorans in the United
States and elsewhere. The agency noted that
ARENA benefited indirectly from CIA help in
computerizing voter lists and advising the elec-
tions council, the sources said.
D'Aubuisson has said that if 80,000 to 100,000
allegedly fraudulent ballots are discounted he will
be victorious.
The CIA also said it had helped two otner con-
servative parties, the National Conciliation Party
and Democratic Action, by funding advertising
and media assistants for them. The Conciliation
Party candidate, Jose Guerrero, had been widely
expected to ally his party with D'Aubuisson, but
surprised observers and dealt D'Aubuisson a blow
with an April 16 announcement that he would
remain neutral.
- Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) charged Tuesday
-that CIA funding "bought the election" for Duarte.
-An aide to Helms said yesterday that the accusa-
tion "did the White House a favor" by coming
Jong enough in advance of President Reagan's
televised speech Wednesday night on Central
America to allow effusive praise for Duarte to be
deleted.
- The speech contained only one brief reference
noting that El Salvador had held two successful
elections and did not mention Duarte by name.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes yester-
day confirmed that the United States had sent
funds "to assist democratic institutions, including
trade unions, private sector organizations and so
forth" in El Salvador, but he did not say which
agency had sent the n oney and maintained that
its effect had been neutral.
"These groups are free to endorse and work on
behalf of political candidates. They frequently do,
but we don't play a role in telling them what to
do," Speakes said. Another high-level administra-
tion official briefing reporters Wednesday added
"political parties" to the list of recipients.
The House Intelligence Committee asked for "a
complete rundown of what the CIA was doing" in
the El Salvador elections and received it yester-
day, committee member Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-
Ind.) said. While refusing to disclose the contents
of the report, he said that "to the extent that [Sen.
Jesse] Helms is right, I disapprove of the United
States involving itself in a major financial way to
affect the outcome of an election in any country,.
El Salvador or any other." Hamilton is expected to
become chairman of the Intelligence Committee in
the next congressional session.
The Senate Intelligence Committee also re-
ceived a briefing from a CIA official, who provided
a point-by-point denial of a Christian Science
Monitor report that the agency had funded a mil-
itary unit engaged in torture, the sources said.
. They added that while the senators appeared
satisfied with the account of CIA involvement in
the elections, they still plan to set new rules for
the general reporting relationship between the
CIA and Congress.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302620039-8