HAIG CLAIMS PROOF OUTSIDERS DIRECT SALVADOR REBELS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640076-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 76
• Publication Date: March 3, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640076-7
zri I ULM. 1 .LPLC,
3 MARCH 1982
ARTICLE AF EARED
ON PAGE
HAIG CLAIMS PROOF
OUTSIDERS DIRECT
SALVADOR REBELS'
PREDICTS PUBLIC SUPPORT
Evidence of Foreign Control Is
'Overwhelming, Irrefutable,'
He Tells House Group
By BERNARD GWERTZYIAN
spoxiaienemmemenms
WASHINGTON, March 2 ? Secretary
of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said
today that the United States had "over-
whelming and irrefutable" evidence
that the insurgents in El Salvador were
;
controlled from outside that country by
non-Salvadorans.
Testifying before the House Foreign
? Affairs Committee, Mr. Haig sought to
rebut the contention of the Salvadoran
guerrillas that their insurgency was an I
autonomous Salvadoran effort without '
external assistance but he did not
specify who the non-Salvadorans were.
Mr. Haig, in a vigorous defense of the ;
Administration's approach to the Cen-
tral American and Caribbean regicms
and in the face of some skeptical and
hostile questioning, also predicted that,
Americans would support the Adminis-
tration's policies so long as they were
convinced "that we are going to succeed
and not flounder as we did in Vietnam."
Comments on Poland
On other matters, Mr. Haig made
these points:
time Administration will be ready in
a few weeks to open negotiations with
the Soviet Union on strategic arms re-
duction but will do so only when the "cli-
mate, the conditions" for such talks ex-
isted, by which he meant after the situa-
tion in Poland improved.
9The United States will not do busi-
ness as usual with either Poland or the.
Soviet Union "while repression in Po-
land continues," and further sanctions
will be undertaken if the Polish situation
did not improve. ? qt, ?
cAlthough selling 1-,...rxl< mobile an-
tiaircraft missiles to Jordan could poi-
son relations with Israel, it Is important
to keep such moderate Arab countries
from becoming buyers of Soviet arms.
He did not say whether he favored such
sales to Jordan..
He Denies Plan to Intervene
Although the hearing was supposed to
concentrate on East-West relations,
much of the questioning was about the
Caribbean region. ?
Mr. Haig said that preventing Com-
munist domination of the Caribbean and
Central American region was "in the
vital interest" of the United States, butt
he tried to reduce apprehension that th
Administration was planning any direc
military move.
When Representative Stephen J. S
larz, Democrat of Brooklyn, asked if hrj
meant that he favored .using milita
TOME to prevent armed Communist
takeovers, he replied: "No, not at all. I
don't know of any official of the execu-
tive branch who has suggested for a mo-
ment that consideration was being given
for the direct involvement of American
forces in Salvador."
In answer to a question from Repre-
sentative Lae H Hamilton, Democrat of
Indiana, Mr. Haig setid the United States
had "overwhelming and irrefutable"
evidence that the insurgents in El Salva-
dor were controlled and directed by
Salvadorans outside the country.
He declined to provide details, how-
ever, saying it would jeopardize intelli-
gence sources. Later, however, Senator
Barry Goldwater. Republican of Ari-
zona, chairman of the Intelligence Com-
mittee, said that on Feb. 23 William J.
Casey, Director of Central Intelligence,
and others briefed his committee and
"lett no doubt that there is active in-
volvement by Sandinista Government
officials in support of the Salvadoran
guerrilla movement".
"This
"This suPFort," he said, "includes ar-
rangements for the use of Nicaraguan
territory for the movement of arms and
munitions to guerrillas in El Salvador,
the continuing passage Of guerrillas in
and ? out of Nicaragua for advanced
training in sabotage and other terrorist
tactics and the presence of high-level
guerrilla headquarters elements in
Nicaragua."
Mr. Casey, in this week's issue of U.S.
? News & World Report, is reported to
have said that the insurgents were being
directed from Nicaragua with the help
of Cuba, Vietnam, the Palestine Libera-
tion Organizaiton andthe Soviet Union.
1 The magazine quoted Mr. Casey as
saying that "this whole El Salvador In-
surgency is run out of Managua by pm
fessionrds .experienced .,In directing
guerrilla wan." ? ,
Mr. Hair-went to some lengths to
rebut the argument that El Salvador
would become "another Vietnam."
"I think much has been done to sug-
gest there are strong parallels between
the American approach today to Sabel_
I
dor and to Vietnam some years ago,
Mr. Haig said. "I think this is a terrible
distortion of reality and one which over-
looks a number Of fundamental differ-
ences." .
He said that "first and foremost" was
the "strategic importance" of Central
America to the United States because of
its prominence in American trade and
the fact that half of American oil moves
through the Caribbean and the Panama
Canal. In time of trouble in Europe, the
area would be crucial, he suggested, to
shipping supplies overseas.
"So this is a vitally important region
and it is a region today that is plagued
by two extremely urgent dangers," he
said. "One is social-economic resulting
from the inflated cost of energy to those
governments, sometimes twentyfold,
and the simultaneous decline in the
remuneration for their one- or two-prxl-
uct economies.
? "Secondly," he said, "it is the willing-
ness of the Soviet Union and Cuba to
manipulate these human tragedies in
the interest of spreading totalitarian
Marxist-Leninist ideology."
Mr. Haig said that the trouble during
the Vietnam era was that the Govern-
ment never decided if that region was or
vAis not vital to American interests. If it
had decided it was, he said, "I believe
they 'would have taken actions =Innen-
surate with that judgment."
"If they had concluded negatively,
then we would never have become in-
volved in the first instance," he said.
? "Now let me tell you I come down on
the side of, in such? an assessment in
Central America, that the outcome of
I the Situation there is in-the vital interest -
of the American people and must be so
; dealt with," Mr. Haig said.
I "Now it is an area of vital interest to
; the American people and, as I said re-
cently, I know the American people will
support what is prudent and necessary,
providing they think we mean what we
mean and that we are going to succeed
and not flounder as we did in Vietnam,"
he said.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302640076-7