THE NAVY OR THE CONTRAS?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403360002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
t Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403360002-7
ARfICLEAPPZ-+k CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ON PAGE 1 5 March 1986
Perspective
The Navy or the contras?
By William V. Kennedy
To believe that an
substan D UAW 19 good -am
o
wires an act o extrao . On the other
rumd, re is more than a i e evidence chat plenty
The U.S. Department of Defense is in the position
of a man who has spent extravagantly to build a
house and who finds toward the end of the construc-.
tion process that he must give up either the wine
cellar or the master bedroom,
Whether or not there is some dim prospect for
deficit reduction, the fact is that the United States is
mortgaged to the hilt with the grandiose Reagan
defense build-up no more than two-thirds complete.
How, then, can we go on pouring money into support
of the contras in Nicaragua and "our" Marxist-
Leninists in Angola?
Given the tide of congressional opposition fur-
ther cuts in domestic programs and
refusal to countenance increased taxes, it seems
plain that any money handed out in our various
"covert" military actions must come out of the hide
of one or another of the U.S. armed services.
If logic had anything to do with it, the money
could be obtained easily enough by beginning with-
drawal of U.S. forces from Europe. Neither Reagan
nor Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger seems
prepared to budge on that issue, so the money for
the contras, etc., is likely to come out of the Navy's
shipbuilding program, in particular the escort forces
needed to support the 15 aircraft .carriers already
built or funded. Indeed, Congressional Research
Service studies indicate that the escort program
already is being "robbed" to protect the gigantic
U.S. annual subsidy that enables our NATO allies to
provide more extensive social, welfare, medical and
rail transportation services than are available to the
Americans who pay for a big part of it.
What should be obvious by nowt reg
of m s we s ve into covert-action ventures
William V. Kennedy served for 17 years as a
strategic analyst and planner on the faculty of the
U.S. Army War College. He is co-author of the
forthcoming "U.S. War Machine" (Salamander, Lon-
don].
seems t true connote n of the word "covert."
money espent on tne avy s shipbuilding program,
on the other hand, is likely to provide something
tangibly American for some time to come. More
important, the ships and aircraft of the Navy can be
used to put a stop to Soviet and Cuban adventurism
in southern Africa and Latin America without get-
us involved with the atrocities our covert
ies" always seem to produce.
There is no high road from Moscow to Nicaragua
or Angola. Every Soviet tank or helicopter the
Reagan administration keeps showing us on the
nightly news came off a Soviet-bloc ship. The
Cubans in Angola and elsewhere in Africa and Latin
America could not continue their mischief if we
removed as contraband the military supplies that
sustain them.
The Soviets have had a fine time of it these last 30
years, getting the United States to chase all over the
world, twice at enormous expense in lives and many
more times than that in treasure ultimately extrac-
ted from our own people, without the Soviets risking
much. We can no longer afford to do that. Indeed,
we never could. If the Soviet incursions-direct or
by proxy-in Africa and Latin America are as
dangerous as the administration claims, then it is
time to confront the Soviets openly on the high seas.
We should have learned long since that the Soviet
leadership is not going to risk the Russian homeland
for the likes of its motley allies in the Third World,
including Castro's Cuba. That was obvious in the
missile crisis of 1962 and in the belated U.S. decision
to mine Haiphong harbor during the Vietnam War.
So it is absurd. to suggest that blocking Soviet
military support for Nicaragua or the Cubans in
Angola is going to create a danger of nuclear war.
Let's quit playing the Soviet game. Let's get on
with the build-up of a Navy that can control the high
seas and the air above them-and then use it
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403360002-7