ORTEGA HAS NO USE FOR FRIENDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100017-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 29, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100017-7
ARTICLE
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
29 October 1985
MARY McGRORY
Ortega Has No Use for Friends
Daniel Ortega, the president of
Nicaragua, knows he is a terrible
trial for people in the United
States who have gone bail for him.
"Looked at coldly," he says of his
latest public relations bomb, his
imposition of a state of emergency on
his poor, battered country just before
his arrival at. the United Nations, "there
is no logical explanation of the timing or
the context.*
The "logical explanation" being given
by the gleefully outraged right-wing is
that Ortega has stood up and unmasked
himself as Ronald Reagan's
"Loony-Tunes dictator."
In an early morning interview last
week, Ortega said philosophically that it
was like the last time, when, days after
Congress canceled all aid to the
contras, he set off for Moscow.
"When I did that, it was a bucket of
cold water," he said, as his wife, the
vivacious poetess Rosario Murillo,
passed tortillas and poured coffee in the
couple's U.N. Plaza Hotel suite.
"I had to go to Moscow because it
was a matter of life or death for
Nicaragua. We had no oil."
When he was deliberating about
depriving Nicaraguans of freedom of
the press and other perquisites of
democracy, he said, "We took into
account what Congress is doing. But
they are not stopping the war."
Ortega has been bombarded with
public relations advice and, at least
about clothes, he has accepted. He was
wearing a dark blue blazer and gray
flannel slacks. New York's Mayor
Edward I. Koch, praised him for his
mufti at a U.N. reception: "You look
more peaceful," he said.
The forced military bluster has been
modified. He looked boyish, and was
focused and earnest.
His handlers thought he had shown
he "is no Marxist monster" during his
New York stay. He decisively broke out
of the U.N. pack by being the only head
(of state to jog five miles in Central
Park. He was on national television
shaking hands with Reagan. He and
Rosario made a sympathetic appearance
on the Phil Donahue show, as a
beleaguered Third World Yuppie
couple.
But no one told him that the leader of
a dirt-poor country should not throw his
money around, and he spent $3,500 on
eyeglass frames at a New York optical
store. He wound up, however, at a
meeting of U.S. sympathizers who were
so doting that they hissed someone who
asked him about the glasses.
lie told all comers that he had not
wanted the state of emergency.
"But it was better to do it before I
came to the U.N. If I had waited until I
got back to Nicaragua, they would say I
had met world leaders under false
colors, that I was a hypocrite."
"What we don't want is a repetition of
the Chilean episode," he explained.
"Allende was elected; he was extremely
respectful of legal forms and juridical
niceties. It is well known what the CIA
was doing. ut a never put on a state
of emergency. We would rather not
make the same mistakes. We would
rather guarantee our survival by taking
these measures than to receive post
mortem condolences ...."
He spoke of "left-wing extremists,"
Communists who demand higher wages,
more bonuses, more expropriations.
But it is not the "left-wing," the
contras, or even the CIA that most
threatens his control. It is his fellow
townsman, Cardinal Miguel Obando y
Bravo, who is spearheading resistance
to the draft. He holds enormous rallies
where, Ortega says, he "covertly
encourages resistance."
"What he says is that no one can be
morally or legally bound to fight for a
party. He invites people to attend the
Lord's call, but they turn into
antigovernment demonstrations."
Ortega likes his nemesis. The
cardinal knows Ortega's mother, who
still lives in their common birthplace,
Libertad. When Ortega was imprisoned
by the Somoza government, Obando
came and visited him. When Ortega and
his fellow prisoners went on a hunger
strike, Obando joined efforts for their
release. When they were freed, Obando
flew with them to Cuba.
On the flight, Obando showed
"certain sympathies," Ortega said. "But
he was provincial. He asked me with
great gravity, 'Won't they throw me in
jail in Cuba?' He thought all priests
were killed in Cuba.
"It's the same with the clergy today. I
want their advice and opinions. But
when they come they all have
lists-'My church needs repairs' or 'My
road has not been paved.' I tell them,
'You cannot get it out of your mind that
any revolution is going to wipe out the
church, wipe out religion. You
absolutely distrust anything we do.' "
Because of that, Ortega is washing
his hands of his congressional
sympathizers-as they doubtless will of
him-leaving Reagan free to continue
the inconclusive war and all the misery
it entails for Nicaragua.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100017-7