PLAYING THE RIGHT HAND FOR '88

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560091-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 91
• Publication Date: February 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Aacn STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560091-6
18 February 1986
MARY McGRORY
Playing the Right Hand for '88
The other day, Senate Majority
Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.)
wrote a letter to the secretary of
state, sounding the call to arms on
Angola.
Bob Dole? This is the realist who
talks about raising taxes and who knows
better than most what Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings does to $10 million to $15
million for a tribal war in Africa? This is
the man who defied the administration
so successfully on renewal of the Voting
Rights Act that super-liberal Joe Rauh
said he would be tempted to vote for
him for president?
And that, of course, is the key. The
manager of the Senate would be
president, and like every member of his
party, he knows that the nomination
comes from the right. Said a bemused
colleague, "That letter was written as
an enclosure in a right-wing mailing."
The right froths at the mouth over
Jonas Savimbi, leader of the UNITA
rebels who want to oust Angola's
Marxist government. Deprived of
victories against abortion, school prayer
and creeping wimpiness, they demand
action in the bush. Former U.N.
ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, their
Thomas Paine, sent the recent
Conservative Political Action
Conference into a frenzy when she said,
"Real assistance means real weapons
... real helicopters ... real ground-to
air missiles."
But that's Jeane Kirkpatrick. And
here's Dole in his letter to George P.
Shultz: "With the imminence of a new
communist offensive in Angola, it is
imperative that the United States begin
immediately to provide concrete
assistance to the Angolan democratic
resistance forces .... "
Dole is too sensible to think that
assistance, overt or covert, would-
change the equation or counter the
scandal of a . a Lance w out
Africa.
But common sense is often the first
casualt in the war for higher office,
and Dole's rtvas fort e198
nomination have established strong
beachheads on Angola. Vice President
Bus , o course, is marching in lockstep
with President Reagan, Savimbi's No. 1
fan, who talks openly of covert aid.
Rep. Tack empT
seemed to be the idol o the
conservatives at the alas convention
but has fallen back in the face of Buih's
ferocious) obsequious courtship, is
coauthor of a bill that would give
Savimbi $27 million in overt aid.
The rational position comes from
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.): "We must
avoid em racm every rson who
arnves in Washington in att ues,
enouncin communism and quoting
Thomas letterso, -?
Savimbi is paying a Washington
public relations firm $600,000 to
counter his past anti-American rhetoric
and blur his record as a Maoist. He has
also learned to speak disapprovingly of
apartheid while taking arms from South
Africa. The imperatives of running for
the presidency have brought Dole
around to the view that helping a
comic-opera jungle lord is "imperative."
On the Democratic side, hopefuls are
saying startling and image-adjusting, if
more constructive, things. An example
is the sudden emergence of Sen. Sam
Nunn (D-Ga.) as a champion of Corazon
Aquino in the Philippines. While Reagan
was trying to decide who committed the
fraud, Nunn wrote him a blazing letter,
accusing Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos of "making an all-out effort to
steal the election."
Those are plain facts to everyone
save Reagan, but Nunn, a defense
Democrat, doesn't usually defy the
president. If there were a Caution
Party, he would be its leader. And here
he is pulling for someone who isn't sure
about U.S. bases and is calling people
into the streets. Nunn is much
mentioned as a 1988 prospect. The
nomination of his party frequently
comes from the left, which has thought
of him as the voice of the Pentagon.
Similar considerations may have
formed the recent statement by Arizona
Gov. Bruce Babbitt, who is looking
ahead and has a reputation as a
"centrist." But there was nothing
"centrist" about his recent blast on
Nicaragua. The administration's
public-relations geniuses dreamed up
sending National Guardsmen on annual
maneuvers to Honduras, near the
Nicaraguan border. It seems a way of
involving ordinary people in an
unpopular Central American policy.
Babbitt, who has allowed Arizona
guardsmen on the outing but not near
the border, says that "those behind it
hope the [soldiers] would be ... killed
and that their deaths could provide the
pretext for a war."
No liberals have said anything as
strong, although they may now.
Governors don't like their citizens
coming home in boxes.
Elections are better than anything,
except hangings, for concentrating the
minds of politicians.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303560091-6