LATIN TERRORISTS' LEADER RETAINS SUPPORT OF CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130131-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 131
• Publication Date: January 30, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130131-5
J
ARTICLE APPEARED
PN PAGE-2
Latin Terrorists'
Leader Retains
Support of CIA
WASHINGTON POST
30 January 1984
immediate goal: overthrow leftist
President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. It
succeeded the following year.
By the mid-1960s, Sandoval had
emerged as A leader of the organi-
zation, and he was evidently a bitter
and vengeful man.' One former con-
For 30 years the CIA Ihas "been fidant said Sandoval `}sad once -been
bankrolling a man reported to be the captured Eby .leftists and tortured
an genius ,behind the fight wing' with an ~~'ic~cattle:prod. .
s as as just e -began to define
terror that has claimed tens of thou Communists -his
about anyone
sands of lives in Central America. - who didn't share his fierce,anti-com-
Severall officials in the intelli
e
c
g
n
e
community and the National Secu-
rity Council have vehemently .pro-
tested the continuation of what they
consider a sinister, shameful, rela-
tionship. But intelligence sources
told my associates Dale Van Atta
and Jon Lee Anderson that -the
funding continues despite the oppo-
sition.
The CIA seems untroubled by the
fact that the White House has de-
nounced the right-wing death squads
in El Salvador. Yet the death squads
may have gotten their inspiration
from the CIA's' protege, Mario San-
doval Alarcon.
Sandoval, a former vice president
of Guatemala, now heads the Na-
tional Liberation Movement, which
styles itself "the party of organized
violence." At 60, he is a solid,
chunky, cold-eyed hombre. -
The National Liberation Move-
ment was founded by the CIA in
1953 as a paramilitary force with one
munist ' views, -and to-,equate them
with the people who had tortured
him. It was about the same time that
the first .:death squad in Central
America 'was formed, with close ties
to the National Liberation Move-
ment.
The death squad took the name
La Mario Blanca (The White Hand),
and began : to -terrorize leftist sus-
pects in Guatemala. It was respon-
sible for as many as 8,000 deaths in
the 1960s, plus thousands more dur-
ing a resurgence:m the 1970s. In the
1980 election campaign the National
Liberation Movement all but ac-
knowledged its association with the
death squad.
The idea of "anti-communist"
death squads proved to be export-
able. Carbon copies of the Guate-
malan unit appeared throughout
Central and South- America. The
bloodiest work in recent years has
been done by the death squads in El
The underground terror groups go
by different names. In Guatemala
alone, there have been the Secret
Anti-Communist Army, Organiza-
tion Zero and the Order of Death. I
recently disclosed evidence that the
death squads throughout Latin
America are linked, and are
"fronted" by the regional affiliate of
the World Anti-Communist League.
In 1981, in a public speech, th,
regional anti-communist league's sec
retary paid extravagant tribute to
Sandoval and the National Libera-
tion Movement for being "on the
front line" of the battle against com
munism.
Sandoval has been a pillar of the
World Anti-Communist League. In
1978, when he was, Guatemala's vice
president, he spoke. to the league's
11th annual conference and de-
nounced everyone from President
Carter to the Catholic church as
tools of marxism. His complaint:
their stand on human rights and
their criticism of the death squads.
Perhaps it was no coincidence
that the death squads .soon began
their bloodiest rampage, killing tens
of thousands of suspected leftists
and sympathizers in Guatemala and
El Salvador. And it certainly was no
coincidence that Amnesty Interna-
tional traced the Guatemalan death
squads during that period to the
presidential palace.
Meanwhile, the CIA continues to
provide secret funding to Sandoval.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130131-5