PLAIN TALKS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS IN CENTRAL AMERICA - THE AMERICAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706140002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sl Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706140002-5
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WALL STREET JOURNAL
8 February 1985
Plain Talk Behind ClosedDoors in Central America
Distorting history is one of the most position and ultimately hold a sham elec-
common tactics of Leninist governments: tion. We in the U.S. should not reproach
According to their doctrine it is justifiable ourselves for forcing the Sandinistas into
to lie about history to advance the cause of
the state. It may be in part the regularity
with which such people as Miguel
d'Escoto, Nicaragua's foreign minister,
bend history that explains why they are
not more often called to account.
During a session of the National Bipar-
tsan Commission on Central America in
The Americas
by John R. Silber
.Managua. Henry Kissinger asked the for-
eign minister why the Sandinistas had sup-
ported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
and decided to look to the Soviet Union for
foreign policy, ideology and financial aid,
and why they had embarked on a massive
military buildup. Father d'Escoto (he is a
Marykno!i priest) claimed that Nicara-
gua's turn for support to the Soviet bloc
was a result of U.S. aggression.
A U.S. legislator and member of the
Kissinger party responded:
"Mr. Foreign Secretary, I met you a
few years ago in Washington just before
we voted to send money to your country-
more money than in all the 20 years of
your former dictatorship. I ? believed you
when you said you were bringing in democ-
racy. We arranged loans and financial aid
to your government-through the IMF-
and the World Bank. And we voted $117
million (for Nicaraguan aid) ourselves. We
believed everything you told us. You
looked me in the eye as one Catholic to an-
other and said there had been no freedom
in Nicaragua for five, 10 or 15 years. With
the basic respect I had for you_and your
social concerns and your being a priest, I
believed you when you promised freedom.
But there is no freedom for working men
in Nicaragua. There is no political free-
dom. I tell you, Father, speaking as a Ro-
man Catholic, you lied to us then and you
are lying to us now."
We then saw a man's internal lie detec-
tor go off. Father d'Escoto lost control for
several minutes. Nervous tics rippled
through his face when he found that he was
before people who knew the facts and were
not going to let him distort the historical
record.
The U.S. did not force the Sandinistas
into their military buildup. The U.S. did
not encourage the Sandinistas to censor the
press, install block committees, forbid free
labor unions, imprison and harass their op-
Our error was in failing to perceive that
after the revolution the Leninist Sandin-
istas who had the guns would set up a dic-
tatorship and blame their betrayal of the
revolution on us.
Did observers understand what it meant
when Castro spoke for three hours at Dan-
iel Ortega's inauguration? President Or-
tega disappeared in the shadow cast by the
architect of Cuba's cruel and increasingly
discredited revolution. The Nicaraguan fu-
ture can be seen in the Cuban Past and
present: an ever-expanding military draft,
service by its young men in the Soviet
"Foreign Legion, ' an ever worsening
economy, increasing,
ensorship and inter
nal spving, and tightening control of all 's
pects of personal life.
Many citizens of the U.S. are still reluc-
tant to accept the realities of the situation.
Central Americans, on the other hand, are
acutely aware of the threat on their door.
steps. When members of the Kissinger
Commission met in private with high-rank-
ing civilian leaders in Central America, we
were told of their deep concern over the
military buildup in Nicaragua and the
massive Soviet-Cuban presence there.
Without exception, these leaders agreed
that the government of Nicaragua is deter-
mined to export revolution, that it imposes
an increasingly repressive dictatorship on
the people of Nicaragua, and that its pur-
poses and orientation are Leninist.
In Panama, the leaders made it clear to
us that the Panama Canal may well be un-
der attack within three or four years if
nothing is done to contain the situation in
Nicaragua. Yet publicly, the leaders of
Panama have been reluctant to speak of
such a possibility.
Costa Rican leaders, both of the ruling
National Liberation Party and of the major
opposition party, have spoken of economic
and political subversion caused by Nicara-
guan infiltrators in Costa Rica, of an inter-
national Sandinista propaganda campaign
against Costa Rica, and of the inability of
the Costa Ricans to match Nicaraguan mil-
itary might in order to defend their coun-
try from Sandinista adventurism. Yet
these leaders, too, have been reluctant to
speak frankly about their concerns in pub-
lic.
President Suazo Cordova of Honduras
spoke with the Kissinger Commission of
the necessity of supporting El Salvador
and of the threat to his country from Nica-
ragua. He has, since that time, been out-
spoken in his position; there is no essential
difference in what he says publicly or pri-
vately. He told us:
AS far as peace negotiations are con-
cerned, ... how can you have rational ne-
gotiations between a belligerent and hege-
monous nation-greatly superior in arms-
and four nations who are militarily weak?
. Mark my words, if El Salvador falls,
Honduras and Guatemala will fall. And if
that happens, one day your own capital
will face the bombs of the terrorists of in-
ternational communism."
Much of the distortion, confusion and
misunderstanding that take place between
the U.S. and Latin America could be over-
come if all the democratic leaders of Cen-
tral America and Latin America would
speak publicly as they speak in private. If
leaders would speak publicly of what they
know to be true, they would certainly not
find themselves alone. They would be part
of a growing awareness throughout all of
Latin America (and even in the U.S. Con-
gress) that communism, because of its to-
talitarian intent, is the primary threat they
face.
Octavio Paz, the internationally cele-
brated Mexican poet and diplomat, has
been a severe and longtime critic of capi-
talism. However, Mr. Paz spoke recently
in the pages of Partisan Review magazine
of the "Sovietization of Nicaragua." In the
article he contrasts the evils of capitalism
with those of communism:
"Communism is a new form of mate-
rial, political and economic domination,
more cruel and more absolute than oligar-
chic capitalism. It is a more complete,
more savage despotism than any tradi-
tional dictatorship.. Capitalism has coex-
isted with democracy. It has deformed de-
mocracy, but it has never suppressed it.
Russian communism has rooted democ-
racy out and thus eliminated itself as a ve-
hicle whereby all mankind might achieve
freedom."
It is difficult to evade the cogency and
authority of this succinct diagnosis by Oc-
tavio Paz. If, despite the natural differ-
ences that inevitably arise among free peo-
ples, the democratic leaders of Latin
America and of the U.S. can speak with a
single voice on issues that go to the sur-
vival of democracy itself, the citizens of all
our countries will benefit.
Mr. Silber is president of Boston Uni-
versity and was a member of the National
Bipartisan Commission on Central Amer-
ica, otherwise known as the Kissinger
Commission.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000706140002-5