THE KISSINGER COMMISSION REPORT.. ...NO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303180002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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AE: I CLE APPEA
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
15 January 1984
The Kissinge-L Commission
Edward ill. Kennedy
The Xisssinger Comm sion report is a dual dis-
appos, mr:ent-both for President Reagan, who
fE :hog Ln his reach for a bipartisan blank check
for his failing policies in Central America, and for
t.i ose of uw who question the administration's
rush tc+ military confrontation in Central Amer-
ica. The renort will also disappoint the Central
Arnericars who search for diplomatic and politi-
ca a';rrnavves to more gum. more soldiers and
more ;:ruing as the path: to peace in the region.
I welcome the dissent of some commission
me.miwrs from the covert war against Nicaragua I
also welcome the reuon's recommendation that
military aid to E Salvador and Guatemala be
conditioned on an end to the death squads and a
halt to. human rights abu_se;. Even a Republican-
dominated commission was unwilling to acquiesce
in President Re.a an's veto of the human rights
certification reauirement on aid to DI' Salvador.
In short. parts of the report are commendable
(particularly Chapter 5 on human develop-
ment). but taken as a whole, the report rep-
resents another chapter in a long history of
U.S. misunderstanding and miscalculation in
Central America The report is flawed be-
cause it ignores four fundamental defects in
our pas: conduct in that region.
Fuss the United Stag has intervened far
too frequently in the internal affairs of other
cornrow in this hemisphere. We continue to
do so. and at an accelerating pace. Such a
lecacy has left many Central Americans
skep:i of our professed adherence to the
principles of democracy and self-dieterrnina-
uon. '''e have been unwilling to allow Cen-
tral Americans to solve their own problems
-if we happen to disagree with their solu-
tions The Kissinger Commission repeats
this error by issuing a report that is classi-
cally interventionist in its basic assumptions
Second, too often we have used our su-
perior economic and military power as a
substitute for a steady and balanced foreign -
policy based on our own best values. Too often the
United States has resorted to the iii any are
CLA to rescue a failed fore;--n tx+licv or to enforc .a
shorsignted and Short-term solution. We have
done grave damage to our standing in Central
America with our readiness to resort to raw mii-
Report . F
tare might to protect relativeh? narrow interests.
But the K.singer Commission ignores the lessons
to be drawer from past militant' "solutions" and
once again looks to armed force for the answer.
The report contains recommendations that, if im-
plemented, will intensify the fighting in Ei Salva-
dor, will continue the war against Nicaragua and
will inevitably put U.S. military personnel into the
midst of combat. The commission has charted a
course that. in the end, may only succeed if mem-
hers o the U.S. Smilitary actually enter the war as
combatants
Third. the United States has allied itself far too
frequently with the forces of reaction and repre:.-
sion in the rep on. The Central American nations
suffer from vast maldistrihution_s of wealth and
power. as the report recognizes. with most of the
people living in poverty, ill health and illiteracy
alongside small, oligarchic elites living in enclaves
of luxury. The report does not recognize, however,
that. American influence has-been used to resist
social change, to perpetuate the status quo, to
support the privileged and the powerful with little
or no concern for the well-being of workers,
cempesinos and a precarious middle class
Such policies run counter to the most profound
instincts and traditions of the American people. If
Americans had understood, for example, the true
nature of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, our
government would not have entered an alliance
that kept that dictatorship in power for 40 years I
believe Americans would prefer a foreign policy
based on the principles of the Good Neighbor
Policy and the Alliance for Progress, for they truly
reflected our national ideals.-arid they surely
served our national interests better than our pre-
sent unhappy alliance with the forces of repression
ur El Salvador. As President Kennedy said over 20
years ago, "Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent, revolution inevitable."
The Kissinger Commission recommends
massive increases in military assistance to the
Salvadoran security forces as if the police, na-
tional guard and military have not been the pri-
mary instruments, of repression in El Salvador
for almost. 100 years. The war in E1. Salvador
may well be unwnnable, not because the Salva-
doran army lacks enough bullets and helicop-
ters. as the Kissinger Commission implies, but
because the Salvadoran army does not, have-
and cannot win-the confidence, trust and sup-
port of the Salvadoran people.
Fourth, our policies have been distorted because
we have so insistently viewed the problems of the
region through the prism of the Cold War. The
Kissinger Commission repeats this error with a
polysyliabic flourish: "The Soviet-Cuban thrust to
make Central America part of their geostrategi.c
chafler e is what has turned the struggle in Cen-
ual America into a security and political problem
for the United States and for the hemisphere."
Such extreme Ian,-,We raises the stakes of the
contest to such a level that an}-thing short of total
militant' victory becomes unthinkable. and that is
almost certainly unattainable with any`,hir>e short
of an outright commitment of our own forces.
With U.S. interventionism, with our overreli-
ance on military solutions and by our associa-
tion with repressive regimes in Central Amer.
ica, we have sown the fields of anti-American-
ism-and now we are reaping a harvest of bit-
terness and hostility. It is true that the-commu-
nists have been quick to exploit this anti-US.
sentiment. but the Kissinger Commission does
not understand that, in Central America, we
have often been our own worst enemy.
The historical defects of U.S. policy in Central
America are reneated.oombined and mmm?mdal
in our support. for the covert war against Ni rA-
gua The recommendation of the inn rnicsinn's
rnaiority that the United q a P continue U A A fi.
Loci a of the contras Llat, - (Tiptinn fn? disms-
Once again, the United States is perceived as
supporting the forces of reaction and repression
in Central America; much of the leadership of
the contres comes from veterans of the Somoza
National Guard-a critical fact flatly ignored
by the Kissinger Commission. Once again, the
United States is seen as endorsing a military
solution without first exhausting political or
dipiomatic alternatives; we have given grudging
lip service but nothing more to the diplomatic
initiatives of the Contadora group. Once again,
we are seen as readying our own military for use
in the region; we have thousands of US. troops
on constant maneuvers in Honduras, barely a
mortar shot away from the battlelines. The first
American soldiers have already died.
The original justification for supporting the
contras was to interdict the transportation of
weapons, ammunition and war materiel from
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Nicaragua to the rebels in El Salvador. Now
U.S. officials acknowledge what the contras
have been saving all along-their real objective
is to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.
Advocates of our present policy contend that.
pruasure from the contras has led the Sandinistas
to liberalize Nicaraguan society, to schedule elec-
t:ons and to preserve a degree of pluralism inside
the count,-. Whatever the reason for this Sandin-
i to prr;rarr it iL1 behooves the United States to
respond to conciliatory efforts with even greater
truculence and ever heavier reliance on military
meant it is time to give the Nicaraguan govern-
ment some space to carry out its pledges, which in-
clude halting all support for the guerrilla forces in
El Salvador. orranizirge free elections for 1955, and
ensuring freedom of speech and religion inside ,
Nicaragua.
Above all else, we should learn the lesson of the
Panama Canal Treaty, where, in an explosive
situation that could have brought military con-
f ict, the United States invoked polltio_s and dipkr
many to reach a negotiated settlement Jimmy
Cater worked skillfully with other nations of the
region to arrive at an agreement that kept the
peke in Panama and secured stable relations be-
tween Panama and the United States.
How can we apply that lesson now?
To begin with, we should try diplomacy. In
Central America. negotiation is more likely to
succeed than escalation.
With respect to Nicaragua, the United States
should itself respond to the Sandinista's October
proposals, which remain unanswered. We should
agree to, talk directly with representatives of the
Nicaraguan government specifically about com-
pliance with the Contadora 21-point plan The
Reagan administration has had discussions with
Nicaragua, but has been unwilling to negotiate
that plan bilaterally. That plan offers the single
best hope for a negotiated settlement
With respect to El Salvador, we must press for
unconditional negotiations between the govern-
ment and the opposition under the aegis of Conta-
dora Only an agreement that brings opposition
leaders into the political process with adequate
guarantees for their safety can make it possible to
hold genuinely free and open elections in which all
can participate without fear of death squads and
assassination.
Next. we must reverse the rush to militarize
Central America. As a first step, we should di-
;con-tinue our support for the president's war against
Nicaragua Then we should terminate the perpet-
ual military maneuvering in Honduras, scrap Big
Pine Il and the plans for Big Pine III and halt the
trend that is turning Honduras into a Central
American version of Tansonhut airfield. And we
should order the fleet home. Unless we are in fact
contemplating an invasion, the fleet is nothing
more than a provocation without a purpose, an in-
vitation to another Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Finally, with respect to economic assistance, we
should return to basics, at least until peace has
returned to the region. Today Central America
needs more Peace Corps volunteers and fewer
soldiers. We should support human development
projects-as described in Chapter 5 of the report
-aimed at illiteracy, hunger, disease and infant
mortality, which is 10 times higher in Central
America than in the United States.
Even under the best of conditions, the countries
of Central America would be in no position to ab-
sorb 88 billion of America aid over five years The
only recipients capable of absorbing that much
money are the oligarchs and the corrupt officials
with t eir bank accounts and their booty piling up
in Miami. These are not the best of conditions,
and the idea of pumping in billions of dollars of
foreign aid in the midst of a war, such as in El Sal-
vador, or in support of a tyranny, as in Guatemala,
is absurd.
The administration has already hinted that it
will look the other way when it comes to the re-
port 's recommendations on human rights. Con-
gress should look the other way when it comes to
the reports endorsement of the president's secret
war in Nicaragua. It is time to adopt a policy that
will encourage peaceful change instead of fueling
the fires of violent revolution: that will follow the
path of negotiation, not war, that will not, out of
fear or frustration, relive a history that has meant
tragedy for this hemisphere and defeat for our
own interests; that, instead, will trust the power
of our founding values,--liberty and justice for all
-not only for the American people, but for all
the people of the Americas
The writer is a Democratic senator
from Massachusetts.
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