AID TO CONTRAS VITAL TO U.S. ROLE IN NATO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606200009-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: April 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/08/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606200009-0
PS'T` c p? "ARED
WASHINGTON TIMES
1 April 1985
Aid to Contras vital to U.S.
role in NATO
Retired Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub on our
stake in Nicaragua.
John K. Singlaub, now a retired maior general,
parachuted into France to organize resistance to the
Nazis in World War II. He was later China Desk offi-
cer for the CIA. In 1976. he became U.S. chief of staff
in South Korea, but was relieved a year later because
criticized President Carter's plans to withdraw
troops from that country The general retired from the
Armv in 1978 and now is seeking to aid resisters to
communism around the world. In an interview with
al
western Europe.
Q: How do you go about helping resisters to com-
munism?
A: Well, I'm spending the vast majority of my time
acting as the chairman of the U.S. Council for World
Freedom, and now am chairman of the World Anti-
Communist League, until September.
We have sort of a coalition for world freedom
which contains a large number of other organizations
with membership. We've had a large number of the
ethnic organizations in this country - East European
ethnic organizations, Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithua-
nians and Poles. So we have been working very
actively not only with the Afghan freedom fighters
and the Nicaraguan freedom fighters but with the
resistance movement inside southeast Asia in Laos
and Cambodia and in Viet Nam.
Q: How strong are the anti-Sandinistas in Nicara-
gua?
A: They are well organized. There are 15,000.
About 13,000 are inside Nicaragua. There are rel-
atively few who are in Honduras - just 2,000. Large
numbers of the Nicaraguan people and former San-
dinistas want to join the the freedom fighters.
They are so effective that the Sandinista government
has launched a major disinformation campaign to dis-
credit them, accusing them of atrocities, accusing
them of all sorts of things, and these accusations are
absolutely, totally false, they're pure fabrication.
Q: How are they effective?
A: In a recent action, right near the border with
Honduras, about 1,500 freedom fighters attacked a
garrison of about 2,000 Sandinistas. The Sandinistas
were in the process of building a road so that they
could bring heavy artillery and heavy mortars up
close to the border and shell the base camps on the
Honduran side of the border. The attack was very
successful to the extent that Sandinistas were driven
off of the position. After about a four-day battle, the
Sandinistas left 288 dead and two prisoners.
000 belong to the FDN [Nicaraguan Demo-
A: 15
,
cratic Forcel. The Misura Indians - this is an acro-
nym for the three tribes that belong to that grouping,
the Misquito, the Suma, and the Rama Indians - have
about 2,400 or 2,500 under arms. They are not all
active at present because of the cutoff of supplies.
They could expand by several thousand without any
difficulty at all. The 15.000 that belong to the FDN
have about another 5,000 that have volunteered to be
trained and equipped as soon as additional funding
was available.
Q: What is the Sandinista strength?
A: The Sandinistas have about 62,000 in their
armed forces. Now in addition to the regular Sandin-
ista military, they have expanded that probably to
50,000 to 60,000 in the militia - meaning that under
arms today there are probably 120,000. Their
announced goal is to expand that armed force in
Nicaragua to 250,000.
If they go to 250,000 in their armed camp, that
means one out of every 10 men, women and children
would be under arms. If the United States would have
a comparable military force, we would have some-
thing over 23 million people in our armed forces.
Q: What about the communist presence?
A: Today in Nicaragua there are about 10,000 for-
eign advisers helping and of the 10,000 advisers that
are there, about 7,000 are Cubans. About half of that
7,000 are military, the other half are so-called civilian
advisers, engineers, teachers, doctors, etc. Of the
remaining 3,000, it's an amazing assortment of ter-
rorist organizations. In addition to the Soviet Union
and Bulgaria and East Germany, we have representa-
tion from the PLO and from Qaddafi's Libya, from
the Basque terrorists from Spain, from North Viet
Nam, from North Korea and, believe it or not,
recently the Ayatollah Khomeini has sent some of his
Iranians there.
Q: Are the Soviets still sending in military sup-
plies?
A: There for awhile there was about one ship com-
ing in each week - either a Bulgarian ship or a
Soviet Russian ship, and just as of a couple of months
ago we actually counted some 350 armored vehicles.
This includes tanks and armored personnel carriers.
These are offensive weapons primarily, not defensive
weapons, since no other nation in Central America
has any tanks to speak of. They're bringing in artil-
lery which is way beyond any defensive needs.
They're bringing in helicopters, gunships and troop
carriers and have introduced the MI-24, which is
referred to under NATO terminology as the Hind
helicopter. This is the most potent, the most devastat-
ing anti-personnel type helicopter in the world. It's a
gunship that has been used with such devastation
against the Afghan population.
The Cubans and the Soviets are building large mili-
tary bases there. Their airfield, with a 12,000-foot
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runway, will soonl)e^the'largest operational military
airfield south of the Rio Grande. The ports are being
expanded greatly, especially on the Atlantic coast.
Q: Why is this a threat to the United States?
A: Nicaragua is in a critical position because, from
bases located in Nicaragua, it would be possible for
the Soviets or the Cubans to close completely the
Caribbean to shipping. Now that shipping is impor-
tant to the United States because, since World War II,
we have made the assumption that the Caribbean
and the islands of the Caribbean would always
be friendly. So we built our logistic support system
for the European theater to depend very heavily on
our gulf ports.
Our survival in Europe as a part of NATO and the
survival of NATO, which depends in time of war upon
shipments of supplies from the United States, will all
depend upon our ability to keep those ports operating
and to keep the ships flowing through the Caribbean.
Now this means that if we have a confrontation with
the Soviet Union in Europe, we must then commit
U.S. forces to take out those bases, to open up
that area.
Q: Do you foresee any activity aimed directly at
the United States?
A: It's my view that the terrorist activity would be
directed at the United States in a way that we'd find
difficult to anticipate.
If we fail to provide the assistance to the Nicara-
guan people, to take their country back for the Nica-
raguans, it's going to generate additional refugees
coming out of Nicaragua. It would be demoralizing to
the other countries of Central America and Mexico,
and large numbers will start heading north on foot.
and there of course will be large numbers that
will come by ship across the gulf to our gulf ports in
Florida.
The estimate is in the tens of millions. The lowest
I've seen is 10 million. More than 20 million is not an
uncommon estimate. The population in that area,
including Mexico, is something like 200 million.
Now those millions of refugees coming across our
borders would contain large numbers of
provocateurs, saboteurs, agents, who would conduct
terrorist activities to destabilize the United States. It
would create such problems that the governors of the
United States would ask for federal troops to help
close the border or help restore order. The only
source of federal troops would be our five divisions
in Europe. We'd probably be forced to withdraw those
for our own internal security and, of course, this is
just what the Soviets have been trying to do for years
- get our troops out of Europe.
Q: Has this potential threat to NATO, as far as you
know, been given any attention whatsoever?
A: Certainly, those people who have been involved
in strategic planning - those of us who have
been involved in NATO activities and have studied
the logistical support system as I have, understand
this very clearly.
Q: Why doesn't the administration fight harder to
restore aid to the Sandinista resistance?
A: I think that there is a large body of opinion that
enters the minds of the bureaucrats in this city, that
is not related to the official reports coming out of that
area. And it's my view that this comes from the disin-
formation program, so that the people are being
deliberately misinformed. So they believe that the
best policy for the United States is to continue sup-
port to the Sandinistas. They were sympathetic in
support of the Sandinistas after the fall of Somoza
and hate to admit that their strong support for that
Sandinista movement was wrong.
Q: Did this kind of reaction ever occur before the
Nicaragua situation arose? .
A: Well, I'm trying to be as generous as I can in
this. I have to admit, having had dealings with foreign
service officers for well over 40 years, that a high
percentage of them are philosophically socialist in
their outlook. And many of them believe that social-
ism is the wave of the future, and that the best policy
of the United States, therefore, is to make an accom-
modation with the leader of the socialist movement,
the Soviet Union. I would say that when you have a
man who is as strong as Alexander Haig as secretary
of state who could not turn that monstrous machine
off its leftist course, that it would be hard for any
lesser person to do that.
We apparently have people in the Department of
State who are not only fuzzy minded but so pro-
socialist, so pro-communist in their leanings that our
policy is completely distorted away from what is best
for the United States or best for the majority of the
people in these countries.
Q: What would you recommend now?
A: From my point of view, I'm convinced that we
have two choices in the United States. We can provide
help to the freedom fighters and let the Nicaraguans
solve the problems in Nicaragua, or we can delay, and
ultimately we're going to be committing U.S. forces
either to clear out those Soviet bases,because they're
crippling us economically and strategically with
respect to our commitment to Europe, or we're going
to be fighting along the Rio Grande. We're going to
have to commit forces, and it's my view that the
longer we delay in providing this help to these free-_
dom fighters in Nicaragua, the greater it increases
the probability that U.S. troops are going to have to be
committed.
Q: Do you mean that the resistance can win if U.S.
aid is restored?
A: I started to say that at this point in the struggle,
it's my view that the freedom fighters have greater
support from the people than the Sandinistas did at a
comparable stage against Somoza. Somoza did have
support from the United States until the very end,,
when we withdrew that support. I think that at the
maximum the Sandinistas had about 5,000 or 6,000
people under arms against about 12,000 that Somoza
had in Guardia Nationale, and they were successful.
Today there are 15,000-plus, almost 20,000 people
who have been armed inside Nicaragua, who are
opposing the Sandinistas with a great support from
the people. It's fresh in the minds of the Nicaraguan
people how these Sandinistas have violated their
promises to the people. Instead of making things bet-
ter, the economic system is in a shambles - not
because of the economic sabotage created by the
freedom fighters. but just through the incompetence
and inefficiency of the centralized planning that
they're attempting,to do there.
Any country that tries to put 10 percent of its pop-
ulation under arms is going to have difficulties. I
mean, when you look at the rest of the world, seldom
does a country have more than 1 percent of its pop-
ulation in its armed forces. The total population of
Nicaragua is about 2.5 million, and you're talking
about having 250,000 people under arms. Well, this
means you're going to have to have women and chil-
dren and old people in this militia, and that is not
going to improve the economy of Nicaragua.
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