LATIN ARMS TRADE DETAILED IN COURT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740040-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: September 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740040-7
NEW YORK TIMES
17 September 1985
STAT
lATIN ARMS TRADE
DETAILED IN COURT
liL.l A. Aide Challenges U.S.
data on Nicaragua Sales
--to Salvadoran Rebels
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Special to The Now York Times
THE HAGUE, Sept. 18 - A former
analyst for the Central Intelligence
Agency testified before the World
Court today that there was "no credible
evidence" that the Nicaraguan Gov-
erntgaat had provided significant
gave provided weapons to the leftist
guerrillas in El Salvador has been a
-major reason used by the Reagan Ad-
stration to explain its support of
'ebels who are seeking to over-
threw the Nicaraguan Government.
A $ed today by Abram Chayes, a
H
t
d
h
h
d
arva pro
essor w
r
o
ea
s the Nica-
raguan legal team here, If the Nicara-
guan Government was involved in
arms traffic to El Salvador, the former
C.I.A. analyst, David MacMichael,
said:
"I do not believe that such a traffic
goes on now, nor has it gone on for the
past tour years at least, and I believe
that the representations of the United
States Government to the contrary are
designed to justify its policies toward
4 the Nicaraguan Government."
Evidence Disappears, He Says
Mr. MacMichael said that in late 1980
and early 1981 there was credible evi-
dence that Nicaragua did supply the
Salvadoran guerrillas with arms, but
< the evidence disappeared by the early
spring of 1981, some six months before
the United States began its extensive
support for the contras, as the rebels
are known.
The World Court, which is officially
known as the International Court of
Justice, is hearing a Nicaraguan
charge that the United States is com-
mitting aggression against it by sup-
porting the contras. The Reagan Ad-
ministration is boycotting the proceed-
ings, saying the court has no jurisdic-
tion in the case.
On Friday, the State Department Bawd on Nicaragua 'Menace'
issued a long position paper on the that- "The general premise of the plan
ter, asserting that there was "a moon- was that Nicaragua was a menace to
continuing to ship weapons to rebels in gion," Mr. MacMichael said in his
Salvador and terming Nicaraguan testimony, which began last Friday.
denials of this "an outright lie." "It was assumed that the Nicaraguan
Much of the information in the docu- Government was inherently totalitar-
ment was attributed to Salvadoran ian and repressive."
guerrillas who have defected or been The C.I.A. strategy, he said, was to
captured in the last year. Elliott provoke a violent military response
Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and domestic repression by Nicaragua,
for Inter-American Affairs, asserted thus countering the favorable image
that this information co!roborated that the Sandinistas had in world public
United States intelligence reports that ; opinion.
are classified. ' He said that from March 1961 until
According to the cofrt's ruleaq Nta- April 1982, when he was a contract em-
ragua must prove its accusations ployce of the C.I.A., he had access to
against the United States to win a judg- virtually all the information being col-
ment.
Justification for U.S.
Some specialists here have argued
that if it was proved that the Mara-
guans were involved in an attempt to
overthrow the Government of El Salva-
dor by providing arms to insurgents,
the United States might be justified, in
terms of international law, in taking
military action against Nicaragua to
force it to stop the arms flow.
Nicaraguan leaders have acknowl-
edged that some arms from Nicaragua
have reached the rebels, but they have
denied that this was Government poll.
cy. In an interview with The New York
Times earlier this year, President Dan-
iel Ortega Saavedra of Nicaragua said,
"There were times when we were find-
ing groups of 40 to 50 of our army sol-
diers ready with knapsacks and weap-
ons on their way to El Salvador," but,
he said, "we have had to detain them
and to punish them."
Mr. Ortega said that at one point, the
first United States Ambassador to the
Sandinista Government, LawrencePezzullo, presented him with evidencethat an airstrip in the western province
of Leon was being used to transport
arms to Salvadoran rebels. He said,
"We took necessary measures so this
airstrip would not continue to be used
for this type of activities."
In voting to give money to the con-
tras, however, Congressional intelli-
gence committees have contended that
Nicaraguan aid to the Salvadoran in-
surgents was significant in 1961 and
1982, but has diminished greatly.
thgW of 1981 of a C.I.A. plan, ap-
proged by the White House, to create a
-cd%rt force" to put military pressure
on Nicaragua.
Iectgd by the United States Govern-
mdnt on Central America. This in-
cluded information from aerial photog-
raphy, radio interceptions, interroga-
tions, of prisoners and defectors, and
United States radar installations
placed in the Gulf of Fonseca, between
Nicaragua and El Salvador.
The information showed for a period
that there was an arms flow from Nica-
ragua to El Salvador, Mr. MacMichael
said, adding, "it didn't come in any
more after the very beginning of 1981,
February or March."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740040-7