U.S. COVERT ACTION: POLICY TOOL OR POLICY HEDGE?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000706950036-7
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• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
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ARTICLE APP,ARED
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STRATEGIC REVIEW
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U.S. COVERT ACTION: POLI
OR POLICY HEDGE?
MALCOLM WALLOP
THE AUTHOR: Senator Wallop (R.-Wyoming) is a member
of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the U.S. Senate
and is Chairman of its Budget Authorization Subcommit-
tee. First elected to the Senate in 1976, Senator Wallop is
a graduate of Yale University and served as an officer in
the U.S. Army Artillery in 1955-1957.
IN BRIEF
The hotly debated issue of U.S. covert action in Nicaragua must be viewed against the background
of similar US. engagements in Angola and Afghanistan. In. all those cases, covert action has emerged
not as an instrument addressed to clear objectives of policy, but in effect as a substitute for policy
itself Not only does preoccupation with the issue distract from, a substantive understanding of the
U.S. stakes in the various arenas, but the lack of clearly defined and purposeful US. policy militates
against the very effectiveness of the covert operations: it engenders "no-win"perspectives at the policy
level and fails to marshal the needed public and Congressional support. It is essential for any US.
Administration to present covert action, in concert with other tools, as integrated parts of an ex-
plicit, comprehensive policy and success-oriented plan.
Today in Afghanistan, Angola and
Nicaragua, to mention only the most
prominent arenas, thousands of ordin-
ary people are volunteers in irregular wars
against the Soviet Army or Soviet-supported
regimes. Whereas in the 1960s and 1970s anti-
Western causes attracted recruits throughout
the Third World, the 1980s have emerged as the
decade of guerrillas who fight against com-
munist regimes and who, if victorious, would
give their countries a pro-Western orientation.
The movements in these and other countries
represent the responses of peoples subjugated
by the Soviet Bloc's major conquests of the
1970s. They are threatening to undo the Soviet
Union's most important accomplishments since
World War IT: the acquisition of strategic
promontories in relation to the Persian Gulf and
the Indian Subcontinent, the Cape of Good Hope
and the Panama Canal. Hence the outcomes of
these popular wars of national liberation are of
substantial interest to the United States.
Unfortunately discussions of this interest, in
both the Executive and Legislative Branches of
the U.S. Government, have been unenlighten-
ing. Sad to say, these discussions have betrayed
no really concerted intention, never mind plans,
by the U.S. Government to break the Soviet
Union's newly gained and locally contested
holds on these strategic crossroads of the world.
Worse yet, opinion among the public and in the
Congress has been badly distracted from the
true substance of these conflicts.
A major reason for this distraction is that the
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A,
debate has fastened on basically only one
among the many instruments of policy avail-
able to the United States: covert action. This
focus, in turn, is the consequence of a broad
disposition in the U.S. Government to embrace
covert action not only as a "safe" option-
something between diplomacy and sending in
the Marines-but in effect as a substitute for
policy itself, while thus avoiding or deferring
a clear policy choice.
Experience provides some sharp lessons in
this respect. Covert action, when it has been
successful, has not been an Option chosen in lieu
ofdiplomatic or military efforts. Rather, covert
action makes sense only as a calculated addi-
tion to diplomatic and economic efforts-and
only if it is backed by the will to use overt
military force if need be. What is argued below
is that in two of the three major armed strug-
gles in the world today-Angola and Afghan-
istan-the United States' employment of covert
action has cloaked the unwillingness or inabili-
ty by American decision makers to formulate
a self consistent policy: that is, the thoughtful
thread connecting between what we as a nation
want and what we do. And this process is be-
ing repeated with respect to the immediate
arena of Nicaragua today.
The Case of Angola
In 1974, the United States' response to the
Soviet-Cuban intervention into the Angolan
civil war in behalf of the communist-dominated
MPLA of Agostinho Neto was to ask the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency to supply some arms
and advisers to the other two factions in the
conflict, primarily Holden Roberto's FNLA and,
to a lesser extent, Jonas Savimbi's UNITA.
This aid was on a scale vastly inferior to that
invested by the Soviet Union and its surrogates.
The conflict was decided, at least for a decade,
by some 20,000 Cuban troops in Angola, as well
as by the passage of the Clark Amendment in
the U.S. Senate that prohibited the expenditure
of covert funds for actions in Angola.
The Clark Amendment did not prohibit the
expenditure of overt funds for the non-
communist Angolans. Yet, neither the Ford Ad-
ministration nor its successors have tried to
argue before Congress that, because the victory
of Jonas Savimbi over the Soviet coalition is
both in the United States' interest and moral-
ly preferable to its alternative, a certain
amount of funds, and perhaps a treaty, ought
to back the United States' resolve to take
whatever political, economic or military
measures might be necessary for Savimbi to
succeed. Congress never rejected such an argu-
ment because it was never made. Instead, the
Congress was, and continues to be, faced simply
with the question: shall the United States sup-
port covert action in Angola?
By the time the Clark Amendment came to
a vote, the United States, through the CIA, had
already been active in Angola for some months.
The forces supported by us, badly outmatched,
were in retreat. At that point, President Ford
wanted authority to undertake more in Angola,
but he was unwilling to state his case openly.
This reticence implied that the Administration
was unsure about both the effectiveness and the
moral legitimacy of the requested authority for
additional measures. Senator Clark charged
that the covert action had failed and that con-
tinuing it might lead to deeper involvement in
a moral and material quagmire. The Admin-
istration did not respond with a logical and
comprehensive brief of U.S. interests at stake
in Angola and what would be required to safe-
guard those interests. Hence Angola was aban-
doned. It should be noted, however, that in-
asmuch as Jonas Savimbi has done very well
on his own since then, the issue is not merely
historical.
Response to Afghanistan
A very different situation elsewhere il-
luminates the same problem. Soon after the
Soviet Army drove into Afghanistan in
December 1979, Senator Birch Bayh, then
Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, revealed publicly that the United
States was supplying covert assistance to the
Mujahedeen, the freedom-fighters resisting the
Soviet occupation. There was no outcry then
from the American public against this U.S.
assistance, nor has there been since. Quite the
contrary: four years later, 67 Senators are
cosponsoring a resolution which declares that
the U.S. Government should give effective
material assistance to the Afghan freedom-
fighters-and that it is wrong to give them
enough to fight and die, but not enough to pre-
vail. It is worth noting that this resolution was
not inspired by "hawks" within the Executive
Branch, but rather by a Vietnam veteran work-
ing through the office of liberal Democratic
Senator Paul Tsongas.
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The only opposition to the resolution has
come essentially from the CIA and the Depart-
ment of State. These agencies do not dispute
the Mujahedeen's claims that, although they
are winning most of the battles, the Soviets are
winning the war by exacting a three-to-one
ratio of casualties from the resistance and by
depopulating the countryside (thus "draining
the pond in which the resistance swims").
Nevertheless the agencies argue that any sub-
stantial increase in material assistance to the
Afghan resistance, e.g., the provision of effec-
tive anti-aircraft weapons, would be harmful
because the Soviets, frustrated, would turn on
Pakistan. Besides, the argument runs, a
heavier flow of arms into Afghanistan would
make it more difficult for the Pakistanis to sus-
tain their denial to the Soviets that they are
taking sides in the Afghan war. The United
States would then be forced to protect Pakistan
against Soviet reprisals. Hence the Afghan
freedom-fighters should not be provided with
the extent of covert assistance that could incite
an overt Soviet move, which we could only
counter with a massive, overt commitment.
This argument is abjectly flawed. When the
Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they stopped at
the Khyber Pass-not so much out of modesty
or fear of the Pakistani Army, but because they
believed that an impingement upon Pakistan
would risk war with the United States. More-
over, the Soviets are under no illusion whatever
about the fact that such aid as reaches the
Afghan resistance comes via the two million
Afghans now on the Pakistani side of the border.
No doubt the Pakistani Government derives
some comfort from its argument that it is wholly
uninvolved in military assistance to the
Afghans. But it knows very well that its security
lies in the tacit understanding that it is pro-
tected by the United States.
Yet, if the United States is not willing to com-
mit itself to the ultimate protection of Pakistan
against a Soviet invasion, why consider any
assistance at all to the Afghans? If the goal of
such assistance is not the eventual end to the
Soviet occupation-if instead it is assumed that
the Soviet strategy of attrition will ultimately
succeed-then why not spare the Afghan peo-
ple a protracted blood-letting? In that case,
Afghanistan's smoother transformation into a
Soviet Socialist Republic would at least leave
millions of Afghans alive to fight again another
day.
But could it be that the real Purpose behind
the nourishing of the Afghan resistance does not
turn so much on the good of the Afghans them-
se. ves? Could there be a "larger Western in-
terest" in keeping some 150,000 Soviet troops
"bogged down" for a decade or so? No, not only
would such cynicism be contrary to the very
values that we project to the world, but it would
mask arrant naivete. The West would gain lit-
tle by providing one-tenth of the Soviet ground
forces with live-fire training exercises every
year.
All this aside, one looks in vain for a substan-
tive basis to the arguments concerning Afghan-
istan that have so far emanated from the Ex-
ecutive Branch. Occasionally, a high official will
admit to this paucity of fundamental policy, but
he will then try to turn the question (and the
onus) around: would Congress be ready to ac-
cept the possible (overt) consequences of a
stepped-up (covert) assistance to the Afghan
freedom-fighters? The implication therefore is
that, on the assumption that the nation as a
whole is not prepared to face up to the risks of
purposeful policy, the Government is relieved
of the task of formulating it. Whether that
assumption is valid or not in the specific case
(and the U.S. public response to the U.S. move
in Grenada certainly does not bear it out), the
leadership of a democracy hardly is exercising
its mandate by an anticipatory deference to the
mood of a public that it is supposed to lead.
Meanwhile, what is the purpose of covert
action-beyond perhaps "harrassing" or "in-
conveniencing" the outposts of expanding Soviet
-power?
It should be stressed that very rarely is the
argument for limiting covert action to quiet
failures and inconsequential successes made as
clearly and honestly as it has been represented
above. Sadly, the very way U.S. foreign policy
is formulated militates against such clarity. A
variety of officials within the White House, the
Department of State and the Department of
Defense, not to mention their respective allies
in the Congress, carry into the policymaking
process their own preferences and phobias, per-
haps not so much concerning overall policy as
about individual measures to be taken. The
overall course of the United States' actions,
then, is the resultant (in the geometric sense)
of innumerable pushes and pulls over specific
policy measures and actions. This way of doing
business, of course, is the antithesis of policy.
Centinue@
3.
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T,
Precisely for this reason, covert action tends to
he used as a convenient substitute for policy-
or, rather, as a vehicle forced to carry the full,
surrogate burden of commitments that the U.S.
Government has been unable or unwilling to
formulate. It lends itself to the postponement
ol"hard questions about policy. Hence, not by
design but by the logic of the situation, covert
action can become the medium for institu-
tionalizing indecisiveness and accepting defeat.
Nicaragua: The Stakes of Conflict
Let us now turn to our immediate case: the
civil war between Nicaragua's Sandinista gov-
ernment and its democratic opponents, the so-
called Contras. Should the United States help
the Contras, for what purpose and to what
extent?
The area between the Rio Grar.de and the
Panama Canal clearly is the one global region
the control of which by the Soviet Union would
prove most menacing to the United States..The
astuteness of the Kissinger Commission's
Report and the documents captured in the in-
vasion of Grenada were not really needed to
reveal the fact that the Soviets are making a
concerted effort to push their power and in-
fluence into the region. The victory of the San-
dinistas, long-time disciplined members of the
Nicaraguan Communist Party and internation-
al communist organizations, was managed
directly from Havana. The Soviets and their
Cuban allies took this victory as a sign that
nearby countries were ripe for similar
campaigns.
The Sandinistas are now receiving Soviet
arms at the rate of 15,000 tons per year-the
same rate at which Cuba was being supplied in
the 1970s. Nicaragua today is host to specialists
from throughout the Soviet Union's internation-
al coalition. East Germans are setting up sys-
tems for internal security and population con-
trol. The PLO is training Nicaraguans, Salva-
dorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and Costa
Ricans in the specialities perfected in Israeli
marketplaces, airports and Olympic quarters.
Vietnamese soldiers bring the lessons and the
spoils of their victory over the United States to
instruct Central American recruits in long-
range patrolling. The Cubans train the conven-
tional armed forces and supervise every minis-
try. Libyans and Bulgarians carry out special
logistics and construction. The Soviets direct the
enterprise and reap the geopolitical benefits.
The division of labor in Nicaragua is the same
that has been instituted everywhere the Soviets
have taken hold-from tiny Grenada to
Ethiopia and Angola. In Central America, how-
ever, the potential geopolitical harvest is great,
indeed. If the Soviet sphere of influence were
to advance to Mexico's southern border, Mex-
ican elites would be less likely to expose
themselves to danger by opposing this great
new anti-Gringo force, and more likely to ally
themselves with it. At least this seems to be
the Soviet Union's expectation.
There is no need here to describe how a
hostile southern border would hamstring the
United States in its ability to exercise its global
commitments. Because Cuba is now a well-
defended base for Soviet submarines and air-
craft, in any future war our logistic support of
overseas commitments already is certain to be
incomparably more difficult than it was in the
worst days of World War II. If, in addition, the
United States were to face a hostile southern
border, the resupply of overseas allies would
become prohibitively difficult. Moreover, in
those circumstances, our overseas com-
mitments would simply drop down in our list
of priorities.
Nor need we dwell here on the scenario of a
twilight struggle against Latin terrorists in an
American Southwest swollen by refugees, and
on the social consequences of such a struggle.
Let us simply note the conclusion of the Kis-
singer Commission to the effect that relative-
ly little stands in the way of the Soviet drive
to isolate the United States in its own
hemisphere-and that Nicaragua is the con-
tinental spearhead of that drive.
The Evolution of Covert Action
Against Nicaragua
Given the clarity and seriousness of the Cen-
tral American problem, it is remarkable not on-
ly that the United States lacks an agreed-upon
policy for dealing with it, but also that policy-
makers are not debating alternative policies
and their consequences. Instead they are de-
bating covert action. Let us see how this preoc-
cupation developed.
The Carter Administration opei ly welcomed
the Sandinistas' seizure of power in Managua
in 1979 and channeled to the new regime more
aid in a year than the United States had given
to the previous government in a decade. Clearly
the Carter Administration officials believed
embned
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either that the Marxist Sandinistas were men
of good will who would not lend themselves to
the role of Soviet surrogates, or that they could
be bribed or charmed away from any inclina-
tion toward such a role, or that the unarmed
non-Marxists in the governing junta might
somehow restrain their armed comrades. With-
in several months, however, the Carter Admin-
istration had to admit that its hopes were not
well founded. It had to recognize that the San-
dinistas were instituting classic communist
measures to control the population, such as peo-
ple's courts, rationing and a pervasive secret
police, and that Nicaraguan society was being
rapidly militarized with the help of the Soviet
Bloc. The suppression of the few Trotskyites in
the country suggested to those even slightly ac-
quainted with the workings of the communist
world that the Sandinista regime was going to
be an orthodox disciple of Moscow to a fault.
The Carter Administration did not instant-
ly abandon all its illusions in the face of facts.
For FY 1980, for example, it obtained from the
Congress an additional $75 million in aid,
ostensibly for the private sector in Nicaragua.
Yet, at the same time, in December 1979 Presi-
dent Carter reported to the Congress that he
had begun a covert action program against
Nicaragua. '
It is important to note why President Carter
acted as he did. His decision was not aimed at
combating the Sandinistas' attempts to de-
stabilize neighboring countries, because at that
time those efforts had not yet begun. The
Carter Administration, in its early response to
the Sandinista regime, demonstrated its will-
ingness to countenance the establishment of a
government in Managua professing a strong
Marxist orientation. Yet, by the summer and
fall of 1979 even the Carter Administration rec-
ognized that the United States could not abide
the prospect of Nicaragua ruled on the Soviet
model and allied with the Soviet Union-
precisely because such a regime would in-
evitably make war upon its neighbors. There-
fore, it decided to take steps to alter the
Nicaraguan Government's "totalitarianism
and/or its alliance with the Soviet Union.
Although the Carter Administration did not
settle on a particular strategy for effecting
these changes-and while it continued to do its
best to stay on friendly terms with the San-
dinistas, hoping for the best-it began political
efforts aimed at propping up the opposition in
Nicaragua and to create the infrastructure for
paramilitary action. At its inception, then,
covert action was a mechanism that enabled
a new policy option to arise as the Administra-
tion's illusions disintegrated.
By 1980 the Sandinistas were bearing out
President Carter's worst fears by enabling their
longtime allies, the Salvadoran communists, to
mount a serious military challenge to their
government. Moreover the Sandinistas' repres-
sion drove thousands of Nicaraguans to seek i
help. Hence by 1980 both dissident Nica-
raguans and Nicaragua's neighbors were ask-
ing for U.S. assistance against the Sandinistas.
Stories soon began to appear in the press about
Americans and Argentinians aiding the coun-
terrevolutionaries-the "Contras."
Choices for the Reagan Administration
The Reagan Administration inherited its
predecessor's problems and its program of help
to the Contras, both of which had grown. By
late 1981 the new Administration's judgment
with respect both to the problem and to the
solution was summed up by Thomas Enders,
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs: Do unto Nicaragua what Nicaragua is
trying to do to El Salvador. The Reagan Ad-
ministration's aims were the same as those of
the Carter Administration: to foster pluralism
in Nicaragua both for its own sake and as the
surest safeguard against the Sandinistas' pro-
clivity for fomenting regional conflict. By this
time, however, there was no more room for hope
that the Sandinistas might be bribed away
from their objectives or that they would allow
themselves to be influenced by their more
moderate supporters.
The Sandinistas had dispelled whatever
doubts might have remained about their inten-
tions. Their army (25,000 regulars, 50,000
militia) was on its way to becoming larger than
those of the rest of Central America combined.
The command, control and logistical structure
for the war in El Salvador was operating openly
in Managua. The democratic allies who had
given the Sandinistas the veneer of pluralism
during the revolution had been cast off. Every
vestige of independent social activity, from the
church to private business, had been restricted
and harassed. Thousands of Miskito Indians,
their villages burned, had been massacred for
refusing to move into concentration camps, and
the remainder took to the swamps to fight hack.
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Meanwhile, the Contras had swollen to a few
thousand men in Honduras and Costa Rica. In
la t e 1981 the Contras began to give serious bat-
tle to the Sandinista militia.
Logically, by that time any remaining foun-
dation for the Carter Administration's original
policy toward the Sandinistas had crumbled.
Nonetheless, powerful groups in the Executive
and Legislative Branches began to oppose
strenuously and publicly any support of the
Contras. By and large they did not challenge
the assessment of the nature of the regime in
Managua and of its dangerous implications.
Nevertheless, they charged, and have con-
tinued to charge, that U.S. support of the Con-
tras is fundamentally wrong because it fore-
closes the option of negotiations. The Admin-
istration has countered by claiming that sup-
port of covert action is essential if there is to
be any hope of negotiations.
Covert Action and "Negotiations"
Paradoxically, the U.S. policy argument has
thus centered on whether the "forceful option"
would or would not help achieve the goals of
the original "friendly option." Not surprising-
ly, the argument has been unenlightening. Per-
haps the most confusing part of the debate has,
been the stress on "negotiations" with the San-
dinistas. Nearly everyone seems to favor them,
but few specify the objectives that negotiations
might achieve and the incentives involved. Let
us see why.
The Sandinistas view themselves as the local
chapter of a worldwide communist coalition led
by the Soviet Union, which helped them into
power, sustains them and holds out to them the
wherewithal for the achievement of their re-
gional ambitions. No one seriously suggests
that there exists a set of words that, if presented
to the Sandinistas, would convince them to put
at risk their membership in the Soviet coali-
tion or their control over their people. No ad-
vocate of negotiations suggests that the San-
dinista leaders would take any set of earthly
goods in exchange for assured control of the
Nicaraguan people and visible progress in their
regional offensive.
What, then, could negotiations be about?
Above all, the Sandinistas desire a pledge that
the United States will not invade, nor assist
Nicaraguans who challenge their control of the
country. "We ask only that you respect our
sovereignty," they say. In return, they are will-
ing to consider doing anything-so long as it
would not compromise their control of the coun-
try and their alliance with the Soviets. Speci-
fically, they have broadly hinted that they
would exchange the cessation of their support
of the war in El Salvador for the United States'
cessation of its support of the Contras.
If such an agreement could be worked out,
inspectors might well certify that Salvadoran
commanders moved out of their villas and com-
mand posts in Managua on the way to Cuba,
that the arms traffic ceased, and that a number
of Salvadoran insurgents trooped back to their
Nicaraguan sanctuary. But each of these moves
could easily be reversed after a tactical pause
because the basic infrastructure of command
and professional cadres for the insurgency in
El Salvador would still be there, ready for
reassembly and reactivation. On the other
hand, the Contras are not likely to survive the
withdrawal of U.S. aid as a fighting force. Most
of the Contras are not professional fighters, but
rather ordinary people who will seek out or-
dinary lives elsewhere once they become con-
vinced of the futility-let alone the betrayal-of
the cause of freedom for their country. In short,
they will follow the example of the Cuban sur-
vivors of the Bay of Pigs before them and
disperse into exile.
Negotiations might also guarantee that elec-
tions are held in Nicaragua. Elections are also
held in East Germany, which helped draw up
Nicaragua's laws on elections and on political
parties-laws which provide essentially that
candidates from non-Sandinista parties must
be acceptable to the Sandinistas and may not
criticize them.
In sum, those who propose negotiations with
the Sandinistas must be willing to provide
brutal incentives for the latter to jeopardize the
power that they have seized at the cost of many
lives in a bitter conflict and to abandon an
ideology that forbids the relinquishment of that
power. Just as important, advocates of negotia-
tions must provide for the continuation-in-being
of those brutal incentives after the agreement
is concluded. In innumerable discussions
among American policymakers, support for the
Contras has been promoted as the violent in-
centive necessary to bring the Sandinistas to
the negotiating table. Yet, such discussions
rarely take into account that those concessions
that the United States really wants are the
ones that the Sandinistas cannot afford to yield,
Catfineed
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while the central concessions the Sandinistas
desire would remove our ability to press them
for any concessions at all.
Covert;Action and "Containment"
It has been suggested that how the San.
dinistas rule 2.5 million Nicaraguans is not the
affair of the United States-so long as they halt
their efforts to destabilize their neighbors. Com-
mon sense and experience suggest, however,
that a passive containment of a well-
entrenched, Soviet-allied Sandinista regime
would be futile. In this respect the Kissinger
Commission's Report is worth citing at length:
. There would be little incentive for the
Sandinistas to act responsibly, even over a
period of time, and much inducement to esca-
late their efforts to subvert Nicaragua's
neighbors. To contain the export of revolu-
tion would require a level of vigilance and
sustained effort that would be difficult for
Nicaragua's neighbors and even for the
United States. A fully militarized and
equipped Nicaragua, with excellent in-
telligence and command and control organ-
izations, would weigh heavily on the neigh-
boring countries of the region.... We would
then face the prospect, over time, of the col-
lapse of the other countries of Central
America, bringing with it the specter of
Marxist domination of the entire region and
thus the danger of a larger war.
According to the Commission, only "the in-
volvement of U.S. forces as surrogate
policemen" on a repeated basis would prevent
the projected domino-pattern. A corollary con-
clusion must be that mere covert operations
cannot aspire to the task.
The Kissinger Commission did not consider
the suggestion by Secretary of State Alexander
Haig in 1981 that the United States deal with
the problem of Central America by "going to
the source." That can mean facing the San-
dinistas with the choice of ceasing the export
of revolution or being invaded by the United
States. It can also mean facing Cuba with the
same choice. Moreover, since the ultimate
"source" of the problem is the Soviet Union,
the silence with respect to Secretary Haig's sug-
gestion is understandable.
The Emerging Scenario
The political discussion in the United States
has obscured the fact that the military strug-
gle between the Contras and the Sandinistas
will be won by one side or the other. In two-
sided wars, nothing so harms the interests of
third parties as indecisiveness. If the San-
dinistas are to win, the United States will have
committed a profound mistake in aiding the
Contras at all. A victory over the "traitors
backed by the colossus to the North" will have
the effect of entrenching and emboldening the
Sandinista regime, just as Fidel Castro's vic-
tory in the Bay of Pigs led to the consolidation
of his regime and the emergence of Cuba into
the powerful Soviet outpost that it is today. If
it is the objective of the United States to pre-
vent the establishment of "another Cuba" on
the hemispheric mainland, then there is am-
ple historical precedent for how not to pursue
that goal.
The officialdom in Washington seems no bet-
ter prepared for a victory by the Contras. In
briefings of the Congress, Executive Branch of-
ficials have evinced trepidation at the prospect
of either the imminent victory or defeat of the
Contras, as if once formed they could stay in
place forever or disappear without conse-
quences. Failure to deal forthrightly with the
basic goals of the covert operation has
engendered innumerable quarrels within and
among the Legislative and Executive Branches,
most recently over the mining of Nicaragua's
harbors.
The emerging scenario of the covert opera-
tion itself calls for decisiveness. By early 1984
the Contras commanded almost 20,000 men
under three commands: the Miskito Indians in
the north, the forces of Eden Pastora in the
southwest, and the National Democratic force
of Adolfo Calero in the northwest. Apparently
the expansion of these forces is limited only by
the availability of weapons. The Contras have
no difficulty gathering recruits or intelligence:
a battalion of Sandinista militiamen even
defected to the Contras with their weapons. The
Contras' number, out of a Nicaraguan popula-
tion of 2.5 million, is all the more impressive
when compared to the number of communist
guerrillas in El Salvador: 8,000 in a population
of 5 million.
The Contras now roam more or less freely in
the least populated parts of Nicaragua, where
they encounter only the Sandinista militia. But
they do not now command the logistics to reach,
or the heavy weapons to attack, the regular
Continued
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Nicaraguan Army in the Managua area. The
regime, for its part, has avoided risking the
regulars' morale and allegiance by throwing
them into the fight. The Sandinistas' strategy
generally seems to be to expose themselves as
little as possible while convincing the
Nicaraguan people that the Contras' interna-
tional supporters will abandon them. Hence,
both sides consider the news about debates in
the U.S. Congress more important indicators
of the struggle than body-counts. The key po-
litical prize in this, as in other insurgencies,
is hope. Whichever side can convince first its
own fighters, and then the people-at-large, that
it will win in the longer run gains a potential-
ly decisive advantage.
The Lessons
And here we come to the overarching lesson
explicit in the three case studies of U.S. covert
action that we have considered. In a democracy
there is no substitute for fully articulated,
vigorously defended policy. Good intentions,
eloquent declarations, diplomatic skills, covert
action, military force-these are elements of
policy. Yet, they must be understood and prac-
ticed together as integrated parts of a success
oriented plan. Such a plan is essential to ob-
taining agreement from the Congress and the
public for any expenditures, sacrifices or risks.
The first step in such a plan is to decide and
to define what we want to achieve. In all three
of the cases, the victory of the anti-Soviet forces
is so preferable to its alternative, both in terms
of our interests and from a moral standpoint,
that U.S. officials should have no difficulty in
espousing it publicly. In a democracy, no action,
however covert, ought to be undertaken unless,
if need be, it can be confidently defended in
public. A successful public defense requires a
clear exposition of the ends to be achieved, of
the means to be employed and of why those
means are likely to be effective. Proponents and
opponents of the U.S. involvement in these
areas, never mind those who take a neutral
stance, ask the same question: Are the mea-
sures being urged by the U.S. Administration
reasonably likely to bring about the desired
results? That question deserves an answer.
Although some aspects of the U.S. involve-
ment in these regions must remain unacknowl-
edged out of respect for the needs of third par-
ties and in order not to identify targets for the
enemies, nevertheless the reasoning that
guides our involvement must be much more
overt and explicit than it has been heretofore.
In the case of Central America for example,
would it be useful for us to attempt to contain
the Sandinista regime or to try to change its
nature? Which of the contenders for power in
Nicaragua is the legitimate representative of
the Nicaraguan people? Is it really possible to
prevent the Sandinistas, and the coalition of
Soviet auxiliaries of which they are part, from
expanding over Central America without de-
feating them militarily? Can and should the
battle be carried by the Contras or, if necessary,
by American troops? Does it make sense to will
a set of ends without committing means rea-
sonably calculated to achieve them?
As we have applied pressures and our op-
ponents have countered them, and as our ef-
forts have become better known, it has become
imperative to explain to ourselves what we
have done and what we are ultimately willing
to do in order to achieve our objectives. Thus
far, the Administration-but not the
President-has tended to frame its public posi-
tion in terms of adherence to restrictions in the
scope of covert action. But any activity in these
areas, small or large, overt or covert, can only
be justified by the reasonable expectation of ul-
timate success. To attempt to justify activities
in any other terms invites both substantive
failure and popular rejection.
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