WHEN FEAR BATTERS FRIENDSHIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100027-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 27
• Publication Date: June 13, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100027-6
0TICLF AA"ZUM WASHINGTON POST
13 June 1985
(~R PAG>r
MARY McGRORY
Fear Beers Friendshi
When p
R fight after the House vote on the
Boland amendment, Speaker Tip
O'Neill was in his private office
doing what he often does-a favor for a
friend. Still smarting from the clubbing
he took on a move that would have
ended CIA involvement with the_
Nicaraguan contras O'Neill was making
a tape for a fund-raiser for Mo Udall of
Arizona.
O'Neill did not want to talk about
what had just happened. He read from a
statement hastily prepared by his staff,
which pointed out that President
Reagan had won his stunning victory
only by repudiating military aid for the
rebels, criticizing their conduct,
agreeing to negotiate with the ruling
Sandinistas and disavowing any
intention of overthrowing their
government.
His heart was not in it.
"I just can't explain it," he said r
For O'Neill, it was a galling personal
loss.
He had thrown all of his weight into
the fight against his fellow Irishman in
the White House, casting aside his usual
diffidence on foreign policy questions.
But on Nicaragua, he thought he knew,
firsthand, more than the State
Department or the White House. A
boyhood friend had gone to Nicaragua
as a Marine and gotten stabbed "for
United Fruit"An aunt, a Maryknoll
missionary, had assured him that the
Sandinistas, whatever their political
philosophy, were making a better life
for the common people of Nicaragua.
But the House, which seven weeks
ago unexpectedly defied the president
on any aid for the contras, was nervous.
O'Neill knew it and tried to make his
colleagues nervous on a larger scale.
Against talk of appeasement,
compromise and Marxist-Leninism on
our doorstep, he had hardily responded
that intervention would lead to war. He
thought the warning was a powerful
counterweight against Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega's trip to
Moscow, and against Democratic fears
of being seen as "soft on communism."
At his news conference before the
session began, O'Neill elaborated on
Reagan's martial fantasies, which he
thinks are the roots of the policy. he
"He is not going to be happy
has our Marines and our Rangers down
there ... ," O'Neill said. "He can see
himself leading a contingent down
Broadway with paper flying out the
windows, with a big smile on his face.
like a kind of 'Grade B' motion-picture
put the knife in us. I put him on the
intelligence committee because Eddie
Boland asked me to. What does that tell
you about his judgment?"
Dolefully, he said that the members
voted against their constituents, who,
polls show, want no part of Reagan's
quarrel with the Sandinistas. And it
wasn't Ortega's trip to Moscow. After
all, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,
who also went to see Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev and take money
from him, was invited to address a joint
session of Congress-"and at the
request of the president," O'Neill noted..
? "I don't know," he said, obviously
crushed by multiple treacheries. "I can't
explain it. They're afraid. They're
afraid of Ronald Reagan."
actor coming home the conquering
hero."
He also recalled Reagan's telling him
about the glorious day he had pictured
in Beirut, "with people waving
handkerchiefs for the Marines who had
unified their country."
"It's unbelievable," O'Neill mused.
"But that's the way he talks, and that's
the way he thinks." 232 to
But Reagan carried the day,
.196. Fifty-eight Democrats deserted
O'Neill and his best pal, Edward P.
Boland (D-Mass.), chairman of the
House intelligence committee.
For O'Neill, the most painful moment
of a black day may have been the
defection of John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). He
befriended Murtha, a huge, blunt,
assertive Vietnam Marine veteran.
Murtha made one of the show
speeches, an emotional tirade about the
wimps in Congress who had lost
Vietnam by sending mixed signals.
O'Neill stood alone in the back of the
chamber, his bulk draped over the brass
railing, not wanting war and looking the
picture of woe as Murtha spoke about
people who had "fought in the mud, who
had water up to the waist."
The Republicans were in rapture, and
their leader, Robert H. Michel of
Illinois, principal architect of the
"humanitarian" aid bill, took a front-row
seat for the affair. When Murtha
stopped shouting, Michel rushed
forward to shake his hand.
O'Neill was heartscalded by the
betrayal.
"He is one of my dearest friends in
the House," he said of Murtha. "I am
upset. I am very, very upset with him.
"And McCurdy," he added, referring
to Dave McCurdy (D-Okla.), who joined
Michel in tailoring the contras' aid, "he
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504100027-6