MEDIASCAN TRANSCRIPT NBC MEET THE PRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000200800004-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 24, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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MEDIASCAN TRANSCRIPT
NBC MEET THE PRESS
24 July 1983
Sunda'
KALB: Good day from Washington. I am Marvin Kalb inviting you to Meet the Press with
Congressman Michael Barnes, a key critic of the president's policy in Central America.
ANNOUNCER: Meet the Press is a public affairs presentation of NBC News.
KALB: Our guest today on Meet the Press is Congressman Michael Barnes, the Maryland
Democrat, who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Along with three others on Capitol Hill, Mr. Barnes recently urged President Reagan to
set up a bipartisan commission on Central America. The president agreed, set up the
commission, though its actual purpose is not clear, and he appointed Henry Kissinger
to run it. Congressman Barnes is one of nine senior counselors to the commission.
Our reporters today are Roland Evans of The Chicago Sun-Times; Henry Trewhitt of The
Baltimore Sun; Elizabeth Drew of The New Yorker; and to open the questioning, regular
panelist, Bill Monroe of NBC News. MONROE: Mr. Barnes, to prevent a Communist
takeover in El Salvador, President Reagan wants to apply more military pressure on
Nicaragua, more American help for the anti-Commuinist rebels and U. S. military
maneuvers on the edges of Nicargua. Why not? BARNES: Well, some of that probably
makes some sense. I think that you'll find there's a bipartisan consensus in the
Congress that there is a military dimension to the challenge that the United States
and its friends in the region confront, but that there are other dimensions as well
and the Reagan administration has placed it principal emphasis on the military
dimension. The reason I think it's unwise right now for the United States to engage
in these massive military maneuvers that were announced this week is that it really
comes at exactly the wrong time. Last Sunday the four presidents of the so-called
Contadora countries, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and Columbia, met in an urgent
emergency session, out of which came a statement that they believe we are headed into
a general war in Central America, and they called upon all nations in the Western
Hemisphere to make efforts to reduce tensions, to restrain themselves. And the
Nicaraguans responded. Two days later, on Tuesday of this week, the Nicaraguans said
that in response to the call of the four presidents, they were putting forward a new
peace plan with six points, some of which directly confronted some of the issues the
United States has been concerned about. The United States has also responded, not yet
by addressing what the four presidents of the Contadora countries said, but the United
States has announced massive new military maneuvers, has announced a major new plan to
upgrade our military presence in Central America. What we're doing really is not an
exercise. When you're sending troops into the region for five months or six months,
it's not a military exercise. It's a deployment of military force into the region on
a long-term basis. Our response to the Contadora initiative and to the urgent plea of
four presidents of countries that are friends of the United States has been a tragic
mistake and we may be missing a real opportunity here to seize upon this initiative of
our friends in the region and to try to bring about a peaceful resolution of the
crisis.
MONROE: Well, Congressman, you asked for a commission. You asked for a commission to
study some of the issues between you and other Democrats and the president. You've
got the commission now. It's headed by Henry Kissinger. You know all the people who
are going to be on it. Seeing the composition of the commission and what President
Reagan expects from it, what do you expect it to accomplish? BARNES: Well, I'll have
to say that I was disappointed, quite frankly, by the selection of Secretary Kissinger
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and the composition of the commission. Obviously, he's a very able individual and
knows foreign policy, but he's best known in Latin America for his role in Chile in
the overthrow of the Allende government, at least the preception that he was involved
in that. He does not have a background of leadership of Third World development
issues, which is what Sen. Jackson and I and others who advocated the commission
really see the commission as dealing with. I talked this morning with Sen. Jackson,
and we again agree that this commission can play a positive role if it doesn't look at
the immediate problem, if the commission doesn't try to get into whether or not the
U.S. should be overthrowing the government of Nicaragua, what the aid level should be
for Honduras or Salvador in the '84 aid budget. If it leaves aside those day-to-day
issues that the president and the Congress have to grapple with now, and try to
address, as Sen. Jackson says, the 30-year, 50-year problems of the hemisphere and how
the United States can promote our interest in that long-term period, it can play a
very positive role. There are some very fine people on the commission, some people of
diverse views, although it's not like the Social Security Commission where you had
people of direct, conflicting views on the commission. You had Claude Pepper, for
example, on the Social Security Commission, who was, you know, had a strong staked-out
position on Social Security. You don't have that kind of make up on this commission.
I've also talked with Secretary Kissinger within the past couple days about his view
of the commission, and he agrees. At least he says that he agrees strongly with Sen.
Jackson and with me that the commission should not get into the issues of the moment
with respect to Central America. That may not make the White House very happy, and
that may not make people who think that this commission is simply gonna support
Reagan's policies very happy, but I hope that Secretary Kissinger is serious. He told
me he doesn't want to see the commission get into the issue of the '84 aid budget and
how much we should be allocating here or there. He said he wants to stay totally out
of the issue of covert action, and I thought that he was going along pretty much with
the proposal that Sen. Jackson, Sen. Mathias, Congressman Kemp and I had that what we
needed was a long-term look at the region, that the U.S. does have important interests
in the hemisphere, and that we ought to set aside the issues of the moment and try to
take that long-term look.
KALB: Okay. Thank you, Congressman. Our guest on Meet the Press, Congressman
Michael Branes. Miss Drew?
DREW: Congressman, Sen. Dodd said this morning that he thought in sending the naval
vessels down to the coast of Central America, the administration might be in defiance
of the War Powers Act. What do you think? BARNES: Well, its a very serious issue.
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Clem Zablocki from Wisconsin, and I
have both written to the secretary of defense requesting a briefing on exactly what's
going on because there is a serious issue of whether or not the War Powers Act is,
should be invoked. Clem Zablocki is one of the authors of the War Powers Act. I
tried to get that briefing this past week. The Defense Department said they were not
yet able to answer questions about what this is all, what this all means and what
they're really doing. We intend to get that briefing immediately, and then make some
judgments in the Congress about whether, in fact, the War Powers Act should be
invoked.
DREW: Your earlier answer suggested that your real problem with what has happened in
sending the ships, troops, etc. was timing. And you did say that you thought that
there was room for some military action, that the difference is one of emphasis.
Could you clarify just a bit just exactly what is your difference with the
administration then, other than timing. BARNES: Well, I didn't mean to suggest that
I think sending this flotilla with aircraft carriers and ships...
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DREW: But military action... BARNES: ...ships to Honduras is the appropriate
response to the problems in Central America. I don't think it is. I don't think it
would have been an appropriate response at any time. But the timing could not have
been worse than to do it this week, than to announce it this week right after this
emergency urgent session of the four presidents of the Contadora countries in which
they called upon us and everybody else in the hemisphere to help reduce tensions in
order to permit them to go forward with their initiative. What I meant to suggest
when I said that I think there's a bipartisan consensus that there is a military
dimension to the threat in the region is that there is a small military dimension to
what's going on. There are 5,000 guerrillas in El Salvador, not a major military
problem, but it's there. And I think there's been a consensus that the U.S. has some
responsibility to assist and deal with that. What we have been doing, tragically
really, is putting 90% of our emphasis on the military dimension of the problem in the
region and very little emphasis upon the economic, social, political dimension.
DREW: Excuse me. You referred to the speech by Mr. Ortega of Nicaragua, the offer of
some negotiations. The administration would argue that that would be, might be as a
result of having brought pressure on the Nicaraguan regime. Therefore, is it possible
that the administration is right, that it will respond to more pressure? BARNES:
What, what I'm convinced Ortega was responding to was not the U.S. military pressure
and the Contras, the thousands of guerrillas that the United States is financing in
Nicaragua, but rather the pressure that they're getting from their friends, from their
neighbors, the Contradora group, from the Socialist Internationals. Just within the
last couple of weeks, the Socialist Internationals came down pretty hard on the
Sandinistas for their policies, domestic and foreign. I think they're responding to
those political initiatives from their friends, not to the pressures from the United
States. The Christian Science Monitor, Daniel Southerland of The Christian Science
Monitor, who's spent some weeks in Nicaragua and in Central America over the last
couple of months, had an excellent piece this week in which he said that it is his
impression, having just been there, that the Sandinistas are becoming more hardlined,
not less, because of the military pressure, that their instinct is to get tougher, to
become more repressive at home, and he said, and I think this is almost an exact quote
from Mr. Southerland's excellent piece, he said that the ideologues in Managua are
feeding the ideologues in Washington and they're both looking at each other from those
perspectives, making the situation worse, not better.
KALB: Okay. Mr. Trewhitt, who also has just come back from Central America?
TREWHITT: Congressman, let's explore United States' interests. Is it a vital
interest of the United States to prevent the spread of Communism in Central America?
BARNES: Absolutely. I think it is.
TREWHITT: Then, in the final analysis, would you introduce troops into the territory
itself in order to prevent that? BARNES: I think that would feed the spread of
leftist violence in the region. The vice president of Costa Rica recently said
something to me that we ought to be thinking about in the context of sending all of
these 5,000 troops and this flotilla to the east and west coasts of Central America.
He said everytime the United States increases the American military presence in
Central America, the appeal of the left goes up. If we want to assure that at some
time in the future the left is gonna take over Central America and the hemisphere
generally, all we have to do is continue policies of American interventionism which
feed anti-Americanism, which feed the rhetoric of the left. We're playing right into
their hands with this kind of policy.
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TREWHITT: But is there a contradiction in what you're saying? If it is a vital
interest of the United States to prevent the spread of Communism, and if it is
counterproductive to talk about introducing troops, then where do you draw the line?
Don't you have to draw the line either in El Salvador or Honduras before the problem
gets to Guatemala and (inaudible, both talking simultaneously)...? BARNES: The worst
thing we could do, the worst thing we could do is send American troops into combat in
the Western Hemisphere, for, again, the military challenge that's confronted is really
a very small one, 5,000 guerrillas. We're not talking about the North Vietnamese army
and, said by the Chinese (sic). We're talking about a very small military problem in
a country that's one-fifteenth the size of Vietnam. There are ways to do what you
suggest, Mr. Trewhitt, and to confront the Communist threat that exists in the region,
and the Reagan administration has been doing just the opposite. When the Reagan
administration came into office, for example, it basically eliminated the scholarship
programs for Latin American students to study in the United States. Right now there
are hundreds of Costa Rican students studying in Moscow, studying in Havana. There
are hundreds of Panamanians, Dominicans studying at Patrice Lamumba University in
Moscow, on full scholarship. We're not competing to educate the future leadership of
the region. The foreign ministers of Peru, of Bolivia, of Ecuador are pleading, of
Dominican Republic, are pleading with the United States--democracies that want to be
supported--pleading with the Reagan administration for assistance to support
democracy. There's a lot of talk in this town about supporting democracy, but what
we're doing is sending flotillas of Navy.... We're sending more troops. It's exactly
the wrong response. The United States should be holding out positive initiatives.
And that's what I hope, quite frankly, the Kissinger commission will come up with. We
should be holding out hope to the people of the hemisphere rather than raising the
tensions, threatening military action. We're doing this exactly wrong.
KALB: Mr. Evans? EVANS: Congressman, you surprise me a little bit, a man of our
background in foreign questions, your answer to the question just before mine.
President Johnson sent the Marines into Santa Domingo and into the Dominican Republic
almost 20 years ago to ward off a left-wing Marxist takeover. Twenty years later, a
democratic government still rules in the Dominican Republic. Have you forgotten that,
sir? BARNES: No I haven't. And I remember how it happened. He did it in the
context of a formal request from the government of that country. He did it....
EVANS: Sir, you said the introduction... BARNES: ...Well, let me finish.
EVANS: ...of American troops with that...BARNES: He did it under the aegis...
EVANS: ...he introduced American troops...BARNES: Well, he did it under the aegis of
the Organization of American States. It was a multilateral effort decided upon by the
countries of the Western Hemisphere that there was a crisis that needed to be
responded to. Let's compare what we're doing now. Rather than working with the OAS,
rather than working with our neighbors in the hemisphere, we are unilaterally
financing a supposedly covert effort, thousands of guerrillas. You and I as taxpayers
of the United States are paying the salaries of those thousands of guerrillas in
Nicaragua, mercernaries basically, that are engaged in trying to overthrow the
government of Nicargua.
EVANS: Yeah. BARNES: A very different kind of action than the one we engaged in...
EVANS: Congressman? BARNES: ...in 1965.
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EVANS: Excuse me for interrupting. Just to get back, you said a minute ago that the
introduction of American troops was the worst possible thing we could do and would
guarantee a Marxist takeover. Did that happen, sir, in the Dominican Republic? We
had 50,000 Marines there for over six months. BARNES: As part of an Organization of
American States support...
EVANS: So, you're saying if the OAS support (inaudible)... BARNES: You have a very,
very different situation. When the Organization of American States meets, adopts a
formal, takes a formal decision to support one of the member-state countries, you have
a totally different situation than what we're talking about now, where the United
States not only unilaterally, but going directly against the requests of our neighbors
in the country, against the request of Mexico, of Venezuela, Columbia, Panama,
democracy. We are not only not acting the way we did in 1965...
EVANS: But... BARNES: ...we're acting directly in opposite, in an opposite way.
EVANS: In other words, sir, it's not the introduction. It's the way they get there?
Is that what you're saying? BARNES: Let me just suggest.... You know, I served in
the United States Marine Corps. I think the Marines could go into Nicaragua, go into
Salvador and take care of those 5,000 guerrillas. That wouldn't be that big a
problem, militarily. The problem would be how long are we going to leave the Marines
there? Are we gonna leave an occupying force indefinitely? Because I think as soon
as the Marines left, there'd be a lot more guerrillas there now, there then than there
are now. The situation would be much polarized. We'd see a much more anti-American
situation in the left, which has some modest appeal now, could probably get 15% or 20%
of the vote in Salvador, could probably get 80% of the vote after we'd done that.
KALB: Mr. Monroe? MONROE: Mr. Barnes, the administration is encouraging Israel to
provide captured weapons to the rebels fighting Nicaragua, reportedly so that those
rebels will have continuing supplies even if the U.S. Congress prevents America from
supplying such aid. Do you have any objection to that maneuver? BARNES: Well, I
think it's unfortunate if other countries are gonna be drawn into, if Israel and
Honduras, Argentina, apparently, if other countries are gonna be drawn into this
illegal and misguided and counterproductive policy of attempting to overthrow the
government of Nicaragua. The New York Times had a report this morning that indicated
it isn't working. Not only are they not gonna be overthrown, but we're not
interdicting arms. All the stated policies, all the stated reasons for this policy
are not being carried out, and I think I can confirm, without giving away any secrets,
that The New York Times article is basically accurate, that we're not achieving the
goals that the administration had set out for its policy.
MONROE: But there wouldn't be any way that Congress could prevent the administration
from encouraging other countries to send arms to the rebels fighting against
Nicaragua, would there? BARNES: No. Basically, there's no way the United, the
Congress can tell Reagan he can't suggest things to other people.
DREW: Mr. Barnes, your disappointment, as you say, about the make up of the
commission, which you suggested in the first place, and used the analogy of the Social
Security Commission. Given the fact that the MX commission was made up of members who
supported the MX, why are you surprised? BARNES: Well, I'm.... I guess I'm not
surprised. I, I hoped that we could have a genuinely bipartisan commission in the
sense of a substantively bipartisn commission. There are Democrats on this commission
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and some very fine ones, but, substantively, you don't have, as I suggest, a
commission that's geuninely bipartisan in the sense that the Social Security
Commission was, where you brought people together of very conflicting views. When the
speaker asked me to serve as one of the two Democrats from the House, along with our
Majority Leader Jim Wright, as a counselor to this commission, he said, 'Mike, you
know you're going to be a minority of one.' He said, 'There's nobody on the
commission, and there are none of the other counselors to this commission who've been
publicly critical of the posture the United States has been taking in Central
America.' I said to Secretary Kissinger that I feel, I told him what the speaker had
said, and I said, 'I feel a real responsibility to represent what I regard as a
majority view, not just of Democrats, but of Democrats and Republicans in the Congress
that the U.S. policy is a dangerous one, that it's headed us in the wrong direction,
and to represent those views very actively as an advocate in my role as a counselor to
the commission.' I've been assured by the secretary that all the counselors will have
full access to the commission, be able to operate, to attend all the sessions, to get
all the papers, and that he will give me every opportunity to present the case that,
as I say, I think reflects the majority view. And I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna be
all over that commission.
DREW: You mentioned the danger that you thought you saw. I wonder what it is. A few
weeks ago, Vice President Mondale on this program said that he thought that the
logical extension of the administration's policy is that there will be a direct
involvement of American troops in Central America. Do you think so? BARNES: Well,
there's certainly, there's certainly that danger at this moment. We're not moving
away from that. We're moving toward that kind of outcome. I don't, frankly, think
that's that what President Reagan wants, but I'm less sure of that today than I was 10
days ago.
MONROE: Senator, let me ask you what do you think is the main purpose in setting up
this commission? Do you think that it's a smoke screen, as Sen. Byrd said? Think
it's just good politics? BARNES: Well, I suspect that the selection of Secretary
Kissinger to chair it was regarded as a political move by the people in the
administration, that he can be the lightning rod to take a lot of the heat with
respect to Central America policy, sort of the James Watt of Latin America policy.
All the heat will be tossed to Kissinger. I don't think that if the commission does
what Mr. Kissinger and Sen. Jackson and I want it to do, that that will, in effect, be
the result. I don't think, for example, that my colleagues this week, when we vote on
the covert action legislation in the House, will be able to use the commission as a
dodge. Some of them may try, but I don't think that that'll be a realistic way for
them to get around having to face the real issues that we confront on a day to day
basis.
KALB: Okay. Mr. Trewhitt?
TREWHITT: Congressman, back to El Salvador for a second. I, from my own trip, I tend
to agree with you about the manageability of the guerrilla problem as such. But how
does one go about bringing under control for the long term, the right-wing in El
Salvador, which directly, or indirectly is responsible for those death squads which
are killing whimsically, if not at random? BARNES: Well, this is, this is one of the
areas where the Reagan administration has really fallen down, I think, by not
adequately making it clear that the United States will not continue to support a
government that can't control these just very vicious death squads. Just within the
last few weeks one of the Christian Democratic members of the Constituent Assembly in
Salvador was threatened with death for having made the statement that the armed forces
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needed to control themselves. And the way he was threatened with death was that a
dead body was put out in the streets of San Salvador with a message tied around its
neck, threatening him for having made these kinds of statements. The Reagan
administration likes to argue that its present policy in Salvador is a continuation of
the Carter policy. That's just not the case. You can talk to Ambassador Robert White
who was Carter's ambassador there. Or you can talk to Larry *Pazula who was our
ambassador under Carter in Nicaragua. You can talk to President Carter about whether
or not it's a continuation of policy. The Carter policy was clearly aimed at
strengthening the center and trying to reduce the influence of the right and the left.
The Reagan policies, unfortunately, have tended to strenghten the right, not only in
Salvador, but throughout Central America and throughout Latin America generally.
KALB: We've got a little less than two minutes. Mr. Trewhitt, continue.
TREWHITT: I just want to continue and ask whether you think the elections should
proceed in El Salvador as they are now scheduled this year, in the circumstances you
set out? BARNES: Well, I, I've never been one of those who was critical of the
holding of elections. In fact, frankly, I hope that this next set of elections will,
will result in a better outcome than the ones in March of last year. In my judgment,
the bad guys won that election. The Christian Democrats got the most votes, but a
coalition of five hard-core right-wing parties were able to put together a majority in
the Constituent Assembly.
EVANS: Congressman, you're against the introduction of American troops into the
field. You have said it's a tragic mistake that the president is sending a naval task
force down there to show American intention. How do you feel about expanding the
number of American military advisers to help the Salvadoran army deal with this
guerrilla problem? Are you also against that? BARNES: I think at this time, it
would be a mistake. Again, what we ought to be trying to do is not suggest further
Americanization, further militarization. We ought to be trying to reduce tensions and
help the Contador process.
EVANS: You are against anything that involves the military in this situation. Is
that a fair statement, sir? BARNES: No. No. I've tried to suggest that that's not
a fair statement. I've never argued that five more advisers here, or 10 more million
dollars there is the issue. The issue is the policy. If we are using our military
support to bring about reform in Salvador, then we're seriously confronting the threat
of the guerrillas.
KALB: Congressman, thank you for being our guest today on Meet the Press. Commenting
on last week's program with economist Alan Greenspan, Joan *Broan writes from New
York, 'I don't know how Alan Greenspan could talk about a recovery when there are so
many unemployed. We have people who are not concerned about the less fortunate and
would like to sweep this under the rug.' Thomas Moran writes from San Franciso, 'Alan
Greenspan always hits the nail on the head. The basic economic problem, longer term
investments, would be solved, if congressmen would be a little less politicians and a
little more statesmen.' The address to write to if you would like to comment on
today's program is Meet The Press, NBC, Washington, D.C., 20016. For a printed
transcript of Meet The Press, send one dollar and a stamped, self-addressed envelope
to Kelly Press, Box 8648, Washington, D. C., 20011. Thank you for joining us. I am
Marvin Kalb, saying good bye for Congressman Michael Barnes and Meet the Press. Betty
Turner, Transcriber
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