(Sanitized)INSURGENCY AND INSTABILITY IN CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R001203070005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 13, 2006
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: August 31, 1981
• Content Type: MEMO

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Copy No. __6
31 August 1981
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment
Deputy Director for Operations
Chairman, National Intelligence Council
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Insurgency and Instability
in entra merica --
Before going to California I approved the draft SNIE on insurgency
and instabilities in Central America as sufficiently advanced to circulate
in the intelligence community to draw reaction and additions. I am told
that there is some feeling that the community reps would like more time
to make their input. I too think that there are some additions that should
be made. I would be inclined to have a broad discussion at the NFIB meeting
tomorrow and then to spend more time coordinating and finalizing it. There
is likely to be an NSC meeting on Central America shortly after Labor Day
and certainly a week or so before President Duarte's visit which is scheduled
to begin on 16 September. Now, as to additions and improvements:
1. I hope I'm not alone in that at least some of the points that
General Walters makes should be addressed.
2. Since the estimate stresses the "socio-economic inequalities"
as creating vulnerabilities for insurgents to exploit, some attention
should be given to land reform and other efforts in El Salvador to ameliorate
theseinequal-ities--. Tc what extent has President Lucas, as General Walters
indicates., made. similar efforts in Guatemala? -
3. If this is to be a.comprehensive estimate there should be a
country outlook for Nicaragua as well as for El Salvador, Guatemala,
Costa Rica and Honduras?
4. What are the internal political forces?
5. What is the extent of the fighting on the Atlantic Coast with
Indian tribes?
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6. What is the reaction to the heavy Cuban, Soviet and other
foreign presence?
7. What kind of a third force is there between the Somoza
National Guard and the Sandinistas?
8. I am skeptical of the tendency to attribute the Nicaraguan
military buildup to defensive motives - to citing attributes to Cuba and
the Soviets as the immediate objective of consolidating the Sandinista
revolution in Nicaragua rather than spreading it to the other countries
in an effort to recreate the Vietnam syndrome in the United States - to
attribute the insurgency to underlying economic and political conditions
rather than external military pressures.
9. Are the underlying political and economic conditions in Honduras
so different that the same kind of external pressure that has been injected
into El Salvador could not create a comparable situation in Honduras?
10. Should not recent political developments be reflected, i.e.,
the French and Mexican diplomatic initiatives, the Enders ultimatum, today's
report of the statement of the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States
that the country's ties to the leftist insurgents are too strong to respond,
to that ultimatum, today's cable on the concerns of our own Ambassador to
Honduras about conflicting objectives on our part.
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sou be carried in the estimate perhaps
with a map. To get this information and other insights the estimate should
be coordinated at the level of the Chief of the Operations Directorate and
Chief of its Latin America Division.
12. Finally, there should be coordinated into the estimate our
reading on the various vulnerabilities of Nicaragua and Cuba, together
with the opportunities and risks to exploit those vulnerabilities. This
would--re i n updating of what was previously done on Cuban vulnerabilities
in Cuba, I 25X1
William J. asey
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