INTERVIEW WITH FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100060002-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 17, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 4, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/05/18: CIA-RDP88-01070R000100060002-7
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
PROGRAM The Today Show
STATION W R C TV
NBC Network
DATE February 4, 1982 7:00 AM CITY Washington, DC
SUBJECT Interview with Foreign Minister D'Escoto
JANE PAULEY: Are we facing a confrontation of the
superpowers in Central America? The Reagan Administration is
backing the government of El Salvador and alleges a Soviet threat
in the present government of nearby neighbor Nicaragua.
Here is Secretary of State Haig before the Senate For-
eign Relations Committee earlier this week.
SECRETARY OF STATE ALEXANDER HAIG: Nicaragua is being
exploited as a base for the export of subversion and armed inter-
vention throughout Central America. Inside Nicaragua, Soviet,
East European, and Cuban military advisers are building Central
America's largest military establishment with Soviet-supplied
arms.
PAULEY: Nicaragua's Foreign Minister is our guest this
morning, Miguel D'Escoto.
Good morning.
FOREIGN MINISTER MIGUEL D'ESCOTO: Good morning.
PAULEY: Is Nicaragua being exploited by the Soviet
Bloc, by Cuba?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Unfortunately, this is a
lie which the Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, has been re-
peating, and he repeated it only yesterday. He doesn't seem to
have learned any lessons from the Vietnam experience. The Amer-
ican people are still being lied to in order to excuse...
PAULEY: ...learning from the Cuban experience, which
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is another story, as you would know.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Well, I don't know what is
to be learned from the Cuban experience about the Nicaraguan situ-
ation.
PAULEY: Do you deny that there are 500 Soviet Bloc
advisers in Nicaragua now? Some foreign observers and reporters
say it looks like an international city these days?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: I don't only deny that
there's 500 Soviet advisers, there's not one Soviet adviser in
Nicaragua.
PAULEY: There are 500 observed Soviet people there.
What are they doing? They live near the Soviet Embassy. It's
not terribly secret.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: I cannot tell you the exact
number of the Soviet people connected to the embassy. But I can
tell you that it's infinitely smaller than that of the American
people connected to the embassy.
PAULEY: And a thousand or several thousand, perhaps,
Cuban teachers in Nicaragua. That you would not deny. What do
they teach?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Well, they are teaching in
elementary schools. They are helping to set up schools throughout
the country. We have a couple of hundred of them that are medical
doctors helping to extend the health services to our entire popu-
lation that had been deprived of them for so many years.
PAULEY: But you can understand, surely, why the Reagan
Administration would see a number of Soviet people in Managua, of
Cuban teachers, and not -- and legitimately feel threatened that
some kind of a military machine is being built near strategic
interests of the United States. The Panama Canal, for instance.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Well, you know, this is a
story that we have been hearing all of our history. This is what
led the United States to invade and occupy Nicaragua in 1909 and
then in 1912, an occupation that lasted until 1933 and that was
replaced by the surrogate army that the United States imposed on
Nicaragua and through which it held control of our country until
1979. At that time, they were said -- they said that we were in
danger of becoming a second Mexico. Today they claim that we're
in danger of becoming a second Cuba.
This is nothing more than a pretext to excuse their
criminal interventionist policies in Central America, and in
Nicaragua in particular.
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PAULEY: You were in the Soviet Union last fall, I
believe, and signed some agreements, the contents of which have
never been made public. How far would the Soviet Union be pre-
pared to go if the United States did engage in some direct mili-
tary action in El Salvador or elsewhere in Central America?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Well, I think that that has
to be asked of the Soviet people. I cannot say that...
PAULEY: And you don't have anything on paper, agree-
ments specifying when they would come to your aid, how much mili-
tary assistance they might provide?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: There's no such an agreement
with the Soviet Union.
PAULEY: You did sign an agreement.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: Not any kind of a military
agreement. We have aid agreements in different areas, in educa-
tion, in health, but no military agreements.
PAULEY: Tell me what you think the scenario in Central
America will be in another year.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: If left to ourselves, I think
that by next year we will have another country liberated from the
terrible nightmare that they have lived through, certainly, for
most of the part of this year -- of this century.
PAULEY: The Salvadoran guerrillas will win.
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: I have no doubt that they
would if they were left alone without American intervention and
without the United States trying to bolster up and defend a regime
that is so...
PAULEY: But do you think they will be left [alone], or
do you think the United States in another year will be directly
involved in El Salvador?
FOREIGN MINISTER D'ESCOTO: I have confidence in the
American people. And I think that in this country the will of
the people still counts and that they will take advantage of that
democratic possibility in this country and restrain the Reagan
Administration from further irresponsible actions.
PAULEY: Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto, thank you for
being our guest.
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