PBS MACNEIL-LEHRER REPORT 27 APRIL 1983

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100680003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 17, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: April 27, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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PBS MACNEIL-LEHRER REPORT
27 April 1983
ANNOUNCER: President Reagan confronts a skeptical Congress and raises the political
ante on Central America.
MACNEIL: Good evening. President Reagan takes the fairly rare step of going before a
joint session of Congress this evening. His aim is to persuade a somewhat reluctant
Congress to back him in resisting leftist forces in Central America. This dramatic
gesture thus pushes the controversy over the U.S. role in El Salvador and Nicaragua to
the top of Mr. Reagan's foreign policy agenda and raises the political heat
surrounding it. This afternoon Mr. Reagan gave a preview of what's on his mind when
he spoke to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in New York. REAGAN: This
last point brings up the first responsibility of the president of the United States
and of the Congress: the security of this country and the well-being of our people.
Tonight I will speak directly to that issue in the context of Central America. We're
not accustomed to thinking very much about that region, not accustomed to worrying
about possibly a military threat in our own hemisphere. We've almost taken for
granted the friendly independent neighbors that we have, but we can no longer ignore
there's a fire started and burning in our front yard, and we must respond with both
unity and firmness of purpose. The peoples of the hemisphere, this hemisphere, are
all Americans, and all of us share a vital stake in the future of democracy and
freedom. We have it within our power to act now to keep the situation manageable, and
it's in this spirit that I shall speak to the Congress and to the nation tonight.
MACNEIL: Earlier today Mr. Reagan said in an interview with Gannett Newspapers that
Central America. does not add up to another Vietnam, a fear expressed by some of his
congressional critics. Tonight with two leading critics and U.N. Ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick, the Central American policy debate that forms the background to tonight's
presidential speech. Jim Lehrer is off; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington.
Charlayne?
HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the president's highly unusual move comes at a time when his
Central American policy is mired in deep criticism and skepticism on Capitol Hill.
That was underscored yesterday when an administration request for $60 million in aid
for El Salvador was cut in half by a House Appropriations Subcommittee. That
committee also attached strings to the remaining $30 million and extracted a pledge
from the administration to name a special envoy to seek a negotiated peace in El
Salvador. It is reported that former Sen. Richard Stone, Democrat of Florida who has
been advising the administration on Central America policy, is in line for the post.
Nicaragua is a sore spot as well. Amid charges that the administration is illegally
funding covert operations in that country, the House Intelligence Committee meets
tomorrow to consider cutting off funds for such actions against the Nicaraguan
government. Thus, the man known as the great communicator faces a formidable test
when he comes before the Congress tonight. Robin?
MACNEIL: The policy the president takes before Congress this evening was shaped in
considerable part by his U.N.\Ambassador\Jeane\Kirkpatrick. Mrs. Kirkpatrick has long
believed that the U.S. should actively support those in Central America it sees as
allies and oppose the forces that threaten them. Madam Ambassador, why does the
situation in Central America warrant such a dramatic gesture by the president?
KIRKPATRICK: Well, I think the president said it when he said that the first duty of
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a president is to protect the security of this country, and he thinks, as I think,
that the security and vital national interests of the United States is very much
involved in Central America. It's very near us and strategically very important,
which is why the Soviets are investing so much effort in there.
MACNEIL: He also said we can no longer ignore the fire burning in Central America,
but in fact the United States has not been ignoring it, witness the controvery we've
just described. Does that mean a bigger U.S commitment is in the offing?
KIRKPATRICK: I think that what the president meant by no longer ignoring the fire was
not that he had been ignoring but that a good many Americans remain unaware of it,
unaware really of the importance of Central America to our security and unaware of
what's going on there, what the size and scope and importance of the Soviet commitment
in that area is, what its strategic threat to us is.
MACNEIL: Can you briefly describe what you think what is going on there, what the
size and scope of that Soviet commitment is? KIRKPATRICK: Yes. I think that for a
number of years now the Soviet Union has been investing many tens of millions,
hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars, in fact, in Cuba and building
Cuba's military force, and in building its own military presence in this hemisphere,
until today, for example, it has facilities for nuclear submarines off our shores and
air reconnaissance over our vital sea lanes as well as over our own territory, and
with good many evidences of an increase in that commitment. The extent to which
there's a kind of international effort is very clear in Nicaragua where one sees not
only arms from but also advisers and personnel and helpers and soldiers from all over
the Soviet bloc--from East Germany and from Korea, North Korea, that is, and from
Vietnam and from Libya. Only--from the PLO, I would say, rather an important PLO
presence. Only today off the shore--Costa Rica announced that they had just
apprehended a boat, a ship filled with Libyan arms headed for Nicaragua. We know that
last week in Brazil three Libyan planes, four Libyan planes filled with arms were
headed for Nicaragua. By the way, they lied about what was in them, of course, but
what that does is illustrate the international character of the effort that's going
on. There the whole Soviet bloc is involved. The investment is very large, and what
they seek to do is develop a kind of stranglehold over the vital shipping lanes which
half of all American crude oil passes through, which almost half, 44% of our trade
passes through, which well over half of what we would supply to Europe in case of an
emergency there passes through, so it's strategically very important to us.
MACNEIL: All right. Let's take El Salvador briefly. What is the administration
purpose? Is it a political settlement in El Salvador or a military victory, then a
political arrangement? KIRKPATRICK: The administration's purpose in El Salvador is
very simple. It is to strengthen and reinforce a democratic government in El Salvador
which will be independent and in which the Salvadorans will be able to control their
own destiny. That's what we seek to do, what we hope... what we seek to do is to help
the Salvadorans maintain control over their own destiny and not lose it to a very
well-armed group of guerrillas directed out of Nicaragua, Cuba and the Soviet bloc.
MACNEIL: And what is the administration, put simply, in Nicaragua? (sic) Is it, as
some have suggested, to overthrow the Sandinista government or to encourage others to
overthrow it or to weaken it so that it may be overthrown, or what? KIRKPATRICK:
Well, the administration's first objective in Nicaragua, this administration's,
previous ones, too, has been in fact to try to encourage a democratic and peaceful
Nicaragua. So far that hasn't succeeded. Its second objective in Nicaragua is to
simply persuade Nicaragua to live at peace with its neighbors, and its most important,
very short-run objective, I think, is to persuade Nicaragua to stop supplying large
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quantities of arms and directing the subversion of El Salvador from Nicaraguan
territory.
MACNEIL: Thank you. Charlayne?
HUNTER-GAULT: One of the staunchest congressional critics of the administration's
Central American policy is Rep.\Stephen\Solarz, Democrat of New York. A member of the
Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Congressman Solarz spent two weeks in Central America earlier this year. Congressman,
do you think the situation in Central America warrants the kind of attention the
president's giving to it? SOLARZ: I think that all of us in the Congress, Charlayne,
even those who have been opposed to the administration's policy in that part of the
world, recognize that there is a very serious situation. I think the disagreement we
have with the administration is not over the seriousness of the problem but what are
its causes and how best to deal with it.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right. You just heard Ambassador Kirkpatrick state the, what
presumably the administration's concern. Are they and she overstating the extent of
Soviet involvement in the region? SOLARZ: I don't think that there's any doubt that
the Soviet Union, Cuba, Libya and other radical and communist countries are attempting
to exacerbate the tensions which exist in Central America by providing arms to
insurrectionary groups like the FMLNA in El Salvador, but we would contend that even
if the Soviet Union, Cuba and Libya didn't exist, that given the history of social and
economic injustice and inequity in El Salvador combined with the legacy of political
repression, that the insurgencies which exist today would have developed anyway, and
we think therefore that it is a very serious mistake to view the conflicts which are
raging in Central America today as primarily a manifestation of the desire on the part
of the Soviet Union to extend its influence in the region rather than as a
manifestation of indigenous difficulties and problems which have existed for decades
and which have not, unfortunately, been adequately dealt with.
HUNTER-GAULT: One of the things that the ambassador just said is the concern for the
strategic security of this country, which she says is threatened by this expanding
Soviet presence or foreign presence in the region. SOLARZ:, I don't think there's
anyone in the Congress who would look with equanimity on the military triumph of the
guerrillas in El Salvador or looks with equanimity today on the existence of a
Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Both of these situations obviously create
problems for the United States, but at the same time, I must say that these
Strangelovian (sic) strategic speculations contain a measure, in my view, of very
substantial exaggeration. I think, for example, the whole notion that if the
government in El Salvador falls that all of the other governments in Central America
will inevitably and ineluctably fall as well until the day comes when communist
guerrillas are attempting to cross the Rio Grande and invade the United States
constitutes a very substantial exaggeration. There's no doubt that what happens in El
Salvador will have an impact on what happens in the other countries in the region, but
in the final analysis, what happens in Costa Rica, in Honduras, in Mexico and in
Guatemala will primarily be a function of the indigenous conditions and circumstances
in those countries themselves.
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you just heard what the ambassador said are the goals and the
aims--for example, in El Salvador to help them to determine their own destiny and
formulate a strong democratic government. What's wrong with that? SOLARZ: Oh, I
don't think that there's anything wrong with the policy of the administration as it
was described by Ambassador Kirkpatrick, for whom, by the way, I have a great deal of
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affection and a lot of respect, but on this issue I think we have a fundamental
difference because I don't think that the administration's policy goes far enough.
It's one thing to talk about trying to enhance political pluralism and genuine
democracy in El Salvador. We all favor that. The question is how you achieve it, and
in my view, the only way this can be achieved is through a political resolution of the
conflict which will require, in my judgment, a dialogue between the government and the
opposition, out of which hopefully can come an agreement in which genuinely free and
fair elections are held, in which all sides can have confidence, in which the people
of El Salvador can determine their own future.
HUNTER-GAULT: Then you're saying that you don't believe that the United States is
genuinely trying to pursue a negotiated peace? SOLARZ: I don't believe we are, and
the reason I say that is that the only way to achieve a negotiated settlement is
through negotiations, and the only way to get negotiations going in the Salvadoran
context is on the basis of an unconditional dialogue between the government and the
opposition, which we have so far opposed.
HUNTER-GAULT: Very briefly, do you believe the adminstration is acting illegally in
Nicaragua? SOLARZ: I'm not in a position to make a definitive judgement on that, but
I will say that to the extent the administration contends that the purpose of our
military assistance to the FDN operating out of Honduras in Nicaragua is to interdict
the supply of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador. I am unaware of any successes which
have been achieved in that regard, and it's hard for me to understand how we can
plausably contend that we're providing arms to the FDN in Nicaragua.
HUNTER-GAULT: And that stands for? SOLARZ: For the Nicaraguan Democratic Front, for
the purpose of preventing the flow of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador, when the
leaders of the FDN themselves have announced publicly that the purpose of their
operation is in fact to overthrow the government of Nicaragua.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Robin?
MACNEIL: To take a couple of these points, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, the congressman
says he thinks you are very substantially exaggerating the Soviet involvement in that
and the threat. KIRKPATRICK: Actually, I don't even think he said that. I think he
said he thinks somebody is exaggerating the Soviet presence in Central America, but he
didn't say who, and of course that makes it a lot easier to....
MACNEIL: Who did you mean, Congressman? SOLARZ: Well, I mean....
MACNEIL: The administration generally? SOLARZ: I did not say, nor would I have said
that the ambassador exaggerated the degree of Soviet involvement in the situation.
There's no doubt that they are involved. What I did suggest was that the
administration had exaggerated the strategic consequence of a collapse on the part
the government of El Salvador.
MACNEIL: With that corrected question, may I put that to you? KIRKPATRICK: Sure. 'I
would just say that my good friend Steve Solarz has said himself that he would regard
the conquest, victory of the Marxist-Leninist forces in El Salvador, as a very
undesirable outcome. I'd just like to say we regard it as a very undesirable outcome,
too. Communist El Salvador is a serious prospect. It's not something I think any
American or any congressman would in fact welcome, and I think it's one we all in fact
want to cooperate in trying to prevent. SOLARZ: If I could make a point here, Robin.
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MACNEIL: Sure. SOLARZ: Let me say that I fully agree with the ambassador on that
point. There's no one in the Congress, I think, who would look with equanimity on a
guerrilla triumph in El Salvador. Our disagreement with the administration is over
the best way to prevent it, and some of us are deeply concerned about the extent to
which, in our judgement, the policy now being followed by the administration is likely
to lead to the very result it's supposedly designed to prevent.
MACNEIL: What about that and the, just adding to it, the congressman's point that he
doesn't believe the administration really is trying to achieve a negotiated
settlement? KIRKPATRICK: That's actually very hard to understand because we try all.
the time at it. We try first of all by continuously making clear that our only goal
is free, open and conclusive elections in which all parties in El Salvador will
participate, and we try to make clear, not only to the Congress, to the Salvadorans,
to everybody that we will do everything in our power to ensure that all parties in El
Salvador will in fact be secure and able to participate and that we hope only that
they are willing to stop shooting at each other and in fact talk, talk in the context
of democratic elections.
MACNEIL: Well, if they are unwilling, does that mean pursuing a military solution
until they are defeated? KIRKPATRICK: I think that the only time one has to pursue a
military solution is when people are shooting at you. Unfortunately, what's happened
in El Salvador is that the guerrillas keep shooting. You know, Steve, I know you
don't like to talk about the Soviet presence, but if you read the Soviet theoretical
journals, you find people like '`Mekoyan and a lot of others saying again and again
that in Latin America the armed road is the only road, and in El Salvador itself, one
has found *Chepengandal, the head of the Salvadoran Communist Party and now thought to
be the strongest man in the FMLN, saying that military victory will be theirs and that
they seek a military victory. Problem: what do you do when they keep shooting?
SOLARZ: Well, I think there's an answer to that question, if I may be permitted to
offer it, and that is that if in fact the opposition in El Salvador rejects a fair and
genuine offer to bring the war to an end through political means, and if the
government in El Salvador simultaneously eliminates the death squads which they're now
operating, which are responsible for the murder of literally thousands of their own
people, then I think under those circumstances we should be providing whatever
military assistance they need, but right now the problem is that what the government
in El Salvador in effect says to the opposition is that they should lay down their
arms and come into an electoral process supervised by the security forces of El
Salvador. That's no more realistic than it would be for the guerrillas to say to the
government of El Salvador that they should lay down their arms and enter an electoral
process supervised by the guerrillas. If there is gonna be a solution based on an
electoral process, it seems to me it can only come about on the basis of an
unconditional dialogue, out of which hopefully might emerge a solution more or less
along the lines of the one that made possible peace in Zimbabwe, in which the security
forces are confined to their barracks, the guerrillas are confined to their bases, and
a regional peacekeeping force comes in to supervise the election.
MACNEIL: We have to move on, Congressman. Charlayne?
HUNTER-GAULT: The architect of the compromise plan that cut the administration's
military aid fund request for El Salvador is the chairman of the Appropriations
Subcommittee, Clarence\Long, a Democrat of Maryland. A frequent visitor to Central
America, Congressman Long has just returned from a weekend trip to El Salvador.
Congressman, you're quoted as saying that the reason you supported cutting the aid
request in half was so that you could have leverage with the administration--leverage
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for what? LONG: Well, that's part of the reason. I do think you're never going to
get a solution to that thing, a peaceful solution, unless you can bring the guerrilla
forces to the negotiating table, and they're not going to come as long as they have
freedom to blow up bridges and power lines and then have the American taxpayer pay to
rebuild them. Now you have to, has to be a military stick, let's say, and it's gotta
be a stick, not a wet noodle, which is what it's been so far, so some military aid has
to be given. Now to give to it all that the administration wanted would have been
simply to say we're giving everything you want now without reference to what you're
gonna be able to do to carry through these various peace negotiations that we're
asking you to do, these various moves towards human rights and the conviction of the
killers of the nuns and that sort of thing.
HUNTER-GAULT: Is that why you attached the strings that you attached, as well as made
the cut? LONG: Oh, yeah, I think the solution--and I agree with Congressman Solarz
here--is not a military solution. We've had 300 years of murder and warfare in El
Salvador. Communism is just the latest name for it.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right, so one of the strings you attached was a special envoy. How
do you expect him to make a difference? LONG: Well, I expect him to talk to both
sides to try to bring them to the negotiating table, to set up, above all, an election
which would be available, as congressman, as Ambassador Kirkpatrick said, all parts of
the, all shades of philosophy and so on, everyone, and that would include the
communists. Let them come into the electoral process and have them free to take their
case to constituents, access to the media and protection against being murdered,
because *Amoro told me, one of the guerrilla leaders, if he had taken part in the last
election (inaudible)....he would have been murdered, and I don't know anyone who
seriously disputes that.
HUNTER-GAULT: The other string you attached involved, strings, involved human rights,
and you alluded to that a moment ago. Why did you think that was necessary? LONG:
Well, I don't know quite why you asked that question. There have been 15,000 murders
in El Salvador in the last two years, and not one single murderer has been
convicted--not a single conviction.
HUNTER-GAULT: So you're saying you don't think the U.S. has been strong enough on
pushing for this, or just what? LONG: Well, we certainly.... We've asked them to do
it, but we haven't stipulated that as part of any of our foreign aid requests
heretofore, but now they agree, and I think the existence of outside force, such as
ours, telling them they're not going to get the weaponry that they claim they need
unless they take definite moves to bring the killers of human beings to justice. That
helps them. They can say, well, gee, we may not want to do it. We've got to do it
because the United States is stipulating this.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Robin?
MACNEIL: Ambassador Kirkpatrick, back to the general point. The New Yorker magazine
says this week that Central America is not in any way like Vietnam, except in U.S.
policy, because it appears to be reviving the domino theory. Is that in fact what the
administration believes, that if unless you stop them in El Salvador and Nicaragua,
the whole of Central America will go communist? 17IRKPATRICK: I think that the
most.... I think we think that there is a very large danger of contagion in Central
America. You know the fact is that the Soviets have a habit of using each country
which they conquer as the base for the next conquest, so that they took, for example,
they gained control effectively of Nicaragua, and they used Nicaragua as the base for
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their conquest of El Salvador. Now there's no.... They've already announced just
last week from Nicaragua, interestingly enough, the formation of a new united front to
try to overthrow the government of Honduras, and the government of Nicaragua is right
now threatening, on a fairly serious basis and continuing one, the independent
Democratic government of Costa Rica, so the notion that there's more than one or two
governments involved here is not a matter of anybody's fantasies. It's a matter of
facts that exist right now.
MACNEIL: Congressman Long, do you think the administration has revived the domino
theory? LONG: Well, there's no question about it. They would.... I think they
believe genuinely that any fall of El Salvador might lead to a fall of other
countries.
MACNEIL: Do you believe that? LONG: Well, I think it's something you can't
completely reject, but I'm not, I'm not sold completely on it, no.
MACNEIL: Uh huh. How do you answer that? KIRKPATRICK: Well, I don't think anything
is inevitable, let me say, in history. What I think is clear is that already, not
later but now, the other governments in the area are in some sense targeted by the
communist forces based in Nicaragua and before that Cuba. We think it's much more
likely, should the government of El Salvador fall which we do not think will happen
because we fully expect the Congress will cooperate in preventing that, let me say,
but were it to happen, then it would increase the likelihood of effective communist
challenge in overthrow the government of Honduras or Costa Rica. I think that's
almost common sense.
MACNEIL: How great a U.S. effort is it worth to stop that, to stop what you foresee
in Central America? KIRKPATRICK: Well, I think it's worth quite a large effort
because I think Central America, what happens in Central America is directly important
to the U.S. national security.
MACNEIL: Congressman Long, I think you had a comment. LONG: Well, I think the
emphasis on communism is somewhat overdrawn. I don't see that the guerrillas taking
over the government of El Salvador in the first instances, the first consequence of
what's going on there. I think much more likely, and I haven't heard this seriously
challenged in my conversations with people in Salvador, a right-wing military coup
leading to a blood bath, and my theory is that that would be the first thing that
would happen, and then, of course, the left would become polarized; you'd wipe out the
middle ground and make a peaceful solution or negotiation almost impossible.
MACNEIL: We have to leave it there and come back to it after the president has spoken
this evening. Thank you, Congressman Long, Congressman Solarz, Ambassador
Kirkpatrick. Good night, Charlayne.
HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robert.
MACNEIL: That's all for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil.
Good night.
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