NICARAGUA AND HONDURAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100480004-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 18
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 11, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO IV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
DATE December 11, 1982 10:05 A.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT Nicaragua and Honduras
MORTON KONDRACKE: Well, down in Central America there's
this country called Nicaragua, and it was ruled for a long time
by a dictator named Somoza and his father and uncle, I think,
before him. And they -- the Somozas got overthrown during the
Carter Administration by a group called the Sandinistas. The
Sandinistas are left-wing, they're revolutionary, they may be
communist. They keep depriving their countrymen of liberty.
They keep buying weapons from the Soviet Union. They are allied
with Castro.
The question is, should the United States try to
overthrow the government of Nicaragua? If we could pull it off
without getting caught, would you be in favor of overthrowing the
government of Nicaragua? That's the question this hour.
Second question. If we try to overthrow the government
of Nicaragua and we get caught, are you still in favor of trying?
Phil Taubman of the New York Times is here. Cord Meyer,
syndicated columnist, former CIA official.
Phil Taubman, what is going on in Honduras and
Nicaragua? What are we doing?
PHIL TAUBMAN: The best that can be made out is that
what started out as a fairly limited operation run by the CIA has
expanded, and it's not clear whether the expansion has been
inadvertent or intentional. The original plan, which was
approved by President Reagan just about a year ago, called for a
number of steps, including trying to identify and support
political leaders who could provide an alternative to the
Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and secondly to provide assistance for
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the formation and operation of paramilitary forces in the Central
American region.
The original goal was to use those paramilitary forces
to interdict supply lines that the Administration said were
flowing through Honduras and Nicaragua, carrying Cuban and Soviet
weapons to guerrillas in El Salvador.
What appears to have happened in the ensuing 12 months
is that in trying to practically put together a paramilitary
group on the ground there, the Administration has embraced a
group composed partially of former National Guardsmen from
Nicaragua whose intent is clearly to overthrow the government.
And so the question is, does the Reagan Administration now,
directly or indirectly, support an attempt to overthrow the
government, or is the group that they're working with taking the
aid provided by Washington and using it in ways that go beyond
the original intent of our government?
KONDRACKE: Okay. Now, there are a number of forces and
groups in Honduras that are anti-Sandinista. Right?
TAUBMAN: Right.
KONDRACKE: Okay. One of them is former National
Guardsmen under Somoza. Right?
TAUBMAN: Correct. Although that would oversimplify the
situation. It started out -- the group that we're talking about
is called the Democratic -- the Nicaraguan Democratic Force or
Front, and that group started out in 1980 under another name. It
was called the September 15th Legion. And at the time it was
formed, it was composed almost entirely of former National Guard
officers, albeit younger officers, not those who were identified
exclusively with the repression and the National Guard. But in
the last year or two they've tried to broaden their base. And I
think, in talking to them, they've succeeded in moving beyond the
nucleus of former National Guardsmen to have a little broader
spectrum of opinion.
KONDRACKE: Well, what are they doing, in fact? Are
they conducting raids into Nicaragua?
TAUBMAN: They're conducting raids inside Nicaragua.
They would argue, and it's very hard to tell whether this is
propaganda or reality, that they have moved into a new phase of
operation where they've been able to abandon the training camps
that they used in Honduras and move their operations almost
entirely into Nicaragua.
KONDRACKE: Do you know whether there are any Americans
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accompanying them into Nicaragua?
TAUBMAN: I don't know one way or the other, although
everybody I've talked to said that there are not Americans that
directly involved.
KONDRACKE: Okay.
Cord Meyer, you know a lot about Nicaragua, as well as
knowing a lot about the CIA. And let me just ask you the
normative question. Is this something that the United States
should be doing?
CORD MEYER: Well, if it should be doing it, it should
not be doing it this way, in my opinion. I've been struck by Mr.
Taubman's writing on this subject in The Times. As a matter of
fact, in early November I read that article of his in which he
had his interview with a high ranking national security
official of our government, in which this official spelled out
the fact that we were, quote, conducting secret operations.
KONDRACKE: Some secret, huh?
MEYER: Well, I mean, the Administration has invented a
new art from. It's overt covert action. And my problem with
this is that you can conduct so-called covert action. Sometimes
it becomes very widely known, as I think perhaps we are doing in
the case of the Afghan guerrillas. But there you have a case
where there's about 100 percent support in this country for our
doing such a thing, in view of the situation there.
But in the case of Central America, we have a far
different situation. We have a very wide spectrum of difference
of opinion, and there isn't any overwhelming consensus. And
under those circumstances, it seems to me it becomes
extraordinarily difficult to conduct a secret operation that is
no longer secret, because the opponents begin to call -- blow the
whistle on it, as you have coming up in the Senate, Senator
Dodd's resolution.
KONDRACKE: Which provides what?
MEYER: Which provides, if it's passed, that there shall
be no aid, directly or indirectly, given to any paramilitary or
irregular force in the whole of Central America for the next two
years. In effect, it's a kind of Clark Amendment. And if that
should pass, the Administration will end up as the Ford
Administration ended up in Angola. And it seems to me that
having started down this track, this would...
KONDRACKE: Well, what would be wrong with that? I mean
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are you arguing two different things? So if Congress passes that
law, all they'll do is stop us from doing something that you
think is a lousy idea anyway.
MEYER: But I'm looking ahead. I'm saying we can't
foresee the future. And I'm saying things might very well
develop over time in Nicaragua, because the unpopularity of the
Sandinista regime, the opposition of the Catholic Church to it,
and the fact that most of the Nicaraguans are Catholics and
respect Archbishop Orando (?), there's a great deal of opposition
building. And under those circumstances, you might have, over
time, a spontaneous buildup of real opposition forces inside the
country that have nothing to do with the Somozistas. In that
event, you'd want to be able to help them, I would think.
KONDRACKE: ...I was talking to a very high-ranking
official of the United States Government yesterday who did not
confirm or deny any of this stuff, but he said -- and I told him
I was going to do this radio program -- "Ask your listeners
whether -- not just whether they favor covert action and covert
action against Nicaragua, but if it could be kept secret, if we
could pull this off, overthrowing the Sandinista government
secretly, would they be in favor of doing it?" So this is a kind
of a poll on that subject. I mean his contention was that the
Vietnam syndrome, "0h, for gosh sakes, don't do this" kind of
thing, is now gone, that the American people want their
government to conduct covert operations and to overthrow
unfriendly regimes. And as long as it can be done skillfully and
quietly.
966-TALK is the number. I would like to know what
listeners think about that subject.
But now I want to ask Phil Taubman about this point that
Cord raises, about this business of overt covert action. I mean
I don't even want you to hint at who your source is. But why do
high-ranking officials talk about things like this?
TAUBMAN: That's a good question. There has been a
phenomenon of late -- I don't think it's necessarily exclusively
the province of this Administration. But it seems to be
increasingly difficult for government, our government to keep
some of these operations secret.
I think in this particular case, if you go back to the
first stories that were published about planning for covert
activity, which came out in the Washington Post and the New York
Times and elsewhere almost a year ago, I think that at that point
there may have been an attempt to try to frighten the Nicaraguans
by leaking some of this information to show them that we meant
business and that we were going to be operating down there
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secretly. So I think originally there may have been a little bit
of a spin on it to try to use it as a kind of weapon to push them
toward negotiation.
KONDRACKE: Okay. I just want to ask you one other
press question, ask both of you this. You know the famous Bay of
Pigs legend. It is that the New York Times discovered that the
Bay of Pigs operation was in planning. The New York -- President
Kennedy, I guess, called up the publisher of the New York Times
and the Washington Bureau chief and said, "Please don't publish
those stories." The New York Times did not. Then the operation
took place, it was a disaster. And, by legend, John Kennedy then
told someone from the New York Times, "Gee, if you'd only printed
that story, you'd have saved the -- you'd have prevented the
operation from happening, and the disaster."
Now, what is the current ethic? If you had discovered
plans -- which you didn't. I mean in this case. But if you had
discovered plans for a full-scale assault on the Nicaraguan
government that the CIA was into up to its boots, would you --
what is now the current ethic in the press about publishing such
a thing?
TAUBMAN: I think the ethic has changed.
Let me just correct slightly your recapitulation of the
Bay of Pigs situation. The story was ultimately printed in the
paper. But what happened is that at the urging of President
Kennedy, the headline was reduced in size, I think, from an
original four-column headline to a one-column headline. And some
of the operational details that were contained in the story were
taken out. But there actually was a story in the paper. It was
just not as clear and sharp as it could have been.
I think the ethic has changed. I think that The Times's
policy, though it's not stated, the unwritten policy, at least in
my experience, is to take each case as they come. And if the
Administration wants to make an appeal to the publisher or the
editors to withhold the story, The Times will hear them out and
then make its own decision. And each one would differ.
I've been involved in several where stories were not
published immediately, where they were held. But I think the
tendency at this point is to publish rather than to withhold.
MEYER: Well, I think that, given the world that we live
in, the dangers that exist, and the necessity for good
intelligence if we can possibly get it and keep it, make it
necessary for everyone who is an American citizen to think about
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the question of national security, whether he's a journalist or
whatever his profession, when he comes into that domain and is
touching material that was supposedly secret for good and
sufficient reasons.
And it does strike me that editors should be more
careful in their review of what journalists produce, not with an
attempt to censor, but to keep in mind that a great deal more can
be involved than they imagine. I mean, for example, when one
particular columnist revealed the fact that the United States was
able to monitor the conversationin Moscow between the automobiles
of the Politburo members and their headquarters, he destroyed
with one blow a vastly important and a very significant realm of
information that was never recovered. And it just seems to me
that every now and then people should keep that possibility in
mind when they are making these judgments which, I agree with Mr.
Taubman, are difficult and have to be made case-by-case.
KONDRACKE: If you found out that we could monitor the
-- or that we had the men's room at the Kremlin bugged, would you
reveal it?
TAUBMAN: I'd have to examine all the factors. But I
think that when it comes to sources and methods, as they say in
the intelligence business, particularly in terms of electronic
interception of communications, we will go out of our way to try
to protect what the government considers to be absolutely vital
sources of foreign intelligence information.
KONDRACKE: Frank, you're on WRC.
FRANK: I'd like to comment on two things that I think's
been very much overblown in the U.S. press. Number one is this
idea that the Sandinistas are becoming increasingly unpopular.
Now, if you've talked to anybody who's been to Nicaragua and who
has mixed with people in the countryside and workers and poor
people in the cities, you'll find that the Sandinistas continue
to be outstandingly popular. Okay?
KONDRACKE: Let me stop you right there. There is one
good way for them to test their popularity, and that is to have
the election that they promised.
FRANK: Well, I think that that's a very kind of an easy
solution...
KONDRACKE: Yeah, it sure is.
FRANK: ...for liberals in the United States to mouth as
being the all'solution, the solution for every problem that
Nicaragua has. But I don't think that that's necessarily so.
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But I think that's a separate issue. We can discuss that at some
length.
But I think that the second point that's been very much
overblown in the U.S. press is this idea that people are being
deprived of their rights in a massive way in Nicaragua.
Now, I think the best example to look at is the fact
that the former National Guardsmen that worked for Somoza, that
tortured and killed people, those that were captured in Nicaragua
were not massively slaughtered, there were no massive
recriminations against them. Instead, most of them are in
prison. But the fact is that they are treated very well and they
are even allowed conjugal visits in prison.
This is the kind of thing, I think, that totally
contradicts this massive mistaken outcry in the United States
about the Sandinistas depriving people of their rights.
KONDRACKE: You know, but even the Catholic Church and
the Socialist International and people who really wished the
Sandinistas well have gotten turned off, progressively think that
they are diminishing liberty in the country.
FRANK: There are divisions within the church. There's
no question about that. There always are in almost any society.
Now, you know, the Socialist International, well, they
were against Somoza, of course, but they never did massively
support taking up arms in Nicaragua. And that's, I think, one of
the weaknesses of Social Democrats around the world, is that they
like to talk about changing things, but when it comes down to the
nitty-gritty about what are you going to do when somebody is
sticking a tank in your neighborhood and blowing up your houses,
then they're a little bit weaker, in my opinion.
KONDRACKE: Okay. Cord Meyer.
MEYER: Well, I wonder what you think about the way in
which the Sandinistas have treated the Miskito Indians and their
families on the northern frontier up there.
FRANK: Well, I think that that's been very much
distorted also. I think...
MEYER: You do? Because I've spoken to the leader of
that group, and he spelled out to me pretty clearly what had
happened. And then there were photographs which showed the
actual destruction of the village, which the U.S. Government did
make available to people in the Congress. So you have the actual
photographs of massive destruction.
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I don't quite see how you answer that.
FRANK: I think the jury is still out on the question of
the Miskitos. The Sandinistas admit that they had to do some
pretty quick relocation of them, number one, because of the
violence along that border with Honduras and, number two, because
a number of those Miskito people, it's been shown pretty conclu-
sively, I think, have been put on the CIA payroll because they
have been made dissidents and they are working -- and I think the
leader that you're talking about -- I'm trying to remember the
man's name now -- it's been pretty well documented that that
guy's been getting money from the CIA and has been working with
former Somozista National Guardsmen. And, in fact, of course,
they have also been training in Miami in training camps that have
been organized by the Alpha 66 organization of the Cubans, who
also have ties to the CIA.
So I think that this whole case about the Miskitos being
slaughtered and that there's kind of genocide supposedly taking
place is very weak. And anybody who cares to examine the
evidence out there will find that it is very weak.
KONDRACKE: Well, the only thing I would say to you --
we've got to pause for a message -- is that if you have any
contact with the Sandinistas at all, just please have them have
an election. And if they have an election and they win the
election, then it seems to me that they will be on a wholly
different footing from the one that they're on now.
KONDRACKE: Ray, you're on WRC.
RAY: I have three questions. First it was that if the
CIA, if they are in Nicaragua, is the President aware of it and
is he controlling what they do? And the second part of that
question is that all I hear about is the CIA in an operation like
this. And I'd like to know, is there possibly some other secret
organization that the U.S. has that we, the public, don't know
about that could be involved in these things, and the CIA is just
taking the heat for them?
KONDRACKE: The answer to the second question is I never
heard of one. Cord's never heard of one.
Phil, have you ever heard of one?
TAUBMAN: I've never heard of one, although there may be
support provided by the Green Berets, for example. But no secret
organization.
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MEYER: Under existing law, I don't think it's possible
for the President to authorize such activity.
KONDRACKE: By any of them.
MEYER: By any other organization.
KONDRACKE: Okay. And what about the President? Did
the President authorize this operation?
TAUBMAN: The President approved the operation, and it
was approved by the National Security Council. As to whether he
keeps an eye on it week-to-week or month-to-month, I rather doubt
it. Although I'm sure that the White House is kept informed on
some kind of regular basis about what's happening.
KONDRACKE: Politically, do you think that this is hot
enough that it could cause the kind of controversy that could
really damage an Administration? I'm amazed at how little
uproar there's been.
MEYER: Well, I can't predict how events are going to
transpire. A great dealdepends on how the Administration handles
this hot potato from here on in.
KONDRACKE: Do you think -- let me just ask the question
that I asked all the listeners, and I ask it again. Do you think
that the public opinion is at the stage now where most American
people would support an operation of this kind if it could be
pulled off skillfully?
MEYER: Well, the question's moot, isn't it?
MEYER: In other words, it's already not secret. It's
already in the open. So what you're really asking is if we could
go back to the time when it was still secret.
KONDRACKE: Okay. All right. Now that it's out in the
open, would you guess that most of the American people would
support an operation of this kind, even knowing that its out in
the open, even knowing that it's not been pulled off secretly?
MEYER: I think there's going to be a good deal of
reservation about it. I think the problem is the one that Mr.
Taubman raised, and that is the presence of the Somozista
colonels in this operation do raise a lot of questions for a lot
of people who are very much against the Sandinistas.
KONDRACKE: Okay. I've got to interrupt you.
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KONDRACKE: Our subject this hour is covert operations
against Nicaragua and other adversaraies. Are you for them? Are
you against them?
MAN: Morton, I tend to think that I'm against covert
operations. I'm against more open operations. I think half the
battle is lost in the revelation of the activities, which may in
some cases be perfectly justified. You end up with such nasty
things as the Clark Amendment, which I think was a disaster of
the first magnitude.
KONDRACKE: The Clark Amendment was that which
prohibited American operations in Angola, or was it just covert
operations?
MAN: Well, all operations aiding subversive groups,
basically, or groups that are opposed to the ruling authority
down there. Of course, the civil war goes on down there despite
our withdrawal.
KONDRACKE: And the Clark Amendment has never been
repealed. Right?
MAN: No. Unfortunately not.
What I'm afraid of is that we are missing the overall
responsibility of the United States to assert its power in an
area which is definitely under American influence. Assert its
power meaning that you dolt allow things like Grenada to go on.
You don't allow things like Cuban and Soviet presence in
Nicaragua without reacting in some meaningful way.
You remember in Grenada they had a guy who was a little
eccentric who was ruling the place that was overthrown? You
know, hey, bring in democracy. But it didn't happen. These guys
are under Cuban influence now, and you don't hear a complaint
from anywhere.
KONDRACKE: Okay. Let me just turn your attention to a
little more difficult case, that of Salvador Allende in Chile,
who was, after all, elected. And if my memory serves me
correctly, twice the United States tried to intervene to prevent
his ever coming to power. And now if you read Sy Hersh's piece
in The Atlantic Monthly, it now appears that all the protestation
that the United States had nothing to do with the coup that led
to his overthrow is not quite correct.
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Now, would you be in favor, as a matter of American
policy, of trying to destabilize and overthrow a democratically
elected government that we didn't like?
MAN: I've always felt a little nervous about the
Chilean case because Allende was elected. He had a minor -- he
had a majority, certainly not a plurality. But he did have a
majority.
majority.
KONDRACKE: Wait a minute. He had a plurality but not a
MAN: A plurality is 51 percent.
KONDRACKE: No, that's a majority. Anyway, go ahead.
MAN: And the -- he had not -- even though some of his
underlings were getting a little heavy out in the field, he had
not done anything that was really could be said to have been
anti-democratic.
I didn't like the guy, necessarily, but he did run a
democratic regime down there. And, yes, I don't think the United
States should be in the position of overthrowing democratic
regimes, whether we like them or not.
On the other hand, where do we go when a regime comes to
power under democracy and then shuts everybody out? Then do we
react, and is it too late? I don't know. It's a tough question.
But I think in the case of Chile, we should not have
been involved in destabilizing operations, because they certainly
had not reached the point where the Sandinistas have, of inviting
in the Cubans and the Soviets.
In the second place, South America is slightly different
from the Caribbean, in that I think we -- you know, that's a
little further away. And the Peruvians had Russian advisers in,
and some of the others, and it hasn't caused too many waves.
But Nicaragua's really critical. And I think the
presence of Cuban forces in that country is completely
unacceptable.
KONDRACKE: How many Cubans are there in Nicaragua?
MAN: I don't care if there's 200. There's enough...
MEYER: Over 2000.
MAN: Yeah. There's enough to create a power balance
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situation which must be rectified. And I think we should let the
Nicaraguans know full well that while we may not like their
regime, we certainly -- we won't be as anxious to get involved in
their internal affairs if they get those foreigners out of there.
KONDRACKE: Okay.
Cord Meyer and Phil Taubman -- Phil Taubman with the New
York Times. Cord Meyer is former CIA official, the station chief
in London, and also is now a syndicated columnist.
KONDRACKE: We're talking about covert operation. What
should the United States do, what shouldn't it do in the way of
interfering in other countries? And the specific case that we've
been talking about is Nicaragua. But I do want to turn to the
Chile example.
Seymour Hersh, ace investigative reporter, has got an
article in The Atlantic Monthly which alleges that the United
States was more heavily involved in the overthrow of Allende than
officials such as Henry Kissinger have previously been willing to
admit. And he suggests that the United States was involved in
the murder of the chief of staff of the Chilean Army, who was
something of a democrat, General Schneider.
Now, Cord Meyer, you know lots about this case. Tell us
what you think about it.
MEYER: Well, I know a bit about it because I was with
the agency at the time. And, of course, you have to remember
that all of this is now part of the public record because of the
Church Committee investigation. And they did publish an
extensive report on the sequence of events in Chile, which with
some of the judgments I don't agree, but I think all the facts
are there and they're accurately there. And what that report
shows is that President Kennedy, back in '62, began covert
operations in Chile by supporting the Christian Democrats under
Frei in order to prevent Allende, who was the leader of a
coalition, a popular front of Socialist and Communist Parties.
And Kennedy started it. Johnson continued it, through the
election of 1964, where there was substantial covert financial
support for the Christian Democrats from the United States,
authorized and directed by the President. And Frei won that
election handily over Allede, I think with 56 percent of the
votes.
So from '64 to
'70,
Frei was President of Cuba -- I mean
of Chile.
In the spring
of
'70, it became apparent that the
Christian Democrats were
to
some extent moving to the left and to
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some extent splitting. There was a conservative opposition
party, the Nationalists. And President Nixon and Kissinger
wrestled with the problem of what to do. In other words, there
was an election coming up in September of 1970. Allende was
leading a very strong, well-organized popular front, with the
Communists playing a key role in it. And there was a great deal
of concern as to what would happen if the Communists, through
that popular front, took power in Chile and turned it to their
purposes.
I don't agree quite with the previous speaker on this.
There was a real danger of a great many different kinds of things
happening that people could see down the road, military and
political.
But the decision, in effect, Nixon made was to back
neither of the two opposition par -- of the two parties running
against Allende, but rather to engage in a general propaganda
campaign, in the hope that this would he sufficient. When the
actual election results came out, it was apparent that Allende
had won by one percent of the vote, with 36.5 percent, I think.
And it was at that point, and prior to the decision by the
Chilean Assembly as to which of the two front-runners should be
elected, that Nixon demanded and ordered Helms, who was Director
of the CIA, to take all possible means to -- even if it means
another military coup -- to try to prevent Allende from being
elected by the Chilean parliament. And it was in that period of
time -- from September to October 24th, I think it was -- that
the CIA was directed to take this kind of action. And in the
course of that action, it was under orders to contact various
military people, which it did.
One general they contacted was somebody named Joah (?),
I think his name was, who turned out to be quite irresponsible
and impossible to deal with, and who was dropped, as the Church
Committee report indicates. But he later was the man who
kidnapped General Schneider. And the Church Committee reaches
the conclusion that there was no direct influence of the agency
or involvement of the agency in that action. Although you can
very well argue that having stirred up this kind of thing, there
was some implied responsibility.
And then, as you remember, Allende served in office
until '73. And then he was ousted by a coup mounted by the Navy
and the Army, without any knowledge and participation on the part
of the United States.
KONDRACKE: The United States did what during that
period? It did try to destabilize Chile, though.
MEYER: It attempted to, primarily through economic
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put pressure on the Allende government, and also to continue to
support the moderate center.
KONDRACKE: But are you saying that we had, that the CIA
had no direct contact with the people who then engaged in the
coup?
MEYER: That's what I'm saying. And that's what I
believe. That's what the Church Committee concluded after
having....
[Technical difficulties]
MAN: ...I wanted to voice my disapproval of any kind of
covert action on the part of the CIA. I think that the CIA ought
to restrict its activities completely to the area of
intelligence. Because any kind of history of the CIA reveals
that in most of the actions where they've been involved, the
government that they have replaced the people with, in most
cases, have been worse than the governments that they overthrew.
And the red flag that American conservatives and others
have about communist governments is what drove Castro into the
communist bloc. He made overtures to the American government
when he fist came to power.
KONDRACKE: Well, Cord Meyer is shaking his head at
MEYER: I don't believe that yu can say that Castro was
driven into the arms of the communists by what the United States
did. In fact, the actual sequence of events is rather the
opposite. He came up here looking here -- he came up here,
remember, and saw -- I think it was Nixon, who was Vice President
at the time, and he had a rather unsatisfactory meeting up here.
But I remember one of his financial advisers later saying very
clearly that Castro passed the word to his entire group, "Don't
make any deals with these Americans. We want to keep, you know,
arm's-length from them." In other words, he was not looking for
help and he wasn't turned down.
MAN: Well, that's not the understanding I have.
MEYER: You'd better go back over that, then, a little
MAN: ...so I don't know the -- I wasn't alive -- you
know, I wasn't alive to the facts at the time. But that's not
the understanding I have. And I do know -- I remember hearing
news reports about the Nicaraguan making overtures to the U.S.
Government, and the kind of rebuff that they have been getting
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from the Reagan Administration.
And if the CIA were to overthrow the Sandinistan
government, is there any guaranty that the government who comes
to power after that is going to be anything other than the kind
of right-wing repressive regime that Somoza was and the kind of
puppet and servant slaveholders, basically, that multinational
corporations like the International Fruit Company are?
So that's really where I come down on this issue. And I
think that all of the CIA agents in the world ought to be thrown
into a movie theater and forced to watch movies like "On Company
Business" and the work of Costa Gavras, because maybe some of
them will begin to recognize what kind of real harm they're doing
in the world.
KONDRACKE: I have a feeling that they would cheer at
the wrong spots.
Go ahead, Cord. You wanted to say...
MEYER: Well, I think we haven't really talked about
what ought to be done in Nicaragua. You know, what is it
possible to do? I think you really picked a very important point
off, and that is that the Sandinistas did commit themselves to
elections, free elections, back in a letter to the OAS in July
1979. And I think that the kind of policy around which you could
really generate a great deal of support, both in this country and
in Central America and in Latin America, would be a coordinated
attempt on the part of democratic countries to bring the maximum
possible pressure to bear for the holding of such free elections
under OAS auspices. And I've always thought that this was the
best course in this situation. And that if the Sandinistas
refused to do that, then, over the time, I think a very effective
economic blockade and pressure could be organized jointly. And I
think that is the way we should have gone, and it's still, it
seems to me, the best way to go.
KONDRACKE: We'll be right back.
MAN: I just want to make a comment here. This question
of whether we should or shouldn't have covert action I think was
first answered in 1775 when the Congress established the
Committee on Secret Correspondence. Every Administration since
then has haad secret funds and has been engaged in some kinds of
confidential operations in international relations.
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KONDRACKE: How about overthrowing other governments?
MAN: I think that's a decision that our elected
representatives are elected to make when the national interest
requires it.
Let's recall that both the Church Committee in the
Senate and the Pike Committee in the House concluded that in all
important respects these operations, all CIA operations were
carried out at the direction of the White House. And now you'd
have to add with the concurrence of these two committees of the
Congress that provide oversight and also the appropriation funds.
So I think for us to deny ourselves or our leaders that
option, when all other governments have been for generations
exercising that kind of authority, will be a very shortsighted
unilateral disarmament.
And what I find appalling is that the journalists that
we've been listening to claim the right, unilaterally, to
sabotage by revealing decisions made on the highest level.
KONDRACKE: Sir. Sir. It was not Phil Taubman who
provided that information. It was high-ranking officials of the
U.S. Government.
MAN: I know that happens. And I'm not accusing Phil
Talbert [sic] of such. But I do recall a number of cases where
journalists have revealed information of the greatest
sensitivity. Take the Glomar Explorer, for example, involving a
tremendously heavy investment. It might have been extremely
useful in future operations. That whole operation was sent down
the drain because one journalist decided to blow it.
KONDRACKE: Well...
MAN: There've been a number of other such incidences.
KONDRACKE: Okay.
I've got just one question to ask Phil Taubman, and Cord
Meyer too. It occurs to me that the American press, in
particular, maybe the Western press, doesn't pay attention enough
to what the KGB does in the world, and other communist services,
to the extent that it can find out. For example, the Bulgarian
involvement in the Pope's assassination. If the United States
came anywhere near that, that would be front-page news. You'd
have investigations and congressional hearings and all that kind
of stuff, you know. And here there's fairly solid evidence that
the Bulgarians -- that means the KGB, presumably; that means our
beloved Yuri Andropov -- tried to kill the Pope.
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Why isn't the world up in arms about that?
TAUBMAN: I think that there is a lot of concern about
that. I know that we're working on it very assiduously trying to
find out what happened. But what you're talking about is really
a factor of the availability of information. And journalists
operating within the United States have access to extraordinary
amounts of information, partially because of our open society,
partially because of the tradition of the press here. And to go
after the story, just practically speaking, of the Bulgarian and
KGB involvement in the assassination of the Pope poses, you know,
extraordinary difficulties to journalists.
So I think there's interest, there's an effort to get at
the story, but it's much more difficult to break through in that
kind of area than it is over here.
MEYER: Well, two points. One, I think Mr. Taubman is
absolutely right. there is an asymmetry between the United
States and Russia that's very great; a chasm, really. On the one
hand, you have everything controlled, everything kept secret,
everything held under wraps. In the other you have one of the
freest societies in the world. And it certainly has its impact
on everything we do and everything they do. It's a big
advantage, in one sense, to them.
The other point is that I do -- I am a little critical,
myself, of the Western press and our own press. For example, the
other day, the day before yesterday, I think it was, there was
this testimony on the Hill by the KGB defector from Japan in the
context of the release of a good deal of material that had been
submitted in the form of evidence to the House Intelligence
Committee.
KONDRACKE: This was an open hearing?
MEYER: Open hearing. And I found very little coverage
KONDRACKE: What'd he say?
MEYER: Well, he spelled out very specifically the scale
of the Soviet KGB active measures in Japan, of which he was a
leading officer. So he knew the detail, and he spelled it out in
rather extraordinary detail, and very interestingly, I thought.
MEYER: This never even -- this got a very small...
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KONDRACKE: How do you account for that?
TAUBMAN: Well, I can only account for, you know, the
group that I work with. And there's just a certain amount of
manpower available on a given day.
And I think you'd have to understand in the case that
we're talking about here that though this man may well be privy
to all kinds of information, some of that background of the way
he's been handled in this country raises questions about his
credibility. He's had an agent for many months and has had a
book contract.
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