THE REAL MESSAGE OF THE OUTCOME

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403850017-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: April 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403850017-5
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WASHIN3TON POST
21 April 1985
71,EO0Hi
Richard G. Lugar
The Real Message of the Outcome
U.S. policy in Central America faces a
critical challenge this week.
It is a challenge that far surpasses the ques-
tion of whether Congress will allow $14 million
to be spent on behalf of the Nicaraguan resist-
ance. It is a sign of whether the United States
is prepared to be involved effectively in the re-
gion during the coming years.
Even if the $14 million should gain congres-
sional approval, it would not constitute a policy
toward the region. It would be the first step on
a longer journey toward achieving a measure
of peace, prosperity and justice for the long-
suffering people of the region.
This is the dilemma that Congressional
deadlines and certifications create for Amer-
ican foreign policy: they exaggerate out of all
importance relatively small decisions. Having
structured an all-or-nothing outcome for our
support for the Nicaraguan resistance, many in
Congress now wonder why the president at-
taches so much importance to this vote. And
they seek for ways to skirt the crisis they have
created.
The fact is the United States will have to
undertake a long and difficult series of tasks
if we are to succeed in Central America. But
having come to the present pass, it is impor-
tant that the president succeed. Congress'
actions during the next several weeks will be
taken as a statement of long-term American
intentions for the region. If the United
States turns away from the Nicaraguan
resistance, many parties will conclude that
we do not have either the heart or the stom-
ach to remain involved in the region in an ef-
fective way. And that would be a tragedy for
the people of the region.
It is not simply the Nicaraguan resistance
that depends upon the outcome of this vote;
our friends and our foes in many n.-ions will
draw their own conclusions as well.
Will those who have remained in Nicaragua
to express their brave opposition to growing
Sandinista political. control derive encourage-
ment from our turning away? Will those whose
investment and entrepreneurial talents are
necessary for the development of every Cen-
tral American nation conclude that it is wise to
risk their lives, their families and their for-
tunes in Central America? Will friendly neigh-
boring nations who have looked to the United
States for support of their democracies-and
found it up until now-conclude that it is safe
to resist Sandinista threats?
There is already evidence enough that many
have chosen to find their futures elsewhere.
Several hundred thousand refugees have left
Nicaragua, and we should expect many more if
we offer no incentive for them to stay. The
time is long past when innocents, or those who
profess innocence, can take comfort in the
vague hope that totalitarian regimes will pro-
duce non-totalitarian results. The specific type
of mass exodus from Marxist-Leninist prac-
tices is depressingly familiar.
And what of the Sandinista government?
What lesson will it draw from American re-
fusal to support the resistance? To think that
liberalization will be the answer is simply in-
credible. The Sandinista government has
demonstrated for six years that it is pre-
pared to expand and to consolidate its con-
trol just as far as it can safely do so.
Without the resistance, the Sandinista
government can expand that control with im-
punity. That is why both Nicaragua's neigh-
bors and those who still speak for freedom
within Nicaragua are concerned
that they will be the next targets of
an unopposed Sandinista regime.
The Sandinistas have no cause
for complaint against the United
States. The United States helped
to remove their predecessor,
Anastasio Somoza. The United
States greeted the Sandinista gov-
ernment in 1979 with generosity
and with a sincere desire to coop-
erate in fulfilling the stated goals of
the revolution. The United States
joined other Western nations in
providing to Nicaragua consider-
able economic assistance.
What was the result? The Nica-
raguan government turned toward
the Soviet Union and Cuba, as if
turning its own nation into an eco-
nomic shambles and an armed
camp were somehow a sensible re-
sponse to these efforts.
We need a broad-guage policy
toward Central America. At this juncture, we
are unlikely to get the policy we seek if we
turn our backs on the one force that has
demonstrated it can command the attention
and the concern of the Sandinistas. Support for
the resistance is a critical element of a policy
that has any realistic hope of bringing about
the ends that all Americans expressly desire.
Support for the Nicaraguan resistance is a
difficult proposition for many Americans. For
many years, it has been charged-with some
justice-that the United States supports the
status quo and an overly fearful view of
change around the world. That the United
States should now, calling for free and demo-
cratic institutions, support revolutionary
change is a courageous course in Nicaragua.
But perhaps in light of the opposition move-
ments demanding freedom in Kampuchea,
Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola and else-
where, it should not be so difficult to com-
prehend that our interests can be served by
fidelity to our own dynamic, revolutionary
heritage.
The writer, a Republican senator from Indiana,
is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403850017-5