FREE-LANCE WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606200002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: October 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606200002-7
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STAT.5
STAT
WASHINGTON POST
13 October 1986
dwin .JL Yoder Jr.
l'ree-Lance War
The downing of an American-
built military transport plane of
uncertain identity in Nicaragua
may be no more than a blip in
Ronald Reagan's wide-screen
Central American policy. But blip
or something more, it is an em-
barrassment.
The president and his aides in-
sist that the flight (which seems
to have originated in El Salvador,
with a cargo of arms and supplies
for the contras) is a free-lance
operation unsanctioned by the
United States.
This may be technically true.
But it is patently disingenuous to
say it. The president has made no.
secret of his wish that American
private citizens raise money and
supplies for his misguided crusade
against the Sandinista govern,
ment.
Indeed, having disavowed re-
sponsibility, the president
reached for a strained historical
parallel that implies his approval
He told the press in one of the
shouting press conferences be-
fore going off to Iceland that they
should recall the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade of 1936-a band of vol-
unteer American antifascist sol-
diers who went off to fight Gen.
Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
"Some of you," Reagan said to no
one in particular, "approved."
But unlike the contra war
against the government in Nicara-
gua, the Spanish Civil War was
not of our making. The U.S. ad-
ministration of that day so dis-
tanced itself from operations like
the Lincoln Brigade that some
sympathizers with the antifascist
cause suspected President Roose-
velt of secret pro-Franco senti-
ments. Certainly there was not
the slightest hint of a presidential
imprimatur for the Lincoln Bri-
gade.
It is true that American free-
booters have been involved in in-
trigues on foreign territory since
the Burr conspiracy at least. The
famous Western "filibusterers"
helped prepare the ground for the
Mexican War of 1846. But the
pro-contra freebooting is the first
to enjoy explicit presidential en-
dorsement.
By coincidence, the shooting
down of the plane in Nicaragua
followed by less than 24 hours a
fascinating CBS "60 Minutes" in-
terview with John Singlaub, the
general Jimmy Carter fired for
questioning his Korean policy.
Those who're struggling to dis-
tance the administration from
"private" gunrunning in Cent
America must be embarrassed b
Gen. Singlaub's soldierly candor,
as witnessed by several aWlioc
television viewers.
Singlaub has the clear imp
sion that he's doing the adminis-
tration's work, as well as the
Lord's: tiding the Reagan admin.
istration over the temporary hia.
tus in its Nicaraguan war occa-
sioned by congressional restraint
The sand told ft a abw
that his to eftocts in the worm
beam um quest
murmurs
Yo auun6ieuRia.tbem
These is sot, & American law, a
military couotecpart to the Logan
Act-an aid low that purports to
bar private diplomacy by American
MUM PerIMP there should be.
The Inured of allow" MNOW
warriors such as Gen. Singlaub to
conduct "private wars" with the
blessing of the White house should
be obvious.
Presidents wadd no doubt find it
a wonderful com sence, when
Congress or the public bait, at
some distant crusade, to 'privatise"
foreign policy, i.e., to let it out on
contract to Sig sub and others.
But co natidmons are written to
impose inconveniences on presi-
dents, and my copy of the U.S.
Constitution bdiates that Co ese
is supposed to declare war when the
United States decides to fight one,
It is sadly true that such medhanial
constitutional arguments are unhloe-
ly to restrain presidential war-mak-
ing these days, when war short of
nuclear holocaust is increasingly
hard to define.
If Congress and the public lack
the political energy and principle to
discipline executive impulses, we
are likely to find ourselves in un-
sanctioned wars and conflicts, often
costly ones. Avoiding unwanted
wars is very hard work-work from
which there is no escape in constitu-
tional theories that everyone affirms
but no one follows.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606200002-7