LET'S NOT REPEAT A BAD MISTAKE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100710002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 10, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100710002-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
CN ' PAGE z G
!'AN EDITOR'S COMMENTS !
MIAMI HERALD
5 June 1983
STAT
bet's Not Repeat a d ad Mistake
By JOHN MCMULLAN
Executive Editor of The Herold
WE EDITORS need and de-
serve to be jerked up short oc-
casionally, but the letter from
J.A. and J.T. McLean provided
more than
the usual
yank.
1t- read i
part:
"Stop John
McMullan's
warmonger-
monger, a
shade of.VTii-
liam Hears
whom I abhor? This was rea-
son for reflection, possibly
reassessment, even readjust-
ment.
I had never thought of my-
self as such, but the idea that
others were beginning to con-
sider me in that light gave
pause.
Where had I mongered?
Was I peddling war when I
first suggested nearly three
years ago that President
Jimmy -Ca..-ter ought to load
the Marie) criminals and mis-
fits on a ship and return them
to Havana Harbor?
Or when I wrote a partial
defense of Ronald Reagan's
harder line toward Cuba and
Latin America? Was he not
merely trying to clean up the
mess left by John F. Kennedy's
timidity a: the Bay of Pigs and
his sLbsequent promise during
the missile crisis not to invade
Cuba?
Or when I suggested to
President Reagan that he can
forever try to cut off the tenta-
cles of communism in Central
and South America, but suc-
-cess isn't likely. until he tackles
the source of contamination,
i e.., Cuba itself?
Admittedly, those sugges-
tions do contain . a degree of
bellicosity. I defend -them,
however, as more likely to
prevent than precipitate a
major conflict.
On the other hand, I've con-
sistently decried any Presiden-
tial plan to fight a covert ac-
tion, in violation of the clear
Constitutional provision that
only Congress can declare
.war.
The evidence steadily grows
that President Reagan,
through the Central intelli-
gence Agency, is participating
in an attempt to overthrow the
Sandinista government in Nic-
aragua. For pragmatic as well
as philosophical and moral rea.
sons, I oppose such undercover
efforts as unworthy of a free
.and open society.
IF my country is going to
fight a war, let's do it openly
and legitimately in response to
hostile provocations that we
can document. But, first, that
is a decision in which the
American public, through its
Congress, has a right to partic-
ipate.
The Herald today makes a
major effort to lay out the en-
tire scenario, insofar as we've
been able to piece it together,
for public viewing.
Herald reporters and pho-
tographers, like a few other
counterparts in the U.S. media,
have risked their lives to keep
you as fully informed as we
possibly can.
We're not repeating the mis-
take that, in retrospect, we
and a few other newspapers We have tolerated, without
made in 1962 before the Bay of Penalty, Cuba's violations of
Pigs disaster diverted the the code of conduct among civ-
course of history into a quag- ilized.nations. Had the trans,
mire. The Herald was not pressor been Russia itself, we
alone in yielding to White could not have acted more su-
House entreaties and, in mis- pinely.
guided patriotism, withholding A series of small actions
details of the invasion buildup. now would send the message
After that failure to unseat to Castro, and to his followers
Fidel Castro, a chastened Prey- elsewhere, that larger nations
ident Kennedy ruefully said have rights, too, that must be
.that had the U.S. press told all respected:
it knew, the nation might have 0 Advise Castro that his
been spared the debacle. The criminals and misfits are being
United States, he indicated, retu,-ned, and we will be pre-
might have .held off and done pared to enforce the action, if
the job right. necessary.
1 support President Reagan's ? Tighten the embargo,
increasingly hard line toward and insist that our so-called al-
Marxist takeovers in our own lies such as Canada and Britain
hemisphere. I do not, however, also respect it.
support the sort of covert ac- o Resume surveillance and
tion that mocks our own prin- interdict any arms flow that
ciples and only burrows us seals to undermine the demo-
deeper into the morass. cratic principles - that once
We can't afford to slip and caused the nations of our
slide into the mire of Central hemisphere to band together in
America without the American pledges of mutual assistance.
public debating the issue.
We have no business fight- THE isolation of Cuba is a
lug covert wars that we al- stern measure but an achieva-
most certainly cannot win. But ble goal. It would reduce Cas-
we do have legitimate security tro to appropriate stature and
interests that are threatened increase internal pressure. It
by a Russian puppet named would also cut off the arms
Fidel Castro, who thinks that flow that sustains foes of de-
be can export Marxist revolu- mocracy elsewhere in Latin
lions anywhere he pleases. America.
SO do I advocate war? Russia would huff, then pri.
No, not yet. Not until we vately concede in the face of
have undertaken an overdue generally approving world
step-by-step reassertion of oar opinion, that you win some
right to defend ourselves and lose some - and some
against the steady encroach- have to be forfeited.
meat of a Marxist aggression At some point, U.S. resolve
that, if unchecked, will de- must be tested. Far better to
stroy the governments of display it now, openly, in a
friendly neighbors and ulti- small arena instead of later in
mately our own. a larger one.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/11: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100710002-7