NICARAGUA-LOBBYING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 15, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I
-STA-r
k Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230003-2
_
ASSOCIATED PRESS
15 March 1986
NICARAGUA-LOBBYING
BY GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON
FILE ONLY
President Reagan's speech Sunday night in defense of his Nicaragua policy
will cap perhaps the most intensive tug-of-war between hawks and doves on a
foreign policy issue this city has seen since the Vietnam era.
Reagan has been relentless in his pursuit of congressional approval of $100
million in aid, including $70 million in military assistance, to the Nicaraguan
resistance. Not a day has gone by for the past two weeks without a public
statement by Reagan in defense of his proposal.
His critics have not been able to dominate the media the way Reagan has. But
the president so far seems unable to translate his own high degree of personal
popularity into broad-based congressional support for his policy.
Both sides in the debate are bringing heavy pressure on lawmakers. "I feel
caught between the rhetorical cries on either extreme of the question," Rep.
Paul Henry, R-Mich., said Thursday.
Following Reagan's nationally televised speech Sunday night, Sen. James
Sasser of Tennessee will deliver the Democratic response. House and Senate votes
are scheduled this week.
If the proposal is not approved, the administration says, the United States
might be forced to introduce American troops to stop the "red tide" from
spreading to the U.S. border.
But critics, led by House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, say the administration
has it backward. Approval of the request will lead inexorably to a U.S. troop
commitment, they maintain.
Passions have been running high, and some Democratic opponents have angrily
accused administration officials of questioning their patriotism.
The administration has unleashed White House communications director Patrick
Buchanan in the campaign. He wrote 10 days ago that the Democratic Party will
have to decide whether it stands with Reagan on the issue or with Nicaraguan
President "Daniel Ortega and the communists."
This prompted Rep. Mike Barnes, D-Md., to complain of "red-baiting tactics."
Buchanan's thesis was too much even for some Republicans. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum
of Kansas said it was absurd to assume that those opposed to Reagan "want to
abandon San Diego to the communists."
The administration has been doing its best to win over the swing votes.
Following complaints that the resistance forces were hopelessly divided,
Secretary of State George P. Shultz summoned the leaders of two rival Contra
factions to his office a week ago in a fence-mending effort.
In response to complaints that he was not doing enough to pursue a diplomatic
solution in Central America, Reagan dispatched Ambassador Philip Habib to the
region to examine the prospects for a negotiated settlement. Habib returned
Friday.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230003-2
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230003-2
Reagan discussed the trip Saturday in a 10-minute telephone conversation with
Habib from Camp David, after the president devoted his weekly radio address to
another appeal for aid to the Contras. "Mr. Habib indicated his trip would be
extremely helpful as we move forward with our Central American policy," said
Denny Brisley, assistant White House press secretary.
Since the start of the month, Contra leaders have been waging i
high-visibility campaign on behalf of the request. Over the past week, the State
Department has been releasing anti-Sandinista documents almost daily. A new
document, titled "Revolution To Repression," is scheduled for release Monday.
On Wednesday, a classified CIA report on prison expansion under the
Sandinistas was leaked to a reporter. The following day, an extensive report on
the same subject was made public by Wesley Smith. a conservative activist who
returned recently from Nicaragua.
For the past few days, Reagan himself has held a series of one-on-one
"jawboning" meetings with skeptical members of Congress. On Thursday, he
inaugurated an exhibit featuring weapons and other equipment allegedly sent by
Nicaragua to leftist rebels in El Salvador. On Friday, Reagan said he was "a
Contra, too."
Reagan made another pitch in his weekly radio address Saturday, charging that
agents of Nicaragua's government dress in Contra uniforms and then "murder and
mutilate ordinary Nicaraguans." He called it "a brutal campaign to bring the
freedom fighters into discredit."
Critics have countered with equal fervor. Americas Watch, a human rights
group, released a report 10 days ago saying most of the atrocities in Nicaragua
have been committed by the Contras. It accused the administration of trying to
explain away the abuses.
The same day, nearly 200 religious leaders formed a human cross on the steps
of the Capitol and said the administration prefers "terrorism to the pursuit of
peace."
In what the State Department said was a move inspired by Contra opponents,
the General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency, released a
report saying the administration cannot account for the supplies it has sent to
the insurgents.
For television audiences, a liberal group has produced a half-hour
anti-Contra documentary entitled "Faces of War," slated for viewing in 14
states. Earlier, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, a
conservative group, launched a $1.8 million advertising campaign in support of
the Contras. It is being shown in the nation's capital and throughout the South.
Both sides agree the stakes are high.
But by government standards, the sum of money is minuscule: the $100 million
being sought by Reagan is only 3 percent of what the United States was spending
on the Vietnam war at its height.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/27: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302230003-2