ARMING MANAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504730018-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 18
• Publication Date: June 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08 :CIA-RDP9O-009658000504730018-7
STAT-
~. ,.~
~'''~'' R APPEAL ~
1~t1 fll~ ?iltYil~~ior!
WASHINGTON POST
16 June 1986
~~/
Rowland Erawat and Robert Novak
'n 1Vlana a
g ~~
Even though the House has grown a
tittk warmer toward giving President
Reagan 6100 rnildan for anticommunist
guerrillas, mode and more Soviet acme
are pouring into Nicaragua in an effort
to beggar U.S. aid to the contras as too
tittle, too late.
White House officials are Preparing to
deliver that message in confidential
briefrc?s this week for Speaker Thomas
P. O'Neiti and lesser Democratic lead-
ers. Nobody is hoping to convert the
speaker's deep and emotional opposition
to the contras. The president's men just
want to ease the intensity that for
weeks has kept the issue from a House
votes
To do that, Reagan and his aides pray
O'Neill witi consider the implications of
the Soviet buildup in Sandinista armed
power. He will be advised that more
Soviet acme have reached Nicaragua
this year than in all of 1985 and that
Soviet pilots are actually "test-flying"
just-delivered helicopters.
If help for the anticommunist resis-
tance is further delayed. the Soviet
buildup cook! make the Sandinista forces
so strong that the military balar>ce in
Nicaragua would be fromen. The contras
then never could be transformed from a
ragtag band to a serious operational
force with a chucce of changing the
regime in Managua.
Such warnings have not prevtousiy
been received with respect in the Dem-
ocratic hideaways of Capitol Hill. Aided
by a handful of Republican defectors, an
overwhelming majority of House Demo-
crests has voted to block contra aid, But
small, scattered signs of change give the
president new hope.
Rep. Olympia Snows, a liberal Re-
publican from Maine, has told head
counters she probably will switch and
vote yes when the contra aid bill comes
up (even though, a colleague told us,
?she will be handwringing all the way").
Also included in a group of fence-sitting
House members that recently visited
Central Amerip was Rep. Richard Ray,
a moderate Democrat from Georgia. He
also leans toward a switch.
White House insiders beGev~tftey
have acquired allies among House'~em-
ocrats who could help the president
mitigate O'NeiU's wrath over thy'-Con-
tras as killers of babies and nuns: Y'hese
congressmen heard sharp attacks on the
Sandinistas in private talks with Central
America's four democratically elected
Presidents. from Costa Rica, Honduras,
Guatemala and El Salvador-[Hoch
sharper than is heard in public.
That may reflect Reagan's efforts to
Pump up support for the contra plans by
talking on the telephone to his C~1tra1
American counterparts, One president
received the impression that while
Reagan does not want to send any,U.S.
troops to Nicaragua, he will if he hay to.
But the rapid Sandinista military
~uP also e~lains the trend of the
fence-sitters to Reagan. Until cr0a4; no
Soviet pilot has ever been known t~tr fly a
combat aircraft for or in a eeuntry
hostile to the United States o4 the
American mainland, According ttr White
House sources. Soviet "technical assem-
bly persocutel" and test pilots are- bact-
~g ~ new batch of MI-8 heli~Qpiers
that arrived at Corinto last nwnth.
The MI-8 is a t f-the-line Soviet
counterutsurgency weapon, esrgne or
utcx movement of troo s, s ort-tan e
reconrtalssance an rat su or
tom t units.
-speed in the Nicaraguan buildup
is seen by Maecow as imperative in the
interest of beating resumed U.S, aid to
the contras, there was no time to train
local pibts before the heGco t~ers~ ar-
rived. Instead. the Kremlin ?ti9Tced a
negative response in Congress'~nd a
Reagan administration reaction bZ,send-
ing Soviet pilots. They are flightiesting
and training, but not flying combaLmis-
sions as of now.
Another development that will be
carefully analyzed for the speaker is
completion of the new Sandinista 'fnili-
tary port of EI Bluff on the Caribbean,
the first major harbor on the Atlantic
side of the isthmus. The new rrulitacy
harbor transforms the supply-line prob-
lem, cutting weeks from future arms
debveries from the Soviet Uruori .and
Cuba. Until now, Soviet supply Ships
have had to circumnavigate Seuth
America and unload at Corinto?~ the
Pacific side, the only harbor in Nicara-
gua safe for large ships. -
Tip O'Neill over the years has- paid
more attention to stories of atr-octities
than the Soviet military and even.strate-
gic threat on the American mainland.
Now_ he is being asked to look at hard
uitelLAence m hopes that he will Hasten
con?ressional action ore it comes
too late to matter. . ,
`;'JBti. Ncw;gmrr a ~yndtcatr ,
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08 :CIA-RDP9O-009658000504730018-7