U.S. REPORTS ON SOVIETS' LATIN ACTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870067-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: March 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870067-8
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE-4 - _ l
U.S. Reports.
On Soviets'
Latin Actions
Area `Boiling,'
Gromyko Is Quoted
By Joanne Omang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Soviet military aid to. Cuba and
Nicaragua since 1979 has been
greater than U.S. military aid to all
of Latin America in that period, ac-
cording to a Reagan administration
position paper released yesterday.
The report, "The Soviet-Cuban
Connection in Central America and
the Caribbean," quotes Soviet For-
eign Minister Andrei Gromyko as
saying the 'region is "boiling like a
cauldron" and is ripe for revolution-
ary effort.
The glossy, colorful 45-page
booklet, produced by the Defense
and State departments and sprin-
kled with. charts, photographs and
maps, is mainly "old wine in new
bottles," designed for members of
Congress to give constituents, a
senior State Department official
told a news briefing. He spoke on
condition that he not be identified.
Nonetheless, the document
stresses areas likely to be the ad-
ministration's maior talking points
as it works to win congressional
release of $14 million for the Cen-
tral Intelligence Agency to help an-
tigovernment rebels in Nicaragua.
The official said 25,000 copies have
been printed at a cost of $45,000. ;
Overall, the report said, "the So-
viet Union sees in the region an
excellent and low-cost opportunity
to preoccupy the United States .. .
thus gaining greater global freedom
of action for the U.S.S.R."
WASHINGTON POST
23 :larch 1985
For the first time since these po-
sition papers began appearing in
1981, this one charges the leftist
Sandinista government of Nicara-
gua and "high-ranking Cuban offi-
cials" with narcotics trafficking and
with using "money generated by
narcotics to supply arms for guer-
rillas."
It features a photograph, re-
leased during recent congressional
hearings, of two men handling an
oblong black box-like object. The
caption said the photo shows co-
caine being- loaded onto a U.S.-
bound plane at a Nicaraguan airport
by Federico' Vaughn,'a close aide to
Nicaraguan . Interior Minister
Tomas Borge.
Another U.S.'official at the brief-
ing said the cocaine was seized in
the United States and was used as
evidence in a `Drug Enforcement
Administration case ~ against
Vaughn.-
The report said Gromyko's "boil-
ing cauldron" remark came from
notes recovered in the 1983 U.S.
invasion of Grenada, which the of-
ficial said were handwritten by one
of three senior Grenadan officials
during a meeting with Gromyko on
April 15, 1983.
Gromyko was encouraging Gre-
nadan Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop's program of periodic sem-
inars for "revolutionary groups in
the Caribbean," the official said. "He
says you must be very cautious so
you don't get the imperialists an-
gry, but you're doing the right thing
.... In effect he puts a Soviet
stamp on this [seminar] project,"
the official said.
The report's central thesis is that
in Nicaragua "the banner of Sandi-
nismo is giving way to the reality of
communism," and that Cuba and the
Soviet Union are instrumental in
the change.
Soviet-bloc military deliveries to
Nicaragua have risen from 900
metric tons in 1981 to 18,000 met-
ric tons last year, including six pow-
erful Mi-24 HIND-D helicopter
gunships, the report said. Nicara-
gua has 24 other helicopters, 340
tanks and armored vehicles-in-
cluding 110 from the Soviet
Union-and 70 long-range howit-
zers and rocket launchers for a mil-
itary force of 62,000 active-duty
members and 57,000 in the reserve
and militia.
"Clearly, Nicaragua's military
power threatens-and is not
threatened by-its neighbors," the
report said.
The blue-covered booklet went
through numerous drafts and revi-
sions over the past several months,
one of which included more-fiery
rhetoric and an introduction by Sec-
retary of Defense Caspar W. Wein-
berger. The administration officials
said the introduction was deleted to
make plain that it was a joint effort
of State and Defense.
"This is the first time that we
have put together in one booklet
information relating to :... Soviet-
Cuban support for the establish-.
ment of Marxist-Leninist regimes-,'
the movement of hardware and po-
litical support," the official' said. "If
you believe some of this informa-
tion, then maybe you will believe
some of our contentions."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870067-8