SAIGON AND MANAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605750033-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: April 22, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605750033-6
pTIV _ l f:ea- a tii`i~ IYLW 1 VRI\ I tl'iLJ
ON ?I ;_, 1_ 22 April, 1985
ESSAY
William Safire
Saigon
And
Maria
,
for the genocide that followed. Not for .
them the easy out of the Shawcross,
Theory, which turns truth on its head
and blames the Americans for some.-
haw transforming the gentle Khmer?
Rouge into murderers of defenseless
millions:....
That is looking at the issue in its
starkest terms. Let us grant that
there are shades of gray that doves
and hawks do not like to think about.
For example, there must be plenty
of doves who -derided talk 10.-veam-'
ago of incipient "blood baths," and
who sincerely believed that life would
be better for the people of Southeast
Asia.. after our involvement was
who now feel.a personal guilt '
ended
Nicaraguans bring down the Moscow- I portance can bring even an opposition
backed regime. I Congress along. In November 1969
enemies..
v
. 1.Contrariwise,? if you believe that.
our attempt to save South Vietnam
from Communist takeover was nobly
motivated, and failed only because a
defeatist media and Watergate-em-.
boldened doves in Congress were able
to strip South Vietnam of our proteo?
tion, then you stand with President
Reagan: You see the Managua Com-
munists as the puppets of Havana and
Moscow, and you are eager to supply
the contras with the ammunition
needed to help the anti-Communist
For an example on the other side, I Richard Nixon mobilized "silent the know there are hawks who cannot go majority" in a television speech that
along with Mr. Nixon's judgment that knocked the doves back for years;
Congress alone was the cause of Sai- later he let the Soviet leader know
gon's downfall; we think that Con- t h a t Vietnam had priority over sum-
gress did not help, b u t that the South mit c h a n c e s x
Vietnamese Government did not have Mr. Reagan is unwilling to expend
the stamina to withstand for long the political capital on what is said to be a
continual pressure from the North. losing vote. That means he does not
But mind-sets on which great deci- consider this sufficiently important,
sions turn do not lend themselves to or it means he is fearful of legislative
shades of gray. Therefore, doves do defeat. A radio spot on the eve of a
not concern themselves with the fact great decision is a joke; better to lose
that this Communist threat is near than to run from a fight. Instead, the.
our borders, within our sphere of in-_ President will come before us to
fluence, and not half a world away; plead for a cut in domestic spending,
nor do
nor do hawks trouble themselves that and triumphant isolationists will send
WASHINGTON our vigorous response to the export of a few bandages to the contras through
e remarkable thing about the revolution is surely an attempt to help the U.N.
0th anniversary of the fall of overthrow a Government in place, yet the vote be recorded, and let the
T aigon is this: We celebrate the and not, as in Vietnam a decade ago, President consider recovering by
occasion by deciding whether or not to prevent its overthrow. Those are recognizing a Nicaraguan govern-
to heed its lesson in Central America. debating points, and such points do
The basic difference between the not decide great debates. meat meat-sin-exdlerebuff. to This the vote contras goes It is far be,-
each
President and the Congress is about What does determine whether man's expression of his ua-
what that lesson was. American foreign policy leans toward derstanding of the lesson of Vietname0
If you believe that Vietnam was an isolation or leans toward interven-
exercise in American imperialism, i? tlon? Where is the handle on whose
doomed from the start and needlessly version of the lesson of Vietnam shall
prolonged, then you come down on the prevail in Central America?
side of the Democratic leadership in 1. Stridency is a loser. Shrillness in
Congress: You equate the contras advocacy turns the general public off.
with the "corrupt dictatorship in'- The dove's attacks on the contras as .
Saigon" and refuse them the guns fascisti thugs, or their mean spirited
they need to defeat their Communist charge that Mr. Reagan is spoiling to
l
'
e war,
fitt
use U.S. troops in a good
will present the hawks with a target
of extremist America-haters. In the
same way, the President's elevation .
o the anti- ommumsts to the 'moral
equivalent of our Founding Father"
invites mockery; more important,
the misuse of the F.B.I. the .ILL
to harass U.S. citizens returning from .
?Iicaraeua will turn public opinion
a ainst the hawks.
2. presidential priority is a winner.
A recently elected President who con-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605750033-6