SEND MARCOS PACKING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000705860004-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 18, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/07 :CIA-RDP90-009658000705860004-5
A4~~rt~ :~~~~-~ t~D
ON P~F.~~._,
WALL STREET JOURNAL
18 December 1985
Send Marcos Packing
~ By Asaxtnt Scfu,anrc~a Ja.
There is a certain grim it~y to the vac-
illations of the Reagan administration as it
contbnts Ne decomposing Marcos regime
in the Philippines. ONy five years ago dur-
ing the presidential campaign, Mr. Reagan
and his neoconservative intellectuals con?
demned President Carter for abandoning
our great "Mends" the shah of Iran and
Anastasio Somoza and in consequence
losing" Iran and Nicaragua. The implica-
tion was that a stronger president would
have pursued tougher policies and that
these policies could easily have preserved
those wonderful friends of the U.S.
A conservative administration in Wash-
ington, the argument ran, would never
have undermined pro-American regimes
by insistence on human rights, social re-
forms, a peaceful transition to democratic
government and other such sentimental
nonsense. It would havd given these
friends of America unconditional support
and would have done whatever was neces-
sary to rescue them. If only there had been
a Republican president, the shah and So-
moza would still be in power, and their
countries would still be in the Western
camp.
By No Means Clear
This line of argument raised questions,
then and now. Assuming for the moment
that it might have been in the national in-
terest of the U.S. to preserve thieving des-
pots in Iran and Nicaragua, it is by no
means clear that it lay within U.S. power
to do so. Rhetorical assistance wUl not do
it. Mr. Carter tried that, congratulating the
shah in 1977 on "the admiration and love
which your people glue to you" and prais-
ing Somoza as late as 1979 for his progress
on human rights. Military assistance wW
not do it. The U.S. sold 519.5 billion in arms
to Iran from 1972 to 1979, and Somoza's Na-
tional Guard never languished from lack of
weapons.
We always overrate the capacity of the
U.S. to shape the destiny of other coun-
tries. The balance of internal forces gener
ally decides the future of nations. If Presi-
dent Carter had never opened his mouth on
the subject of human rights, the shah and
Somoza would have fallen all the same. It
seems most doubtful that any U.S. policy
short of military occupation could have
saved them. And one wonders whether it
serves long-term -American interests for
the U.S. to intervene militarily in other
countries in order to protect hated regimes
against the wrath of their own people.
These questions remain speculative in
relation to Iran and Nicaragua. But the
Reaganite assumption that there was an
easy alternative to the Carter policy now
comes to the test in Ne Philippines. For
Ferdinand Marcos is in the same position
today that the. shah and Somoza were in
during the late 1970s: This surely is the
time for those brave solutions that, accord-
ing to neoconservative myth, Mr. Carter so
softheadedly rejected a few years back. In-
stead, one finds the Reagan administration
pursuing the same policy toward the Phil?:.
ippines that the Carter administration pur-
sued toward Iran and Nicaragua.
Ronald Reagan. like Jimmy Carter, be-
gan with an effort to reform a disintegrat-
ing regime by fulsome rhetorical blandish?
meat. This is the famous policy of "con-
structive engagement" with repressive
governments. Vice President George Bush
declared that he loved President Marcos
for his "adherence to democratic princi-
ples." President Reagan said in'last year's
presidential campaign that the choice was
between Mr. Marcos and "a large commu-
nist movement to take over the. Phllip?
pines." Mr. Marcos naturally interpreted
such tender words not as a signal to
change his ways but as a license to Inten-
sify his course of domestic plunder and re-
pression.
But the more his men have harassed
and murdered political opponents, the
more money they have stolen from their
country, the stronger the opposition has be-
come. As disintegration continues, the
Reagan administration, like the Carter ad-
ministration before it, is changing its
course. Now we are urging on Mr. Marcos
the need for human rights, social reform
and a peaceful transition to democratic
government. Mr. Reagan today is duplicat-
ing in the Philippines the policy for which
he so righteously denounced Mr. Carter in
the cases of Iran and Nicaragua.
He is doing so because he has no more
real choice in 1985 than Mr. Carter had in
1979: He is learning now what Mr. Carter
learned then: that there is no virtue in
tying the U.S. to a despotic regime doomed
to collapse. The course of unconditional
commitment to unpopular despots is not
likely, in the absence of military interven-
tion, to save the despots-and it is quite
certain to alienate the inevitable successor
regime and in the meantime to strengthen
Mancist revolutionaries.
Can reform pressure salvage the situa-
tion? The best hope in the Philippines
would be the orderly transfer of power to
the moderate opposition. So the U.S. is
calling on Mr. Marcos, as President Carter
called on the shah and Somoza, to do
things that, if he carries them out, will de-
stroy the bases of his power. It would be
foolish to count on Mr. Marcos to collabo-
rate to bringing about his own downfall.
Hls interest lies not in strengthening the
moderate opposition but in destroying it.
His hope lies in polarizing the nation so
that he can present himself as the oNy al-
ternative to communist takeover.
Mr. Reagan, like Mr. Carter before
him, is impaled on a dilemma. The longer
he waits in the vain expectation that Mr.
Marcos will voluntarlly undertake reforms
Iran and Nicaragua. The aemocraac atter?
native, such as it may have been, melted
away, and we were left, with Ayatollah
Khomeini and the Sandinistas.
But what can we effectivel do to h p
e c erna ve a Philip?
p nes. ecretarv o ate eorQe LL in
Lon on the other a de iv ~
raise o covert action. B this e m t
or Even a an _ ~ara~?a sue.
?ola. Combo to and Afah tctan ent?anv
the history of covert r ~r a .. ?... ?nat
has had iL endar!n~ tr?e,mD ~ ? h n nv-
lo ed for liUcal rather than for military
en -not to common tto su
~tC-.12>~
There is not much the U.S. can do to
control the destiny of the Philippines. The
moderate opposition, though it has finally
agreed on a ticket in the presidential elec-
tion, has not shown much unity of purpose
so far. But it does enjoy widespread popu-
lar support. The U.S. should distance itself
even more unequivocally from the Marcos
disaster and do what it discreetly can to
help democratic Filipinos make a strong
showing in the elections that the regime at
this very moment is planning to rig against
them.
Exploited Favor and Aid
I trust we will not be diverted from a
realistic course by talk about how much
the U.S. "owes" to Mr. Marcos. Talk about
sentimentality! Mr. Marcos has never sac-
rificed his own interests to help the U.S.,
anymore than the shah and Somoza did be-
fore him. Like the shah and Somoza, Mr.
Marcos has systematically exploited the
favor and aid of the U.S. taamass personal
power and wealth. Rep. Stephen Solarz's
House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
Asian and Pacific Affairs is documenting
this point in its current hearings. As The
Economist crisply puts it, "The only aid
(or 'rent for a base') that should be given
to people like Mr. Marcos is a one-way
ticket to ananti-assassin-guarded holiday
resort."
It has taken the Reagan administration
a long time to learn the lesson the Carter
administration learned so painfully about
the unprofltability of trying to prop up
doomed despots. As the Reagan people be?
gin to learn the lesson in the PhiUppines,
one hopes that they will apply it in other
parts of the world.
There is every indication that Gen. Au-
gusto Pinochet in Chile stands today about
where Mr. Marcos stood in, say, 1983. Con-
structive engagement will not reform Gen.
Pinochet any more than it did Mr. Marcos.
Effusive words will only encourage him in
a course of repression. Let us move to d1-
vorce the U.S. from the brutal dictator in
Chile before the situation is hopelessly rad-
icalized and while there is still time for a
democratic alternative to emerge.
and relinquish dower, the more radicalized Mr. Schlesinger is Albert Schweitzer
file situation will become and th~~ Professor of the humanities at the City Uni-
likely it is that the moderate opposition vers:ty of New York and a winner of Pulit-
wlll inherit. Mr. Carter waited too lung in zer Prizes in history and 6ioyraphy.
!/
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/07 :CIA-RDP90-009658000705860004-5