ORTEGA'S BAD TRIP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400015-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: May 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
` Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400015-0
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IN THE NATION
Tom Wicker
Ortega's
Bad
Trip
NEW YORK TIMES
24 May 1985
P resident Daniel Ortega Saave-
dra of Nicaragua may never
take a trip more ill advised than
his recent pilgrimage to Moscow, im-
mediately after the House of Repre-
sentatives voted down all proposals
for any form of aid to the "contra"
guerrillas trying to overthrow the
Sandinista Government.
Not that Mr. Ortega, the head of a
recognized (even by the Reagan Ad-
ministration) Government, doesn't
have a perfect right to go anywhere
he's welcome, any time be wants to,
and ask for aid from anyone who'll
give it.
And not that those Democrats (and
some Republicans) in the House who
voted against aid to the contras had
any reason to suppose that Mr.
Ortega headed a Jeffersonian gov-
ernment, or to act as if they'd just
found out that he's a Marxist revolu-
tionary.
Still. Mr. Ortega's timing was
wretched; and Democratic members
of Congress, already nervous about
voting against President Reagan and,
in effect, against the attempted over-
throw of a Marxist regime in Central
America, quickly seized upon the
Moscow trip to have It both ways.
Throwing no their hands in holy hor-
ror because a Marxist journeyed to
me NEER o m, they are
er balance tteir ticket with
some kind of aid to the contras -
"nonlethal," of course or "humani-
tarian" not to be administered L&
I11i -'3rea co warriors of the
C.I.A.
Whom do they think they're kid-
ding? The issue is not and never has
been the virtue of the Sandinistas, or
their political hue, or their links with
Havana and Moscow, about which no
member of the House can have been
to any doubt even before Mr. Ortega
set foot in the Kremlin.
The Issue is whether the United
States should sponsor, arm and fi-
nance a guerrilla organization, heav-
ily tainted with survivors from the
Sbmoza regime, the stated goal of
which is to overthrow Nicaragua's
recognized Government and replace
it In power - a guerrilla organiza-
tion, at that, whose tactics reputable
investigators have found sometimes
indistinguishable from the terrorism
that, in other cases, no one denounces
more fervently than Ronald Reagan.
Now that Mr. Ortega has visited
Moscow, does the U.S. have more jus-
tification for this enterprise? No, be.
cause the trip tells us nothing about
the Sandinistas not already known
when the House voted against aid to
the contras.
Are the contras more acceptable
now? No, because what Daniel
Ortega does has nothing to do with
what they are.
So if members of the House be-
lieved at the time of the vote that they
should not provide aid to the contras,
his trip gives them no cause to change
their minds - no cause except the
headlines it created, which aroused
the ever-lurking fear of American
politicians that the hard-line public
may somehow judge them 'soft on
Communism."
"Nonlethal" and "humanitarian"
aid, on the other hand, is intended to
ring less harshly in the ears of what-
ever softer-line public may have sur-
vived the Reagan years. It's all right
to send shoes for the bleeding feet of
contras, and C-rations for their
empty stomachs ; but bullets and
rifles would offend the sensibilities of
those opposed to military Interven-
tions, overthrowing governments,
and terrorism.
It's still a fraud, whether nonlethal,
humanitarian or both. Every dollar
Congress appropriates for shoes,
food, pay and clothing is a dollar the
contra leaders don't have to raise
elsewhere - which means that the
ample dollars they can get from pri-
vate sources here and in the I.atin
countries can and will be spent for
weapons and ammunition.
So it's not a matter of what kind of
aid Congress should send taxpayers'
money to provide for the contras; It's
a question whether aid of any kind
should be provided. If it should. Sena-
tor Chris Dodd of Connecticut has the
best idea = $14 million to relocate
and resettiq the contras and put an
end to the Reagan Adminislratlm's
proxy war. Don't hold your bAVdh till
it happens.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807400015-0