MEXICO: THE U.S. PRESS TAKES A SIESTA

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590033-3
Release Decision: 
RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
March 15, 2011
Sequence Number: 
33
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
February 1, 1985
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590033-3.pdf93.11 KB
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Approved For Release 2011/03/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590033-3 ARTIf'1F U HARED Dill COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW January-February 1985 icakp%n. U.S. the press es sues The foreign press often scoops our best papers in covering our big neighbor's big problems by.ROGER MORRIS 9 n 1965. as the story goes, an Argentine leftist named H 15 Adolfo Gill), came to Mexico after making a name for himself as a revolutionary organizer and writer all over Latin America, from Chile to Cuba to Bolivia. Reportedly on a secret mission to support Guatemalan guerrillas, Gilly was arrested by the Mexican federates and sentenced to seven years in prison. While in prison, however, he wrote a Marxist interpretation of the 1910 Mexican Revolution which celebrated the event, especially its nationalist, anti- U.S. impulse, and which was widely read and acclaimed in Mexico. After his release, the authorities voided Gilly's conviction, absolved him of all charges, and eventually appointed him professor of political science at the National University in Mexico City. Thus was a onetime subversive transformed into a respected scholar. Foreign affairs - and an intimate liaison There is at.least one Mexican subject that has enjoyed sub- stantially more U.S. coverage in the past two years: Mexico City's warmth toward the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and its peace overtures in El Salvador. both of which fre- quently put it at odds with the Reagan administration. Yet if the Central American crisis has sometimes made Mexican diplomacy a wire-service staple, it has done little to put the policy behind it in a historical context. that would enable readers to see Mexico's actions as something other than the simple anti-American impulse visible in isolated episodes. In April and again in August 1983, The Economist analyzed Mexican policy - straddled between its own paternalism toward Central America and its domestic and historical desire to achieve greater independence from the U.S. - with a sophistication- rarely seen in the American press. Meanwhile, . one aspect of Mexican foreign relations seems to remain forbidden ground for American journalism. despite recent events in Central America: Mexico City's intimate liaison with coven U.S. agencies. The largest U.S. mission in the world. literally 'swarming with attaches from the Drug Enforcement Agency and (according to some sources) the FBI, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has not been explored by reporters. Among the most numerous of the Embassy's nondiplo- matic denizens are the members of a large CIA station in Mexico City, long linked to the federates, with sometimes embarrassing but quickly concealed consequences. Begin- ning in January 1981, The San Diego Union ran a major investigative series on police corruption in Mexico. In the wake of the series. the local U.S. Attorney indicted, among other members of a far-flung car-smuggling ring, a high- ranking Tiajuana police official named Naser Haro. Hato was also alleged to be a key colleague, if not an employee, of the CIA. It was a promising story, to say the least, but the full facts were never to be printed or brought to light in court. The U.S. Attorney, albeit a Republican, was sum- marily removed by the Reagan administration, the indict- ment was dropped, and the Union's stories on the subject abruptly ceased. On September 27, 1984. The New York Times briefly lifted a similar veil when Philip Taubman reported that former CIA Latin America analyst John R. Horton had been pressured by Director William J. Casey to revise an intel- ligence estimate on Mexico. Casey wanted the report to portray conditions in Mexico as a threat to the country's stability and U.S. security, the Times revealed. and Horton's "data did not support such an alarmist conclusion." Intrigu- ing and perhaps sensational bristling with Questions about Mexico as well as the forces that shape intelligence reports, was another story destined for a dead end. Approved For Release 2011/03/15: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100590033-3