WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS U.S. OFFICIALS LAUNCH AN OFFENSIVE OVER EL SALVADOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000700060085-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 85
• Publication Date: March 2, 1981
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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2 'MAR CH 1981
Eagleb rger (left greeting with Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher inBonn
Winnhij-He ats and Minds.
U S. offlcfaI zgzcian offensive over El Salvador,
6d he in%urgencg'ut El Salvador has
been tt msibrmed into a'-text-
book case of indirect-armed aggression by..
Communist powers,'-With that stark as=-
sertion, the Reagan Administration last
week launched a -carefully orchestrated
campaign to demonstrate that the Soviet
Union, Cuba, Viet Nam and other Com-
munist nations have been smuggling arms
to the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. The
Adrninistration'smotive is to win support.
for increased U.S.. military aid to, that
strife-tom nation,.and;theintensity of the
effort is stunning.
A U.S. `delegaEtion headed by Law
rence Eaglebarger, Reagan's. choice as
Assistant Secretary-of State for European
Affairs, visited -five -European capitals
with fresh evidence: of Soviet-bloc .axis-
chief. Another team of-V S.. envoys head--
ed by Lieut. General. Vernon.Walters..set'
out for LatinAmerica.Secretary of-State
Alexander Ha iheaded fbr-Capitol Hill to-
brief congressional leaders..Tbe StateDe-
partment- provided bassies;o?-hriendly.-.
governments ..-in- Washington with"a...
lengthy memorandum: detailing its evi-
dente. This week the.Administration will
cap its campaign. with-' the release of-a-
4, white paper" summarizing its case: that
as one State Department official put it, "El
Salvadoris an.East-West.conflict.' - %
In what proved to be one of the most
omp ex tote rgence' assessments con-
uct sine the. i962 i ban missile cri-
sis, officials at * e? fate De artment, the
extra me ce Agency. and the De-
ense to ence Agency worked fever-
week, Eagleburger offered his European
listeners a chronological summary of So-
viet-bloc efforts to arm the rebels. He de-
scribed how, over the past two months, So-
viet-built transport planes have been
flying from Cuba to Managua, Nicaragua,
and unloading a variety of American- and
European-made arms, which are eventu-
ally smuggled into El Salvador. He backed
up his assertions with a slide show that in-
cluded blowups of documents allegedly
written by a Communist guerrilla leader
and detailing commitments made by Viet
Nam, Ethiopia, the Soviet Union and East
European nations to provide military
hardware. Perhaps the most dramatic ev-
idence was a series.of photographs of a
tractor-trailer said to have been captured
in Honduras. Underneath the trailer's
false bottom was a cache of about 150 M-
16 assault rifles. Serial numbers on U.S.
weapons. recovered from the guerrillas
have been traced to the arsenal left behind
by U.S. forces in Viet Nam.
:"' West European officials. were some-
what surprised that; as one top British dip-
lomat put it, "the first business of the U.S.
with its European allies should turn out to
be El Salvador." Yet they seemed uni-
formly impressed by the evidence and
grateful to the Reagan Administration for
consulting with them. "We are now in-
clined to believe that'arms of a certain.
`precise origin are being used with the aim
of destabilizing El. Salvador," admitted a
French official last week.
Bonn, Paris and London all expressed
concern, however, about just how far the
U.S. should go in supporting the military-
civilian junta now ruling El Salvador.
West German Chancellor Helmut
Schi iidt is in an especially uncomfortable
position, since leftists in Schmidt's own
Social Democratic Party support the Sal-
tlement between the warring factions in
El Salvador rather than risk escalating the
conflict by supplying more arms. Officials
in Bonn and Paris also asked the U.S. to
urge the Salvadoran government to dem-
onstrate greater respect for human rights
-an indication that the Reagan Admin-
istration's reluctance to press friendly
regimes on their human rights records
may not be shared by some allies.
On his mission to Latin America,
Walters, formally deputy chief of the CIA,
visited Mexico and Venezuela, and this
week he plans to stop in Brazil, Argen-
tina and Chile. Though Walters conferred
with Mexican, President Jose Lopez Por-
tillo, neither country would confirm the
meeting publicly; Mexico sympathizes
with the Salvadoran guerrillas, and Wal-
ters' visit could be an embarrassment-
- Congressional leaders' responded fa-
vorably to the briefings. Senator Charles
Percy, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, vowed that "this
nation will do :whatever is necessary to
prevent a Communist takeover in. El Sal-
vador." He added: "We are prepared to
draw the line here, here and now." Nev-
ertheless, Percy warned Haig that the U.S.
must also insist that the junta step up its
search for the murderers of three Amer-
ican nuns and a lay religious worker killed
in El Salvador last December.
fl ndeed, there was growing concern, in
Congress and in Europe, that the Ad-
ministration is turning a blind eye to the
Salvadoran junta's faults and is prepared
to offer military assistance without qual-
ification. To quell such fears, the State De-
partment issued a statement last week em-
phasizing its support of "basic economic
and political reforms, including elections
in 1982-83=" in El Salvador.
Meanwhile,. TIME has learned that
Washington is debating whether to send
Army mobile training teams to El Sal-
vador.. The teams, composed of half a
dozen soldiers, are. typically sent to for-
eign. countries to instruct infantry units
in such subjects as weaponry and recon-
naissance tactics.. Team members are not
combat advisers, and' congressional ap-
proval is not required to send them to El
Salvador. Nevertheless, the proposal is
generating controversy in both Washing-
ton and San Salvador. Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger told the State Depart-
ment last week that he could not go along
with the plan. Salvadoran government of-
ficials fear that if they accept the teams
they will be admitting they. need outside
help to defeat the guerrillas. Still, leftist
guerrillas are beginning to skirmish again
with Salvadoran soldiers, scarcely a
month after the defeat of'the insurgents'
self-proclaimed "final offensive." -Author-
ities in San Salvador are predicting a long
struggle-and it is one in which U.S.. son-
diers could possibly find themselves under
MW 600 85m8JJama5Kely. Reported by
Roberto Surer/Washington with European
and t otin American bare avs
is y or mare t two weeks assembling
t e evt ence. Many of the details were
provided by,af clearly prejudiced party
-the Salvadoran armed forces-and had
to be double-checked; U.S. officials then
-
had to tailor a prksentatian(o forei of.
ficials that wo lC$~tgi r
ligence sources in Central America.
In the most dramatic briefings of the
Approved For Release2005/07/i8.1 Z Q-RDP91-00901 R00070 INE
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capitals made it clear that they would like
to see the U.S. strive for a negotiated'set-