POISONING THE WELL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100030002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 24, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
.
witz's wife, Sheppie, "worked on the Secretaryof Defense.
staff of Mackie, McGovern and Car- Who produced the document, who
brought it to the White House d h
a
CTAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100030002-7
ARTICLZ AP1,RARFD N04 YORK TII`IES
ON F_,GZr2!t MAY 1.982
ABROAD AT HOME what, thin. Wert wmng rr th the ap. One Is {el C. Arnold who was
pointment to Indonesia? The answers he-_C.I,A,..!stati9~c- chre. __ 1 an
appears to lie in extremist Ideology ; while bin. Abra
and mowitz was Ambassa-
personal resentment. dor. When he retired?an -came
IPoisoiiirig The document that led to rejection back to Bangkok as an agent of the
of the appointment Is headed "Point The Government, Mr. Abramowitz
on Morton Abramowitz" and is reportedly told him that was not a
1 hePaper
? ; stamped Confidential. "Was the an.
I good idea. Another critic Is said to be
chitect for U.S. troop withdrawal from Gen. Richard G. Stillwell, once com-
Korea in 1977," it says In one passage; I wander of United states forces in
an indication of its accuracy and char- South Korea, now a De
Abram Deputy Under
acter. The paper says Mr
n w o
ter, she worked for about a year for
I l it to d Sbe exp are dues-
By Ant ony Lewis Edmund Muskle when he was a Sena_ tons thats should sttill
tor. In a ludicrous Invention. it says s on rpk ored per
tor. May 23 ..- Last October Mr. Abramowitz told somone in by a Congressional al committee.
President Reagan telephoned Morton Thailand, "I am a McGovernit~ " It :.1 To ca 1 di eren es secre ly to or personal
1. Abramowitz, one of this country's J says correctly that he Is a friend of', differences secretly to a foreign sub-
top professional diplomats, and said: =r Holbrooke who as President of the is not just nm n ous but sub-
You're my man for Indonesia. Last able Assistant Secrets of . erreside t Reagan week the State Department an. State for East Asian and Pacific Af. President rReagan recently had to
s
riounced that the appointment was fairs was a bate noir of the extreme ' tactackioneng of his his chief Texas of backers staff to stop a James
i=aixrg withdrawn -because the Indo- . right. ,
Bak
er. The Abramowitz epIsehe
neslan Government would not accept This collection of garbage a n d .
Mr. Abramowitz as Ambassador. . by-association was slipped into the; sans that the same upplotry in the
What happened between those two files of the 1.'hite House personnel ranks of his nupnofod supporters hurts
events Q~:o;vs some unhappy the President in foreign affairs. The =
ppy light on . Lice last fall. Then a copy was some.. purveyors of hate and envy destroy
the workings of the Reagan Adminis- ' bow got'to President S.harto of Indo-
tration. People who supposedly : nesla, who was told that it was a W).d*.e Professionalism.
support the President produced a Cr!- - House memorandum indicating Press- Morton
Abramowitz was the
Im.
t!qua of Mr. Abramowitz spun from dent Reagan's real views on Mr. mediate victim, but nothing can stain
ain
r1_14-wing fantasy. They got this . Abramowitz. his record as a fighter for American .1
decrtuent into the White House, and President Suharto then sent word interests and a diplomat who saved
then sent it to the Indonesian Govern- Ltiat he did not want Mr. Abramowitz. thousands of lives. Tl:e losers in this.'
ment. The Administration. knowing ? Secretary of State Haig twice told the affair are the President, the U.S. For
about the poisoners process for six Indonesian Foreign rfin!ster that the ?; eignServiceandthepublic. I
woo
rs
took
ff
That Morton Abramowitz should be "the well has been poisonedpTh thnt
the target of such internecine political donesians evidently decided that the
In-
y
warfare is grotesque. He is the arch- ' were In the middle of an American
ice officer. He non-political foreign
work as an Asian ~rficant ically not Government policy
significant Reagan -- acted
expert under ? forcefully enough to disabuse them of
both Democratic and Republican ad- , that impression.
ministrations, in the State and De- Who was responsible for the poison-'
fenseDepartmentsaswell as abroad. pen attack? No one signed it, and no
He has not hesitated to disagree one his taken responsibility. But a
with political superiors on tough number of persons have been publicly
Issues. After the fail of Vietnam in ' identified as critics of Mr. Abramo-
1975 Henry Kissinger was ready to witx,
write off Thailand; Mr. Abramowitz
argued success.'ully against such sell-
fulfilling gloom. He fought President .
Carter and ZbIgniew Brzezinski on
their plan, eventually abandoned, to ~
withdraw American ground forces
from South Korea.
'From 1978 to the middle of 1981 he -
was Ambassador to Thailand. and
there he had a personal impact un-
usual for ambassadors in an age of ,
overseas telephones and flying foreign
mf~!sters. He was largely responsible
for persuading a reluctant Thailand to '
accept hundreds of thousands of des- I
perate Cambodians as refugees, and
he also gave critical help to the Viet-
namese boat people. These actions
figured in his winning the President's
,
Award for Distinguished Federal 'I
Service last year.
,
e
no e
ect! re action to Administration really liked MMir. Abra- ;
stop It. mowitz but hew t Id
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100030002-7