CENTRAL AMERICA: THE REAL STAKES INSIDE CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640010-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: June 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640010-7
ARTMf,1;.:
ON ?A LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVI
4WWtW 0
The RealStaka
16 June 1985
bP laiar Q a~eyt (C~war: $1i9S~ Bre Pp.)
I deC'entraIAn ;t .r
by PbftHecryiotlr(Peon: $S 9S; 142 pp=.. .
n P~ and ooaipisaisarres, the firmt bsatao~d
-
m be tlir =ML cult to find.
Admloistration'~ btsysoolug iuvobrrsil
cress d Cn&d America b as mleaab teorW4
of scholarft noel joeendlms an a coca-igrrrsl
the ran I seeking a brie iabtodtretion to the area s?I
no slaidatd Rlmee with which to start. Ceetral Amain
her y.c ao peodtice moelsasis.
This two new eAorts 10mbaie, In dfIU.a t wspX
writbog jWh a prlear is a dWhxdt tusk. They
shaspq- 4% 11111 o an pobism, and
mboaina of'one t eni Phi Bserymads
psMsMi?
L Amselea" is aysweatiir, dheet and baankla
cwt.,a gaodpa a>gaitia d the Mnsiesst that tea
Stgpeti]ps puCifaeltm thswsong suds in Central A~
wait BY aseftast, Laster Langiey's "Central AalsriL&
Hafewei Dpyie llelttao^rt
Rol Stabs"- is ltijstrely, ditty and impsssionia.
travel' book as much as a political primer. It asearidars
around the lames and mires one or two entirely. BuNti the
end, it is the better book for irradiates a richer son es tths
flavor of Central American political lift
"None of the Central American states is really a nation."
Langley wri't+aes. "Nor do their governments project the rule
of law rather than the authority of men. So the sgelem
tradition of loyalty to family over loyalty to nation or
constitution has survived into modern times."
His portrait of societies dominated by a landed oligarch
allied with aspiring military and commercial classes is not
new, but it is nicely drawn. '"The harsh reality of Central
American society is its militarism." Langley says. "Central
America's military cadres do not believe their role is to
serve the state;, they believe they are the state."
He offers a series of breezy sketches of each country: El
Salvador as a battleground where "politics is not the art of
the possible. (but) more analogous to a bullfight." Guate-
mala as a land of separate Indian and Latino societies in "a
war of antagonistic cultures (that) Gen. Custer would have
understood," Nicaragua as "the battered child" of the
region-where "as battered children often do at maturity,
the Nicaraguans may very well become the battereii."
The implication fair American policy, of course, is that any
dream of turning the tiny, semi-feudal countries of the
isthmus into "democracies" comparable to ours is doomed.
"There is no American solution to Central America's
problems." Langley warm.
But that sentimost-a theme he states in italics and
rattans to repeatedly-is almost a truism by now. Even the
Reagan Adsioistratisds ccief spokasmsn an the area,
asista ASsmrttary d Scats 14.ts'g ne A. Motley, sqs with
cderracterieiic hyperbole that the aim of U.S. aid is not to
turn H1 Salvador into "a Zer= copy of Greenwich, Cann."
Langiey's account is colorful and sometimes delightfully
nadmbis. bat it is lamsotsbly abort ofrtgome analyds.at
the isanes that Cangreaa no we pow must aseme. un
Niaragua, the foam of U.S. attitudes In Central America
for more than a year now, Langley's book is sketchy, be
seems to have spent too little time in Managua to come to
grips with the dilemmas of the Sandinista revolution. Are
the Sandinistas irrevocably pro-Soviet? Are their troubles
chiefly of their own making, or merely understandable
responses to U.S. p onsur e? Are the anti-Sandinista rebels
known a. eoatres a L Pissaos po.... , appadtioo. or merely
a c=+emiiost d the AA? Should the United States seek the
Sendtaistas' overthroW. Langley aft. Lew of these ques-
tions and suggests dace arrweatune. .
Ph" B.rymaa's IMwrld-ba. ptlear., "Inside Central
Amu Ica," mdse, h+oas amme of tore pobNi s. A knowl-
aaka asoat
4t the dr*d UdastMd*, hr answtrs
an ion aiepit3 and so son Beesysa'a book may be trdtd
to r
MWAlft +saAslta lbw dhays made i thalr minds and was
dabstl( yet Nho want to pope toward
avv is Med. " 1laiae 114th UJ Porky in
Own" ANINSM bust'ier sn assmnpiibn that
serious MEWS to V s1sd by llstatllshdrlstrepew,elrt a
"~
this point. the bstwassi ~sonserva-
Uves is merely one. of eseplrs^is ? aoedrt." bound. for
Busy mai, such resopifiem arms the aft -way to improve
the lot of the mpoeitd CasllsatAderleaoa, "to reorganise
a society--and espsad'"y itsaesom -so that It sieves the
needs of the poor msjoelty raiber than this of a tiny
pr'l elite."
That is, indeed. the declared aim of the Sandinistas and
other leftist revolutionaries in Central America. But it is
also the declared aim of some U.S. liberals and Central
American Christian Democrats, who argue that the same
right or wrong. but Berryman merely dimes them
secret allies of the oligarchies. "While most liberals concede
that revolu dons do ocase-bye of the shortsightednaas
and intransigence of elite groups-their response tends to
be too little and too late, a vain hope that political tinkering.
like 'free elections," can prop up a tottering edifice," he
writes. Most liberals would respond that their aim is not to
prop up the edifice at all. and that their policies, like
Christianity, have never failed because they have never
been tried.
Berryman frankly calls the idea that the Sandinistas
might move toward a Costa Rican-style parliamentary
democracy "illusory," but argues that their authoritarian-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403640010-7