The CIA's War
"I WAS A MEMBER OF A SPECIAL SQUADron of the Honduran Army. We were trained in Panama, the United States and other places that we didn't know because we entered and left by night," the unnamed...
...5 6 North also played a behind-the-scenes role in the rebels' acquisition of Soviet-made SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles in 1985...
...The principal argument against a covert proxy war came from old hands who feared Washington would lose control of the rebel units...
...The CIA also took charge of all major political decisions...
...The Washington Post, November 23, 1983...
...Ibid., p. 6. 26...
...The hope was that UNO would achieve international status, with offices in various world capitals and observer status at the UN...
...8. Ibid., pp...
...MPATIENT WITH THE SLOWNESS AND INcompetence of the rebel army, which had swelled by 1984 to some 15,000, the CIA increasingly regarded the contras as a cover for the clandestine missions of the agency's Latin American contract agentswhom it revealingly called its "Unilaterally Controlled Latino Assets" (UCLAs...
...The New York Times, August 8, 1985...
...Of course, the happy coincidence of objectives avoided conflicts and made coordination and control that much easier...
...Not only did White House officials deny that the United States was providing any type of support to anti-Sandinista rebels, but cynically provided details of what it was not doing...
...The New York Times, August 9, 1985...
...28-38...
...The FDN leadership yielded without dissent...
...In practice, Congress has almost always deferred to the president in CIA matters, except for a brief show of concern in the mid-1970s...
...As the president's unofficial representative, North visited the rebel camps in his own government plane-an unheard-of privilege for an NSC official of his rank...
...11, no...
...5 The CIA runs its Central America project in cooperation with the National Security Council (NSC...
...The embassy was upgraded from a "low priority class IV to a class II" and Ambassador John Negroponte assumed the role of theater commander...
...The CIA directed Argentinean military personnel-who had been advising the ex-National Guardsmen since late 1979-to expand their efforts to build a true rebel army...
...Ibid., p. 95...
...When the right people [read CIA] can't manage the operation," a senior Administration official said, "you have to look for other alternatives...
...the operations divisions went into semi-seclusion...
...The White House took the lead, but the CIA director needed no persuading...
...NACLA telephone interview with David MacMichael, May 13, 1986...
...5 7 The close working relationship between the NSC and the CIA and the established links to a right-wing network of private support facilitated the shift of responsilities in 1984...
...The Washington Post December 16, 1984...
...Over the last 20 years the CIA has reportedly conducted more than 900 major clandestine operations and thousands of lesser adventures.' Among its most publicized achievements are a key role in overturning the regime of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, paving the way for three decades of misrule by the Shah...
...In These Times, March 26-April 1, 1986...
...Since Reagan took office, the CIA's budget has been fattened by an estimated 25% per year...
...The Washington Post, December 16, 1984...
...While the CIA is thus nominally responsible to the NSC, which maintains official contact with the contras and manages the private aid network,* in practice the *See "Franchising Aggression," pp...
...Arnaud de Borchgrave on William Buckley's Firing Line, Public Broadcasting System, February 2, 1986...
...The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 1985...
...An August 30, 1985 New York Times editorial complaining that the Reagan Administration, in violation of the Constitution, had "virtually franchised out the contra war to fringe groups," was misconceived...
...Chamorro, in First Principles, p. 7. 54...
...John S. Saloma, Ominous Politics...
...Ibid...
...7 Given the agency's record, it may be surprising that the 1947 law establishing the CIA deals solely with intelligence gathering...
...The New York Times, November 18, 1985...
...Duane Clarridge, Casey's handpicked coordinator of the covert operation, chose Adolfo Calero, a former Coca-Cola franchise owner...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1985...
...However, later CIA efforts failed to persuade Ed6n Pastora G6mez, the leader of a rebellion on the Costa Rican border, to enter the coalition...
...In fact, it was reported in May 1986 that UNO had information offices in three European and several Latin American capitals, which the CIA was funding with some $100,000 a month...
...Thus, when the CIA's psychological warfare manual hit the front pages in October 1984, its prescriptions for terror and assassination were portrayed as a sign of ineptitude rather than a violation of the ban on anti-Sandinista operations...
...The New Conservative Labyrinth (New York: Hill and Wang, 1984), p. 49...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1985...
...The Washington Post, December 16, 1984...
...The Adminstration was also clearly riding roughshod over the Boland amendment...
...The New York Times, August 8, 1985...
...As one official later recalled: "It was hubris...
...63 The Reagan Doctrine and Counterrevolution 1. The New York Times, February 14, 1985...
...As Nicaragua became integrated into the Reagan Doctrine concept of global rollback in 1985, the Adminstration established another interagency committee to coordinate covert support of anti-communist insurgencies around the globe...
...And when the president and the Administration tell you to march, you march, after having had your say.' " But if other agency members demurred, Casey himself never needed any convincing...
...In March 1981, only two months after taking office, President Reagan issued a presidential "finding" that the national interest demanded a halt to the alleged arms flow from Nicaragua to guerrillas in El Salvador.' With his November National Security Directive, Reagan, with the knowledge of Congress, approved $19.5 million for the CIA to create a 500-man commando force, to help the Argentineans expand the rebel forces and to establish a broad anti-Sandinista political front...
...Other CIA-sponsored rebel armies that have been wiped out over the last four decades include those in the Ukraine, Albania, Burma and Tibet...
...4 The broad language of the finding, which did not specifically say that arms interdiction was the sole purpose of the operation, aroused congressional suspicions about the CIA's true mission.' Covert operations are the specialty of the CIA...
...Although Reagan's executive order on the nation's intelligence agencies describes the NSC as "the highest government entity with responsibility for intelligence activities," between 1981 and mid-1984 the NSC functioned more as the junior partner in the project.' 6 Since May 1984, congressional restrictions on the CIA's role in the contra war have resulted in the NSC taking over virtually all related coordinating activities...
...Even conservatives had been angered by the CIA's failure to inform oversight committees of the mining foray...
...6 This chariness stemmed from the CIA's record on covert wars...
...said, "If the president wants to use the NSC to operate a war in Nicaragua, I don't think there's any way to control it...
...5 5 In constant contact with the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon, he coordinated individual contributions, organized private fund-raising drives and orchestrated lobbying efforts...
...5 8 At the end of May, under pressure from Under-Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliot Abrams, the three leaders reached a "unity accord," granting more power to Cruz, Robelo and civilian elements in the FDN, but skepticism remained regarding the long-term viability of the arrangement...
...Few doubted he would succeed...
...In addition, policy-makers believed they could avoid a Bay of Pigs debacle by "softening up" Nicaragua from JULY/AUGUST 1986 19SOWING DRAGON'S TEETHz4 SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH secure positions across the border in Honduras and Costa Rica...
...4 6 The contras broadcast a communique taking credit for the mining of Nicaragua's harbors in the spring of 1984, but the operation was so dominated by the CIA that it did not even include any Nicaraguan rebels...
...Casey had entered public life in the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II forerunner of the CIA...
...5. The Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1985...
...But it was one thing to engage in "perception management" for public consumption and quite another to misrepresent the internal data itself...
...The last of the authorized CIA money was spent in March of 1984 and the agents were pulled out in May...
...The New York Times, March 11, 1982...
...The Washington Post, March 9, 1986...
...In the mid-1970s, evidence of its efforts to destabilize and eventually topple the government of Salvador Allende in Chile was followed by revelations of CIA-sponsored assassinations and illegal spying and harassment of domestic groups...
...The Washington Post, December 16, 1984...
...George Brown (D-Calif...
...56 (Fall 1984), pp...
...In mid-1984 they were on the verge of collapse...
...FitzGerald, in The New Yorker, p. 100...
...5 9 A GOOD CASE CAN BE MADE THAT THE NSC action violated the U.S...
...Brash, abrasive and shrewd, he was no captive of the CIA's recent past...
...268-269...
...Those Nicaraguans who were chosen for leadership positions within the organization-namely Calero and Bermudez-were those who best demonstrated their willingness to unquestioningly follow the instructions of the CIA...
...CovertAction Information Bulletin, No...
...2 5 IN THE BEGINNING THE AGENCY WAS OPtimistic, believing it could sprinkle relatively small amounts of money onto a terrain lightly seeded with counterrevolution, and a mighty movement would grow...
...But at the time the diplomatic opening was simply too meager...
...707-708...
...foreign policy...
...Casey, for his part, has allocated a growing proportion of agency dollars to clandestine and paramilitary activities...
...2. The New York Times, February 5, 1986...
...Pastora, the charismatic "Comandante Zero" of the Sandinista revolution, had left the Nicaraguan government in a pique in early 1982 and later founded the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE), a contra group based in Costa Rica...
...The New York Times, December 19, 1982...
...He has personally lobbied the private sector for funds that ultimately go for both military and nonlethal assistance to the rebels.* Through the National Security Planning Group he has been privy to strategic discussions and approved all facets of the operation...
...Nevertheless, Adm...
...38 At least one senior agent, John Horton, resigned after his reports were doctored to represent Casey's view of what should be happening...
...The Washington Post, February 4, 1984...
...The previous year the Carter Administration had earmarked $1 million in secret money for the domestic opposition in Nicaragua...
...5 3 According to Edgar Chamorro, North informed the rebels that he and Lehman would take over supervision of rebel military operations after the cut-off and "assured the directors that they would find a way to keep us alive...
...22 Because CIA training of the contras was a sensitive issue with Congress, Casey began working with the Argentineans in 1981...
...military maneuvers, the CIA established logistical supply lines into Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua itself...
...Formally nameless, it is known as the "208 Committee" after the room where it meets in the old Executive Office Building...
...The New Republic, August 5, 1985, p. 18-19...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 3, 1985...
...The New York Times, November 8, 1983...
...In the same way, the CIA dumped Kurdish guerrillas in 1975 when it was no longer politically expedient to wage war against the Iraqi government...
...The payroll was $300,000 a month...
...In April 1984, after the CIA mining of Nicaragua's harbors produced a barrage of congressional and public criticism, NSC Director Robert C. McFarlane presented President Reagan with a secret plan to organize this support system into an effective replacement for the CIA...
...7. Shultz, in Foreign Affairs, p. 707...
...The Washington Post, December 16, 1984...
...9. The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 1985...
...Overseas, the agency mounted a campaign to overthrow the Sandinistas, built around recruitment and support of a proxy army widely known as contras...
...Until 1984, the third-party network had served as an ancillary system to provide material support to the rebels...
...March 3, 1986...
...public opinion...
...Henry Fairlie, cited in Alan Crawford, Thunder on the Right (New York: Pantheon, 1980), p. 89...
...But even apart from the Administration's involvement with the rebels, the Sandinistas had reason to doubt Washington's good faith...
...Notwithstanding some isolated contra military successes in 1984, CIA and Pentagon officials in the field no longer considered the rebels a military threat to the Nicaraguan government...
...and the CIA's operations director for the covert war, Duane Clarridge, alias "Dewey Maroni...
...In 1984 Congress limited aid to $24 million and suspended aid for fiscal year 1985...
...George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), pp...
...This year, when he abandoned his revolt, Pastora resisted making common cause with the ex-National Guardsmen and CIA agents who control the FDN...
...3 These officials were identified as familiar with the negotiations which took place November 1982-precisely the meetings at which the decision to finance and train an ex-Somocista exile army was taken...
...4 9 W HEN PRESIDENT REAGAN DECLARED IN March of this year, "I am a contra," this was more than rhetoric...
...Anti-Sandinista groups were allowed to train openly in Florida and California camps throughout that year, mocking U.S...
...5. George P. Shultz, "New Realities and New Ways of Thinking," Foreign Affairs, Vol...
...operations agents alone account for more than 1,000 of the new hirings...
...The ambitions of both Casey and Clarridge, like those of the exSomocista Guardsmen, could not be satisfied by a twobit harassing operation...
...The Washington Post, February 24, 1985...
...The CIA's increasing reliance on unofficial assets and private contracts, arrangements which were necessarily secret, increased suspicions...
...we were going to knock off these little brown people on the cheap...
...FROM ITS INCEPTION THE ANTI-NICARAgua operation has generated intense debate within the national security community...
...The Pentagon provided training and technical support to these agents, who conducted attacks and carried out sabotage against various economic targets inside Nicaragua...
...The president assisted the agency's comeback by lavish funding...
...When Congress denied him the funds he sought for the operation and reined in the CIA, Reagan authorized the NSC to pinch-hit for the CIA and coordinate a network of outside support...
...As late as May 1983, the CIA was predicting that the rebels had a "good chance of overthrowing the Sandinista government by the end of the year...
...The Administration for its part defended its maneuver as a logical response to wrong-headed congressional restrictions...
...3 0 And with unwitting prescience, another added, "We realized that the surest way to have this kind of project backfire would be if Somoza's military men were involved...
...The UCLAs, launched from a CIA "mother ship," included Salvadoreans, Hondurans, Argentineans, Chileans and Ecuadoreans, all trained in underwater sabotage by the CIA.47 "The FDN turned out to be an instrument of the United States government and specifically, the CIA," declared former FDN leader Edgar Chamorro before the World Court, to which Nicaragua had brought an action against the United States...
...Ibid...
...4. William LeoGrande, "The United States and Nicaragua," in Thomas W. Walker, ed., Nicaragua: The First Five Years (New York: Praeger, 1985), p. 432...
...W HEN THE CIA RECEIVED THE 1981 DIRECtive to organize a proxy war in Nicaragua, it was ready...
...Overall, nearly $1 billion in secret funding has gone to finance a REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 20handful of large-scale operations and countless smaller ones...
...Enders' tone was imperious and among his demands was the humiliating insistence that the Sandinistas dismantle their entire military arsenal...
...For the president, the assumptions of this strategy were never questioned...
...Vernon Walters, special assistant to the secretary of state and former deputy director of the CIA, arranged the unification of the fragmented bands of exNational Guardsmen raiding Nicaragua from Honduras into the 15th of September Legion...
...observed, "It would be stretching the integrity of the [Boland amendment] to suggest that this prohibition was not intended to cover the NSC...
...Southern Command, Gen...
...2 In retrospect even the prospect of conditional coexistence with the United States might have been pursued to the Sandinistas' advantage...
...The NSC role in turn increased executive involvement...
...Then, in October 1983, the agency decided that the FDN needed a "single spokesman in order to more effectively persuade Congress...
...Members include Donald R. Fortier, deputy national security affairs adviser...
...5 To fill the gap, the NSC, heretofore only a deliberative and decision-making body for the contra war, was tapped to direct the political and military operations...
...Its agents began recruiting additional ex-guardsmen from exile, paid regular salaries to the contras and armed, equipped and fed the 22force...
...The manual was designed precisely to control rebel abuses by converting the random terror employed by contra forces into an effective tactical weapon for realizing Washington's goals...
...Oliver North, described as "McFarlane's McFarlane," was placed in charge of this as well...
...8. In These Times, May 4-10, 1983...
...While the objective was ostensibly to interdict arms bound for El Salvador, in both the directive and the presidential finding of December 2, 1981, the CIA was given wide latitude to conduct covert political and paramilitary operations against "Cuban supply lines inside Nicaragua...
...26 In early 1982, Casey and senior CIA paramilitary officers drew up a timetable for victory...
...The CIA track record is less impressive when it comes to long-term covert wars...
...People in charge of an operation have an obvious stake in believing that it will succeed," says David MacMichael, who resigned from the CIA in protest over its role in the contra war, "and they need intelligence which supports that position...
...28-38...
...NOW YOU DON'T JULY/AUGUST 1986 'C a, n 0 z 25SOWING DRAGON A'S TEETH SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH throw of the Nicaraguan government...
...Since 1980 the CIA had been funding the Miami-based anti-Sandinista exile party, the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), through one of its leaders, Francisco Cardenal.1 8 Soon after, in August 1981, Walters and CIA officials bribed the UDN to merge with the newly constituted military front, preparing the documents and arranging a signing ceremony in Guatemala City...
...4 ' To dispel these doubts in 1981-1982 the CIA had to demonstrate tight command and control...
...Other members included the head of the U.S...
...N FACT, THE ENTIRE NICARAGUA POLICY was based on deception...
...citizens and domestic organizations...
...The actions and everything were always controlled by the CIA...
...The CIA moved quickly to formalize its relationship to the Nicaraguan rebels...
...Ideological rigidity at the top demanded that reports conform to the New Right's interpretation of the regional crisis...
...The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 14, 1986...
...Revolutionary Nicaragua was a bone in the throat of the Reagan Administration even before it took office, provoking an obsessional hostility among members of the Reagan team...
...White House counsel concluded that "it would violate no laws, if done carefully" and Reagan approved it...
...Occasionally, information on use of contract employees in Central America has surfaced, as in the mining of Nicaragua's harbors, but the extent to which CIA employees are involved in ostensibly private or rebel activities is as yet a matter of conjecture...
...The Washington Post, August 17, 1985...
...A significant portion of the intelligence community would be just as happy to see secret wars that aren't really secret go away," declared David Atlee Phillips, a founder of the Association of Foreign Service Intelligence Officers...
...They are the ones who manage all this...
...To achieve this goal the Administration devised a multifaceted strategy, including psychological warfare, economic sanctions, the militarization of Honduras and manipulation of U.S...
...The White House, through the NSC, had merely energized a pre-existing CIA-linked network and absorbed it further into the CIA's logistical support system for the contras...
...Somebody's got to look at the national interest, not just the CIA's interest...
...Over the past five years the agency has also augmented its personnel by an estimated 3,000, the largest increase going to the Department of Operations (DO...
...4. Cited in Frances FitzGerald, "The American Millenium," The New Yorker, November 11, 1983, p. 109...
...And not just any agency: the NSC has overall responsibility for all U.S...
...It's really Casey's war," said one intelligence official...
...North presumably arranged the employment of the "retired Pentagon and CIA officers" who trained the rebels in the use of the missiles...
...September 12, 1985...
...The best example of the executive's involvement in prosecuting the contra war is the role of the NSC, which moved to center stage with the cut-off of official aid...
...Others in the national security establishment reluctantly followed the Administration's direction...
...Committee decisions are ratified by the National Security Planning Group, which includes the president and key national security advisers...
...5 4 North addressed himself to the problem of supplies with characteristic energy and imagination...
...John K. Singlaub of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), later boasted that he "was instrumental in helping the freedom fighters get the missiles...
...Agents dictate what organizational conditions must be met to receive aid, including who can and who cannot be a leader, and even administer polygraph tests to weed out those deemed insufficiently obedient to CIA direction...
...The president has put the prestige of his office behind an intense campaign for congressional funding...
...Shultz, in Foreign Affairs, p. 707...
...The effort was a logical consequence of the true CIA aim of destroying the Sandinistas and responsibility for it went right to the top...
...The Latin American Times, March 5, 1985...
...Its "plausible deniability" was based on the deception that these acts were committed by "someone else's contras...
...Still, when the Reagan Administration took office, the power of the CIA had been sharply diminished by revelations of illegal activities...
...3 JULY/AUGUST 1986 23ReO4Io oR z4h Amoe TC SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH Former U.S...
...right: North vanishes from photo distributed to The New York Post NOW YOU SEE HIM...
...Reports of contra attacks on ilREPORT ON THE AMERICAS E n co CE w Q) ,,M 24legitimate targets inside Nicaragua-at a time when the operation was authorized only to intercept arms bound for El Salvador-created the illusion that the CIA could not control its Nicaraguan operatives...
...Ibid...
...see also bookmark distributed by CBN's 700 Club...
...Nevertheless, the CIA has continued to exert influence in political and military questions from San Jos6, Costa Rica...
...These guys didn't know how to buy a Band-Aid," exclaimed an Administration official later identified as North...
...At the same time as the FDN was being created, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders was in Managua with an offer of negotiations...
...NACLA telephone interview with David MacMichael, May 13, 1986...
...The Reagan people were convinced that we got into this through the wimpishness of the Carter Administration," said ex-CIA analyst David MacMichael, "and that they could get us out...
...Chamorro, in First Principles, p. 5. 23...
...Chamorro, in First Principles, p. 7. 49...
...A war of attrition aimed at destabilizing the economy, provoking harsh internal measures by the Sandinistas and demoralizing the population, they argued, could create the conditions for domestic revolt before the rebels invaded in force...
...For that reason the Administration never seriously formulated a precise set of national security objectives with regard to Nicaragua...
...Constitution and encouraged disregard for the 1794 Neutrality Act which prohibits private citizens from aiding the prosecution of any foreign war against a nation with which the United States is at peace...
...In mid1981, Gen...
...The operational tail," said former CIA official David MacMichael, "is increasingly wagging the intelligence dog...
...The Washington Post, March 9, 1986...
...The White House has worked hand-in-glove with the CIA in evolving the anti-Sandinista operation to a greater extent than it has in any other covert war...
...Reagan's appointment of Wall Street millionaire William Casey as director in 1980 signaled its new prominence...
...The Washington Post, March 31, 1986...
...2. NACLA telephone interview with David MacMichael, May 13, 1986...
...One CIA veteran of the operation reflected in 1984 that "if you're going to overthrow anybody you have to do it pretty quickly...
...The Washington Post, August I1, 1985...
...A month later the CIA "repackaged" its Nicaraguans by reorganizing the FDN's directorate to lower the profile of the Somocistas and convey the illusion of a revolt led by former anti-Somocistas and disaffected Sandinistas...
...IT'S A WHOLE PIFFERET SET'VP- CASE' HERE, NOW HAS TO HAVE RIS LIMO PRIV" HIM HERE 70 THE NSC TO PLAN MILITARY CAMPAIGNS" copyright 1985 by Herblock in The Washington Post agency director has a great deal of discretionary power in initiating and carrying out these actions...
...May 30, 1986...
...2 9 Purposely "leaking" information about damaging raids inside Nicaragua was designed both to intimidate the Sandinistas and prepare the public for a larger conflict...
...1, September-October 1985...
...In an unusually sharp condemnation of the action, the House Intelligence Committee stated, "The incident of the manual illustrates once again that the CIA did not have adequate command and control of the entire Nicaraguan covert action...
...The new organization, called the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), gave the military forces a much-needed facade of respectability...
...covert and paramilitary operations...
...According to one correspondent, "The CIA plans to make [the tests] obligatory for everyone who is working with American funds...
...In These Times, May 4-10, 1983...
...Congressional distaste for the CIA war against Nicaragua resulted in the 1983 Boland amendment, which forbade the CIA from using its funds for the overLeft: Reagan and Oliver North (face concealed) greet contra leaders in photo that appeared in The Washington Post...
...The collapse of the negotiations in October 1981 allowed the Administration to portray the Sandinistas to Congress as irreconcilable antagonists, and the CIA was given the green light to construct a military solution...
...The centerpiece of this strategy was a CIA-sponsored proxy war...
...salaries of $2,000 a month were paid to the leaders while recruits were told to live on $1 a day...
...4 5 However harsh, this criticism misses the point...
...emphasis in original...
...Casey would "mount a covert operation in the Vatican if he could," mused one congressional intelligence committee member...
...Ronald F. Lehman II, a special assistant to the president and an NSC member, traveled to the Honduran capital to tell them, one contra leader later recalled, that "as soon as the elections were over, President Reagan would publicly endorse our effort to remov the Sandinistas from power and see to it that we received all the support that was necessary for that purpose...
...But in authorizing "other functions" at the request of the president, it set up a legal loophole for covert activities: over time these became defined as an "operation or activity designed to influence foreign governments, organizations, persons or events in support of U.S...
...Deputy Director John M. McMayon, a 34-year-old CIA veteran, left in February 1986 out of disaffection with the agency's emphasis on proxy anti-communist wars in the Third World...
...White House liaison to the National Security Council and paramilitary expert Marine Lt...
...And it's in this area that things have fallen down...
...The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 1985...
...The Washington Post, February 24, 1985...
...4 2 "The trust isn't there" lamented David Durenberger of the Senate Intelligence Committee...
...The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 1985...
...2 1 So complete was CIA control over rebel supplies that former rebel leader Edgar Chamorro stated, "as long as I was in Honduras [until June 1984] the FDN never acquired its own arms, ammunition or other military equipment...
...When in February 1985 President Reagan publicly declared his intention to "change the basic structure of the present Nicaraguan government," the CIA's ambition had been reduced to undermining-not confronting-the Sandinistas...
...When the Nicaraguans disagreed, said one, "we had no choice but to obey...
...Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA under Carter, noted that while this end run around Congress may not break the law, "it's ridiculous when the CIA had to be kept at arm's length from the contras in order to have another arm of government doing exactly the same thing...
...In 1985, for the first time, the agency allotted more money to covert activities than to technical and secret intelligence gathering...
...The agency recruited indigenous Hmong guerrillas in Vietnam but later abandoned them when the war started to go badly...
...T HE FORMAL INITIATION OF U.S...
...Reminiscent of the "40 Committee" which managed dirty wars in the Johnson and Nixon years, the 208 Committee conceptualizes operations, setting goals and timetables...
...Consequently, as Rep...
...These operations always unravel-unless they take over a country-and they always make a mess...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1985...
...The New York Times, August 13, 1985...
...Oliver North, White House liaison to the NSC, was chosen as point man for coordinating the war: the contras were "his account...
...3 2 In 1982 Honduras became the command and control center for the operation...
...By 1983, over 150 CIA officials and 50-60 Spanishspeaking military personnel maintained contact with the contras...
...He vowed to minimize restrictions and restore morale in his drive to revive the wounded agency...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1982...
...The New York Times, May 23, 1983...
...It was the president's judgment that it was in the United States' interest to do it," said one senior intelligence official...
...deputy secretary of defense for inter-American affairs, Nestor Sanchez...
...That November, the director of the CIA's Central America task force, who went under the name Tony Feldman, told the rebels that the White House was adamant that "the Sandinistas must go" and that "it was important to do it before the election year...
...It also manages budgets and paramilitary logistics, including such details as "which weapons will be shipped, which secret warehouse JULY/AUGUST 198621 0 0 0 Z5 0 JULY/AUGUST 1986 21SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH Report on the Americas SOWING DRAGON'S TEETH Wreckage of a tobacco farm following a contra attack in Jalapa, Nicaragua REPORT ON THE AMERICAS goods used, which middlemen will deliver them to clandestine airstrips...
...3 A related concern dealt with the manipulation of field intelligence coming from Central America...
...By 1985, the growing strength and experience of the Sandinista Army enabled it to drive the bulk of the contra forces back to their bases in Honduras...
...When U.S.-Argentinean relations soured as a result of the Malvinas/Falklands war in the spring of 1982, the CIA took over the job of advising and training the counterrevolutionaries...
...The New York Times, May 29, 1986...
...This does not include large numbers of "outside assets," usually retained under contract.' 2 The CIA has frequently used such personnel to enhance "deniability" when it undertakes politically sensitive or illegal operations...
...HOSTILIties against Nicaragua dates from a November 16, 1981 National Security Directive authorizing support for a covert paramilitary operation in Central America...
...3. The Washington Post, February 14, 1982...
...Newsweek, April 16, 1984...
...Grassroots, May 9, 1984...
...Martha Honey, "Contra Polygraphs," The Nation, March 29, 1986...
...neutrality laws...
...Report of European Correspondent Ernest Beck on WBAI Evening Night News (New York City), May 27, 1986...
...7. David Atlee Phillips, "Why the CIA Leaves Its Contras Hanging," The Washington Post, April 6, 1986...
...Ibid., p. 93...
...The Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1985...
...Rebel logistics had been entirely in the hands of the CIA...
...Early on the White House ruled out accommodation with the Sandinistas, determined instead to roll back the revolution...
...5 2 Within a few months North had made himself a bureaucratic field marshal for the contra war, overseeing political developments as well as military and logistical strategies...
...George Clair, head of the CIA's clandestine service and Morton I. Abramowitz, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research...
...A senior Administration official solemnly declared that "the president and the National Security Council looked over proposals to create our own paramilitary force, but once the idea of using former Nicaraguan National Guard commanders was rejected [sic] there didn't seem to be a feasible way to do it...
...After the media-led by a November 1982 Newsweek cover story-had made the war the biggest public secret of the time, the CIA moved to put a respectable face on its operations...
...He continued: "The training was carried out by North American instructors but always directed by the CIA...
...Arturo Cruz, then FSLN ambassador to Washington, later recalled: "I was flabbergasted by the demands," adding that it sounded "like the conditions of a victorious power...
...3. Cited in Christopher Layne, "The Real Conservative Agenda," Foreign Policy, no...
...they could punish but they could not win...
...At home, under a December 1981 executive order, the CIA was authorized for the first time to conduct covert operations inside the United States, including surveillance of U.S...
...ambassador to Honduras, John Negroponte, on embassy steps, 1984 Between 1982 and 1983 the contra force, aided by another $60 million in U.S...
...troops...
...A lack of confidence prevailed, creating uncertainty about the objectives and practicality of the operation, and evoking fears of a "slow Bay of Pigs...
...Aided by U.S...
...62 Attempts to investigate the NSC operation came to nothing, the Administration refused to supply documents or on-the-record testimony and Congress, having just sanctioned $27 million in "humanitarian" aid to the contras, was in no mood to take on the Administration...
...The Washington Post, August 17, 1985...
...Its 1986 budget for covert actions around the world (not including the contra war) stands at $500 million...
...But because this legislation had specifically restricted only the CIA, not the NSC, technically there was no violation...
...the personnel, the cannon fodder as they say, were the Hondurans, but it was the gringos who controlled everything...
...The real objective-the overthrow of the Sandinistas-converged perfectly with the aims of the former National Guardsmen, who saw themselves neither as Washington's private border patrol, nor, as the Administration later claimed, as a bargaining chip for gaining Sandinista compromises...
...The two-track strategy resulted in some particularly cynical Administration newspeak...
...The groundwork, however, had been laid considerably earlier...
...If passed, this year's Administration request for an additional $100 million in military and "humanitarian" aid would restore primacy to the CIA...
...9. Layne, in Foreign Policy, p.77...
...The New York Times, August 13, 1985...
...funding, grew to 6,000 men...
...Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (Boston: South End Press, 1985), p. 131...
...Top agency officials were also directly involved in strategic military planning and tactics...
...military construction in Honduras as part of U.S...
...The CIA's War 1. The Pentagon Republic, An Insite Production, filmed and edited by Gillian Brown, 1985...
...The New York Times, September 12, 1985...
...The ban on direct CIA involvement continued in 1985, when Congress voted $27 million in "humanitarian aid" to the contras, and expressly forbid agency involvement...
...These coups were quick, if nasty...
...Edgar Chamorro, excerpts from his affidavit presented to the World Court in First Principles, Center for National Security Studies (Washington), Vol...
...Named to head the new organization were the FDN's Adolfo Calero, ARDE's Alfonso Robelo and former Sandinista ambassador and frustrated 1984 presidential aspirant, Arturo Cruz...
...In response to the resulting congressional outcry, CIA training camps and bases were closed and paramilitary operatives purged...
...government...
...The Washington Post, March 9, 1986...
...Oliver North...
...Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: U.S...
...It built a virtual private army of 30,000 Meos in Laos, but ultimately left them to their own devices...
...The Miami Herald, January 18, 1986...
...The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 1985...
...SN ITS EARLY YEARS THE NICARAGUA operation was managed by a restricted interagency group or RIG, headed by the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, first Thomas Enders and later Langhorne Motley...
...The CIA admitted to Congress that the agency had "now assumed day-to-day control of counterrevolutionary activities, including pinpointing targets, plotting attacks and conferring with rebel field leaders...
...Such broad empowerment has made congressional restriction of the agency's covert activities difficult...
...The New York Times August 10, 1985...
...6. David Wise, "Blurring Its Trail...
...It was created by the CIA, it was supplied, equipped, armed and trained by the CIA and its activities-both political and military-were directed and controlled by the CIA...
...4 (Spring 1985), p. 713...
...Then when we knew enough, they talked to us about our mission, which was to sabotage ports, refineries, boats, bridges and to make it appear that the contras had done it...
...His right-hand man in the private domestic network, retired Major Gen...
...October 1, 1985...
...Of course there are a few true believers in the government who think the Soviet Union is behind everything," says David MacMichael, "but for the most part they're a pretty cynical bunch who thought they could win easily in Nicaragua and publicize this as a defeat of the evil empire...
...63, no...
...The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 1985...
...a pitiful remnant" escaped to Thailand in 1975...
...Even before Reagan took office, Congress had reduced the number of covert action oversight committees to which the president must report from eight to two...
...It was also no secret that Duane Clarridge, the operation's project director, wanted to mount a spectacular operation to catapult himself to bigger things, as William Colby had done in Vietnam...
...We were trained in Panama, the United States and other places that we didn't know because we entered and left by night," the unnamed man in green fatigues stated as the camera rolled...
...There is an important amount of trust that has to exist between the committee and the [CIA] professionals it's overseeing...
...John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: Norton, 1978), p. 235...
...The Washington Post, March 31, 1986...
...In August 1985, Congress approved $27 million in "humanitarian" aid, specifically prohibiting the CIA and the Pentagon from interfering with the delivery of this aid, which was to be coordinated through the State Department's specially created Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office...
...Michael D. Barnes (D-Md...
...61 (Winter 1985-1986), p. 77...
...Chamorro, in First Principles, p. 7. 48...
...But it was not until July 1985 that the Reagan Administration managed to cobble together a unified rebel 26REPORT ON THE AMERICAS REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26group, called the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO...
...In These Times, March 26-April 1, 1986...
...The Central America crisis provided both stimulus and rationale for the resurgence of the CIA...
...2 In order to maintain the public pretense, the agency had to keep its contacts with Ed6n Pastora secret, since he was fighting on the Costa Rican border-nowhere near routes to El Salvador...
...27 "There were always two tracks," said a CIA official: "the publicly stated CIA objective of interdicting weapons to Salvadorean guerrillas, and the overthrow of the Sandinista government...
...North's first task was to assure the contras that, in spite of the congressional vote, the Administration was still totally committed to overthrowing the Sandinista *See "Franchising Aggression," pp...
...Paul Gorman...
...6. The New York Times, March 3, 1985...
...Chamorro, in First Principles, p. 5. 25...
...16, March 1982, p. 29...
...Roy Gutman, "Nicaragua: America's Diplomatic Charade," Foreign Policy, No...
...4 3 But if the agency wished to avoid a clash with Congress, this was the price it had to pay...
...2 By sponsoring a proxy war the Administration thought it could avoid the politically unpopular alternative of a military invasion to topple the Sandinistas...
...The International Activists Division, a special covert action unit, was reduced to a shadow of its former importance.' T HE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION THUS SET out at once to reconstitute the CIA as a potent foreign policy tool...
...Without this sanctuary and the lifeline provided by Washington, the counterrevolution would have been destroyed in a matter of months...
...As Rep...
...34 But six months later the agency reversed itself, admitting that the contras could never triumph alone...
...They, like the organization itself, became nothing more than executioners [sic] of the CIA's orders...
...They tended not to remain secret and were vulnerable to shifts in Washington's political winds...
...But the 1980 Republican Party platform had condemned Carter's leniency and pledged "to support the efforts of the Nicaraguan people to establish a free and independent government...
...the Sandinistas simply had to go...
...3 9 Many Pentagon officials were also skeptical of the operation, believing it could backfire and require the involvement of U.S...
...Yet the perception in Congress, and gradually among the public, was often of an operation running amuck in the wilds of northern Nicaragua...
...and directing an invasion force that ousted Guatemala's President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, ushering in 30 years of repressive military rule...
Vol. 20 • July 1986 • No. 4
