Don't Shoot the Ambassador
Rosenberg, Tina
DON'T SHOOT THE AMBASSADOR Reagan's Central America policy has been to fire the diplomats for delivering the bad news by Tina Rosenberg In 1981, Anthony C.E. Quainton was a career diplomat...
...ambassador to El Salvador, sent a confidential cable to the State Department that said, "Members of the security corps, and, to a lesser extent, the Army, have continued to hunt down and kill suspected leftist subversives . . .the Ministry of Defense has yet to punish anyone, civilian or military, for killing a leftist!' This directly contradicted a letter sent the same month by Jimmy Carter's State Department to Congress as part of Carter's campaign to continue military aid to El Salvador...
...When Blood pressed his case in a cable sent to Washington in April 1971, he was fired...
...The Contras are poorly managed, fragmented, and militarily weaker than two years ago...
...Lawrence Pezzullo, U.S...
...When the administration accused the Sandinistas of persecuting Jews, Quainton reported that "no verifiable evidence" had been found to support the accusation...
...In Bergold, the administration finally has its kind of man in Managua: a diplomat who will tell it only what it wants to hear...
...indeed, without honest appraisals from reliable sources in the field, a policy—any policy—stands little chance of succeeding...
...As a result, the Carter administration suspended payments on its $75 million economic aid program to the Sandinistas...
...When the administration charged that the Sandinistas were running training camps for terrorists from around the world, reporters in Nicaragua asked the embassy for specific information...
...Quainton became a talisman for those in the department who wanted to turn the policy around," says the official...
...Every president has the right to ignore recommendations from the field, and in this case, opening the doors to China was probably of overriding importance...
...One doesn't have to adore the Sandinistas, or hate the Reagan administration's Central American policies, to appreciate the need to have the messengers deliver accurate information...
...Quainton was fired shortly after the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, headed by Henry Kissinger, visited Managua in the fall of 1983...
...When I told reporters on permanent assignment in Nicaragua that I was writing a story about Bergold, their reaction was practically unanimous: good story, but don't do it...
...But people with any authority just dismissed the cables ." While Quainton was ambassador, one official in the Nicaraguan embassy told the Boston Globe that "looking at what we report, compared to the statements and actions that are coming out of Washington, it seems they must be using our reports as toilet paper...
...Smith reported this to his superiors at the State Department and asked if there was evidence to the contrary...
...We wanted a forthright condemnation of the atrocities" Richard Nixon was not about to condemn Pakistan, since he was using it to help open relations with the People's Republic of China...
...Even though he was Reagan's man in Managua, Quainton's reports often differed from what the administration wanted to hear...
...If, like his predecessors, Bergold's views contrast so sharply with the president's, why hasn't he been removed...
...He fired him...
...The East Pakistani leader demanded autonomy for his country...
...On the things that are important to us, Bergold is not an obstacle...
...Likewise, had the administration been willing to listen to its own diplomats, it would have realized that the San dinistas were using some of the administration's aggressive tactics to excuse their failings...
...consulate in Dacca, East Pakistan, reported widespread massacres...
...Lane Evans, who met with Bergold in 'Nicaragua after the Reagan administration announced economic sanctions in the spring of 1985...
...Of course, if he thought we were wrong, he wouldn't necessarily tell us...
...For all its emphasis on human rights, similar cases occured in the Carter administration...
...ambassador to Nicaragua during the revolution, says that in January 1981, intelligence sources indicated that the Sandinistas were shipping arms to the leftist guerrillas in El Salvador...
...Instead, the Sandinistas have become more extreme, and no one can claim they have moved closer to democracy, pluralism, or non-alignment over the past few years...
...Moreover, Bergold reportedly disagrees with the president's repeated assertion that the ground is crumbling underneath the Sandinistas...
...While the effects of the $100 million in aid Congress recently approved for the contras will not be known for some time, it is clear that Nicaraguan dissatisfaction with the Sandinistas has yet to translate into support for the Contras...
...But by firing his consul-general, Nixon sent a signal to the diplomatic corps that he was no longer interested in accurate cables if they were controversial...
...He'll give you an assessment that is light-years away from the administration's version," says Joe Eldrige, head of the liberal Washington Office on Latin America, and who has been briefed by Bergold...
...Other than a one-year assignment in Honduras in 1960, Bergold had spent his entire 25-year diplomatic career in Eastern Europe and Washington...
...He's pretty savvy about what the home base will tolerate, and [it] won't tolerate much ." Bergold's predecessors didn't understand this...
...I have no sense that Harry is writing stuff they are not interested in in D.C.," says a former administration official...
...actions in the way the administration had hoped...
...In a nationally televised speech in March arguing for aid to the contras, Reagan made several charges unsupported by evidence...
...In 1981, for instance, after Pezzullo reported that shipments of Nicaraguan arms to Salvadoran guerrillas had slowed, the president could have signaled a willingness to reward the Sandinistas for actions he approved of by restoring economic aid...
...In fact, according to one diplomat in Managua, Bergold "is too bright to fall for the freedom fighters stuff...
...According to sources close to Bergold, he disagrees with a number of Reagan's allegations concerning the Sandinistas, including their involvement in drug trafficking and religious persecution...
...Many have been transferred, fired, or forced to resign...
...After more than two months Smith got a response that, he says "acknowledged that, no, we had no hard evidence to the contrary, but one had to deduce that the flow was continuing ." Smith says he saw several intelligence reports suggesting that the flow of arms had drastically dropped off...
...than...
...White's replacement was Deane Hinton, a tough-talking conservative...
...After that, Pezzullo, having little influence, retired from the service...
...If the president is not getting what he wants in the real Nicaragua, perhaps this is one reason why...
...He'll tell you how appalled he is by, the administration's reliance on hyperbole...
...Reagan's diplomats in Nicaragua have, at various times, said that Nicaragua is not a threat to its neighbors, that it has reduced the flow of arms to the guerrillas in El Salvador, and that it is not a Soviet puppet...
...By forcing out Quainton, his predecessor Lawrence Pezzulo and other diplomats in Central America, the Reagan administration has sent to the field a very dangerous message of its own: the only facts the president wants to hear are those -that support his policy...
...He agreed...
...In Nicaragua, ambassadors and diplomats who have brought their superiors information that challenges the Reagan line—even Tina Rosenberg is a journalist living in Central America...
...instead the administration cut off all remaining U.S...
...While last winter the Contras disrupted the vital coffee harvest, killing around 35 workers and forcing $20 million of beans to rot on the bushes, this year the Sandinistas picked the entire crop without a single incident...
...Senior administration officials quickly criticized Hinton in the press, and in May 1983, he was removed...
...He alleged, for instance, that "top Nicaraguan government officials are deeply involved in drug trafficking ." A junior aide to the Nicaraguan interior minister was indicted in 1984 on charges of cocaine smuggling, but three days after Reagan's speech, the Drug Enforcement Administration disputed the president's assertion, saying it had no information implicating "the minister of interior or other Nicaraguan officials" in drug trafficking...
...That, combined with Nixon's desire to keep Pakistan from tilting toward the Soviet Union, precluded any criticism of its government...
...This message has been heard loud and clear...
...He said the embargo could be interpreted as an anti-people policy and could well give the Sandinistas an excuse for their failings...
...Says Smith, "It was as if we were penalizing the Cubans for ending the shipments ." Shortly after this, Smith resigned...
...ambassador to Nicaragua, sends little else...
...Reagan's Bermuda Triangle Accurately representing the complexities of the field while faithfully carrying out policy is the balancing act required of the foreign service...
...Keep it up, Hinton warned, and the U.S...
...The president's policy has been persistent: shoot the messenger whenever •he carries bad news...
...Pezzullo says he argued that this behavior should have been rewarded and encouraged...
...For nearly two years, Hinton followed the administration line...
...Yet the killings continued—large scale killings of Hindus and opposition Muslims...
...could cut off military aid...
...Just because Bergold has been sensibly critical of his government doesn't imply he's advising his government that they're wrong," says one diplomat in Managua...
...Bergold cannot change that, but his cautious approach to communicating with Washington gives him the credibility with the administration that allows him to keep his job and win selected minor battles, which is the best he can hope to do...
...It is one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy...
...In November 1970, the Bengalis of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) won a majority in the country's legislature...
...The administration has chosen to apply pressures to an imaginary country, whose people and behavior have been constructed in Washington from an elaborate set of prejudices...
...The administration is no longer ignoring the facts...
...It was made clear to me things would be better if I left Pakistan," says Blood...
...As head of the State Department's Office for Combating Terrorism, Quainton had acquired impeccable conservative credentials...
...Despite this fact, on April 19, 1982, the State Department announced it was imposing new restrictions on tourism in Cuba because "Cuba is increasing its support for armed violence in this hemisphere...
...He can't say the president is an asshole for calling the Contras freedom fighters, but he can give a much more realistic appraisal than the administration line...
...Imaginary diplomacy The consequences of this kind of diplomacy can be measured in terms of missed opportunities...
...Pakistan objected and, on March 25, 1971, began a crackdown on the Bengalis...
...We were very impressed with him," says John Ayers, an aide to Democratic Rep...
...They have grown more repressive, more dependent on the Soviet Union, and less tolerant of political opposition and private business...
...And he was damned lucky to get it," the diplomat added...
...Wayne Smith, the top U.S...
...We were reporting all these atrocities, and yet . . .the president [was] congratulating the president of Pakistan on National Day...
...Winning battles, losing the war The result of Reagan's diplomatic house cleaning can be summed up in two words: Harry Bergold...
...When the Reagan administration needed a diplomat to fill the sensitive post of ambassador to Nicaragua, Quainton, though he had no Latin American experience, was selected...
...for the purpose of better achieving the president's goals—have risked being labeled pro-Sandinista...
...reporters in the region, who appreciate his critical assessments of the administration's policy...
...And despite Reagan's claims that this military buildup is offensive, a classified U.S...
...Pezzullo told Roy Gutman of Newsday that when he reported this to the newly formed Reagan administration, no one was interested...
...According to one reporter for a major news organization, Bergold told him there was nothing to the story...
...The diplomatic landscape is strewn with people like Quainton who were punished for speaking their minds...
...Marines), Reagan's allegation that the Iron Curtain is descending on Nicaragua seems excessive...
...We said the policy didn't make sense...
...Although he is careful not to publicly criticize American policy, it is clear that Bergold, like Pezzullo and Quainton, quickly developed a different view of Nicaragua than that of the president...
...The administration's insistence on receiving only the facts that support its policy has made Nicaragua, and to some extent all of Central America, a diplomatic Bermuda Triangle...
...ignore White...
...Meanwhile in Nicaragua, Pezzullo had been replaced by Anthony Quainton...
...After the suspension and diplomatic pressure, Pezzullo says intelligence in early March 1981 showed the shipments had stopped...
...He stormed back to Washington saying, 'What's all this pussyfooting around with the Sandinistas?' " Quainton's next post was Kuwait...
...Kissinger was not a happy man after his briefing," says one diplomat in Managua...
...The problem is that any news, good or bad, that accurately reflects what is happening and how a policy is working, should be welcome...
...A tough-minded and careful diplomat, Bergold does not publicize his views or speak for attribution...
...At the time of his appointment in January 1982, a State Department official told The Washington Post that Quainton was selected "partly on the basis that he's outspoken and is a good, reliable reporter...
...As a result, American policy towards Nicaragua is now based on self-deception...
...assistance...
...diplomat in Cuba from 1979 to 1982, had an almost identical experience...
...They were concerned that they would lose Bergold as a source and that he might get into trouble in Washington...
...Most of the insurrectionists had already been driven out of the country," said Archer Blood, then consul general in Dacca, the ranking U.S...
...it isn't getting them...
...After two years of Quainton's outspokenness and reliability, Reagan fired him...
...DON'T SHOOT THE AMBASSADOR Reagan's Central America policy has been to fire the diplomats for delivering the bad news by Tina Rosenberg In 1981, Anthony C.E...
...This task is always harder in politically hot regions, but never has it been worse than in Central America today...
...The letter characterized the government as a "reform government" that "was attempting to control abuses committed by elements of its security forces ." White's cables concerning massacres, the government's lack of popular support, and the influence of the military were repeatedly ignored by Carter...
...At the same time, the administration has failed to overthrow the Sandinistas, or even to make reasonable progress in that direction...
...intelligence report written in 1984 and obtained by The Wall Street Journal, states that "the overall buildup is primarily defense-oriented ." The report goes on to suggest that the increase in Soviet aid may have been prompted by the escalation of the CIAbacked Contra war...
...Quainton praised the Sandinistas for progress in education and health care, and he insisted the government was more popular and less of a threat to its neighbors than Reagan claimed...
...In 1984, the Soviet bloc supplied $250 million in military aid to Nicaragua, twice as much as in 1983, but still only a fraction of the estimated $4 billion supplied to Cuba...
...When Reagan took office, he did more...
...The policy of punishing people in the field may help explain why neither the Contras nor the Sandinistas are responding to U.S...
...The Sandinistas may be a repressive regime, but the president's views on Nicaragua seem to be guided more by ideology than by facts...
...Reagan's policy concerning Nicaragua is set...
...According to an administration official familiar with Anthony Quainton's cables, for instance, Quainton's reporting was too removed from the administration line to carry any weight...
...While his credibility with reporters may have resulted in some stories the administration wants, a protective conspiracy of silence about Bergold has developed on the part of U.S...
...The U.S...
...I was encouraged to ask for home leave and transfer...
...The answer is that, unlike Pezzullo and Quainton, few of Bergold's differences are reflected in his cables to Washington...
...Quainton was a career diplomat whose continued success seemed certain...
...Knowing he can keep his position and what influence he has only if his cables to Washington reflect administration views, Harry Bergold, the current U.S...
...One by one, those in sensitive posts have disappeared...
...Bergold's strategy seems based in a resigned pragmatism...
...Firing line Few presidents have let facts, or the diplomats that report them, stand in the way of their policies...
...We don't get the feeling from his reporting or from talking to him that he is out of step in any way," says one high-level State Department official who reads Bergold's cables...
...Even if the administration didn't use this kind of reporting as a pretext for reconciliation, at the very least the president could respond to such information in a way that would encourage moderation on the part of the Sandinistas...
...Sources also say Bergold believes the level of discontent with the Sandinistas has .far from peaked, and he is not certain people will ever be enthusiastic about the Contras...
...Moreover, while the presence of Soviet and Cuban troops is disturbing (there are more Cuban soldiers in Nicaragua today than there ever were U.S...
...That was the message Harry Bergold might have delivered to the administration concerning its trade embargo—had anyone in Washington been willing to listen...
...In December 1981, the Cubans told Smith that no arms were being shipped from Cuba to either El Salvador or Nicaragua...
...According to former New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner in his book Weakness and Deceit, in October 1979, Robert White, then-U.S...
...embassy official in East Pakistan...
...Then, on October 29, 1982, Hinton, in a luncheon speech to the Salvador Chamber of Commerce, attacked the "mafia" on the right that was destroying the country every bit as much as the guerrillas...
...They control no land, have no urban holdings, and have lost ground in the northern mountains and southern jungles...
...After dismissing Quainton, the president selected Bergold as ambassador to Nicaragua...
Vol. 18 • September 1986 • No. 8
