Panel Discussion: U.S. Strategic Interests in the Caribbean and Central America

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An innovation of the Insti­tute’s 111th Annual Meeting held at the Naval War College on 12 April was the inclusion of two panel discussions and the questions and answers that followed. This is the transcript of one of these events. The transcript of the Strategic Defense, Strategic Moderniza­tion and Arms Control Panel will be published next month.

Admiral Watkins: This is the second of our distinguished panels on an issue of great importance to the United States, in fact, the Free World. I hoped that we would touch not only on the importance of the situation in Central America as it relates to national secu­rity, but also couple into the discussion the importance of eliminating the insid­ious drug problem, so much of which emanates from that region and feeds the arms coffers of insurgents’ efforts to destroy and break down the very fabric of our Western society.

So let me introduce, then, the panel members: Mr. Robert “Bud” McFar- lane, Assistant to the President for Na­tional Security Affairs, former Marine and Naval Academy graduate. This dedicated American has made a won­derful impression on all of us who deal with the National Security Council on issues of great importance to the United States.

Ambassador Mike Armacost, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, schooled in this area, is one of the highly respected members of our State Department.

General Paul Gorman, former Com­mander in Chief of the Southern Com­mand, based in Panama, has done so much to lead our nation to a new awareness of the importance of things in this hemisphere to our mutual na­tional and collective security. Paul is a

ALL PHOTOS BY PHI (AC) P.J. SALESt, USN

UNITED STATES

NAVAL INSTITUTE

GfN

RAUL F GORMAN

B.F McMAHON

M.H. ARMACOST

HON

R.C.McFARlANt

30-year member of the Naval Institute. That’s impressive. His departure from the Southern Command was a great loss to our nation. He is a unique indi­vidual, unusually well qualified for the assignment that he was given at a very critical time for the nation. He’s turned his command over just recently to an­other very talented Army four-star offi­cer, fluent in Spanish, who has picked up the reins beautifully because Paul left him an organization that did not exist when Paul took over a few years ago in this troubled part of the world.

Our moderator. Captain Bemie McMahon, is now Staff Director for the Senate Select Committee on Intelli­gence, one of the most important com­mittees in the Senate. Bernie has just left duty as a member of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, working di­rectly for the chairman on many of these important issues. Let’s get on with it, Bemie.

Captain McMahon: As you know, Central America is a region which is experiencing profound economic, politi­cal, military, and cultural change. The direction that the change takes will have significant impact on U. S. na­tional security. This afternoon, we’d like to explore the changes starting first with a brief overview, then the current situation as it’s viewed by our experts on Central America and the trends they see either toward democracy or away from democracy, and the elements which influence those trends. Finally, we will examine U. S. interest in the region, the development and implemen­tation of U. S. policy for Central America, and the obstacles and oppor­tunities which we face in pursuing that policy. I’d like to start first with Mr. McFarlane, and ask him to give us a brief overview of the current situation as he sees it in Central America and the trends he sees developing. Mr. McFarlane, why is Central America so important to the United States; what are the elements of U. S. policy interests there?

Mr. McFarlane: For more than five years now. Central America has experi­enced growing unrest, primarily eco­nomic, but derivative from the eco­nomic turmoil, political and military stress as well. The original problems which generated this unrest were born of the worsening terms of trade, which each of the countries of the area expe­rienced. This resulted from the increase in prices they had to pay for their im­ports, a time when the oil prices rose for the second time in 1979 and, as well, the decline in prices that they could gain on the world market for pri­mary products, basically, coffee, cocoa, so forth. However, the greater cost of imports—which led then to greater production costs for their own products, to inflation, to lowered pro­duction, to unemployment—and the cycle of declining wages and standard of living that accompanied this disrup­tion of their economies created condi­tions in which the Marxist alternative and the relatively simple formulas asso­ciated with it could have much more appeal.

Similarly, this economic stress cre­ated expectations on each of the gov­ernments there, people naturally turning to their governments to solve these problems, and stressing the political fabric and the institutions beyond any­thing they had ever had to cope with before. The scale of this economic stress would have been sufficient to have taxed virtually any government. It was worsened by military stress—by violence and terrorism as well—that was fomented from Nicaragua, sup­ported by foreign supplies and advice, training, materiel assistance from Cuba, the Soviet Union, and other countries.

Faced with these conditions, the peo­ple naturally expected their govern­ments to be able to cope. But the ensu­ing pressures were, in virtually every case, more than could have been sus­tained, particularly in El Salvador.

Confronted with the prospect of growing instability and spreading vio­lence from El Salvador into Guatemala and Costa Rica, the United States forged a strategy four years ago de­signed to deal with the basic causes of this unrest—the socioeconomic dis­orders brought on by economic condi­tions I’ve mentioned.

If we are to sustain our policies, the American people must gain an appreci­ation of why it is we should care at all. Do we have interests there? Are they threatened? If so, how? And how can we deal with them in a way that holds some promise of not representing an open-ended commitment that may lead ultimately to the involvement of Ameri­can military power? In short, is there a problem which affects our lives? Can we cope with it in a finite period of time? For, I think, if nothing else, Vi­etnam demonstrated to us that no major policy undertaking can be sustained by this or any other administration unless the American people understand it, be­lieve that their government has a strat­egy for dealing with it, and that it can

be done in a reasonably short period ot time, the latter being a particularly dif­ficult part of this question.

I think most of you in this room have more than a speaking acquain­tance with the fact that surely we do have interests in Central America and the Caribbean. A simple look at the map reminds us of the proximity of this area to geostrategic locations, the Panama Canal notably, but also vital sea-lanes through the Caribbean over which pass more than two-thirds of our imported petroleum products and, in addition, through the canal and Atlantic and Pacific sea lines over which half of our international trade passes. The canal and the proximity of it to Nicara­gua, which could ultimately become a staging base for the Soviet Union, and the vulnerability the canal would expe­rience were that to occur are manifestly vital interests threatened by the improv­ing position of the Soviet Union through its surrogate, Nicaragua. So indeed we do have interests, and that they are threatened seems beyond ques­tion, threatened not only because of the association of Nicaragua with the So­viet Union and Cuba, but because of the declaratory policy of Nicaragua, which has been, once it has consoli­dated its revolution inside, to expand it to neighboring countries and ultimately throughout Central America.

President Reagan believed that with that severe threat to our interests, we had to make the necessary investments commensurate with the scale of our in­terests, but that we could do it and turn the tide because the level of violence and outside intervention had not reached a point, a critical mass, that would be impossible to reverse by rely­ing upon primarily local leadership and local resources. But to do so, we did need promptly to make clear to those countries that we were prepared to pro­vide the assistance necessary for’this task. As 1 mentioned at the outset, the components are basic: restore the econ­omies of those countries; and strengthen the democratic institutions to be able to manage that development process in an equitable fashion. Equita­ble in the sense of being able to make clear to their own people that the oli­garchies, the concentration of wealth and of power with relatively few fami­lies, would evolve toward freedom and the opportunities that go with freedom— to compete, to produce, to buy, to own property, and so forth. At the bottom, economic renewal had to be the foun­dation of any hope of success.

The economic programs that the

President has sought to espouse in this nation-building effort have comprised components of aid, investment, and trade. First, there has to be a certain amount of aid in order for them to buy the imports and to start up or renew exporting industries. One can always imagine they could borrow the money, but I think we have seen throughout this hemisphere and beyond the enor­mous costs, risks, and vulnerabilities that go with debt. The enormous debt overhang enduring in Mexico, Argen­tina, Venezuela, and elsewhere makes clear that there are clearly limits to how much money a country ought to reasonably borrow and how much it can borrow.

But far more important than U. S. aid would be private sector investment. American businessmen and women would go to these countries and take the risks to open factories. But beyond doing what borrowed money would do, this investment also carries with it en­trepreneurship, knowledge, know-how, management, and experience. And the transfer of these qualities to the local people will provide that they have some prospect of being able one day to take ownership themselves and to man­age this nation-building effort, even though in the meantime American busi­nesses could expect some protit return.

Finally, trade expresses the notion that once this process begins, there must be a market where these goods can be sold. The trade dimension of this package was basically that we would open our markets and provide for no tariffs or other trade barriers, so that they could find a market once they’d begun to produce.

Now there is a problem with this formula, which sounds rather promis­ing. That is that this nation-building effort cannot get off the ground in the first place if there is a violent threat in the area. No sensible American busi­nessmen or women are going to invest in countries where they might get killed. How many of you in this audi­ence are going to put a lot of money into El Salvador? And so it was clear that with this economic orientation there had to be a security dimension so that countries could provide a shield, a minimum threshold of security behind which all this could take place. But the security dimension of this aid amounts to about 20% of the overall package, and it relies upon not American troops, but the abilities of the local govern­ments to rally their countries to provide for their own defense, to field armies, that can enjoy the support of their own people, and to do all this before the scale of the threat has gotten too great. This was very carefully considered, frankly, in the light of Vietnam, the requirements of turning the tide against insurgents, guerrillas, and the clear rec­ognition that this is a very, very diffi­cult process. But we believed honestly, and we think we have been vindicated in the belief that we have caught this problem in time, caught it before the decline in confidence in the govern­ments has gone too far, caught it be­fore the scale of the insurgency has reached too high a level.

I think, looking back from 1985, there is some solid basis for confidence that the policies are working. You see this in El Salvador, for example, where the country has been able to hold elec­tions in which the people have had enough confidence in the process to turn out and vote, and in which, al­though the elections were bitterly fought among people who disagree with one another, the outcome was supported. The government leaders have been able to consolidate their po­sition, rally the people, and apply the assistance we have given in ways that demonstrated to the people that the government cares and is doing some­thing for them. The corollary effect has been that the people have no longer been willing to support the other side, the insurgents, and the insurgents have had difficulty recruiting and living off the land, and the tide militarily has begun to turn against them. The gov­ernment has also been able to control the military in the sense of turning it away from a history of engaging in violence and terrorism and into a force that indeed is oriented toward the secu­rity of the country and an institution which the people have begun to re­spect, support, and join.

In short, I am saying that the change in circumstance in Central America in the past five years is rather dramatic. We’ve seen elections held in every country there except Nicaragua— discounting the facade of last Novem­ber. These elections have led to gov­ernments and national assemblies which have been supported by the people.

And gradually, the countries’ econo­mies have begun to get back on their feet, although real recovery is many years away.

The problem is that no one has any illusions that this progress can be sus­tained, for as long as there remains in Central America a threat of violence and subversion enjoying an open-ended pipeline of support from outside. That’s why we have sought through diplo­macy, paralleling this economic assis­tance program, a political accommoda­tion between Nicaragua and all of its neighbors. We believe that the Con- tadora process is a satisfactory frame­work through which this negotiated outcome can be found. Twenty-one points of the Contadora Declaration of Principles involve commitment to plu­ralism, democracy, development, dia­logue among countries, and a security arrangement which can work if prop­erly policed and subscribed to by each of the parties.

However, it also envisions that for this process to work, there must be in­ternal reconciliation as well. Clearly, in El Salvador and in every other country there, for as long as insurgencies un­dertake cross-border operations and look for safe haven in Nicaragua or elsewhere, there will be disagreement among those countries as these insur­gent groups cross boundaries and create problems for every country in the re­gion. Consequently, for there to be real peace among countries, there must be peace within each country.

That is why on 4 April, President Reagan proposed that Nicaragua first establish a measure of internal reconcil­iation to relieve the problem brought on by the majority of its own people being disenfranchised at having to seek safe haven outside of Nicaragua. He pro­posed a basis for that negotiation which makes demahds on both sides. It is not a unilateral taking of risks by either.

To the Sandinista government leaders, he asked nothing more than they talk to their own people. To the contras, or freedom fighters, he asked that they extend the window for their offer to negotiate until 1 June, and that in­volves a measure of risk for them to expose themselves to the threat of at­tack by the superior force in Managua. He asked that each side sit at the table and commit themselves to an outcome that involves a pluralism, freedom, de­termination of export of revolution, lowering of ties with Cuba and the Soviet bloc, and a scaling down of the militaries to a point that will reduce the tension between Nicaragua and its neighbors, and represent some measure of military balance.

It’s a fair proposal which can lead to a stable outcome internally in Nicara­gua, but this process has little prospect of success. At least no proposition of negotiation heretofore has been sup­ported by the Nicaraguan Government, and there must be some kind of an in­centive for there to be any hope of change in its attitude. It’s for that rea­son that the President conditioned this offer on our providing a humanitarian assistance, or nonmilitary assistance, to the freedom fighters so that they can keep body and soul together and sur­vive during this negotiation, and to guard against the possibility that the Sandinistas will not deal in good faith, to hold out the hope that at the end of a finite period of time, a reasonable period of time in which progress can be made, if there is none, that we would reinstate military assistance to the freedom fighter movement. It is a framework that is flexible, and we look to the Congress to gauge and support it, with confidence that it can represent a different future for the people of Nic­aragua and all of its neighbors.

So in five years’ time, the country has undergone enormous stress. We think the fundamental economic where­withal for reversing that decline is at hand, and that it can succeed and is demonstrating that it can by the strength of the governments in the area. But for that to be possible, we have to deal with Nicaragua. As of early April, we believe there is on the table a sensi­ble proposal for accommodation inter­nally in Nicaragua. We call upon the Congress to join with us in a process that can lead to peace throughout the area. It’s going to take time and pa­tience, but it can be done.

Captain McMahon: In order to exam­ine a little more closely some of the elements which Mr. McFarlane de­scribed in the overall policy, I’d like to ask Ambassador Armacost to describe for us the progress that’s been made toward democratization in Central America. Central America, unfortu­nately, conjures up in many Ameri­cans’ minds the idea of a banana re­public, some sort of petty military dictatorship. But that’s a misconcep­tion. We’ve seen dramatic changes in the form of government there; the emergence of democracy is fundamen­tal to the success of the policy which Mr. McFarlane described. Would you explore that?

Ambassador Armacost: I think Bud answered the question. There has been a tide running in favor of democratic representative government in the re­gion. It is an American interest to fos­ter democratic values throughout the world because it’s part of our own cul­ture and history, and it’s obviously conducive to the advancement and pro­tection of our interests in the world if patterns of government that include accountability to the people flourish.

We also promote democratic values for very practical reasons in Central Amer­ica. As Bud mentioned, in the pursuit of our security interests in that area, we have sought to persuade Nicaragua to suspend support for insurgent groups in El Salvador. We’ve sought to get it to break its military ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union. We’ve sought to get Nicaragua to reduce the size of its mili­tary establishment, which has created a disequilibrium or imbalance of power in the area. And we seek to achieve these aims through negotiated arrange­ments in the Contadora process.

If you’re going to have reliable agreements, it is our judgment that a degree of accountability by govern­ments to their people helps a great deal. It is our conviction that govern­ments that have procedures of account­ability are less likely to embark on costly and risky ventures against their neighbors. Governments that have to answer to the public are more likely to honor contractual obligations. So as part of the diplomatic effort to secure reliable agreements that can be en­forced and have a reasonable assurance of being complied with, a degree of pluralism and democratic procedures is an important element in the objectives we’re seeking in Contadora. Democrati­zation and national reconciliation have also from the outset been key objec­tives of the Contadora process.

The tide has been running toward democracy throughout the hemisphere:

it’s true of South America; it’s true of Central America. I would ascribe no little of the reason for that to American power. When great powers like the United States are strong and resolute, they’re more likely to inspire emula­tion. There is a relationship between the renewal of American strength and purpose in the world and the fact that in our hemisphere the countries that previously were governed in autocratic ways have been in recent years moving in the direction of democratic proce­dures. The test of democratic govern­ment is the willingness of regimes to submit themselves to the electorate, and the test has been passed by a num­ber of our friends. This administration has assigned an extremely high priority to fostering democratic institutions and values.

The El Salvadoran Government has held four elections in the last three years. During the last two years, there has been a presidential election and, just in March, an election for the na­tional assembly. On the average, 70% of the Salvadoran people voted, despite the fact that they are being subjected to a good deal of violence internally, per­petrated by the Nicaraguan-backed guerrillas. The outcome was accepted by the public and the military, and in­ternationally. The results have been evident in the more confident and ef­fective leadership of President Duarte and the majority which he now enjoys in the national legislature.

By the same token, Costa Rica has a long tradition of democratic rule and has sustained that tradition in the face of turbulence in the area and pressures from Nicaragua. Honduras has been consolidating the democratic tradition, respected by the military over the past four years, and is looking toward elec­tions this coming November. In Guate­mala, there was an election for the constituent assembly last July, and preparations are proceeding for elec­tions for president in October. In short, among our friends, there has been the growth of institutions of accountability, and they have managed the process of elections in a peaceful and a successful fashion.

The one exception has been in Nica­ragua, where the Sandinistas are trying to consolidate a single party regime with the repressive apparatus one asso­ciates with it, including curtailment of press freedom, the rights of political assembly, and in general repression of the democratic opposition. It is for this reason that the President, as Bud said, has encouraged the process of national dialogue in Nicaragua. In that connec­tion it is important to note that Presi­dent Duarte has accepted and initiated a process of dialogue with the armed opposition in El Salvador. President Ortega has rejected dialogue. This is not a matter of our interfering in the domestic affairs of Nicaragua; rather, it’s a matter of our requesting that the Nicaraguans honor obligations that they have already made to the OAS and accepted in the Contadora document of 21 objectives, prominent among which is pursuit of national reconciliation. National reconciliation is embodied in the Contadora draft act, which the Nic­araguan Government claimed last Sep­tember it was ready to sign.

So, in general the tide has been fa­vorable. There is an exception. The proposal of the President is designed to address that exception and encourage a process of politics in Nicaragua which is not only more in consonance with our own values, but with those of the region as well. This would contribute to the reliability or assurance of any agreements that might be reached through the Contadora process.

Captain McMahon: General Gorman; as the commander of the Southern Command, you've seen the Nicaraguan threat emerge over recent years. How serious is the arms buildup in Nicara­gua? Some say that the weapons are for offensive purposes, others for inter­nal security. Are the Nicaraguans really supplying arms to support insurgencies in the neighboring countries? What is your military view of the situation?

General Gorman: The most pernicious aspect of the Nicaraguan military pol­icy is precisely that it threatens that growth in confidence which, Mr. McFarlane emphasized, is sine qua non for economic recovery and political progress in the region. Ambassador Armacost stressed that the progress we have witnessed in the growth of de­mocracy is a product of the perception in Latin America that the United States is strong and resolute. I would simply add to strong and resolute, involved.

To go back to 1979, when the United States, for what seemed at the time to be sound reasons, had a fairly aloof attitude toward our Latin neigh­bors, two-thirds of the people in Latin America lived under authoritarian gov­ernments. In the intervening years, that picture has changed dramatically, and today, 90% of the people in the coun­tries south of our border live under democratic governments. That sort of change has been occasioned by the conviction that the United States really does care about what transpires in those societies, and that we are caring enough to become involved in promot­ing progress. The document produced by the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America is an articulate exposition of the propositions that have been advanced by the previous two speakers. The prospects for political progress—democratization if you will— coupled with economic and societal revival are what is threatened by what is going on in Nicaragua. It is the militarization of Nicaragua which brings to the fore a crisis of confidence in the United States, one which causes much fear and apprehension among our friends in Central America. Hence, it’s not the tanks, artillery pieces, 122-mm. rockets, and Mi-24 helicopters per se, so much as it is the prospect that we might be induced because of diversions into other problems, because of domes­tic concerns, for one reason or another, to leave these nascent democracies fac­ing all of that military power with no prospect of an offsetting stabilizing force in the region.

Now, there should be no doubt in the mind of anyone here that regardless of how that buildup is portrayed— whether what is said is that it is defen­sive or even a buildup in reaction to what the United States is doing or has done in the region—what you hear in the region is that this buildup is a threat to the neighbors of Nicaragua.

The Hondurans see that buildup as a threat to Honduras. The Salvadorans see it as a threat to Salvador. The Costa Ricans see it as a threat to their country. Moreover, it’s not just the amassing of conventional armaments that concerns the Central Americans; it is the evident propensity on the part of the Nicaraguans to use their military strength against their neighbors.

The Costa Ricans with their long tra­dition of adherence to democratic ideals and renunciation of arms as a means of providing for public security have no army, yet they have been attacked again and again on their border by Nic­aragua using Soviet arms. I stood at the border post at Penas Blanca just a few months ago and listened to the Costa Rican customs officials explain how just the previous week the Nicaraguans had rolled a T-55 tank down the road and pointed the gun at their customs post from a range of about 40 or 50 feet. Now, these are people who are armed with pistols and billy clubs, and there can be no expla-

nation for this behavior except intimi­dation. If they will use their arms for intimidation, say, of Costa Ricans, who knows where it will stop? I urge those who would come to Central America to ascertain the realities of the situation there.

Honduras has been invaded twice by armed groups nurtured in Nicaragua, trained in Cuba, armed and transported by the Nicaraguan armed forces to the border of Honduras. Inserted in 1983 was a group of about 100 armed men sent to establish guerrilla warfare in Honduras. The members of this group were killed, captured, or defected, largely because of the cooperation of Honduran peasants with their govern­ment, demonstrating the firm rejection by the Honduran people of having a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla movement implanted in their country. Honduras was invaded again last summer by a group who came in to establish urban terrorist groups, carrying arms, explo­sives, detonating devices, antipersonnel mines, and other pernicious lethal in­struments manufactured in Czechoslo­vakia and East Germany. The Hon­durans see that the Nicaraguans pose a direct threat to their survival as a de­mocracy and as a state. And, of course, the Salvadorans also have to face the influx of arms, munitions, and subversives from Nicaragua.

So while there are those here in this country who can interpret what the Sandinistas are doing as simple de­fense, that’s not the interpretation of the people in the region.

One has to say that by any stan­dards, this military buildup has been dramatic. Since 1981, if you want to put a figure on it, there’s been about a six-times expansion of Nicaragua’s armed forces. Conscription has been extended to all males age 30 or under. Extensive active-duty forces, more than

1. at any one time, and a very large militia force combine to make more than 120,000 armed men avail­able to the state. It has a Soviet-style armored brigade, with all of the appur­tenances—artillery, tanks, armored per­sonnel carriers, support aviation, and transport. This is the only army in Central America that can feed itself in the field. It has been equipped with Soviet mobile field kitchens. None of the other armies there have that kind of a capability. This is a force that’s ten times that of Honduras and, of course, infinitely better in military capability than the police forces in Costa Rica. What is this for? To defend against the United States? Not likely with the T-55 tanks and a handful of patrol boats. On a relative scale, however, Nicaragua’s military is a behemoth in Central America. There can be no explanation for this growth of military power unless it is to intimidate Nicaragua’s neigh­bors and to protect the state against reprisals for the sort of policies it has been pursuing in the region itself.

Nicaragua has been its serving as a clearinghouse or central command post for subversive movements throughout the region. More recently, it has been actually involving itself in the financing of subversive movements in El Salva­dor, Costa Rica, and Honduras. And moreover, Nicaragua has not hesitated to involve itself in the drug business in the U. S. for the purposes of generat­ing funds to support subversion.

The chronology of the buildup would tell you that this is not a reaction to the policies of the United States. Nicaragua was engaged in all of these activities long before the United States moved militarily to reassure its friends in the region. This is not a defensive force but a political instrument that Nicara­gua has built. It has created a crushing burden on the Nicaraguan people, but in doing so, a Marxist-Leninist garrison state in the image and likeness of that in Castro’s Cuba has been created. And I think all of us, all Americans, need seriously to consider whether we can afford in this world of ours to have yet one more of these states wholly de­pendent upon the Soviet Union for its economic wherewithal and armed to the teeth with large numbers of young men in their military apparatus with no os­tensible purpose save to pursue the pol­icies of the adversaries of freedom and democracy in the world.

Captain McMahon: Mr. McFarlane, General Gorman described in some de­tail the arms that have been delivered to Nicaragua from the Soviet Union or the Soviet bloc. Presumably those arms come with advisors as well. What is the extent of the Soviet-Cuban bloc presence in Nicaragua? Just what are the strategic concerns?

Mr. McFarlane: I think the question has two parts. First, what is the real effect of foreign advice in shaping the immediate operational problem before us, the level of violence and the poli­cies of the country toward its own peo­ple and toward its neighbors? Second, and more important, viewed abstractly as a country, Nicaragua is one of many in the world in which the Soviet Union has decided to invest resources, to es­tablish a foothold in a particular part of the world—what does this represent in terms of global Soviet strategy? And on both points, I think it’s very apparent that the scale of commitment is very high, and that that tells us politically the importance the Soviet Union places on consolidating this revolution on the Central American mainland for its stra­tegic value over time. So on the speci­fics of the short-term implications of it. we are trying to deal with between 2,500 and 3,500 Cuban military per­sonnel, who are placed at every level of command and staff in the Nicara­guan Army and who clearly maintain control, influence, and direction over the conduct of the Sandinista Army. Were it not for these foreign advisors, the relatively short historical record.

the primitive level of training, and so forth would not enable this army to sustain operations against its neighbors, surely, and probably not to deal with the attack it faces internally. Roughly

3. trained, experienced veterans of Angola and elsewhere are extremely effective both in directing and in lead­ing attacks and training the Sandinistas to conduct them throughout the armed forces. In the air force, Cubans train as well as actually fly combat missions and are being responsible for the main­tenance backup and the logistic where­withal of sustaining both the army and the air force in the field.

Apart from these military advisors from Cuba, and they are the core of the military advisor community there, there is a separate community of about

4. Cubans who are inserted into the various ministries of the government and establish a very dominant influence in shaping the policies of every minis­try there, whether it is for housing or justice or lack of justice.

In short, the investment of Marxist outsiders is for the purpose of estab­lishing prevailing influence over the country of Nicaragua and shaping its policies both militarily and economi­cally to consolidate this regime on the mainland for its longer term value vis­a-vis the other countries of the area and ultimately the United States. In addi­tion. there is a smattering of support from other countries and revolutionary movements—the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Libya, Iran, Bulgaria,

East Germany, and North Vietnam.

Perhaps a seldom-mentioned but even more pernicious longer-term threat is the Cubans’ presence in the school system and the growing role of Cuban teachers. The school curriculum has evolved away from what it was with normal, heavy emphasis on history and cultural traditions as well as fundamen­tal skills, and has been subverted somewhat by the introduction of a cur­riculum that focuses much more impor­tantly on the Marxist view of history and the portrayal of the United States as an interventionist power determined to expand our empire, if you will, to that part of the world. In short, a gen­eration of children exposed to this is much more susceptible to policies of a government that is so dominated.

Captain McMahon: Ambassador Ar- macost, General Gorman pointed out that an important consideration is not just how the United States views the threat, but how the threat is viewed by the Central Americans themselves. Cer­tainly one of the concerns has been that we were once again seeking a North American solution for a Central Ameri­can problem, and there was in fact no consensus in Central America for sup­port of our policy. Could you describe the Central Americans’ view of the Nicaraguan problem?

Ambassador Armacost: I think there are several components to it. The more discerning Central Americans recognize that one source of danger to their own security resides in the disparities or inequities of power and wealth in their own societies. The leadership in these countries has without help made prog­ress in addressing the problems of re­form, because they and we recognize that if deep-seated social and economic issues are not addressed and addressed effectively, then there’s no means of heading off the politics of extremism nor the ability of neighboring countries to exploit those social tensions to their own advantage. The Grenada experi­ence is a case in point; we are helping the Grenadians to develop an equitable political and economic system.

The second level, though, is a direct result of the need to address those deep-seated economic, social, and po­litical problems—namely, their anxiety about the evident determination of Nica­ragua to use subversive means to fuel social tension and to turn it to their own advantage in pursuit of what they themselves describe as a revolution without borders. Their anxieties are increased by the fact, as Paul Gorman indicated, that the military in Nicaragua has grown so rapidly and is designed to convey an offensive capability. Thus, Nicaragua’s neighbors have to worry about the dangers of subversion as well as the threat of conventional military assault.

A final aspect of the threat as per­ceived by our friends in Central Amer­ica is, I would have to say, some un­certainty about the steadiness and the long-term stick-to-it-ness of the United States. They understand that one of the natural attributes of democratic politics is the fact that we go through our peri­odic election policy changes, but they also rightly feel that they face long­term problems that need persistent at­tention. Their question is how deter­mined and how steady U. S. policies of support will be over an extended period of time.

We have tried to respond to these kinds of concerns first by supporting the efforts of reform. If you look closely at the figures of U. S. assis­tance to Central America, you’ll find about three times as much money is being put into economic assistance as into security assistance. At the same time, we’ve encouraged leaders like President Duarte to address problems such as the death squads and reform of the judicial system. That’s a matter of great importance to people in societies such as these.

Second, we have provided assistance to help contain the impact of the sub­versive threat by both helping identify the infiltration of supplies and improv­ing the ability of a country like El Sal­vador to arrest the movement of those supplies into their country.

Third, we’ve tried to deal with the conventional threats, not only through bolstering with security assistance the modest security forces of friendly coun­tries in the area, but also through our own exercises and our presence in the region.

Finally, we’ve tried to impart to our own policy a certain steadiness. The great benefit we enjoy at the moment is the first two-term U. S. President in a long time. We can devote ourselves to consolidating the results of policies developed over recent years rather than going through the usual pendular swing after an election. Thus there are various components to our friends’ perception of the threat; our policies represent an effort to respond comprehensively at various levels.

Captain McMahon: General, you were the architect of U. S. military presence in Central America during your tenure as Commander in Chief Southern Com­mand. Some critics say that we have too much military presence in Central America, and some say that we have too little. How did your military pres­ence plans support our overall policy? Having just left your command, what’s your view of the success of these plans?

General Gorman: 1 want to plead not guilty to the charge of being the archi­tect. The architect is Admiral Watkins. If Central Americans judge the United States harshly in years to come, it will not be because we sent U. S. military forces to Central America to train. If they judge us harshly, it will be be­cause we came too late and with too few to count.

Let me take you back just two years ago, just about this time in 1983. You will recall that there had been a series of shooting incidents on the border be­tween Honduras and Nicaragua. The

Nicaraguans mined a road in Honduras, as a result of which two U. S. corre­spondents lost their lives. Among other dimensions of those tensions, during one of my visits to Tegucigalpa, I was approached by the commander of the Honduran armed forces with a request for 200,000 C-rations and 500 snake­bite kits because, he said, “We are now going to have to mobilize and put our army on the border.” That mobili­zation did not occur. The Honduran army did not go to the border, and the reason was because the United States deployed a carrier battle group to the region and then followed it up by posi­tioning other forces there, conducting training exercises in the region, but in sufficient numbers to reassure the Hon­durans that they did not stand alone against this burgeoning military power to the south.

The Hondurans at this moment feel uniquely exposed. There they sit, the base for the Nicaraguan resistance, friends of the United States, cooperat­ing with us in military exercises, and providing for our use access to their military facilities. They know that the Nicaraguans have little cause to admire their policies, and indeed every reason to seek revenge of one form or another for what they’ve done. And they feel more than ever the need for the kinds of reassurance that a carrier battle group, or surface action group, or a U. S. Army Engineer battalion, or the sound of aircraft engines overhead from U. S. Air Force aircraft, communicate to their people. Now, I think we got there at just about the right time, with just about the right amounts of force. The question that both of the other two speakers have emphasized is one of confidence, reassurance, and belief in the capabilities and resolution of the United States.

Captain McMahon: Mr. McFarlane, the United States has unsuccessfully tried the negotiation route previously with Nicaragua—at Manzanillo and through the Contadora process. What’s different about the President’s new pro­posal that gives you the expectation that a negotiated solution might now be possible?

Mr. McFarlane: Well, I think any

hope for a change in Nicaragua’s will­ingness to come to the table has to be borne upon influencing their thinking, that is, by having a change in the atti­tude of people they rely upon. Nicara­gua heretofore has been able to look to a certain measure of support from

Mexico, from other moderate countries in the area, in the Contadora process from Colombia, and from other coun­tries in the Caribbean and South Amer­ica. In short, you have to change the perceptions of Nicaragua that it can stonewall forever and get away with it, and the best way to do that is to have both the support of its friends and the U. S. Congress. We'll see how that plays out in the next ten days.

Captain McMahon: Ambassador Ar- macost, Mr. McFarlane mentioned that Nicaragua should expect to pay a higher price for stonewalling in the negotiating process. Are there other pressures that we could bring to bear on Nicaragua, in a direct or indirect way, which would also increase the cost to them, such as economic pres­sures, or perhaps withdrawal of recog­nition, or marshalling other countries to exert pressure on them diplomatically? What are the prospects of doing that, and why haven’t we tried that before?

Ambassador Armacost: We suspended economic assistance in 1981. it may, however, surprise people who think that the U. S. consistently took a hos­tile attitude toward the Sandinista re­gime to know that in the early years of that regime, when there was some un­certainty about its foreign policy orien­tation, we were the largest single sup­plier of economic assistance. By 1981. the Sandinistas’ attitude toward us and their neighbors was fairly clear, and we suspended that assistance. We also de­nied Nicaragua in 1983 preferential access to our sugar market. We have opposed loans to Nicaragua in interna­tional financial institutions for the rea­son that the economic policies they pursue make it self-evident they’re un­likely to be able to repay those loans.

With respect to our diplomatic mis­sion, we believe it’s to our advantage to have a means of keeping an eye on the situation there and to have a means of communicating with the government, which is engaged through the Con­tadora process in a negotiation, albeit one which has not proceeded very far or very fast in recent months.

I think the most effective stance for us to be in at this point is, as Bud McFarlane said, to secure support for the contras, to sustain the unity of our friends in Central America on the dip­lomatic plane, to deny—through the promotion of reasonable proposals of the sort we’ve put forward for internal dialogue within Nicaragua—support for that country from the Contadora coun­tries and others, and to sustain the sup­port of our own people for the policies we’re pursuing. Above all, this means support for the President’s proposal by the United States Congress.

Captain McMahon: General Gorman, what part do the contras play in keep­ing pressure on the Nicaraguans?

General Gorman: The rebels are sig­nificant precisely because the San­dinista revolution, which spawned this present government, raised the expecta­tions, the hopes of the Nicaraguan peo­ple for freedom. The Nicaraguan peo­ple, who had lived for years under a caudillo, who stole their money, have now discovered that Somoza has been replaced by a group of venal men who have stolen their hopes for the future. The people who are in the hills in Nica­ragua carrying arms against the San­dinistas are there not because anybody bribed them. They’re not there because they were promised money. They’re there fighting for a cause in which they believe. It could hardly be otherwise.

To undertake the kinds of risks, per­sonal risks and risks for their families, that armed opposition to a Marxist-Len- inist one-party state entails, takes a considerable commitment. 1 think that commitment is there. It’s hardly a function, moreover, of the aid which was provided by the United States Government through the modalities of the Central Intelligence Agency that made the difference in the growth of that movement.

In fact, as I recently pointed out to the Congress, that movement has grown half again in size since aid was suspended. But I would have to go on to point out, as I did then, that it is the expectation of those people who are in the hills carrying the arms that the United States will remain committed to their future. And so the deliberations of the Congress today are significant, not so much in the quantity of monies that are at issue or indeed how the money will be provided, or for what it will be used. What is significant is the com­mitment of the United States to a fu­ture in which it is possible for Nicaraguans to entertain the idea of liv­ing with a modicum of political and religious freedom. The existence of the resistance in Nicaragua threatens the future of Marxist-Leninism, and it brings to the fore all of the protective mechanisms that are enjoined by Marx- ist-Leninist doctrine, advised by the Cubans, and aided by the Cubans and the Soviets and the East bloc advisors

to the Sandinista security apparatus. Without that kind of a rebellion within Nicaragua, the revolution of the San- dinistas could be consolidated, and the Sandinistas would be free to pursue their obvious preoccupation with fo­menting comparable revolution in neighboring countries, or countries as far distant as the South American mainland.

Captain McMahon: We have time for one more question before we open it up to the floor. Mr. McFarlane, the President will soon face a vote in the Congress on his proposal, and we have approximately the same number of peo­ple in the audience as we have elected representatives and senators—535. I wondered if you might take the oppor­tunity to address them as if they were the members of Congress, with a few quick sharp points on why they should vote yes, and the consequences of their voting no.

Mr. McFarlane: Well, I’m flattered by the opportunity, and I have to admit 1 would get a more sensible answer out of this audience than I would from the U. S. Congress.

I think to expect the Congress to take a proper decision in any policy issue, they have to be persuaded of its rightness based upon American values, and I have to say that I think the ad­ministration may share part of the re­sponsibility for not yet having been able to frame this issue as one in which important American interests are threatened and that our solution is a sensible one which is in keeping with our values and with the best interests of the people of the country.

Up until now, the issue of supporting freedom fighters has been one in which a covert program has been exposed by the Congress, but bringing with it in that exposure a kind of a knee-jerk and somewhat hypocritical reaction against the operation because it is covert, be­cause covertness is intrinsically bad. Now, that is hypocritical to the extent that there are many covert operations that are solidly supported by the Con­gress in other parts of the world but because they are covert. And once you expose one of these things, it becomes much more politically risky for some­one to support it and, therefore, less popular. But I think, coming back to my basic point, that people will go for this if in their judgment it is also sup­ported, not just by U. S. Congressmen but by people they respect, specifically Contadora countries. And 1 think that the new element here that didn’t exist last fall is that we are seeing an emer­gence of support by countries who have a very solid base of respect in the U. S. Congress, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and to an extent Mexico and the other four countries as well. I’ve mentioned Ecuador and here and there beyond this hemisphere countries in Europe, seeing that this can be a con­structive step, and that is important.

I think, too, that the true nature of the Nicaraguan regime has been spot­lighted better in the past six months, and U. S. Congress is given to appreci­ation of things like Nicaraguans run­ning drugs into this country, corrupting our youth with this kind of fundamental evil, the performance of the Sandinista government vis-a-vis the church and the expulsion of priests, these are things that are incompatible with congres­sional tolerance. And I think, too, just the simple number of congressmen that have traveled to the area and have gone to the countryside, talked to neighbor­ing country leaders, and been per­suaded by people of good will that these freedom fighters are legitimate, that they further comprise a majority or they enjoy a majority of support in the country, that the Sandinistas are a bunch of turkeys that arc irretrievable and deserve whatever they get. And over time I think more and more con­gressmen are coming to that conclu­sion. The President is going to give this a very determined effort, seek to persuade congressmen personally, to evoke the support ot those in the pri­vate life in our country that feel simi­larly and urge them to influence the Congress, with cards, letters, public statements, and so forth. There will undoubtedly be travel to Washington from people in the area who are men and women of credibility who can in­fluence the Congress, and it will be a determined effort, and I think will be successful in the end.

Captain McMahon: Thank you. We can take questions from the floor.

Question: A lot of sailors and Marines, not only here in Newport but through­out the Navy and the Corps, have spent a significantly increased amount of time in those battle groups that General Gorman mentioned. We’ve also served in the amphibious task forces, not only off the east and west coasts of Central America, but also in the Caribbean in general, particularly going back into the late 1970s in the Caribbean. The focus of almost everything this after­noon has .been in Central America. Ed like to ask Ambassador Armacost if he can shift east into the Caribbean and to give us a brief overview of the political and economic focus of the national pol­icy in the Caribbean, something that we might be able to tie to our in­creased naval presence in that area.

Ambassador Armacost: You’ve raised an important question about the extent to which we need to focus on increas­ing our military resources in the Carib­bean and Central America. Our inter­ests in those areas make important the kind of augmentation of our force structure generally, which the adminis­tration is trying to accomplish. I guar­antee you'd find great apprehension both in East Asia and in Western Eu­rope if we had to reconcentrate forces in our own hemisphere at a time when our forces were either contracting or our capabilities were being maintained at simply an even keel.

This administration has, of course, taken a very active interest in the Ca­ribbean and has addressed the underly­ing economic problems of very small island countries in a more comprehen­sive fashion than it has done. Largely, this has been done through the Carib­bean Basin initiative which is designed to focus in a comprehensive way to support economic development of these small countries by encouraging invest­ment and trade as well as providing economic assistance.

This has had a considerable effect. We’ve found strong friends in the area. The President has devoted his personal time and attention to it, particularly since Grenada. Grenada is an excellent example of our dual-track approach of protecting our security interests in co­operation with the states of the region and at the same time addressing eco­nomic development needs. Our involve­ment in Grenada has had a salutary impact with regard to American support for the countries confronting Cuban pressures. The immediate salutary im­pact was felt in Suriname, where the government of Mr. Bouterse threw out Cuban advisors.

The basic problems in the region are a result of having very small countries, which don’t have solid economic bases, and which are confronted by considera­ble drug trafficking difficulties, without the economic wherewithal to resist on occasion the temptation to engage in that kind of industry. We see this in Jamaica, for example, where Mr.

Seaga has attempted to open up the

market economy, but has had to adhere to rather strict IMF [International Mon­etary Fund] reform programs. Getting out of the economic trough is a long­term process. There are strong pres­sures to rely upon the growth of mari­juana trafficking to offset adverse eco­nomic trends. This underscores the importance of following through on programs such as the trade investment economic initiatives that have been undertaken.

In general the trends in the Carib­bean area compared to four or five years ago have been positive, but de­spite the small size of these countries, they require steady attention over the long-term. Problems don’t go away. There are things we have to work at, and doing so will require economic assistance as well as attention to our security interests.

General Gorman: Let me give a little Marine Corps twist to some of that. In 1981, when the USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32) put in to port in northern Honduras during an exercise which la­bored under the title Halcyon Vista.

You may recall that the U. S. ambassa­dor would not allow the complement of Marines aboard to come ashore for fear of precipitating riots over the return of the Marines to Central America.

In 1983, just two years later, a Ma­rine battalion landing team conducted an exercise on the north coast of Hon­duras with the Fourth Honduran Infan­try Battalion, who boarded its ships, and went ashore in its landing craft.

Far from occasioning riots, that exer­cise got resoundingly favorable press coverage and television coverage in Honduras. We came a long way from 1981 to 1983, the difference being, as we said before, the Honduran percep­tion of threat from the south.

Question: I always like to see a good word put in for the Marine Corps, but I have a question for the panel. Do we have any way of cutting off the flow of outside arms into Nicaragua, and would the Contadora groups support us in any way?

General Gorman: Well, obviously, in an absolute sense, yes. Nicaragua is very far from the Soviet Union, very far from its principal arms suppliers in Bulgaria, the North African Arabs, and obviously U. S. naval power could counter the arms flow. But it strikes me that the better answer is simply that the provisions of the diploriiatic settle­ment that we have been discussing here call for a reduction in armaments and a preservation of a more reasonable bal­ance of arms in the region. In order to make that a real proposition, as Mr. McFarlane indicated, an implementable proposition, there would have to be a continuing commitment of the United States to the provision of intelligence to ensure that its provisions were not cir­cumvented. Both with respect to the absolute solution and with respect to the provision of intelligence for the purposes of verifying compliance, we have the means at our disposal. I be­lieve that we can and indeed should be prepared to use those means.

Captain McMahon: As a related ques­tion, let me ask this, General Gorman.

It has been suggested that we draw the line somewhere with Nicaragua on types or quantities or quality of military equipment. Why haven’t we done this?

General Gorman: As Admiral Watkins knows, I am against line drawing. Whether or not one might plan or could guarantee that the several agen­cies in Washington would back our play in the event that the adversary crosses the line—which I don’t think any of us here present would consider a sure prospect—if you draw the line, you concede everything up to the line to them. Now, look, they’ve already gone too far. They have gone too far in the perception of our friends in the region, and it seems to me, that should be the posture of the U. S. Govern­ment. It certainly is the conviction of the nations with whom we are dealing down there. I don't think there needs to be any further line drawing.

Question: We’ve been listening for the last hour to this very erudite discussion on the problems in Central America and our solutions to them. My question is addressed to General Gorman. Could you please tell us what you think the repercussions might be to our solutions when we turn the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians?

General Gorman: The treaty that we reached with the Panamanians, which went into effect in 1979, has now had five years of testing, and in that five years things have worked well, both with respect to the functioning of the canal and the provision of security therefore. Assuming that stability in the region can be maintained, I would say that there is every prospect that the progress in Panama we have seen over the past five years will continue through the remaining 15, until the treaty reaches full term. I am a sup­porter of the treaty, and I believe that given the conditions that I’ve just out­lined, it can be made to work.

Question: I feel President Reagan has run into congressional opposition for the funding of the contras. The Ameri­can public does not seem to have a clear idea of who the contras are. Are they a broad coalition of groups or pri­marily ex-Somozans, and can any of you clarify that?

Mr. McFarlane: That’s really right at the heart of whether we’re going to carry this as a political issue in this country or not. There clearly has been a problem in the administration getting its message out, both as to the nature of the threat and why we ought to care, and why our policy is a sensible one, relying upon people who are the real people of Nicaragua. Part of the problem in getting this message out is systemic, and I don’t intend here to label some charge upon this or that media outlet, because I don’t quite know what the problem is. But I will give you some baseline truths.

The President of the United States has given five major speeches devoted to this problem in Central America. Two of them have been carried on na­tional television. Why? Can anybody imagine Franklin Roosevelt wanting to talk to the country and not getting every radio station in the country to volunteer to carry the message? As I say, I don’t fault a network for that. I just wonder why it is, and why it has become a much more difficult proposi­tion to promote a public policy issue.

With regard to the awareness of just what is going on and whether the con­tras are sensible people or not, you had another example just this past week in which the three leaders, both civilian and armed, of the freedom fighter movement, Adolfo Colero, Arturo Cruz, and Alfonzo Robelo, had a press conference in New York. Well, does anybody know that in this audience? And it didn’t play anywhere. Now, why not? If the newspapers are to pre­sent, whether they agree or not, the information available on both sides of a given issue, where is it on the other side of that issue? Now, to be fair, I'd have to say recently, but only recently, you’ve begun to see some reasonably objective reporting on television on the nature of the conflict in Nicaragua. For the first time in a long time, last week and the week before 1 saw some re-

ports on NBC that were from a fellow named Betcher who’s been out in the boondocks in Nicaragua, and it was pretty straight reporting. But gosh, that’s a long time coming. It’s five years into the conflict now.

All I can say is that we’re very con­scious of the problem. The President has sought to enlist people who are in private life who have organizations that do reach to the grass roots of every congressional district, and that’s only happened in the past year. But I do think you’ll begin to see in the coming weeks and months these private groups can be quite a lot of help if the admin­istration gets to them the information, the foundation of facts they need. But I think very gradually the tide of knowl­edge is beginning to turn. I wouldn’t pretend that a majority of the American people right this minute support a sig­nificant amount of governmental sup­port to anybody in Central America, but I think it’s beginning to shift. It'll take time. It is helped by success in the area and exposure of it. If the free­dom fighters win some battles, as they have been doing recently, and as the Nicaraguans and Sandinistas continue to embarrass themselves by some rather heavy-handed policies, which they seem to be determined to do, both things help. But I’m optimistic.

Question: Mr. McFarlane, I still am not clear as to the composition of the contras. Are they in fact very right wing? Are they moderate? What is their position? Were they to come to power with our assistance?

Mr. McFarlane: By and large, the leadership of the freedom fighter move­ment is comprised of people who were Sandinistas, people who formed part of the Sandinista revolution five years ago and did so in coalition with the com­munist components. These people knew that there were communist elements, but believed that they could carry the day with a platform of pluralism, free enterprise, and a separate constituency that was part of the Sandinistas. These people were more social democrat in their nature, and they, too, now are part of the freedom fighters. So I would say that the center of this free­dom fighter movement is represented by people like Cruz. It is basically closer to social democrat than Christian democrat values. It would be a country based on pluralism, but probably on some national ownership of production and so forth, and some state planning, but less than is now experienced in the country. Surely, there would be more individual freedoms and human rights than now exist. And I say that from having talked to each of them at some length over a number of weeks and months, and gaining some confidence that these are nationalists as opposed to tyrannical despots.

For example, when you stop and think about what the freedom fighters could have done in the past weeks or months to have pressured the Sandinis­tas more, there are many strategic tar­gets that they really do have the capa­bility to have destroyed. And you come to find out that they haven’t done it because they care a lot about the peo­ple of Nicaragua, and to, for example, have hit the power plants, well, it surely would bring to a halt the econ­omy, but it would also hurt the people. To have destroyed the oil refinery would have had the same consequence as to paralyze the economy of Nicara­gua, but in the process to have trauma­tized the population and the society. And these are nationalists, these are people who care about Nicaraguan peo­ple, so they have taken a very judi­cious view of how they should wage their campaign, and that’s why you see this movement, having people rally to it in great numbers. The last time I was down there in January, I was sur­prised to see and to see verified for me patrols of company size going out with 80 people and coming back with 150. That kind of recruiting I wish we could do in this country.

Question: I have a double, perhaps unique interest in being a member of the Institute and also being a priest. I think one of the most powerful things that the administration can do is to somehow, as Mr. McFarlane has said so well, break through the image block to the average Catholic who shares the religion of most of the people of Cen­tral America. The terrific damage that’s being done to the church, you men­tioned, sir, is the re-education. I think anybody familiar with communist tac­tics knows what that is in terms of get­ting the young. I find that a very, very powerful reason for the moral stance that the administration is taking in Cen­tral America is the destruction of faith and all that that implies. I wonder if there’s some way that the administra­tion on the grass roots level could reach a lot of the average Catholic peo­ple who I think would react very posi­tively to what our government is trying to do. I know there are groups among the clergy and more popular groups who are very opposed to our policies. I think there are many of my colleagues in the clergy who would support you, who do support you, and I think many average Catholics would support you. I just wish there was some way you could break through some of that blockage of communications to make that picture obvious. I wonder if you have any reactions to that.

General Gorman: I volunteer to re­spond to that because of the many hours that I have spent with the arch­bishop of Panama worrying about this problem. I went to Monsignor Marcus McGrath originally seeking to under­stand the position of the Central Ameri­can bishops on these matters, because he meets regularly with the bishops of Nicaragua and the bishops of the other countries in the region. The archibishop of Panama had been one of the leaders

in that theological revival known as liberation theology, which at least en­tertained the idea that there might be a possibility of Christianity coexisting with Marxism, and further accepting that some profound, even violent up­heavals within society were inevitable.

I think I learned that even individu­als who were leaders, as was he, ot those movements have been shown forcibly that there is a real danger in accepting any kind of an alliance with Marxist-Leninists, and the difficulty that the church faces in Central Amer­ica today is precisely because the church has been used by the Marxists as an instrument of revolution. The groups who were recruited in Hon­duras, taken to Nicaragua, sent to Cuba, trained for two years or more and then reintroduced in Honduras were recruited by Catholic priests and catechists in Honduras. The first group was accompanied by a Catholic priest, an American, carrying arms. The Cath­olic bishops of Central America, as I understand their position, now thor­oughly deplore the identification of their own honest attempts to adapt Christianity to the circumstances of modem life with the advocates of polit­ical violence, and are doing what they can to redress this. Now, my message to him, sir, was exactly that this is not a message that General Gorman can carry to the Congress of the United States or to the American people, given all of the sort of strictures against the military in such a tutorial role. And indeed it’s not a message that the Gov­ernment of the United States can carry readily either to the legislature or to the American people. There are laws against our propagandizing our own people. But it certainly is a message that the Central American bishops can carry. And indeed if we had the kind of reporting on the region that I think the situation deserves, there would have been more of you who would be aware of the similarity between the pastoral letter of the Nicaraguan bish­ops of last Easter and the San Jose declaration of the Nicaraguan freedom fighters published just this last month. The bishops called for truce and dia­logue, and the latter document calls upon the Nicaraguan bishops to act as the overseers of the dialogue that would ensue upon the freedom fighters laying down their arms. And it is these bishops, it seems to me, that have got to be the interlocutors for the region with your colleagues in the clergy and your coreligionists among our country­men.

Captain McMahon: Thank you. I’m sorry we have no more time to pursue the many other questions which you have. It has been our pleasure to be here.

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