- 3 months ago
William Greider looks into how the US Government began and continues its support of Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Funding for Frontline is provided by this station and other public television stations
00:13nationwide, and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:19Tonight, on Frontline, Nicaragua, where the U.S. is acting against a government it doesn't
00:25like and fighting a war by proxy.
00:27At the beginning, people came in full of vim and vigor and thought, you know, here we
00:32are, the dragon slayer.
00:34The political war in Washington and the real war in Nicaragua.
00:39This is the diabolical nature of the thing, using people to wage a war with little political
00:44cost for the adventurer.
00:48Tonight, War on Nicaragua.
00:57From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle, WNET New York,
01:08WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston.
01:13This is Frontline, with Judy Woodruff.
01:21Good evening.
01:23Once more, a political drama is unfolding in Washington.
01:27In the months to come, as Congress investigates the Iran arms scandal, we will follow, in numbing
01:34detail, a trail of arms and money, from the White House to Tehran, from Switzerland to Miami, and
01:43finally, it seems, to Central America and the Nicaraguan Contras.
01:48When the scandal first broke, Frontline Correspondent William Grider was in Nicaragua, examining a
01:55different story, but one that he believes really lies at the heart of the crisis in the White
02:02House, a story that the congressional committees will not examine in full, the story of the policy
02:09that led up to the present scandal.
02:13His report is called War on Nicaragua.
02:16The war is fought in places like this, Miraflores, a mountaintop cooperative in northern Nicaragua.
02:37Here, when they are planting beans or working the cornfields, one peasant must always stand
02:42guard.
02:43From the cover of mountain mists, the Contras often attack.
02:46When the Contras came, the women were confused and afraid and thought that they were our
02:54own people.
02:55One of the Contras looked into a window in the house where the women were hiding.
03:05He probably thought that the guards were inside, so he threw a grenade through the window.
03:13He killed five people altogether, including two children and a teacher.
03:21The child who died was my son, and the teacher my sister.
03:29No Americans are fighting or dying here, yet it is very much America's war.
03:37Six years into the conflict, some basic questions still need to be asked.
03:42Why is the United States engaged in this struggle?
03:59What is different about this war?
04:03Why these people?
04:05Why here?
04:08There are only three million people in Nicaragua.
04:15For example, per capita income is $720 a year.
04:20This is what is known in Washington as third world poverty.
04:24Yet these people live close enough to the United States to see how we live.
04:30To mimic the symbols of our prosperity.
04:48Since July 1979, Nicaragua has been ruled by the revolutionary San Anista Front, a government
04:55that has committed the nation to radical change, for better or worse.
05:00You are asking me how life has changed since the revolution?
05:06Twice as good, 40,000 times.
05:09We have land, we have money, we have technical knowledge, compared to what we had yesterday,
05:19when we had nothing.
05:20We are the owners of the land today.
05:24We have, as I was telling my friends, a little bit of everything.
05:28Many feel threatened by the changes, including some in Nicaragua's middle class.
05:37Like this woman who owns her own bakery.
05:40Now you pay for everything.
05:41Everything is taxes.
05:42Everything is limited.
05:43Everything is rationed.
05:44You go to buy something for your family, and they give you a little loaf of bread to last
05:47for a week.
05:52Lies.
05:53Lies.
05:54They say things that make them sound good, so people will say they are good.
06:00But they are lies.
06:01They are monsters of evil.
06:10The Sandinista revolutionary goals are planted in barren soil.
06:15It is a nation of peasants, who work with oxen instead of tractors, machetes instead of machines.
06:23Like the other small nations of Central America, it is a country that is devoutly Catholic, underdeveloped,
06:30desperately poor.
06:36These are the people who must learn a new national anthem, proclaiming their own independence,
06:42and their attitude toward the U.S. as well.
06:48The Yankee, they sing, the enemy of mankind.
06:56Nicaragua is a country with only five elevators, yet it became a central preoccupation of American
07:04foreign policy.
07:08The questions that usually dominate Washington debate about the nature of the Sandinistas
07:12and their political opposition in Nicaragua are not the focus of this program.
07:18Instead, we will examine a more provocative question about ourselves, about how the United
07:24States claimed the right to intervene against a sovereign government it didn't like, and
07:29about the methods it decided to use this time, both at home and on the battlefield.
07:36It all started six years ago, in the first days of Ronald Reagan's presidency.
07:45January 20, 1981.
07:48The new president's promise to restore America's strength is designed to erase lingering memories
07:53of Vietnam, and to demonstrate to the Soviet Union that America is no longer paralyzed.
08:00At the beginning, people came in full of vim and vigor, and thought, you know, here we
08:05are, the dragon slayers.
08:07We're going to go out and slay all the dragons, and Ronald Reagan is going to go down as the
08:11greatest president around, and, I mean, Ronald Reagan didn't lose that election, he won
08:15it with a fairly nice mandate.
08:19And his whole campaign was anti-Soviet, so I'm sure- John Carbo was a foreign policy advisor
08:25to the new administration.
08:26We were saying, stay out of our hemisphere, the Monroe Doctrine still applies.
08:33Go off and fight your war somewhere else, and leave us alone.
08:37The new administration views the U.S.-Soviet rivalry as the world's central struggle.
08:43To the Reagan team, the cluster of tiny nations in Central America seems the right battleground.
08:49The president has put it very well when he's said that the future of 100 million people
08:53from Panama to the open border on our south is at stake.
08:57And I think one thing we Americans need to do is to take Marxist-Leninists seriously.
09:01They view all of Central America as needing to be liberated.
09:04And all the Sandinistas leaders have said that.
09:07So if Constantine Menges was the National Security Council's chief Latin America strategist, because
09:14they would now be smuggling thousands of young Nicaraguan soldiers disguised as communist
09:19guerrillas from El Salvador into El Salvador and Guatemala, then they would say, well, we've
09:22got to have a big shield to deter Guatemala and El Salvador from hitting us directly.
09:28And then when they had those countries under communist control, with Mexico having 80 million
09:32people, they would need an even bigger army from all of the Central American countries
09:36as they start to work with the Mexican internal far left to destabilize Mexico.
09:41And then, of course, when they're at our border, they'd need an even bigger army because then
09:45they'd be undertaking operations against the United States directly.
09:49And so, you see, in the logic of Marxist-Leninist movements that see the entire planet as needing
09:55to come under communist control, they will always need to have a huge army.
09:59When the Sandinistas triumphed, they did not disguise their contempt for the United States.
10:07For 35 years, America had supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship here.
10:12For decades, it had attacked Latin revolutions.
10:15They expect the same.
10:17Before Reagan came to power, we'd heard his political positions, and we knew the new government
10:23will be a threat to Nicaragua.
10:26It made hope more distant.
10:30It didn't kill it because you can't kill hope, but it made it more distant.
10:37And we were sure that when the Reagan administration took office, we will be faced with aggressive
10:44policies bent on destroying the Nicaraguan revolution.
10:48The Sandinistas declare solidarity with the Latin revolution that has survived, Cuba and
10:57Fidel Castro.
10:59To Washington policymakers, this is a portent of Soviet influence.
11:03To Nicaragua, it is a declaration of independence.
11:07The Nicaragua demands, doesn't beg, but demands a new type of relationship.
11:16On the 19th of July, 19...
11:19Miguel Descoto is the foreign minister of Nicaragua.
11:22Enough is enough.
11:24From now on, we want friendship.
11:27That means we want to relate on the basis of sovereign equality and legal equality.
11:34We may be very small, we are, very small and impoverished.
11:39But we believe that we're entitled to the full exercise of our sovereignty.
11:43We do not accept this status that the US government would like, has imposed, and would like to maintain
11:53over us the status of a backyard nation.
11:56The question is how the two countries will work out their differences, by force or by diplomacy.
12:03And when the Sandinistas are caught supplying weapons to the guerrillas in neighboring El Salvador,
12:07the United States is alarmed.
12:09We were worried about the effect of their engaging in countries on their borders and causing disruption.
12:19Lawrence Pizzullo was our ambassador to Nicaragua.
12:23Their concern was that they were surrounded by countries who were enemy states, especially
12:28to the north, who were going to be hostile to them.
12:32Plus, they had romantic ties and more than that, real ties with some of those guerrilla groups,
12:38who they knew and had befriended them during their period in the mountains.
12:46Now, what you had to do was get these two different positions and through a patient discussion and understanding, have them reach a point where there was an accord.
12:57While the US ambassador negotiates, unknown to him, officials in Washington are pursuing a different strategy.
13:05Just six weeks after his inaugural, on March 9, 1981, President Reagan signs a secret directive.
13:13Nicaragua is declared a threat to El Salvador and ultimately to the United States.
13:20On authority of the President's signature, the CIA sends its operatives into the field.
13:27In the countries on Nicaragua's borders, small rebel armies have formed, financed by wealthy
13:32exiles and composed largely of veterans of Somoza's dreaded National Guard.
13:38The CIA will secretly organize among the scattered groups, attempting to unify them into one opposition
13:44force to confront the Salmonistas.
13:50At the same time in Managua, Pizzullo warns Ortega that if Nicaragua wishes to avoid conflict
13:56with the United States and the loss of millions of dollars in USAID, they must stop shipping
14:01arms to El Salvador.
14:03Ortega gets the message.
14:07We spoke to Pizzullo about the issue and we asked that information be shared because we
14:15knew there was concern that Nicaraguan territory was being used to supply arms to the Salvadorian
14:21guerrillas.
14:23We kept in touch and dismantled the place being used for the transport.
14:31This administration has made strong representations to the Nicaraguans to cease...
14:36In Washington, the State Department confirms that Nicaragua has stopped shipping arms.
14:41Their response has been positive.
14:45We have no hard evidence of arms movements through Nicaragua...
14:49But despite Nicaragua's compliance, the administration announces that it is cutting off economic aid
14:55anyway.
14:56I think it was a landmark decision because it set a tone, it set a psychological benchmark
15:03in the relationship which was very difficult to ever recapture.
15:08And that was my argument.
15:09Don't do it.
15:11You can always cut off that aid program.
15:13We don't have to give them the money.
15:14We can keep that money for as long as we want.
15:18Once you've done it, it's one of those acts you can't redo, you can't undo.
15:261981, the day the choice is made to deal with Nicaragua by force.
15:31Reagan's National Security Council gathers for a secret session.
15:35Some advisers will argue that the U.S. should send its own troops and swiftly eliminate the
15:40San Anistas.
15:41But the President chooses a less dangerous approach, war by proxy.
15:47He signs a secret directive with the stated purpose of stopping the flow of arms from Nicaragua
15:51to El Salvador.
15:54But it also authorizes the CIA to develop a paramilitary force and promises more money
16:00and men later, as needed.
16:02The goal was to get the San Anistas out.
16:05From the beginning?
16:06From the beginning.
16:07That was not what was said.
16:09Well, I can't say that, I mean, I can't speak for the President, but I can tell you
16:14that in the minds of all those people around him, wherever they are, the so-called true
16:21Reaganites, the goal was to move them out.
16:29These are the forces to do it.
16:31An army organized and equipped by the American government.
16:36After Vietnam, the American public has no stomach for direct U.S. intervention, where
16:41American boys will do the dime.
16:44So this army will be manned with foreign youth.
16:46They're known as the counter-revolutionaries, or Contras.
16:49The Contras are coming, they're at the crossroads, and they killed a young guy.
17:02We couldn't spend the night at home last night.
17:04We couldn't even take sheets or blankets with us.
17:07We had to sleep out last night, and we're just now heading back to our village.
17:11By early 1982, a war has begun in Nicaragua.
17:17The action then is described by a former Contra leader.
17:20They were making small incursions, hit and run things, and it was just to attack isolated places,
17:29or kill border guards, or harass people in a farm, or things like that.
17:36Did those attacks have anything to do with interdicting arms between Nicaragua and El Salvador?
17:43No.
17:44In all the time I was involved with the Contras as a director, and before I was a director,
17:48I was in very close contact with the Argentinians and the CIA.
17:52They never talk about, we are going to stop the flow of weapons to El Salvador or to Honduras.
18:04The border between Nicaragua and its neighbor, Honduras, where the Contras are based, becomes
18:10a war zone.
18:11The Sandinistas declare a state of emergency, and begin to remove peasants from villages in
18:17the area.
18:18That includes the brutal relocation of the Mosquito Indians, providing the Contras with
18:23a growing supply of recruits.
18:26Many of the people at that time were mostly peasants, and some of them have also their own
18:30grievances against the Sandinistas, and the Sandinistas made many mistakes.
18:34They mishandled the minority groups in the East Coast.
18:39So those people became very anti-government, and ready to fight.
18:45And then others were also brought by force, intimidated, or they are put in a position they
18:52have no choice.
18:53How does that work?
18:54Well, it was, for instance, a commander goes to a town in Nicaragua, or close to the border,
19:00and he says, who are here Sandinistas supporters?
19:04Then they identify two or three.
19:05He shots them in public, then he asks the rest, do you want to follow me?
19:09Well, most people follow them.
19:17Within six months, by the summer of 1982, the nature of this war is clear.
19:23The proxy army does not confront the Sandinista army in open battles.
19:28Its targets are mostly peasant villages.
19:30They took them away.
19:31They took our men away.
19:33All of them.
19:34They took them by force.
19:36They took them with their hands tied behind them, and a rifle right here.
19:40Oh, you're crying, the Contra said.
19:42We'll give you something to cry about.
19:45My baby was in the nursery, and the one who was taking care of her was wounded.
19:54And when they tried to kill her, they killed the baby.
19:58That's the worst part of what they're doing, killing innocent children who don't know anything.
20:09How can anyone believe they're committing these horrible crimes here, burning our farmlands,
20:15killing our children, killing our friends?
20:20In Washington, this is called low-intensity warfare.
20:24It is quite different from the way the U.S. fought in Vietnam.
20:28The targets of the attacks include rural health clinics, schools, and farm cooperatives.
20:38Nicaragua now recognizes it is at war with the United States, although there are no American
20:44soldiers in the field, and no declaration of war by the U.S. Congress.
20:51December 1982.
20:54And you may think they will overlook the Contra's terrorist tactics, but you are wrong.
20:59The American people are outraged.
21:01A year after the Contra army is organized, some members of Congress are upset by news stories
21:07of attacks on villages in Nicaragua.
21:09The fires of communism are burning in Nicaragua.
21:11But the administration has learned another lesson from Vietnam.
21:15A war can be lost in Washington, as well as on the battlefield.
21:19So a move in the Congress to cut off Contra funds means the proxy war has a public relations
21:25problem.
21:26In Miami, the Central Intelligence Agency sets out to improve the image of its proxy army
21:37by recruiting a moderate civilian leadership among Nicaraguan exiles.
21:43In this hotel, the head of the agency's Central America team talks to Edgar Chamorro, an exiled
21:48businessman.
21:49There's a lot of selling of the Contra.
21:51Because, you know, when I talk to these people, you know, they were interested in seeing this
21:57as a product that has to be sold to the American consumer or to Congress.
22:04So there was a lot of salesmanship in the process.
22:07They needed people.
22:08But who was doing that?
22:09The CIA.
22:10Thirteen days before the crucial vote in Congress, the new Contra leadership, including Edgar Chamorro,
22:18is presented to the press.
22:19The CIA sat with us with a yellow pad, you know, everybody, and we were like in a brainstorm
22:27session, you know, saying, how do you talk to the press?
22:31And then one of the CIA people or whoever it was would ask a question and says, what do
22:37you say if they tell you, do you talk to your American officials?
22:41I say, of course, we say.
22:43No, don't say that.
22:44Say you never talk to them.
22:45Somebody else will drop a question and say, what if they ask you, where did your money
22:50come from?
22:51He says, well, from the United States.
22:53Never say that.
22:54You know, you have to say it from private sources.
22:57Have you had any discussions with an employee of the U.S. government about your struggle?
23:03And if so, when and about what?
23:06No.
23:07No.
23:08Yes.
23:09Dr. Chamorro, with all due respect, you can't come here and expect us to believe that you
23:13have no links with the military situation there.
23:16This is not happening in a vacuum.
23:18What were they worried about in terms of the image of the FDN at that point?
23:29Well, at that point, the concern was that they needed money.
23:34The main concern I received from this man, we need money.
23:38And the only people that have money here is Congress.
23:43Congress buys the story, accepting the administration's claim that it is only stopping arms to El Salvador,
23:49not making war against Nicaragua.
23:52They authorize more money to the CIA, provided it is not used to overthrow the Sandinista government.
23:59The so-called Bolin Amendment has the effect of ratifying the secret war, not curbing it.
24:06Congress was locked in a policy that it was faced with whether the question of whether
24:12or not it wanted to pull the rug from under the executive.
24:14And the executive knew that it had Congress.
24:18And it was basically that simple of a dilemma.
24:22And from that point on, then, Congress has to look the other way on some other deceptions.
24:28Well, from that point forward, Congress couldn't have indicated any grave surprise.
24:36The administration's lack of candor, now fixed in law, will lead it into further evasions.
24:43From the point of view of the Nicaraguans who fought there, they weren't hired to help El Salvador or the United States.
24:51They wanted to change the situation in their own country.
24:55And they meant to change the government or to overthrow it, whatever was needed.
24:59So we got into these contradictions.
25:02And then we got into a quibbling between the administration and Congress as to, well, are
25:06you really abiding by not to overthrow?
25:09And we said, yes, we are abiding, of course we are law abiding, and this is a law.
25:14But then what are your purposes in Nicaragua?
25:16If you don't want to overthrow, we have no purpose, you have no strategy.
25:18Come on now.
25:19The Bolan Amendment has no impact whatsoever on the war on the ground.
25:25The Contra Army has grown to 7,000 men, mostly based in Honduras, and from these camps, continued
25:43attacks on Nicaragua are launched.
25:48The real war is now cloaked in legislative fiction.
25:51Its true purpose is known, but is not officially acknowledged.
25:55Hello.
25:56Mr. President, why don't we openly support those 7,000 guerrillas that are in rebellion against
26:09justice rather than giving aid to covert activity?
26:14Because we want to keep on obeying the laws of our country, which we are obeying.
26:21Everyone in Washington seems to be in on the joke, including the press.
26:26Doesn't the United States want that government replaced?
26:29No, because that would be violating the law.
26:32But Mr. President, what is the American public to think?
26:36In Honduras, the war strategy has another dimension.
26:41In 1954, Honduras served as the staging area for U.S.-backed intervention against Guatemala
26:47to its north.
26:48Now Honduras makes itself available for the U.S. military venture aimed at Nicaragua to
26:53the south.
26:54You notice we got everybody at attention before we went the Air Force through.
26:58Long dependent on U.S. economic support, this country has always been compliant to American
27:03wishes.
27:04And this time, the Honduran military will receive what for them is a vast fortune, $80 million
27:10a year in U.S. funds for arms and training.
27:17Honduras is the poorest country in Central America.
27:21Per capita income is $560 a year.
27:25Nearly half the people are unemployed.
27:28Long ruled by the military, its democratically elected government is a new experiment.
27:34We have democracy, a very fragile democracy.
27:37As long as this conflict is here, I don't see how Honduras can really stabilize its own
27:44democracy.
27:45Because you cannot dis-stabilize Nicaragua without dis-stabilizing Honduras and the other countries
27:52in Central America.
27:53You cannot have a conflict in Nicaragua without affecting the whole region.
28:02But the warnings that the military money will strengthen Honduran generals at the expense
28:06of democracy aren't welcome, especially to the U.S. ambassador.
28:11He said that those in Honduras who are opposing U.S. policy as it is designed and implemented,
28:18we are going to regret it.
28:20To be very frank with you, people at the U.S. Embassy here only listen to those who support
28:29them.
28:30If you oppose them, you are anti-U.S., you are anti-American.
28:35They are not willing to listen to you.
28:39They want to hear their own music.
28:45The Pentagon calls it building a shield for democracy.
28:50Daniel Ortega calls it a practice session for the invasion of Nicaragua.
28:55It is the most impressive show of American military force in Central America in more than
29:00a decade, training exercises that will be staged again and again for years.
29:05The Pentagon won't reveal what it is spending on the construction of airfields, base camps,
29:10and other military installations here, but the total is in the hundreds of millions.
29:15And neither the Honduran Congress nor the U.S. Congress is asked for approval.
29:20There are training opportunities there, not available in the United States.
29:24You can't go out anywhere in the United States and build a big dirt airstrip,
29:28and our people have been able to do that in Honduras.
29:32Secondly, I will tell you that I had an ulterior motive in pushing that program in the beginning,
29:38and that was to see Americans, North Americans, from small towns and cities all over the country,
29:49come to Central America, Honduras specifically,
29:53and begin to learn something about our neighborhood,
29:57or the area just beyond our immediate neighborhood,
30:00believing that if we ultimately are going to cement relationships
30:05and bridge a wide gap of understanding between North America and Latin America,
30:11then more North Americans need to appreciate that part of the world,
30:16appreciate the problems, and appreciate what we can do to assist in improving the welfare of those people.
30:24The growing American presence, military payrolls and GIs spending them,
30:29provides a faint flush of prosperity to impoverished towns like Comeagua.
30:34It is new money in a very poor country.
30:43Most of the people are real friendly down here towards the Americans.
30:47So far, you know.
30:49But the U.S. policy produces losers too.
31:01The Contra war uproots thousands of peasants.
31:08And small coffee growers suffer huge losses,
31:11because the Contra army now occupies a substantial portion of Honduras.
31:15The Contras are becoming an armed nation within a nation.
31:20It is a war that is not ours.
31:22A war that's been brought here by the United States against Nicaragua.
31:26Let them fight against Nicaragua over there.
31:28But don't bring it here.
31:30Don't bring us problems and misery.
31:32If the purpose of the U.S. military strategy here is to intimidate Nicaragua,
31:42its immediate impact is on Honduras.
31:45For the GIs, it is a short tour in a strange place.
31:50If we don't stop them in Honduras, I'm going to tell you, they're going to be in Kansas.
31:53It's already been shown on national TV.
31:56The Soviet Union has one philosophy and one's philosophy only.
32:01We will dominate the world.
32:04The United States don't want to dominate.
32:06We just want to sort of put our six cents worth in here and there.
32:11We've got to stay strong.
32:12We've got to support these people.
32:14We've got to take care of them because they're our Latin American brothers.
32:18And yeah, I hope the first of the year we kick some ass in Nicaragua.
32:22In Nicaragua, the war is not fiction.
32:31It is real.
32:32And the Sandinistas begin to mobilize for a long and larger conflict.
32:37In 1983, all young men over the age of 16 are subjected to a national draft.
32:46To its architects in Washington, that means the policy is working.
32:52As the Sandinista communist government tries to find the young men to push into its military, to grow to those huge sizes, the government of Nicaragua will become more unpopular and more young men will decide to join the freedom fighters.
33:07And so I think what you'll see over time, provided the Congress supports the president, is the mass defection of Sandinista army units composed of young men who want democracy and don't want to serve in communist armies.
33:20And I think that as the tide of expectations turns inside Nicaragua and this political and military conflict, I think you will see the crumbling of the armed forces of the Sandinista movement.
33:31And then the government collapses in the vacuum.
33:34And then how things will work out existentially is something that history will tell us.
33:40Along the border, however, Washington's expectations are not being met. History is playing out differently.
33:47Contrafield commanders complain that their troops are being underfed and poorly led.
33:5441 of them will mutiny against their leader, Enrique Bermudez, charging corruption and mismanagement and demanding his removal.
34:02When their plea is rejected by the American advisors, some of them will abandon the struggle.
34:10It's a shame all those years I wasted there. I did what I could. I contributed my share towards the victory.
34:18Marlon Blandon was a Contra field commander, known as Comandante Gorion.
34:23Yes, I was there. I fought. But being manipulated this way and being sent there to be slaughtered, to be used as cannon fodder, as we say. No way.
34:41By the spring of 1983, events have forced the question, does this proxy army have any real prospects for victory?
34:49While the troops flounder in the field, the American managers are called together for a reassessment.
34:56I had a lengthy session with William Casey.
35:02Frank McNeil was our ambassador to Costa Rica then, and a participant in the strategy session called by William Casey.
35:09In the spring of 1983, in which the CIA official asserted that the Contras would be in Managua in about six months, by Christmas time of 1983.
35:25And I said, that's nonsense, politely but strongly.
35:30Was that a sincere belief of the operators that this was going to happen, or were they just building a reality that they could sell to the top?
35:41I think probably there was a mixture of that among the operators.
35:45If you're really committed, you believe what you want to believe.
35:48It's also politically prudent to tell the boss what they want to hear.
35:53In fact, a collective assessment by all American intelligence agencies predicts the Contras will find it difficult to capture regional cities, let alone topple the Sandinista government.
36:05In other words, on their own, the Contras can't win.
36:09Here's where the role of William Casey becomes important.
36:13He's the first director the CIA has ever had who was really more a politician than anything else.
36:19John Horton was a senior Latin America analyst at the CIA.
36:25But the difference is that Mr. Casey, that he runs the CIA, and he can decide what the CIA does, and he can carry it to any limit he wants.
36:38And I feel that his judgment on Central America and his desire to see administration policy carried out there has meant, if not an abuse of the CIA, at least putting it back in the position where it shouldn't ever be of being the main point element of administration policy.
37:02The CIA director is running a war.
37:07William Casey will not be deterred by either gloomy intelligence estimates or by squeamish congressmen.
37:14He has his intellect in one hand, then he has this feeling that, by God, these damn Democrats or these liberals or these congressmen.
37:22What gets him up? I mean, talking about the Soviet threat?
37:26Well, yeah, and the Soviets getting away with things, and the Sandinistas getting away with it.
37:31The idea of this little bunch of thugs confronting us and having their way.
37:36Nicaragua and its army cannot be allowed to win, so the CIA escalates the war, taking a direct role in the aggression.
37:47From a mother ship off the coast, the agency conducts its own attacks.
37:52As detailed in this classified CIA document, dozens of sabotage missions are launched by the agency's own employees, a special force of Latin mercenaries.
38:02They are called unilaterally controlled Latino assets.
38:09The missions were always controlled by the CIA.
38:13Those of us who fought, who were, so to speak, the cannon fodder, were Honduran.
38:19But we were controlled by the gringos. They gave us the orders. We were at their disposal.
38:23While the mercenaries blow up refineries and mine harbors, U.S. pilots fly back up, firing on Sandinista positions.
38:34We sabotage harbors, refineries, shipyards, bridges.
38:42We never use our own uniforms.
38:46We use Contra uniforms so that the foreign press will think the Contras were doing all the work and the Americans could walk away with their hands clean.
38:57The U.S. directed attacks on economic targets, as well as the mining of harbors, are defined by international law as acts of aggression.
39:09But the administration continues to claim its secret war violates neither congressional restrictions nor national principles.
39:18I think each victim is a tragedy.
39:22And it is part of war.
39:25And I think the moral responsibility for every single victim rests with the communist government of Nicaragua.
39:31Just as the responsibility for every victim of World War II rests with Adolf Hitler who initiated the conflict.
39:37And so in the same way the communist government of Nicaragua is responsible for the armed resistance existing because it exists only because of their aggression.
39:45By late 1983, the realities of war, as well as Sandinista mismanagement, have eclipsed their original goals.
39:56There is rationing instead of economic development.
40:00Instead of solidarity, there is popular discontent.
40:03I am the father of a son and I can tell you that lots of men have died in the mountains.
40:08It's not the fault of the people.
40:11It's not the fault of the people of the United States or the people of Nicaragua.
40:15It's the fault of the two governments that don't get along.
40:17That's what's happening in Nicaragua.
40:18There's not going to be any change for as long as the war between the Contras and the government goes on.
40:27It's just going to get worse every day.
40:31Communism is neither peace nor happiness.
40:35We want to live in peace and happiness and these guys are only bringing suffering to Nicaragua.
40:40The war threatens Sandinista's survival.
40:47They mount a major diplomatic initiative trying to come to terms with Washington.
40:52They told me that I could have a meeting with Secretary Schultz.
40:56So I went and I waited for five days.
40:59Never anywhere in the world, anywhere else, have that happened.
41:03I'm waiting there in the capital of the United States for five days.
41:07And then eventually I'm told that the Secretary of State had to play golf in Atlanta.
41:17And would I not be amenable to meeting with Langhor Muttley?
41:22And I said, well, yes, I came very far and I've been waiting many days.
41:27And so I met with Mr. Muttley and presented our proposal.
41:32That weekend Granada was invaded and the Secretary, I think, was still at the golf course in Atlanta.
41:42After the invasion of Grenada, the Sandinistas moved to full mobilization.
41:46The U.S. response has made it clear that it has no intention of negotiating a settlement.
41:52A diplomatic agreement would leave the Sandinistas in power and President Reagan wants them out.
42:03A nationwide civil guard is organized in addition to the 40,000 regulars in the standing army.
42:08All in preparation for the feared American invasion.
42:14More Soviet helicopters, tanks and heavy equipment are added to the Sandinista arsenal.
42:30And U.S. aggression becomes the pretext for depriving political opponents of civil liberties.
42:38We wanted to make sure that the United States was aware.
42:47A direct military intervention in Nicaragua would be no weekend affair.
42:53That it would be no picnic.
42:55That if they came here, they would stay here.
42:58And if Americans die, then that is a heavy political price to pay back home.
43:08Because Americans have been somehow educated into believing that the lives of other peoples really don't matter all that much.
43:17They don't say it that explicitly, but they really react if it's an American.
43:20It could be a hundred thousand Nicaraguans and who cares.
43:25But if it's an American.
43:27And that's why this is the diabolical nature of this thing.
43:30Using people to wage a war with little political cost for the adventurer.
43:36So you were going to raise the cost?
43:38But if they came here, we had to develop.
43:41We had to give their arms to the people.
43:50In Washington, Congress is belatedly embarrassed and angered by revelations of the secret mining of harbors.
43:57But it still evades the tougher decision.
44:00Whether to halt the irregular war.
44:02All of us here are political animals.
44:05And we cast our votes with an eye on what the repercussions will be in the next election.
44:12If we think that the president's position is strong and that the American people are going to give some credence to him, we want to hedge our bets a good deal.
44:29It's a little harsh to say that's a gutless way to do things.
44:32It's the politically expedient way that you do when you're acting in a political milieu, as all of us are.
44:39Once again, Congress compromises.
44:43No more military aid.
44:45No more involvement by the CIA.
44:47But they vote $27 million in so-called humanitarian aid.
44:51And that's enough to keep the proxy army alive.
44:56There's no doubt Congress could have stopped most of the aid to the Contras if it really wanted to.
45:00Now the administration argued that since we didn't think the forces that we were supporting had the capacity to overwhelm the government of Nicaragua, it wasn't violating the law.
45:11But that's a kind of nicety of argument that no rational human being could have accepted.
45:16And one of the lessons of it was that if the president could get away with violating the law that was on the books, it must mean that the presidency had a great deal of authority to ignore law itself.
45:261985.
45:29Armed with a powerful mandate, his landslide re-election victory, the president raises the political stakes on Nicaragua.
45:41He does not intend to quit.
45:42Alfonso, Adolfo, and Arturo, would you kind of come up here and stand by my side?
45:49I want to tell you something.
45:52We're in this together.
45:54You are the future of Central America.
45:58Today I give you my solemn pledge.
46:01I will not rest until freedom is given a fighting chance in Nicaragua.
46:05The three contrapolitical leaders, recruited and supported by the CIA, become their army's salesmen.
46:23Opinion polls show a majority of the American public has never supported the war.
46:27But now the president mounts a campaign to change their minds.
46:32They are our brothers, these freedom fighters, and we owe them our help.
46:36You know the truth about them.
46:38You know who they're fighting and why.
46:40They are the moral equal of our founding fathers and the brave men and women of the French resistance.
46:46We cannot turn away from them.
46:47No evil is inevitable unless we make it so.
46:56We cannot have the United States walk away from one of the greatest moral challenges in post-war history.
47:02We will fight on. We'll win this struggle for peace.
47:05Thank you for inviting me.
47:08Viva Nicaragua Libra. Thank you and God bless you.
47:10The president's zeal fuels a new secret operation.
47:17Run from inside the White House, armed shipments to the Contras are arranged in defiance of Congress
47:23and paid for with money from private sources, foreign governments, and profits skimmed from the Iranian arms sale.
47:30CIA veterans of Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs are recruited to handle the traffic.
47:34Then one of their planes is shot down over Nicaragua.
47:40My name is Gene Hausen.
47:42And the operation begins to unravel.
47:45Marinette, Wisconsin.
47:47Can you tell us how you came to be here?
47:52Shot out of the sky.
47:54The private management of the war will become a public controversy.
47:59But not the nature of the war itself.
48:01Nicaragua is slowly bleeding.
48:08Washington's strategy, low intensity warfare, means a war aimed mainly at civilians.
48:14Misery, it is thought, will lead to political upheaval.
48:18Scores of health clinics and schools are destroyed.
48:22Refugees crowd into Managua, into deepening scarcity and poverty.
48:26And riding on a truck down a rural road is as dangerous as wearing an army uniform.
48:31God warned me.
48:32I was afraid, but I didn't know why.
48:33I didn't know what was going to happen.
48:34I just give thanks to God that my son is still alive.
48:36This is my son.
48:37And my husband is here too.
48:38I don't know.
48:39They tell me he'll only lose his foot.
48:40It is a longer term problem that the United States is not going to be the same.
48:41I don't know why.
48:42I didn't know what was going to happen.
48:43I just give thanks to God that my son is still alive.
48:47This is my son.
48:48And my husband is here too.
48:49I don't know.
48:50They tell me he'll only lose his foot.
48:59It is a longer term problem that the United States has taken on and we have to be patient
49:12enough to see it through.
49:13But meanwhile, General, we are financing at least a modest level a proxy war against the
49:23Nicaraguan government.
49:24That's what I read in the newspapers.
49:28I do not...
49:29You didn't know that when you were in the government?
49:32I do not find that illogical or morally repugnant.
49:38I'm not talking about morally repugnant.
49:40I'm talking about what is that supposed to accomplish?
49:42If you have to wait for all of these other developments in order for the Nicaraguan people
49:46to see that they don't want the Sandinista government.
49:49It reduces the freedom of action of the Sandinista government.
49:53It engages their armed forces.
49:55It is a way to alert the Nicaraguan populace and develop a degree of popular support that
50:03ultimately will result in an uprising and overthrow of the government.
50:08It is a way to speed along the process.
50:11It does pose problems and put pressures on the Sandinista government that can be helpful
50:17in reducing the length of time required for this, what I'm really talking about,
50:22as an evolutionary solution of the problem.
50:24You're talking about five or ten years, perhaps.
50:28We need to have that kind of patience.
50:33By 1986, more than 20,000 Nicaraguans on both sides have died.
50:39Another 20,000 have been wounded.
50:43A majority of the American people still oppose funding the Contra War five years after its beginning.
50:54But Congressional Democrats, driven by a mad political logic, fear that if they end the war, they will be accused of losing Nicaragua, as they were once accused of losing China and Vietnam.
51:07I don't believe there's a majority in the Congress or the country that counsels passivity, resignation, defeatism in the face of this challenge to freedom and security in our own hemisphere.
51:20In August 1986, Ronald Reagan wins what, for Washington, is really a political war.
51:27Congress votes $100 million for the Contras.
51:33But the victory will be short-lived.
51:36What began as a proxy war fought in a foreign land will come home as an epic scandal in American politics.
51:53The war goes on.
51:54Our proxy army is in the field and fighting.
51:57Honduras is armed.
51:59The Sandinistas are stronger than ever.
52:01And America's own fighting forces hover alongside.
52:22Some things are not different this time.
52:25Nicaragua appears, like Vietnam, to be a war without an ending.
52:30Once again, innocent bystanders have been pulled into our struggle.
52:35Once again, the U.S. government did not tell the truth about its intentions, nor did it confront the real cause.
52:43And once again, an American cause has become someone else's tragedy.
52:49Most people have these fantasies, enemies, or things in their head.
52:56So they are not fighting Sandinistas.
52:57They are fighting themselves.
52:59They are fighting their own dreams, their own fantasies.
53:03And they get caught in this.
53:05And they end up believing it.
53:07So it's a kind of a self-deception, you know.
53:10Because when you go and see the enemy, you find that there are these poor ignorant peasants.
53:14Or these poor women, children, and so on, you know.
53:18Their only problem is that they are poor and ignorant, you know.
53:21And neglected.
53:24So I just one day wake up and said, this is crazy.
53:28You know, this is insanity.
53:30Because we are inventing reality in our heads.
53:33And then we put it on people.
53:35And then we say they are communists.
53:37We need to label them to kill them.
53:39In this war, the people who will be killed live in cooperatives like Miraflores.
53:50Coming here, one discovers the nature of the Contra war.
53:53And comes face to face with its realities.
54:04Silvio was a real special guy.
54:07He was a peasant.
54:10He was killed about 50 feet away from here.
54:15Paul Rice is an American agronomist who works for the Nicaraguan government.
54:20Helping the peasant farmers here.
54:27When I walked over and saw the trench where he died, I just wanted to cry.
54:37He was here the day that this cooperative was attacked.
54:39And he grabbed a gun to defend it, just like any of the other members of the cooperative.
54:44The next day, when we came up to evacuate the dead and the wounded, we found that Silvio had been castrated.
55:02And that his stomach had been sliced open with a bayonet.
55:08He was alive.
55:13He was alive.
55:23This is our war.
55:25It is fought in places like this.
55:28But one thing is different this time.
55:31In our war on Nicaragua, there were no American casualties.
55:36Nicaraguans have done all the dying.
55:40In recent weeks, the Contras have stepped up their military operations in Nicaragua.
55:59The administration is hoping for some military success to help persuade a skeptical Congress to vote for $105 million of additional aid by this fall.
56:12I'm Judy Woodruff.
56:14Please join me again for Frontline.
56:17Good night.
56:18Good night.
56:19Good night.
56:20Good night.
56:21Good night.
56:48For a transcript of this program, please send $4 to Frontline, Box 322, Boston, Massachusetts, 02134.
57:00Frontline is produced for the documentary consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible for its content.
57:09Funding for Frontline was provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide
57:14and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
57:20Schools, colleges, and other organizations interested in purchasing or renting videocassettes of this program
57:26may call 800-424-7963 or write PBS Video, Post Office Box 8092, Washington, D.C., 20024.
Be the first to comment