% FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
% http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html
% ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/cap/chomsky/
% Filename:    articles/chomsky.z.central-america-next-phase
% Title:       Central America: the Next Phase
% Author:      Noam Chomsky
% Appeared-in: Z Magazine (fomerly ``Zeta''), March 1988
% Source:      Dan Epstein 
% Keywords:    Nicaragua
% Synopsis:    US attacks Nicaragua with media's help
% See-also:    articles/chomsky.z.is-peace-at-hand

		 CENTRAL AMERICA: THE NEXT PHASE
			  Noam Chomsky
			  February 1988


Setting the Stage

By a slim majority, the House on February 3 rejected a Reagan
administration request to renew US government (USG) aid to the
proxy army.  CIA supply flights into Nicaragua are to continue
through February, probably at peak intensity, while the illegal
surveillance flights are subject to no limits.  Contra supporters
and fund-raisers (Robert Dole, General John Singlaub, etc.)
announced that they would renew their efforts, reporting that
they were ``swamped by offers of money and support'' after the
congressional vote.{note: AP, Feb. 5, 1988; Pamela Constable,
_BG_, Feb. 7, 1988.} The private and clandestine networks may be
reactivated, to be exposed years hence with appropriate laments.

The Reagan administration had prepared for the contingency.
After the August 7 accords were signed, CIA flights increased to
2--3 a day to provide a reserve stock of arms and supplies.  In
November, John Negroponte was appointed Deputy National Security
Advisor.  Closely associated with Honduran General Alvarez, who
presided over mounting state terror as the US role deepened,
Negroponte was the proconsul for Honduras from 1981--85, charged
with converting Honduras into a base for the US attack against
Nicaragua and organizing the proxy army.{note: COHA _News and
Analysis_, Dec. 16, 1987.} With this appointment, the
administration signalled its intent to return to clandestine war
if necessary; Congress and the media were silent.

On February 4, a headline in the Managua newspaper _El Nuevo
Diario_ read: ``Peace gains points.'' The headline is accurate,
as was the headline in the Sandinista press stating that ``the
U.S.  Administration Will Evaluate New Forms of Aggression
Today.''  Leaders of the pro-contra internal opposition in
Managua deplored the congressional vote as a ``Sandinista
victory.''{note: AP, Feb.  4, 1988.}

In _Zeta_, January, I reviewed the steps taken by the USG through
the first phase of the accords (August-November) to ensure their
collapse.  The first category was military, including rapid
escalation of the supply and surveillance flights required to
keep the US proxy forces in the field and to provide them with
up-to-the minute intelligence so that they can avoid military
combat and attack ``soft targets'' such as agricultural
cooperatives.  The goals were to refute the charge of the doves
that the resort to violence ``is a clear failure'' and should be
replaced by other measures to ``enforce'' a desired ``regional
arrangement'' upon Nicaragua, and Nicaragua alone (Tom
Wicker){note: _NYT_, March 14, 1986.}; to compel Nicaragua to
keep up its guard so that the media could then denounce
Sandinista totalitarianism; and to ensure the contras sufficient
supplies to continue the war in the event of a ban on official
aid.  One measure of these successes is that contra forces,
according to Western military observers, are able to continue
fighting for perhaps a year even without new aid.{note: AP, Feb.
4, 1988.} Another is given by a Witness for Peace study, which
passed virtually without notice, concluding that ``Contra rebels
have doubled their attacks on civilians'' since August 1987, with
90 attacks on civilians as compared with 41 cases of ``Contra
ambushes, murders, attacks on farm cooperatives and kidnappings
between January and July of last year,'' citing figures and
noting that this ``provides but a glimpse of the terror unleashed
on the civilian population in recent months.''{note: AP, Jan. 29,
1988.} The press did report that at least 25 more civilians were
killed by the contras as the House voted.{note: Philip Bennett,
_BG_, Feb. 7, 1988.}

The second category of USG initiatives, ideological warfare at
home, included efforts to refashion the accords to fit the USG
agenda, a task assigned to the Free Press.  Particularly notable
during the period reviewed was the evasion of the severe
violations of the accords by the US client states, and more
crucially, the virtual suppression of the rapid increase in
supply flights that undermined what the accords identify as the
single ``indispensable element'' for peace, namely an end to any
form of support for ``irregular forces [the contras] or
insurrectionist movements [indigenous guerrillas].''

There are two major reasons why these facts had to be suppressed:
first, they demonstrate that the US bears primary responsibility
for sabotaging the accords; second, they undermine the pretense
of ``symmetry'' between El Salvador and Nicaragua that is a
staple of USG propaganda, constantly relayed by the media.  The
careful reader could finally learn that CIA flights had increased
so substantially since August that the contras are ``burying the
equipment in their areas of operation enabling them to fight even
if US military air drops cease.'' This November 24 report merited
notice in the _Washington Post_ on a back page, but the facts
apparently do not suggest that the USG may be undermining the
accords, or raise questions about the relation between these
determined sabotage efforts and the Nicaraguan emergency
regulations while the country is under foreign attack.  Few,
however, would be aware that the International Commission of
Verification (CIVS) established under the accords concluded that
amnesty need not be decreed until the aggression ceases, and even
a real media addict would not have learned last November that the
Nicaraguan National Assembly decreed a complete amnesty and
revoked the state of emergency, both laws to ``go into effect on
the date that the [CIVS certifies] compliance with'' the
commitments of the accords to terminate the attack against
Nicaragua---laws formulated in terms of the simultaneity
condition of the accords.{note: Amnesty Law and bill to suspend
the State of Emergency, promulgated in November 1987, Unofficial
Translation, Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry.} Thus by November,
Nicaragua had largely complied with the accords as they are
actually written, and remains alone in this regard apart from
Costa Rica.

The US military attack against Nicaragua will no doubt continue,
along with other measures to restore Nicaragua to the ``Central
American mode'' and to compel it to adhere to ``regional
standards'' as demanded by _Washington Post_ editors and other
doves.  Ideological warfare will enter a new phase.  In the past,
the task of the Free Press was to demonize the Sandinistas while
extolling the terror states established and supported by the USG;
to suppress Nicaragua's efforts to maintain a neutralist posture
and the USG commitment to force it to become a Soviet client by
barring aid from elsewhere and economic relations with the US, on
which all of Central America relies; and to entrench the doctrine
that the USG is seeking to establish democracy in Central America
as it acted to destroy any possibility of meaningful democracy
and social reform.  This duty was performed with discipline and
success.  During the period of the demolition of the accords
(August 1987-January 1988), the primary task was to focus them on
Nicaragua so that the US clients can violate their terms with
impunity, to suppress the US actions to undermine the accords,
and to eliminate any verification apparatus so that these actions
can continue.  This goal too was achieved, a major USG victory.

In the coming months, the task is to deflect attention from the
USG and its clients while depicting every effort by Nicaragua to
survive the continuing US attack as a violation of Ortega's
promises, proving that Communists cannot be trusted and preparing
the ground for further steps to enforce ``regional standards'' in
Central America.  Thus if the USG directs the contra civilian
front to block a cease-fire, that will prove that Ortega is
uncompromising; the continued refusal of El Salvador and
Guatemala to negotiate with authentic guerrillas will continue to
pass without notice.{note: ``According to [FDR leader Guillermo]
Ungo, talks have not resumed, despite FMLN requests, because of
pressure exerted on Duarte by the Reagan administration as well
as from the country's security forces'' (COHA _News and
Analysis_, Jan. 14, 1988). New FMLN proposals were briefly noted
by the _Boston Globe_, Feb. 9, 1988.} If Nicaragua attempts to
prevent its information system from being taken over by the US
and its local clients, that will be offered as proof of their
iniquity by state ideologists in the media who pretend not to
understand the meaning of a ``free market'' operating under vast
disproportion of resources.  And the same will be true of
measures to sustain the economy that has been destroyed by US
violence and economic warfare, or indeed any measures that
differentiate Nicaragua from some Scandinavian democracy in times
of peace.  Nicaragua has been unable to adopt measures standard
in democratic states in times of crisis.  I doubt that there a
historical precedent for the phenomenon of _La Prensa_, a
disinformation journal subsidized by the superpower attacking
Nicaragua and openly supporting this attack.  Its editor, Jaime
Chamorro, publicly called for contra aid in the US press in 1986.
In a December 1987 interview with Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a
member of the CIA-run ``civilian directorate'' of the contras, he
is identified as ``the co-director of _La Prensa_ who chose to
fight outside the country against the Sandinista dictatorship.''
In a November interview, the Conservative Party leader
interpreted the Sandinista agreement to negotiate with the
contras through Cardinal Obando as a ``recognition of their
legitimacy,'' which makes the contras a ``legitimate part of the
Nicaraguan community with all rights'' so that the internal
opposition can openly identify with them.  In a follow-up
interview, contra leader Adolfo Calero lauds this explicit
association with the contras, as the journal does regularly, a
position further endorsed by other members of the internal
opposition that functions openly in Nicaragua, supporting the US
terrorist attack.  There are many similar examples.  The record
of the US and its clients under far less onerous conditions
teaches us a good deal about the conditions that are imposed by
the powerful, necessarily accepted by the weak.

One qualification.  According to State Department doctrine, as a
result of the failure to provide official aid to the Freedom
Fighters, ``the top priority issue'' for the US clients will
``shift from democratic development to renewed fear of
security,'' with ``resurgence of the military'' now
``inevitable'' and a likelikood of coups and repression (Elliott
Abrams), a warning reiterated by General Fred Woerner of the
Southern Command after the House vote and a virtual authorization
for increased terror.{note: AP, Feb. 7, 1988, recalling an Abrams
speech of April 1987; Richard Halloran, _NYT_, Feb. 7, 1988.} If
state terror can be blamed on ``communist subversion''
originating from Nicaragua (Abrams), constraints on media
coverage of the client regimes might relax.


Off the Agenda

The most important diplomatic event of January 1988 was the
report of the International Commission (CIVS) charged with
monitoring compliance with the accords.  It singled out the USG
for condemnation because of its continued assistance ``to the
irregular forces operating against the government of Nicaragua,''
thus violating ``an indispensable requirement for the success of
the peace efforts and of this Procedure as a whole.'' A CIVS
official informed the press that Latin American representatives
were ``shocked by the attitudes of patent fear'' expressed by
trade unionists and opposition figures in El Salvador and
Guatemala, adding that the CIVS could not provide details about
compliance because of objections from Honduras, El Salvador and
Guatemala---indicating what the report would have said, had it
not been blocked by the US and its clients (Peter Ford,
_Christian Science Monitor_, Jan. 15, 1988).  These conclusions
are obviously useless for ideological warfare.  Correspondingly,
James LeMoyne of the _New York Times_, in a report focusing on
denunciations of Nicaragua, dismissed the CIVS report in one
sentence, stating only that its meeting ended ``with little
agreement'' (the report was adopted unanimously).  The
condemnation of the US was briefly noted in an article on another
topic 9 days later by his colleague Stephen Kinzer, who explained
that ``the commission fell out of favor in some circles when it
reported that Nicaragua had taken `concrete steps toward the
beginning of a democratic process'.'' He noted further that
President Duarte ``suggested that news reports would be enough to
determine which nations were complying,'' reflecting his insight
into the Free Press.  The Commission was disbanded under US
pressure as too sympathetic to Nicaragua, granting to the US the
privilege of pursuing its terrorist exercises unhampered and
permitting Duarte to continue to serve as a front man and
apologist for terror and murder.

In the US client states, the terror and repression that escalated
during the first phase of the accords (see _Zeta_, January)
continued through the final demolition.  A few examples will
illustrate.

On the day of the House vote, judicial authorities in El Salvador
confirmed the discovery of the bodies of two men and a teen-age
boy at a well-known dumping ground for the death squads
associated with the security forces.  They informed the press
that the three bodies were found blindfolded with hands tied
behind their backs and signs of torture.  The nongovernmental
Human Rights Commission (CDHES), which continues to function
despite the assassination of its founders and directors, reported
that 13 bodies had been found in the preceding two weeks, most
showing signs of torture typical of the death squads.  Seven
bullet-ridden bodies were found on January 17 on a ranch,
including two women ``who had been hanged from a tree by their
hair''; ``their breasts were cut off and their faces painted
red,'' a CDHES spokesman reported, on condition of anonymity for
fear of the death squads.  The bodies of three tortured men were
found on January 25.  The spokesman added that the murders were
``committed according to the _modus operandi_ of death squads and
demonstrate that these actions perpetrated by security forces and
armed forces are continuing.'' This information, reported by AP,
is available to readers of Canada's leading journal (_Toronto
Globe & Mail_, Feb. 3), but there is no word in the _New York
Times_ or _Washington Post_.{note: AP, Feb. 2, 3; _Globe & Mail_,
Feb. 3, 1988.}

In late December, the auxiliary Archbishop of San Salvador said
in a homily that some means must be found ``to stop these death
squads, which are crouching in the darkness ready to pounce and
ready to return to the abuses of past years.''{note: AP, Feb. 3,
1988.} In a televised mass on January 3, Archbishop Rivera y
Damas once again denounced ``the practice of torture used against
many Salvadorans by the death squads.'' He stated that bishops in
several provinces reported increased death squad murders and
called for an end to assassinations and torture.{note: UPI, _BG_,
Jan. 4, 1985, 90 words; COHA _Washington Report on the
Hemisphere_, Jan. 20, 1988.} Little of this is noted in the
media, and none of it in the _New York Times_, which also does
not report that leading Church figures who have fled from El
Salvador (including a close associate of the assassinated
Archbishop Romero), well-known Salvadoran writers, and others who
are by no stretch of the imagination ``political activists,'' and
who are well-known to _Times_ correspondents, still cannot return
to the death squad ``democracy'' they applaud, for fear of
assassination.  On the contrary, James LeMoyne perceives greater
freedom in El Salvador than in Nicaragua, where the pro-contra
internal opposition complain about harassment (regularly featured
in the _Times_), but survive without fear for their lives.

After CDHES president Herbert Anaya was assassinated on October
26, his widow, a lawyer who had defended political prisoners,
fled with her five children to Canada.  She called for an
international commission to investigate the murder and offered to
produce a witness who could identify the murderers from the
security forces if the person's safety could be secured.  The
CHEDS rejected the confession of a 19-year-old high school
student in police custody that he had murdered Anaya on orders of
the guerrillas.  His older sister informed the press that he was
asleep when the murder took place and that ``physical and
psychological pressures'' had been used to force a confession:
``He looked drugged.  He looked really bad.  He was totally
intimidated.  He said they were interrogating him day and night
and that they wouldn't let him eat.''  His mother supported this
testimony and told a news conference that she had been offered a
bribe by the government to collaborate.  These facts were omitted
by the _New York Times_ in its coverage of the confession.{note:
LeMoyne, _NYT_, Jan. 6, 8,; Christopher Norton, _Toronto Globe &
Mail_, Jan. 6; Robert Matas, _G&M_, Jan. 7; AP, Jan. 7, 1988.
See also Marjorie Miller, _LAT_, Jan. 9, 1988; _Guardian_ (New
York), Jan. 20, 1988.}

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, in its Human Rights Review
for 1987, once again named El Salvador as among the worst
violators of human rights (along with Chile, Colombia, the
contras, and the Shining Path guerrillas in Peru), with
Guatemala, Haiti, Peru and Paraguay ``close behind.'' They cited
the ``recent violence in El Salvador'' including killings ``in
typical death-squad fashion, the victims being shot down from a
passing car or their throats slit after being tortured,'' two
recent deaths under custody of the National Police, and Duarte's
continuing refusal to seek justice ``for the perpetrators of even
a single crime against a Salvadoran citizen during his more than
six years of holding power.''{note: _News and Analysis_, Jan. 6,
1988; _Washington Report on the Hemisphere_, Jan. 20, 1988.}

In September, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of
the OAS issued a report noting a ``perceptible decline in the
observance of human rights'' in Guatemala, expressing concern
over ``the resumption of methods and systems for eliminating
persons in mass and the reappearance of the dreadful death
squads.'' The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission reported 334
extrajudicial executions and 73 disappearances in the first 9
months of 1987, and an executive committee member (Toribio
Pineda) visiting Washington stated that ``the accords are being
used as a smoke screen and the human rights situation is becoming
much graver. . . .  [The accords have served] to allow violations
with much more impunity.'' The Costa Rica-based Commission for
the Defense of Human Rights in Central America informed the UN in
November that in Guatemala, ``repressive action has continued
with the usual characteristics: the appearance of corpses with
clear signs of torture on the roadsides and street; the abduction
and execution of popular leaders [giving examples]; an increase
in arbitrary detentions which later became forced
disappearances''; and numerous ``other violations which call for
the attention of the international community gathered here.'' The
report documented some 175 cases of abductions, disappearances,
and assassinations from August 8 to November 17, 1987, in
addition to grenade attacks, a bomb thrown into a church, etc.,
while Pineda reported that the documented cases represent only a
fraction of the abuses, because most take place outside of the
capital (the same is reported in El Salvador), citing also
indiscriminate bombings, destruction of crops, and so on.{note:
_Update_, Central American Historical Institute, Dec. 28, 1987;
COHA, _Washington Report on the Hemisphere_, Feb. 3, 1988.}.  In
both countries, as in Honduras, the provisions of the accords
calling for ``justice, freedom and democracy'' and guarantees for
``the inviolability of all forms of life and liberty'' and ``the
safety of the people'' are a cynical mockery, thanks to USG-media
priorities.

In the _Christian Science Monitor_, which still provides
professional reporting from Central America, Wilson Ring reported
on January 29 that the human rights situation in Honduras has
deterioriated since the accords were signed, quoting Ramon
Custodio, head of the Human Rights Commission, who reported 107
assassinations by security forces in 1987. ``While many
acknowledge the human rights situation in Honduras is
worsening,'' Ring continues, ``all say the abuses pale in
comparison with those in neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala,
where political murders are an almost daily occurrence.''  The
International Verification Commission apparently shared this
assessment, one reason why it had to be dispatched to the memory
hole.

Meanwhile, James LeMoyne concludes (Feb. 7) that ``American
support for elected governments [meaning, El Salvador, Guatemala
and Honduras] has been a relative success.'' No doubt true, by
some standards.

In short, the three US client states remain safely within ``the
Central American mode,'' a matter of no concern since they have
been exempted from the accords by USG fiat with the tacit
approval of the media and Congress.


Hawks and Doves

By mid-January, the accords had been effectively dismantled.
Nevertheless, there are factors that are pressing the USG toward
the position of the doves. Before turning to these matters, I
would like to place the discussion in a context that seems to me
relevant for understanding the unfolding events.

There are persistent features of USG policy, reflecting the
stability of the domestic institutions from which it derives.  A
condition for entering the arena of respectable debate or
participating in state management is adherence to this doctrinal
framework.  The basic principle is that independent nationalism
and development geared to domestic needs are unacceptable.  Any
deviation requires that discipline be imposed, either by force or
in other ways.  Thus the doves argue that since ``the Contra
effort is woefully inadequate to achieve . . . democracy in
Nicaragua,'' we should ``isolate'' the ``reprehensible''
government in Managua and ``leave it to fester in its own
juices'' while blocking Sandinista efforts ``to export violent
revolution'' (Senator Alan Cranston, February 1986).{note: US
Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Feb. 27, 1986, 5.} The US
clients, in contrast, merit aid and support.  They conform to the
Central American mode of repression, exploitation, and rule by
privileged elements that accede to the demands of US power
(``democracy''), so even hideous atrocities are of no account.

Within this elite consensus, there is room for tactical debate.
The choices range between the hard line reliance on force and a
soft line preference for economic and other pressures.  Thus one
may oppose the contras because the hard line option is perceived
to have failed (in reality, it succeeded in its major aim of
reversing social reforms and development for domestic needs, thus
preventing the feared demonstration effect regularly described as
``exporting violent revolution''); and with the destruction of
the Nicaraguan economy, the same policy goals can be pursued by
less costly means.  Or one may support the contras on the grounds
that violence may prove effective in enforcing ``regional
standards.''

The basic policy goals are frankly spelled out in the internal
record.  Immediately after the US destroyed Guatemalan democracy
in 1954, the National Security Council produced a Top Secret
Memorandum titled ``U.S. Policy Toward Latin America'' (NSC
5432).  It opened by explaining that the major threat to US
interests is ``the trend in Latin America toward nationalistic
regimes'' that respond to ``popular demand for immediate
improvement in the low living standards of the masses'' and for
production geared to domestic needs.  This is intolerable,
because the US is committed to ``encouraging a climate conducive
to private investment,'' and must ``encourage'' the Latin
American countries ``to base their economies on a system of
private enterprise, and, as essential thereto, to create a
political and economic climate conducive to private investment of
both domestic and foreign capital,'' including guarantees for the
``opportunity to earn and in the case of foreign capital to
repatriate a reasonable return.'' These principles are reiterated
elsewhere, often verbatim (e.g., NSC 5613/1, Sept. 25, 1956).
The Latin American countries must concentrate on export-oriented
production in accord with the needs of US investors.  To
facilitate these goals, so this and later documents explain
forthrightly, it is necessary for the US to control the Latin
American military, which has the responsibility to overthrow
civilian governments that do not conform to US requirements
(called ``the welfare of the nation''); the methods are examined
in detail.  It is also necessary to overcome the excessive
liberalism of Latin American governments, to block ``subversion''
(that is, the wrong ideas), and in general to bar any challenge
to US domination.  The US has no objection to democratic
forms---indeed, these are useful for the purposes of population
control at home---but only if conditions are established, by
violence if necessary, to ensure that the threat of independent
development, social reform and broad democratic participation has
been overcome.  Closet Marxists in planning circles perceive that
a class struggle is in process in Latin America, and that to win
this struggle, the US may have to rely on force, since plainly it
lacks political appeal among ``the masses'' with their
unacceptable aspirations and susceptibility to what internal
documents call ``ultranationalism,'' meaning efforts to break out
of the approved mold.{note: For references and further details,
see my _On Power and Ideology_ (South End, 1987, lecture 1).}

These problems arise throughout the world.  During the Vietnam
war, USG scholarship and captured Vietnamese documents agreed
that the US is militarily strong but politically weak, and
therefore must displace confrontation from the political to the
military arena, where violence can prevail.  Much the same has
been true in Latin America, and remains so.

Ideas of this nature have been implemented since World War II in
order to maintain a world system subordinated to the needs of the
US economy, or more accurately, its proprietors.  It is hardly
surprising that elite groups that dominate US political life
should formulate and implement such global programs, just as it
is natural that all of this should be suppressed in a
well-functioning ideological system.  Crucially, evolving policy
conforms generally to the directives outlined in internal
documents.  In particular, there is a good correlation between US
aid and the investment climate in Third World countries; and
given the means required to safeguard the basic policy
principles, we find that as a corollary, US aid correlates with
human rights violations.  In Latin America, the leading academic
specialist on the topic concluded from a revealing study that US
aid ``has tended to flow disproportionately to . . . the
hemisphere's relatively egregious violators of fundamental human
rights,'' to governments ``which torture their citizens'' (Lars
Schoultz).  Other studies have shown the same, and the reasons
are not hard to discern.

The tactical choices within this framework cannot be associated
with particular individuals or groups.  Thus Henry Kissinger was
a dove with regard to China, where he agreed with Richard Nixon
that the hard line policy was unproductive and that other
measures could draw China into the US-dominated global system.
At the same time he was a hawk with regard to the Middle East,
supporting Israel's refusal to accept a full-scale peace treaty
offered by Egypt and Jordan in early 1971 and blocking State
Department moves toward a diplomatic resolution of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, establishing a policy that still prevails
and explains much of what is happening in that region today.

We can learn a good deal by attention to the range of choices.
Keeping just to Latin America, consider the efforts to eliminate
the Allende regime in Chile.  There were two parallel operations.
Track II, the hard line, aimed at a military coup.  This was
concealed from Ambassador Edward Korry, a Kennedy liberal, whose
task was to implement Track I, the soft line; in Korry's words,
to ``do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to
utmost deprivation and poverty, a policy designed for a long time
to come to accelerate the hard features of a Communist society in
Chile.'' The soft line was an extension of the long-term CIA
effort to control Chilean democracy.  One indication of its level
is that in the 1964 election, the CIA spent twice as much per
Chilean voter to block Allende as the total spent per voter by
both parties in the US elections of the same year.{note: Gregory
Treverton, _Covert Action_ (Basic Books, 1987), 18.} Similarly in
the case of Cuba, the Eisenhower administration planned a direct
attack while Vice-President Nixon, keeping to the soft line in a
secret discussion of June 1960, expressed his concern that
according to a CIA briefing, ``Cuba's economic situation had not
deteriorated significantly since the overthrow of Batista,'' then
urging specific measures to place ``greater economic pressure on
Cuba.''{note: Memorandum for Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs, 25 June 1960, Secret.}

To take another case of contemporary relevance, in 1949 the CIA
identified ``two areas of instability'' in Latin America: Bolivia
and Guatemala (_Review of the World Situation_, 17 August 1949).
The Eisenhower administration pursued the hard line to overthrow
capitalist democracy in Guatemala but chose the soft line with
regard to a Bolivian revolution that had the support of the
Communist Party and radical tin miners, had led to expropriation,
and had even moved towards ``criminal agitation of the Indians of
the farms and mines'' and a pro-peace conference, as a
reactionary Archbishop warned.{note: Bryce Wood, _The Dismantling
of the Good Neighbor Policy_ (U. of Texas press, 1985).} The USG
concluded that the best plan was to support the least radical
elements, expecting that US pressures, including domination of
the tin market, would serve to control unwanted developments.  As
John Foster Dulles explained, this would be the best way to
contain the ``Communist infection in South America''; terms such
as ``infection,'' ``virus,'' ``cancer,'' etc., are standard in
the public and internal records, rhetoric not without precedent
in recent history.  In accordance with standard doctrine, the US
took control over the Bolivian military, equipping it with modern
armaments and sending hundreds of officers to the ``school of
coups'' in Panama and elsewhere.  Bolivia was soon subject to US
influence and control.  By 1953, the NSC noted improvement in
``the climate for private investment,'' including ``an agreement
permitting a private American firm to exploit two petroleum
areas'' (NSC 141/1, ``Progress Report,'' July 23, 1953).  A
military coup took place in 1964.  A 1980 coup was carried out
with the assistance of Klaus Barbie, who had been sent to Bolivia
when he could no longer be protected in France, where he had been
carrying out anti-resistance activities under US control as he
had done under the Nazis.  By now, one out of three Bolivian
infants dies in the first year of life, so that Bolivia has the
slowest rate of population growth in Latin America along with the
highest birth rate, according to a recent UNICEF study.  The FAO
estimates that the average Bolivian consumes 78% of daily minimum
calorie and protein requirements and that more than half of
Bolivian children suffer from malnutrition.  Of the economically
active population, 25% are unemployed and another 40% work in the
``informal sector'' (e.g., smuggling and drugs).{note:
_Latinamerica press_ (Lima), Dec. 24, 1987.}

Several points merit attention.  First, the consequences of the
hard line in Guatemala and the soft line in Bolivia were similar.
Second, both policy decisions were successful in their major aim:
containing the ``Communist virus,'' the threat of
``ultranationalism.''  Third, both policies are evidently
regarded as quite proper, as we can see in the case of Bolivia by
the complete lack of interest in what has happened since (apart
from possible costs to the US through the drug racket); and with
regard to Guatemala, by the successful intervention under Kennedy
to block a democratic election, the direct US participation in
murderous counterinsurgency campaigns under Lyndon Johnson, the
continuing supply of arms to Guatemala through the late 1970s and
the reliance on our Israeli mercenary state to fill any gaps, the
enthusiastic US support for atrocities that go well beyond even
the astonishing Guatemalan norm in the 1980s, and the applause
for the ``fledgling democracy'' that the ruling military now
tolerate as a means to extort money from Congress.  We may say
that these are ``messy episodes'' and ``blundering'' (which in
fact succeeded in its major aims), but nothing more (Stephen
Kinzer, Jan. 10, 1988).  Fourth, the soft line and the hard line
were adopted by the same people, at the same time, revealing that
the issues are tactical, involving no departure from shared
principle.  All of this provides insight into the nature of US
policy, and the prevailing political culture.

With these considerations in mind, let us turn to current US
policies toward Central America, where there was a challenge to
the persistent principles in the 1970s.  In El Salvador, the US
wasted little time in moving towards the hard line, and tactical
debate terminated when it appeared that the slaughter conducted
by the US mercenary army was achieving its goals.  We should not
overlook the success of these policies.  Well after the 1984
elections that established ``democracy'' in El Salvador to the
applause of the Free Press and responsible opinion generally, the
human rights organization Socorro Juridico, operating under the
protection of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, observed that the
continuing terror is still conducted by ``the same members of the
armed forces who enjoy official approval and are adequately
trained to carry out these acts of collective suffering.''
``Salvadoran society, affected by terror and panic, a result of
the persistent violation of basic human rights, shows the
following traits: collective intimidation and generalized fear,
on the one hand, and on the other the internalized acceptance of
the terror because of the daily and frequent use of violent
means.  In general, society accepts the frequent appearance of
tortured bodies, because basic rights, the right to life, has
absolutely no overriding value for society.''

The last comment also applies to the society that oversees these
operations, as underscored by George Shultz in one of his
lamentations on terrorism (April 14, 1986, a talk delivered at
the very moment of the US terror bombing of Libya).  In El
Salvador, he declaimed, ``the results are something all Americans
can be proud of''---at least, all Americans who enjoy the sight
of tortured bodies, starving children, terror and panic and
generalized fear.

These observations on Salvadoran society under ``democracy'' were
presented at the First International Seminar on Torture in Latin
America at Buenos Aires in December 1985, a conference devoted to
``the repressive system'' that ``has at its disposal knowledge
and a multinational technology of terror, developed in
specialized centers whose purpose is to perfect methods of
exploitation, oppression and dependence of individuals and entire
peoples'' by the use of ``state terrorism inspired by the
Doctrine of National Security,'' which can be traced to the
historic decision of the Kennedy administration to shift the
mission of the Latin American military to ``internal
security.''{note: _Torture in Latin America_, LADOC (Latin
American Documentation), Lima, 1987.  See Chomsky and Edward
Herman, _The Political Economy of Human Rights_, vol. I (South
End, 1979); Lars Schoultz, _Human Rights and United States Policy
toward Latin America_ (Princeton, 1981).} The conference passed
without notice here, and, of course, none of this falls within
the canon of terrorism as conceived in the civilized world.

In the case of Nicaragua, after a brief experiment with soft line
measures to place privileged US-backed elements in power
(``supporting democracy''), the US turned to terror and economic
warfare.  An impediment to the normal policies was that the
Nicaraguan military could not be converted into a subversive
force in the usual fashion.  Therefore it was necessary to
construct a proxy army to attack Nicaragua from foreign bases, a
variant of familiar programs.

The sharp change in US policy towards Nicaragua is instructive.
In the 1960s and 1970s, under Somoza's tyranny, Nicaragua was one
of the highest per capita recipients of US economic aid in Latin
America, because, as the AID mission explained in 1977, ``U.S.
investment is welcomed in Nicaragua's developing free enterprise
economy'' and Somoza supports US policy objectives.  Military
assistance was high, to ensure that Somoza's National Guard could
perform its functions (see Tom Barry and Deb Preusch, _The Soft
War_ (Grove, 1988)).  Not long after the Guard was driven from
Nicaragua, this massive aid resumed, to its successor force; the
Reaganite propaganda victory has been so extraordinary that in
congressional debate, contra aid is often described as ``aid to
Nicaragua,'' even by the most outspoken doves, who oppose
Reagan's ``desire to aid Nicaragua'' (Rep. Barney Frank of
Massachusetts, _Congressional Record_, Dec. 9, 1987).  Economic
aid was also high in the 60s and 70s.  Under Carter, more such
aid went to Nicaragua than to any other Central American nation,
in addition to other international aid.  There was an ``economic
miracle,'' with a rapid rise in GNP---and in child malnutrition
and general misery, given the nature of the development model.
After Carter's early attempt to use aid as a lever to back
``Nicaragua's forces of moderation'' (i.e., the pro-US private
sector), aid terminated to be replaced by lethal economic
warfare.  The USG policy shift coincides with a shift in
Nicaragua from harsh repression and robbery of the poor to
successful efforts to direct scarce resources to their needs.  It
is a striking feature of our political culture that the meaning
of these facts cannot be understood.

The hard line today calls for military force, but this is
increasingly a minority view.  By 1986, the contra option was
opposed by 80% of ``leaders,'' the Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations reports.{note: John E. Rielly, ed., _American Public
Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1987_, Chicago Council on Foreign
Relations, March 1987.} The soft line calls for the resort to
less violent measures now that US terror has succeeded in
overcoming the threat of improvements in health and literacy and
the ``virus'' of successful development that might, it was
feared, have had a demonstration effect in a ``revolution without
borders'' (all of this concealed in conventional rhetoric, with
the fraud particularly transparent by virtue of the extraordinary
degree of lying).  It is also anticipated that the social fabric
has been sufficiently torn to shreds, and enough popular
disaffection created, to add considerably to the massive problems
of reconstruction, should the US military attack diminish.  It is
assumed that people will blame those in power for their suffering
and all can see that it is because of the Sandinistas that the US
persists in driving Nicaragua to ruin.  Apart from the military
attack, US economic warfare has been highly effective in
reversing development, undermining health and other social
services, and wiping out private enterprise, unable to develop
alternative sources of supply and markets that the government
could sometimes find, though at severe cost.  These consequences
also permit US journalists to deplore the ``bitterness and apathy
in Nicaragua'' (James LeMoyne),{note: _NYT_, Dec. 29, 1987.}
attributing it to Sandinista mismanagement and repression.  The
operative question for policy, then, is whether to persist with
the hard line or, as the doves typically prefer, to ensure in
other ways that Nicaragua will ``fester in its own juices'' in
``utmost deprivation and poverty'' until it sees the light.

These alternatives fall well within the traditional policy
consensus that the cancer of independent development must be
excised.  Correspondingly, these alternatives are the subject of
ample debate in the media, reflecting elite controversy.  This
debate sometimes misleads even dissident opinion, which fails to
see that it conforms to the persistent principles of policy and
ideology.  Departure from this framework in the Free Press is
very marginal, and the elementary truths about US policy are
inexpressible.  Indeed it is considered inappropriate to bring up
the historical or documentary record, since at each point in
time, the US has undergone a miraculous change of course and the
past is therefore irrelevant, a useful doctrinal principle,
regularly invoked.  Thus James LeMoyne, replaying the familiar
record, informs us that the US ``has acted inexcusably in the
recent past and Americans know it,'' but now all has changed, and
the US is committed to fostering the required ``political change
in the region,''{note: _NYT_, Feb. 7, 1988.} one notable example
being the sudden dedication to ``democracy'' in Nicaragua dating
(by odd coincidence) from July 1979---while, curiously, we follow
the same policies in the region as always, except with increased
brutality.  In the real world, nothing relevant has changed.

The shared dove-hawk consensus was illustrated dramatically
during the Miranda affair staged by the state propaganda
services, with the media offering their ardent support as usual,
beginning December 13 with two long front-page articles in the
_Washington Post_ on the remarkable revelations of this
high-level defector (rewarded with $800,000 for his services) and
statements by Daniel and Humberto Ortega; others followed suit,
and the topic received immense coverage and elicited much
indignation.  The extravaganza was timed to coincide with
administration efforts, which succeeded, to ram through renewed
authorization for the CIA to fly supplies into Nicaragua, thus
laying the basis for continued war.  The sole Miranda revelation
that merited even a phrase was that the USG had been falsifying
the level of Soviet and Cuban advisers, far lower, as he
revealed, than had been claimed.  But this is so familiar that
little attention was warranted, and little was given, though not
for this reason; similarly, little (if any) notice was given to
the report that Cuba's foreign minister ``reiterated his
country's offer to withdraw its military advisers from Nicaragua
once the U.S.-backed contra campaign against the Sandinista
government ends'' (AP, Feb. 1, 1988).  Rather, there was a huge
media barrage designed to show that Managua is threatening to
``overwhelm and terrorize'' its neighbors (_Washington Post_).
The same _Post_ editorial observed that ``Nicaragua will be a
prime place to test the sanguine forecast that [Gorbachev] is now
turning down the heat in the Third World,'' thus placing the onus
for the US attack against Nicaragua on the Russians, another
impressive Agitprop achievement.{note: _WP Weekly_, Dec. 28,
1987.}

The factual basis for these impassioned charges was as follows:
as reported by Miranda, and confirmed by the Ortegas, Nicaragua
was planning to reduce its military forces and to provide light
armaments to the general population for defense against a
possible US invasion, thus creating a nation in arms---on the
model of Israel, for example, though at a far lower level.  As
Defense Minister Ortega stated in remarks that were transmuted in
a most miraculous way as they passed through the media filter,
``It is not our intention to be an offensive army, capable of
attacking another country.  We simply want to have all the modern
weapons needed to defend our country.''{note: FBIS-LAT-87--239,
14 December 1987, 16ff.} To convert this into a threat to
``overwhelm and terrorize'' Central America is quite an
achievement, even for the Free Press, which exulted that the
Sandinistas themselves admitted that ``with Soviet help, they
plan to build a reserve army of more than half a million men'' to
ensure ``that the party will continue to control much of
Nicaragua'' (James LeMoyne), not to defend Nicaragua from
eventual US invasion.  Defense against possible US aggression
cannot be the motive for arming the population, since LeMoyne
asserts as definite fact that ``the United States will not invade
Nicaragua,'' which settles the issue.  It is therefore only a
cover for totalitarianism when Nicaragua's population is
mobilized while the US attack escalates and the US military
carries out constant military maneuvers on its borders, and there
is no reason for Nicaragua to pay attention to comments by
American officials that ``they worry that the end result of the
Arias peace plan will be to increase the likelihood of an
invasion of Nicaragua''---also cited by LeMoyne, exhibiting his
considerable gift for self-refutation.{note: James LeMoyne, _NYT
Magazine_, Jan. 10, 1988.}

Another charge was that Nicaragua was considering actions in the
US client states in the event of a US invasion, the ultimate
proof that they are Stalinist monsters.  Still another stunning
revelation was that Nicaragua was hoping to obtain jet planes to
defend its territory from US attack, an intolerable outrage.  As
Mary McGrory observed, ``mere mention of MIGs makes hawks out of
the most resolute congressional doves.''{note: _BG_, Dec. 19,
1987.} It is, of course, well-understood that Nicaragua has no
other way to prevent the CIA from supplying the forces it directs
within Nicaragua.  In fact, Nicaragua has made it clear,
repeatedly, that it would be happy to obtain French Mirage jets,
but this fact cannot be reported because it would give the game
away, and would undermine the ominous references to the
``Soviet-supplied Sandinistas'' that are necessary to keep the
domestic US population in line.

The logic of the US response is clear: Nicaragua has no right of
self-defense.  It is intolerable, tantamount to aggression, for
Nicaragua to interfere with US violence and terror by arming its
population in self-defense or attempting to defend its airspace.
This doctrine of the elite consensus is, again, highly revealing,
as is the fact that its meaning cannot be perceived.

It is interesting that in the midst of the furor over Sandinista
plans to obtain means to defend themselves, the US began shipping
advanced F-5 jet planes to Honduras on Dec. 15,{note: Wilson
Ring, _CSM_, Dec. 14; AP, Dec. 15, 1987.} unreported by the _New
York Times_ apart from subsequent reference in quotes from Ortega
and Arias buried in articles on other matters.{note: LeMoyne,
_NYT_, Dec. 16, David Pitt, _NYT_, Dec. 20, 1987.}

In yet another propaganda coup, James LeMoyne announced that in
response to Miranda's charges, Defense Minister Ortega ``seemed
indirectly to confirm the existence of Sandinista assistance to
Salvadoran rebels.'' This is LeMoyne's rendition of Ortega's
statement that the Reagan administration had no right to produce
such charges given its arming of the contras.  What Ortega went
on to say, as LeMoyne knows but would not report, is that ``the
Salvadoran guerrillas have some resources and ways to get
weapons'' and they ``are basically armed through their own
efforts,'' not depending ``on outside sources; they are
self-sufficient.'' This conversion of Ortega's denial of
Nicaraguan support for Salvadoran guerrillas to an admission of
such support is important for LeMoyne, because one of his major
doctrines is that Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala are alike
in that they all face ``externally backed guerrilla war.'' This
is a central element of Washington propaganda, so it is the duty
of the Free Press to insist upon the claim, however absurd the
comparison may be.  Since LeMoyne cannot conjure up KGB supply
flights at the level of 2--3 a day into El Salvador to keep the
guerrillas in the field, not to speak of the other elements of
the ``low intensity conflict,'' he has to do the best he can;
hence his grasping at the straw of Defense Minister Ortega's
comments, reconstructed in the required fashion while the
unwanted facts are marginalized or suppressed.

LeMoyne has made a noble effort to establish the ``symmetry''
required for doctrinal reasons.  In August 1987, he reported that
though rebels in El Salvador deny receiving support from
Nicaragua, ``ample evidence shows it exists, and it is
questionable how long they could survive without it.''{note:
_NYT_, Aug. 13, 1987.} Thus they are much like the contras, who,
as regularly conceded, ``would have difficulty surviving''
without the massive CIA airlift (_NYT_ military correspondent
Bernard Trainor, Jan. 27, 1988), and could not attack ``soft
targets'' without the extraordinary intelligence and
communication apparatus provided by their foreign master.
LeMoyne presented no evidence, then or ever, and has yet to
comment on the fact that State Department efforts to substantiate
these claims are derisory (and were dismissed as such by the
World Court); but it is required for propaganda, so therefore it
is a fact.

_Times_ efforts to protect this required fact are intriguing.
After LeMoyne's statement appeared, the media monitoring
organization FAIR wrote a letter to the _Times_ asking them to
share LeMoyne's ``ample evidence'' with its readers.  Their
letter was not published, but they did receive a response from
foreign editor Joseph Lelyveld acknowledging that LeMoyne had
been ``imprecise.''{note: _Extra!_, Oct.-Nov. 1987.} LeMoyne, and
the _Times_, have had ample opportunity since to correct this
``imprecise'' report, and they have used it, namely, to repeat
the charges that they privately acknowledge to be without merit.
LeMoyne does this regularly, either explicitly as in the cases
mentioned, or implicitly in his constant reference to the
``symmetry'' between El Salvador and Nicaragua---indeed, the fact
that Nicaragua is ``far more militarized than neighboring El
Salvador, a country also at war,'' a statement that would
embarrass a moderately serious journalist.{note: _NYT_, Dec. 29,
1987.} LeMoyne, who describes himself as occupying the middle
ground between ``ideologues of left and right,''{note: Dec. 20,
1987.} is not alone in maintaining the fiction of ``symmetry.''
Thus in the midst of the Miranda farce, Stephen Engelberg wrote
in the _Times_ that ``although no firm evidence was ever
unveiled'' to show that Nicaragua was supplying the rebels from
1981 to 1984, ``a range of intelligence officials said the
circumstantial case for Nicaraguan involvement was
overwhelming,'' an argument that ``appears to have been
confirmed'' by Miranda, who ``said the Sandinistas were shipping
the weapons to El Salvador by sea.''{note: Dec. 18, 1987.} That
is, they are shipping weapons via the Gulf of Fonseca, which is
30 km wide, heavily patrolled by US naval vessels and SEAL teams
and covered by a radar facility on Tiger Island in the Gulf, able
to locate and track boats not only in that area but far beyond,
as discussed in World Court testimony by David MacMichael, the
CIA analyst responsible for analyzing the relevant material
during the period to which Engelberg refers.  Despite these
extensive efforts, no evidence could be produced, though
Nicaragua, curiously, has no difficulty providing evidence of CIA
supplies in the supposedly ``symmetrical'' situation.  It was, in
fact, precisely these charges, presented by the State Department
and now relayed by _Times_ ideologues as ``news,'' that were
reviewed and dismissed by the World Court.  Later George Volsky
added (Jan. 20) that the provision of the accords calling ``for
all countries to deny the use of their territories to insurgents
in neighboring nations . . . applies mainly to Nicaragua, which
is said to be helping rebels in El Salvador, and to Honduras,
whose territory is reportedly an important part of the United
States-directed contra supply effort.'' Surely a balanced and
judicious summary of the available evidence.  And LeMoyne warns
(Feb. 7) that if in the future ``the Sandinistas [are] found
still to be aiding Salvadoran guerrillas'' (as they are now,
according to doctrinal Truth), then the peace accords will
collapse; no other similar problem is noted.

It is pointless to comment that it would be entirely proper to
provide assistance to people seeking to defend themselves from a
foreign-installed terrorist army, a conception that is so far
from intelligible here (in the case of our clients, that is) that
we need not tarry over it.

The reaction of the doves to the Miranda public relations coup is
instructive.  With rare exceptions, they did not respond by
saying that Nicaragua has every right to arm its population in
defense against a possible US invasion and to obtain means to
defend its national territory.  Rather, they argued that Miranda
may be unreliable, that the Sandinista plans are only a ``wish
list,'' etc., conceding that the revelations were devastating.
These reactions reflect the shared consensus that no country has
the right to defend itself against US attack.


The Peace Accords: In Memoriam

Ideological warfare heated up in the following weeks, as the
accords approached their mid-January ``deadline.''  On January
10, the _New York Times Magazine_ published its comprehensive
review of the state of affairs, running two articles, one by
James LeMoyne on the conflict between Arias and his adversary
Daniel Ortega, the other by Stephen Kinzer asking whether Ortega
can be trusted.  Nowhere is there a word referring to the actions
of the USG to undermine the accords, and questions concerning the
two US-backed terror states and its client state of Honduras
arise only peripherally, in conformity to USG priorities.

LeMoyne gives an account of Arias intended to be laudatory, but
in fact depicting him as an opportunist and moral monster who is
unconcerned over terror in El Salvador and Guatemala, the
horrible conditions that persist in Honduras, the fact that all
three states are effectively under military rule backed by the
US, or the terrorism of the US proxy army attacking Nicaragua.
Rather, in this account, Arias's prime concern is that the
contras are a ``military Edsel,'' a failure, so that other
methods must be found to pressure the Sandinistas ``to moderate
their revolutionary project''; but we must bear in mind that we
are hearing Arias through a particular ideological filter.
LeMoyne refers to Jose Figueres Ferrer---``the man who is widely
considered the father of Costa Rican democracy''---but does not
tell us, nor would he or his colleagues ever tell us, what
Figueres has to say about the Sandinistas: namely, that ``for the
first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for its
people,'' that he found ``a surprising amount of support for the
government'' on a recent visit, that theirs is ``an invaded
country'' and that the United States should allow the Sandinistas
``to finish what they started in peace; they deserve it.''{note:
See my _Culture of Terrorism_ (South End, 1988), citing an
interview published by COHA, _Washington Report on the
Hemisphere_, Oct. 1, 1986.} Such comments lack ideological
serviceability, as does Figueres's statement that he
``understands why'' _La Prensa_ was closed, having censored the
press himself when Costa Rica was under attack by Somoza.  Hence
Central America's leading democratic figure must be censored out
of the media, though his name can still be invoked for the
anti-Sandinista crusade.

Kinzer's companion article denounces Ortega for numerous sins,
e.g., running fraudulent elections (a staple of USG propaganda,
hence a fact, whatever the facts{note: To prove the point, Kinzer
states that ``the Sandinistas controlled the electoral machinery
and the opposition was splintered.'' The first point was
investigated in detail by the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA) delegation that observed the elections.  Their conclusion
was that the elections were remarkably fair, and that ``Generally
speaking, in this campaign the FSLN did little more to take
advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere
(including the United States) routinely do, and considerably
_less_ than ruling parties in other Latin American countries
traditionally do (_The Electoral Process in Nicaragua_, LASA,
Nov. 19, 1984).  The LASA report, like other observers reports,
has been under a media ban, because of its conclusions.  As for
the fact that US-backed business-based parties have no conception
of democratic politics and could not organize a popular
constituency, it is not obvious that this is a proof of
Sandinista iniquity.}), as usual citing opposition figures but
also, for balance, one ``old friend'' of Ortega's who is
permitted to say that Ortega has ``regressed'' and no longer
reads writers and philosophers---as distinct from Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, ever immersed in the works of
Heidegger and Wittgenstein.  This exhausts the coverage of the
problems of peace in the region.

Those intrigued by the rhetoric of propaganda will note a
standard device used by Kinzer; in column after column, critics
of the Sandinistas are cited (opposition figures, vendors,
workers, etc.), and for balance, the words of government figures.
Supporters of the government, who must exist somewhere, are
notable by their absence; favored states are naturally treated
quite differently.  The intended effect is to create the image of
a conflict between an embattled population and a tyrannical
government, on the model of the people versus Somoza.  The
outright propaganda journal _La Prensa_ pursues the same
technique, but lacks the near monopoly over the national media
required under ``democracy.''

There is no space to review here the remarkable campaign
conducted by the media, most notably the _New York Times_, to
ensure that the accords would be dismantled.  It succeeded.  By
mid-January, the Verification Commission was abolished, and
Ortega was compelled to go far beyond the accords, abandoning the
simultaneity condition on which they were based.  The ``genius of
the Arias plan,'' the _Times_ editors now explain (Jan. 31), ``is
that it provides a means for Nicaragua to accommodate to
neighbors without appearing to truckle to Washington,'' not the
simultaneity requirement that had been so highly touted as the
``genius'' of the plan before the demolition job took effect.
Recognizing that the powerful make the rules, Ortega agreed that
Nicaragua alone would enact the provisions of the accords, even
calling for an international commission to monitor Nicaragua's
adherence alone.{note: LeMoyne, _NYT_, Jan. 24, 1988.} Headlines
everywhere reported that Ortega now promises to ``comply with''
the accords---that is, the version fashioned in Washington, which
bears little resemblance to the text---while warning that his
promises plainly cannot be trusted.  No one else's promises are
relevant, now that the accords have been consigned to oblivion.
So powerful was the propaganda campaign that even critics were
swept up in it.  Thus a _Nation_ editorial (Jan. 30) stated that
Ortega ``has made significant concessions to the Central American
peace plan,'' namely, by agreeing to abandon it in conformity to
USG orders.  The US clients are now exempt, and with no further
international monitoring, the USG is free to act as it wishes,
subject to the controls of Congress and the Free Press, which
have demonstrated their hawk-eyed vigilance so impressively in
the past years.

The success in undermining the accords and shaping them into an
instrument of US policy are not a novel Free Press achievement.
The media contribution to undermining the Paris Peace agreement
of January 1973 is perhaps an even more startling example, as
documented elsewhere.

After the House vote, James LeMoyne summarized what had been
achieved (Feb. 7).  There is a ``deeper problem'' of facing the
needed social changes in the region, a task to which we are now
dedicated having recognized the earlier error of our ways---the
familiar ``change of course.''  But that apart, ``the main
problem remains Nicaragua's Sandinista Government'' and the
prospects that it may ``not comply with the peace treaty,'' which
now gives ``the last chance for moderating the course of the
Nicaraguan revolution.'' Everyone else now having performed
admirably, that is where the problem lies, exactly as the Office
of Public Diplomacy demands.

It nevertheless remains true that ``Peace gains points.'' There
are long-term factors that are pressing USG policy towards the
position of the doves, as revealed by the survey of elite opinion
cited earlier.  In the coming years, it will be necessary to pay
the costs of Reaganite follies.  His economic managers did
succeed in transferring resources from the poor to the rich and
organizing a vast public subsidy to high-technology industry with
its state-protected market (the Pentagon system).  But their
methods of Keynesian state management created huge debts and
trade deficits while increasing consumption by the wealthy and
financial manipulation but not productive investment, and in
general left a shambles that will require a degree of austerity
for less-privileged sectors of the population.  A concomitant
effect is that it will not be easy to terrify the population with
demons to induce them to tighten their belts even further as the
state subsidizes the rich and undertakes violence and subversion
abroad.  We already see the signs.  Suddenly, the Russians are
less threatening and international terrorism is less of a threat.
The statesmanlike approach is now mandatory, with summitry and
arms negotiations.  The doves are in the ascendance, not
primarily because the world is all that different, but because
domestic constraints have changed.  Furthermore, popular
dissidence is a growing force, imposing costs that state planners
cannot overlook.  The courage of people resisting US dictates in
Central America has been astonishing, and in Latin America
generally, there are signs of independence---the major reason why
the USG so bitterly opposed the Contadora agreements, the
International Verification Commission, indeed the involvement of
any elements not under adequate control.

While these are significant factors, in the short run they might
still be overcome, leading to a renewal of
congressionally-mandated violence.  The hawks can take the high
moral ground, espousing ``freedom'' and ``democracy.'' The
official doves, who do not question the basic doctrines of the
Office of Public Diplomacy, can only counter that they agree, but
are unwilling to pay the costs, a weak position when it comes to
the crunch.  Deeper tendencies run in a different direction, but
it is far from clear that they will be manifested in time to save
the people of Central America from further terror and misery at
our hands.