Thread: US Lied About Soviet "Beachead" in Nicaragua

In May 1985, the Reagan Administration declared a "National Emergency" in response to the "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States" posed by Nicaragua while also declaring a trade embargo against them:

I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, find that the policies and actions of the Government of Nicaragua constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

-Arousing no ridicule. The administration claimed Nicaragua was serving as a Soviet "beachead."

The New York Times: REAGAN CONDEMNS NICARAGUA IN PLEA FOR AID TO REBELS

President Reagan, condemning Nicaragua as a ''cancer'' that poses a direct threat to the United States, said tonight that stopping Communism and international terrorism there would serve as a historic test of his Presidency. In a bluntly worded television speech that lasted about 20 minutes, Mr. Reagan called on the American people to demand that Congress endorse the Administration's $100 million aid package for the Nicaraguan rebels.

The alternative, he said, was to face a growing Soviet beachhead in Central and South America, increased terrorism in the region and a tide of ''desperate Latin peoples by the millions'' fleeing into the southern United States. ''For our own security, the United States must deny the Soviet Union a beachhead in North America,'' he said.

-A Soviet beachead it was not. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research report prepared for the State Department concluded:

aid from Western Europe and UN agencies [to Nicaragua] has been even more substantial, and hence crucial. Furthermore, it must also be said that in the context of her overall aid to Third World nations, Moscow's commitment to Nicaragua is modest.

Peter Kornbluh, Senior Analyst of the National Security Archives observes:

State Department officials sought to highlight the Nicaraguan- Soviet link by commissioning a study of Soviet influence in the Central American region.

The June 1984 Bureau of Intelligence and Research report, "Soviet Attitudes Towards, Aid to, and Contacts with Central American Revolutionaries," characterized Soviet military aid to the Sandinistas as "unobtrusive and sometimes ephemeral."

While the administration's White Papers hyped Nicaragua's acquisition of Soviet T-54 and T-55 tanks, the author of this report, Dr. Carl Jacobsen, called them "limited in quantity and outdated." By contrast, "the limited amounts of truly modern equipment acquired by the Sandinistas . . . came from Western Europe not the Eastern bloc."

The report concluded that "all too many US claims proved open to question" and that "the scope and nature of the Kremlin's intrusion are far short of justifying the President's exaggerated alarms."

After pressure was exerted on the author, University of Miami Sovietologist Carl Jacobsen, the language was changed to read "Soviet military aid to Nicaragua is unobtrusive and difficult to track."

One classified CIA assessment written after the Hind helicopters were delivered in November 1984 contradicted the administration's assertion that Nicaragua was building an offensive military force:

"Nicaragua's overall buildup is primarily defense- oriented, and much of the recent [Sandinista] effort has been devoted to improving counter insurgency capabilities."

Continued..

In 1985 the US enforced an embargo on Nicaragua which isolated them from every country except the Soviet Union. US allied right wing South American diplomats argued that the trade embargo would force Nicaragua to rely on the Soviet Union for aid to fight CIA-Contra death squad forces:

The Chicago Tribune: Trade Embargo On Nicaragua A Mistake, Latin Envoys Say

The Mexican official commented, ``This move just cuts off more options for the Sandinistas. By closing doors to the Sandinistas, you only make them more desperate. What they need are more doors, political, economic--everything. `` The Mexican official said he hopes the U.S. does not pressure Latin countries to follow its lead and declare their own trade embargoes against Nicaragua, as it did in the case of Cuba.

Another South American diplomat argued that the trade embargo already has made Nicaragua move closer to the Soviet Union, citing the visit last week to Moscow by President Daniel Ortega.

``I think Ortega is a desperate man,`` he said, ``and when a country is desperate it looks for the first table from which it can eat. It does not matter then if the table is in Moscow or Havana or Prague.``

The National Security Archive's, Peter Kornbluh writes:

When Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega traveled to Moscow after the [1985] US trade embargo, the Soviet bloc extended $202 million in economic credits and trade concessions. While Soviet assistance played an increasingly vital role in what Ortega called Nicaragua's "economy of survival," the USSR declined to offer the quantity of aid it provided to close communist allies.

In 1985, the Wall Street Journal quoted Secretary of State George Shultz as claiming that:

"the Nicaraguan Army far exceeds anything remotely needed for the defense of Central America."

But then the Journal states that:

The classified intelligence report prepared late last year contradicts Secretary Shultz. And figures in the report suggest the increase in Soviet aid to Nicaragua may have been prompted by the escalation of the CIA-backed Contra War.

Peter Kornbluh points out that:

Contrary to the administration's assertions that Nicaragua's "military power threatens — and is not threatened by — her neighbors," IISS statistics show that Nicaragua would be outgunned by Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. For example, in airpower — the most important weapons system for Central America given the rugged terrain — the military balance was decidedly against Nicaragua.

The Sandinista airforce, made up of a dozen old T-32, T-28, and SF-260 Warrior combat aircraft, according to one US intelligence report, was "one of the smallest and least capable in the region." By contrast, Nicaragua's regional antagonist, Honduras, boasted the most advanced airforce in Central America.