(00:00:00) It's a privilege to be here at the Minnesota meeting with you today. Because I feel really I'm among many old friends. Over the years project. Hope has been the beneficiary of many volunteers from Minneapolis and indeed the entire state. And even today our close relationship with this city. Is made even Closer by the membership of Lou layer on our own? Hope board of directors? But I'm not here to talk with you about project hope today, although I would love to. I'm here primarily to talk to you about something that is of vital importance to this country. And that is the fate of what will happen to the Kissinger commission recommendation. This commission was that one the most fascinating and frustrating experiences of my life. It was composed of really 12 members six Republicans six Democrats who are asked to come into a room and spend a period of some five months in the determination and guidance of a policy for the United States, which would give us a peaceful. prosperous and self-sufficient Central America (00:01:32) This of course was an awesome (00:01:33) task. and one which we'll take perhaps a century to achieve. Nevertheless the crisis with which we were faced wasn't a cute one. Why does the president appointed Commission? When he is supposed to be the master of foreign (00:01:54) policy (00:01:57) as far as Central America was concerned. There was a vital reason. Public opinion polls showed that despite the crisis in this hemisphere despite the Civil War in El Salvador the problems in Guatemala the developing. Leftist infiltration in the SMS which is Central America that less than 20% of the American people could even name the countries of Central America and less than 30% New West Central America was located. Now mind you these are our immediate neighbors to the South. These are a people who if for no other reason but one of compassion we should be helping. And yet through history they have been taken for granted and to some extent ignored. the problem was never thought to be a simple one. Here we have seven countries. That are poverty-stricken in large part. That have little political Independence. That have a maldistribution of wealth little private sector initiative totalitarian governments or had for the most part. And yet we were asked to find a future for these governments. First we had to justify to ourselves that it was important that indeed the future of this SMS was a vital interest of the United States. I think it's naive for anyone to believe that it is not. Here we have only 23 million people. But in a land mass that connects us to our Southern Neighbors in South America. It's surrounds the Gulf of Mexico which is vital to the security of this country both actually in peace and in war 50% of our petroleum that we use in this country comes through the Gulf of Mexico many of our precious metals a dozen or so that we do not produce an adequate amounts for our own industry in our own country. Come through the Gulf of Mexico almost a hundred percent of those metals. We have Refugee questions that are posing problems in this country because of unrest (00:04:47) in Central America (00:04:49) where thousands and thousands of people are coming in illegally and some legally to this country simply to flee the unrest the revolution the death in these countries. Now it is an our special interest. To consider Central America as a necessary peaceful area for the United States above all we cannot tolerate in Central America a hostile power. being the reason for change the Monroe Doctrine of course has long since been abrogated that was taken care of with the missile crisis when mr. Khrushchev said today, we buried the Monroe Doctrine in a pyrrhic victory, which we thought we won but really lost. And since that time Cuba of course has been used in this hemisphere as a Soviet satellite. To try to divorce the future of Central America from the East West crisis or the East-West confrontation. If you will or East-West relationships if you will is also naive We cannot ignore. A leninist Nicaragua, which is threatening each of the other countries in Central America if there is one thing we learned. In our trips to Central America in our conversations with hundreds of people both in the opposition parties, and the people who are in power in those countries, we learned that there was an intense fear of the growing strength of Nicaragua as supplied by the Cubans under Soviet supervision. They are terrified at the center of East German intelligence which rests in Managua. With the incursion of Libya and the PLO in to Managua with 10,000 Cubans in Nicaragua with 15,000 tons of armaments going into Nicaragua every year which is the equivalent of what was going into Cuba for the Ten Years between 1970 and 1980 and enable Cuba to become the second strongest military power in this hemisphere it enabled Cuba to ship surrogate troops to South Yemen to Ethiopia to Angola and other countries. If then enable them to ship armaments to Nicaragua. Today Cuba is receiving an average of 80,000 tons of equipment a year. And Nicaragua is getting 15,000 on its own. What is the necessity for this these countries are not threatened from outside. It is obvious that they have plans to fish in Troubled Waters. So the security of the United States is unquestionably a factor, but we would be foolish if we would ignore the fact that by judicious or injudicious neglect. I should say. That they have not been given Troubled Waters in which to fish. The economic deprivation of Central America Rivals anything that you can see anywhere in the world? The tradition of Central America which comes after all from Spain is one which has always been built upon an unequal distribution of opportunity countries, which are Run for the cardio for the oligarchy on the premise that they in turn have a responsibility to take care of the poor and of the underprivileged. This is Spanish tradition. It's been there for 500 years. It is nothing that we can change overnight. We must however pay attention to what can be done and come up with a basis for a plan (00:09:08) policy. (00:09:10) The very Foundation of that plan has to be forward steps to democratic process not to democracy because that will be a sensory away. We cannot take what we have here and put it there. It just won't wash. But we can be encouraged as we face that political challenge. That democracy is moving forward in Latin America. Argentina has just elected a president Brazil is about to have its first election since 1964. Peru has had a democratic election Ecuador has Colombia and Venezuela have been democracies of A Sort for years Costa. Rica has a democracy since 1948 Honduras has had an election Guatemala has scheduled an election El Salvador (00:10:02) in (00:10:03) the midst of a civil war has had won election, and we'll have a second and has consented again to International supervision for that election to be sure that it is fair and proper. Only Nicaragua is resisting (00:10:17) election now (00:10:20) of a multiple party type so that there is a flow towards the Democratic process. Now, what do we mean and the commission when we talk about the Democratic process we mean just the freedom of assembly the freedom of the press. The freedom of speech the freedom to move about your country the freedom to leave if you wish. These are the simple steps that have to be taken forward. As conditions we think of assistance for Central America because if we do not Foster the Democratic process, what is it that we are trying to improve? If we cannot improve the ability of the people for self-determination, then we will indeed not improve anything. The other challenge is the economic (00:11:17) challenge. (00:11:19) The economic challenge presented to us was a group of seven (00:11:24) countries (00:11:25) with an external debt of 14 billion dollars with a Debt Service that is costing them close to 60% of their export income just to service. How can we encourage private Enterprise? How can we encourage private sector development in such a climate? a second problem in the economic challenge is not only the loss of Credit Now by the countries themselves, but that these countries never Had the opportunity or the system which would permit small loans for small business? to create an infrastructure of small entrepreneurs they have had Really serious problems in tax rates which have discouraged private investment from outside. All of these things have to be remedied and many of these recommendations were placed into the Kissinger commission report. Now what have you read of the report? Because it was much more (00:12:34) into it. (00:12:37) Regrettably, the report was portrayed in the press and in the media (00:12:45) as (00:12:45) recommending vast military involvement of the United States vast increases in Military Support for governments in Central America, if the truth be known we made not one single recommendation of one military assistance Dollar in that report. What we recognized in a few short pages in that report was that you cannot have judicial reform political reform economic reform or social reform without security. You cannot have peace without security and none of these things can happen until there is peace in Central America. Now as far as the Soviet are concerned, they don't want peace in Central America. They want ferment anything that will divert our attention from Western (00:13:41) Europe. Is (00:13:44) working to their advantage. Anything that will involve America as the bad guy somehow. They feel will benefit them. And so this is why they have fishing they will not go to war in Central America. You can rest assured it that but they will do everything they can to prevent duly elected governments imperfect as they may be from governing well in El Salvador, for example, 25 percent of the economy has been destroyed 50% of their transport is gone as fast as you build an electric plant or electric pylons down there. They are blown up and it doesn't take an awful lot of people to do this. Just imagine what 500 dedicated terrorists could do in Minneapolis. It would take a dozen divisions to find them and root them out because you couldn't put a guard in front of every electric pylon or in front of every business in the in the city or in front of him. He power every Power Plant in the city. This is what a country like El Salvador is faced with yet. We expect them to win this war or terminate this war with 35,000 troops. Opposed to 12,000 gorillas when the ratio traditional ratio for overcoming guerrilla warfare is a ratio of 10 to 1. We did not advocate. Military assistance we did recognize that a war that is a stalemate is a war that will eventually be lost. If we are encouraging the Democratic process. With all that is wrong in those countries. We must accept the duly elected government whether we like it or not. And we have to work with that government. We made the point in our report that an indigenous election whether it went our way or not that Nation must be assisted by the United States and this would include a communist government if it was properly and duly elected we would have no alternative but to work with that country as a nation in Central America. It is the external forces, which we cannot tolerate. It is the force from Cuba from the Soviet Union that is making these into leninist countries, which are quite different than a communist country because a leninist philosophy is Revolution must constantly expand and therefore the target is the rest of Central America and eventually, Mexico. Now if we don't help Central America think of what you have to face with a 2,000 mile land border plus the balance of our Southern approaches. Under the domination of a hostile power seeking mischief. This would call for either vast diversion of our armed forces from Europe and their by sacrificing the NATO alliance or it would call for a vast increase in your taxes to support a vastly increased military establishment to sufficient to protect all the southern approaches to this country so that the cost of doing something now. Is expensive but the cost to doing nothing the cost of doing nothing will in the future be frightfully higher. So we must consider helping these countries now do not judge all of Central America by El Salvador or by Roberto d'aubuisson or people of this type. Do not be fooled by these plaintive cries of everybody in Central America is corrupt. As a good reason to not help them certainly we are guilty of corruption. If we permit the assistance, we give to be corrupted yet. Our Miami Banks don't refuse to take the money that comes through corruption. So are we Partners in this corruption if you will? But still there are ways of managing this there are desires on the part of these countries to do away with this type of corruption themselves. They are alert to the fact that their crisis is now in every country. We visited whether we visited with the opposition parties or the incumbent president. Everyone is totally conscious that their Liberty their freedom is at stake now unless they do something to improve the lot of their people they are aware of this. They don't want us however to dictate to them how to do it. There is nothing more Preposterous than our politicians running around the country and screaming we have to have more land reform and more this and more that taking land from people whose families have had it for five hundred years giving them nothing but a worthless bond for it. Having Congress say they cannot be reimbursed with any technical assistance dollars and then giving the land to Compass. He knows who do not know how to farm it without Direction who don't have the money to buy seed or fertilizer and no mechanism to get the loan unless the Kissinger commission reports are followed is just plain foolishness. This will come about and it will come about as the central Americans take the responsibility of assuming their own problems. They are frightened now because for the first time they truly see their Liberty threatened from outside. There is nothing for example that is more important to me than to listen to candidates for the presidency of the United States run around this country trying to out argue one another on how little they will do for Central America. Giving notice to our adversaries that if I am elected, you don't have to worry about Central America. It's all yours. You can have it because we will never do anything to help it. not only is it dishonest because neither of those candidates would do that but as plain foolishness on their part to even misinform our adversaries of this kind of philosophy our problem with the Kissinger Commission report Is that it is now before a congress, which has 535 secretaries of State. Each one of them feels he is more competent than the president of the United States each. One of them feels is more competent than the secretary and each one of them is listening to what the polls may tell him or measuring his interest in Central America according to the public interest rather than recognizing that it's their responsibility to let the public know that we have as one of our strongest Assets in this country that we do things because they are right and we should be helping Central America because it is right because it is human because there are millions of people there who need the help 23 million now 38 million by the year 2000 They need our help and they need it. Now there isn't that much time. There isn't time to play games before the foreign election. the need is now and I think that it's very important that the people of this country recognize that this small S&S is vitally important to our own future not economically, they don't represent half of one percent of our economic interest in the world, but they represent far more than that to us as a danger if they become controlled by external forces. Marshall oh gosh off publicly stated that before we liberated Grenada. I might add that Grenada represented their third base represented number three in this hemisphere that they could call their own Cuba and Nicaragua what one and two I don't know what the future of Nicaragua will be or what the solution will be there. But even there the Kissinger commission did not recommend any military involvement in Nicaragua. What a did recommend was a degree of continuing pressure. Yes to bring them around to pluralism. But it also said that if they met the same standards that every other country in Central America would be required to meet that they too could share in any Aid and any assistance. Because one of the ways for economic progress down there will be the re-establishment of the Common Market in Central America and the common market cannot survive truly without Nicaraguan participation. And that in itself will bring employment to the people. It will bring a future to Central America. (00:24:01) It's frightfully (00:24:01) important that we keep in mind. That this commission has been misrepresented. Its findings have been misrepresented even by some of our Congressional counselors who sat in at our meeting who protest now about what the commission reported out, but who when they sat there as we prepared the report not only raised no objections, but concurred in entirety with what we reported. (00:24:37) this (00:24:39) Is the frustrating experience of giving your time to a commission like this? In closing just let me say this. That this commission was composed of twelve independent minded people and I can tell you they were frightfully independent the first month or so, we almost had to be kept apart, but as we got to know one another and to respect one another and listen to one another's arguments, we reached a consensus. And the consensus was a very necessary program the consensus was that this was in the vital interest of the United States. We had eight Congressional counselors for from each party. We spent the better part of five and a half months working daily. Sometimes Saturdays and Sundays. I spent 10 days in my own office since last July to give you an example of the time that this took we interviewed more than 200 Witnesses in Washington alone, including the president of the United States and every living past president. Every living past Secretary of State virtually every living past policy maker Virt virtually as many of the renowned Scholars of Latin America as could be found. We had 270 other people submit written reports because we didn't have time to hear them those reports were read and discussed. We interviewed more than 300 people abroad we met with the opposition parties in both Nicaragua. And in El Salvador and in Guatemala, we met with church leaders from all over Central America as well as here. There was no one that was left out of these deliberations. And from these we have made sincere recommendations. I beg you if you're interested to try to read that report. And then when you read it communicate your feelings to your Congressman because believe me, that's all they will listen to most of them haven't read it. I've debated some of them on television and I've been delighted to find that they hadn't read the report in a sense because it's always easy to win a debate from someone that didn't do their homework. But nevertheless read it and communicate and tell them what you think. I know there are many things that are on your minds that I haven't covered death squads in the like I will be happy to cover them in the question and answer period suffice to say that we abhor death squads. We abhor killing be it from the right or the left of any kind to settle political disputes, but feel free to ask any questions that you like. I just thank you very much for your attention. And kindness and listening to me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dr. Walsh (00:28:06) any of you that do have questions. We have microphones strategically placed in the audience. Dr. All cheer. A medical (00:28:14) doctor does the commission Kissinger commission deal with the matter of a (00:28:19) population explosion. You spoke about the man Al distribution of wealth the expanding populations almost contribute to that. (00:28:28) Yes, sir. The we recommended last expansion of population programs. But there is a recognition in this that you have to face number one (00:28:42) is the (00:28:44) division in the Catholic Church down there is not helping because they are getting militant on one way or the other the populace Church baptizing babies in the name of the state and the others baptizing babies in the name of the Lord, but both of them encouraging babies. I'm a Catholic myself, and I have to face the fact that they are doing this the second thing is that the best forecast that we can get is the population growth and Central America now is running a 3% with the most ambitious programs between now and the year 2000. It will only drop 22.7% the real reason for crisis today is the population that is between 16 and 22 and 23. This is the population that has is heart of unrest and represents more than fifty percent of the people in these countries strangely enough during the era of the Common Market between 1960 the I would say 1960 1975 the GDP down there increased from 350 million dollars to over a billion dollars. and despite population growth They had little unemployment as long as this was going on, but now we've lost 10 years with unrest down there and the collapse of the Common Market in 1975. There will be some migration and that's again the reason for common market Salvador where you have 540 people per square mile and Honduras where you have only 42 people they can trade people very well and there's not a great deal of opposition to that of people moving back and forth during times of Peace, but I'm afraid that there is no real answer. We're going to have that two point seven percent growth unless we create new job opportunities estimated. They need a minimum of three hundred and fifty thousand jobs just between now and 1990 new jobs in New industry and land reform is not going to give them jobs. It's going to create unemployment. I wish there was a better answer. We asked to pursue it vigorously and we urge that it be pursued rigorously and their funding be increased (00:31:14) for it. (00:31:19) Dr. Walsh. I have read the report. I've read every page of it and many things about it. I appreciate I don't want to ask a question about the recommendations, but about the analysis of what is causing the problem. I was struck by what I consider to be to omissions and I wish you'd comment on the to whether you feel they are in fact omissions that were deliberate or if the analysis is that I have is wrong one is I didn't find any really Adequate analysis of the u.s. Role over the past Century in the region all of the problems seem to be caused by recent East East Eastern involvement, but there's almost no recognition that I could find that we too have been involved for a long time. And in many ways on the wrong side in terms of the needs of the people the masses of the people the second Omission I think is related and it's the analysis of the role of the church or the church has in Central America and what I considered to be because I do know the region a little bit and I have visited there. I consider what's happening internally through the churches which are in ferment as you indicated to be at least as important in terms of the struggle of the poor for justice as anything that's coming through Cuba from the Soviet Union from the outside. And I wonder if you would comment on those to the role of the u.s. Not always for good. I think and the role of the church's right now in the region as part of the analysis because I didn't find much on either of those. I will both of those areas were gone into very deeply During the period of discussion. There was some argument in the commission as we were preparing the final draft the draft that you read was the I think the 12th draft of the report. The first one was six hundred pages long and Bob Strauss was adamant that if we sent out anything that they nobody would read it and we should compress it which we of course. We did we mentioned I think in the report That American intervention in Central America may have been at times too much at times frankly not enough. We mentioned the escapades of William Walker and people of this type down there. We mentioned the problems of United Fruit, but actually most intervention in Central America took place because of this country's feeling that a stable Central America was essential that at least was the motivation was to ensure stability. Even when the Marines went into Nicaragua in 1909. It was theoretically to ensure stability the fact that they stayed there until God knows how long it was about 35 years. Was probably an error and it was not as an occupying power. They trained the National Guard, you know, which unfortunately became the tool of Samosa later. That was a drastic era but the purpose of the training of that National Guard was to restore stability in Central America. We rarely except for the United Fruit episode intervened and Central America for economic purpose. The Eisenhower administration's intervention with the arbenz government 1954 was again motivated by the fact that they thought the Guatemala was going to become the Nicaragua of that era that Nicaragua is today. I don't know the history has proven that judgment to be wrong, but was the intervention wrong in principle probably so because If we followed our premise, he was a freely elected premise president and if he chose to go communist, he should have been permitted to go communist. There are those who say he never would have unfortunately, we will never know but I think again in hindsight this may have been an error in an unfortunate intervention. We mentioned the arbenz thing in the report are incident in there without going into detail because again, there was so much disagreement between the Latin American Scholars that came before that committee that they didn't clarify things for us as much as they confused us. I'm sorry to say because they were those as vehement on one side is the other and we felt to try to come out with a scholarly Treatise on the past of Central America. We could only come out looking very foolish because I would be a certain segment the academic community that would intensely disagree. So frankly we in regard to the church's we again spent a great deal of time with with the churches with the individual Bishops the National Council of churches in the like and We found. That again there were many fixes on this when you talk to the Bishops and the ministers and Central America that we were exposed to we found as many on the government side as on the opposite side and those countries that were in dispute the Bishops and Costa Rica were very much anti sandanista very much anti Insurgency and Salvador the same was true of the of the churchmen and Guatemala and Honduras the Archbishop and El Salvador, of course is very anti-government and very Pro Insurgent in Nicaragua Archbishop of Bondo. Bravo is risking his life every day and fighting the sandinistas in order to sustain the dream of the Revolution really which he supported very strongly and was rewarded by having his church has shot up his priests. one thing or another for us to have gotten into that we felt would really be too emotional. And would probably take away from the report as it is the just the idea of dr. Kissinger insisting on his blessed footnote. I think has diverted from the report because everyone has attributed that as the reason for their thinking that security or that the strengthening of the military in El Salvador was our Prime purpose and this was not a prime purpose and Report other than the knowledge meant that a stalemate cannot continue. Dr. Walsh. Did you have an opportunity to examine to observe it firsthand the living conditions of the people in the countries that you visited and if you did could you please comment on what you found in those countries from your visits especially in Nicaragua where we where we think there seemed to think there is a lot of suppression of freedom of movement about thank you. Well, I can tell you more from my own experience of the past 25 years. Then I can now the living conditions in which the vast majority of the population live or miserable and this is is the cause the root cause of the problem if sort of the other revolution in Central America It's the revolution of the poor and the emerging middle class against the oligarchy which if left alone would would would really I think eventually be won by the mass of the people without going into any foreign political ideology in Nicaragua. The only way that you can get around is if you take the conducted tour and the conducted tour takes you to Villages which are very much under the control of the sandanista party. And as Kissinger said when he was growing up in Germany, if anybody came up to me on the street as a little Jewish boy in Germany and said to me, how do you like the Nazis? He just said I thought I'd say they were great. She said because I knew if I didn't I might not be there tomorrow and this is the kind of tore the nicaraguans will take you on and Villagers don't forget. There are black leaders. Everybody is watching everybody else. It's already a classic Lennon is State. They can't even go shopping in the store. If they don't have the card from the sandinistas party leader. The still won't tell them anything. They can't visit a relative in another Village without a card. So what they have done they've improved literacy. I'll say that they put on a massive literacy program, which is also a massive political propaganda program because as they teach them to read it's all leninist Doctrine, but they have improved that they've improved Healthcare in a caraga by putting Cubans throughout the city the throughout the country the entire world health network is run by Cuban Physicians who also primarily political indoctrinate errs, first and Physicians second, but I that's why I don't understand why they're sandinistas are resisting a pluralistic election right now. They would probably win it. But they're afraid to have it because if they have it, they then have to have a second one and they know they'll never win the second one. Yes, sir, as dr. Walsh. I have a question that relates to El Salvador though. I can't help but make a comment on what you just said about (00:41:33) Nicaragua. I was a Nicaraguan October and it's it is a shame that is part of the process when you're there with a large group. You maybe are tied down and can't get around. I was able I was there just with two other people and we had no impediments to our travel and we're able to go wherever we wanted to and really came up with quite a different picture. But that's just a comment. I wanted to make I've been working as a staffer with an organization called minnesotans for peace and Central America and we were in El Salvador in October with an aide to Senator Rudy boschwitz of Minnesota (00:42:06) and upon leaving El Salvador. We were (00:42:08) struck all three of us on the trip were struck with one basic Point upon leaving and that was that El Salvador is a deeply split community. Now and there's very big divisions within that society and there's a civil war going on and the (00:42:26) conclusion we made was that a military victory for either (00:42:30) side in that Civil War would be bad for the people that country and we bad for the United States and every other region in the in the every other country in the region. We saw a military Victory (00:42:41) would not promote a better life for the people (00:42:45) and so my question is given the current military stalemate in the Salvadoran award, which you've alluded to and given that the insurgents United have called for an unconditional negotiations is not sending in massive increases in military money at this time. (00:43:06) Is not that going (00:43:07) to decrease the chances of real negotiations taking place. (00:43:12) No, I don't I couldn't disagree with you more the problem in El Salvador as I must say we left it perhaps not as you did but with a feeling of hopelessness, I must concede ourselves. We were very distressed with what we've seen and I was there again, but There are certain facts that you don't bring out that after all were told to us by own go together with his communist staff on goes not a communist as you know, but he is the spokesman for the insurgents in El Salvador. number one They don't demand unconditional negotiation toll that's just not true. They demand conditional negotiation power sharing which involves their take the which involves now don't tell me because he sat and told this to me himself in the presence of several others, they demand power-sharing in which they get the ministry of Defense the ministry of the interior and they bring the two armies together. That's as a precondition. to any negotiation precondition to negotiations second that if there is a free election in Salvador following any discussions, the arena party will not be permitted to feel the candidate. The arena party will not be eligible to run despite the fact that as bad as it is, it still represents 22 percent of the electorate, but they would rule that out. they could not be a participant even though the Communists are free to participate in the Salvadoran election today if they wish they want to take the risk, but there's some risk of course, but I might add that the for assassinations in this campaign has been by the left of the right and this is making page 12 and depressed and I don't know whether you've taken notice of that and your group but the for assassinations have been boasted about by the left that they killed for right-wing deputies so far and there's more to come (00:45:35) third (00:45:39) the leaders of the insurgents have stated not once but repeatedly that as far as they are concerned they see nothing except a military Victory by the insurgents and that's all they will settle for now. The insurgents have picked up little or no popular support from the company knows their method of drafting people into their army is kidnapping them and taking them in and making them good insurgents and good troops because anyone who's going to get shot in the back as a good man up front so they are, you know, not simon-pure now, why do we feel or I feel at least a military Victory offers more hope Then that because a stalemate will always destroy an incumbent government. Show me your name for me. One to tell her Terry and state that has been taken over by the left that has had a free election pluralistic election multi-party election name me one you can't and this is what's going to happen. In El Salvador if it falls, and of course the fourth thing is that if we do not sustain a military Victory as it were or at least sufficient pressure when I say Victory, there will never be total victory in any of these countries Colombia didn't get a total Victory. Venezuela didn't get a total Victory. The M13 groups are still running around those countries in periodically surface and threatened the government if they don't behave properly in relation to Cuba, but this these this type of unit is a controllable unit that will be there. And I think again if there was not external intervention. by either side the left or the right? That this revolution in Salvador could well be settled with a military Victory probably by the government now do I like the government of El Salvador? Of course, not am I going to be pleased if Robert domus on is elected, of course not but we cannot condemn the action against our bends in 1954. And then say with if dobis on is elected in a legitimate internationally supervised election. As was the last one which father hesburgh and others, who were there hundreds of them dicks Cameron who is on our commission was there said it was a more fair election than many that he seen in Chicago and Philadelphia and Duval County, Texas. And he said it was far more fair. We cannot have a divided standard if he wins we going to do our best to influence him to be to govern well, and I don't see any alternative because they have to settle these problems (00:48:50) themselves. Dr. Walsh. My name is Gary preview. I'm a teacher at st. John's University. I also visited Nicaragua this past summer and they'll initially when I came up to make a question. It was not going to be on that but I guess I don't find the characterizations that you make of Nicaragua very useful. I understand that honest people can have disagreements. But I think that the precise facts that you presented so far about Nicaragua are very one-sided for particular discussing your list on the elections to hold up elections, very tenuous situations in Honduras or in Guatemala and to ignore the reality that the nicaraguans have announced the date for the elections and the fact that there have been ten political parties which are participated in the Council of State in the preparation for those elections does not seem to me that (00:49:48) you at least as a member of the commission went into (00:49:50) Nicaragua with a very much of an mindedness about the potential for for Democratic elections in that in that country, but my question is a little different is this Why do you think that this report will be any different from the reports of the past say during the alliance for Progress which spoke of the poverty and the under development but then proceeded primarily to depend upon military solutions to these problems and the things I've heard from you today. Again, it seemed to emphasize the military spending. I think it's correct that the report has been characterized as such. (00:50:27) No. I think you're mistaken first of all and in relation to your comment. Nicaragua is an old stamping ground for me. We've worked there for many many years. In fact the President Bosler to Washington is a surgeon whom we spent four years training and project. Hope in Nicaragua and he's a confirmed sandanista. I don't have the same view of the political Freedom that you do primarily because I guess we talk to the leaders of Cosette. We talked to Shamar. Oh, I've talked to them before I've known them before they've all been in jail under the sandinistas. I can't help but think that this country gave them. A commitment of a hundred eighty million dollars a hundred and Seventeen million of which they received on the promise that they made San Jose in 1979 that they would conduct free elections, but at that time the broad front had not been thrown out of the government jet the saint-denis the gang of 9 did not have total control. Now you tell me that there are registered parties sure. There are registered parties in name only, but they cannot get television time. They cannot get radio time. They cannot get Have meetings that exceed a certain very small number. The people in The Villages cannot register for those parties without being threatened to with the loss of their ration cards with the loss of their visiting privileges to other Villages. These are things which are also facts. These are not fancy. These are facts. And again, Nicaragua says we will have free elections, but they told us very bluntly coming down to your Toga and father does godo said the purpose of the elections is simply to reaffirm. The unanimity of the sandanista party in this country period that doesn't sound to me like a pearl Lista collection by any phase of the amount of stretch of the imagination. Remember they didn't even speak of Elections until after the liberation of Grenada. Then they decided that they might better think a little bit because the United States had demonstrated they would do something. Now remember this that we are not advocating military intervention at all. I said, I personally believed that you cannot end a war that is a stalemate with a victory for either side if they won't negotiate in the middle of the war. They're not going your I don't know how you're going to make them to go she ate and also Nicaragua. I might one thing I forgot they have also stated that certain of the Insurgent leaders who were Heroes of their Revolution who are fighting an Insurgency in Nicaragua primarily because they feel the revolutions betrayed that they will not be permitted to run as candidates. Not even El Salvador has made that statement. El Salvador's will welcome any Insurgent leader to rung they say granted. I don't blame him necessarily. I wouldn't want to risk my neck. Unless World opinion would protect me in running. But Nicaragua has already stated that they will not let rebello run. They will not let Pastore rung. That's against the rules of the election. And yet these are heroes. What kind of election is that?