Project Truth, by Charles Z. Wick, Intl. Communication Agenc

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Letter from R. Bruce McColm to Walter Raymond, Jr.
August 9, 1982

Freedom House
20 West 40th Street
New York, New York 10018

Freedom's Advocate the World Over

August 9, 1982

Mr. Walter Raymond, Jr.
Office of National Security Adviser to the President
Old Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Walter:

Leo Cherne has asked me to send these copies of Freedom Appeals. He has probably told you we have had to cut back this project to meet financial realities. The Independent journal is now combined with Freedom at Issue (as the latest issue of the latter reveals).

We would, of course, want to expand the project once again when, as and if the funds become available. Offshoots of that project appear in newspapers, magazines, books and on broadcast services here and abroad. It's a significant, unique channel of communication.

Best wishes,

Sincerely,

Leonard R. Sussman
Executive Director

jm
enc.

[Handwritten notes: Answer - 1. Appreciate ref letter
2.
[Illegible]

***

CENTER FOR CARIBBEAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN STUDIES AT FREEDOM HOUSE

R. BRUCE McCOLM
DIRECTOR

20 West 40th Street
New York, N.Y. 10018
(212) 730-7744
TELEX: 429439-FREEDOM

September 15, 1984

Mr. Walter Raymond, Jr.
National Security Council
The White House
Old Executive Office Building
Room 351
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Walter:

Enclosed please find a short proposal for the Center's Nicaragua project 1984-85. The project combines elements of the oral history proposal with the publication of The Nicaraguan Papers. The book itself will be a compilation of the key documents, speeches, interviews, given by the Sandinista comandantes from 1961 through the present and arranged according to subject matter. The interviews done with defectors or participants in the FSLN's internal discussions will serve to introduce the theme or document and place it in an historical context.

Maintaining the oral history part of the project adds to the overall costs; but preliminary discussions with film makers have given me the idea that an Improper Conduct-type of documentary could be made based on these materials. Such a film would have to be the work of a respected Latin American filmmaker or a European. American-made films on Central America are simply too abrasive ideologically and artistically poor. Of the three film projects currently under development for television, none fit the bill. The groundwork laid by the oral history part of the project will feed into a documentary at the same time furnish the introductions for each section of The Nicaraguan Papers.

David Nolan's book The Ideology of the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Revolution (Institute of Interamerican Studies, University of Miami, 1984) is a valuable addition to the massive bibliography on the Nicaraguan situation. It should but probably will not receive wide distribution. Its value lies in tracing the Sandinistas ideological roots from their beginning through the various tactical and strategic debates during the 1977-79 conflict. Using many of the movement's own works, Nolan does a good job in synthesizing the FSLN's ideological zigs-and-zags as they relate to guerrilla war strategy (something he should have made more explicit). The rather arcane subject matter of Marxist-Leninist factional fights limits the audience to academics and foreign policy specialists.

The Nicaraguan Papers attempts something quite different. The Grenada documents, at least the selection available to the public so far, allow the reader an insider's view of how ideological architects set about constructing a Marxist-Leninist state through factional fights, internal repression, diplomatic peace offensives, and covert military and security assistance from East Bloc countries. However, nothing must has been revealed about the seven years of planning and strategy that preceded the New Jewel Party's coup d'etat. Whatever The Nicaraguan Papers lack in terms of juicy accounts of training in the Soviet Union or the personality clashes is more than made up by its following a Marxist-Leninist movement from its creation, its initial failures, the war itself, to its attempts to create a revolutionary state. This would be the book's primary value, especially in light of the ongoing debate in the United States over Central America.

Behind internal ideological debates are objective realities. Nolan's book neglects to discuss some of the regional and global situations which FSLN tactics were addressing. The Nicaraguan Papers, for example, will discuss how much of the present Sandinista state was already formed and in place in 1979 as part of the FSLN's strategy for taking power. A dimension also lacking in the Grenada documents and crucial for understanding more overt power struggles later on. Also, key documents of the 1978-1980 period demonstrate in very nuts and bolts fashion how the FSLN planned to subvert or neutralize all existing free institutions. These documents discuss with some frankness the relationship between maintaining a pluralist front on the diplomatic side, while consolidating the revolution internally.

The Nicaraguan Papers will also be readily accessible to the general reader, the journalist, the opinion-maker, the academic and the like. The book would be distributed fairly broadly to these sectors and I am sure will be extremely useful. They already constitute a form of Freedom House samizdat, since I've been distributing them to journalists for the past two years as I've received them from disaffected Nicaraguans.

Starting September 24th, I'll be in Washington for two weeks for the OAS Inter-American Commission of Human Rights meetings and will be staying at the Anthony House for the duration. Let's see if we can get together to discuss the proposal.

Best Regards,

R. Bruce McColm

***

CENTER FOR CARIBBEAN AND CENTRAL AMERICAN STUDIES AT FREEDOM HOUSE

R. BRUCE McCOLM, DIRECTOR

20 WEST 40th STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10018
(212) 730-7744
TELEX: 429439-FREEDOM

THE NICARAGUAN PAPERS
A GRANT PROPOSAL

During the joint American-Caribbean rescue operation in Grenada last October, a treasure trove of documents was discovered that provided the first inside glimpse of the strategy and tactics used by ideological architects to build a Marxist-Leninist state in the Caribbean. The materials documented everything from internal factional fights, the manipulation of American media, secret military agreements with Cuba, Soviet Union and the East block, and a strategy to infiltrate the island's churches and trade unions. The archive, currently being published by the United States Government in several volumes and selectively for a general audience by Prof. Paul Seabury at the University of California at Berkeley, will remain of historical significance for years to come.

A similar, slightly less spectacular set of documents concerning the Nicaraguan Revolution has slowly emerged over the past five years as former Sandinistas and their allies have become disillusioned with the direction of that Central American state. Unlike the Grenada documents, these minutes of party meetings, party platforms and briefings to select FSLN cadres are in the private possession of individuals dispersed over the United States and Latin America. Few of these revealing materials have been published, let alone written about. Others have been published by small radical left publishing houses in Mexico and are only available in Spanish.

While the Grenada documents revealed the most intimate inner-workings of a Marxist-Leninist regime and subsequently dispelled any doubts about the direction of that Revolution, there continues to be a divisive dispute in this country over the Sandinistas' true ideology and the direction of that regime. This debate over the nature of the Nicaraguan Revolution has polarized every significant institution in this country, particularly the church and labor. Consequently, the Nicaraguan government has mobilized in this country the most extensive and sophisticated network of support groups since the Vietnam War. Claiming a commitment to pluralism, economic reform and democracy, the Sandinistas, since their triumph, have been able to organize, along with the Salvadoran guerrillas, this nation-wide network keying each significant sector of the American society for the purpose of mobilizing American public opinion against Washington's policies.

Perhaps more significantly, this network has mobilized vast financial and material resources to disseminate the Sandinista line to the media, religious leaders, academics, local labor leaders as well as congressional staff and members. Material support -- food, medicine, cash donation, and even weaponry -- for the Sandinistas as well as the Salvadoran guerrillas, according to their own statements, amounts to approximately $25 million a year. Much of this support derives from average American citizens, who have been told of the young Revolution and its democratic aspirations.

The dreary tale of Western syncophants of revolutions has been well-documented, especially in Paul Hollander's book Political Pilgrims. In past revolutions, accurate information concerning the repression of free institutions, ethnic minorities, political dissidents and the totalitarian nature of the revolutionary elite was either not available or suppressed.

This is not the case in Nicaragua. Former officials and guerrillas have brought out of the country many of the documents detailing the FSLN's strategy to manipulate world opinion, while consolidating the revolution internally. The documents, already in the Center's possession, discuss the methods to be used for discrediting the Archbishop of Managua and the traditional Catholic Church, suppressing the free trade unions and eventually eliminating the private sector. One document even urges cadres to tolerate Christmas for the first few years of the Revolution because "Even the Soviet Union took a long time before it eliminated superstitution." Another discusses how elections will enable the "legitimization of a Marxist-Leninist state".

The Nicaraguan Papers covers a longer time-frame than the documents found in Grenada. The book itself would reprint internal documents from the FSLN from its founding through the 1977-79 war and its strategy for consolidating the revolution during the 1980s. While not as extensive as the Grenada archives, by any stretch of the imagination, The Nicaraguan Papers documents the rise of an insignificant Marxist-Leninist organization from guerrillas to the political elite in a state, which foments regional revolution. The key documents of the 1978-1980 period reveal how the Marxist-Leninists gained total control over the revolutionary organizations and actually put in place the organizational structure which would become post-revolutionary Nicaragua.

The book itself would be approximately 250-400 pages long. An introduction would written either by R. Bruce McColm or a well-known former Sandinista diplomat. To make it more accessible to the journalist, student and academic, it will be divided in sections according to key themes. These sections will be introduced by the commentary of a variety of former Sandinistas such as Alfonso Robelo, Eden Pastora, Arturo Cruz, Sr., and Donald Castillo who will place the documents into an historical context and elaborate on the discussions between the comandantes at that time.

Alfonso Robelo

Background. Alfonso Robelo was active in Nicaraguan politics for over 30 years. He was an original member of a five-person ruling junta of the Sandinista Government, a Southern Front Contra political leader and later Ambassador to Costa Rica during the presidency of Violetta Chamorro. Robelo's opposition to the Sandinistas crystallized in mid-1980 when he resigned his position on the Sandinista Council of State to protest the Council's expansion and addition of FSLN members. By early 1982, Robelo -- along with Eden Pastora and Brooklyn Rivera -- formed ARDE.

Allegations of Drug Trafficking. An October 1984 cable to Headquarters reported that a Sandinista newspaper, El Nuevo Diaro, had stated on October 10, 1984 that Robelo and ARDE had accepted help from an unidentified drug trafficker in Miami. The article also said that two FRS/ARDE helicopters had been painted with a black substance to make them invisible to radar.

In June 1987, CIA learned that Robelo had been contacted by two Bolivians -- Enrique Crespou and Fernando Perou -- who had offered to make a "significant" monetary contribution to the Contras. Robelo said that they offered $150 million to the Contras with "no strings attached." Robelo said that the Bolivians were evasive in their answers about the origins of the funds. Robelo was advised not to accept any money from the Bolivians until its origins could be determined.

CIA Response to Allegations of Drug Trafficking. No information has been found to indicate that CIA took any actions to follow up on the 1984 Sandinista newspaper allegation that Robelo and ARDE were involved in dealings with a drug trafficker.

In October 1988, a cable reported to Headquarters that Perou and Crespou had been accused during a press conference by Roberto Suarez Levy, son of imprisoned cocaine "king" Roberto Suarez Gomez, of being CIA agents. Suarez Levy also alleged that CIA and DEA were operating a cocaine lab in "Huanchaca," Bolivia. A Headquarters response stated that the only relevant information it had regarding Perou and Crespo was that they had met with Robelo in June 1987 and offered him $150 million for the Contras.

Robelo says he does not recall the meeting with the Bolivians or their reported offer of $150 million. He does not deny that the meeting may have taken place, but states that he participated in approximately 10 situations when people offered to donate large sums of money to the Contras but did not do so.

Information Sharing with Other U.S. Government Entities. No information has been found to indicate that CIA informed U.S. law enforcement or other agencies or the Congress about the 1984 Sandinista newspaper allegation. CIA informed Congress about the alleged offer of $150 million from the Bolivians in 1997 in the context of another matter.

***

Eden Pastora

Background. Eden Pastora Gomez, whose "war name" was Commandante Zero, joined the Sandinistas in the early 1970s to seek the overthrow of Somoza. Especially popular after he stormed Somoza's National Palace in 1978, he was nonetheless excluded in 1979 from the Sandinista National Liberation Front's (FSLN's) nine-man Directorate and given relatively minor positions in the post-Somoza Sandinista Government. These setbacks displeased Pastora, and he also claimed to be dismayed by the leftward turn of the Sandinista regime. In 1981 Pastora broke with the Sandinistas, and he went into self-imposed exile in Costa Rica shortly thereafter.

Pastora formed the FRS in early 1982 and allied his group with several other Contra organizations to form the Costa Rican-based ARDE in September 1982. Pastora led ARDE's military struggle against the FSLN until July 1984, when the organization's leadership replaced him. An ARDE spokesman attributed Pastora's replacement to injuries received in the May 1984 bomb attack against him at La Penca, but Pastora's leadership had also been undermined by his refusal to join forces with leaders of the Northern Front. Pastora left ARDE in 1986 and withdrew from the military effort.

Between early 1982 and mid-1984, Pastora was the main recipient of the funds CIA channeled to Contras fighting on the Southern Front. However, the funding allocated by Congress for the Contras had been expended by August 1984, and CIA was forced to cease its material support. More comprehensive congressional restrictions on the Agency's ability to support the Contras took effect in October 1984 and remained in place until December 1985.

The cutoff of U.S. funding led associates of Pastora to begin looking for alternative sources of funds. In October 1984, CIA began receiving the reporting mentioned earlier that Southern Front leaders allied with Pastora had agreed to help Miami-based trafficker Jorge Morales bring drugs into the United States in exchange for his material and financial help to the Southern Front. A subsequent October Headquarters cable instructed those dealing with Pastora:

. . . not to take definitive action to declare the relationship with [Pastora] terminated. Rather, we want to back away from the man leaving him guessing as to the status of his relationship with [CIA]. We do not want to initiate contact with him under any circumstances, unless it is done for the purpose of manipulating him towards some objective clearly consistent with [U.S.] policy in the region.

The Agency's relationship with Pastora was one of its most significant with a Contra leader. While the drug trafficking allegations were a factor in the decision to terminate that relationship, the October 1984 Headquarters cable indicated that the Agency was responding to other factors as well. CIA also judged that the advantages of dealing with Pastora were outweighed by the poor performance of his Southern Front fighting forces, by counterintelligence issues arising from his contacts with the Sandinistas in Managua, and by operational restrictions imposed by Congress.

In November 1984, Headquarters instructed that "no direct action is to be taken with [Pastora]. Ideally, you will be able to avoid him altogether." A November reply stated that only four meetings with Pastora had occurred since July 1984 and that the last of these was on October 18. At the last meeting, it had reportedly been made clear that CIA could no longer provide any support, direct or indirect, to Pastora's organization.

Allegations of Drug Trafficking. An October 1982 cable to Headquarters reported that INS had received information indicating that a meeting of Contra members was to be held in Costa Rica to discuss an exchange in the U.S. of arms for narcotics. A November 1982 cable identified Pastora as one of those who would be attending.

CIA began receiving reporting in October 1984 indicating that associates of Pastora in ARDE had agreed to work with known narcotics trafficker Jorge Morales. That same month Harold Martinez Saenz -- a former deputy FRS commander -- said that he could no longer support ARDE due to Pastora's ineffective leadership. Martinez had also stated that he did not want to become involved in drug and arms smuggling activities and corrupt handling of money, thus inferring that Pastora and his staff were involved in those activities.

Regarding the arrangement allegedly worked out with Morales by Pastora's FRS associates in 1984, Adolfo Chamorro says that Pastora was not aware of Morales' drug trafficking activities until after the meetings in October 1984 and after Pastora himself had met with Morales in December 1984. Cables in 1985 indicate that Pastora "temporarily discontinued" the arrangement with Morales in early January 1985 when he realized the potential political fallout from dealing with narcotics traffickers. Pastora says that he ordered that the planes donated by Morales be returned when he learned that Morales was a drug trafficker.

In April 1985, according to a Headquarters cable, the text of a February Sandinista radio broadcast from Managua alleged that Pastora and his associates were completing construction of three landing strips in the Guanacaste area of Costa Rica for light aircraft to be used for drug trafficking. The drug trafficking was being undertaken, the radio broadcast said, to substitute for the financing that was no longer available in the wake of a Congressional cutoff of Contra funding.

An April 1985 cable to Headquarters reported that an employee of Alpa Airlines had said that the company was concealing cocaine in yucca shipments destined for the United States. The cable reported that two of the five persons reported to be owners of Alpa were Gerardo Duran and David Mayorga.(12) Duran had already been identified as a close associate of Pastora. In addition, one of the planes allegedly used by Alpa Airlines was reported to belong to Pastora and ARDE.

A December 1985 Headquarters cable stated that Adolfo Chamorro had told a Southern Opposition Bloc (BOS) member that a Panamanian, Cesar Rodriguez, was gathering drug money for Pastora. Rodriguez was identified in this cable as a narcotics trafficker who had business ties to Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

A January 1986 cable reported to Headquarters that a Costa Rican associate of Pastora reportedly said that he had 200 kilograms of cocaine he wished to use in helping to finance Pastora's Contra activities.

In June 1986 and July-August 1987, CIA was told of a trip to Panama by Jose Davila, Carol Prado and Pastora. During the trip, Pastora reportedly had accepted $10,000 from Cesar Rodriguez, who was described as a narcotics trafficker from Colombia.

CIA Response to Allegations of Drug Trafficking. CIA terminated its relationship with Pastora in October 1984, within two weeks of receiving the first reporting about ARDE's drug-related dealings with Morales. While other factors were involved, the drug trafficking allegations weighed in the decision.

A February 1986 cable requested an inter-Agency review of the information implicating David Mayorga in narcotics trafficking because he was one of Pastora's closest advisors. The same cable noted that this information "needs to be made available to those still bent on seeing that [Pastora] is given . . . funding." No information has been found to indicate that such a review took place.

On March 1986, a Station asked Headquarters for specific instructions regarding what role Pastora was to play in the Contra unification agreement. The Station outlined the drug allegations against Pastora's associates in the cable and stated that:

. . . .

in COS' view, a political or other kind of accommodation with [Pastora] in which [the Agency] plays a known mediating role places [the Agency] is an untenable and unjustifiable position for which, in COS' view, there can be no reasonable or acceptable explanation.

. . . .

We will work through one united command structure, built around the one which is currently in place. We [w]ill not work through the existing FRS structure because, simply put, it is too badly penetrated by Sandinistas and too many of the players have been associated with narcotics smuggling. We will be willing to incorporate members from the FRS structure into t[h]e unified structure, but only after they have been given a thorough security screening

. . . .

Information Sharing with Other U.S. Government Entities. As explained earlier, the reporting tying Pastora and senior members of his group to drug smuggling operations into the United States was disseminated by CIA to a broad range of senior USG intelligence and law enforcement officials.

OCA files indicate that the Agency forwarded to Steven Berry, Associate Counsel of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), on January 29, 1985, a response to a question regarding Pastora's possible consummation of a working arrangement with Colombian drug dealers. The Agency response noted that all relevant details had been reported in the program summaries to HPSCI. The response added that:

To summarize, intelligence reporting indicates that members of Pastora's organization (FRS) have agreed -- either with Pastora's direct knowledge or tacit approval -- to provide pilots and landing strips inside Costa Rica and Nicaragua to a Miami-based Colombian drug dealer in exchange for financial and material support. Information pertaining to Pastora's involvement in drug trafficking has been forwarded to the appropriate Enforcement Agencies. [sic]

On August 1, 1986, CATF legal officer Louis Dupart forwarded to CATF Chief Fiers, LA Division Chief and LA Division Deputy Chief a MFR for a meeting with HPSCI Staffer Mike O'Neil held on July 9, 1986 in CATF Chief's office at O'Neil's request to discuss another topic. The memorandum stated that, in response to other questions from O'Neil, Chief/CATF said that Pastora had voluntarily renounced his role as a resistance leader.

On April 25, 1986, Headquarters authorized the sharing with DEA of documents that described the October 1984 agreement between ARDE officials and Morales. DEA reportedly planned to use the documents as background information prior to debriefing Adolfo Chamorro in Miami.

In July 1987, a Station reported to Headquarters that, unless advised otherwise, the Station intended to provide the local DEA office with a message from Octaviano Cesar. The message indicated that Marcos Aguado wanted to contact the CIA to provide specific information that tied Eden Pastora to "past drug trafficking."

On July 31, 1987, CATF Chief Alan Fiers testified to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) concerning the allegations that Morales had made in testimony at the Kerry Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) regarding Contra involvement in narcotics trafficking. Fiers discussed what CIA knew about drug trafficking allegations concerning Pastora and a number of former FRS/ARDE members. Fiers stated that the Agency did not have knowledge that Pastora was directly involved in the Morales narcotics deal, but also said:

We have a significant body of evidence with regard to involvement of the former members of ARDE in the Southern Front--Pastora's people being directly involved in cocaine trafficking to the United States. . . .

In addition, according to SSCI transcripts, Fiers used one of his biweekly meetings with the SSCI to share information with that Committee regarding allegations that Southern Front personnel were involved in narcotics trafficking. On October 14, 1987, Fiers stated to the SSCI regarding Pastora's plans to return to Nicaragua:

We frankly don't very much care what [Pastora] does right now. We don't think it would be a terrible problem for us. You must always remember that the Sandinistas know what we know. This guy is a cocaine runner. Period. He ran cocaine. And they know that and we know that and they don't want him back. He's a hot potato for anybody.

A January 4, 1988 MFR drafted by Robert Buckman, OCA, indicated that CATF provided a summary briefing on the Nicaraguan program for SSCI on the same date. At that briefing, Senator Bill Bradley inquired about allegations of drug trafficking, and Fiers responded that "Pastora had been involved with a Colombian trafficker, but the FDN was clean."

-- Office of Inspector General Investigations Staff Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking in the United States

The project calls for a coordinator, who will interview former Sandinistas and locate those documents not currently in the Center's possession. Materials obtained from taped interviews will also form the basis of a documentary film on many of the subjects covered by the book. An editorial assistant would be in charge of publication and distribution. Since the book will be published in both English and Spanish, the project has substantial translation costs.

The project coordinator for The Nicaraguan Papers tentatively is Adriana Guillen, a former Sandinista and reporter for La Prensa, the only independent newspaper in the country. Ms. Guillen for many years was an insider to the deliberations of the FSLN before she left the Nicaragua. Since then, she was the American representative of Misura, the Nicaraguan Indian organization for the past three years.

At this date, the Center has not decided on whether to publish the book out of Freedom House or through a commercial publisher. Although a commercial publisher has advantages in the continental United States, Freedom House is more able to distribute the book in Latin America and Europe through two newly established programs created for this purpose.

The Nicaraguan Papers will be an important addition to the massive bibliography on Central America as well as a much needed antidote to the public's confusion over the true nature of the Sandinista revolution. It will be aggressively marketed and distributed, especially in the trade market. Marketing plans include:

* free distribution to members of Congress and key public officials;

* distribution of galleys in advance of publication for maximum publicity and timely reviews in newspapers and current affairs magazines.

* press conference at Freedom House in New York and at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

* op-ed circulation to more than 100 newspapers (and translation into foreign languages for circulation abroad.)

* distribution of a Spanish-language edition through Hispanic organizations in the United States and in Latin America.

* arrangement of European distribution through Freedom House contacts.

BUDGET

Salaries

Project Coordinator: $25,000
Editorial Assistant: 16,000
[Total]: $41,000
Translation: $7,000
Honoria and fee for introduction: 8,000
Typing of drafts and final manuscript: 3,000
Transcription of interview tapes (100 hours of taped interviews): 8,100
Research materials: 2,500
Overhead: (International phone calls, office space, copying, secretarial services, etc.): 8,000
Graphic Artist fee for cover: 1,500
Publishing Costs (2,000 hardcover and 10,000 trade paperback): 45,000
Distribution Costs: 10,000
Total Costs (Including printing): $134,100
Cost of Project (Commercial publisher assumes printing and distribution costs in the continental United States): $79,100

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Letter from Leo Cherne to William J. Casey [Bill]
June 24, 1981

Leo Cherne
[Illegible]
The Research Institute of America, Inc.
589 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017
June 24, 1981

Dear Bill:

I am enclosing a copy of the draft manuscript by Bruce McColm, Freedom House's resident specialist on Central America and the Caribbean. This manuscript on El Salvador was the one I had urged be prepared and in the haste to do so as rapidly as possible, it is quite rough. You had mentioned that the facts could be checked for meticulous accuracy within the government and this would be very helpful.

Please convey to whoever may undertake to do that, not to wrestle with grammatical, stylistic or other things which need improvement. I have just arranged with Rita Freedman to undertake that aspect of the task. Also, if I can secure the funding to assemble the very best of available materials for a book, I have come up with a tentative working title, "The Case for a Non-Communist El Salvador" and a detailed understanding with Rita Freedman on the gathering of the best pieces, factual and polemical.

If there are any questions about the McColm manuscript, I suggest that whomever is working on it contact Richard Salzmann at the Research Institute, 755-8900. He is Editor-in-Chief at the Institute and Chairman of the Freedom House's Salvador Committee. He will make sure that the corrections and changes get to Rita Freedman who will also be working with him. If there is any benefit to be gained from Salzmann's coming down at any point to talk to that person, he is available to do so.

Cordially,

Leo Cherne

Honorable William J. Casey
4100 Cathedral Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016

[Handwritten note: Manuscript to Lopez AO/AB]

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Letter From James R. Huntley to Anne W. Coulter
25 June 1982

Battelle
Seminars and Studies Program
4000 N.E. 41st Street
P.O. Box C-5395
Seattle, Washington 98105
Telephone (206) 525-3130

25 June 1982

Ms. Anne W. Coulter
Program Director
The American Political Foundation
PO Box 37034
Washington, DC 20013

Dear Anne:

What a very pleasant surprise to get your letter and all the enclosures! The materials fill in a number of gaps for me, and I thank you. I read the President's speech in the New York Times, but I had not seen all the editorial coverage you forwarded. I have also talked with various friends in Washington about this and I am sure, as the British say, "You are on a good wicket." I am glad that you are staying on with the APF, as I know they will need you.

I thought I might pass on some comments which you might like to share with George Agree. Indeed, I might have sent them to him, except that you wrote first and also I imagine he is head-over-heels with things to do at the moment. So, for either or both of you, here are my thoughts about the study on which you are embarking.

1. It is not entirely clear, from your proposals or from the President's speech, where the emphasis will be put with respect to various kinds of countries. I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure on you to pay particular attention to the Soviet Bloc, but that is precisely the area where it is most difficult to see what can be done. I'm not a specialist on that part of the world, so I will have to leave that to others. (Ray Gastil will have some valuable ideas in this regard.) But I guess what I'm really trying to say is this: If the envisaged effort, which I shall call "Project Democracy" for the sake of an easy handle, concentrates mainly on dictatorships, whether authoritarian or totalitarian, and makes a sort of frontal attack on these most difficult cases, I think you are going to stir up an awful lot of hornets' nets and make less progress than people would like. The alternative would be to defer the hardest cases, or at least give them a more long-term timetable, and concentrate on countries which are (a) marginal cases, i.e., those in which some of the forces of democracy are already at work, but perhaps tenuously or fitfully; and (b) countries which have an extremely important place strategically in the future world scheme of things. I am sending with this letter a copy of a chart which I prepared for a Battelle study called "World Politics in the 1980s." It attempts to classify countries both geographically and according to "type." The type classification has to do with stages of development, political as well as economic. I have omitted from this chart countries whose future I do not consider to be of terribly great import, in a political or strategic sense. I do not suggest that you omit them from consideration, but I do suggest that a higher priority should be given to countries on the chart than to those which are not. I have circled a few countries which I think stand out as deserving of the highest priority. Egypt would be one example -- a place which certainly is not very democratic, but which is in a kind of transition stage; also a place which is of absolute strategic importance, for many reasons. I would give Egypt a lot higher priority than I would (for example) Saudi Arabia, because I think there is a better chance of doing something constructive in Egypt than in Saudi Arabia. That of course is a matter of judgment; maybe what I mean to say is that Saudi Arabia needs a long term approach, whereas I think one could do a lot in Egypt because the culture is more receptive at this stage to democratic ideas. Concentrate on the exchange students for Saudi Arabia, and also on training civil servants, but bring the Egyptians who are already in strategic positions to the United States and to other democratic countries for short tours to find out how democracies are run. And help them set up their own institutes for democracy, if they are so inclined, etc. By this same token, I would put more emphasis on Brazil than on Argentina.

2. I would pay special attention to countries outside the NATO-OECD group in which democracy already has something of a good start -- such as Venezuela, Costa Rica, Barbados, Papua-New Guinea, India, Colombia, Peru, etc.

3. Do not neglect the "nouveau democratique" nations within the Western Alliance, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece or Turkey. They would, I think, be of strategic value with respect to their former colonies and with respect (in the case of Turkey) to other Moslem countries.

4. Neither the President nor your proposals mention bringing the other Western countries (including Japan) into this effort; I think that it is of the utmost importance to work cooperatively with political parties and non-governmental forces in any or all of the NATO-OECD group, wherever a good deal stands to be gained from such cooperation. I know it is more cumbersome and difficult, but if this program turns out to be just an American one, it will turn out to be much more suspect and (I think) much less effective than if you have a number of participating groups from various countries in on the planning as well as the execution of whatever programs you're engaged in. The case which you make so well for the German political foundations having paved the way is an eloquent argument for, at times, letting them and other similar groups in other countries do the job instead of involving the US directly.

5. Your proposal often mentions the word "bipartisan" and I heartily subscribe to that, but I think you ought also to use the adjective "non-partisan" at times, because there are many people (including myself) who are not strongly attached to either party, who nevertheless have strong convictions and a few ideas about how to do the job in which you are engaged. Many foundations are good examples of such institutions; they can help a lot but they would not consider themselves partisan in any sense.

6. I think in the study you are now undertaking you could get some good ideas from a careful examination of American experience in promoting democracy, after 1945, in Germany and Japan. I realize that the circumstances were vastly different than in party of the world today, and that many of the same carrots and sticks which we employed during a military occupation would not be at all appropriate. Nevertheless, having played a part in the American efforts to re-educate and reorient the Germans in 1952 to 1955, both at a national level (from Frankfurt) and out in small towns and provinces, I can testify that many of the things which we did were entirely persuasive in character, and that the Germans were eager to learn and to be partners with us in re-establishing the political base in that benighted country. I think the same thing can be said of many features of the occupation in Japan, and I think it would help you a lot to pull together a little advisory group of people who had experience in both countries, at the time.

7. There are three other countries where I think American experience would be especially relevant: Nigeria, Iran, and Egypt. I don't know much about any of the three cases, but I believe that foreign service officers and others who know about them could be readily found to identify what we failed to do, or did wrong. This could be an extremely productive enterprise in connection with "Project Democracy."

8. Following are a few suggestions for people and organizations who I think could be of special help to you:

J. Allan Hovey, now with the General Accounting Office and on the Board of the Atlantic Council of the US. Back in the 1950s he was the Secretary in Europe for the American Committee for a United Europe and has a great deal of knowledge about how these kinds of things can be done.

R.D. Gastil, Freedom House. You've met Ray and I think George Agree knows him well. I probably don't have to tell you that he [is] one of the world's experts on democracy and political modernization. He also is a member of The Committee for a Community of Democracies, DC. We would like to help you in any way that we can. Among the members of the Committee with a good deal of relevant experience to what you're doing, I suggest that Ray Gastil and the Committee Secretary Bob Foulon are the principal people to discuss this with. We are quite prepared to set up a working group to help you, if we can. (One example of our membership: Richard Van Wagenen, who held an important post in the occupation of Germany and the re-education efforts there, later with World Bank, wrote a seminal book on cooperation among the democracies, Political Community in the North Atlantic Area.)

Tim Greve, editor of the Oslo evening paper, Verdensgang, former Secretary of the Nobel Committee, and once private secretary to Halvard Lange. He could be a key person in getting all relevant groups in Norway into the program.

J.D. Livingston Booth, retired head of Charities Aid Foundation in the UK, founder and chairman of the International Standing Conference on Philanthropy. His knowledge of foundation law and activity in Europe and other parts of the world (including Latin America) is unparalleled. If you want to know about charitable instrumentalities, and about non-profit activity generally, this is the man. Address: Cedar House, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6JD, England.

The Liberal International in London. As you know, the "liberals" in most other parts of the world are actually pretty conservative, and generally favor free enterprise, but also civil liberties, etc. Urs Schoegttli is the international secretary general with offices at One Whitehall Place, London SW1. I know that he has a deep interest in the general aims of "Project Democracy". He is young and Swiss and very active.

I myself. I have no current plans for a trip back East, with one tentatively in the autumn. If you need me sooner, the APF or somebody else would have to pay my fare and expenses, but I would be willing to come for a few days if necessary. Would be glad to help you if I can in a minor way via the telephone or letters.

I don't have to tell you that what you're doing is extremely important. I am elated that the program is getting off the ground and want you to succeed if there is a human way to insure that!

Cordial good wishes.

James R. Huntley
Battelle Fellow

PS: We hope that you and George will both be members of CCD/DC. [CCD USA, COMMITTEES FOR A COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES - USA, Suite 310, 1725 DeSales Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. (202) 955-5778, James R. Huntley, Founding Chairman] In these few months ahead we don't expect much of you, but it would be good to know that there was a kind of organic relationship. We are holding a "convention" or representatives from the various CCDs (now in Melbourne, Tokyo, Montreal, New York, Washington, London and possible Belgium and Germany) from 5-7 November, and it would be very good to have one of you or another representative of APF present. The concerns of CCD and your project overlap to an important extent; we, as you know, are also very much interested in "community" but we have an equal concern for democracy.

Enclosure: Basic Country Groups and the Key Countries

JRH/mc

[admin]

Chinese Request to NED
by Walter Raymond
January 2, 1985

MEMORANDUM
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
January 2, 1985

MEMO FOR GASTON SIGUR
DAVID LAUX

FROM: WALT RAYMOND

SUBJ: Chinese Request to NED

Carl Gershman has called concerning a possible grant to the Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD). I am concerned about the political dimension to this request. We should not find ourselves in a position where we have to respond to pressure, but this request poses a real problem to Carl. Senator Hatch, as you know, is a member of the board. Secondly NED has already given a major grant for a related Chinese program. Please let me know your views COB today (January 2).

Attachment

[Handwritten note: No]

[admin]

CONFIDENTIAL

Examples of institute funding:

1. Bolivia - 150 K - permit continuation of free TU

2. Peru - 50 K - direct counter to Soviet funding. Ex: The Soviets took over the Peruvian Bank Workers Union (due to lack of Western funding). The Union now provides $50 K monthly checkoff due to communist union leaders to support Peruvian Community Part activity.

3. Grenada - 50 K - To the only organized opposition to the Marxist government of Maurice Bishop (The Seaman and Waterfront workers Union). A supplemental 50 K to support free TV activity outside Grenada.

4. Nicaragua - $750 K to support an array of independent trade union activity, agricultural cooperatives.

5. Central America labor publishing house and distribution center for printed materials - TV materials, cooperatives, land reform, etc. - to counter Marxist literature ($500 K).

6. $100 K fund for relief to democratic trade unionists forced to flee their homeland.

DECLASSIFIED BY SMF 7/3/00

[admin]

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

THE WHITE HOUSE

1219

System # IV

Package # 400559 ODDOR

I = Information

cc: Kagan/Kemp

FY 85

$2 M in AID for medical support to Afghanistan. Supplemental FY 84 McPherson

Walt go see Charlie Wilson (D-TX). Seek to bring him into [ILLEGIBLE] as discreet Hill connection. He can be very helpful in getting money. M

7-9-84

[admin]

We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy-the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities- which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

President Ronald Reagan
The Westminster Address
London, United Kingdom
June 8, 1982

The journey of which this visit forms a part is a long one. Already it has taken me to two great cities of the West -- Rome and Paris -- and to the economic summit at Versailles. There, once again, our sister democracies have proved that, even in a time of severe economic strain, free peoples can work together freely and voluntarily to address problems as serious as inflation, unemployment, trade, and economic development in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Other milestones lie ahead. Later this week in Germany, we and our NATO allies will discuss measures for our joint defense and America’s latest initiatives for a more peaceful, secure world through arms reductions.

Each stop of this trip is important, but, among them all, this moment occupies a special place in my heart and the hearts of my countrymen -- a moment of kinship and homecoming in these hallowed halls. Speaking for all Americans, I want to say how very much at home we feel in your house. Every American would, because this is -- as we have been so eloquently told -- one of democracy’s shrines. Here the rights of free people and the processes of representation have been debated and refined.

It has been said that an institution is the lengthening shadow of a man. This institution is the lengthening shadow of all the men and women who have sat here and all those who have voted to send representatives here.

This is my second visit to Great Britain as President of the United States. My first opportunity to stand on British soil occurred almost a year and a half ago when your Prime Minister graciously hosted a diplomatic dinner at the British Embassy in Washington. Mrs. Thatcher said then that she hoped that I was not distressed to find staring down at me from the grand staircase a portrait of His Royal Majesty King George III. She suggested it was best to let bygones be bygones and -- in view of our two countries’ remarkable friendship in succeeding years -- she added that most Englishmen today would agree with Thomas Jefferson that “a little rebellion now and then is a very good thing.”

From here I will go on to Bonn and then Berlin, where there stands a grim symbol of power untamed. The Berlin Wall, that dreadful gray gash across the city, is in its third decade. It is the fitting signature of the regime that built it. And a few hundred kilometers behind the Berlin Wall there is another symbol. In the center of Warsaw there is a sign that notes the distances to two capitals. In one direction it points toward Moscow. In the other it points toward Brussels, headquarters of Western Europe’s tangible unity. The marker says that the distances from Warsaw to Moscow and Warsaw to Brussels are equal. The sign makes this point: Poland We have not inherited an easy is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression.

Poland’s struggle to be Poland, and to secure the basic rights we often take for granted, demonstrates why we dare not take those rights for granted. Gladstone, defending the Reform Bill of 1866, declared: “You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side.” It was easier to believe in the march of democracy in Gladstone’s day, in that high noon of Victorian optimism.

We are approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention -- totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order because, day by day, democracy is proving itself to be a not-at-all fragile flower.

From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy. But none -- not one regime -- has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

The strength of the Solidarity movement in Poland demonstrates the truth told in an underground joke in the Soviet Union. It is that the Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted, because everyone would join the opposition party.

America’s time as a player on the stage of world history has been brief. I think understanding this fact has always made you patient with your younger cousins. Well, not always patient -- I do recall that on one occasion Sir Winston Churchill said in exasperation about one of our most distinguished diplomats: “He is the only case I know of a bull who carries his china shop with him.”

THREATS TO FREEDOM

Witty as Sir Winston was, he also had that special attribute of great statesmen -- the gift of vision, the willingness to see the future based on the experience of the past. It is this sense of history, this understanding of the past, that I want to talk with you about today, for it is in remembering what we share of the past that our two nations can make common cause for the future.

We have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the industrial revolution, which began here in England, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed, to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined.

There is, first, the threat of global war. No president, no congress, no prime minister, no parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. And I don’t have to tell you that in today’s world, the existence of nuclear weapons could mean, if not the extinction of mankind, then surely the end of civilization as we know it.

That is why negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces now underway in Europe and the START talks -- Strategic Arms Reduction Talks -- which will begin later this month, are not just critical to American or Western policy, they are critical to mankind. Our commitment to early success in these negotiations is firm and unshakable and our purpose is clear: reducing the risk of war by reducing the means of waging war on both sides.

At the same time, there is a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the dangers of government that overreaches: political control taking precedence over free economic growth, secret police, mindless bureaucracy -- all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom.

Now I am aware that among us here and throughout Europe, there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the public sector should play a role in a nation’s economy and life. But on one point all of us are united: our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms, but most particularly totalitarianism and the terrible inhumanities it has caused in our time: the great purge, Auschwitz and Dachau, the Gulag and Cambodia.

Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the 1940s and early 1950s for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe -- indeed, the world -- would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan or suppressed Polish solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today the marks of our terrible dilemma -- predictions of doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in which the West must for its own protection be an unwilling participant. At the same time, we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit.

What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil? Sir Winston Churchill refused to accept the inevitability of war or even that it was imminent. He said:

I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today, while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.

THE CRISIS OF TOTALITARIANISM

This is precisely our mission today: to preserve freedom as well as peace. It may not be easy to see, but I believe we live now at a turning point. In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis -- a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the national product has been steadily declining since the 1950s and is less than half of what it was then. The dimensions of this failure are astounding, a country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. These private plots occupy a bare 3% of the arable land but account for nearly one-quarter of Soviet farm output and nearly one-third of meat products and vegetables.

Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resources into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet people.

What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones. The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies -- West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam --it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face East to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face East -- to prevent their people from leaving.

The hard evidence of totalitarian rule has caused in mankind an uprising of the intellect and will. Whether it is the growth of the new schools of economics in America or England or the appearance of the so-called “new philosophers” in France, there is one unifying thread running through the intellectual work of these groups: rejection of the arbitrary power of the state, the refusal to subordinate the rights of the individual to the superstate, the realization that collectivism stifles all the best human impulses.

STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPRESSION

Since the exodus from Egypt, historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom: the stand at Thermopylae, the revolt of Spartacus, the storming of the Bastille, the Warsaw uprising in World War II. More recently we have seen evidence of this same human impulse in one of the developing nations in Central America. For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in El Salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave freedom fighters battling oppressive government forces in behalf of the silent, suffering people of that tortured country.

Then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are: Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves and their backers, not democracy for the people. They threatened death to any who voted and destroyed hundreds of busses and trucks to keep people from getting to the polling places. But on election day the people of El Salvador, an unprecedented 1.4 million of them, braved ambush and gunfire and trudged miles to vote for freedom.

They stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for their turn to vote. Members of our Congress who went there as observers told me of a woman who was wounded by rifle fire who refused to leave the line to have her wound treated until after she had voted. A grandmother, who had been told by the guerrillas she would be killed when she returned from the polls, told the guerrillas: “You can kill me, kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you can’t kill us all.” The real freedom fighters of El Salvador turned out to be the people of that country -- the young, the old, and the in-between. Strange, but in my own country there has been little if any news coverage of that war since the election.

Perhaps they'll say it’s because there are newer struggles now -- on distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And, yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifices for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren’t fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause, for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed and that people must participate in the decisions of government under the rule of law. If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn’t have suffered the bloodletting of World War II.

In the Middle East the guns sound once more, this time in Lebanon, a country that for too long has had to endure the tragedy of civil war, terrorism, and foreign intervention and occupation. The fighting in Lebanon on the part of all parties must stop, and Israel should bring its forces home. But this is not enough. We must all work to stamp out the scourge of terrorism that in the Middle East makes war an ever-present threat.

But beyond the troublespots lies a deeper, more positive pattern. Around the world today the democratic revolution is gathering new strength. In India, a critical test has been passed with the peaceful change of governing political parties. In Africa, Nigeria is moving in remarkable and unmistakable ways to build and strengthen its democratic institutions. In the Caribbean and Central America, 16 of 24 countries have freely elected governments. And in the United Nations, 8 of the 10 developing nations which have joined the body in the past 5 years are democracies.

In the Communist world as well, man’s instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-rule: 1953 in East Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1981 in Poland. But the struggle continues in Poland, and we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soviet Union itself. How we conduct ourselves here in the Western democracies will determine whether this trend continues.

FOSTERING DEMOCRACY

No, democracy is not a fragile flower; still, it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy. Some argue that we should encourage democratic change in rightwing dictatorships but not in Communist regimes. To accept this preposterous notion -- as some well-meaning people have -- is to invite the argument that, once countries achieve a nuclear capability, they should be allowed an undisturbed reign of terror over their own citizens. We reject this course.

As for the Soviet view, President Brezhnev repeatedly has stressed that the competition of ideas and systems must continue and that this is entirely consistent with relaxation of tensions and peace. We ask only that these systems begin by living up to their own constitutions, abiding by their own laws, and complying with the international obligations they have undertaken. We ask only for a process, a direction, a basic code of decency -- not for an instant transformation.

We cannot ignore the fact that even without our encouragement, there have been and will continue to be repeated explosions against repression in dictatorships. The Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimatize its leaders. In such crises, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it -- if necessary, by force.

While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections.

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy -- the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities -- which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

This is not cultural imperialism: it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?

Since 1917 the Soviet Union has given covert political training and assistance to Marxist-Leninists in many countries. Of course, it also has promoted the use of violence and subversion by these same forces. Over the past several decades, West European and other social democrats, christian democrats and liberals have offered open assistance to fraternal political and social institutions to bring about peaceful and democratic progress. Appropriately for a vigorous new democracy, the Federal Republic of Germany’s political foundations have become a major force in this effort.

U.S. PROPOSALS

We in America now intend to take additional steps, as many of our allies have already done, toward realizing this same goal. The chairmen and other leaders of the national Republican and Democratic party organizations are initiating a study with the bipartisan American Political Foundation to determine how the United States can best contribute -- as a nation -- to the global campaign for democracy now gathering force. They will have the cooperation of congressional leaders of both parties along with representatives of business, labor, and other major institutions in our society.

I look forward to receiving their recommendations and to working with these institutions and the Congress in the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world. It is time that we committed ourselves as a nation -- in both the public and private sectors -- to assisting democratic development.

We plan to consult with leaders of other nations as well. There is a proposal before the Council of Europe to invite parliamentarians from democratic countries to a meeting next year in Strasbourg. That prestigious gathering would consider ways to help democratic political movements.

This November in Washington there will take place an international meeting on free elections and next spring there will be a conference of world authorities on constitutionalism and self-government hosted by the Chief Justice of the United States. Authorities from a number of developing and developed countries -- judges, philosophers, and politicians with practical experience -- have agreed to explore how to turn principle into practice and further the rule of law.

At the same time we invite the Soviet Union to consider with us how the competition of ideas and values -- which it is committed to support -- can be conducted on a peaceful and reciprocal basis. For example, I am prepared to offer President Brezhnev an opportunity to speak to the American people on our if he will allow me the same opportunity with the Soviet people. We also suggest that panels of our newsmen periodically appear on each other’s television to discuss major events.

I do not wish to sound overly optimistic, yet the Soviet Union is not immune from the reality of what is going on in the world. It has happened in the past: a small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure or it chooses a wiser course -- it begins to allow its people a voice in their own destiny.

Even if this latter process is not realized soon, I believe the renewed strength of the democratic movement, complemented by a global campaign for freedom, will strengthen the prospects for arms control and a world at peace.

I have discussed on other occasions including my address on May 9th, the elements of Western policies toward the Soviet Union to safeguard our interests and protect the peace. What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

That is why we must continue our efforts to strengthen NATO even as we move forward with our zero option initiative in the negotiations on intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a one-third reduction in strategic ballistic missile warheads.

DEDICATION TO WESTERN IDEALS

Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used. For the ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets, but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

The British people know that, given strong leadership, time, and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil. Here among you is the cradle of self-government, the mother of parliaments. Here is the enduring greatness of the British contribution to mankind, the great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, and the rule of law under God.

I have often wondered about the shyness of some of us in the West about standing for these ideals that have done so much to ease the plight of man and the hardships of our imperfect world. This reluctance to use those vast resources at our command reminds me of the elderly lady whose home was bombed in the blitz. As the rescuers moved about they found a bottle of brandy she’d stored behind the staircase, which was all that was left standing. Since she was barely conscious, one of the workers pulled the cork to give her a taste of it. She came around immediately and said. “Here now, put it back, that’s for emergencies.”

Well, the emergency is upon us. Let us be shy no longer -- let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

During the dark days of the Second World War when this island was incandescent with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about Britain’s adversaries: “What kind of a people do they think we are?” Britain’s adversaries found out what extraordinary people the British are. But all the democracies paid a terrible price for allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare not make that mistake again. So let us ask ourselves: What kind of people do we think we are? And let us answer: free people, worthy of freedom, and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.

Sir Winston led his people to great victory in war and then lost an election just as the fruits of victory were about to be enjoyed. But he left office honorably -- and, as it turned out, temporarily -- knowing that the liberty of his people was more important than the fate of any single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message of hope for the future, as timely now as when he first uttered it, as opposition leader in the Commons nearly 27 years ago. He said. “When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have,” he said, “come safely through the worst.”

The task I have set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we, too, have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

_______________

Published by the United States Department of State – Bureau of Public Affairs/ Office of Public Communication – Editorial Division . Washington, D.C.
June 1982 Editor: Colleen Sussman
This material is in the public domain and may be reproduced without permission; citation of this source is appreciated.

[admin]

Skeptics Pelt Schultz With Queries on Reagan's 'Project Democracy'
by Bernard Gwertzman, Special to the New York Times
February 24, 1983

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 23— Secretary of State George P. Shultz ran into considerable skepticism today when he outlined the Administration's plans to spend $85 million in the next two years to promote President Reagan's Project Democracy around the world. Several members of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on International Organizations expressed doubts about the feasibility and the propriety of the United States trying to train young leaders and foster the growth of such democratic institutions as labor unions, political parties, news outlets, businesses and universities in countries where democracy is not permitted.

''The more we look at this thing, the more nervous I become over it,'' said Representative Joel Pritchard, Republican of Washington. He said he thought most Arab, African and Asian countries would view the project ''as a destabilizing factor'' and ''mischief-making.''

'Don't Be Nervous'

Mr. Shultz, who issued a long statement praising the project as ''critical to our national security,'' replied tersely to Mr. Pritchard's concerns. ''Don't be nervous about democracy, about holding that torch up there,'' he said.

Representative Dante B. Fascell, Democrat of Florida, chairman of the subcommittee, said the premise of the program was ''sound'' but he seemed unhappy that it would be administered by the United States Information Agency, not the State Department.

Project Democracy was announced by Mr. Reagan in London last June as a major program in an ideological competition with the Communists. Mr. Shultz said the Administration planned to spend $20 million in the current fiscal year and $65 million in the fiscal year 1984. ''If we are to achieve the kind of world we all hope to see, with peace, freedom and economic progress, democracy has to continue to expand,'' he said. ''Democracy is a vital, even revolutionary force. It exists as an expression of the basic human drive for freedom.''

'Trouble' Predicted

But Representative Peter H. Kostmayer, Democrat of Pennsylvania, calling it ''multimillion-dollar propaganda,'' said, ''I don't see how this program can possibly do anything but give us trouble.'' And Representative Stephen J. Solarz, Democrat of New York, pressed Mr.Shultz to say without ambiguity that the United States would try to spread democracy everywhere, not only in Communist societies.

Mr. Solarz asked: ''Are we prepared to provide help to democrats in such places as South Korea, the Philippines, in such places as Taiwan, where there are Governments friendly to the United States, but obviously with little respect for democracy?''

Mr. Shultz agreed that the program could founder if it was perceived, in Mr. Solarz's words, to be ''selective democracy.'' But he said the program was not intended ''to support this or that party in a given government'' or ''to threaten or unseat some existing government.'' He also said there would be no role for the Central Intelligence Agency.

As to the possibility of influencing changes in the Communist world, Mr. Shultz said that ''while we are limited in our ability to deal with such closed societies, we propose to strengthen, both in quality and quantity, our information programs reaching these countries.''