Rolling Out the Big Guns

By WALTER ISAACSON

New brains and brawn for Central America

Few problems have frustrated the Reagan Administration more than its inability to rally support for its Central American policies. As the President lamented to a convention of longshoremen meeting in Hollywood, Fla., last week: "Many of our citizens don't fully understand the seriousness of the situation." Indeed, Congress and the public have generally remained either uninterested in or downright skeptical about American support for the government in El Salvador, which is struggling against left-wing rebels, and U.S. opposition to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, which is struggling against CIA-backed insurgents. So in addition to speaking loudly last week, Reagan brandished weapons. He appointed a special twelve-man commission headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to shape a national consensus on Central America, and he dispatched an aircraft carrier battle group for a dubious dramatization of U.S. firmness and commitment in the region.

At the urging of National Security Adviser William Clark and U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan has been placing greater emphasis on Central America in recent months. He has toughened his public pronouncements and made significant changes in the State Department hierarchy. This has caused concern in Congress that he is stressing a military approach too strongly. The purpose of the Kissinger Commission is, ostensibly, to give advice on long-term American policy in Central America and help coalesce public support for these goals. But despite its somewhat vague mandate, it has a clear-cut political purpose: justifying the deeper extended commitment in Central America, both military and economic, that the Reagan Administration has clearly decided is necessary for the protection of U.S. interests.

The idea of a bipartisan commission on Central America was promoted by Kirkpatrick. She discussed it in February with two Democrats on Capitol Hill, Senator Henry Jackson of Washington and Congressman Michael Barnes of Maryland, and they sponsored resolutions calling for such a panel. Despite its success in using blue-ribbon groups to handle the hot issues of Social Security reform and the MX missile, the White House was skeptical at first. But by the end of June, after Reagan's own speeches failed to galvanize support for his policies, the idea began to sound better. "We're going to have to build a consensus on Capitol Hill damn soon," said a senior Reagan aide. "We had to try something different."

For Kissinger, who in recent months has become a regular informal consultant to Clark, the appointment presented a chance to return to a position of official power. For the Reagan Administration, which has often been criticized for lacking depth in international affairs, tapping Kissinger was a way to lend credibility to foundering aspects of its foreign policy. But the choice was nonetheless surprising. The commission was formed in part to dampen domestic controversy, and Kissinger is, above all, a highly controversial figure. Indeed, in his unsuccessful 1976 primary campaign against President Gerald Ford, Reagan launched a sustained series of attacks on Kissinger, saying, among other things, "Kissinger's stewardship of U.S. foreign policy has coincided precisely with the loss of U.S. military supremacy."

Although many moderates hailed his appointment, Kissinger was attacked last week from both ends of the political spectrum.

Liberals charged that his only notable experience with Latin America was involvement in the U.S. effort in the early 1970s to destabilize covertly the government in Chile led by the elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. Kissinger's role in the conduct of the Viet Nam War also rankled. Complained Democratic Congressman Norm Mineta of California: "People are already relating Nicaragua to Viet Nam. Now comes the man who gave us the bombing of Cambodia to deal with Central American problems. It doesn't make any sense."

Those on the far right criticized Kissinger for being an exponent of what they see as the failed policy of East-West detente. "There may be someone across this broad land farther down my list of preferences for such a position than Henry Kissinger," said Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. "But I can't think of him." Richard Viguerie, publisher of Conservative Digest, charged that "Kissinger's track record is one of losing countries."

Kissinger, who was scheduled to take up residence Monday in the first-floor suite traditionally used by incoming Secretaries during a transition, ordered that a full set of briefing papers be prepared for him over the weekend. He wants to have his own public relations staff, and is expected to embark on a trip to Central America soon. Reaction at the turf-conscious State Department was wary, to put it very diplomatically. Many considered the appointment a slight to Secretary George Shultz and to the role of the department. Said one: "Imagine what Kissinger's reaction would have been when he was Secretary to the appointment of a Shultz commission." But Shultz, who was supposed to take greater charge of Latin American policy as part of a deal worked out with the White House after the removal of Thomas Enders as Assistant Secretary, said that he "welcomed" the appointment of his old friend Kissinger.

Kissinger made few pronouncements on Latin America while serving as Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, and generally gave the area a low priority. More recently he has taken a hard-line stance. "It is time we stopped arguing only about how much democracy there is in El Salvador and began to understand America's strategic interests are at stake," he told TIME this spring. In an interview with Public Opinion magazine that appeared in April, he faulted the Reagan Administration for tailoring its aid requests to what it felt Congress would approve. Said Kissinger: "Its program strikes me as having been set by its estimate of the maximum Congress will appropriate, not a strategic or political assessment."

After his appointment last week, Kissinger indicated that he would not approach the situation as simply an East-West military struggle. "Nobody should believe that every problem everywhere in the world is caused solely, or maybe even principally, by the Soviet Union," he said in a speech to businessmen in San Francisco. "Especially in the underdeveloped parts of the world, there are indigenous injustices."

Kirkpatrick, who is the President's representative on the commission, is expected to be one of its driving forces. In a speech last week, she stressed that Communist regimes "can be overturned" and the spread of Marxism should not be considered irreversible. Robert Strauss, the blunt Texan who is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is likely to be the most prominent voice from outside the Administration among the appointed members. When phoned on Sunday night and offered the position, Strauss, who served as President Carter's special envoy to the Middle East, turned to his wife and said, "You know that is really a loser." She told him that he was always complaining about Administration policy, so he should either take the job or "hush up." Not being one to hush up, he agreed to accept if he had the right to remain "highly independent."

Strauss is one of four Texans on the commission. San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, a Democrat, said he would "approach this task as a person skeptical of the present U.S. policy" and felt more emphasis should be placed on human rights rather than on military solutions. Former Governor William Clements, a Republican, is a strong supporter of the President but is known for his independent mind. Boston University President John Silber, whose hawkish and conservative views have stirred controversy on his campus, was born in Texas and taught philosophy there. Others on the all-male panel: Yale Economics Professor Carlos Diaz-Alejandro, a refugee from Castro's Cuba who nonetheless takes a generally liberal

foreign policy line; former New Jersey Senator Nicholas Brady, a quintessential Eastern Establishment Republican; retired Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who is known for his nonideological legal approach; Political Analyst Richard Scammon, a neoconservative Democrat and close friend of Kirkpatrick's; AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, a Democrat who holds generally conservative foreign policy views but whose sensitivity to human rights has been accented by the murder of two labor representatives in El Salvador; National Federation of Independent Business President Wilson Johnson, a moderately conservative Republican from San Mateo, Calif.; and Project HOPE Founder and President William Walsh, who is noted for his health care work in underdeveloped countries.

Having thus tried to strengthen his support at home, Reagan approved a display of muscle-flexing diplomacy designed to demonstrate U.S. firepower in Central America (see box). The aircraft carrier U.S.S.

Ranger, accompanied by seven support ships, steamed south from San Diego toward Nicaragua's Pacific shore. The Pentagon planned to send two additional carriers into the region in August. Preparations also were made for joint maneuvers in Honduras that could involve up to 5,000 troops rotating in and out over a six-month period. "There is a desire to provide a boost to the morale of the Hondurans and the Salvadorans and to show that U.S. power is not rhetoric," said a senior U.S. diplomat. But the ostentatious making of waves, which seemed an attention grabber rather than a justified military maneuver, stirred resentment at home and abroad. Panamanian Foreign Minister Juan Jose Amado, whose country has been supportive of U.S. peace efforts, said such actions will "cause concern and tension" in Latin America. Congressman Barnes, who will be one of eight congressional consultants to the Kissinger panel, said, "I don't think the timing could be worse."

Reagan managed at a mini-press conference last week to sound intimidating even when denying that the naval fleet was preparing for a blockade of Nicaragua. Given an easy opportunity to say he would not favor a blockade, he instead said, "I would hope that eventuality would not arise." Reagan minced no words at the session with reporters when asked about the Sandinista government now ruling Nicaragua. When the regime consolidated power, he said, "the present group wanted Communist totalitarianism." Could a diplomatic settlement be reached with them? "I think it would be extremely difficult," he said, "because I think they are being subverted, or they are being directed by outside forces."

At about the same time, the Sandinista leadership was softening its own stance in hopes of an accommodation with the U.S. To a crowd of 75,000 celebrating the fourth anniversary of the overthrow of Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaraguan Leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra announced that his government "had decided to make a new effort to contribute to peace" and was willing to join in the multilateral regional discussions that the U.S. has sought. Ortega proposed a six-point peace plan that would prohibit arms sales to both the government and the rebels in El Salvador, as well as military aid to insurgents elsewhere in Central America.

The U.S. reacted cautiously to the Nicaraguan suggestion. A high-ranking State Department official said that it does not represent a radical new proposal. "It's not a sea change," he said. "It's a 5% movement." U.S. officials said that the main flaw in the Nicaraguan proposal was that it equated American support for the Salvadoran government, which was elected, with

Nicaraguan support for the Salvadoran left, which is seeking power by force.

The regional negotiations that Nicaragua offered to join are being pushed by four countries--Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and Colombia--known as the Contadora group. The U.S. supports their effort, but from afar. The Presidents of the Contadora countries met in Cancun a week ago to try to get the negotiating process under way, and another meeting is scheduled this week in Panama. Central American Special Envoy Richard Stone (whose job, like Kissinger's, was created partly to please Congress) left late last week for meetings with the Contadora representatives. Stone was also prepared to talk directly with leaders of the Salvadoran guerrilla movement. "They will be aware he will be traveling in the area," said one of his aides.

The more difficult negotiations for the Administration may be with Congress. Behind locked and guarded doors, the House last week held a secret debate, only its fourth in history (others have involved President Jackson's trade talks with Britain in 1830, the Panama Canal treaties in 1979 and aid to Nicaragua in 1980), on whether to cut off covert funding for the Honduras-based rebels fighting the Sandinista regime. The closed four-hour session, according to one participant, "was not earth shattering," and many members wandered away before it was over. A vote on the covert-funding cutoff is tentatively scheduled for this week. (The U.S. may have a powerful and discreet partner in its covert support of the anti-Sandinista rebels. According to the New York Times, Israel is funneling captured P.L.O. weapons to the insurgents in cooperation with the CIA.)

Meanwhile, as required by Congress every six months, the Administration officially "certified" that El Salvador was making progress on protecting human rights. The report observed that civilian deaths had risen from an average of 160 a month during the second half of 1982 to 177 a month now, but added that the Salvadoran government was making a "concerted and significant effort" to end the killings. "Our disappointment with the pace of change should not obscure the fact that change is occurring," noted Shultz. When asked what grounds there were for the certification, a senior State Department official snapped: "This law was written about El Salvador and not Utopia."

Although the purpose of the Kissinger commission is more to provide support for current policies than to shape new ones, members will inevitably become involved in considering future diplomatic moves and the appropriate levels of U.S. commitments. Indeed, while Kissinger is known to be sympathetic to Administration policies, he is certainly not wedded to them. In his interview with Public Opinion, for example, he suggested scrapping the covert approach in Nicaragua in favor of coming right out in the open. Said he: "If the stated objective is to prevent infiltration, then I would prefer an overt action. I support the idea of giving military equipment to guerrillas who fight the Sandinistas."

The fact that the commission's report is not due for four months might provide the Administration with some breathing room to pursue its current policies. At the very least, the panel's work will focus awareness on the issues involved. In that regard, Kissinger and an aircraft carrier battle group have one thing in common: they both attract attention. --By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Laurence I. Barrett and Gregory H. Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Gregory H. Wierzynski This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.