303. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Nicaragua1
214108. For Ambassador Pezzullo. Subject: Reports of FSLN Brigade to Fight in El Salvador.
1. (S-Entire text)
2. Reference is made to report [report number not declassified] that a 250-man military brigade is in training in Nicaragua for eventual dispatch to El Salvador to foment insurrection.2
3. If true, this kind of activity is obviously adverse to our interests and objectives and would seriously affect our willingness or ability to work constructively with Nicaragua or to achieve our policy goals there. Such activity must therefore be discouraged and prevented if at all possible. We are also concerned about reports of increased contact and assistance between Nicaraguans and groups which are promoting revolution in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. We believe it essential that our concerns be conveyed clearly and strongly early on.
4. You should ASAP raise with those members of the Junta you believe it effective to do so, and with Borge and D’Escoto the following points:
—We have received information from sources in El Salvador of intense concern by El Salvador over reports that groups of Salvadorans are being trained by Sandinistas for eventual insurrection in northern tier countries, especially El Salvador. (FYI: Your reference here should be general and vague enough to protect source, but clear enough to make the point. End FYI.) We have also heard other general stories of alleged contact between Nicaraguans and groups seeking the violent overthrow of established governments in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
—We hope these are just rumors. Any strategy or tactic of “exporting revolution” or promoting violence by preparing and staging armed insurgents or by assisting subversion against other governments would create the most serious situation in Central America.
—Worse, it would stain the image of the GNR and destroy the reconstruction task it has set about. It would provide other governments an excuse to support those who may seek to subvert the GNR.
[Page 736]—Evidence of this kind of activity would, as you well know, make it impossible for the U.S. to cooperate with the GNR as it would like to do. Not only would it give ammunition to those in the U.S. and elsewhere who want to paint the GNR as subversive and Castroist, it would in fact raise questions in the minds of friends who are well disposed toward the GNR as to what the true nature of the regime and its intentions are.
—This activity would also antagonize most of the rest of Latin America which is already apprehensive as to what direction events in Nicaragua will take.
—In short, activity of this kind would create a changed and most serious situation which the USG would have to take into account. We believe in democratic development, freedom and social justice; but we cannot tolerate the export of armed revolution nor can any civilized international order exist with this kind of behavior.3
- Source: Department of State, INR/IL Historical Records, Managua 1961–1979. Secret; Immediate; Roger Channel. Drafted by Vaky; cleared by Pastor, and in ARA and the CIA; approved by Bowdler.↩
- Not further identified.↩
- Pezzullo’s response to Vaky in telegram 3830 from Managua, August 17, expressed doubt regarding the existence of the 250-man brigade but endorsed further investigation and Borge and D’Escoto’s notification of the “delicate situation in which they find themselves and the impossible position in which we would be placed if there was any substance to the ‛exporting of revolution’ thesis.” (Department of State, INR/IL Historical Records, Managua 1961–1979)↩