Foreign Relations of the United States 1977–1980; Volume XV; Central America, 1977–1980

411. Memorandum From Robert Pastor of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski), the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Aaron), and the Special Representative for Economic Summits (Owen)¹

Washington, February 14, 1980

SUBJECT

• SCC Meeting on El Salvador, Friday, February 15, 1980—4:00 p.m. (U)

The time for getting this government moving in an effective way toward turning the problems in El Salvador and Honduras around has arrived. There are three objectives for the SCC meeting: (1) to gain complete and unequivocal agreement on the objectives of US policy in El Salvador and Honduras and the nature of the threat we face in both countries;² (2) to gain agreement on what additional resources are needed and where we can obtain these resources; and (3) to gain agreement on how much additional personnel we need in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala and where we can get them. If there is any ambiguity about the SCC’s decisions—particularly in the last two areas—the bureaucratic quagmire will slow us down 2–4 weeks, which could be fatal. Certain agencies will seek to divert the discussion to pet concerns—for example, DOD may try to debate US human rights policy and Guatemala, a contentious issue, which we do not need to address at this time. Zbig will have to draw a clear line through the bullshit, which David sampled on Tuesday,³ and which I have been wading through for the past several weeks. We really need some decisions. (S)

Background and Objectives

Let me suggest that Zbig begin the meeting by summarizing as a brief consensus statement the objectives of US policy as suggested during the last SCC meeting.⁴ (C)

In El Salvador, we want to find all effective ways to: (1) bolster the Junta (coalition of Christian Democrats and moderate military) by ourselves and with multilateral support; (2) divide the left and try to get leading groups and individuals (like Archbishop Romero, MNR, Jesuits) to leave the left and support the Junta; and (3) prevent the right from staging a coup or undertaking measures to de-stabilize the reform elements in the Junta. (S)

The Christian Democrats view the right as a far greater threat than the left, and recent evidence suggests their assessment may be correct. Conservative civilians do not accept the reforms recently promulgated by the Junta; right-wing military continue to be notorious for their brutality. Right-wing terrorist groups (Orden and White Warriors Union) have been killing as many, if not more people than leftist terrorists, and the right-wingers seem to be targeting the moderates while the left is aiming at the military and police. (S)

Fortunately, we probably have more potential influence with the right than with the left. We need to get SOUTHCOM and JCS to send a clear message to the conservative military that we would not accept a coup, and that we believe they should be doing everything possible to help the Junta and to submit to rule of law and political direction by the civilians in the Junta. There are a number of different contacts we could use to get the message to the conservative businessmen, through the Chamber of Commerce (which I am contacting) and through groups in Florida. State, CIA and DOD should be tasked to develop a list of possible contacts to use in trying to neutralize the right. (S)

We should continue to work on the left, and indeed should open up lines of communication which we could utilize in the future, if necessary. (We should also try to strike a deal with Torrijos. I believe he would be amenable to the right approach to him for two reasons: (1) he should feel that Castro used him in Nicaragua to serve Cuba’s, not Torrijos’ purposes; and (2) he is angry about the leftist takeover of the Panamanian Embassy in San Salvador, and is reported to be holding leftists in El Salvador as an exchange. I would very much like to sound out Torrijos on this, but this should not be discussed at the SCC meeting. You may want to ask Vance about the idea privately.) (S)

Our objectives and message must be crystal clear to all USG personnel who have any contacts in El Salvador, and to Salvador: we support the Junta, and we will not consider any other coalition government. (S)

In Honduras, our objectives are to: (1) keep the military’s feet to the fire with regard to its commitment to hold free (constituent assembly) elections on April 20;⁵ (2) help the government develop an intelligence and interdiction capability to prevent the transit of arms and guerrillas to El Salvador; and (3) assist the government to prevent the establishment of a guerrilla infrastructure. We have recently received reports indicating that the military view the Christian Democrats as “leftists” or “communists,” and that they are considering postponing the elections indefinitely. This would represent a terrible setback, and a real dividend to any incipient extremist organization. We should try to keep the military on track on the elections issue, and when we inform Honduran General Paz that the President will be able to see him, we should make very clear that the President feels very strongly about the Honduran elections and would be extremely concerned if there was any truth to the possibility that Paz might postpone them.⁶ (S)

Our objectives in both countries are to help them to resolve their border dispute and to work closely together to deal with this guerrilla threat. (S)

I don’t think you will find much disagreement on these specific objectives, but I do think it imperative to get these objectives under our belt and transmitted as clear guidance by the SCC. There may be a great temptation to look into alternative options based on the assumption that the Junta will fall apart, but I would encourage you to limit discussion on this issue because it would be divisive (DOD would like to lean to the right; State perhaps to the left) and because it is essential that the entire government transmit a single message to the Salvadoran right and left. If the right thinks that we will back them if the Junta fails, they will make the Junta fail. Our tactic at this time should be to support the Junta, but to open up channels to both right and left for the purpose of trying to co-opt them now or perhaps work with them better in the future. (S)

With regard to multilateral consultations, the President’s letter was very helpful, but we need to follow-up.⁷ Since our main interest is getting several other governments to send military advisers, and since the military in most of these countries are most excited about the Communist menace to Central America, I suggest that the SCC instruct SOUTHCOM General Nutting to write to his colleagues in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and encourage them to express their interest in assisting El Salvador. I mentioned this to Nutting today, and Nutting was enthusiastic about the idea, and said that in his discussions with Latin American Military Commanders at the annual conference in Bogota many of his colleagues had complained that we weren’t doing enough to stem the “red tide.” Now, he would like to throw the ball back in their court. Nutting also said that he would like to be plugged in more to help us in Salvador and Honduras. We should attach a Polad to SOUTHCOM and do much more liaison with them. We should also use our Milgroups and CIA throughout the Andean Pact to exchange intelligence on a regular basis on events in Central America. I understand this is not being done. (S)

Resources: Economic and Security Aid

I have worked closely with State to try to condense the massive response (Tab II, A through I) to you SCC tasker from the last meeting into a manageable set of issues papers.⁸ (S)

At Tab I is the agenda for the meeting.⁹ (U)

At Tab A is the Issues Paper on Security Aid.¹⁰ There are two issues for El Salvador and four for Honduras. With regard to El Salvador, we are ready to send in three MTT’s as soon as we get the green light from the Junta and the Venezuelans indicate that they have no problems with it. (There is no sense sending in MTT’s if it provokes the Venezuelans to withdraw their aid.) The Venezuelans just informed us that as long as we refer to the MTT’s as “groups of technicians seeking to study in depth the requirements of the Salvadoran military in the fields of communications and transport,” that would be fine with them. Also, they ask that we maintain secrecy on their own “study teams” until they gain full support in their Congress. They’re working on that. (S)

You will need to literally walk the SCC through the issues papers and get agreement to approve each item. (U)

The issues in El Salvador are:

(1) Whether we should offer an additional $7.5 million for helicopters, and how to pay for it (reprogramming or the President’s emergency authority). We need the $7.5 million, and we also need State and OMB to agree on how to do it. (S)

(2) Whether to instruct Treasury to give Salvador the best concessional terms available for FMS. We should. (S)

On Honduras, our objective of helping them build a capability to interdict the flow of arms and guerrillas requires the following decisions by the SCC:

(1) Reprogram an additional $200,000 IMET. (S)

(2) $10 million FMS for helicopters. (S)

(3) Conduct combined training with the Honduran Navy. (S)

(4) Provide best concessional terms for FMS. (S)

At Tab C is the economic aid issues paper.¹¹ We need to have the capability to disburse funds rapidly to leave maximum political impact. There are three options presented, all of them require difficult choices. You and Vance really have to decide whether this money is more or less important than ESF to Portugal, Jordan, Israel, or Egypt. (S)

The recommendation on PL–480 is essentially “a sense of the SCC”—that the bureaucracy should try to put together a larger PL–480 program as rapidly as possible. (S)

Personnel

The basic problem we face in formulating a response to the Salvadoran challenge is that we are searching for additional resources while the pie is getting smaller. Vance and others are reluctant to face the hard trade-offs and so the middle levels of the bureaucracies run in circles, and the result is paralysis. This dilemma is most acute in deciding on personnel levels. For the past two years, we have demanded an extraordinary amount of work from extremely small, low quality missions. CIA has formulated a wonderful covert action plan,¹² [4 lines not declassified]

Everyone will ask for more people if we can lift the mode (which the President won’t), but if they’ve got to take it from another place, they’re reluctant. (S)

At Tab C is the recommendation on increasing personnel which I frankly believe is the minimum we can reasonably expect to implement our strategy.¹³ Ambassador White should be authorized by the SCC to put together a team here in Washington composed of people to fill those additional slots. When he goes down there on February 25, the Embassy should be ready to operate. (S)

I think it’s unrealistic to expect an increase in the mode. Brown, Turner, and Vance must agree to get the additional personnel from other countries; a fair compromise would be to get 50% of the increase from ARA posts (primarily Southern Cone: Chile, Argentina, and Brazil) and 50% elsewhere. (S)

Additional Issues

The SCC also needs to recommend that the President will meet with the Salvadoran Junta in late February, as their Emissary requested.¹⁴ Secondly, we need to try to make a special effort to resolve the Honduras-Salvador border dispute so that the President can put the finishing touches on that when he meets with them. [4 lines not declassified]

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Council, Institutional Files, Box 109, SCC 274, 2/15/80, El Salvador. Secret. Sent for information. A stamped notation indicates that Brzezinski saw the memorandum.
2. Pastor wrote “reaffirm” in the margin next to this clause.
3. February 12. See Document 410.
4. See Documents 406 and 407.
5. Brzezinski underlined the words “hold” and “elections” in this phrase.
6. See Documents 352 and 353.
7. See footnote 5, Document 408.
8. Tab II, consisting of Tabs A through I, is attached but not printed. For Brzezinski’s January 31 tasking memorandum requesting the preparation of these papers, see footnote 9, Document 406. Also see Document 407.
9. Tab I, attached but not printed, is the agenda for the February 15 SCC meeting.
10. Attached but not printed.
11. The issues paper on economic aid is attached as Tab B and is not printed.
12. See footnote 6, Document 409.
13. Tab C, attached but not printed, is an issue paper on personnel.
14. In a February 11 memorandum to Brzezinski, Pastor reported that Ambassador Bertrand, a special emissary from the Salvadoran Junta, had requested that Carter meet with the Junta. (Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 20, El Salvador: 2/80)