228. Editorial Note
In his January 29, 1985, testimony before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Representative Michael Barnes (D–Maryland), Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Langhorne Motley provided an overview of “the principles, strategy, and tactics” informing on the Ronald Reagan administration’s “policy formulation and its implementation in Latin America”: “I would like to concentrate on the future rather than recite past events, although I think they are worthy of note in the testimony.
“First, I will state a basic principle that guides us. I think Americans expect their Government to stand firmly on principle. That first principle is the defense of U.S. national interests. Americans expect, I think, in applying this principle, certain fundamentals of their Government. These are:
“First, that we stand firmly by our friends.
“Second, that the United States must provide leadership. Latin America has grown too much for the United States to attempt to act on its own or without consultation. There are limits to U.S. power, but these limits must not be taken as an excuse for abdication. The defense of U.S. interests cannot be left to others. It requires active U.S. diplomacy backed by power, resources, and imagination.
“Third, leadership must be exercised wisely.
“And fourth, leadership must be consistent.
“In talking about leadership, I am talking about the combined leadership of the executive and legislative branches.
“With respect to leadership being consistent, the many swings in the pendulum due to partisanship and shifts in attention that have taken place in the past generation sometimes generate confusion and cynicism. The national interest is not the property of any particular group or ideology. And I think as we go along, we will find examples where this subcommittee and certainly the full committee have avoided those traps.
“In carrying out these fundamentals, I think there are two other traps that we must avoid. First, getting bogged down in single-issue politics. Our relations with countries consist of a series of issues that are important to us, and single-issue politics makes it difficult to deal with this complex picture.
“And second, we try to avoid conducting the meat and potatoes of American policy via airwaves or through the printing presses. That is, to resist saying things publicly just to make ourselves feel good without [Page 978] evaluating the medium- and long-range impact they may have on what we are trying to achieve.”
Motley continued, “And finally, and specifically toward Central America, I think there are two things that certainly President Reagan and I believe the American people and Congress don’t want. They do not want a second Cuba, and they do not want a second Vietnam. By a second Cuba, I mean the institutionalization of another well-armed Communist state, this time on the mainland, supported by the Soviet Union and working actively against U.S. interests and friends who depend on us. And by a second Vietnam, I mean a prolonged conflict involving U.S. combat troops with no clear goal and no end in sight consistent with the protection of strategic American interests.
“We can now examine quickly how we have done in the recent past. I would like to emphasize three areas.
“One is the struggle for democracy.
“The second is economic health.
“And the third is a rising tandem problem—drug trafficking and terrorism.”
Motley spoke first of democracy: “You are familiar with the numbers on democracy. They have been the subject of testimony in the past. Over 90 percent of the people in my area of responsibility live in transition governments or in governments that we consider to be democratic. The numbers change. In the past 4 years, there have been some 37 elections in some 26 countries involving hundreds of millions of people. It is easier in fact to tick off the countries which have not been affected by this trend toward democracy: Paraguay, Chile, Suriname, Guyana, Cuba, and Nicaragua. And so if you look at all 33 countries, it is easier to go down the list at those with only a limited impact.
“Five years ago, if President Carter had addressed the heads of government or heads of state in the five Central American countries, he would have addressed four of them as general and one of them as President. The one exception being, of course, the President of Costa Rica, the oldest democracy in Latin America. Today, he would address a civilian elected President not only in Costa Rica, but also in El Salvador, in Honduras, and hopefully in July in Guatemala. And so we have seen a definite change in Central America.
“As a point of trivia, I have been at more inaugurations of democratically elected presidents in the last 20 months than any of my predecessors since Charlie Meyers, and he served for 4 years. Come March 1, I will exceed his record. So there has been a trend towards democracy that I think is significant over the last 4 years.
“But it is more than elections when you talk about democracies. It is democratic tranquility. It is justice. And I think that the lack of headlines [Page 979] about nuns being killed and death squad activities—the numbers are all provided to your committees—shows a dramatic decrease in those activities.”
He then turned to economics: “In the economic area, it is difficult to generalize about 33 countries because they have different problems. But generally speaking you can say they are coming back. Across the board in the region, we can expect to see real per capita income that fell 3 percent in 1982 and 5.3 percent in 1984, increase a modest 0.02 percent in 1985.
“The debt rescheduling is going well in most countries. Looking to the future, you can see that according to our calculations, $47 billion of what bankers call new money, money in addition to rollover loans, needed to sustain a 5-percent growth rate throughout the region. Bankers will also tell you that it will be difficult for commercial banks to come up with $47 billion. The gap will not be filled by bilateral or multilateral official lending institutions. And so the gap that is left must be filled by private, in this case foreign investment capital. The countries need to establish the climate to attract that capital, and I think to a modest degree that is being done by different measures in different countries.
“These countries have taken some difficult measures themselves. Some still need to take more. Most recently we saw the Dominican Republic taking some tough internal measures and saw some civil strife. Happily, a week ago they took some tough domestic measures and there was no domestic strife. We saw also in Jamaica some civil strife as a result of this belt-tightening.”
Motley then spoke about narcotics and terrorism: “The third area, is narcotics and terrorism. First, narcotics. I think that the awareness of the problem has shifted. Historically, when you discussed this with Latin leaders, and I did, we would get into this debate that ‘If the U.S. didn’t have a consumption problem, we wouldn’t have a production problem.’ So you spend all your time worrying about whether the problem was production or consumption.
“Happily, in the last 6 months, we have seen a change in the attitude of our neighbors to the south. It is the result of factors. One is that their societies are starting to consume, this is creating social and economic problems, in addition to the other problems, when it attacks the structure of government, and corrupts public officials.
“The second point is that we have seen a recent marriage of convenience between the drug traffickers and terrorism. They are both different problems, both serious problems, but when they form this marriage of convenience, it creates a greater problem. As outlined in the written testimony, we have seen examples in Colombia twice in 1982, in Nicaragua in 1984, and recently in Miami, we unhatched a [Page 980] plot to assassinate the civilian elected President of Honduras. The plot was fueled by drug money.
“And so we are working with our neighbors on this problem. Their realization that it is not a consumption versus production problem has given a positive light to this whole issue.
“The last thing I would like to do, and looking forward, Mr. Chairman, it is one of the things one should do, is to see what lessons we have learned. I think we have learned several. I think we have learned that most of our policies have been working in the democracy, justice, and economic areas and in the military.”
Motley continued: “Skeptics about the policy in El Salvador were wrong. They were also wrong about Grenada, and I think they are wrong about Nicaragua. They are wrong for the same reason. We have learned consistency and the ability to sustain a policy is difficult but vital. As an example, Mr. Chairman, the President in April 1983, in an unusual address to the Congress, laid out the parameters of the policy that we are sustaining today. That was followed by the bipartisan Kissinger Commission and by the Jackson plan. And that is what I mean that his committee and certainly the full committee joined together and arrived at a consensus. You did it three times in 1984, and I remind you that in 1984, it took both sides of the aisle to pass a Foreign Assistance Act. The Jackson plan was part and parcel of that act.
“I think we have learned to be realistic on two fronts. First, to be realistic about goals and timetables, and to deal with our frustrations about deadlines that are not met.
“And second, I think we have learned that the clear alternatives and easy choices are about as rare as practicing Democrats among the Sandanistas comandantes.
“There is a lesson we have not learned. That is, there is nothing mysterious or magical about diplomatic negotiations. The common sense and fundamental principles that we use daily in domestic or personal dispute resolutions apply as well to labor-management disputes and to diplomatic negotiations. Consider these accepted principles of domestic negotiations and let’s see why they apply to diplomatic negotiations.
“First, the agenda has to have something in it for each of us, otherwise, why negotiate? I think we saw that in the negotiations in 1983. Because of a plummeting international image and because of the successes of the armed opposition, the Sandinistas saw that it was in their interest to negotiate. And that is when Contadora really took off on its first leg.
“Second, nobody bargains for something he expects to get for free. If the Nicaraguans in the armed resistance are abandoned, why should the Sandinistas negotiate with them?
[Page 981]“Third, pressure outside of the formal negotiations is a normal part of the process. People and nations do not move to the negotiating table simply because it is a nice piece of furniture. What some call coercive diplomacy has been part of history since the first diplomats and the first soldiers. What negotiators say publicly, I think, is part of the negotiation process, and an unenforceable and unverifiable agreement is worse than no agreement at all.
“A new announcement, a headline that says, ‘Peace Today’ without a means to assure compliance makes the solution even more difficult if this agreement fails.
“And finally, if the negotiations fail, the problems continue, as seems possible in the case of the Sandinistas.
“In summary, on Central America, I am struck by the similarities in public and congressional debates today on the anti-Sandinista funding issue and the debates 1 year ago in El Salvador. Given the success of the past year, it is easy to forget that there was widespread opposition to El Salvador funding a year ago. ‘Pouring money down a rat hole,’ I believe is how it was described by one former Congressman. The pundits said that the Salvadoran aid would lose by 50 to 60 votes at best. Yet, 2 months later, the aid was voted by you, the Congress. You voted the money after a long debate. One that showed convincingly that although more aid could not guarantee success, no aid would mean certain failure. You voted to help the Salvadorans despite your discomfort with the situation there because it was the only hope of success.
“It was not a perfect solution, but then there rarely is one. It was the best available. And when you think of the Foreign Assistance Act, which was a milestone, I think for the Congress and the members of this committee that participated in getting it passed in the House last year, I think you will agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that many Republicans who had never voted for foreign assistance before had to swallow hard and many Democrats who did not like the military aspect of the aid to El Salvador, also had to swallow hard. The combination first passed the measure by four votes and late in other forums passed it by a greater margin.
“The point is that there are no perfect solutions, only bits and pieces that we have to put together.
“Today there is a new debate and new discomfort. This time it is on Nicaragua. The doomsayers say that Congress will walk away from the problem just as they predicted defeat a year ago. I do not accept that judgment. You will debate the issues and I believe you will see that we have developed a policy, the only possible policy, that can succeed with a state like Nicaragua. I cannot guarantee you success, but if you [Page 982] allow the anti-Sandinistas to falter, I think we can guarantee failure—failure for our interests, for democracy, failure for negotiations and failure for peace.
“As in the case of El Salvador, I am confident that you will reach the right decision.
“The same realism must apply to policy throughout the hemisphere. The bottom line is real improvements over time in economic well being and human freedom, not short cut, and invariably short-lasting solutions, headlines, dramatic pronouncements, and single issue politics. The bottom line is effective action against the real dangers of Cuban/Soviet encroachments, Nicaraguan regional aggression, economic collapse, and narco-terrorist anarchy, not posturing to make ourselves feel good.” Motley concluded his remarks by indicating his openness to comments. (U.S. Policy on Latin America—1985: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Ninth Congress, First Session, January 29, 1985, pages 42–46)