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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 THE NATION ° ‘ Terrorism 138 resident Reagan’s contribution to statecraft has been to make public policy of what used to be secret suggestion. He stripped the cover from covert war and entered aid to the Nicaraguan contras as a line item in the Congressional budget. He wanted to con- vert the shadowy C.I.A. system of subversion and propa- ganda into a proud executive operation, Project Democ- racy. Far from denying U.S. intentions to destabilize foreign regimes, he announced a campaign to bring the Sandinista government to its knees. It was not long ago that similar ac- tions by another President became part of impeachment proceedings. In an order signed April 3, Reagan gave state-sponsored terrorism the force of law, where once it was hardly whis- pered about in White House corridors. National Security Decision Directive 138 will allow U.S. government opera- tives to take what Secretary of State Shultz calls ‘‘preventive or pre-emptive action’? against foreign terrorist threats. Although the President has revealed no specifics on what the program might entail, he will soon ask Congress to authorize large sums to finance it. According to an Admin- istration source, the White House has at least one thing in mind: a bulging bribery account, from which inform- ers will be paid huge rewards —perhaps $500,000—for the juiciest tips. Whether called state terrorism or pre-emptive action, the kinds of operations the directive sanctions will be ruthless, arbitrary and dangerous. If an eager tipster tells a NATO in- telligence officer that a demonstration against a missile site in West Germany could become violent, will American sol- diers be sent to round up leaders of the peace movement or ransack their offices—or worse? If an obscure political fac- tion. or religious sect ‘‘threatens’’ to attack U.S. soldiers in some Middle Eastern country, will Phantoms be dispatched to bomb the nearest targets of opportunity? or the capital of an unfriendly country? If the uncontrollable leader of a hos- tile regime brags that he will crush the American devils, will he find cyanide in his soup or itchy powder in his caftan? A White House source told reporters that Reagan would honor his 1981 executive order prohibiting U.S. government officials from carrying out assassinations, but what about attempts by agents of American clients and proxies? Israel's Mossad, South Korea’s K.C.1.A., Chile’s DINA and the Salvadoran death squads are all funded and supplied direct- ly or indirectly by the United States, and all are adept at capers that Reagan might find distasteful. What constitutes an international terrorist act, after all? And when does it threaten American interests? A bomb in an ambassador’s automobile may be a clear-cut case of ter- rorism, but an attack by a guerrilla army against a U.S. military mission is an act of war. Salvadoran officials call the rebel forces arrayed against them terrorists, the same name Israeli leaders give to their Palestinian foes. One SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 28 April 1984 man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. The fact is that Reagan’s order will give the legitimacy of policy to activities that are already on the menu of subter- fuge and secrecy. It will not stop terrorism, for if ever a pro- gram was part of the problem rather than the solution, this: is it. State-sanctioned terrorism creates the climate of violence in which freelance terrorism thrives. The brutality in El Salvador, the massacre of peasants in Guatemala, the occupation of the West Bank—such strategies make the responses they provoke seem feeble by comparison. Direc- tive 138 dodges that issue, and profoundly misses the point. Like Directive 138, the 1976 resolutions creating Con- gressional Intelligence Committees were supposed to legiti- mize secret U.S, operations by making them into publicly scrutinized and sanctioned policy. But while Reagan’s ex- ecutive order is deceptive from the start, the resolutions were passed with the best liberal intentions of averting na- tional moral and political disasters. Unfortunately, in just a few years the oversight function of those committees has eroded, and they mostly ratify and mediate the activities they ought to prohibit. The betrayal of the Intelligence Committees’ Origins makes Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s resignation from -the vice-chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee a futile gesture. The Senator says that the C.I.A.’s delay in notifying the committee of the mining of Nicaraguan ports destroyed the necessary trust between his panel and the agency. But the deeper issue is Moynihan’s concept of his duty. We do not need representatives who collaborate with the national security apparatus; we require elected officials who will control it. For Moynihan, the problem with the Administration’s Central America policy is one of communication. He has no beef with the general proposition of a terrorist campaign against the Sandinista government. He voted—as recently as April 5—to give $21 million to the C.I.A. forces engaged in murder, torture and the destruction of civilian communi- ties in Nicaragua. He knows better than most members of Congress that the government’s claim merely to be “‘inter- dicting’’ men and matériel en route to El Salvador is non- sense. An American naval flotilla in the Gulf of Fonseca and the U.S.-Honduran military forces surely don't need the help of the contras to do that. Moynihan just wants a little more respect. The Intelligence Committees of both houses could blow the lid off Reagan’s Central America adventures if they had a mind to, but they have not put much of a crimp in the war effort. What have they learned about the conira seizure of San Juan del Norte? The forces in that southern town on the Atlantic coast are said to be made up of right-wing Cu- ban exiles supplied with Israeli arms. No word yet from Moynihan on that subject. Now that he’s off the committee, he need say nothing. And that may have been the Senator’s purpose all along. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RQP96-00788R000100330001-5