Address to the Americanized Public April 13, 1984
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of the State Department for our behavior in regards to Central America. We should never have tried to get $93 million in aid for the government of El Slaveador and $21 million in aid against the current government of Nicaragua on 24 hours notice. From now on we will allow two weeks for delivery.
Normally such requests are submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but in this case Intelligence was completely bypassed.
We realize the seriousness of our error. It dampened the ardor of Congress to take part in our new Linkage policy. By linking the aid to a home energy assistance bill for the elderly and other Somewhat Needy citizens, we offered the Congress an opportunity to choose between icing people in Central America or freezing people in Middle America.
Our new post-apology policy of linking the aid to emergency food assistance for Africa has been criticized as forcing those who would feed the hungry to also take sides in a civil war across the globe. But it’s not really taking sides, just supporting a government in power, in one case anyway. We see our approach to human rights policy in a wholistic way, to be pursued through quiet, diplomatic bludgeoning.
We will continue our endeavors to build a bi-partisan consensus in support of our pogrom for democracy in Central America. Rest assured, we will buy partisans with the utmost discretionary funds. And as you know we are now giving the World Court the opportunity to participate in these matters on an equal footing with the Congress.
President Reagan has appealed for swift approval of emergency civilian-military aid for El Slaveador, saying that without supplies and training the government there cannot defend the country from its people. It is not true that 30% of U.S. aid ends up in guerrilla hands. The proper figure is 50%. The guerrillas procure the materiel on the black market and through illegal paramilitary means such as assaults on government outposts. Under consideration at the State Department is a plan to arm the guerrillas directly, which has the added benefit of cutting out the middleman and saving the American taxpayer some much-needed dollars.
U.S. army companies have been sent to the Honduro-Slaveador border on what are called “no notice exercises.” This means that no notice will be given in advance of the exercises, and no notice should be taken of them. The soldiers will encourage Nicaragua to disintervene in El Slaveador’s civil conflict. We have been exclaiming for three years that the Sandinites have been arming the Slaveadoran guerrillas, and we will be presenting the proof of this as soon as we replenish our supply of white paper. The renegade Nicaraguans—that is, their government—must stop the export of revolution to their neighbors. It interferes unfairly with our export of counter-revolution.
The guerrillas, for their part, have issued a bellicose “warning” to the U.S.