The Effects of Ideological Conformity on Foreign Policymaking: A study of Ronald Reagan’s Central American Policy

A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (or Science) in the Faculty of Arts and Science

Trent University

Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

© Emmett Brownscombe, 2016

History M.A. Graduate Program

September 2016 Abstract

The Effects of Ideological Conformity on Foreign Policymaking: A Study of Ronald Reagan’s Central American Policy

Emmett Brownscombe

During the 1970s, ideological divisions caused by divergent interpretations of the

American failure in Vietnam permeated the world of foreign policymaking. This led to a concern among the architects of the Reagan administration that foreign policymaking had become incoherent. They attempted to mitigate the effects of this disharmony by re-establishing a workable degree of ideological conformity within the foreign policy bureaucracy. This thesis focuses on the strategy used to improve ideological conformity and its effect on the foreign policy bureaucracy’s ability to produce well informed policy. Using case studies of two of Reagan’s ambassadors to Central America, it argues that Reagan’s strategy created a for- eign policy bureaucracy that manufactured uninformed policy. The influence granted to officials who based their recommendations on regional expertise was severely curtailed. This shift produced a subsequent change in diplomatic prac- tice, as foreign service officers adapted to the demand for allegiance to the pres- ident’s agenda.

Keywords: Reagan Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy Making, Pezzullo, Negroponte, U.S.-Central American Diplomacy, Foreign Service

ii Acknowledgments

Among the multitude of people who deserve thanks for their contributions to this research project, my supervisor, Dr. David Sheinin, merits special men- tion. When David first suggested that he thought I would be capable of complet- ing a masters level research project, I quietly wondered how a man so intelligent could be so wrong. But, I put my trust in David at a time when I did not trust my- self, and I am immensely thankful for his encouragement and belief in me. With- out his expert advice and unwavering patience, this project gets nowhere close to completion. I apologize for missing every submission deadline we ever set. I would also like to thank the other members of my supervisory committee, Dr. Robert Wright and Dr. Finis Dunaway, whose constructive advice and attention to detail have greatly enriched the content of these pages. Dr. Jennine Hurl-Ea- mon, and the Graduate History program’s secretary, Catherine O’Brien, also de- serve mention for their help in guiding me through the procedural process of completing this project.

This thesis was made possible by the efforts of the archivists at the Na- tional Security Archive, whose curated digital collections allowed a student in a cramped apartment in Peterborough, Ontario, to gain a more intimate under- standing of the characters behind Ronald Reagan’s Central American policy. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of the Bata Library at Trent University, who processed a never ending stream of interlibrary loan requests and helped me learn the ways of the mysterious microfiche. The staff of Robarts library at the University of Toronto are also owed thanks for helping to transform a lost visiting graduate student into a master of the stacks.

Finally, in accordance with the well established conventions of acknowl- edgement section writing, I am obligated to disclose my appreciation for my family’s limitless love and support. My father took regular breaks from his retire- ment bliss to offer me helpful editorial feedback. I owe what work ethic I pos- sess to my devoted mother, while my overachieving brothers are a constant source of pride and inspiration for me. I am also infinitely grateful for the love and support of my girlfriend, Danielle, and her family. Danielle’s experience teaching kindergarteners granted her the skills needed to quieten my frequent project related tantrums, while her parents provided me with rent free accom- modations and overlarge but delicious Italian meals during my impromptu re- search trips to Toronto.

I dedicate this thesis to my grandfather, a history enthusiast and proud United Empire Loyalist who is almost certainly grumbling about his grandson’s interest in American history as he reads this. iii Table of Contents

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements iii

Table of Contents v

List of Abbreviations vi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: Ideological Conformity Rediscovered 25

Chapter 2: The ‘War Party’ at Work 61

Chapter 3: The Discreet Diplomat 113

Conclusion 151

Bibliography 160

v List of Abbreviations

ARA Bureau of Inter-American Affairs

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

DCI Director of Central Intelligence

FDN Nicaraguan Democratic Force

FMLN Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front

FLSN Sandinista National Liberation Front

FUSEP Honduran Public Safety Force (National Police)

NSA National Security Advisor

NSC National Security Council

NSPG National Security Planning Group

OPD Office of Public Diplomacy

OPM Office of Personnel Management

OSS Office of Strategic Services

PRCs Policy Review Committees

SCCs Special Coordination Committees

vi 1 Introduction

One of the less immediately recognized casualties of the Vietnam War was the veil of democratic mythology that sheltered the foreign policy bureaucra- cy from public awareness.1 Observers belonging to all manner of political per- spectives saw in the foreign policy failure of Vietnam reason to better investigate the mysterious world of the American foreign policy bureaucrat. In 1972, journal- ist David Halberstam published The Best and the Brightest, a best selling work that argued the responsibility for the failure in Vietnam lay with a group of elite level foreign policy officials.2 The focus of Halberstam’s analysis was a collection of Kennedy era advisors, who had received high-ranking positions in the foreign policy bureaucracy on the basis of their reputations as some of the most brilliant thinkers in business and academia. He posited that this group of officials, which included Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, was consumed by the arro- gance caused by their highly regarded reputations, and that this led them to commit heavily to a Vietnam policy despite growing evidence that it was fatally

flawed. Halberstam used a variety of different terms to refer to this group of offi- cials, but the label ‘the establishment’ became the most popularly used catego- rization.

The acclaim of Halberstam’s assessment of the failure in Vietnam helped to spark a trend of published work that would be colloquially branded ‘Establish-

1 Godfrey Hodgson, “The Establishment,” Foreign Policy 10 (Spring 1973): 5.

2 David J. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972). 2 ment Studies’.3 One of the earliest entrants into this emerging field was British journalist Godfrey Hodgson, who, in an article published in the Spring 1973 edition of Foreign Policy, further deliberated upon the group of foreign policy offi- cials investigated by Halberstam. What separated Hodgson’s article from The

Best and the Brightest was its scope of investigation. While Halberstam focused his analysis on the Vietnam War and the establishment’s involvement in that poli- cy failure, Hodgson extended the group’s origins to the Truman administration.

This change in approach led Hodgson’s article to produce a slightly different in- terpretation of the establishment. Since Halberstam focused almost exclusively on the establishment’s largest policy failure, his book portrayed the group as a collection of entitled, arrogant and ultimately incompetent bureaucrats. Hodg- son’s article, with its heavier focus on the group’s background and the character- istics of the foreign policymaking process that establishment officials constructed, produced a slightly more favourable image. While it would be erroneous to sug- gest that Hodgson was a proponent of the establishment, a tone of concern re- garding the consequences for foreign policymaking procedure brought by the group’s demise certainly informed sections of his article.4 It is this more positive interpretation of the group that would become significant nearly a decade after the article’s publication, when President Ronald Reagan’s transition team sought

3 Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World they Made (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 26.

4 Hodgson, “The Establishment,” 12-14. 3 to replicate some of the procedural practices that were common during the post- war era.

Although Hodgson did not outline the specific members of the group in great detail, it is likely that the core of what he viewed as the postwar establish- ment consisted of the men popularized by Halberstam. Many of those officials had held high-ranking positions in the Truman administration, and had main- tained their influence during subsequent presidencies. These men were Truman’s

Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, two suc- cessive U.S. ambassadors to the Soviet Union George Kennan and Charles

Bohlen, as well as presidential advisors John McCloy and William Harriman.5

They were joined by a legion of protégés, a group that included President

Kennedy’s Secretary of State Dean Rusk and McNamara.6 Taken together, these men constituted the preeminent group of foreign policy thinkers who held posi- tions within government in the postwar period.

Hodgson pointed to a similarity of background and a shared perspective on America’s global role as evidence that the postwar establishment constituted a distinct association within the world of foreign policymaking. He identified a col- lection of characteristics that he believed summarized the consolidated perspec- tive of the establishment. This summary acts as a useful description of the phi- losophy that dominated thinking about the craft of foreign policy making in the

5 Isaacson and Thomas, The Wise Men, 18-19.

6 I.M. Destler, Leslie H. Gelb and Anthony Lake, Our Own Worst Enemy: the Unmaking of Ameri- can Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), 92. 4 postwar period. The major defining characteristic of the establishment was the high degree of ideological conformity that bound the group together. Every mem- ber was centrist in their political orientation, while all believed in the merits of containment as the centrepiece of America’s Cold War strategy.7 As this meant the members of the group were in general agreement when it came to the role the country should play in its external affairs, disagreement was often restricted to debates regarding tactics and procedure.8 Most establishment officials had gained entry into the world of policymaking via their involvement with the Council on Foreign Relations. From the postwar period until the Presidency of Jimmy

Carter, the Council acted as the central recruiting ground for jobs at the State

Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Staff.9 The

Council played a fundamental role in fostering the group’s preference for the cen- tre and its unanimous commitment to serving the agenda of the president who employed them.10

The functional coherence of the establishment was further aided by an ethic of professionalism that permeated the group. Many avoided public atten- tion, while partisan intrusions into the realm of foreign policymaking were viewed

7 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Securi- ty Policy during the Cold War, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 4, 36. Con- tainment was a Cold War strategy first developed by one of the most notable members of the postwar establishment, George Kennan. It combined the use of diplomatic alliances, economic assistance, military assistance, and in rare occasions, military intervention, to strengthen resis- tance against Soviet influence in the developing world.

8 Ibid., 29.

9 Destler, Gelb and Lake, Our Own Worst Enemy, 107.

10 Ibid., 104. 5 with distaste.11 Each member resented ideologically driven policy decisions. They viewed themselves as purveyors of policy based on pragmatic wisdom.12 This combination of attributes afforded the establishment an ability to sustain the im- age — both internally and externally — that America’s foreign policy making process was consistent and that decisions were being made according to objec- tive assessments of how to best deal with the issues threatening the country’s interests abroad.

Having outlined the characteristics that defined the establishment, Hodg- son went on to provide his assessment of the effects that the Vietnam War had on the group. He argued that the protracted American involvement in Vietnam had eroded support for containment within elite foreign policy circles, and that this meant a corresponding loss of that strategy’s consolidating effect. He pointed to Nixon’s inauguration as the symbolic end to the postwar establishment’s influ- ence over foreign policy.13 The Nixon-era marginalization of the State Depart- ment and the heightened level of influence granted to Henry Kissinger disinte- grated the hold that containment era bureaucrats held over foreign policy making.

With its influence within government eliminated, the postwar establishment then felt the strains of the ideological polarization brought by the Communist victory in

Vietnam. According to Hodgson, disunity had pervaded the world of foreign policy

11 Ibid., 93.

12 Hodgson, “The Establishment,” 12.

13 Ibid., 25. 6 making as new schools of thought emerged based on starkly different post- mortem interpretations of the lessons offered by the war.14

One segment of the foreign policy community saw the failure in Vietnam as evidence that America’s Cold War policy demanded reinvigoration. Later dubbed the ‘Cold Warriors’, the adherents of this perspective saw the failure as confirmation that the United States had fallen behind their Soviet adversaries both militarily and in terms of global influence. They believed that containment needed to be replaced with a more confrontational approach in an effort to close this widening gap.15 An equally large subsection of the elite foreign policy com- munity believed that the failure in Vietnam had fundamentally discredited the ide- ological assumptions that had informed Cold War policy. This perspective, inter- changeably referred to as Accommodationist or Liberal internationalist, believed that the bipolar interpretation of the structural makeup of the international system led American foreign policymakers to be too heavily fixated on Soviet involve- ment in world events.16 They suggested that this Soviet fixation led to the cre- ation of policy that inadequately accounted for the motivations of revolutionary movements in the developing world and that this failing contributed significantly to the American defeat in Vietnam. They called for the creation of foreign policy

14 Ibid., 18.

15 Ole R. Holsti and James N.Roseneau, American Leadership in World Affairs: Vietnam and the Breakdown of Consensus (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984), 108-112.

16 Richard A. Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War: The Search for Con- sensus (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 18-19. 7 based on a multipolar understanding of the international system. They hoped that this reform would allow for policy that placed greater focus on international coop- eration and allowed for a better understanding of the socio-political evolutions occurring in the developing world.17 These ideological cleavages struck a blow to the postwar establishment’s key organizational characteristic, its ideological con- formity. As a result, they contributed to the group’s demise.

With the homogeneity of their views compromised, the influence of the es- tablishment began to recede. Advisory organizations beyond the Council on For- eign Relations began to proliferate and gain greater influence. Groups that did not share the establishment’s commitment to bipartisanship rose to prominence.

Organizations like the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for In- ternational Peace, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Heritage Foundation acquired additional influence.18 This meant that when establishment figures began to leave their positions in government, they were gradually replaced by a new generation of bureaucrats that emerged from a far more competitive and diverse field of think tanks and lobby groups. This new generation of policymakers did not share the establishment’s commitment to bi- partisanship, and were much more willing to wage policy debates in public. As a result, when this new group began to fill positions in the foreign policy bureaucra-

17 Holsti and Roseneau, American Leadership in World Affairs, 58-62, 103-104.

18 Destler, Gelb and Lake, Our Own Worst Enemy, 112-114. 8 cy, the policy making process became concurrently more politicized and more public.19

Most of the members of the establishment would deny the existence of the group, leading analyses like the one offered by Hodgson to at times be dismissed as conspiratorial fantasy.20 However, the plausibility of Hodgson’s interpretation was strengthened by its compatibility with the broader narrative regarding the breakdown of foreign policy consensus. At a time when it was being widely rec- ognized that divergent opinions regarding the Vietnam War had pervaded all lev- els of American political discourse, it was logical to suggest that the functioning of the foreign policy bureaucracy had also been adversely affected. Analyses like that offered by Hodgson also gained more credibility in the latter part of the

1970s, as the Carter administration struggled to produce an image of coherence that matched that demonstrated by the postwar establishment.

There is no administration that provides a better illustration of the policy consequences of the post-Vietnam fragmentation of elite foreign policy opinion than that of President Jimmy Carter. In the years between the collapse of the post-war establishment and Carter’s entry into office, the foreign policy bureau- cracy continued to produce policy that appeared reasonably consistent and co- herent because of the unity of purpose provided by Kissinger’s authoritative in-

19 Ibid., 122-123.

20 Isaacson and Thomas, The Wise Men, 26-27. 9 fluence and the policy of détente.21 Throughout his presidential campaign, Carter continually ridiculed Kissinger’s “Lone Ranger” style of decision-making.22 He be- lieved that Kissinger’s manner of foreign policy making relied too heavily on se- crecy and was scandal prone.23 This criticism informed how Carter chose to or- ganize his foreign policy bureaucracy once elected. In order to rectify a foreign policymaking process that he believed had become too reliant on individual offi- cials, Carter set out to build a foreign policy cabinet that operated more collegial- ly.24 Until July 1979, he acted as his own White House Chief of Staff.25 This posi- tioned Carter as the central decision making arbiter, with policy options being de- livered by the “spokes-in-the-wheel”, a label given to his advisors in cabinet.26

The idea was that Carter would assess the merits of the competing advice of- fered to him by his circle of advisors before passing judgment.27 However, the

21 Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War, 68-69; Gaddis, Strategies of Con- tainment, 280-281, 291. Détente refers to a shift in Cold War strategy that included an improved focus on the establishment of a more co-operative diplomatic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. The beginning of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks was a product of this shift in approach.

22 Ibid., 95.

23 Scott Kaufman, Plans Unraveled: The Foreign Policy of the Carter Administration (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008), 13.

24 Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 54-55.

25 James P. Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996): 47.

26 Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 17.

27 Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War, 103; Dario Moreno, U.S. Policy in Central America: The Endless Debate (Miami: Florida International University Press, 1990), 25-26. 10 combination of the deficiency of ideological conformity amongst elite officials and the preference for collective decision making had disastrous consequences for the perceived competence of Carter’s foreign policy bureaucracy.28

The previously outlined post-Vietnam ideological cleavages manifested within Carter’s cabinet. He selected Zbigniew Brzezinski as his National Security

Advisor. Brzezinski had been Carter’s most relied upon foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign, acting as one of the intellectual founders of the liberal internationalist vision that Carter, the candidate, espoused.29 However, once he gained appointment, his ideological perspective changed substantially.

He developed an obsession with the relationships between the Soviet Union and revolutionary groups in what was then considered the Third World. This fixation led him to discard most of the attributes of the liberal internationalist perspective that separated it from the Cold Warrior approach. Brzezinski’s about-face caused him to be in constant confrontation with other elite officials, the most consequen- tial of whom was Carter’s Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance. Vance remained a steadfast adherent to the liberal internationalist perspective, and the multipolar understanding of global power that it entailed.30 This key divide, between

Brzezinski and Vance, was responsible for much of the disagreement that

28 John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency: A Reevaluation (New York: Manchester University Press, 1993), 195.

29 Brzezinski authored what it is widely considered to be one of the founding documents of the liberal internationalist perspective, his 1970 book Between Two Ages.

30 Moreno, U.S. Policy in Central America, 27-28. 11 plagued Carter’s foreign policy deliberations. Each official, and their respective subordinates, disagreed on policy decisions made regarding Nicaragua, Iran, and the Soviet Union.31

When Carter addressed the rift between his chief foreign policy advisors in his published memoirs, he rejected the suggestion that it negatively influenced the policy making process. Carter’s steadfast belief in the value of conflicting ad- vice meant that he viewed the competition between Vance and Brzezinski as a contributor to effective policymaking, not a hindrance.32However, when the presi- dent turned his attention to the mistakes that he believed his administration did make, he acknowledged that they struggled to adequately explain their policies and policymaking practices to the American public.33 Thus, while Carter did not agree with his critics’ assessment of his competence as a bureaucratic manager, he was less dismissive regarding the suggestion that his administration failed to adequately dispel the perception that he was.

The decision making process that Carter implemented helped the conflict that occurred at the leadership level of his foreign policy bureaucracy to gain public exposure. The administration’s decision making structure led to a policy- making process that often devolved into what one Carter official described as

“bureaucratic guerrilla warfare”.34 One guerilla-style tactic that was commonly

31 Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 240.

32 Carter, Keeping Faith, 53-54.

33 Ibid., 126-127.

34 Moreno, U.S. Policy in Central America, 25. 12 used by Carter’s officials was leaks to the press.35 In a competitive advisory envi- ronment, if an official could drum up public support for their policy recommenda- tion, they would gain an important advantage. Brzezinski claimed that the public awareness of the divides within the administration served to amplify the competi- tion between advisors:

The press got onto it, and I think the press pumped it up a great deal. Then, gradually things began to get more competitive, and in a way, one was almost driven to keep score to see who wins and loses, and that’s probably never good in a power setting, especially if you feel strongly that you are right.36

Frequent leaks to the press — a practice previously abhorred by the members of the postwar establishment — served to exacerbate the infighting that pervaded

Carter’s foreign policymaking process.

The administration also contributed to a perception of disorder by making contradictory public statements regarding key elements of its Cold War philoso- phy. For example, in March 1978, President Carter was asked by a journalist for a comment regarding the presence of Soviet troops in the Horn of Africa and its effect on the ongoing Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). He said that the two issues were linked and that a SALT agreement had been made more difficult by

35 Melanson, American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War, 103; Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 37.

36 Betty Glad, An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, his Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 27-28, 32. Brzezinski was quick to recognize the value of public relations in resolving internal policymaking disputes. He was the first National Security Advisor to employ his own personal press secretary. 13 the Soviets.37 Carter’s statement was noteworthy because it suggested that he had changed his mind on linkage, the Nixon era concept of merging arms negoti- ations with attempts to influence Soviet behaviour in the Third World.38 On the same day, Vance told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “there is no linkage between the SALT negotiations and the situation in Ethiopia.” 39 The dis- crepancy between the two statements led to a media outcry regarding the appar- ent divides in the administration. In response, Carter’s CIA station chief in Ethio- pia complained that the contradictory public statements were strengthening “the impression, at a time when he least needs it, that the president is leading an am- ateurish, inept administration that neither knows what it wants nor how to go about getting it.”40

The accusation that Carter was an incompetent foreign policy leader gained momentum during his final year in office. The administration’s failed at- tempt to reach a negotiated resolution to Nicaragua’s civil war and its delay in resolving the Iran hostage crisis gave his critics the opportunity to pair their inter- pretation of Carter’s flaws as a leader with consequences that hurt America’s standing abroad.41 On the campaign trail, Ronald Reagan characterized the

37 Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 124.

38 Peter Rodman, Presidential Command: Power, Leadership and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2009), 43.

39 Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 125.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 203. 14 Carter administration’s foreign policy as “one of weakness, inconsistency, vacilla- tion and bluff.”42 Although they recognized that their electoral victory owed a great deal to the poor performance of the economy, Reagan and his closest ad- visors interpreted their win as a confirmation of the merits of their foreign policy vision.43 As a result, they entered office believing that they had a mandate to sig- nificantly reform America’s global behaviour.

The foreign policy vision of the incoming president and his circle of advi- sors was derived from their interpretation of the failings of the Cold War strategy of the Carter administration. Reagan’s entry into office signalled the coming to power of a group of foreign policy decision makers who adhered to the ‘Cold

Warrior’ ideological perspective. The consideration of regionally based explana- tions for instability in the developing world, an approach championed by Cyrus

Vance, was discarded in favour of a return to viewing the world exclusively through the lens of East-West struggle.44 The president’s central objectives were the reestablishment American military superiority and the rollback of Soviet gains in the Third World.45 These dual objectives were the product of an ideological

42 John A. Soares, “Strategy, Ideology and Human Rights: Jimmy Carter confronts the left in Cen- tral America,” Journal of Cold War Studies 8.4 (Fall 2006): 90.

43 William M. Leogrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 51; Michael Grow, U.S. President’s and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War (Lawrence: Universi- ty Press of Kansas, 2008), 124.

44 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 5.

45 Roy Gutman, Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua, 1981-1987 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 23. 15 preference, possessed by the president and all of his foreign policy advisors, for militaristic muscle-flexing over diplomatic cooperation on the world stage.46 The perceived weakness of Carter’s human rights focused approach, with its prefer- ence for the use of diplomacy, and its hesitance toward the use of military inter- vention, was to be replaced with a far more aggressive brand of anti-commu- nism.47 Believing that international relations were governed by intimidation and signs of strength, Reagan and his most influential advisors were convinced that the spread of Soviet Communism needed to be met with force, not accommoda- tion.48

This thesis focuses on the strategy used by the Reagan administration to impose a higher degree of ideological conformity onto the foreign policy bureau- cracy and its policymaking consequences. To convert their ideological perspec- tive into policy, Reagan and his advisors needed to avoid the procedural pitfalls that they believed had inhibited the policy making process of their predecessor.

In order to prevent the vacillation and inconsistency that plagued Carter’s policy making process, ideological conformity needed to be restored to the foreign poli- cymaking process. This thesis argues that the administration’s desire for ideolog- ical conformity led to the creation of a Central American policy that was often un- informed of important regional realities. This was a consequence of the effect that

46 Ibid.

47 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 5.

48 Greg Grandin, The Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006), 68-70. 16 Reagan’s brand of foreign policymaking had on the leaders of the foreign service.

At first, the ideologically driven policymaking environment that the administration had created served to limit the policy influence of the foreign service. Then, the

Central America bureau was gradually re-staffed with Reagan loyalists who es- chewed their role as regional advisors and focused on the execution of the ad- ministration’s policy agenda. This was a reversal of the personnel approach un- dertaken by Carter’s Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who put career foreign ser- vice officers in influential positions and granted significant policy input to his am- bassadors.49 Under Reagan, the directives of the president and the White House staff would guide policy with little consultation given to foreign service bureau- crats.

The first chapter analyzes the way in which Reagan and his transition team set out to restore the functional harmony of the foreign policy bureaucracy.

It argues that this objective was accomplished via an ideologically driven ap- pointment strategy, a collection of organizational reforms, and the construction of an institutional culture that prioritized the views of the president. This strategy was effective in creating a foreign policymaking process that was dominated by a group of Reagan loyalists at the elite level of the foreign policy establishment.

The membership of this core group, referred to as the ‘war party’ in this thesis, was never firmly fixed, but the central participants were: National Securtiy Advi- sors, Richard Allen, William Clark, and Robert McFarlane, CIA Director Bill

49 Vance, Hard Choices, 40-42. 17 Casey, and White House staff members Michael Deaver, Edwin Meese and

James Baker. The group also included Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane

Kirkpatrick and the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger.50 Each member of this group was a committed anti-communist that wanted to forcefully confront So- viet influence.51This ‘war party’ was imbued with enough authority to overwhelm the infighting that occurred within the foreign policy bureaucracy, and were able to produce policy that matched the ideological doctrines of the president. In the subsequent chapters, the focus shifts to the consequences that the administra- tion’s foreign policymaking process had on the ambassadors to Central America.

During Reagan’s candidacy for president, the need for a reformed ap- proach in Central America was a frequently cited component of his foreign policy platform. The platform made Reagan’s distaste for Carter’s Central American pol- icy explicit:

We deplore the Marxist takeover of Nicaragua and Marxist at- tempts to destabilize El Salvador and Guatemala. We will never support U.S. assistance to any Marxist government in this hemisphere. In this regard, we deplore the Carter adminis- tration’s aid program for the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.52

Once in power, Reagan and his closest advisors identified Central America as the perfect stage for the administration to demonstrate that its promise to adopt a

50 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 72-73; Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 89.

51 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 89.

52 Ibid., 20. 18 more aggressive Cold War policy was genuine.53 The region’s geographic prox- imity to the United States meant that the Soviet Union would likely be unwilling to come to the aid of their allies in the region with the same vigour as they did in

Vietnam. In addition, the short distance separating the region from the United

States led Reagan hardliners to view the instability occurring there as a pressing priority.54 As a result, the region became a major focus of the administration’s foreign policy decision makers. This added attention meant that the conse- quences of the administration’s push for greater ideological conformity were heavily felt in the Central America bureau of the foreign service. Thus, a study of the experiences of the bureau’s members offers a clear illustration of the draw- backs of the ideologically driven foreign policymaking process that Reagan and his advisors constructed.

The centrepiece of Reagan’s Central American policy was support for the

Contras, a group of Nicaraguan exiles who waged a proxy war against Ni- caragua’s Sandinista government.55 Although initially the Reagan administration claimed the Contras were an instrument for arms interdiction, their true objective was soon revealed to be the overthrow of the revolutionary government.56 The

Contra program was a heavily costly policy initiative. It sparked a fierce congres-

53Stephen G. Rabe, The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 158.

54 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 70-71.

55 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 5.

56 Thomas Carothers, In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy Toward Latin America in the Rea- gan Years (Berkeley: University of California, 1991), 97-98. 19 sional outcry that led to the passage of the Boland Amendment, which barred the administration from providing further funding to the Contras. The administration’s effort to circumvent Boland using a private supply network helped to bring about the Iran-Contra affair, the biggest public relations catastrophe of the Reagan era.57 The policy also caused the administration to become complicit in a plethora of human rights abuses committed by the Contras and other American allies in the region.58 It attracted a reprimand from the World Court, which ruled that the

CIA’s involvement in the mining of Nicaraguan harbours constituted a violation of international law.59 The severity of the negative effects of the Contra program for the Reagan administration paled in comparison to its consequences for Ni- caragua. The U.S. sponsored Contra war and economic sanctions severely weakened the already decimated Nicaraguan economy, while over 30 000

Nicaraguans lost their lives.60 Despite these incredible costs, the Contra pro- gram failed to achieve its central objective: the overthrow of the Sandinistas.

The latter section of this thesis is composed of two case studies of Rea- gan’s ambassadors to Central America. The first is Lawrence Pezzullo, a Carter appointee who laboured to convince his new bosses that their confrontational approach to relations with the Sandinistas was misguided. Based on his aware-

57 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 402, 481.

58 Ibid., 416.

59 Rabe, The Killing Zone, 162. In 1986 The International Court of Justice found the United States guilty of fifteen counts of illegal use of force against Nicaragua. The Reagan administration ig- nored the ruling.

60 Carothers, In the Name of Democracy, 107. 20 ness of the circumstances the Sandinistas found themselves in, the ambassador believed that a full termination of aid to Nicaragua would squander an opportunity for the administration to gain genuine diplomatic concessions. Although Pezzul- lo’s suggested course deviated from the dominant ideological orientation of the foreign policy bureaucracy at the time, he received permission from both Presi- dent Reagan and Secretary Alexander Haig to pursue negotiations with the San- dinistas. After a period of months, Pezzullo appeared to have gained the conces- sions he was tasked with obtaining. However, the outcome of Pezzullo’s mission was disregarded and the decision was made to proceed with a full termination of aid.

By combining information obtained from the published literature produced on Pezzullo’s mission, memoirs and declassified documents, this chapter offers a comprehensive explanation for the decision to terminate aid. It argues that re- sponsibility for the termination belongs to an interagency group composed of leading members of the State Department, the NSC, and the CIA. This intera- gency group includes CIA Director Bill Casey, National Security Advisor Richard

Allen, as well as State’s Alexander Haig, William Clark and Thomas Enders.

During a decisive meeting of the National Security Planning Group, Allen dismissed the outcome of Pezzullo’s mission as “seasonal,” and suggested that on the basis of the president’s campaign promises, aid needed to be terminated.

The suggestion was supported by Clark, a Reagan hardliner and committed 21 member of the ‘war party,’ who acted as State’s representative in the meeting.61

Allen’s dismissive attitude toward Pezzullo’s mission acquired a decisive momen- tum because of the absence of support for the ambassador’s initiative from his superiors at State, Haig and Enders. It was also aided by the ongoing develop- ment of a more confrontational policy alternative to the ambassador’s diplomatic course. Although the commonly recited narrative regarding the early develop- ment of the Contra program places its genesis in the days following the termina- tion of aid, declassified government correspondence reveals that members of

Casey’s CIA and Allen’s NSC had begun to ponder the details of a covert action in Central America almost immediately after Reagan’s entry into office.62 For a group of senior officials that believed the Sandinistas were the regional represen- tatives of a global communist conspiracy and favoured the use of covert interven- tion to remove them, the Contra policy was a more attractive alternative to the constructive diplomatic relations that Pezzullo hoped to reestablish. As a result, the outcome of the ambassador’s mission was ignored, and the administration became engaged in a costly and ultimately ineffective covert strategy in the re- gion.

The subject of the second case study is Reagan’s ambassador to Hon- duras, John Negroponte. A passionate anti-communist and diplomacy skeptic,

61 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 106-107.

62 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 46-48; Memorandum for the Secretary, Fm Robert McFarlane, Subj: “Covert Action Proposal for Central America,” (February 27, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Mak- ing of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive. 22 Negroponte was sent to Honduras to act as a frontline steward for the adminis- tration’s Contra program. During his time in the position, Negroponte was vilified by some members of the American press. His public denials of the Contras’ presence in Honduras frustrated some American reporters as the mass of pub- licly available evidence of the Contra camps grew.63 Rolling Stone included Ne- groponte in a group called “the Proconsuls,” a disparaging reference to the offi- cial’s eagerness to intervene in the affairs of the country in which he was posted.64 Newsweek characterized the ambassador as the “boss” of the Contra program and implied that he lacked a moral conscience.65 A subsequent collec- tion of published work, which includes Negroponte’s biography, have attempted to dispel the image of the ambassador as “proconsul” by downplaying his in- volvement in the Contra program.66

Using evidence gleaned from Negroponte’s declassified correspondence, this chapter argues that he was a central player in the execution of the adminis- tration’s Contra program. The ambassador's heightened level of influence was the result of his ideological kinship with the members of the ‘war party,’ and his commitment to executing the president’s agenda. Upon his retirement from the

63 Stephen Kinzer, “At a Border Camp in Honduras, Anti-Sandinistas are Wary of Visit,” New York Times, March 28, 1983; Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1991), 100-101.

64Christopher Dickey, “The Proconsuls,” The Rolling Stone, August 18 1983.

65John Brecher et al, “A Secret War for Nicaragua,” Newsweek, November 8, 1982.

66George W. Liebmann, The Last American Diplomat: John D. Negroponte and the Changing Face of U.S. Diplomacy (New York: L.B. Taurus & Co, 2012), 105-106. 23 foreign service, Negroponte voluntarily released a sizeable portion of his person- al correspondence from his years in Honduras. During his tenure, the ambas- sador carefully managed the information that was committed to the documentary record, so the declassified correspondence offers only a partial image of the am- bassador’s behaviour related to the Contra program. However, information found within this document disclosure strongly suggests that the ambassador was inti- mately involved in the administration’s Contra policy.

The close relationship that Negroponte developed with Honduran General

Augusto Alvarez was integral to the maintenance of Honduran support for the

Contra scheme. Using a ‘roger channel’ that provided the ambassador with a di- rect link to many of the administration’s foreign policy principals, Negroponte act- ed as the on the ground representative for the ‘war party’.67 Negroponte also aid- ed the Contra cause by participating in the administration’s campaign to justify its

Central American policy to the American public. He penned editorials and led a private effort to persuade members of the press to moderate their coverage of the administration’s actions in the region.68 Finally, the ambassador helped to

67Memorandum Fm John Negroponte to Bill Casey, William Clark and Thomas Enders, Subj: “General Alvarez visit to Washington,” (May 13, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 117.

68John Negroponte, “Honduras is Well Worth Saving,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1983; Ca- ble 49 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Washington Post Article,” (Jan- uary 3, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 163. 24 maintain the Contra scheme by downplaying the human rights abuses being committed by the Honduran military and members of the Contras.69

Negroponte’s manipulation of his embassy’s human rights reporting illus- trates the extent of his commitment to the Contra program. Faced with evidence that could destroy the public image of American allies, Negroponte chose to con- ceal it, believing that the need to defend against growing Soviet and Cuban influ- ence in the region justified ethically questionable behaviour. Negroponte’s ability to effectively carry out the bidding of the ‘war party’ in Honduras helped to pro- vide him with a reputation that would fuel his ascent to the elite levels of the for- eign policy establishment. The ambassadors discretion and enthusiasm for public diplomacy allowed him to excel in an ideologically driven policymaking environ- ment. Negroponte’s actions in Honduras, and his subsequent career success, demonstrate the evolution in the nature of diplomatic work that the Reagan ad- ministration’s desire for ideological conformity helped to instigate.

69“Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980s,” Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General (August 27, 1997):126. 25 Chapter 1: Ideological Conformity Rediscovered: The Organization of Reagan’s Foreign

Policy Bureaucracy

One thing I admired about the Reagan administration was their ability to put coherence into foreign policy even though I thought their policy was totally wrong headed. At least there was no doubt about what policy was. - Robert White, former Ambassador to El Salvador 70

When President elect Ronald Reagan and his transition team set out to build their new foreign policy establishment, they believed passionately that the process of policy making required significant reform. This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the Reagan administration’s attempt to re-establish ideological conformity within its foreign policy establishment. Using a strategy that combined the use of appointment power, organizational reforms, and the fostering of institu- tional attitudes that emphasized an allegiance to the views of the president, the

Reagan administration created a foreign policy establishment that exhibited a high degree of ideological conformity. This multifaceted strategy led to a foreign policymaking process that was dominated by a group of Reagan loyalists that in- cluded cabinet officials and members of the White House staff. Using the authori- ty provided to them by their control over personnel and the organization of deci- sion making structures, this ‘war party’ of officials was able to convert their ideo- logical perspective into policy.

70 Robert E. White, “An Interview with Robert White,” by Bill Knight, The Association for Diplomat- ic Studies and Training: Foreign Affairs Oral History Project (June 10, 1992): 12. 26 First, the appointment strategy implemented by Reagan’s transition team will be considered. The appointment process was a crucial component of the administration’s attempt to restore greater ideological conformity to the foreign policy bureaucracy. A distinct characteristic of the Reagan team’s hiring approach was its commitment to selecting officials who shared the ideology of the presi- dent. This led to the formation of a cadre of like-minded senior level officials who dominated the creation of policy. Reagan’s foreign policy transition team also made effective use of an infiltration strategy when selecting lower level officials.

Individuals loyal to the president were strategically positioned within particular departments and were granted diverse levels of authority.71 This strategy granted the president and his closest advisors the ability to circumvent conventional lines of authority when necessary and would later allow them to marginalize any member of the bureaucracy who threatened the president’s policy control. Next, the effect of a series of foreign policy leadership reforms orchestrated by Reagan and his transition team will be analyzed. Hoping to avoid the onset of tension be- tween the National Security Council and the State Department, Reagan reduced the power given to each group.72 The void created by this move was filled by the empowerment of the Central Intelligence Agency, and in particular, its Director,

William Casey. From this position of heightened influence, the CIA provided Rea- gan and his advisors a crucial avenue to implement policy in a manner that was

71 Grandin, The Empire’s Workshop, 73.

72 Melanson, American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War, 144. 27 partially immune to bureaucratic meddling from alternative ideological perspec- tives.

The latter section of this chapter is devoted to a consideration of the Rea- gan administration’s attempts to cultivate a popular belief within the foreign policy bureaucracy that emphasized that the bureaucracy worked in the service of the president’s agenda. This was accomplished in part by an unprecedentedly robust appointee orientation program that was carried out by the Office of Personnel

Management. The broadcasting of the president’s foreign policy perspective via his regular public speeches and pronouncements also helped maintain con- formity. The same measures used to communicate Reagan’s worldview to the

American public also helped provide the members of the administration’s foreign policy bureaucracy an understanding of the global perspective of the man they were supposed to view as their boss. The insistence that the members of the for- eign policy establishment adhere to the commands of the president also led to the development of an institutional attitude that viewed alternative interpretations with disdain. The members of the administration that based their policy recom- mendations on their knowledge of the regions that American foreign policy was interacting with were often made the subject of ridicule. They were accused of being afflicted with ‘regionalitis,’ a disorder some Reagan officials concocted to describe an official who they believed was too heavily influenced by the politics and events of their respective territory of responsibility. This exclusionary attitude 28 led to the marginalization of many members of the administration’s State De- partment.

The Appointment Process: the Rise of the California Mafia and the Haig

Putsch

While Ronald Reagan did not assume office until January 1981, the foun- dations for the shift in foreign policy that the beginning of his presidency signified were laid shortly after his electoral win in November. The structure of Reagan’s foreign policy establishment was determined by Reagan and his transition team in the months before he officially entered the oval office. The official chosen to head the transition effort was Edwin Meese, one of the president’s most trusted associates.73 Operating under Meese was Richard Allen, whom managed the foreign policy transition, and Pendelton James, who ran the personnel operation.74 The decisions made during this transitionary period regarding cabi- net organization and personnel appointments were vital first steps in the Reagan team's effort to inject greater ideological conformity into the foreign policymaking process.

The earliest implemented component of the Reagan team’s strategy for counteracting bureaucratic divisiveness was the appointment of individuals who shared the ideological perspective of the president. This strategic approach was

73 Pffiner, The Strategic Presidency, 25.

74 Shirley A. Warshaw, “The Other Reagan Revolution,” in The Reagan Presidency, ed. Paul Kengor and Peter Schweizer (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 159. 29 not unique to Reagan’s team, as establishing a bureaucracy that shares the views of the president is a guiding aspiration for any transition team. Every ap- pointment process attempts to strike a balance between ideological compatibility and competence. In a partial reincarnation of the best and brightest approach of the postwar era, Richard Nixon appointed a cabinet and a White House staff that included a sizeable portion of distinguished academics and officials with govern- ment experience.75 His preference for ability over partisan affiliation caused him to lead several failed attempts to recruit Democrats to serve at the senior level of his administration.76 At his first cabinet meeting, Richard Nixon told his cabinet appointees that the criteria they should use to hire their subordinates should pri- oritize ability first and loyalty second.77 This was advice that Nixon would come to regret, as he later lamented his cabinet’s inability to organize the support of their departments behind his directives.78 Jimmy Carter’s appointment process placed heavy priority on prior experience within government.79 His desire to build a deci- sion making process that incorporated a variety of perspectives led to a hiring process that granted marginal consideration to ideological conformity. As Carter’s press secretary described it, “the idea was to make sure that no one or two peo-

75 Stephen Hess, “Presidents, Appointments and the Transition,” in Innocent until Nominated, ed. G. Calvin Mackenzie (Washington: Brooking’s Institution Press, 2001), 111-112.

76 Ibid., 110.

77 Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency, 41.

78 Ibid., 42.

79 Glad, An Outsider in the White House, 8. 30 ple will be able to cut him (Carter) off from dissenting opinions.”80 This approach resulted in the creation of a foreign policy advisory team that exhibited a high de- gree of competition between advisors.81

The Reagan team’s appointment process was distinct from its historical predecessors because it included an abnormally large commitment to hiring indi- viduals that shared the president’s worldview from the onset. Their approach ex- hibited a clear preference for philosophical similarity over experiential back- ground. The appointment process relied on a series of criteria, chief among which was ideological compatibility with the president. Henry Salvatori, a member of the transition group placed in charge of the recruitment of personnel, summa- rized the team’s requirements as follows: “our most crucial concern was to as- sure that conservative ideology was properly represented. The three criteria we followed were one, was he a Reagan man? Two, a Republican? and Three, a

Conservative?”.82 Pendleton James outlined his criteria similarly, emphasizing compatibility with the president’s philosophy and the candidate’s willingness to be a team player.83 On the question of ability, James admitted that the appointees

80 Ibid., 7-8.

81 Ibid., 15.

82 Warshaw, “The Other Reagan Revolution,” 152.; James P. Pfifner, “The Carter-Reagan Transi- tion: Hitting the Ground Running,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 13.4 (Fall 1983): 633.

83 Peter Benda and Charles H. Levine,“Reagan and the Bureaucracy,” in The Reagan Legacy, ed. Charles O. Jones (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1988), 107. 31 needed only “a minimum of competence.”84 The focus on ideological closeness was complemented by a commitment to finding individuals who would act as loy- al servants for the president. Meese described the appointment team’s desire as follows: “We wanted our appointees to the president’s ambassadors to the agen- cies, not the other way around.”85 In the assessment of James, to be an effective member of the government, “you have to keep thinking, what does the president want?”.86

In practice, the appointment decisions made by Reagan’s transition team amounted to the hiring of a group of the president’s friends. Reagan’s campaign director, Bill Casey, was appointed Director of Central Intelligence. Caspar Wein- berger, who had served as Reagan’s chief economic advisor while he was Gov- ernor of California, was given Defense. These men, along with Reagan’s person- al advisor Edwin Meese and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver would later be dubbed the “California Mafia” by members of the media.87 Each of these officials shared Reagan’s ideology, including his anticommunism and his skepticism re- garding negotiations with Soviet Communists.88 As experiential background in government was a peripheral concern for Reagan’s team, few of their appoint-

84 George C. Edwards, “Why Not the Best? The Loyalty-Competence Tradeoff in Presidential Ap- pointments,” in Innocent Until Nominated, ed. G. Calvin Mackenzie (Washington: Brooking’s Insti- tution Press, 2001), 84.

85 Rodman, Presidential Command, 144.

86 Edwards, “The Loyalty-Competence Tradeoff,” 83-84.

87 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 73.

88 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 89. 32 ments had any prior experience working in federal government, let alone in for- eign policy. Thus, the personnel decisions made by Reagan’s transition team led to the appointment of a group of foreign policy officials who exhibited a significant degree of ideological uniformity, but lacked foreign policy acumen.89 The mem- bers of this group would later form the leadership of the ‘war party’, a group of

Reagan officials committed to combating global Soviet influence using a more militaristic approach.90

A second characteristic of the Reagan transition team’s approach to per- sonnel was its intense disdain for the leftover employees of the previous adminis- tration. Many of the members of Reagan’s team viewed the policy perspective of

Carter as a kind of contagion that needed to be eradicated from the foreign policy bureaucracy. This distrust led some members of Reagan’s transition team to call for an indiscriminate dismissal of Carter’s foreign policy servants. In their final re- port, members of Reagan’s CIA transition team lobbied for the removal of all high ranking officials at the CIA, believing they sympathized too heavily with leftist po- litical perspectives.91 Only days before inauguration day, Richard Allen declared an intention to remove all Carter appointees from their positions in the State De- partment. Shocked by the extremity of this measure, incoming Secretary of State

89 Bert A. Rockman, “The Style and Organization of the Reagan Presidency,” in The Reagan Legacy, ed. Charles O. Jones (New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers, 1988), 9.

90 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 72-73.

91 John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the C.I.A. (New York: Simon and Schus- ter, 1986), 660-661. 33 Alexander Haig and his undersecretary David Newsom persuaded Allen to relent, with the removal of only key figures the agreed compromise.92 William Bowdler,

Carter’s Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, was the most high profile casualty of this agreement. Bowdler had spent a career in the foreign service, working under four separate administrations. He also had decades of experience working in Latin America, his region of responsibility. Bowdler was re- placed by Thomas Enders, who had no prior experience in Latin America.93 Exits like Bowdler’s illustrated that Reagan’s transition team did not simply ignore philosophical perspectives that differed from the president, they were hostile to them.

A final characteristic that separated the Reagan team’s appointment process from those of their predecessors was its centralized nature. Under

Kennedy, Nixon, and Carter, the White House staff selected the department heads. The appointed officials were then granted the autonomy to choose their own subordinates. At later points in their administrations, both Nixon and Carter discarded this practice and led efforts to instil greater discipline into their bureau- cracies.94 Reagan and his team were worried about providing their chosen offi- cials with too much power. They hoped to establish a White House Staff that had control over the full personnel process, from cabinet appointments to ambas-

92 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 26.

93 Ibid., 32.

94 Pfiffner, The Strategic Presidency, 67. 34 sadorships.95 By subjecting the sub-cabinet appointments to presidential ap- proval, Reagan and his team could ensure that each department’s primary alle- giance was to the president. This would prevent the development of bureaucratic camps that could potentially rival the policy influence of Reagan and his advisors.

The control over sub-cabinet level appointments separated Reagan’s appoint- ment approach from those undertaken by both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

Both of these presidents failed to recognize the value of this control until much later in their presidencies.96 While justifying the Reagan team’s heightened con- trol to the media, Pendleton James made direct reference to the failings of previ- ous administrations: “Nixon, like Carter, lost the appointments process. We haven’t yet. They lost control to the departments and agencies. We have main- tained control at the Oval Office.” 97

The seizure of control over sub-cabinet appointments also provided Rea- gan and his team an ability to strategically place committed Reagan loyalists into departments that they were worried might develop a willingness to diverge from the ideological agenda of the president. Often referred to as the “infiltration strat- egy,” this tactic was borrowed from the final years of the Nixon presidency.98 In the early years of Reagan’s first term, this strategy would prove useful in curbing

95 Ibid., 68.

96 Ibid., 34.

97 Lou Cannon, “Appointments by White House Take Right Turn,” Washington Post, June 18, 1981.

98 Rockman, “Style and Organization,” 10. Pendelton James, the head of Reagan’s personnel division, had also worked on personnel under Nixon (Pfiffner, 64). 35 the influence of Reagan’s first Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. Haig’s ap- pointment was distinct from the others because it occurred despite some appre- hension on the behalf of Reagan’s personnel officials. He attracted the attention of the Reagan team after he was recommended by Richard Nixon, for whom he had served as Chief of Staff. He was reputed to be a passionate anti-Communist and his experience in government made him an attractive addition to a cabinet that was relatively light on that characteristic.99 During the Nixon and Ford admin- istrations, Haig had honed his policymaking skills as a deputy to Henry Kissinger.

In the course of the vetting process, the Reagan team learned that Haig aspired to run for president, a discovery that led to some suspicion. The appointment formula that the Reagan team followed emphasized finding individuals who pos- sessed no personal agenda that would could potentially interfere with their duties in serving the president. A candidate with presidential aspirations failed to satisfy this criteria. However, after a private meeting between Haig, Meese, and James, the Reagan team was persuaded that his ambitions could be contained.100

In a general sense, Haig shared Reagan’s foreign perspective. He held a passionate belief in the need for a more muscular Cold War policy, particularly when it came to relations with Cuba. However, Haig had vastly different ideas on what that muscular policy should look like and how a foreign policy establishment should be run. As a result, tension developed between Haig and Reagan’s for-

99 Edwin Meese, With Reagan (Washington: Regnery Gateway, 1992), 64.

100 Ibid., 64-65. 36 eign policy advisors almost immediately. Having developed his foreign policy ex- pertise as a protégé of Kissinger, Haig believed he needed to adopt a take charge approach in his role as Secretary of State. He wanted to become the cen- tral authority within Reagan’s foreign policy establishment, a position that the president and his closest advisors intended to occupy. On inauguration day, Haig circulated a memorandum that outlined a proposed structure for the new admin- istration’s decision making process. The plan gave Haig control over all intera- gency groups and committees on foreign policy. It would have given Haig a level of authority similar to that enjoyed by Kissinger, with Haig holding far greater in-

fluence than Weinberger, Casey or Allen. Despite his campaign promise that his administration’s foreign policy establishment would be led by the State Depart- ment, Reagan never considered the proposal and it went unapproved.101 The memo arrived at a time when Reagan’s inner circle was very concerned about protecting the influence of the president and this meant that it was received as a threat.102 The whole episode only served to alienate Haig from the inner sanctum of Reagan’s advisors.103 In particular, Haig’s power grab annoyed Meese, who saw the Secretary’s attempt to establish himself as the “vicar of foreign policy” as

101 Melanson, American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War, 137.

102 Rodman, Presidential Command, 149.

103 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 73-74; Robert C. McFarlane, Special Trust (New York: Cadell & Davies, 1994), 181-182. 37 antithetical to the collegial atmosphere that Reagan and Meese endeavoured to construct.104

Once in office, Haig found himself on the periphery of the administration's decision making process. At an early department meeting, he instructed Robert

McFarlane, then a consultant at State, to produce a plan for escalated military involvement in Cuba.105 Haig had become convinced that if the administration wanted to send a signal regarding its desire to rollback the influence of the Soviet

Union in Latin America, it needed to “go to the source” of the problem.106 The no- tion of confronting Cuba did not attract much support from Reagan’s senior for- eign policy officials. Members of the White House staff, including Meese, as well as Weinberger and Vice President Bush, believed that a military action in Cuba would be too unpopular with the American people.107 McFarlane, the official asked to plan the proposed Cuban action, also thought Haig’s idea would be a mistake. He anticipated problems in gaining congressional approval for the initia- tive, and believed the size of the operation required would be much larger than

Haig believed.108 Unable to attract much support from his colleagues in cabinet

104 Meese, With Reagan: The Inside Story, 65.; Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 107.

105 McFarlane, Special Trust, 177; Alexander M. Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 124; Grow, Presidents and Latin American Interventions, 129.

106 Robert Kagan, A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua (New York: The Free Press, 1996),174.

107 Haig, Caveat, 130; Grow, Presidents and Latin American Interventions, 129.

108 McFarlane, Special Trust, 178. 38 and on the White House staff, Haig elected to make a direct plea to the Presi- dent. Reagan rebuked the secretary, saying that he wished to adhere to the lessons offered by Kennedy’s experience with Cuban intervention.109

The wholesale rejection of Haig’s Cuba initiative suggested that his role in the administration was uncertain. Months later, after it was announced that Vice

President Bush would be taking on more of a leadership role on foreign affairs,

Haig drafted a resignation letter and demanded that the president publicly affirm his role as the primary foreign policy advisor. Reagan agreed to produce the de- manded public statement, but the insecurity of Haig would not be eased for long.110 Following his involvement in a failed attempt to broker a negotiated set- tlement between Britain and Argentina regarding the Falklands, he became con- vinced that his tenure would be short-lived.111

Concerned that Haig’s personal ambition might interfere with the imple- mentation of the president’s agenda, the White House staff took precautions that would help limit Haig’s power. Like other cabinet officials, Haig was not given the authority to select his entire support staff. At the insistence of Reagan’s team,

Haig accepted William Clark as his deputy. Clark was one of Reagan’s aides dur- ing his time as Governor of California, and immediately prior to his appointment, he had been serving as a judge in the Supreme Court of California. Clark was a

109 Haig, Caveat, 98.

110 Ibid., 146-147.

111 Ibid., 298. 39 personal friend of Reagan’s and this afforded him a higher level of access to the president than was typical for an official in his position. Clark had no experience in foreign affairs, but that did not stop him from helping to bring about Haig’s res- ignation after only a year and a half in office.

Clark acted as a kind of chaperone for Haig. As long as he was at State,

Haig’s bellicosity regarding the need to intervene in Cuba and his desire to occu- py the dominant advisory role went without consequence.112 However, when

Clark was promoted to National Security Advisor, the relationship between the two men deteriorated. In his biography, Clark explained that the animosity grew from his attempts to “force Al to accept that it would be the president’s policies, not Al’s”.113 The final pretext for Haig’s resignation stemmed from a dispute with

Clark over the administration’s response to a proposed ceasefire in Lebanon.

Haig wished to respond to a field operative’s request for instructions in a prompt manner, but he became concerned that Clark and President Reagan did not share his urgency. Haig grew impatient with the pace of proceedings, and sent instructions without the president’s approval.114 After he was summoned by Rea-

112 Todd Greentree, Crossroads in Intervention: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Lessons from Central America (Westport: Praeger, 2008), 112.

113 Paul Kengor and Patricia C. Doerner, The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 184.

114 Ibid. 40 gan to account for his actions, Haig declared that he could “no longer operate in this atmosphere”.115 This time, the president accepted his resignation.

The Reagan team’s insistence that Haig accept Clark as deputy, and the role he later played in Haig’s demise, stands as an example of the infiltration strategy at work. Once Clark left State, Haig’s complaints regarding his position and unsanctioned actions were no longer tolerated by the White House staff. By spreading loyalists throughout the levels of the foreign policy establishment, the

Reagan team could limit the influence of officials who showed a willingness to ignore the president’s authority. The personnel appointment policy of Reagan’s transition team created a foreign policy establishment dominated by a core group of senior officials that could use its support at the sub-cabinet level to protect its authority.116

Flawed Design: Reagan’s National Security Council

When it came to organizing the decision making system that would govern his foreign policy establishment, Reagan and his advisors again focused on limit- ing potential barriers that might prevent the president from turning his global per- spective into policy. Like Carter before him, Reagan feared the emergence of a

115 Haig, Caveat, 313. Haig attributed the delay in the administration’s reply to “petty staff ma- neuvering”.

116 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, 72-73. 41 Kissinger-style figure at the top of his foreign policy bureaucracy.117 As a result,

Reagan chose to continue the cabinet-style system of decision making that was

first attempted by Carter. However, the power over appointments and budgeting were assigned to members of the White House staff, and this ensured that the

Reagan administration’s experiment with collegial decision making was more centralized than Carter’s.118 This distinction was born out of a divergence in each president’s interpretation of the benefits of a collegial decision making system.

What Carter saw as a means to ensure that full discussions of policy issues oc- curred at the elite level of foreign policy decision making, Reagan viewed as a method that could be used to maintain presidential authority over the creation of foreign policy.119 Carter wanted to use his role as arbiter to weigh the perspec- tives presented by the different factions of his foreign policy bureaucracy before arriving at a decision.120 Reagan and his personnel advisors were less interested in incorporating opposing perspectives into the leadership group of their adminis- tration. Instead, they wanted to create a group of ideologically similar leaders who would dictate policy to the foreign policy bureaucracy.

The National Security Council (NSC) is the body in charge of coordinating the work of all the various departments and agencies involved in creating and

117 Richard A. Best, “National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment,” Congressional Research Service (June 2009), 17.

118 Pfiffner, Strategic Presidency, 48.

119 Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency, 195.

120 Vance, Hard Choices, 35. 42 implementing foreign policy.121 As a result, the leader of the NSC, the National

Security Advisor, has played an influential leadership role in many foreign policy administrations. Kissinger used the position to become a foreign policy sovereign under consecutive presidencies. After Carter’s commitment to collegial decision making lessened following the resignation of Cyrus Vance, it was his National

Security Advisor, Brzezinski, who emerged as the central authority.122 To avoid a similar situation, the Reagan team needed someone to head up the NSC who was a trusted Reagan follower, but who did not possess the personal ambition that might threaten the collegial system of foreign policy leadership. Reagan tapped Richard Allen for the position. Allen had been Reagan’s foreign policy ad- visor during his campaign and he had led the foreign policy division of Reagan’s transition team. However, despite his closeness to the president, Allen was given an office in the basement of the White House. He had a support staff half the size of what previous advisors had received. In addition, he was not granted a direct line to the president and instead reported to the president’s advisor Edwin

Meese.123 After only a year in the position, he was replaced by William Clark, the former Deputy Secretary of State. Clark was granted a degree of authority that

121 Constantine Menges, Inside the National Security Council: the True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 13; Gutman, Ba- nana Diplomacy, 24.

122 Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency, 196.

123 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 24-25 43 more closely resembled the standard for the position.124 However, Clark was also not long for the office. During the duration of Reagan’s two terms, a total of seven different officials filled the position of National Security advisor. This rate of turnover helped ensure that no one official ever acquired the degree of influence needed to act as the central foreign policymaking authority.125

Reagan and his team also made changes to the administrative structure of the NSC. These administrative changes had a more lasting effect than the re- forms made to the position of National Security Advisor. Under Carter, the NSC’s leadership structure took the form of two varieties of committees, Policy Review

Committees (PRCs) and Special Coordination Committees (SCCs). Each com- mittee was composed of a similar group of senior level officials and their assis- tants: the vice-president, the secretaries of state and defense, and the director of the CIA. However, which official was chosen as chair for a PRC varied and de- pended on the subject matter of the meeting. SCCs dealt with special circum- stances, like a pressing foreign crisis or a clandestine interagency operation, and were most often chaired by the Assistant to the National Security Advisor.126 It was this second variety of committee that helped to empower Brzezinski during

124 John P. Burke, Honest Broker?: The National Security Advisor and Presidential Decision Mak- ing (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009), 208.

125 Doug Rossinow, The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 71.

126 Best, “The National Security Council,” 16. 44 the latter part of Carter’s term.127 The general crisis atmosphere that pervaded

Carter’s foreign policy establishment in 1980 elevated the authority of the

Brzezinski controlled SCCs.128 Seeking to erode the influence of the National Se- curity Advisor, Reagan and his team altered the committee structure of the NSC.

The two committees gave way to three senior interagency groups. Each group dealt with a specific policy arena. The group that focused on foreign policy was chaired by the Deputy Secretary of State, the one for intelligence was chaired by the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense chaired the defense focused group. Neither the National Security Advisor nor their as- sistant were granted authority over any interagency group.129

This new administrative structure, authored primarily by Edwin Meese, was heavily fragmented.130 Definitive lines of responsibility were never estab- lished, leading to a NSC that was rife with disorder.131 Different interagency groups assumed authoritative positions during policy debates on an ad-hoc ba- sis. This led to an environment that encouraged circumvention through informal and isolated policy initiatives. In response to the early confusion amongst the

127 Colin Campbell. Managing the Presidency: Carter, Reagan and the Search for Executive Harmony (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986), 66-67; Glad, An Outsider in Washing- ton, 30.

128 Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency, 196.

129 Burke, Honest Broker, 199-200; John Tower, Edmund Muskie and Bren Scowcroft, The Tower Commission Report: the Full Text of the President’s Special Review Board (New York: Bantam Books & Random House Inc., 1987), 14-15.

130 Burke, Honest Broker, 199.

131 Ibid., 205. 45 NSC subcommittees, Meese formed a smaller committee, known as the National

Security Planning Group, that was composed of Weinberger, Meese, Deaver,

Casey, James Baker, Allen and at times, the president. Using this group, the ‘war party’ assumed command over the NSC, as Meese’s previously established sys- tem of committees fell into neglect.132

The defects of Reagan’s NSC committee system would later form the foundation of the criticism offered by the Tower Commission, the independent re- view board established by the president to investigate the NSC’s role in the Iran-

Contra scandal. The Commission’s report decried Reagan’s organizational ap- proach for its vulnerability to circumvention and posited that it was a central con- tributor in bringing about the scandal.133 As the Tower Commission reviewed the organization of Reagan’s NSC in the context of a public scandal, it did not con- sider the possibility that the NSC’s administrative structure had been organized

— incompetently, according to their report — for a very particular purpose. The

Commission’s report took for granted that creating a well organized foreign policy bureaucracy with a clearly defined chain of command was the ideal for Reagan and his transition team. The Commission did not acknowledge the possibility that the inefficient organization of the NSC was just another facet of their plan to build a foreign policy bureaucracy that worked exclusively in the service of the president's agenda.

132 Tower, Muskie and Scowcroft, Tower Commission, 14; Burke, Honest Broker, 205.

133 Tower, Muskie and Scowcroft, Tower Commission, 88-90. 46

Into the Void: the Rise of the Central Intelligence Agency

In the first year of Reagan’s time in office, a group of senior level officials vied to fill the void generated by the withering influence of the National Security

Advisor. As outlined in a previous section of this chapter, incoming Secretary of

State Alexander Haig’s unabashed attempt to occupy the dominant role in the administration’s foreign policy establishment was ignored by the president and the White House staff.134 As part of Reagan and his closest confidants’ attempt to erect a foreign policy bureaucracy ruled collectively by themselves, the void cre- ated by the weakening of the NSC was largely filled by the members of the so called ‘war party’. However, the group at the centre of foreign policymaking owed significant gratitude to Bill Casey for the maintenance of their authority. If any of-

ficial within Reagan’s foreign policy establishment ever came close to achieving a degree of influence comparable to Kissinger, it was Casey.135 From his position as the head of the CIA, Casey performed the crucial service of providing the president and the rest of the leadership group a means to circumvent congres- sional or bureaucratic interference if they so desired.

During the 1970s, the CIA had seen its influence over foreign policy grad- ually eroded. The agency’s controversial activities during the war in Vietnam and

134 Melanson, American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War, 137; Leogrande, Our Own Back- yard, 74.

135 Rossinow, Reagan Era, 70; James M. Scott, Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996),19. 47 its involvement in the Watergate scandal had greatly weakened its public reputa- tion and this meant it often took a backseat in foreign policy matters under

Carter.136 Increasingly, the activities of the CIA were placed under congressional oversight. No longer only responsible to the president and his cabinet, the direc- tor of Central Intelligence (DCI) had to answer to newly formed intelligence com- mittees and adhere to new congressional limitations on the agency’s behaviour.

Reagan believed that the weakened influence of the CIA was a key contributor to the failings of Carter’s foreign policy. In his administration, the CIA would be giv- en a far more influential role in the formulation of foreign policy.137

Reagan’s interest in granting the CIA a more significant role in the formula- tion of foreign policy was first demonstrated during his presidential campaign, when he chose George H.W. Bush as his running mate. Bush had previously served as the DCI under the administration of Gerald Ford, and his selection en- sured that a man who recognized the importance of the CIA would occupy a cen- tral role in Reagan’s future administration.138 Reagan’s transition team helped to further elevate the influence of the CIA by selecting Casey as Director and imbu- ing him with a level of influence that his predecessors did not have. Prior to his appointment, Casey had served as Reagan’s campaign manager, but he also had some intelligence experience. During the Second World War, Casey had su-

136 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),194-195.

137 Ranelagh, 676.

138 Jeffreys-Jones, 227. 48 pervised covert missions behind enemy lines for the Office of Strategic Services.

He had hoped to be appointed Secretary of State, but Reagan’s team opted for the experience of Haig. As consolation, Casey was offered the CIA, along with the enticing caveat of being given cabinet rank. By accepting this offer, he be- came the first DCI to be granted an official position in the president’s cabinet. 139

The decision to grant Casey cabinet rank was far more than a symbolic gesture. The designation ensured Casey’s foreign policy influence would be equal to the Secretaries of State and Defense, officials who the previous DCI had reported to. This fundamentally changed the role the CIA played in the process of foreign policy formulation. The DCI became an equal participant in the creation of foreign policy. Before Reagan, the CIA was an agency that took its cues from the president and elite foreign policy officials in cabinet. Under Reagan, the CIA ac- quired much greater influence in the foreign policy making process.140

Part of what precipitated the Reagan team’s desire to grant the CIA a more influential role in the formulation of policy was the accompanying belief that a reinvigorated Cold War policy required a return to a foreign policy strategy that made heavy use of covert activity. In their view, the unrivalled importance of the conflict with the Soviets necessitated the use of even the most controversial for- eign policy tactics. The regular use of covert action also had useful benefits from the perspective of foreign policymaking, as the clandestine nature of the ap-

139 Ranelagh, The Agency, 671; Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 26, 41-42, 66.

140 Ranelagh, The Agency, 675-677. 49 proach helped make it partially impervious to congressional or bureaucratic inter- ference. The president and his leadership group could authorize and carry out a covert action with relatively little collective consultation, provided they were able to skillfully evade the scrutiny of congressional intelligence committees.141 For this reason, the CIA would become a key procedural catalyst for Reagan’s at- tempt to move Cold War policy in a more aggressive direction.142

Covert action as an acceptable foreign policy tactic was also discredited during the early 1970s. The failings of the approach during the Vietnam War pro- voked a wave of congressional legislation aimed at better governing covert ac- tion. In 1974, Congress passed the Hughes-Ryan Act, which required the presi- dent to report and justify all covert operations undertaken by the CIA to congres- sional intelligence committees. This restrictive regulatory environment meant that during the first years of the Carter administration, interest in using covert action reached a historic low.143 However, the Iranian hostage crisis sparked a renewed enthusiasm for the approach. During Carter’s final months in office, the CIA be- came increasingly involved in covert activity.144 Reagan’s CIA transition team felt this shift had come far too late. They believed that Carter’s initial distaste for

141 Jeffreys-Jones, CIA and Democracy, 236. When describing the relationship between the CIA and House Intelligence Committees, representative Norman Mineta declared “they treat us like mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us a lot of manure.”

142 Jeffreys-Jones, CIA and Democracy, 230.

143 John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 459-460.

144 Jeffreys-Jones, CIA and Democracy, 216. 50 covert action was just another symptom of the passivity which haunted Carter’s policy and allowed for the growth of Soviet influence globally.145 The renewed use of covert action was seen as an integral component of the reinvigoration of Amer- ican Cold War policy that Reagan and his team wanted to orchestrate. The restoration of the agency’s covert action capability was a regularly touched upon theme in the papers produced by Reagan’s transition team. The theme was stressed in the team’s final report, which argued that the agency’s movement away from clandestine operations had made it too passive of an actor in world events.146

As the CIA holds authority over the majority of foreign clandestine opera- tions, an increased reliance on covert action often carries with it a growth in CIA influence over foreign policy. This is a correlation that Directors of the CIA have at times used to their advantage. Dating back to Allen Dulles‘ time as Director, leaders of the agency have often used covert action as a tool for generating greater influence in the White House.147 A policy that relies heavily on covert ac- tivity is likely to be dominated by the CIA. When this is understood, the agency‘s preference for covert activity appears driven not by an objective belief in the effi- ciency of the approach, but by an ambition, on the behalf of the Director, to en- hance the agency’s policy influence. By calling for a renewed commitment to

145 Prados, Safe for Democracy, 459.

146 Ranelagh, The Agency, 659, 670, 677-678. Reagan’s CIA transition team was led by Bill Mid- denforf, and included Angelo Codevilla, Ed Henley, John Bross, Walter Pforzheimer, George Car- ver, Mark Schneider, Kenneth deGraffenreid and Roy Godson.

147 Woodward, Veil, 56-57. 51 covert action and supplying the CIA with historic levels of influence over policy through his cabinet reforms, Reagan and his team created a foreign policy estab- lishment that was vulnerable to exactly this kind of maneuver. Bill Casey would prove adept at enhancing his own influence by advocating for covert solutions to the issues facing the administration. For both his personal advantage and the benefit of the rest of the membership of the ‘war party’, Casey started more clan- destine operations than any of his postwar predecessors.148

Fostering the Preferred Institutional Attitude: the Culture of Reagan’s For- eign Policy Establishment

Although the Reagan transition team did its best to select appointees that shared the ideological perspective of the president, the White House wanted to take further precautions to make sure the appointees would adhere to the presi- dential line once in office. One such precaution was the creation and mainte- nance of an institutional attitude that accepted the primacy of the agenda and views of the president. This was partially accomplished through the implementa- tion of an appointee orientation program of unprecedented size and a campaign of rhetorical pressure in the form of speeches and public pronouncements by the president.

In an effort to indoctrinate newly hired officials, the White House sanc- tioned the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), to implement a comprehen-

148 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 63; John Rizzo, The Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA (New York: Scribner, 2014), 80. 52 sive orientation program.149 The OPM was an agency created by the Carter ad- ministration as part of the Civil Service Reform Act. Its purpose was to provide

Carter the means to better manage his quarrelling personnel, although it was

Reagan’s confidante Edwin Meese who would ultimately make the most effective use of it.150 Under the instruction of Meese, the OPM devised a program of semi- nars during Reagan’s first term. Known by some members of the administration as the “indoctrination course,” the seminars aimed at improving the operational coherence of Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy by helping the appointees to gain a more detailed understanding of the president’s agenda.151 They were held at the White House, and consisted of talks led by senior officials that emphasized the importance of the presidential line in establishing operational coherence.

Meese personally participated in each session. In Reagan’s second term, the appointee orientation program’s attempt to establish the White House as the un- questioned locus of foreign policy making power became even more pronounced.

Again at the recommendation of Meese, the program was divided into two sec- tions: White House sessions and departmental follow ups.152 This revised ap- proach helped the program to better offer instruction on how to implement the president’s agenda within the different departmental environments. This reorga-

149 James P. Pffifner, “Strangers in a Strange Land: Orienting New Presidential Appointees,” in The In-and-Outers: Presidential Appointees and Transient Government in Washington, ed. G.- Calvin McKenzie (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987), 149-150.

150 Benda and Levine, Reagan and the Bureaucracy, 105-106.

151 Warshaw, “The Other Reagan Revolution,” 152.

152 Pfiffner, “Strangers in a Strange Land,” 151. 53 nization further emphasized the primacy of the agenda of the White House and made it clear to the members of the foreign policy bureaucracy that it was their job to adhere strictly to the prescriptions of the president.

Throughout both of his terms, Reagan seized every opportunity to outline his foreign policy perspective to the public. The reasoning for this strategic deci- sion was founded in the president’s belief that the divisive consequences of the failure in Vietnam could be overcome using the right sales pitch. By making for- eign policy a regular feature of the his public speeches, Reagan hoped to restore a higher degree of foreign policy consensus amongst the American public.153

This desire was made greater by the administration’s adversarial relationship with

Congress. If the president could persuade the public of the merits of his global approach, that would provide him the edge he needed in the unending executive- congressional tensions that plagued his government’s foreign policymaking process.

The lesser recognized benefit of Reagan’s rhetorical style of leadership was its effect on the members of the foreign policy bureaucracy. The effort to fos- ter an institutional attitude that prioritized allegiance to the president’s agenda was aided by rhetorical pressure. When it came to influencing the behaviour of lower level bureaucrats who had no direct access to the president, his speeches and public pronouncements acted as another means to circumvent conventional chains of command and ensure that their allegiance to the president’s agenda

153 Melanson, American Foreign Policy since the Vietnam War, 150. 54 outweighed any alternative loyalty. The published memoirs of Constantine

Menges, a Latin American intelligence specialist who served the Reagan admin- istration from roles in both the CIA and NSC, offer evidence of the way that one member of the administration used the president's words to attempt to establish greater conformity. Menges was a fierce Reagan loyalist who could never rid himself of the suspicion that the State Department was conspiring against the wishes of the president. In his memoir, he wrote that he developed the habit of carrying around printed copies of the president’s directives and transcripts of his public speeches so he could remind his colleagues of exactly whose policy they were supposed to be implementing.154 Menges was the prototypical Reagan fol- lower. His deep admiration for the president was matched by his antipathy for those he believed were fomenting bureaucratic revolt.

Enmity toward those officials who demonstrated a willingness to ignore the presidential line was not a characteristic held only by Menges. Widespread an- tipathy for those members of the administration that ignored the president’s agenda was an inevitable consequence of the effort to indoctrinate newly hired officials into the belief that producing policy that matched the views of the presi- dent was the solitary objective. The combination of the leadership’s insistence that the members of the bureaucracy adhere to the president’s agenda and the prevalent distaste for the foreign policy perspective associated with Carter meant that attitudes like Menges’ were common. Even the State Department — a group

154 Menges, Inside the National Security Council, 154-155. 55 of officials viewed adversarially by Menges and other officials like him — was af-

flicted by it. It was a member of Reagan’s State Department transition team that

first coined the phrase ‘regionalitis’. This label referred to a policymaking disorder that afflicted officials who based their policy recommendations too heavily on their regional expertise.155 The logic behind the antipathy for the members of

Reagan’s administration that supposedly suffered from ‘regionalitis’ was that offi- cials who had extensive experience in the region under their charge had become compromised. They lacked the detachment required to see the bigger picture.

Their willingness to suggest that the global perspective of the administration’s leadership was at odds with regional realities made them a nuisance worthy of disdain.156

The institutional philosophy that Meese had laboured to construct func- tioned as another constraint on policy initiatives that wandered outside of the presidential agenda. However, in a policy environment in which regional exper- tise was distrusted, sections of the foreign policy establishment traditionally viewed as integral to the creation of informed policy were often marginalized.

During Carter’s presidency, Cyrus Vance worked to provide the foreign service a more influential role in the policymaking process. Believing that the expertise held by career foreign service officers was a valuable resource, Vance appointed

155“Reagan Aides Diagnose ‘Regionalitis’ in U.S. Africa Policy,” New York Times, December 7, 1980.

156 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 77. 56 many of them to the upper levels of the department.157 Vance also allowed am- bassadors to play significant roles in policy debates and implementation.158 Un- der Reagan, the State Department’s foreign service was placed in a more precar- ious position. In a bureaucracy where policy recommendations were mostly fun- nelled downward from leadership, and rarely in the opposite direction, the job of the foreign ambassador was made difficult. In regions that garnered the attention of the White House, tenures were short and often full of controversy. Under Rea- gan, ambassadors were asked to be the public face of a policy they often be- lieved to be uninformed, while being provided with few effective channels to recti- fy any of that policy’s flaws.

Conclusion

When they entered office, Ronald Reagan and his transition team inherit- ed a foreign policy bureaucracy that they believed had been afflicted with a dan- gerous amount of disharmony. Drawing from their knowledge of the characteris- tics of the postwar establishment and their interpretation of the failings of the pre- vious administration, Reagan and his transition team identified ideological con- formity as the objective that would guide their thinking about the organization of their foreign policy bureaucracy. Reagan’s team used a multifaceted strategy to

157 Vance, Hard Choices, 40-42. Foreign service officers who filled senior roles in Vance’s State Department included Philip Habib, William Bowdler, David Newsom, Harold Saunders, and Ter- ence Todman.

158 Ibid. 57 create a foreign policymaking process that was dominated by the president and a small group of his most loyal advisors. This strategy combined the use of the appointments process, the enactment of organizational reforms, and the cultiva- tion of an institutional culture that worshipped the agenda of the president.

The first component of Reagan’s strategy to establish a higher degree of ideological conformity within the foreign policy bureaucracy was to use the ap- pointments process to assemble a leadership group that shared a belief in the primacy of the president’s agenda. The appointment process supervised by Rea- gan’s transition team placed an unprecedented amount of emphasis on finding candidates that shared the president’s global perspective. This served to create a group of senior foreign policy officials who all believed that America’s Cold War policy needed to become more aggressive in response to Soviet gains in the

Third World, and that this reinvigorated approach required greater participation in covert action. To ensure that the White House retained control over the appoint- ments process, sub-cabinet level appointments required the approval of the per- sonnel advisors on the president’s White House staff. This decision allowed Rea- gan and his team to insert loyalists into strategically selected departments to pro- tect against future bureaucratic resistance. The effectiveness of this ‘infiltration strategy’ was demonstrated by the marginalization of Alexander Haig, an episode in which a cabinet level official in conflict with the White House was sidelined and then replaced. 58 Reagan and his transition team supplemented their appointment strategy with a collection of organizational reforms aimed at preventing any bureaucratic obstructionism. To guard against the emergence of a foreign policy leader that threatened the influence of the president, Reagan initially weakened the position of National Security Advisor. Richard Allen, the official who served as the admin- istration’s first National Security Advisor, was given a drastically reduced staff and indirect access to the president. Changes were also made to the NSC’s decision making structure. Eventually, Allen would be replaced by William Clark, and some of the authority traditionally given to the role was restored. However, the position would be subject to a rate of turnover that prevented any one official from becom- ing a dominant figure in the policy making process. Reagan’s new administrative approach, which involved three interagency groups with vaguely outlined policy responsibilities that dealt with overlapping subject matter, paralyzed decision making and encouraged bureaucratic circumvention via end-runs.159 To repair this dysfunctional NSC decision making structure, Edwin Meese created the Na- tional Security Planning group, the body that provided the ‘war party’ a dominant level of authority over the foreign policy making process.

With the influence enjoyed by the National Security Advisor diminished during the administration’s first year, other senior level officials ventured to fill the

159 “End-run” is a commonly used term in discussions relating to individual behaviour within a bureaucracy. It refers to an action by lower level members of the bureaucracy that occurs without the knowledge of their immediate superiors. During the Iran Contra scandal, the administration portrayed the actions of Oliver North in negotiating the weapons for Contra aid exchange as an ‘end-run’ without presidential approval. 59 void. Reagan selected William Casey, his former campaign manager, to act as his Director of Intelligence, and took the historically unprecedented step of grant- ing him cabinet rank. This elevation of the influence of the CIA was part of an ef- fort to turn the agency into an executive instrument for the planning and perfor- mance of covert activity. Casey, drawing from his prior experience supervising covert activity during the Second World War, proved capable of carrying out this transformation. By offering policy options that were close to immune to bureau- cratic and congressional interference, Casey and the CIA provided the rest of the

‘war party’ a critical avenue to convert their ideological perspectives into policy.

The final stage of Reagan’s effort to reestablish a workable degree of ide- ological conformity within the foreign policy bureaucracy was to foster an institu- tional philosophy that prioritized allegiance to the president’s agenda. Under the instruction of Edwin Meese, the Office of Personnel Management orchestrated a comprehensive appointee orientation program. This venture granted leading members of the administration the opportunity to indoctrinate newly hired ap- pointees into their preferred organizational philosophy. Conducted at the White

House, the overwhelming message delivered by the program was that the new hires worked for the president first, their bureaucratic superiors and departments second. This organizational philosophy was further maintained via rhetorical pressure in the form of public pronouncements and speeches delivered by the administration’s senior officials. Particularly for officials with only indirect chan- nels of communication with the administration’s leaders, public rhetoric was used 60 to ensure that the president’s agenda did not get lost in the fog generated by their respective bureaucratic responsibilities. The administration’s fixation on ad- hering to the preferred institutional attitude also produced an inevitable and un- friendly consequence. The members of the foreign policy establishment who were willing to ignore the presidential line often became targets for derision. Us- ing terms of ridicule like ‘regionalitis’, divergent perspectives were regularly mar- ginalized or pressured into silence.

Although the Reagan administration’s achievement in establishing ideo- logical conformity within the executive branch set them apart from their Cold War predecessors, it came at significant cost. The primacy of the president’s ideologi- cal perspective, and the conviction with which it was held, led to the creation of policy that was regularly uninformed of important regional realities. The subse- quent chapters of this thesis will attempt to illustrate the costs of ideological con- formity using case studies that focus on two of Reagan’s ambassadors to Central

America. By shifting the focus toward Reagan officials who operated as the on the ground representatives for a policy that was heavily ideological in motivation, a more comprehensive understanding of the deficiencies of the Reagan adminis- tration’s brand of foreign policymaking can be achieved. 61 Chapter 2: The ‘War Party’ at Work: The Decision to terminate aid to Nicaragua

In the first days of his presidency, Ronald Reagan had an important deci- sion to make regarding his administration’s Nicaraguan policy. His predecessor had taken a diplomatic approach to relations with the Sandinistas. Carter’s Ni- caragua policy had sought constructive relations between the two countries using economic assistance. By establishing an amicable relationship, Carter hoped to encourage the Sandinistas to refrain from offering aid to other leftist movements in Central America. For 18 months, this arrangement worked effectively, but dur- ing Carter’s final days in office, relations with the Sandinista government fell apart. Reagan’s electoral victory sent shock waves through Central America, as groups like the Sandinistas prepared for escalated U.S. military involvement in the region. In the final month of Carter’s time in office, the CIA produced a report demonstrating that the Sandinistas had been trafficking arms to rebel groups in

El Salvador. Carter decided he had no option but to suspend all aid to the San- dinistas.160 However, with his exit from office only days away, he decided not to make his decision public. Instead, he left it to be confirmed by the incoming pres- ident. Reagan’s regular criticism of Carter’s Sandinista aid program during his campaign made the confirmation of the suspension inevitable. He approved the suspension on his second day in office.161

160 Kagan, Twilight Struggle, 163-164.

161 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 103. 62 The decision to suspend aid was not controversial. It had bipartisan sup- port and was met with little resistance. However, the subsequent consideration given to a full termination of Carter’s aid program was met with more opposition.

If the administration decided to terminate the aid package, it would have to regain congressional authorization if it later decided to provide the Sandinistas with more assistance.162 The Carter administration had already encountered signifi- cant difficulty winning approval, and with Senate control swinging to the Republi- cans, the task would be made even more arduous.163 As a result, a termination of aid would restrict the administration's policy options in the long term. The mem- bers of Carter’s foreign policy bureaucracy who had survived the purges brought by the presidential transition saw termination as the dismissal of a year’s worth of painstakingly developed diplomatic leverage.164 In the view of officials like

Lawrence Pezzullo, Reagan’s inherited ambassador to Nicaragua, termination would put the two countries on the path toward a costly military confrontation.

Pezzullo led the attempt to convince Reagan and his senior officials that termination was a step too far. After Reagan confirmed the suspension, Pezzullo gained the approval of the president and other senior level officials to open nego- tiations with the Sandinistas. Months later, Pezzullo’s negotiations appeared to have achieved genuine progress. A set of circumstances formed that allowed the

162 Ibid., 69.

163 Kagan, Twilight Struggle, 138-140.; Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 104.

164 Woodward, Veil, 115. 63 ambassador to gain each of the concessions he was instructed to obtain. All the available evidence indicated that the arms flow between the Sandinistas and the

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador had ended.

However, despite this progress, Pezzullo’s effort would prove futile. Ignoring the evidence that the Sandinistas had discontinued their efforts to support leftist groups in El Salvador, the decision was made to terminate the aid program.

The Pezzullo mission and explanations for its outcome feature in most of the literature published on Reagan’s Nicaraguan policy. Possibly due to some lasting bitterness regarding the outcome of his mission, Pezzullo was willing to grant an interview to a number of writers that were interested in the subject. Dis- tinctions between the sources used and the perspective of each writer help to produce a diversity of published explanations for the decision to terminate the aid program. Writers who offer a more favourable view of Reagan’s Nicaraguan poli- cy do not focus too heavily on the bureaucratic machinations that played a role in causing the demise of Pezzulo’s mission. Robert Kagan, a former member of

Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy, focused on the continued relationship be- tween the Sandinistas and the rebels in El Salvador in explaining the futility of

Pezzullo’s negotiations. Citing intelligence that the foreign policy bureaucracy did not acquire until years later, Kagan suggested that the decision to terminate aid was based on the retrospectively justifiable assumption that the Sandinistas’ promises to Pezzullo were disingenuous.165 Renowned journalist Bob Woodward

165 Kagan, Twilight Struggle, 175-176. 64 also offered a consideration of the events surrounding the decision to terminate aid in his highly controversial book,Veil. In a work that was informed heavily by the author’s relationship with Reagan’s Director of Intelligence, William Casey,

Woodward offered a detailed discussion of a meeting between Casey and Pez- zullo that occurred on the same day that the decision to terminate aid was made.

In Woodward’s description of the meeting, Casey appeared to profess his own confusion regarding the reasons for the termination, producing the perception that he was not involved in undermining the mission.166 Other than offering the suggestion that Casey was not intimately involved, Woodward provided little in the way of an alternative explanation for Pezzullo’s failure.

The literature produced by critics of Reagan’s Central American policy of- fers another set of possible explanations for the downfall of Pezzullo’s mission.

As this body of work grants greater consideration to the possibility that the termi- nation of aid was a mistake, it offers a more comprehensive representation of the bureaucratic maneuvering that caused the decision to be made. In Banana

Diplomacy, journalist Roy Gutman presented Pezzullo’s explanation for his own failure. After he conducted interviews with Pezzullo, Gutman provided the am- bassador’s perspective on the aforementioned meeting with Casey. He suggest- ed that Pezzullo believed that his discussion with Casey ruled him out as a cen- tral contributor to the mission’s demise. Gutman questioned this interpretation,

166 Woodward, Veil, 120-121. 65 although he stopped short of offering any substantive proof that contradicted it.167

Instead, Gutman focused on the explanation favoured by the ambassador John

Carbaugh, a Congressional aide and known critic of Pezzullo, had become an advisor to Thomas Enders, the ambassador’s most immediate superior. Pezzullo credited Carbaugh’s relationship with Enders for the State Department’s apathet- ic attitude toward the outcome of his mission.168 The most comprehensive pub- lished account of Pezzullo’s mission is provided by William Leogrande’s Our Own

Backyard. Recounting an NSC committee meeting involving Deputy Secretary of

State William Clark and National Security Advisor Richard Allen, Leogrande sug- gested that concern for the credibility of Reagan’s electoral platform led his inner circle to ignore the progress achieved by Pezzullo.169 After denouncing Carter’s aid program during the presidential campaign, an abrupt change of course mere months into Reagan’s tenure would invite embarrassment at a time when rebuild- ing credibility was seen as a central objective.

This chapter sets out to achieve two related objectives. First, the informa- tion provided by the earlier outlined collection of published work will be combined with new insights gleaned from memoirs and declassified documents to produce a comprehensive explanation for the demise of Pezzullo’s mission. Second, the offered explanation for the marginalization of Pezzullo will act as an illustration of

167 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 63.

168 Ibid., 35-38.

169 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 106. 66 one of the major drawbacks of the ideological nature of Reagan’s brand of for- eign policymaking. In an environment where policy is largely determined by the ideological predilections of the president and his most trusted senior officials, an ambassador seeking to encourage the enactment of regionally informed policy is bound to encounter frustration. The story of Pezzullo’s mission is a revealing ex- emplification of the ways in which the organization and culture of Reagan’s for- eign policy bureaucracy served to create uninformed policy.

The termination of aid was a mistake made on the basis of thin and dis- putable evidence. Pezzullo’s mission was a policy initiative that was informed by astute regional expertise and was effective in achieving the administration’s pro- claimed goal. However, the means used to achieve the cessation of the arms

flow between Nicaragua and El Salvador placed the mission at odds with the dominant ideological orientation of Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy. In an administration that exhibited a high degree of ideological conformity, a policy ini- tiative plagued by this kind of discord was doomed. For Reagan and his most in-

fluential senior officials, the Sandinistas were committed Marxists and the repre- sentatives of a global Soviet conspiracy.170 Recognition of any progress gained through diplomacy was hampered by skepticism regarding both diplomacy’s ef- fectiveness as a Cold War tactic, and the motivations of the individual regional experts who encouraged its use. Gains achieved by covert military intervention were believed to be more reliable. This meant that other policy options, like

170 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 108. 67 Casey’s covert project, received far greater attention and support. Despite assur- ances to the contrary from both the president and secretary of state, the outcome of Pezzullo’s mission was a foregone conclusion.

The sections of this chapter will proceed chronologically, beginning with

Pezzullo’s time under Carter and ending with the decision to terminate aid. Pez- zullo played a central role in the Carter administration’s response to the

Nicaraguan Civil War. He was a key figure in the attempt to orchestrate the trans- fer of power from Dictator Anastasio Somoza to a reconciled and pluralistic gov- ernment. Although the administration’s plan ended in failure, the influence en- joyed by Pezzullo offers a revealing contrast when compared to the role he would later play under Reagan. This section also provides useful context for Pezzullo’s approach to the termination of aid, as his involvement with the failed transition plan provided insight that would later inform his approach to the aid negotiations.

After being involved in a policy initiative that failed due to the Carter administra- tion’s inability to correctly assess the political atmosphere in Nicaragua, Pezzullo strived to ensure that Reagan’s policy did not commit a similar oversight. Next, the ambassador’s public quarrel with the Reagan transition team will be dis- cussed. Pezzullo survived the transitionary period, but his war of words with

Reagan officials demonstrated how he viewed the incoming administration and how some of its members perceived him.

The subsequent section of this chapter outlines the events that occurred in

Washington and Managua during the suspension of aid. The failure of the 68 FMLN’s final offensive, the decrepit state of Nicaragua’s economy, and the ef- fects of a crippling wheat shortage meant that the full delivery of the aid package became an urgent priority for the Sandinistas. Taking advantage of this despera- tion, Pezzullo was able to persuade the Sandinistas to abandon their involvement in arms trafficking, despite efforts being made in Washington to undermine him.

The final portion of this chapter is devoted to the bureaucratic machinations that led to the decision to terminate aid. Responsibility for the decision was shared between members of the National Security Council, the State Department and the CIA. The final determination was made at a meeting of the National Security

Planning Group. The meeting was dominated by two members of the administra- tion’s ‘war party’, Deputy Secretary of State William Clark and National Security

Advisor Richard Allen. Both officials subscribed to the belief that for reasons of domestic and global credibility, the aid package had to be terminated. A combina- tion of alleged regionalitis and a personal rivalry also served to ensure that Pez- zullo’s superiors at the Department of State ignored the ambassador’s achieve- ments. Without the support of Thomas Enders or Alexander Haig, Pezzullo was left without any influential advocates inside the senior levels of the administration.

Finally, the early development of Casey’s covert program helped to marginalize interest in the outcome of Pezzullo’s diplomatic mission. In an administration that believed the effectiveness of diplomacy had been discredited under Carter, and hoped to take Cold War policy in a more aggressive direction, covert intervention stood as an attractive alternative. 69

Carter’s Man in Managua: Pezzullo and the Fall of Somoza

By the spring of 1979, Carter’s Nicaragua policy had fallen into turmoil.

The administration’s initial response to the outbreak of civil war was to supervise a months long mediation between Dictator Anastasio Somoza and representa- tives of the moderate opposition. The opposition group insisted on the resigna- tion of Somoza as a precursor for any deal. In response, Somoza feigned a will- ingness to carry out a plebiscite on the legitimacy of his rule, an offer the Carter administration supported. By the time it became clear that Somoza’s offer was a stalling technique, the moderate opposition groups had disintegrated, leaving fur- ther support for Somoza the only viable option to prevent the Sandinistas from seizing power. The subsequent restoration of ties with Somoza blatantly contra- dicted the administration’s avowed commitment to human rights. This weakened the credibility of the administration, and caused dissension within its ranks.171

One of the casualties of the failure of the mediation effort was Carter’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Mauricio Solaun. A political science professor whose research focused on U.S. military intervention in Latin America, Solaun was dis- couraged by the direction of the administration’s policy.172 With anti-American re- sentment in Nicaragua growing increasingly radical, Solaun opted to resign due

171 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 20-23.

172 Mauricio Solaún, U.S. Intervention and Regime Change in Nicaragua (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 144. 70 to fears regarding his personal safety and that of his family.173 With the popularity of the Sandinistas growing by the day, the timing of Solaun’s resignation was not ideal. Carter had to select a new ambassador, and the circumstances dictated that he had to proceed expediently.

Lawrence Pezzullo had acquired over twenty years of experience as a member of the foreign service. His record included postings in Mexico, Vietnam,

Bolivia, Columbia and Guatemala. Before his appointment as ambassador to Ni- caragua, he had served in the same capacity in Uruguay. During his prior experi- ence in Latin America, he had witnessed the effects of large scale disenfran- chisement, the most extreme of which were currently unfolding in Nicaragua.174

His time in Uruguay also granted him a knowledge of the administrative details involved in running a foreign embassy. This was an advantage for Pezzullo, as that was the kind of information that a freshly appointed ambassador to Ni- caragua would have no time to learn. Another factor that enhanced his candidacy was his willingness to undertake the role. This was an important prerequisite giv- en the controversy that engulfed Carter’s Nicaraguan policy. In a memoir he later published that outlined his involvement in the fall of Somoza, Pezzullo wrote that he accepted the position for reasons of ambition. The post presented some of the most challenging circumstances a newly appointed ambassador can walk into, but, Pezzullo believed the difficult nature of the job enhanced its attractiveness.

173 Lawrence and Ralph Pezzullo, At the Fall of Somoza (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), 7.

174 Ibid., 5. 71 The position also provided a chance to swap relative obscurity for the opportunity to become intimately involved in a foreign policy arena that was attracting sub- stantial attention in Washington. In Pezzullo’s own words: “In such circum- stances, an alert foreign service officer could stake a reputation”.175

Although Pezzullo’s appointment had not yet cleared the entire approval process, the pressing nature of the portfolio he was inheriting meant that he be- gan his work in May 1979.176 As he entered the job, events in Nicaragua forced the Carter administration to reassess its approach yet again. A Sandinista military offensive had found surprising success, and the leadership of the group had formed an exiled government, known as the Revolutionary Junta, which was based in rebel friendly Costa Rica.177 Before departing for Managua, Pezzullo met with senior members of Carter’s State Department to discuss adaptations that needed to be made to the administration’s plan. The consensus at the meet- ing was that Somoza had to step down. The Sandinistas’ military achievements had led to an acceptance that they were going to have to be given influence with- in any new government. But, it was also agreed that work could still be done to ensure that the new regime included moderate American allies. To realize this objective, Nicaragua’s National Guard needed to be maintained. If the Guardia

175 Ibid., 7.

176 Anthony Lake, Somoza Falling: A Case Study of Washington at Work (Boston: Houghton Mif- flin, 1989), 230.

177 John Coatsworth, Central America and the United States: the Clients and the Colossus (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1994), 142-143. 72 collapsed, the Sandinistas would control the solitary fighting force in the country, and the incentive for them to share power would be minimal. Pezzullo boarded a

flight to Managua with a face to face meeting with Somoza at the top of his agenda.178

The administration’s freshly crafted plan placed tremendous pressure on

Pezzullo. First, he had to persuade Somoza to step down. With Somoza out of the picture, Pezzullo would then identify and organize an executive committee of moderate Nicaraguans that would assume control of the government for a tem- porary transitionary period. This committee would be supported by a reconstitut- ed National Guard. Using contacts within the Guardia, Pezzullo was to lead the effort to determine what sections of the decrepit institution were disassociated enough from Somoza that they could be preserved. The executive committee, using the support of this reconstituted Guardia as leverage, would enter into ne- gotiations with the Sandinistas. These negotiations would then lead to the forma- tion of a reconciled pluralistic government. Perhaps most challengingly, Pezzullo had to accomplish this list of tasks despite his limited familiarity with many of Ni- caragua’s major political actors and institutions.179 To elevate the degree of diffi- culty even more, the possibility of a negotiated settlement lessened by the day, meaning Pezzullo had little time to waste.

178 Ibid., 8-9, 73-74; Robert Pastor, Condemned to Repetition: the United States and Nicaragua (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987), 142.

179 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, 153; Lake, Somoza Falling, 234. 73 Shortly after arriving in Managua, Pezzullo travelled to the National

Guard’s military headquarters to meet with Somoza. Only a week prior, ABC news correspondent Bill Stewart had been executed by a member of Somoza’s

National Guard in front of the rolling cameras of his crew. The public outcry pro- duced after the footage of Stewart’s murder was broadcast on the national news caused most of the dictator’s congressional allies to distance themselves from him.180 With his support inside Nicaragua and the U.S. government in retreat,

Somoza had become primarily concerned for his own personal safety. He ex- pressed a willingness to resign if Pezzullo could ensure that he would be granted refuge in the United States and that efforts would be made to protect his National

Guard from reprisals.181 The ambassador had anticipated the offer and found

Somoza’s terms agreeable, but he was surprised by the eagerness with which it was made. Somoza offered to resign as soon as the next day, an offer Pezzullo balked at because it would not allow him adequate time to prepare the transi- tionary government and reform the Guardia.182 As a result, Somoza’s specific date of departure was left undetermined.

With Somoza’s offer to resign in hand, Pezzullo began to make the arrangements demanded by the Administration’s approved transition strategy. Af- ter a short period of investigation, Pezzullo became convinced that the executive

180 Greentree, Crossroads, 67.

181 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, At the Fall of Somoza, 124.

182 Lake, Somoza Falling, 236. 74 committee component of the plan was unachievable. The majority of the leaders of the moderate opposition had already declared their support for the Revolution- ary Junta, and had little interest in participating in what would be popularly viewed as an American orchestrated charade. In a cable to the State Depart- ment, Pezzullo made the case that executive committee idea needed to be scrapped.183 In a decision that fanned the tensions between the NSC and State

Department, Pezzullo’s advice was heeded and the plan to establish an execu- tive committee was scrapped. Instead, the scheme would centre on a provision within Nicaragua’s constitution that granted Somoza the right to transfer power to a selected member of the country’s National Assembly.184 In the reformed plan, this selected interim leader would cede control to the Revolutionary Junta after a period of negotiations.

Pezzullo viewed the possibility of preserving the National Guard more favourably. In a series of cables, he expressed his belief that the National Guard could survive Somoza’s resignation. He pointed to the fact that the Guardia had shown no signs of disintegration despite the rumours of Somoza’s resignation as evidence that it could survive without their current leader. In Pezzullo’s estima- tion, the Guardia remained a “strong fighting force” and its officers accepted the impending leadership change. He stated that he believed that the Guardia could

183 Cable 0281803 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “The Current Scene,” (June 28, 1979), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Ar- chive Collection; Lake, Somoza Falling, 239-240.

184 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, At the Fall of Somoza, 79. 75 be reconstituted in a way that the Revolutionary Junta would accept, and he handicapped the chances that the Guardia would survive without Somoza as

“better than even”.185 Pezzullo’s confidence was curious given the limited investi- gation into the Guardia that he had conducted. He was wary of engaging in too much correspondence with members of the Guardia outside of Somoza’s super- vision. Other American officials had done so, and it provoked Somoza into accus- ing the United States of instigating a military coup.186 In order to maintain his agreement with an increasingly paranoid Somoza, Pezzullo had to rely almost entirely on the dictator’s own assurances regarding the vitality of the Guardia.

This reliance caused Pezzullo to misjudge the potential effectiveness of the ad- ministration’s transition plan.

After a few weeks of deliberation, it was agreed that Somoza would step down on July 17th, before fleeing with his family to a mansion he owned in Mia- mi. As his temporary replacement, Somoza selected his former Vice President and current President of the Legislature, Francisco Urcuyo. Pezzullo had ap- proved of the selection after receiving assurances from Somoza that Urcuyo was committed to the Carter administration’s transition scheme187. In consultation with

Somoza, Pezzullo had also produced a list of members of the National Guard

185 Cable 0301240 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “National Guard Survival,” (June 30, 1979), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Ar- chive Collection.

186 Cable 0301150 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “The Third Meeting — The Murphy Version,” (June 30, 1979), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection; Greentree, Crossroads, 70.

187 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, At the Fall of Somoza, 190-191. 76 who were judged to have clean enough reputations to occupy leadership posi- tions in the reconstituted Guardia. Those not on the list would be forced into re- tirement, and would likely be granted protection from reprisals as part of Urcuyo’s negotiations with the Revolutionary Junta. Federico Mejia, an engineer with little connection to Somoza, was chosen as the new commander of the Guardia.188

On the eve of Somoza’s departure date, Pezzullo appeared to have accom- plished his daunting list of tasks. After a feverish few weeks, the components of the transition plan were in place. The only question that remained was whether it was going to work.

The indications that the transition plan was in trouble arrived early. On the morning of the 17th, Pezzullo received notice that the plane he had arranged to take General Mejia to his meeting with the Revolutionary Junta had not departed.

Sensing that something was awry, Pezzullo frantically attempted to contact Ur- cuyo. Pezzullo soon learned that Urcuyo’s attitude toward the transition plan had changed once he assumed office. In his conversation with Pezzullo, he claimed to have no knowledge of the details of the transition plan and said he had no in- tention of sending Mejia to negotiate with the Junta.189 Urcuyo’s change of course doomed the transition scheme. With the negotiations cancelled, the San- dinistas renewed their military offensive, capturing Managua in a matter of hours.

The reconstituted National Guard disintegrated, its members captured or forced

188 Greentree, Crossroads, 71.

189 Ibid., 201; Coatsworth, Clients and Colossus, 144. 77 into exile. Despite the Carter administration’s attempt to force a negotiated set- tlement, the Sandinistas had achieved a total victory.

Although he had entered the job with an awareness of Somoza’s willing- ness to manipulate the United States government, Pezzullo had fallen into the dictator’s trap. He had trusted that Somoza’s desire to preserve the Guardia was genuine, and that Somoza was as worried about the events that would follow his resignation as the Carter administration was. This was a fatal misjudgment. In reality, Somoza was motivated primarily by a desire for self preservation. His most immediate fear was that he would be assassinated by the members of his own National Guard, and he wanted to escape the country before that occurred.190 To achieve this objective, he needed to convince Pezzullo that an effective transition plan was in place, even if that was not the truth. As a newly appointed ambassador with little familiarity with Somoza and the political com- plexities of Nicaragua, Pezzullo was a vulnerable target for this kind of maneuver.

Pezzullo had identified Somoza’s willingness to resign as the key element of the transition scheme, a belief that led him to rely heavily on the outgoing dic- tator. He was hesitant to establish an independent channel to the Guardia, be- cause he feared that doing so would anger Somoza and jeopardize the entire arrangement.191 As a result, he had to rely almost exclusively on Somoza and

190 Solaún, U.S. Intervention, 292.

191 Cable 0301150 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “The Third Meeting — The Murphy Version,” (June 30, 1979), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection. 78 the assessment of the Guardia and the feasibility of its preservation. This re- liance led Pezzullo to gain only a superficial understanding of the National Guard.

Had he consulted a greater variety of sources, he would have learned that during the final years of the Somoza regime, the relationship between the ruling family and the Guardia had become increasingly incestuous.192 In an effort to further consolidate the Guardia’s allegiance to the Somoza family, its members were en- couraged to engage in corruption and criminal activity. This approach helped to convert the Guardia into a Somoza controlled criminal syndicate. The conse- quence of this shift was a level of corruption that Pezzullo, had failed to ade- quately recognize. As the public outcry against the regime grew, the fates of the

Somoza family and the Guardia became intertwined. In his memoir, Pezzullo admitted that he failed to adequately assess how corrupt and unstable an institu- tion the Guardia had become. He conceded that even Urcuyo had proceeded with the transition as planned, the Guardia was still likely to have collapsed.193

The epilogue of Pezzullo’s memoir provides a revealing summary of the ambassador’s own understanding of the downfall of the transition plan and the lessons he learned from it. While he directed some criticism at his superiors and the bureaucratic tensions that regularly caused him to receive convoluted direc- tions, he also acknowledged that the failed transition plan was the result of mis- judgments made on the ground. For example, he admitted that his own miscalcu-

192 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, 178.

193 Pezzullo and Pezzullo, At the Fall of Somoza, 247. 79 lation regarding the vitality of the Guardia was an important contributor to the demise of the plan. He also decried a policymaking apparatus that seemed to be plagued by a “case of the slows,” as American officials were constantly unable to accurately anticipate the course of events. In the final paragraphs of his memoir,

Pezzullo criticized the recent trend of excessively isolated and secretive diplo- matic work. He argued that effective diplomacy required diplomats who were able to truly get to know the culture and politics of their assigned country, an accom- plishment that he worried was in the process of being devalued.194 Fearing that foreign policymaking was becoming too ideologically driven, Pezzullo champi- oned the merits of a more empiricist approach.

An Acceptable Model of Revolution? Pezzullo in the Post-Revolutionary Pe- riod

The Carter administration’s policy response to the Sandinista victory was a dual-tracked approach that aimed at strengthening the political influence of Ni- caragua’s business elite. It combined clandestine support for private sector groups with the maintenance of constructive relations with the Sandinistas.195

Recognizing that the government was an unstable amalgam of Marxist revolu- tionaries and more moderate membership, the Carter administration hoped to use foreign assistance to entice the Sandinistas into conceding a larger share of

194 Ibid., 248-249.

195 Soares, “Strategy, Ideology, and Human Rights,” 91. 80 power. Pezzullo played a pivotal role in the effort to establish a constructive rela- tionship with the new Nicaraguan government.

Shortly after the Sandinista victory, Pezzullo was sent to Managua with a plane full of medical supplies and food, as well as an instruction to express the president’s goodwill.196 In August 1979, the administration sent a proposed aid bill to Congress for approval. The bill cleared the Senate with relative ease, but it was the subject of intense deliberation in the House.197As the bill was being con- sidered, events in Nicaragua had produced the perception that the Sandinistas were not interested in sharing power. The Sandinistas were locked into a tense standoff with the country’s private sector organizations regarding the composition of Nicaragua’s new government. However, with Pezzullo acting as mediator, the

Sandinistas agreed to accept business leader Arturo Cruz as a member of the newly formed Council of State, a move that eased some of the concern regarding the aid bill. Cruz travelled to Washington and his lobbying effort helped to ensure that the bill passed by a narrow margin.198

To gain Republican support for the aid package, a set of conditions were added to the bill. One of those conditions required the Carter administration to certify that Nicaragua was not sponsoring any terrorist activity beyond its borders before the aid was provided. In September 1980, Carter provided the required

196 Rabe, The Killing Zone, 154.

197 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 31.

198 Kagan, Twilight Struggle, 138-140. 81 certification, and aid began to be disbursed.199 For a brief period in the fall of

1980, Carter’s unorthodox response to the Nicaraguan Revolution appeared to have achieved genuine success. By building constructive relations with the San- dinistas, the administration had found a way to ensure that representatives of Ni- caragua’s private sector maintained a degree of influence in the new govern- ment. The early success of the administration’s approach led Pezzullo to tell

Newsweek that Nicaragua was an “acceptable model” of Revolution.200

The effectiveness of Carter’s approach to relations was a consequence of its compatibility with the Sandinistas own foreign policy and their approach to governance. On the foreign policy front, the government’s major objective was to remove their country from what they perceived as the imperial grasp of the Unit- ed States.201 However, this did not mean that the government rejected the possi- bility of any cooperation. With an economy decimated by political upheaval, the

Sandinistas were in no position to reject any potentially beneficial international relationship. They needed economic assistance desperately and this meant that the Carter administration’s offerings were gratefully accepted.202 The Sandinistas were also not completely close-minded when it came to the prospect of granting

199 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 31.

200 Ibid., 32.

201 Roger Miranda and William Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas (New Jersey: Transaction, 1993), 70.

202 David Close, Nicaragua: the Politics of Democracy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2016), 79. ; Gary Prevost, “The FSLN,” in Nicaragua Without Illusions, ed. Thomas Walker (Wilimington: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 153-154. 82 a degree of political influence to officials who did not support them.203 During the early years of their reign, the Sandinistas did see themselves as the vanguard of the revolution, but their acceptance of a degree of political pluralism separated them from the one party vanguard experiments undertaken in the Soviet Union and Cuba.204 Unlike in Cuba, the majority of Nicaragua’s business elite had sup- ported the revolution and remained in the country in its aftermath.205 The creation of the Council of State, the government body that gave the Sandinista’s opposi- tion an institutional foot hold, was a product of international pressure and the need to appease the business elite’s demand for inclusion.206 The Sandinistas needed aid, and were not opposed to enacting the appointments and reforms re- quested by Pezzullo. By appealing to the interests of the Sandinistas, the Carter administration was able to achieve its objectives.

Pezzullo’s efforts during the post-Revolutionary period attracted the admi- ration of at least one Sandinista diplomat. Arturo Cruz Jr., the son of the new member of the Council of State, was a councillor at the Nicaraguan embassy in

Washington. In his published memoir, Cruz Jr. offered praise for the ambassador.

He called Pezzullo “the most diligent American” he had ever met. He claimed that

203Kenneth E. Morris, Unfinished Revolution: Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua’s Struggle for Libera- tion (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2010), 123.

204 Close, The Politics of Democracy, 24.

205 Ibid.

206 Coatsworth, Clients and Colossus, 179; Close, Politics of Democracy, 24. The Council of State provided the opposition an avenue to influence debate regarding the Political Parties Law of 1982 and the Electoral Law of 1984, which were both key legislative pretexts for Nicaragua’s transition to an electoral democracy. 83 the ambassador played a pivotal role in erecting the cordial relationship between the Carter administration and the revolutionary government. He wrote that “it was due to the force of Pezzullo’s personality and the strength of his convictions that, early in the junta’s history, the United States developed a special relationship with

Nicaragua in several ways.”207 Cruz Jr. cited the assistance that the ambassador provided to the Sandinistas’ effort to obtain badly needed loans from the World

Bank and the Inter-American development bank as evidence for his claim. He also praised Pezzullo for his encouragement of American banks and the In- ternational Monetary Fund to be flexible in their negotiations with the Sandinistas regarding the repayment of the debt that they had inherited from Somoza. The ambassador also ensured that the Sandinistas would have access to the food market in the United States via the Food for Peace program. This access was used to mitigate the wheat shortages that afflicted the Nicaraguan economy dur- ing the first years of the Sandinista government’s time in power. This list of ac- complishments led Cruz Jr. to declare that “Pezzullo provided an example for the world to follow.” 208

Reagan’s victory over Carter in November 1980 dealt a decisive blow to the constructive relationship that Pezzullo had been trying to maintain. Reagan’s criticism of the aid program during his presidential run had significant conse- quences in Central America. Worried by Reagan’s rhetoric and the possibility of a

207 Arturo Cruz Jr., Memoirs of a Counterrevolutionary (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 96-97.

208 Ibid., 97. 84 military intervention should he be elected, the Sandinistas decided they had to become proactive in developing a strategy that would insulate their government from becoming a major focus of the new administration in Washington. That strategy involved providing arms to rebel groups in El Salvador. If the FMLN’s fi- nal offensive proved successful, the Sandinistas believed that it would improve their bargaining position with the incoming Reagan government.209 The amicable relationship that the ambassador had attempted to build deteriorated as tensions between the two countries began to rise.

The credibility of Pezzullo was further undermined by the actions of Rea- gan officials. As one of the key architects of Carter’s failed transition plan, Pez- zullo attracted criticism from Reagan’s State Department transition team. In early

December, the findings of the team’s report leaked into the press.210 The report called for a total reorganization of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. It called for a restriction of the influence of human rights advocates and those that sup- ported social reform as a gradual means to sate the demands of leftist revolu- tionary movements. It demanded that the bureau’s policy making procedures be structured in a way that allowed for the pursuit of U.S. interests without the de- lays brought by human rights concerns. A list outlining the members of the bu- reau that should be dismissed followed the report. Pezzullo, and Robert White,

209 Coatsworth, Clients and Colossus, 180: Greentree, Crossroads, 90-91; Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, 135; Morris, Unfinished Revolution, 137-138.

210Juan de Onis, “Reagan’s State Dept. Latin Team asks Curbs on ‘Social Reformers’,” New York Times, December 4th, 1980. 85 the ambassador to El Salvador, headed the list. White had drawn the ire of Rea- gan officials when he criticized their desire to increase support for El Salvador’s military, a group he believed engaged in violent repression and murder. Carter’s

Central American ambassadors were further undermined when Reagan officials travelled to the region to act as emissaries for the incoming administration. At a time when Pezzullo was in the midst of trying to persuade the Sandinistas to abandon their involvement in arms trafficking, the meddling of Reagan’s transi- tion team served to make his job much more difficult.211

Pezzullo did not accept the actions of Reagan’s transition team quietly.

Along with White, he engaged in a war of words with the Reagan team via the press. In an interview with the Washington Post, Pezzullo expressed concern that the bellicose rhetoric of Reagan officials was going to limit the administration’s options in the region. He argued that the situation in Central America required reasoned pragmatism, not doctrinaire prescription: “it’s going to be our ideologi- cal blinders that may cause us to make mistakes”.212 In a move that was consis- tent with his earlier proclamation that Nicaragua was now an “acceptable model” of Revolution, Pezzullo claimed that Carter’s open minded approach to relations with the Sandinistas “salvaged what was an absolute disaster”. In reference to the Reagan team’s Central American emissaries, Pezzullo called their arrival

“disturbing” and claimed it undercut him while he was “in the midst of a delicate

211 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 64-65.

212 Christopher Dickey, “Central America: From Quagmire to Cauldron?” Foreign Affairs 62, no. 3 (1983): 659. 86 situation”.213 Robert White would be forced out of his position a short time after the episode, but many of the dismissals demanded by the Reagan team’s report would go unachieved. The episode revealed that his behaviour would be closely scrutinized by his new bosses. As Reagan assumed power, tensions appeared to subside, but Pezzullo’s battle with the authors of the transition team’s report, par- ticularly Congressional aid John Carbaugh, was not yet finished.

Staying at the Negotiating Table: the “Zero Option”

In November 1980, the Sandinista National Directorate made the decision to ramp up its support of the FMLN rebels in El Salvador.214 In the months prior, their government had been permissive in allowing arms to be transported into El

Salvador via land and sea, but Reagan’s election had help to convince them that the pace of the arms flow needed to be expedited. The FMLN’s final offensive was slated for the beginning of the new year, and if that deadline was going to be met, supply efforts need to be improved. Nicaraguan military officials devised a plan to carry out an airlift for the delivery of military supplies to the rebels.215 El

Papalonal, an old landing strip in Northern Nicaragua that had been previously been used primarily for agricultural purposes, was chosen as the principal site.

Over a period of months, Papalonal was converted from a small dirt airstrip to a

213 Christopher Dickey, “2nd Ambassador Joins Criticism of Reagan Team,” Washington Post, December 12, 1980.

214 “Revolution Beyond Our Borders: Sandinista Intervention in Central America,” The Department of State, September 1985, 469-470.

215 Ibid. 87 1200 meter paved landing strip outfitted with storage buildings and turnarounds.216

The progress at Papalonal was aerially photographed and monitored by the CIA, and when C-47 military transport planes began to appear at the airfield in early January, the photographs reached the desks of Carter’s senior officials.217 As a project of that magnitude could not have been carried out without the approval of the National Directorate, the photographs were the first evidence the administration had obtained that strongly suggested that the arms flow was state sponsored.218Intelligence reports also revealed that the Sandinistas had al- lowed Radio Liberación, a rebel friendly radio station that the FMLN planned to use to coordinate their final offensive, to begin broadcasting from an unknown location inside Nicaraguan territory. Once these discoveries were combined, the case for suspending the remaining aid disbursements was overwhelming. In a

first attempt to dissuade the Sandinistas from supporting the rebels, Pezzullo was dispatched to meet with their leadership and outline the evidence the admin- istration had obtained. The ambassador met with Tomas Borge, the Sandinistas’

Minister of Interior. He demanded the closure of the airfield at Papalonal and Ra- dio Liberacion. Borge denied that his government was involved in either venture,

216 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, 225.

217 “Revolution Beyond Our Borders,” 470.

218 Pastor, Condemned to Repetition, 225-226. 88 but assured Pezzullo that he would lead an investigation into each operation.219

The following day, Radio Liberacion issued the call that signalled the beginning of the final offensive: “the decisive hour has come to initiate the decisive military and insurrectional battles for the seizure of power”.220 A week after Pezzullo’s conversation with Borge, Carter decided to suspend aid, but left the decision to be affirmed by his incoming replacement.

In early February, Pezzullo was summoned by Alexander Haig for a policy review session. A month prior, Reagan had confirmed the suspension of aid, and the meeting was held to consider potential next steps. Haig’s assistant John

Bushnell proposed three different policy options for the administration’s

Nicaraguan policy and each included the cancellation of aid. The ambassador believed each proposed option was undesirable. He was convinced that circum- stances in Nicaragua were conducive to acquiring diplomatic concessions. He was of the opinion that the Sandinistas’ National Directorate was divided, inexpe- rienced and vulnerable.221 The failure of the FMLN’s final offensive had also re- moved most of the incentive for the Sandinistas to continue to provide them with military support. Recognizing that the remaining aid payments were a key piece of leverage, the ambassador believed that cancellation would be an error that

219 Ibid., 227.; Cable 092030 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Meeting with Borge,” (January 6, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Ar- chive.

220 “Revolution Beyond Our Borders,” 472.

221 Woodward, Veil, 114-115. 89 would set the two countries on a path toward a costly confrontation. In the meet- ing, Pezzullo also felt compelled to address the feasibility of the unspoken alter- native of covert intervention: “You’re going to have to spend a helluva lot of ener- gy to get rid of these guys…They’re tough kids, you’d have to mount one hell of an operation to get them out of there”. He said he selected the “zero option”, and asked that the cancellation of aid be delayed to allow him to engage in another round of negotiations with the Sandinistas.222

To the surprise of some of the meeting’s attendees, Haig responded re- ceptively to Pezzullo’s “zero option” pitch.223 The ambassador was told he would be given three months to continue to negotiate before a final decision on the aid package would be made. Following the completion of the meeting, Pezzullo ac- companied Haig to the White House, where he sought the direct approval of

President Reagan for his diplomatic initiative. Reagan granted his permission and told Pezzullo that he believed that “Americanizing the Central American problem” would be a mistake.224 The ambassador returned to Managua with a reason to believe his earlier concern that the administration would be restricted by their ideological blinders may have been misguided.

In mid-February, Pezzullo began a series of meetings with Sandinista leaders Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez. He outlined the series of steps the

222 Ibid., 116.

223 Kagan, Twilight Struggle, 173-174.

224 Woodward, Veil, 116. 90 Sandinistas had to make if they wished to repair relations between the two gov- ernments. Pezzullo’s list of demands were similar to those he had presented to

Borge a month prior. The airfield at Papalonal needed to be closed, all rebel friendly clandestine radio broadcasting needed to be taken off the air, and most importantly, all involvement in arms trafficking had to end within thirty days of

Pezzullo’s initial warning. If these conditions were not met, the aid package would be promptly cancelled. Ortega and Ramirez replied that they “would not risk our revolution for an uncertain victory in El Salvador”, and that the National

Directorate had made the decision to no longer allow their territory to be used for the purposes of arms trafficking. Ortega pledged that “not a single round” would be trafficked from that point onward. He assured Pezzullo that the decision had been made by the National Directorate to restore more amicable relations with the United States. For the first time, the Sandinistas hinted publicly that they had some involvement in arming the rebels. Ortega conceded that his government had been “very permissive in allowing the FMLN to mount operations in Ni- caragua.”225 Ortega’s admission was a positive sign for Pezzullo. If the Sandin- istas were willing to abandon their denials, he had a shot at achieving genuine concessions.

While Pezzullo was making progress in Managua, the State Department was making an effort to justify its Central American policy publicly. In the time

225 “Revolution Beyond Our Borders,” 493; Cable 0172240 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Meeting with Daniel Ortega,” (February 18, 1981), in CIA Covert Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive. 91 since it elected to confirm the suspension of aid, the White House was inundated with requests from the press to publicly disclose the evidential basis for the deci- sion. In response, Haig decided to publish a White Paper entitled Communist In- terference in El Salvador. The report included the aerial photographs of Papalon- al, but it relied most heavily on intelligence gleaned from the confiscated personal records of Salvadoran Communist leader Shafik Handal. Handal had been in charge of acquiring the arms needed to support the FMLN’s final offensive. The report detailed a global arms shopping expedition that linked all of the world’s most well known communist outposts. Handal had meetings in the Soviet Union,

Vietnam, Cuba, and Nicaragua. He met with leaders of the Palestinian Liberation

Organization, and Communist party leaders from Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Hungary.226 For Cold Warriors like Haig, the Handal intelligence windfall was a timely affirmation of their belief that instability in Central America was the prod- uct of global communist meddling.

In June, four months after its release, the White paper was exposed in the press as an act of disinformation. Jon Glassman, the principal author of the re- port, admitted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that there were “mis- takes” in the report. He conceded that he relied on some “guessing” and that its

findings were “over-embellished”.227 However, at the time of its publication, the

226 “Communist Interference in El Salvador,” The Department of State, February 23 1981.

227 Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Toronto: Between The Lines, 1988), 67-68; Jonathan Kwitny, “Apparent Errors Cloud U.S. ‘White Paper’ on Reds in El Salvador,” The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 1981. 92 report went mostly unchallenged by the press.228 As a result, it helped to popular- ize the perception — both in Washington and amongst the American public — that the suspension of aid was justified on the basis of the Sandinistas’ participa- tion in a global Soviet conspiracy. This had obvious implications for the outcome of Pezzullo’s mission. If the administration decided against terminating the aid package, it would be placed in the embarrassing position of providing aid to a country that it had recently outed as a key participant in a Soviet controlled global arms network. In an administration that viewed the restoration of America’s credi- bility in its battle with the Soviets as a central priority, an embarrassment of this type needed to be avoided at all costs.

Although the White Paper was exposed as an attempt to popularize the administration’s pre-existing assumptions regarding the nature of the Central

American crisis, it inadvertently offered some insight regarding the nature of the

Sandinistas’ relationship with the FMLN. Ambassador Pezzullo believed that the

Sandinistas begrudgingly entered into their relationship with the FMLN, and that this hesitance suggested they would likely abandon the partnership in order to save the aid package. The report’s central objective was to vilify the Sandinistas, but in a revealing contradiction, it actually confirmed that they were not the pas- sionate supporters of global communism that many hardliners in the administra- tion believed they were. The report mentioned that Handal encountered frustra- tion in his dealings with the Sandinistas on multiple occasions. First, Handal and

228 Sklar, Washington’s War, 67-68. 93 his fellow representatives complained that the Sandinistas were attempting to micromanage their behaviour. They tried to restrict Handal’s access to foreign dignitaries by demanding that all the contacts be first approved by them. Second, shortly after the delivery of the arms began, the report acknowledged that the

Sandinistas suspended the operation for an entire month. This occurred after they received threats from Pezzullo regarding their involvement in the scheme and its possible effect on the delivery of the aid package. A report that was pub- lished in order to justify the suspension of aid acknowledged that the threat of that same action had provoked a meaningful response from the Sandinistas only a few months prior.229 Although the major consequence of the report was height- ened support for the termination of aid, subtle details within it revealed that Pez- zullo’s belief that the Sandinistas were willing to relinquish their relationship with the FMLN was well founded.

As the mood in Washington trended toward termination, the atmosphere in

Managua became more amenable to a diplomatic compromise. Reagan’s deci- sion to confirm the suspension of aid was initially met with quiet concern in Man- agua. Sandinista leaders refrained from offering public criticism, preferring to ex- press their concern to Pezzullo in private.230 This period of worried silence was short lived, as thinly veiled criticism of American imperialism soon began to filter

229 “Communist Interference in El Salvador,” 5-7.

230 Cable 0242019 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Nicaraguan Reaction to N.Y. Times Story on Aid Cut-Off,” (January 24, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection. 94 into the Sandinista-friendly press.231 The suspension of aid occurred when Ni- caragua was in the midst of a crippling wheat shortage, a coincidence that helped to galvanize the belief that the decision was an act of excessive cruelty.232

However, attention soon shifted to the possibility that the suspension of aid was a precursor to something more heavily feared. An article published by the Miami

Herald lent credence to the rumour that an army of counterrevolutionaries was being assembled in Miami, Guatemala and Honduras that intended to overthrow the Sandinistas.233. Due in part to this growing concern, the Sandinistas began to make an effort to moderate their pubic rhetoric regarding the United States and its allies in the region. This development was yet another indicator that Pezzullo’s belief in the feasibility of a negotiated agreement regarding the cessation of arms trafficking was well founded.234

Inevitably, the rumours regarding the Contras began to influence Pezzul- lo’s ongoing negotiations regarding aid. During one of their meetings, Ortega pleaded with the ambassador to persuade his government to help limit the threat

231 Cable 0282012 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “FSLN Stirs War Psy- chosis,” (January 28, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection.

232 Cable 0082130 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Public Statements on PL 480 Wheat,” (March 8, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection.

233Cable 0051646 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Sandinistas React to Mi- ami Herald Story on Counterrevolution,” (February 5, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection.

234 Cable 0052328 Fm Amebassy Managua to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Nicaraguan Reaction Border Situation,” (March 5, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Se- curity Archive Collection. 95 posed by the gathering Contra groups.235 This was a signal that concern regard- ing the possibility of terminating aid was no longer the only piece of leverage

Pezzullo had working for him. Clearly, the possibility of a U.S. supported military intervention was influencing the National Directorate’s approach to negotiations.

By the end of March, Pezzullo’s ‘zero option’ had begun to look like a suc- cess. The airstrip at Papalonal was closed, and the Costa Rican pilots that oper- ated there were deported.236 The Sandinistas and their allies in the Nicaraguan press scaled back their public criticism of the Reagan Administration. The For- eign Broadcast Information Service, the CIA’s foreign press monitoring organ, re- ported a marked decline in the amount of coverage being granted to the conflict in El Salvador by Sandinista friendly newspapers and radio stations. The report also confirmed that Radio Liberacion had ceased broadcasting in early

February.237 Even the CIA conceded that it had uncovered no further evidence of arms trafficking, although one of its reports included some unsourced speculation that the Sandinistas may be looking for less detectable means to continue to as- sist the FMLN.238 A growing mass of evidence suggested that Pezzullo had won the concessions that were discussed during his first policy review session with

235 Memorandum for the President Fm Richard Allen, Subj: “Nicaragua,” (February 16, 1981), in CIA Covert Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive.

236 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 36.

237 “Analysis Report: Support for El Salvador Insurgency in Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan Me- dia,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 13th, 1981.

238 Memorandum Fm Central Intelligence Agency National Foreign Assessment Center, Subj: “El Salvador: Insurgent Arms: Stockpiles and Origin,” (March 9 1981), in CIA Cover Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive Collection. 96 Haig and Bushnell, by the three month deadline that he was given. It appeared as though Pezzullo had succeeded where he had failed in the summer of 1979.

He had gained an understanding of the complexities of the society he was em- bedded in, and he used it to accurately assess the primary motivations of those across the negotiating table from him. This time, he had got it right.

A Turn Toward Confrontation: The Decision to Terminate Aid

On April 1st, as the president laid in a hospital bed recovering from an as- sassination attempt, his administration announced that it was terminating the

Nicaraguan aid program. Pezzullo was dumbfounded by the decision. He had been in Washington when the determination was made, but was excluded from the final decision making.239 For a foreign service officer who believed his job was to help encourage regionally informed policy, the decision to terminate aid was confirmation that his position no longer had a reason to exist. Disheartened,

Pezzullo returned to Managua, in hopes that he could deliver word of the termi- nation in person. In a move that he perceived to be a slight against him, he was denied that opportunity, as the administration announced the decision before

Pezzullo arrived.240

The statement that accompanied the administration’s announcement was overtly contradictory. It declared that “strong representations” had been made by

239 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 37.

240 Ibid., 37. 97 the United States to persuade the Sandinistas to abandon their relationship with

Salvadoran guerrillas, and that the response had been “positive”. It acknowl- edged Pezzullo’s achievements, saying that “we have no hard evidence of arms movements through Nicaragua during the past few weeks, and propaganda and some other support activities have been curtailed”. Yet, this section was followed by the concluding assertion that because Nicaragua had been supporting the rebels, it was no longer eligible to receive the aid.241 In essence, what the state- ment made clear was that Pezzullo had been successful, but his achievements could not be trusted.

Many years after the decision, in an interview conducted for the Associa- tion of Diplomatic Studies’ Oral History Project, Pezzullo would summarize the frustration he felt during this period as follows: “The Sandinista’s inflated rhetoric and their support to other guerrilla groups were destabilizing; no question. How- ever, that was containable. But not by pursuing the Reagan administration’s line”.242 The popular ideological assumptions of Reagan’s foreign policy bureau- cracy held that the Sandinistas were the mischievous representatives of a global communist conspiracy. Senior officials were willing to grant Pezzullo permission to lead his diplomatic effort, but trusting the successful outcome of that mission was a separate question. In their mind, the Sandinistas were ideological zealots that were incapable of bargaining in good faith. Paradoxically, the decision to

241 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 123.

242 Lawrence A. Pezzullo, “An Interview with Lawrence Pezzullo,” by Arthur R. Day, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: Foreign Affairs Oral History Project (February 24, 1989): 45. 98 terminate aid demonstrated that this description was likely a more apt description of themselves. Shortly after the aid episode, Pezzullo made the decision to step down. At the end of the summer, he left the foreign service and became a Diplo- mat in Residence at the University of Georgia.243 He had arrived in Nicaragua hoping to make a name for himself, and his departure marked his exit from the foreign service profession.

As with any determination made by a bureaucracy, responsibility for the decision to terminate aid was shared by multiple parties. The final decision was made at a meeting held by the National Security Planning Group. As the func- tional solution for the administration’s chaotic NSC committee system, the NSPG was responsible for most of the administration’s final decision making on matters of foreign policy. At that particular meeting, the more hardline, militaristic perspec- tive associated with the ‘war party’ was well represented. The meeting was chaired by William Clark, who at the time was serving as the Deputy Secretary of

State. Another of the meeting’s attendees was National Security Advisor Richard

Allen, who contended that the aid package needed to be terminated. He pointed to Reagan’s campaign platform, which pledged that Carter’s aid package would be cancelled. He stressed that the lapse in the arms flow was “seasonal,” and referenced the CIA’s belief that the Sandinistas were likely searching for a new route that would be less easily detected. With Pezzullo excluded from the meet- ing, it fell to the meeting’s State Department representative, Clark, to present the

243 Ibid., 42. 99 dissenting opinion. As a hardliner who was convinced that the Sandinistas were a

Soviet proxy, Clark was easily swayed by Allen’s recommendation.244 As a result, the decision was approved with only minimal consideration given to Pezzullo’s mission.245

Although Clark’s involvement in the final decision making unquestionably served to stifle discussion, if a different member of the State Department had at- tended the meeting in Clark’s stead, it is likely that the outcome would have been similar. The group that received the bulk of the blame from Pezzullo were his su- periors in the State Department. During the months that preceded the termina- tion, John Carbaugh had become a trusted advisor to Thomas Enders, the head of the State Department’s Latin America bureau and the ambassador’s most im- mediate supervisor. As a Haig appointee, Enders had little access to the presi- dent’s inner sanctum. He quickly developed a relationship with Carbaugh, a con- gressional aid and known influence peddler, as a means to gain some inside knowledge of the activities being undertaken by the administration’s most influen- tial members. Carbaugh was one of the first American officials to become in- volved in facilitating the Contra program and was a known critic of Pezzullo. In view of the ambassador, the scarce interest Enders granted to his mission was

244 Kengor and Doerner, The Judge, 161-162.

245 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 106. 100 likely a product of this newly formed relationship. Without Enders, Pezzullo had very little support among senior level officials.246

Pezzullo also had great difficulty determining Haig’s honest view of his mission. In the beginning, he had offered encouragement, but at the time when his support was most needed, it was nowhere to be found. In a later interview,

Haig admitted that he did not recall having “any horrendous gas pains” about the decision. He admitted that he respected Pezzullo, but that he did not agree with the suggestion that he had succeeded in stopping the arms flow.247 In an expla- nation that reflected his department’s endemic distrust of those officials that suf- fered from regionalitis, Haig claimed that Pezzullo’s “perspective was very narrow in terms of the time he served as ambassador and how policy was formulated at that time”.248 The dominant sentiment among Pezzullo’s superiors was that he had made the same mistake that he did in his negotiations with Somoza. Unable to acquire the necessary detachment to perceive the situation objectively, he had again been hoodwinked by an untrustworthy opposing party. These doubts re- garding the reliability of the outcome of the ambassador’s negotiations led to the decision to terminate aid.

246 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 35-40.

247 Haig, Caveat, 131. In his memoir, Haig would later take credit for the cessation of arms. He claimed that his decision to send American ships to perform fleet maneuvers off the Cuban coast scared Fidel Castro into persuading his Nicaraguan friends to lay low.

248 Ibid., 37. 101 The final group that deserves some of the credit for the decision to termi- nate aid was Bill Casey and the CIA. The influence of the CIA, and the covert in- tervention plan they were developing, on the decision to terminate aid is rarely acknowledged in the literature published on the episode. One explanation for this omission is the popular belief that Pezzullo’s mission occurred before the Contra program’s timeline of development officially began. The idea that evolved into the

Contra program originated outside of government. It was the brainchild of a group of Nicaraguan exiles and a few Latin American authority figures that sup- ported them. In the conventional narrative, formal American involvement in the scheme did not begin until days after the termination of aid was announced, when Honduran General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez met with Bill Casey and pro- posed the general outline of what would become the contra plan.249 Since the

Contra program was not yet a fully developed policy alternative, the common as- sumption is that its effect on the deliberations regarding aid was likely minimal.

Another possible explanation for the lack of examination granted to the

Contra program and its role in the decision to terminate aid is the scarcity of doc- umentary evidence. During the Reagan administration’s first months in power, official discussion of the covert program was tightly policed, and efforts were

249 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 46-48. 102 made to keep information regarding the program off the record.250 Consequently, accounts that grant serious consideration to the CIA’s contra program are hard to substantiate. A final factor that has contributed to a lack of acknowledgement of

Casey’s role in the termination of aid is that Pezzullo’s public statements have absolved Casey of any blame for the decision. In an interview with journalist Roy

Gutman, Pezzullo claimed that Casey had little involvement in the decision to terminate aid.251 With the documentary evidence scarce, Pezzullo’s published interviews stand as the most reliable source base for an understanding of his mission. As a result, Pezzullo’s belief that Casey did not play a role in the deci- sion has had significant influence on the published accounts of the decision to terminate aid.

However, a thorough examination of the documentary record suggests that Casey likely played a role in the decision. Declassified government commu- nications reveal that the CIA had begun to consider the details of a covert inter- vention plan within weeks of Reagan’s entry into office. As the discussions were shrouded in secrecy, code names for the program were used. At times, members

250Memorandum for Roger Fontaine Fm Bud Nance, Subj: “Small Group Meeting on Nicaragua,” (May 6, 1981) in CIA Covert Operations, From Carter to Obama, Digital National Se- curity Archive Collection. This document is a message sent by a White House staff member to Reagan’s NSC Director for Latin America, Roger Fontaine, admonishing him for discussing an “action paper on Nicaragua” at a meeting with State Department officials. The staff member de- manded that Fontaine not participate in any further meetings regarding the matter, and told him to destroy any papers he had relating to the action. The official also mentions that he made an effort to remove all evidence of the subject paper from the NSC administrative system. The timing and tone of the message suggest strongly that the subject of the paper in question was a policy initia- tive that closely resembled the Contra Program.

251 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 63. 103 of the NSC used the title “Bill’s paper” to refer to the earliest iteration of the covert plan.252 Within the CIA, it was known simply as “the project”.253 By the end of

February, senior officials were already debating proposed plans of covert action.254 While Pezzullo was busy with his negotiations in Managua, Bill Casey was lobbying for funding for his covert program. In early March, Casey’s request was granted when the president signed a finding that authorized new funding for covert initiatives in Central America. The finding called for the creation of a covert arms interdiction program to halt the flow of weapons into El Salvador, Pezzullo’s precise objective.255 Throughout the beginning months of 1981, both the NSC and CIA fielded multiple overtures from representatives of the Contras asking for different types of support. Although those initial requests went unanswered, the overtures demonstrate that high ranking members of the administration had be- gun to gain a familiarity with the size, organization, and strength of the

Contras.256 Although American involvement in the Contra program did not be-

252 Talking Points Fm Caspar Weinberger, Subj: “Comprehensive Strategy for Dealing with Cuban Influence in Central America,” (February 27, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Poli- cy, Digital National Security Archive Collection.

253Peter Kornbluh, “The Covert War,” in Reagan versus the Sandinistas, ed. Thomas W. Walker (London: Westview Press, 1987), 23.

254Memorandum for the Secretary, Fm Robert McFarlane, Subj: “Covert Action Proposal for Cen- tral America,” (February 27, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Se- curity Archive.

255 Presidential Finding, Subj:“Finding Pursuant to Section 662 of the Foreign Assistance Act,” (March 9, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection; Kornbluh, “The Covert War,” 24.

256 Memorandum Fm James Nance to Richard Allen, Subj: “Phonecon: Nicaragua,” (February 21, 1981), in CIA Covert Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive Collec- tion. 104 come formalized until after the termination of aid, the evidence suggests that the administration was actively considering the details of a covert action plan in Ni- caragua during the period of Pezzullo’s mission.

Despite the efforts made by the NSC and the CIA to maintain the confi- dentiality of their deliberations, the evidence suggests that the early development of the Contra program was an open secret. There is proof offered by Pezzullo’s own correspondence that demonstrates that rumours regarding covert interven- tion in Nicaragua pervaded the foreign policy establishment during the early months of 1981. At the policy review session that marked the beginning of his negotiations with the Sandinistas, Pezzullo felt compelled to address the feasibili- ty of covert action. He had become suspicious that the new administration’s ulti- mate objective was regime change, and not simply an interdiction of the arms

flow, as it said publicly. Unprompted, and without any real knowledge that covert action was being seriously considered, he argued that the size of the effort re- quired to force the Sandinistas from power meant that the prospect was likely unachievable.257 Considering the relatively marginal position Pezzullo was forced to occupy, that he was able to accurately interpret the general content of the ad- ministration’s secretive contemplations is revealing.

Yet, despite Pezzullo's suspicion that covert action was being privately considered, Casey did not feature prominently in his assessment of who was re- sponsible for the termination of aid. As previously outlined, this was the result of

257 Woodward, Veil, 116. 105 a meeting between the ambassador and Casey that occurred a day after Pezzul- lo had learned that aid was going to be terminated. Casey expressed some con- fusion regarding the reasons for the termination of aid. In reference to the arms

flow into Salvador, Casey asked Pezzullo “that thing was cut off wasn’t it?”.258

Likely feeling encouraged by the fact that he appeared to have finally found a senior official that was willing to take him seriously, Pezzullo again explained that the administration needed to carefully manage its relations with the Sandinistas.

The smartest play was diplomacy, not military intervention. Casey proceeded to probe Pezzullo’s knowledge of the Sandinistas, asking how strong their grip on power was and if the administration “should knock these guys over?”. Reiterating the argument he made earlier to Haig, Pezzullo suggested that an attack against the Sandinistas would likely fortify their control and encourage them to strength- en relations with Cuba and the Soviets. Pezzullo would later admit that he found

Casey to be a terrific listener who seemed reasonable.259 That meeting led Pez- zullo to believe that Casey was not a proponent of the Contra program. In an in- terview, the ambassador said that he did not believe Casey “was an enthusiast of this at all”.260

Pezzullo misjudged Casey’s motives for arranging the meeting. The timing and content of their discussion suggests that Casey’s central priority was to as-

258 Ibid., 120.

259 Ibid., 121.

260 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 63. 106 sess the state of Pezzullo’s allegiances and to gather information that would aid him as he continued to contemplate the details of his covert action plan. Accord- ing to one of his subordinates at the CIA, Casey had decided “very early on” that the Sandinistas were the root of the problem in Central American and that they needed to be removed.261 Casey wanted to know if the Sandinistas could be ushered out of power by military force, and if Pezzullo was going to be an incon- venience or an asset for his cause. A month prior to their conversation, Casey had requested and won approval for a funding package for covert activity in Ni- caragua.262 Days before their exchange, Casey had anxiously sought the ap- proval of the NSPG for his latest covert action paper.263 Shortly after his meeting with the ambassador, Casey met with General Alvarez to discuss a provisional framework for a U.S. supported Contra War.264 Those are not the actions of an official with a less than enthusiastic interest in orchestrating a covert intervention in Nicaragua.

The nascent Contra program had an effect on the outcome of Pezzullo’s mission. In a foreign bureaucracy that held an ideological preference for military intervention, the possibility of covert intervention stood as a far more attractive

261 Rizzo, The Company Man, 83.

262 Presidential Finding, Subj: “Finding Pursuant to Section 662 of the Foreign Assistance Act,” (March 9, 1981), in Nicaragua: The Making of U.S. Policy, Digital National Security Archive Collection.; Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 46-48.

263 Memorandum Fm Janet Colson to Richard Allen, Subj: “National Security Planning Group Meeting,” (March 24, 1981), in CIA Covert Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive Collection.

264 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 46. 107 alternative to the ambassador’s diplomatic mission. Even in its infancy, Casey’s covert intervention plan carried with it the potential to become an initiative that was perfectly tailored to the administration’s foreign policy priorities. It presented

Reagan’s foreign policy decision makers the opportunity to behave more aggres- sively in the global battle against the Soviets, yet not so aggressively as to in-

flame the popular anxiety regarding military intervention that proliferated following

Vietnam. Considering the ideological preferences that pervaded the senior levels of Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy, even a partially developed covert inter- vention program would be perceived as a more appealing solution than an un- trustworthy diplomatic compromise. As rumours of intervention helped to push the Sandinistas toward making concessions, those same rumours were limiting support for Pezzullo’s negotiations back in Washington.

Conclusion

The decision to terminate aid to the Sandinistas was an important turning point in Reagan’s Central American policy. It marked the beginning of a departure from the diplomatic approach that Carter had previously undertaken. As a pre- cursor to the Contra program, the decision set the Reagan administration onto what would become a costly and ineffective path. At least one member of the administration recognized that the new policy trajectory was misguided, but the organization and culture of Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy helped to extin- guish his influence. Had senior level officials been more receptive to the policy 108 recommendations of Lawrence Pezzullo, the lowly yet experienced ambassador to Nicaragua, the outcome of Reagan’s Central American policy would have likely been very different.

During his public quarrel with the Reagan transition team, Pezzullo articu- lated a prescient recognition of the characteristics of his new operating environ- ment. Yet, despite his concern regarding the ideological blinders of his new bosses, he was persuaded, by both the president and Haig, that his diplomatic initiative would be given fair consideration. However, in a foreign policy bureau- cracy that had been organized and staffed with ideological conformity in mind,

Pezzullo’s intiative and the ideological perspective of his superiors proved to be incompatible. The decision to terminate aid was an error caused by narrow mindedness on the behalf of Reagan’s highest ranking foreign policy officials.

Pezzullo’s initiative was informed by a nuanced understanding of the situation the

Sandinistas found themselves in, and was effective in achieving the administra- tion’s proclaimed goal: the interdiction of the arms flow between Nicaragua and

El Salvador. But, the perception of the Sandinistas that pervaded the senior lev- els of the Reagan administration lacked nuance. According to the ‘war party,’ the

Sandinistas were a regional proxy for a global communist conspiracy master- minded by Cuba and the Soviet Union. Any action that countered that interpreta- tion was dismissed as deceptive posturing. Using the organizational advantages available to it, the ‘war party’ effectively translated this ideological perspective into policy. In the case of the termination of aid to Nicaragua, a divided State De- 109 partment allowed the ‘war party’ to use its control over the NSC and CIA, as well as its considerable access to president, to move policy in a more militaristic di- rection.

This chapter has offered a detailed examination of the Reagan administra- tion’s decision to terminate aid to Nicaragua, and Ambassador Pezzullo’s effort to prevent it. First, Pezzullo’s involvement in the Carter administration’s response to the Nicaraguan Revolution was outlined. Under Carter, Pezzullo enjoyed a signif- icant degree of policy influence. He was intimately involved in crafting and exe- cuting the administration’s transition strategy. He led the administration’s negotia- tions with Somoza, the component of the plan that proved to be the scheme’s undoing. Pezzullo’s trust of Somoza, and the dictator’s assessment regarding the vitality of the National Guard, led Carter’s transition plan to become an infamous blunder. The lessons Pezzullo learned during this period would later inform his approach to negotiations with the Sandinistas. Next, Pezzullo’s public spat with

Reagan’s State Department transition team was discussed. The ambassador’s association with the Somoza transition plan led him to be viewed by the Reagan team as a target for dismissal. The subsequent quarrel revealed Pezzullo’s per- ception of his new operating environment and previewed the scrutiny his actions would attract under Reagan.

The succeeding section of this chapter focused on the events that oc- curred during the suspension of aid. After Reagan affirmed the suspension, Pez- zullo gained permission to engage in negotiations with the Sandinistas. While the 110 ambassador was in Managua, Haig’s State Department made an effort to justify the suspension by publishing a White Paper that argued that the Sandinistas were representatives of a global communist conspiracy. As his own superiors worked to undermine him, Pezzullo began to make progress. He had rightly judged that the Sandinistas would be willing to sacrifice their relationship with the rebels if it meant they would receive the badly needed remaining aid. A month after negotiations began, Pezzullo had earned each of the concessions he set out to acquire. The CIA admitted that it had discovered no evidence that the arms

flow had continued, while its foreign media monitoring organ reported that Radio

Liberación had been taken off the air.265 The airstrip at Papalonal was closed and the pilots operating there were deported.266 Even Pezzullo’s superiors at State, who doubted the possibility that the ambassador’s negotiations would achieve any progress, conceded in the department’s public statement regarding the ter- mination of aid that the Sandinistas’ response had been positive.267

However, despite the ambassador’s success, the aid package was termi- nated. The final section of this chapter outlined the bureaucratic maneuvers that led to that determination. The responsibility for the decision was shared by mem- bers of the NSC, the State Department and the CIA. As Pezzullo was excluded

265Memorandum Fm Central Intelligence Agency National Foreign Assessment Center, Subj: “El Salvador: Insurgent Arms: Stockpiles and Origin,” (March 9, 1981), in CIA Cover Operations: From Carter to Obama, Digital National Security Archive Collection; “Analysis Report: Support for El Salvador Insurgency in Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan Media,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, February 13th, 1981.

266 Gutman, Banana Diplomacy, 36.

267 Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 123. 111 from the final decision making process, the authority fell exclusively to the atten- dees of a NSPG meeting. With William Clark, a committed member of the ‘war party’, serving as both Chair and the State Department’s representative at the decisive meeting, the termination was approved with little resistance. Pezzullo also received scant support from his other superiors at State. Thomas Enders’ relationship with a known Pezzullo critic, and Alexander Haig’s concern regarding the ambassador’s inability to see the bigger picture, led each official to doubt the reliability of Pezzullo’s achievements. Finally, as the ambassador began to nego- tiate with the Sandinistas, another member of the ‘war party,’ Bill Casey, simulta- neously set out to develop a covert intervention plan for Nicaragua. In early

March, when Casey successively persuaded the president to authorize improved funding for covert activity in Central America, it was clear that the attention of

Reagan’s senior officials had shifted away from Pezzullo’s negotiations.

The decision to terminate aid to Nicaragua is a revealing exemplification of the way in which Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy could produce ill-informed policy. In an administration that primarily valued allegiance to the presidential line, individuals who based their policy recommendations on regional expertise were at a disadvantage. Early in Reagan’s first term, this set of circumstances caused a group of career foreign service members, which included Pezzullo, to leave the profession. The upcoming chapter details the characteristics of a new variety of diplomat who filled the void caused by this exodus. With their policy- making influence being increasingly marginalized, members of the foreign ser- 112 vice began to adapt to Reagan’s style of bureaucratic management. This adapta- tion to the administration’s fixation on ideological allegiance to the president be- came the basis for the rise of a different breed of U.S. diplomat in Central Ameri- ca.

I was up at the Council (Council of Foreign Relations) last night, with a bunch of people —including Elliot Abrams. There’s no way to begin this dis- cussion anymore. And I went home just feeling, you know, where the hell do we go as a country anymore? I mean, I don’t want to defend anybody. But I will look hard and honestly at reality, and I think I can do it as well as the next guy. And that’s what we need, you know, in diplomacy. We don’t need brilliance, we need people who are willing to go in and deal with the facts, and work with the realities, and hopefully once in a while have an inspira- tion, or a little sense of something. We don’t need this, this is embarrassing. We’ve become a Banana Republic. - Lawrence Pezzullo 268

268 Pezzullo, “Interview with Lawrence Pezzullo,” 46. 113 Chapter 3: The Discreet Diplomat: Ambassador John Negroponte in Honduras

The owner of a half century long career that saw him ascend from the lev- el of a foreign service officer to the height of a high ranking foreign policy execu- tive, John Negroponte is one of the most highly credentialed diplomats of the contemporary era. His career in the foreign service included junior level assign- ments in Hong Kong, Vietnam, France, Ecuador and Greece. He served as an ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations, and Iraq.

He twice occupied positions within the National Security Council, as he acted as

Nixon’s principal officer for Vietnam and as Deputy National Security Advisor dur- ing Reagan’s second term. In 2005, he became President George W. Bush’s Di- rector of National Intelligence, a job which granted him cabinet rank. In his final stint of public service, he acted as the Deputy Secretary of State during Bush’s

final two years in office, an achievement that placed him on a list of only three career foreign serviceman who have held that position.269 In a field where upward mobility is achieved with considerable difficulty, Negroponte stands as an exem- plification of the kind of individual who excels in the mysterious world of the for- eign policy bureaucrat.

Despite a career filled with a litany of influential positions, it is Negro- ponte’s first ambassadorship that often shapes his public reputation. His tenure as Reagan’s ambassador to Honduras occurred during a time of great transition for his host country. Following the Nicaraguan Revolution and the onset of civil

269 Harry W. Kopp and Charles A. Gillespie, Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the U.S. Foreign Service (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2011), 44-45. 114 war in El Salvador, Honduras became a country of rising geopolitical significance for the United States.270 Under Carter, a policy approach that combined milita- rization and democratization was adopted in an effort to restrict the spread of in- surgency in the region. Using military aid as an enticement, the Carter adminis- tration persuaded Honduras’ military leaders to incrementally transfer power to a democratically elected civilian government.271 In the summer of 1980, this ap- proach achieved mixed results when an election failed to provide any party the majority required to govern. In a move that was a testament to the military’s last- ing authority in the democratic era, General Policarpo Paz Garcia was granted the role of president on an interim basis.272

Under Reagan, the approach began by Carter was maintained, but a far greater emphasis was placed on military aid and the conversion of Honduras into a base for U.S. military intervention in the region. In 1981, Paz was replaced by

Roberto Suazo Cordova. However, the close relationship that Suazo’s Comman- der of the Honduran Armed Forces, General Augusto Alvarez, built with the CIA

270 Carothers, In the Name of Democracy, 48.

271 Rachel Sieder, “Elections and Democratization in Honduras since 1980,” Democratization 3, no. 2 (1996): 21.

272 Philip L. Shephard, “The Tragic Course and Consequences of U.S. Policy in Honduras,” World Policy Journal 2, no. 1 (Fall 1984): 111-114; Sieder, “Elections and Democratization,” 23. 115 and Negroponte helped to ensure that the newly formed civilian government con- tinued to act as a secondary authority.273

Negroponte’s arrival in Tegucigalpa marked the beginning of a rapid ac- celeration of the militarization of the country. During his three year term of ser- vice, American military aid skyrocketed. This influx helped transform the Hon- duran Armed Forces into one of the preeminent fighting forces in Central Ameri- ca. An undisclosed portion of the aid was also siphoned to the Nicaraguan De- mocratic Force (FDN), a group of CIA sponsored counterrevolutionary fighters that had taken up camp along the country’s southeastern border.274 Beginning in

1982, the FDN made forays into Nicaragua to harass villages and attack in- frastructure.275 As the evidence of the Contras’ behaviour mounted, Negroponte’s embassy offered public denials that the group was being given safe haven in

Honduras.276 The ambassador’s reputation was also hurt by his close relation- ship with General Alvarez, who was forced into exile in 1984 following accusa- tions of corruption and involvement in human rights abuses. A final — and per-

273 Donald E. Schulz and Deborah Sundloff-Schulz, The United States, Honduras, and the Crisis in Central America (Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 87-88; Thomas Leonard, The History of Honduras (California: Greenwood, 2011), 157-158,; Some commentators believe that Alvarez’s close relationship with the Reagan administration led to a period in which the Honduran military enjoyed its highest degree of power in history, despite the country’s transition to civilian rule: J. Mark Ruhl, “Redefining Civil-Military Relations in Honduras,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 34 - 38; Sieder, “Elections and Democratization,” 23.

274 Allan Nairn, “The United States Militarizes Honduras” in Honduras: Portrait of a Captive Na- tion, ed. Nancy Peckenham and Annie Street (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), 295.

275 Sklar, Washington’s War, 124.

276 Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1991), 100-101. 116 haps most damning — accusation levelled at Negroponte is that he downplayed the abuses of Alvarez and other members of the Honduran military in his em- bassy’s human rights reporting. Critics believe that the ambassador, out of a de- sire to ensure that the American congress did not interfere with Contra funding or aid to Honduras, edited the reports to conceal the severity of the abuses that were taking place.

For an individual that is often viewed as an influential actor in Reagan’s

Central American policy, Negroponte appears rarely in the literature published on the subject. In his 700 page account of Reagan’s Nicaraguan Policy, Robert Ka- gan provides no discussion of Negroponte and his role in the Contra program.

The ambassador also receives no mention in Bob Woodward’s examination of the agency’s secret wars. In Sam Dillon’s examination of the Contra program,

Negroponte is similarly absent. The ambassador is given only slight considera- tion in Roy Gutman and Dario Moreno’s work on Central America. Both writers acknowledge that Negroponte played a significant role, but neglect to offer de- tailed examinations of his behaviour. William Leogrande’s In Our Backyard, the most recently updated and comprehensive account of the bureaucratic maneu- vering behind Reagan’s Central American Policy, pointed to Negroponte’s rela- tionship with Alvarez as an important element of the Contra scheme. But, little consideration is given to the ambassador’s involvement with the Contra program 117 at an operational level or his attempt to conceal the human rights reporting pro- duced by his embassy.277

A far larger trove of information regarding Negroponte and his time in

Honduras is provided by media sources. A number of polemical accounts of the ambassador’s behaviour were published by the American press. Articles in

Newsweek and the Rolling Stone helped to cultivate the image that Negroponte was the “point man” of the administration’s Contra program.278 He was identified as one of the core members of a new group of Reagan ambassadors called “the

Proconsuls”, who were dispatched to Central America armed with the unprece- dented authority needed to implement the administration’s desired policy.279 A decade after Negroponte’s stint in Honduras, the Baltimore Sun published a mul- ti-part exposé detailing the activity of Battalion 316, a special unit within the Hon- duran military that kidnapped, tortured, and executed alleged communist subver- sives. The series argued that Negroponte’s embassy worked to conceal the hu- man rights abuses perpetrated by this unit, a charge the ambassador denied in a follow-up interview.280

277 Each of the works mentioned in this paragraph are cited at various other points in this thesis, with the exception of: Sam Dillon, Commandos: The CIA and Nicaragua’s Contra Rebels (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1992).

278John Brecher et al, “A Secret War for Nicaragua,” Newsweek, November 8, 1982.

279 Christopher Dickey, “The Proconsuls,” The Rolling Stone, August 18 1983.

280 Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, “A Carefully Crafted Deception,” Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1995; Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, “Former Envoy to Honduras Says He Did What He Could,” Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1995. 118 There is an alternative body of published work that questions the image of

Negroponte as proconsul. Two of the most detailed accounts of his tenure in

Honduras are provided by his biography, and by Donald and Deborah Schultz’s study of Reagan’s Honduran policy. Both books suggest that the media narrative of Negroponte’s time in Honduras over-exaggerates his influence. Schultz and

Schultz, citing an interview with the ambassador, downplayed his relationship with Alvarez. After expressing some skepticism regarding the anonymous sources that formed the basis of many of the media reports, the authors argued that Negroponte’s account of events is the most reliable. According to the am- bassador, he had little day to day contact with the General, and he at no point offered him advice regarding Honduran military operations.281 George Liebmann,

Negroponte’s biographer and childhood friend, also made an attempt to excul- pate the ambassador. He argued that the image of Negroponte as proconsul was

“over-drawn”. He pointed to other members of the Reagan administration who he believed exercised greater influence than the ambassador. He argued that the

Pentagon’s General Paul Gorman was the U.S. official who most regularly inter- acted with the Honduran military. Liebmann also reminded his readers that Ne- groponte was supervised by a ‘war party’ of officials; a group which included

Constantine Menges, Bill Casey, and Negroponte’s boss, William Clark. As he

281 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Crisis in Central America, 76. 119 was mostly doing the bidding of this more powerful group, Liebmann believed the ambassador’s role in shaping policy was greatly exaggerated in the press.282

The collection of published work that examines Negroponte’s time in Hon- duras is supplemented by a collection of declassified documents. Upon his re- tirement from the foreign service in 1998, Negroponte authorized the declassifi- cation of much of the correspondence he produced during his time as ambas- sador. This authorization allowed the National Security Archive to compile a two part collection of documents that comprises a significant portion of his communi- cations while in office. With the exception of the Liebmann biography, this mas- sive document disclosure occurred after the published accounts of Negroponte’s tenure had already been written. As a result, the collection provides a reference base that can be used to reassess the disputed image of Negroponte’s term.

During the early years of Reagan’s presidency, the members of the foreign service were heavily scrutinized. Between 1981 and 1982, officials who demon- strated a willingness to resist the policy prescriptions offered by the president and his closest circle of advisors were gradually purged from the State Department’s

Bureau of Inter-American affairs. The exodus began with William Bowdler, and soon grew to include Robert White, Jack Binns and Lawrence Pezzullo. Although his predecessors encountered difficulty adhering to the presidential line in the face of contrary evidence on the ground, Negroponte proved to be unencum- bered in this regard. The ambassador’s staunch allegiance to the president’s

282 Liebmann, The Last American Diplomat, 105-106. 120 agenda allowed him to excel within the confines of Reagan’s foreign policy bu- reaucracy. While other foreign service officers were being marginalized out of the policymaking process, Negroponte saw his influence swell. The image of Negro- ponte as proconsul is an exaggerated interpretation, but relative to his predeces- sors and colleagues in the region, he exercised an abnormal degree of influence.

In Honduras, Negroponte cultivated a reputation that would help to fuel his per- sonal ascent to the heights of the foreign policy bureaucracy. He became known as a discreet foreign service officer who could perform even the most controver- sial tasks. He demonstrated that he possessed the necessary traits to be consid- ered an effective foreign service worker in an increasingly ideological foreign pol- icymaking environment. Negroponte’s actions in Honduras, combined with his career ascent afterwards, demonstrate the evolution in the nature of diplomatic work brought by the increasing politicization of the foreign policy making process.

This chapter argues that Ambassador Negroponte was a central player in the execution of the administration’s Contra policy. It also considers the factors that contributed to the abnormal degree of influence that he enjoyed. First, the circumstances that led to Negroponte’s appointment as ambassador are dis- cussed. His ideological ties to the administration’s elite officials made him an ide- al candidate to act as the regional representative of the ‘war party’. Next, Negro- ponte’s involvement in the Contra program is examined. Once in Tegucigalpa,

Negroponte proved to be an effective steward for the wave of aid money that the administration poured into the region. Although the precise nature of the ambas- 121 sador’s involvement in the Contra program remains largely unknown, his skilled performance as an intermediary between the Reagan administration and General

Alvarez was integral to the maintenance of Honduran support for the Contra scheme. The limited surviving documentary evidence also demonstrates that the ambassador was kept informed of the status of the Contras, and at times offered operational advice.

The ambassador provided further assistance to the Contra program on the public relations front. Negroponte’s involvement in the administration’s effort to sell its Central American policy to Congress and the American public was a con- sequence of his deep belief in the worthiness of the policy’s motives. The am- bassador’s skills of persuasion also made him a useful asset in an administration that believed resistance to its foreign policy decisions could be overcome using the right public relations strategy. Finally, Negroponte’s involvement in censoring his embassy’s human rights reporting is considered. Concerned that an acknowl- edgement of the abuses would add strength to the congressional desire to limit

Contra funding and military aid to Honduras, Negroponte worked to ensure that the severity of the abuses went unrecognized. Declassified evidence suggests that Negroponte was involved in editing his embassy’s reports and had ex- pressed a concern about creating a human rights problem for Honduras. His edit- ing of the human rights reports illustrates Negroponte’s devout commitment to his administration’s policy interests. If he believed that it would slow the Soviet and 122 Cuban influence in the region, the ambassador was willing to engage in be- haviour that was ethically questionable.

Turnover in Tegucigalpa: the Demise of Jack Binns

A significant portion of the reasoning that informed John Negroponte’s se- lection as ambassador is uncovered by a consideration of the official he re- placed. His predecessor was Jack Binns, a career diplomat with extensive expe- rience in Central America. Binns’ demise provides insights that help to demon- strate the context of Negroponte’s arrival, while Binns’ heavily moral understand- ing of his duties also presents an illustrative contrast compared to that held by his successor. Binns was another ambassador whose name had appeared on Rea- gan transition team’s list of targets for dismissal.283 He fell out with the new ad- ministration over his human rights reporting and resistance to the Contra pro- gram. Binns had begun to devote attention in his embassy’s human rights reports to the Honduran military’s involvement in disappearances. However, when Rea- gan entered office, his CIA station chief informed him that high ranking members of the agency wanted him to “back off all that liberal stuff”.284 Binns was also one of the earliest critics of the Contra program. He was a supporter of Lawrence

Pezzullo’s attempt to establish more amicable relations with the Sandinistas, and

283 Jack R. Binns, “Interview with Ambassador Jack R. Binns,” by Charles Stuart Kennedy, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: Foreign Affairs Oral History Project (July 25, 1990), 29.

284Jack R. Binns, The United States in Honduras, 1980-1981: An Ambassador’s Memoir (North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2000), 163. 123 believed that the notion of using groups of former National Guardsmen to topple the government was “sheer nonsense”.285 Like Pezzullo, Binns’ lack of support for the use of covert intervention ensured that his tenure under Reagan would be short.

Although his ideological disagreement with his new bosses made his dis- missal inevitable, the decisive factor that led to Binns’ exit was his unwillingness to adhere to the new administration’s demand to better conceal his reporting of human rights abuses. In a meeting that was later recounted in Binns’ memoir,

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders instructed him to restrict all of his correspondence regarding the abuses to a secret channel monitored by the CIA.

All documents sent via this channel would be printed and transported as hard copies to help ensure that the contents of each message did not leak or remain on the formal documentary record. As the CIA had been actively attempting to dissuade the ambassador from reporting the abuses for months, if Binns chose to accept this compromise, it would make certain that the administration’s policy remained unresponsive to the abuses that were occurring. Thus, Binns believed the suggestion was objectionable. Although he did not inform Enders of his un- willingness to abide by the request, Binns judged that “there was no doubt that

Enders inferred from my lack of response that I would not comply”.286 Soon after,

Enders informed Binns that he would be replaced. Believing that his dismissal

285 Binns, “Interview with Jack R. Binns,” 34.

286 Binns, United States in Honduras, 217-218. 124 would inject uncertainty during a key stage of Honduras’ democratic develop- ment, Binns pleaded to keep his job.287 His plea was ignored, and he was forced to leave the position.

In large part, Negroponte was selected for the job because it was believed that he would be willing to do what Binns would not. After the Contra program became funded and operational, the need to find an official who was willing to act as an obedient steward for the initiative became more pressing. Negroponte’s experience during his time in Vietnam, and the ideological perspective it helped to inform, made him an ideal candidate. In Vietnam, Negroponte occupied a se- ries of different roles over a nine year period. He began as a low-level provincial reporting officer, but his translation skills soon led him to become a member of the American delegation that handled the Paris Peace Accords.288 After attracting the attention of Henry Kissinger, Negroponte joined his NSC staff, eventually serving as his principal officer on Vietnam.289 He became a close associate of

Kissinger’s, but the two fell out over the details of the final peace agreement. Ne- groponte was critical of Kissinger’s willingness to sign the agreement despite the absence of any guarantees regarding the withdrawal of Northern Vietnamese

287 Ibid., 218.

288 Liebmann, Last American Diplomat, 30, 33. An aid worker that encountered Negroponte dur- ing his time as a field officer in Vietnam recalled that the future Ambassador once told her that “everyone lies a little” in their field reporting.

289 Ibid., 43-44; Leogrande, Our Own Backyard, 79; In an episode that testifies to the early de- velopment of Negroponte’s unencumbered approach to foreign policymaking, his entry into the elite level of the NSC was made possible by a void created by Roger Morris and Anthony Lake, who resigned following the bombing of Cambodia. 125 troops from South Vietnam.290 Negroponte’s concerns regarding the agreement would prove prescient, which helped to fortify his burgeoning reputation. He emerged from the episode as a reputed critic of Kissinger renowned for his com- petence and discretion.291 His experience led him to develop a deep distrust of negotiations with Marxists. Like many American officials involved in Vietnam, he also acquired an anxious view of foreign military entanglements. In Honduras, these two aspects of his ideological perspective coalesced into support for covert intervention.

Negroponte’s support for covert intervention was not the only aspect of his ideological perspective that helped him to ingratiate himself with the administra- tion’s most influential officials. By his own assessment, Negroponte was not a

Cold Warrior.292 He believed that his fear of excessive military involvement dis- tanced him from that perspective, however, this distinction actually placed him in the mainstream of Reagan’s foreign policy bureaucracy. Although he may not have been as militaristic as many members of the ‘war party,’ he shared most of their beliefs. Like many foreign policy thinkers of his era, he viewed the world ac- cording to a binary Cold War template. He held a resolute belief that the conflict with the Soviets remained the most pressing issue on the American foreign policy agenda. He was a supporter of battles by proxy and he believed the primary

290 Liebmann, Last American Diplomat, 65-66.

291 Ibid., 97.

292 Ibid. 126 cause of instability in the Third World was Soviet meddling. Consequently, he was a passionate proponent of Reagan’s Central American policy. He was con- vinced that the region had become the Cold War’s most significant front and that the advance of Soviet influence there needed to be more aggressively confront- ed. Like the rest of the administration’s hardliners, he believed Nicaragua was on the precipice of becoming “another Cuba,” and his experience in Vietnam con- vinced him that the Sandinistas would never negotiate themselves out of power.293 He may not have called himself a Cold Warrior, but his experience and ideological perspective made him well qualified to do the bidding of the ‘war par- ty’ in Honduras.

Negroponte and the ‘Special Project’

An analysis of the nature of Negroponte’s involvement in the Contra pro- gram should open with a caveat regarding the limitations of the available docu- mentary evidence that outlines his role. The ambassador was a staunch propo- nent of restricting any discussion of the program to back channel correspon- dence, which helped to ensure that many of the precise details of his involvement were not preserved in the documentary record.294 However, the National Security

293 Cable 3864 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Central American Notes: The U.S. and Nicaragua,” (May 6, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Ar- chive Collection, Doc 001.

294 On at least one occasion, Negroponte admonished other State Department officials — includ- ing Thomas Enders — for their reckless use of open channels to discuss information related to the program: Cable 3420 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Venezuelan Relations with Nicaragua,” (April 8, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Col- lection, Doc 130. 127 Archives collection does offer some information that helps to illustrate the role played by the ambassador, particularly with regard to his relationship with Al- varez, as well as his use of a “roger channel” to communicate directly with his administration’s foreign policy principals. When combined with the details provid- ed by the published literature on the Contra program, a general understanding of the extent of Negroponte’s involvement in “our special project” — as he called it

— can be achieved.295

Negroponte arrived in Tegucigalpa in the fall of 1981 with a clear objective.

When he was selected for the position, the effort to fund the Contras was well underway. On November 23, mere weeks after the ambassador’s arrival, the president officially authorized the creation of a paramilitary force composed of

Nicaraguan exiles and provided them with 20 million dollars in aid.296 The same directive simultaneously granted 50 million dollars in military assistance to El

Salvador and Honduras.297 Negroponte was given added resources to ensure that this new influx of funds was put to good use. Upon his arrival, the embassy in Tegucigalpa received a status upgrade from Class 2 to Class 4, a change that allowed him to organize a much larger staff.298 Military advisors and intelligence

295 Memorandum Fm John Negroponte to Thomas Enders, William Clark and Bill Casey, Subj: “Contadora Process: Next Steps,” (May 21, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Ar- chive Collection, Doc 110.

296 Binns, United States in Honduras, 301-302.

297 Ronald Reagan. “National Security Decision Directive Number 17”, January 4, 1982, The White House.

298 Barbara Crossette, “A Growing Embassy Reflects Role in Area,” New York Times, July 23, 1983. 128 operatives also began to flood into the country, as the number of CIA officials working out of the embassy doubled.299 In a matter of months, the embassy was converted from a diplomatic backwater to one of the most well staffed posts in the region. That Negroponte’s appointment occurred concurrently with this build- up indicates that he was sent to Tegucigalpa with two objectives firmly in mind: to strengthen and maintain ties with the Honduran army, and ensure that Honduras remained a friendly base of operations for the FDN.

Negroponte’s ability to accomplish his goal depended largely on his rela- tionship with General Alvarez. During the first two years of the ambassador’s tenure, Alvarez was the most powerful figure in Honduras. The General had con- troversially ascended from the leader of the National Police (FUSEP) to the

Commander of the Armed Forces by skillfully building allegiances with the CIA and the new Honduran President, Roberto Suazo.300 He was a fierce anti-Com- munist who envied the Argentine military dictatorship for the methods it used to handle leftist subversion.301 With the influx of military aid brought by the onset of the Reagan administration’s contra program, a policy decision Alvarez helped in- stigate, the General became all the more powerful.302 As Negroponte’s primary mission was to ensure that Honduran support for the Contra scheme was main-

299 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Crisis in Central America, 67; Sklar, Washington’s War, 125.

300 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Crisis in Central America, 74-75.

301 Shephard, “Tragic Course,” 114.

302 Carothers, In the Name of Democracy, 49. 129 tained, managing Alvarez would become one of the ambassador’s most impor- tant tasks.

Alvarez was temperamental and prone to overreaction, which helped make Negroponte’s job an arduous one. However, during his first years in office, he proved capable. When Suazo chose Alvarez as his preference, Negroponte informed the State Department that the selection was “most convenient” for the administration’s interests in Honduras.303 The ambassador soon gained the trust of the General by acting as a faithful intermediary between Alvarez and the Rea- gan administration. He reported the General’s countless requests for military equipment to Washington, and regularly opined that the requests should be met.

Negroponte believed that the arms disparity being created by the Soviet relation- ship with Nicaragua needed to be aggressively rectified, leading him to take a sympathetic view of Alvarez’s demands.304 In a cable sent in February of 1982,

Negroponte reported Alvarez’s request that the Honduran Air Force be outfitted with F-5 and F-4 fighter jets. He also asked that the Reagan administration help to finance the purchase of de Havilland Buffalo transport planes from Canada.

Negroponte warned that if the Reagan administration refused to heed the re- quest, the “Finlandization” of Honduras might occur. By this he meant that the

303 Cable 214 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Selection of Honduran Commander-in-Chief,” (January 1, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Col- lection, Doc 083.

304 Cable 9206 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “The Honduran and Nicaraguan Air Forces,” (October 10, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive, Doc 192. 130 pressure to take a more diplomatic approach to relations with the Sandinistas would grow. He argued that Alvarez’s request be approved because it would help to strengthen his position as Commander and suggested this would be a benefit given his perceived usefulness to the United States.305

Negroponte also helped to organize Alvarez’s many visits to Washington.

Ahead of each visit, the ambassador sent a cable filled with instructions regard- ing who should meet with the General and what the subject matter of the conver- sation should be. In a July 1982 cable, Negroponte reminded the State Depart- ment that it “would be unwise to leave General Alvarez unattended for prolonged periods of time,” in fear that word of their secret arrangements would reach an unfriendly official or Congressional representative.306 The meetings were part of the ambassador’s effort to convince Alvarez that the administration viewed the

fight against communism in Central America with the appropriate severity, while simultaneously demonstrating to Contra policy’s critics that Alvarez was not sim- ply another dictator in the making. There were some inside the Reagan adminis- tration and Congress who worried that building such a close relationship with a military strongman would undermine the process of democratization that was un- derway in the country, but Negroponte worked to ease those concerns. In a cable

305 Cable 1358 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Military Assistance to Honduras,” (February 19, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 069.

306 Cable 5493 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Honduran Military to Accompany Suazo,” (July 3, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 240. 131 that demonstrated how deeply the ambassador had internalized his administra- tion’s policy objectives, Negroponte personally vouched for the General. He said

Alvarez — who months later would be forced into exile following accusations of embezzlement and involvement in kidnapping, torture and disappearances — possessed a “complete loyalty to constitutional rule”. He argued that the percep- tion that Alvarez was yet another military strongman was based on “sheer igno- rance”.307

The coup that forced Alvarez into exile was a key turning point for Negro- ponte. With Alvarez out of the picture, Negroponte lost a considerable degree of his influence in Honduras. The coup originated amongst the Honduran Armed

Forces officer corps, a group that had grown increasingly offended by Alvarez’s rapid power grab and his closeness to the Reagan administration.308 The coup was met with a considerable degree of public support, as Hondurans began to take an increasingly critical view of the presence of the Contras — the group had been linked to kidnappings and other human rights abuses — as well as the ex- cessive repression and militarization associated with Alvarez’s reign. In an episode that testified to the foundational importance of the ambassador’s rela- tionship of Alvarez to the Contra plan, when the General was expelled from the country, the Honduran government expressed a desire to end its support of the

307 Cable 11124 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “General Alvarez on the Democratic Process,” (October 13, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Col- lection, Doc 357.

308 Leonard, Honduras, 159; Ruhl, “Redefining Civil-Military Relations,” 39. 132 Contras for the first time.309 With the ambassador’s influence receding, Vice

President George Bush was dispatched to Tegucigalpa to hold crisis talks with

Suazo and ensure the program’s survival.310

Although the available documentation demonstrates the methods that Ne- groponte used to sustain Honduras’ support for the Contra scheme for over two years, evidence that supports the assertion that the ambassador was involved with the program at the operational level is scarce. In an April 1983 cable, Ne- groponte instructed the State Department to encourage the Contras to escalate their activities on the Costa Rican border, to help defend against the rising public belief that all the Contra attacks were coming from Honduras.311 In a cable writ- ten a month later, Negroponte wrote: “this thing is starting to work and is building momentum. It wouldn’t surprise me if the size of force could double in next five months if we provided the necessary weapons”.312 Although this does not consti- tute conclusive proof that the ambassador performed an operational role, it does demonstrate that he was monitoring the Contras, and did offer operational ad- vice.

309 Cable 08542 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “General Lopez and Paz Barnica on Continued Support for the Anti-Sandinistas,” (September 7, 1984), in The Negro- ponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 280.

310 Liebmann, Last American Diplomat, 128.

311 Cable 3219 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Support for Anti-Sandin- istas,” (April 5, 1983), in The John Negroponte File, Part 2, National Security Archive Collection.

312 Memorandum Fm John Negroponte to Bill Casey, William Clark and Thomas Enders, Subj: “General Alvarez visit to Washington,” (May 13, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 117. 133 There is also some evidence that suggests the perception that Negro- ponte acted as the “point man” for an interagency group of Contra program sup- porters was based in fact. Surviving documentary evidence demonstrates the ex- istence of a secret channel of communication that provided the ambassador a direct link to a trio of Reagan’s foreign policy lieutenants: Bill Casey, William

Clark and Thomas Enders. This “roger channel” helped provide the ambassador with a degree of influence that was unmatched by any of his regional colleagues.

Negroponte often used this avenue for direct contact with his administration’s foreign policy principals to discuss matters pertaining to the Contra scheme. The previously referenced cable in which the ambassador declared that the Contra program was working and building momentum was a roger channel document sent only to Casey, Clark and Enders. When the CIA seemed to be stalling in fa- cilitating Alvarez’s request for new transport planes, the ambassador used the channel to offer a plea that the agency keep its word to the General.313 The am- bassador’s advice that Contra activity be escalated on the southern front was also offered via this channel. Although an ambassador communicating with his officials outside of the State Department was not abnormal, the fact that Negro- ponte was communicating with Casey and Clark on a regular basis lends cre-

313 Ibid. 134 dence to the suggestion that the ambassador was doing the bidding of an intera- gency group of officials.314

Negroponte arrived in Tegucigalpa tasked with the objective of building ties with the Honduran military and ensuring their ongoing participation in the

Contra scheme. For the majority of his tenure, he accomplished this task by building and maintaining a relationship with General Alvarez. By acting as the

General’s salesman in Washington, and appeasing his many requests for military assistance, Negroponte helped to ensure that the Honduran government re- mained an ally of the Contra cause. Although his relationship with Alvarez was likely his largest contribution to the Contra scheme, the documentary record sug- gests the ambassador was also more intimately involved in the “special project”.

Documents obtained by the National Security Archives prove that Negroponte used secret channels to communicate information regarding the strength and op- erations of the FDN. The notion that Negroponte was operating as the solitary leader of the operation, as many media accounts claimed, was an exaggeration, but the ambassador did play an operational role and enjoyed a considerable de- gree of influence. Free from the ideological inhibitions that plagued his predeces- sor, Negroponte proved an effective executor of the Contra plan.

314Barry Rubin, Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over U.S. Foreign Poli- cy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 225-226. Ambassador Negroponte built a particu- larly strong working relationship with William Clark. In June 1983, Clark strongly considered mak- ing the Ambassador the new head of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, before tapping Lang- horne Motley, another Reagan loyalist, for the position. 135 The Ambassador Goes on the Defensive: Negroponte and the Press

During his first year in Honduras, Negroponte went about building ties with the Honduran military and Contra leadership with the benefit of obscurity. How- ever, word of the administration’s Contra scheme eventually reached the Ameri- can press. The publication of a cover story entitled “A Secret War for Nicaragua” in a November 1982 issue of Newsweek served to severely weaken the ambas- sador’s beneficial anonymity. Citing interviews with unnamed members of the

Honduran military and Washington insiders, the article laid out the general outline of the Contra plan. The authors portrayed the program as a policy initiative that had outrun the control of the State Department, with the CIA and Contra leader- ship assuming more dominant roles. The article argued that as a result of this shift, the objectives of the program morphed from arms interdiction to outright regime change. Negroponte was singled out as the central player in this transi- tion. The article claimed he was the “spearhead” and “boss” of the program that had been sent to Tegucigalpa by Enders and Haig “to carry out the operation without any qualms of conscience”.315 It warned that if policy was allowed to con- tinue to trend in the direction that the ambassador was steering it toward, the likely outcome would be a border war between Honduras and Nicaragua. The cover story was accompanied by a sidebar profile of Negroponte that claimed he

315 John Brecher et al, “A Secret War for Nicaragua” Newsweek, November 8, 1982. 136 had journeyed to Honduras with designs on “establishing himself as something more than our man in Tegucigalpa”.316

The Newsweek coverage, along with the subsequent discovery of a Con- tra camp by a reporter from the New York Times, had serious consequential ef- fects on both Negroponte and the administration’s Contra policy.317 The negative image of the ambassador presented by Newsweek helped to provide him with a controversial reputation, among the liberal leaning members of the public, that would follow him for the rest of his career. The ambassador believed that his negative press image helped place him in personal danger. He credited it for the increasing number of death threats his embassy received.318 The coverage also sparked an increased congressional interest in Honduras. Citing anonymous sources, the Newsweek article claimed that there was a rising suspicion that the

CIA had not been fully truthful when it briefed the congressional oversight com- mittees on the covert plan. The publication of the story further enhanced that suspicion and led to a flurry of congressional visits to Honduras.319 Throughout

1983, Negroponte’s embassy was visited by twenty nine different delegations.320

316 Beth Nissen, “Our Man in Tegucigalpa,” Newsweek, November 8, 1982.

317 Stephen Kinzer, “At a Border Camp in Honduras, Anti-Sandinistas are Wary of Visit,” New York Times, March 28, 1983.

318 Cable 4068 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “MSG Detachment Aug- mentation,” (April 27, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 121.

319 Scott, Deciding to Intervene, 163.

320 Liebmann, Last American Diplomat, 105. 137 This surge of interest was accompanied by policy action when the House passed the Boland Amendment, which placed restrictions on the amount of funding the administration could provide to groups who were seeking to “overthrow the San- dinistas”.321 It was this amendment that led the administration to build the unlaw- ful private supply network that would later be exposed by the Iran-Contra scan- dal. The amendment, and the controversy eventually caused by the administra- tion’s defiance of it, played a decisive role in the demise of the Contra program.

The Newsweek story was part of the beginning stages of a battle over the public narrative of the administration’s Central American policy.322 In response to

Boland, the administration led an unprecedented effort to influence the public discourse on Central America.323 Ambassador Negroponte was an eager partici- pant in the effort to encourage more positive press coverage of the administra- tion’s policy. In August 1983, he penned an editorial that the Office of Public

Diplomacy arranged to have published in the Los Angeles Times. Previewing what would become the administration’s primary sales strategy, he tried to con- vince readers that the goal of U.S. policy in the region was to nurture democratic development, not provide support for militaristic repression.324 Before President

321 Ibid.

322 Scott, Deciding to Intervene, 165.

323 Ibid., 166. This effort included the creation of the Office of Public Diplomacy, an NSC con- trolled bureau embedded in the State Department that was charged with improving the public im- age of the administration’s Central American policy.

324 John Negroponte, “Honduras is Well Worth Saving,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1983. 138 Reagan characterized the Contras as “freedom fighters”, Negroponte had offered a similar conflation.

The Times editorial was published following a months long campaign, car- ried out by Negroponte and some of his subordinates, that tried to manipulate

American press outlets into moderating their coverage of the administration’s ap- proach in Central America. The ambassador, and his deputy Shep Lowman, wrote letters to members of the press and their administrative superiors to ex- press their dissatisfaction with the content of their reportage.325 These letters contained accusations of biased reporting and warnings regarding the real world consequences of irresponsible journalism. Due to the extent of the controversy caused by its coverage, and the accusations it levelled at Negroponte,

Newsweek was the target of the embassy’s most persistent effort. Immediately following the publication of the cover story, the ambassador wrote to Katharine

Graham, the Chairman of the Washington Post Company, and professed his dis- gust at the “fabrications and innuendos” found in the magazine’s coverage.326 In her reply, Graham was apologetic and assured Negroponte that he would receive an explanation from the editors responsible for publishing the story. A breakfast

325 Cable 49 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Washington Post Article,” (January 3, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 163. In this cable, Negroponte credits his letter writing campaign with inducing a “moderating effect” on the coverage of the Wall Street Journal. Similar efforts directed at the Washington Post and Newsweek are also referenced. Cable 8233 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Letter to the Economist,” (September 23, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 203.

326 Letter Fm John Negroponte to Katharine Graham, (November 12, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 300. 139 meeting with editor William Broyles was subsequently arranged. Afterwards,

Broyles conceded that he was impressed by Negroponte, and had gained an im- proved knowledge of both the ambassador’s upstanding character and the ad- ministration’s Central American Policy.327 Although he never received a public apology or retraction, the episode convinced Negroponte that Newsweek “would not be quite so troublesome about me in the future”.328

Negroponte’s involvement on the public relations front was another char- acteristic that separated him from most of his colleagues and predecessors. In an administration that regularly prioritized publicity over performance when it came to foreign policy, Negroponte’s penchant for rhetorical spin and his willingness to engage members of the press made him a useful asset.329 His interactions with the press also demonstrate the depth of his commitment to the policy prescrip- tions of the administration’s leadership. While in Honduras, he was not just exe- cuting the desired policy, but was also actively involved in the effort to sell it to the American public. Although he was decidedly less effective at achieving the latter objective, his willingness to engage with the press helped to establish him as one of the public faces of a policy that attracted a great deal of attention.

327 Letter Fm William Broyles to John Negroponte, (March 25, 1983) in The Negroponte File, Na- tional Security Collection, Doc 286; Letter Fm John Negroponte to William Broyles (March 10, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 289.

328 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Central American Crisis, 75-76; Letter Fm John Negroponte to Thomas Enders, (April 5, 1983), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Collection, Doc 287.

329 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Central American Crisis, 144. 140 The Censorship of Human Rights Reporting

In the briefing book that Jack Binns prepared for Negroponte, concern for

Honduras’ human rights situation featured prominently.330 Binns’ fear that abuses would become increasingly frequent proved prescient. According to a 1993 Hon- duran government report, 179 disappearances occurred between 1980 and

1984.331 Earlier reports claimed that 214 political assassinations and nearly 2000 illegal detentions occurred in the same period.332 The number of disappearances increased significantly between 1982 and 1984. This was the precise period in which the authority of General Alvarez, reinforced by Negroponte’s committed support, was at its height.333 The central culprit was Battalion 316, a clandestine military unit supervised by Alvarez. The unit was composed of soldiers who had received training from Argentinean military advisors and CIA interrogation ex- perts.334 Some of the Contra fighters, specifically those under the charge of FDN intelligence chief Ricardo Lau, also played a supplementary role by acting as a death squad for hire.335 The targets of these groups were alleged subversives, a

330 Binns, United States in Honduras, 283.

331 “The Facts Speak for Themselves,” The Preliminary Report of the National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras (1994), 8.

332 Alison Acker, Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988), 122.

333The Facts Speak for Themselves, 225.

334 Ibid., 161, 205.

335 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Central American Crisis, 85; The Facts Speak for Them- selves, 133. 141 group that included members of labour organizations, student collectives, and the nascent leftist guerrilla movement. Using methods similar to those employed by the Argentinean military junta, the members of these groups were systemically monitored, kidnapped, detained and sometimes executed despite being guilty of no crime under Honduran law.

Although Negroponte was an often criticized figure during his time in Hon- duras, the most scathing accusation made regarding his tenure gained most of its popularity years after he left Tegucigalpa. The ambassador’s career ascent in the decade following his term meant that his behaviour in Honduras would peri- odically reemerge as a subject of questioning in senate confirmation hearings and debate in the press. In 1995, the Baltimore Sun published a four part series on the abuses carried out by Battalion 316. The series accused Negroponte of manipulating the human rights reports produced by his embassy for the purpose of concealing the severity of the offences that were being committed. Citing inter- views with both U.S. and Honduran officials, it claimed that Negroponte had reg- ularly been presented with evidence of abuses that he refused to include in his embassy’s reports.336 For observers familiar with the ambassador’s tenure in

Honduras, the series was a damning takedown of an official who had regularly downplayed the significance of the abuse in his public statements.337 In a com-

336 Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, “A Carefully Crafted Deception,” Baltimore Sun, June 18, 1995.

337 For examples of Negroponte’s public denials, see: John Negroponte. “Honduras is Well Worth Saving,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1983, or John Negroponte. “Letter to the Editor,” The Economist, October 23, 1982. 142 ment attributed to Negroponte, the then ambassador to the Philippines stated that “at no time during my tenure in Honduras did the embassy condone or con- ceal human rights violations.” 338

The most damning evidence offered by the Sun came from a former em- ployee of Negroponte’s, Rick Chidester. He had served as a junior political officer at the embassy in Tegucigalpa and was involved in producing the 1982 Human

Rights Report. According to Chidester, the increased frequency of abuses at- tracted the attention of officials at the embassy. He claimed that he compiled

“substantial” evidence of the abuses being perpetrated by the Honduran military in 1982. During interviews with local journalists and human rights advocates,

Chidester heard “allegations about vans coming up to police cells and taking people that they (the Honduran military) didn’t want and shooting them.”

Chidester included his findings in an early draft of the report but was instructed, by a superior that he refused to name, to remove the information. Upon reading the final draft of the report, Chidester recalled thinking that it was such a misrep- resentation that he joked with his fellow officials that the report more accurately described the human rights situation in Norway.339

Declassified documents reveal that Negroponte was directly involved in editing his embassy’s reports. In a January 1982 cable to Assistant Secretary of

State Elliot Abrams, the ambassador requested changes to a recent draft. He

338 Cohn and Thompson, “A Carefully Crafted Deception”.

339 Cohn and Thompson, “A Carefully Crafted Deception”. 143 suggested that the section of the report entitled “Disappearances” be changed to read as follows:

There have been allegations of a number of mysterious disappear- ances during 1981. In the majority of these instances these allega- tions have involved nationals of other Central American countries who may have entered Honduras illegally or may have engaged in illegal activities resulting in their deportation. In the few cases in- volved Honduran nationals, the government has consistently denied any involvement by security services.340

Negroponte’s assertion that the majority of the allegations were against nationals of other Central American countries was a transparent recital of the Honduran government’s official line, which held that the majority of human rights abuses were perpetrated by leftist subversives.341 In the same cable, Negroponte rec- ommended that the section on Arbitrary Arrests be edited to include a sentence mentioning that members of the Honduran government believed some sections of the penal code were actually “too lenient”.342 The cable exemplified the am- bassador’s general approach to human rights issues: defer to the assessments

340 Cable 405 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Annual Human Rights Report for Honduras,” (January 18, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Col- lection, Doc 078.

341 Leticia Salomon, “The National Security Doctrine in Honduras: Analysis of the Fall of General Alvarez Martinez,” in Honduras: A Portrait of a Captive Nation, ed. Nancy Peckenham and Annie Street (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985), 203.

342 Cable 405 Fm Amembassy Tegucigalpa to Secstate Washdc, Subj: “Annual Human Rights Report for Honduras,” (January 18, 1982), in The Negroponte File, National Security Archive Col- lection, Doc 078. 144 offered by the Honduran government and willfully remain ignorant of the true ex- tent of any abuses.343

Further evidence of the ambassador’s role in concealing information is of- fered by a 1997 report produced by the CIA’s inspector general following an in- vestigation into the agency’s activities in Honduras during the 1980s. A section of the report was devoted to the intelligence that the CIA had acquired regarding the

1983 execution of guerrilla leader Reyes Mata and nearly 100 of his followers.

One of the other victims was Father James Carney, a priest whose status as a former American citizen help to attract a significant amount of attention to the in- cident. The report mentioned that Negroponte had expressed a concern that the agency’s reporting on the executions might lure the attention of Congress. It said:

“the ambassador was particularly sensitive regarding the issue and was con- cerned that earlier CIA reporting might create a human rights problem for Hon- duras”.344 The report also included testimony from officials who worked under

Negroponte in Tegucigalpa. One official involved in the drafting of the 1983 Hu- man Rights report, whose name was redacted in the publicly available version of the document, claimed that members of the embassy wanted the reports “to be benign” in order to “keep Congress satisfied”. He continued: “reporting murders, executions and corruption would reflect negatively on Honduras and not be bene-

343 Schulz and Sundloff-Schulz, The Central American Crisis, 87.

344 “Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980s,” Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Inspector General (August 27, 1997):126. 145 ficial in carrying out U.S. policy”.345 Although other officials rejected this assertion in their statements, this official’s testimony lends credibility to Chidester’s earlier comments to the Baltimore Sun.

In his published response to the Baltimore Sun coverage, Negroponte in- sisted that “when allegations of abuses were brought to our attention, we in turn raised those matters with the government”. Responding to the accusation that he ignored the abuses that were taking place, he claimed that he worked behind the scenes to stop the offences being committed. He cited the release of Ines Muril- lo, an alleged subversive who had been tortured and held captive for several months, as a product of his quiet efforts. Yet, despite having suggested that he laboured privately to encourage the Honduran military to stop its abuses — abuses that he publicly denied — he maintained that he was not guilty of manipu- lating his embassy’s human rights reporting.346 Evidently, the ambassador was not proud enough of his involvement in Murillo’s release to include mention of it in the annual human rights report. Negroponte was aware the abuses were tak- ing place, and occasionally expressed concern in private, but the assertion that he worked to prevent Congress and the American public from recognizing the severity of the abuses that occurred is incontrovertible.

Negroponte’s interference with his embassy’s human rights reporting is the aspect of his time in Honduras that most clearly demonstrates his devout

345 Ibid., 117.

346 Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, “Former envoy says he did what he could,” Baltimore Sun, December 15, 1995. 146 commitment to his administration’s agenda. Faced simultaneously with mounting evidence of abuses and a Congress searching for a reason to restrict Reagan’s

Central American policy, Negroponte chose to conceal information in order to protect his administration’s policy interests. In a foreign policy bureaucracy that valued this kind of devotion above all else, such behaviour was considered commendable.

Conclusion

During the early years of the Reagan presidency, the Bureau of Inter-

American Affairs underwent a significant transition. The turnover of officials was driven by more than partisanship. Gradually, officials who believed it was their job to contribute the regional expertise required to produce sensible policy were marginalized or removed. The short Reagan era tenures of officials like

Lawrence Pezzullo, Robert White and Jack Binns marked the end of their lengthy foreign service careers. In their stead, John Negroponte — an ambassador af-

flicted with a more controversial public renown than any of his predecessors — built a reputation that would fuel an illustrious career in the foreign policy bureau- cracy. Negroponte was the embodiment of the traits needed to be an effective diplomat in an ideologically driven policymaking environment. Despite being the recipient of significant public criticism, Negroponte gained the respect of his fel- low policymakers for his deep dedication to the administration’s policy interests and the discreet way in which he handled his duties. 147 This chapter has argued that Negroponte played an influential role in the execution of the Reagan administration’s Contra program. At a time when offi- cials of his rank were being regularly cast aside in the policymaking process, the ambassador enjoyed an unusual level of influence. This was a product of his ide- ological kinship with the administration’s elite officials, and the obedient relation- ship it helped make possible. Negroponte’s loyalty and discretion helped him to gain the trust of officials like William Clark and Bill Casey, two of the principal ar- chitects of Central American policy. Sent to Tegucigalpa to maintain ties with the

Honduran military and ensure they remained supporters of the Contra plan, Ne- groponte accomplished his objective via his relationship with General Alvarez.

The ambassador’s effective work as an intermediary between the Reagan admin- istration and the hot tempered General was central to the early growth of the

Contra program. Although he publicly denied that Contra camps existed in Hon- duras for most of his tenure, his private correspondence demonstrates that he received updates regarding the status of the group and opined on their effective- ness. On a least one occasion, he also offered operational advice, an occurrence that partially refutes the suggestion that he did not play an operational role in the program.

Negroponte also played a role in the publicity effort that accompanied the

Contra program. In response to criticism by members of Congress and the press, the administration put forth a considerable effort to regain control of the public narrative regarding its Central American policy. Negroponte was an eager partici- 148 pant in this campaign, and even penned one of the editorials that the Office of

Public Diplomacy arranged to have published in the Los Angeles Times. The am- bassador also led a more private effort to encourage American press outlets to moderate their coverage of Central America. Negroponte proclaimed a degree of success in encouraging Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Wall Street

Journal to moderate their tone. The ambassador’s engagement with the press is yet another illustration of the nature of his involvement in the Contra program and his deep commitment to aiding the execution of the president’s policy agenda.

The latter was further evidenced by the ambassador’s decision to interfere with the human rights reports produced by his embassy. Declassified evidence re- veals that, contrary to the ambassador’s denials, he was involved in the editing of the reports and had professed a concern that any mention of the abuses commit- ted by the Honduran military would create a human rights problem for the coun- try.

Negroponte’s actions in Honduras, and his subsequent career success, were a delayed result of the administration’s push to establish a higher degree of ideological harmony within the foreign policy bureaucracy. At the beginning of his presidency, Reagan and his transition team viewed the foreign service, and the

Bureau of Inter-American affairs especially, as a hotbed of human rights inspired obstructionism.347 At first, this perception led to the removal of the bureau’s most powerful regional experts and the marginalization of those who remained. After

347 Rubin, Secrets of State, 204. 149 this introductory period, the strategy evolved to include the placement of Reagan loyalists, whose central objective was to please the administration’s elite officials, into the bureau. Negroponte was the most notable member of this new group of officials, and he was lauded by many within the foreign policy community for the quality of the job he performed. These plaudits were a consequence of a change in the kind of characteristics that were viewed as valuable for diplomatic work.

Increasingly, foreign service officers who demonstrated a shameless commitment to the administration’s policy agenda received promotion and praise. Meanwhile, those who believed that it was their responsibility to inject regional expertise into the foreign policymaking process quickly fell out of favour.

Although Reagan’s strategy may have been an effective piece of bureau- cratic management, consideration must also be given to the policy side effects of the administration’s thirst for ideological conformity. At the level of the foreign service, what Reagan’s reforms had helped to instigate was a shift in the stan- dard of effective diplomatic work. Since well before the days of Reagan, foreign service officers have been asked to balance the demands of their administration with their acquired knowledge of the region under their charge. However, during

Reagan’s presidency, increasing emphasis was placed on the former at the ex- pense of the latter. Although useful for improving ideological conformity, this shift had a significant cost. It served to further eliminate regional expertise from the foreign policy making process. With the influence of regional experts greatly lim- 150 ited, policy blunders like the Contra program, one of the most folly laden and costly policy initiatives of the Reagan era, became more probable. 151 Conclusion

During the period that followed the Vietnam War, multiple presidents pro- fessed a desire to carry out foreign service reform. In an era of increasingly di- vided government, executive harmony became a highly prized attribute. As a re- sult, the foreign service, a section of the executive branch that has often had its loyalties questioned, was an obvious target for adjustment. Although his im- peachment prevented him from following through with the threat, President

Richard Nixon once declared that he intended to “ruin the foreign service” and build a more loyal replacement.348 President Jimmy Carter also made an effort to unify his foreign service, which had fallen victim to the internal squabbles that pervaded his foreign policy bureaucracy. In 1980, he passed the Foreign Service

Act, which sought to professionalize the service and clearly define the relation- ship it had with other agencies. Although the Act modernized the personnel ap- pointment procedures of the service, it was largely unsuccessful in establishing the compatibility it was supposed to achieve.349 The Reagan administration’s at- tempt at foreign service reform was a side effect of a wider effort to establish a more substantial degree of ideological conformity within the foreign policy bu- reaucracy. In Central America, the region that occupied much of the focus of the foreign policy establishment during Reagan’s presidency, the administration was

348 David C. Humphrey and Edward C. Keefer, “Organization Management of U.S. Foreign Poli- cy, 1969-1972,” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969 - 1976, Volume II (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2006), 769-770.

349 Kopp and Gillespie, Career Diplomacy, 20. 152 successful in transforming the foreign service into a useful component of the na- tional security state.

However, the achievements of bureaucratic management that the Reagan administration accomplished had significant policy consequences. With the for- eign policy bureaucracy transformed into a more effective instrument of presiden- tial will, the institution’s capacity for critical self-assessment was substantially lessened. At a time when Central America was experiencing significant political and economic upheaval, the influence of regional expertise in the policymaking process was heavily reduced. Asked by Bill Casey for his thoughts on trying to topple the Sandinista government using covert intervention, Lawrence Pezzullo offered a prescient piece of advice: “If you go that route, you’ll have to put in more than you might think. The Sandinistas are the best fighters in Central Amer- ica”.350 The ambassador’s warning went unheeded and the Contra program, a costly policy initiative with limited chance of success, gained serious momentum.

Officials like Pezzullo were replaced by Reagan loyalists who were willing to ig- nore the flaws of the administration’s chosen path and participate in the con- cealment of its negative effects. Believing that its credibility was at stake, the ad- ministration gradually became more committed to a deeply flawed policy. Their course led them to become complicit in a litany of human rights violations perpe- trated by the Contras and other American allies in the region. It attracted a repri- mand from the International Court of Justice for its violations of international

350 Woodward, Veil, 121. 153 law.351 It caused many of its chief supporters to become embroiled in scandal, and was ultimately ineffective in deposing the Sandinistas.

The first chapter analyzed the strategy that the Reagan administration used to establish an executive harmony that was rooted in support for the presi- dent’s ideological perspective. Believing that America had suffered too many set- backs in its rivalry with the Soviets, the president and his closest advisors wanted to implement a significantly reformed Cold War policy. The acceptance of the lim- its of America’s global influence and the fixation on human rights that character- ized the Carter administration’s foreign policy strategy needed to be scrapped in favour of a more confrontational approach. Reagan’s advisors believed that the successful execution of this shift required some astute bureaucratic manage- ment. To ensure that their administration was not consumed by the bureaucratic division that afflicted the policymaking process of their predecessor, ideological conformity was identified as the guiding organizational characteristic for their for- eign policy bureaucracy. To achieve a high degree of ideological conformity, the administration utilized a strategy that combined the targeted use of appointment power, a collection of organizational reforms, and the cultivation of an institutional culture that included a deep allegiance to the president’s agenda. The culmina- tion of these components proved effective in eliminating any impediments to the conversion of the president’s ideological perspective into policy.

351 Rabe, The Killing Zone, 162. In 1986 The International Court of Justice found the United States guilty of fifteen counts of illegal use of force against Nicaragua. The Reagan administration ignored the ruling. 154 The second and third chapters consisted of case studies of two of Rea- gan’s ambassadors to Central America. The region was a top priority on the pres- ident’s agenda, which meant that Reagan’s most powerful officials took an active role in the formulation of policy. By focusing on the experiences of the administra- tion’s on the ground representatives, insight regarding the effect that the adminis- tration’s fixation on ideological conformity had on the foreign service is revealed.

As the regional representatives of U.S. Policy, ambassadors are uniquely posi- tioned to assess the motivations of a foreign government and anticipate their re- sponse to the policy decisions made in Washington.352 This means that ambas- sadors often perform an important advisory role in the policymaking process.

Their knowledge and expertise allows them to offer empirically based opinions on whether policy decisions are likely to have their intended effect. The case studies provided by this thesis reveal that in Reagan’s Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, the influence granted to the ambassadors who desired to critically assess the policy agenda of the president was severely curtailed, while those officials who were willing to unquestioningly execute policy saw their influence swell. The void of regional expertise created by the removal of officials willing to question the agenda of senior officials contributed to a policymaking process that was often untethered from reality.

The subject of the first case study was Lawrence Pezzullo, the ambas- sador to Nicaragua who served during the early months of the Reagan presiden-

352 Kopp and Gillespie, Career Diplomacy, 76. 155 cy. He single handedly made an effort to convince Reagan’s senior officials that a full termination of aid to Nicaragua would be a mistake. He believed that such a decision would squander months of painstaking diplomatic work and significantly limit the administration’s options in the region. The ambassador received assur- ances that if he was able to persuade the Sandinistas to abandon their relation- ship with the FMLN rebels in El Salvador, that a termination would not be forth- coming. By the agreed upon deadline, Pezzullo had acquired the demanded concessions from the Sandinistas. All evidence of the arms flow between the

Sandinistas and El Salvador had dried up, Radio Liberación was removed from the airwaves, and the airstrip at Papalonal had been closed. Despite Pezzullo’s success, the termination of aid was confirmed. The ambassador was marginal- ized by an interagency group of senior officials who were already committed to taking a more confrontational approach in the region. The key principals involved in the decision were William Clark and Bill Casey, two officials who owed their enhanced authority to the bureaucratic strategy carried out by Reagan and his transition team.

The second case study focused on John Negroponte, the most notable member of a group of diplomats sent to Central America to carry out the adminis- tration’s Contra policy. As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte acquired an ab- normal degree of influence. His relationship with General Augusto Alvarez was critical to the early growth of the Contra scheme. Although the extent of his in- volvement in the Contra program was embellished by the press, documentary 156 evidence reveals that he played an operational role. His participation in the ad- ministration’s public diplomacy campaign also helped to further his influence and endear him to more powerful officials. Negroponte’s attempt to conceal the hu- man rights reporting of his embassy in order to protect the Honduran military is the aspect of his reign that best exemplifies the difference between him and offi- cials like Pezzullo. His passionate allegiance to the president’s policy agenda meant that he was deeply committed to protecting the administration’s interests, even if that involved the performance of acts of questionable ethical merit. Ne- groponte’s appointment marked an evolution in the administration’s approach to managing the foreign service. As Reagan loyalists began to assume all the posi- tions in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, there was subsequent shift in diplomatic practice exhibited by the bureau. The ambassadors’ duties as regional advisors were cast aside in favour of the ruthless execution of the wishes of se- nior officials. This meant that any serious consideration of the wisdom of the poli- cy direction they had chosen, or the regional factors preventing its success, was further estranged from the policymaking process.

A study of the involvement of the members of the foreign service in the creation of Reagan’s Central American policy offers lessons that possess a rele- vance that extends to the present day. In the recent literature produced on the foreign service, much discussion has been devoted to the changes in diplomatic practice that occurred in response to the national security priorities of the post

9/11 era. During the reconstruction of Iraq, policymakers began to view underde- 157 velopment as a primary national security concern. The consequence of this reve- lation was a renewed emphasis on nation building, with the foreign service con- ducting a major share of the work required by this labour intensive diplomatic ap- proach. According to George W. Bush’s second Secretary of State, Condoleezza

Rice, the most revolutionary component of this approach was its emphasis on foreign service interaction with non-state actors.353 Rice believed the shift to be radical enough to merit a categorization separate from traditional diplomacy, and she dubbed the new approach “transformational diplomacy”.354 The details of

Rice’s re-imagination of diplomacy included a heavy emphasis on operations at the expense of analysis, and a heightened commitment to public diplomacy. Us- ing this reformed approach, the foreign service is currently tasked with the excru- ciatingly difficult job of shaping the most underdeveloped countries of the world into a collection of responsible nation states that do not threaten the United

States.355

The attributes that characterize Rice’s transformational diplomacy should register as familiar for a reader that is acquainted with the behaviour of Reagan’s

Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. Many long serving foreign service officers scoffed at the alleged novelty of Rice’s approach when she first articulated it and

353 Ibid., 9; Nicholas Kralev, America’s Other Army: The U.S. Foreign Service and 21st Century Diplomacy (Washington: Nicholas Kralev, 2015), 21.

354 Kralev, America’s Other Army, 8-9; Kopp and Gillespie, Career Diplomacy, 84. During the Obama administration the term “transformational diplomacy” was discarded in favour of “smart power,” but the diplomatic behaviour each title connotes are practically indistinct.

355 Kralev, America’s Other Army, 8-9. 158 applauded the news that senior level diplomats had finally discovered the ap- proach they had been taking on the ground for decades.356 In reality, the compo- nents of the latest trend in diplomacy were used at various points during the Cold

War. The post 9/11 reinvigoration of the career of John Negroponte, who served as Bush’s ambassador to Iraq and eventually acted as Rice’s Deputy Secretary, is more of a testament to the parallels between the two eras than it is to his per- sonal adaptability. In Honduras, Negroponte exhibited the kind of qualities that made him well suited for diplomatic work in the twenty-first century. In a foreign service that is burdened by an ever growing workload, the value of an official who proves capable of accomplishing difficult tasks, even with little consideration of the wisdom or costs of doing so, continues to be high.357 As a result, concern re- garding the consequences of the neglect of the foreign service’s valuable adviso- ry role lives on.

Although the volume and diversity of the work that diplomats perform is larger than ever before, the current generation of foreign service officers and the authorities they serve would be wise to pay heed to the precautionary advice of- fered by Reagan’s Central American policy. At a time when the branches of gov- ernment are heavily divided, and presidential control over foreign policymaking continues to grow, the foreign policy bureaucracy’s ability to produce effective re- sponses to the issues that arise around the globe is as much under threat as it

356 Kopp and Gillespie, Career Diplomacy, 84.

357 Ibid., 9. 159 was during the Cold War. As long as the foreign service remains a participant in the foreign policymaking process, it holds the potential to act as a much needed voice for sensible and locally informed policy solutions that are less influenced by partisan politics and the other short term political concerns that often dominate the discourse in Washington. 160 Bibliography

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