Taking Note

The Uses and Abuses of History
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, WHEN WE CHANG-
ed the look of NACLA’s Report on theAmericas, we
introduced a new feature called “Press Coverage.” Later,
it became “On the Record.” The aim of the column has
been to find the off-the-cuff statements that reveal how the
administration and its allies really see the world. Over the
months, it has pieced together gems from Jerry FaIwell
and Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliott Abrams and Jeremiah Den-
ton, which hint at the flagrant double standards, the lack
of regard for truth, the willingness to subvert the meaning
of language to serve ideological ends.
The Reagan Administration’s rampage through the
English language has reached new extremes in recent
weeks, and the common thread is an attempt to deny the
meaning of history. Nowhere was this more true than in
Reagan’s visit to West Germany. The decision to an-
nounce an economic embargo against Nicaragua from
German soil was no accident. Dig further into administra-
tion comments during the trip, and especially Reagan’s seductively crafted anti-communist tirade at Bitburg air base, and the parallels with Nicaragua become more ap-
parent. The modish comparison in administration circles these days is between Central America and World War II.
Americans should view Nicaragua nat from the perspec- tive of Vietnam, ”but from the perspective of Nazi Ger-
many,” remarked Curtin Winsor, U.S. Ambassador to
Costa Rica. Jeane Kirkpatrick agreed that Munich is “the
appropriate analogy” with the need of the Western democ-
racies to stop communism in Central America before it is
too late.
The special character of Nazism, meanwhile, is down-
graded to “one man’s dictatorship,” just as the official
Reagan/contra history of the world depicts Somoza as a bad apple whose excesses discredited a fundamentally good way of life. We are reminded of the anti-Somoza
businessman who joined the revolution at the last minute, declaring that: “The problem is the man. We have no
quarrel with anyone else or the system. Just get rid of him.”
Both the SS and Somoza’s National Guard, two not dis-
similar institutions, have been rehabilitated by the revision
of history. One SS Death’s Head veteran, praising Pres- ident Reagan as “a real straight guy,” explained that
the SS ”were soldiers, just like the others. I never com- mitted a war crime, and I don’t know anyone who did.” We also vividly remember the trials of National
Guardsmen after the Sandinista victory in 1979-that un –
ending parade of innocent gardeners, cooks, chauffeurs and medical orderlies, all of them “just following or- ders.”
T HE ADMINISTRATION LISTS MANY REA-
sons to rationalize its hatred of Nicaragua: Soviet ex-
pansionism, defense of vital sea lanes, millions of “foot people” flooding northward and human rights. But no
MAY/JUNE 1985
matter how it enumerates the supposed sins of the San-
dinistas, the obsession comes down to one thing. In
Reagan’s own words, “If we cannot defend ourselves
there, we cannot expect to prevail elsewhere. Our credi-
bility would collapse, our alliances would crumble.” The
fear of losing credibility means not only opposing by force
any reduction of U.S. power in Central America, but also
changing inconvenient perceptions of reality: that is the
impulse behind the Big Lie.
The Sandinistas have the misfortune to be fighting for
their survival at a time when the Reagan Administration’s
concern for “credibility” dovetails with major shifts in
elite liberal opinion. Again, concern for credibility (of a
different, but no less pernicious kind) is the key. Among disenchanted liberals, Nicaragua is a self-imposed test
case of their ability to stand tough against the Third
World. No publication more typifies the trend than The
New Republic, whose editorial line grows more odious by
the week. Its recent comment on the tenth anniversary of
the U.S. defeat in Vietnam was a masterpiece of the
genre. In the 1970s, concludes the editorial, the Third World
suckered us. The overriding lesson of Vietnam was that
liberals must do everything possible to avoid “misplaced
enthusiasms for anything that calls itself a revolution or a
national liberation struggle,” lest they “once again lead
us to cheer what we will soon lament.” The Sandinistas
are the main target for this worldly wise, neo-liberal
worldview. What masquerades as intellectual sophistica-
tion is vengeful spite against the Third World. The neolib-
eral motto is: “We won’t get fooled again.”
F
INALLY, A WORD OF SOLACE FOR THOSE
who fear that the right has seized the intellectual, if
not the moral, high ground in Ronald Reagan’s America.
At the same time as it launched its private campaign to
raise $14 million for the contras, the Reverend Moon’s
Washington Times ran a four-part expose on U.S. group
opposed to the administration’s Central America policy.
Day one of the series brought the bold editorial headline,
“DISINFORMATION: TWISTED FACTS DISTORT
REALITY.”
Three days later, the paper directed its fearless search
for unscrambled facts against the Committee in Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). It declared,
Documents obtained by The Washington Times and
CISPES’ own publications reveal that the organization
openly supports the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas (FMLN-
FDR) in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America.”
Must be those “generic Sandinistas” that George Bush is
always talking about.
COMING SOON IN NACLA’S
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
US. military and economic policies in the
English-speaking Caribbean The Vatican and Latin America.
T~c~ei4; N~~l
The Uses and Abuses of History
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, WHEN WE CHANG-
ed the look of NACLA’s Report on the Americas, we
introduced a new feature called “Press Coverage.” Later,
it became “On the Record.” The aim of the column has
been to find the off-the-cuff statements that reveal how the
administration and its allies really see the world. Over the
months, it has pieced together gems from Jerry Falwell
and Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliott Abrams and Jeremiah Den-
ton, which hint at the flagrant double standards, the lack
of regard for truth, the willingness to subvert the meaning
of language to serve ideological ends.
The Reagan Administration’s rampage through the
English language has reached new extremes in recent
weeks, and the common thread is an attempt to deny the
meaning of history. Nowhere was this more true than in
Reagan’s visit to West Germany. The decision to an-
nounce an economic embargo against Nicaragua from
German soil was no accident. Dig further into administra-
tion comments during the trip, and especially Reagan’s
seductively crafted anti-communist tirade at Bitburg air
base, and the parallels with Nicaragua become more ap-
parent.
The modish comparison in administration circles these
days is between Central America and World War II.
Americans should view Nicaragua not from the perspec-
tive of Vietnam, “but from the perspective of Nazi Ger-
many,” remarked Curtin Winsor, U.S. Ambassador to
Costa Rica. Jeane Kirkpatrick agreed that Munich is “the
appropriate analogy” with the need of the Western democ-
racies to stop communism in Central America before it is
too late.
The special character of Nazism, meanwhile, is down-
graded to “one man’s dictatorship,” just as the official
Reagan/contra history of the world depicts Somoza as a
bad apple whose excesses discredited a fundamentally
good way of life. We are reminded of the anti-Somoza
businessman who joined the revolution at the last minute,
declaring that: “The problem is the man. We have no
quarrel with anyone else or the system. Just get rid of
him.”
Both the SS and Somoza’s National Guard, two not dis-
similar institutions, have been rehabilitated by the revision
of history. One SS Death’s Head veteran, praising Pres-
ident Reagan as “a real straight guy,” explained that
the SS “were soldiers, just like the others. I never com-
mitted a war crime, and I don’t know anyone who did.”
We also vividly remember the trials of National
Guardsmen after the Sandinista victory in 1979-that un-
ending parade of innocent gardeners, cooks, chauffeurs
and medical orderlies, all of them “just following or-
ders.”
T HE ADMINISTRATION LISTS MANY REA-
sons to rationalize its hatred of Nicaragua: Soviet ex-
pansionism, defense of vital sea lanes, millions of “foot
people” flooding northward and human rights. But no
matter how it enumerates the supposed sins of the San-
dinistas, the obsession comes down to one thing. In
Reagan’s own words, “If we cannot defend ourselves
there, we cannot expect to prevail elsewhere. Our credi-
bility would collapse, our alliances would crumble.” The
fear of losing credibility means not only opposing by force
any reduction of U.S. power in Central America, but also
changing inconvenient perceptions of reality: that is the
impulse behind the Big Lie.
The Sandinistas have the misfortune to be fighting for
their survival at a time when the Reagan Administration’s
concern for “credibility” dovetails with major shifts in
elite liberal opinion. Again, concern for credibility (of a
different, but no less pernicious kind) is the key. Among
disenchanted liberals, Nicaragua is a self-imposed test
case of their ability to stand tough against the Third
World. No publication more typifies the trend than The
New Republic, whose editorial line grows more odious by
the week. Its recent comment on the tenth anniversary of
the U.S. defeat in Vietnam was a masterpiece of the
genre.
In the 1970s, concludes the editorial, the Third World
suckered us. The overriding lesson of Vietnam was that
liberals must do everything possible to avoid “misplaced
enthusiasms for anything that calls itself a revolution or a
national liberation struggle,” lest they “once again lead
us to cheer what we will soon lament.” The Sandinistas
are the main target for this worldly wise, neo-liberal
worldview. What masquerades as intellectual sophistica-
tion is vengeful spite against the Third World. The neolib-
eral motto is: “We won’t get fooled again.”
F INALLY, A WORD OF SOLACE FOR THOSE
who fear that the right has seized the intellectual, if
not the moral, high ground in Ronald Reagan’s America.
At the same time as it launched its private campaign to
raise $14 million for the contras, the Reverend Moon’s
Washington Times ran a four-part expos on U.S. group
opposed to the administration’s Central America policy.
Day one of the series brought the bold editorial headline,
“DISINFORMATION: TWISTED FACTS DISTORT
REALITY.”
Three days later, the paper directed its fearless search
for unscrambled facts against the Committee in Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). It declared,
“Documents obtained by The Washington Times and
CISPES’ own publications reveal that the organization
openly supports the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas (FMLN-
FDR) in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America.”
Must be those “generic Sandinistas” that George Bush is
always talking about.