On the Record

Adopt-a-Contra “I felt important in Honduras,” says James Adair, a 36-year-old Houston adventurer who recently spent six weeks there accompanying right-wing guerrillas on forays into Nicaragua. “It was exciting.”[. . . .1 But increasingly, charitable acts are tied to one political side or the other. For example, the right-wing Carib- bean Commission in New Orleans has been borrowing storage space and begging air-cargo services in its cam- paigns to send clothing and other goods to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Its newest program, called “Adopt-a-Contra,” allows individu- als to “sponsor” a rebel and his fam- ily for so much money a month. It also recently sent 10,000 homemade rosaries to anti-Sandinista rebels. “It’s God’s forces versus anti-God forces,” explains Alton Ochsner Jr., a doctor who heads the group. [. … ] Some gung-ho Americans trek to Latin Amel-ica mostly for adventure. The 2,500 member Civilian Military Assistance group of Decatur, Ala., provides military training and combat gear and even fights side by side with rebel soldiers. “The CMA is just a bunch of good ol’ boys from Alabama not given to deep political examination,” says Mr. Adair, the one-time Honduran ad- viser, who writes about the group’s exploits for an obscure military magazine under such headlines as “Sandinista Turkey Shoot.” “Why do we have to wrap everything in the flag?” Mr. Adair asks. “Why can’t we just say we do it for adventure? We had a good time.” The Wall Street Journal June 14, 1985 Summer Camp in the Peten Apart from the similar circumstance of outdoor living, the campsite of the Rio Azul archaeological project in the Guatemalan jungle is really quite dif- ferent from, say, the Camp Pocahontas that one attended as a child in Maine. For one thing, with typhoid and alli- gators lurking in it, the nearby river is not the safest place to swim. The bath- room and shower facilities are sketchy, and there is nothing in the way of planned play or recreation. But as a support system for archaeologists bent on the serious business of uncovering Mayan civilization, it serves its purpose admirably.[. . . .] While everything will be done to stabilize the site and prevent its deterio- ration, the archaeologists say, its ex- tensive restoration would be justified only if tourism were realistically possi- ble. But at the moment, given the strain of reaching lxcanrio, it will be quite a while before honeymooners arrive. The New York Times May 25, 1984 Pope to Join Second International? John Paul has from almost the be- ginning of his pontificate sought to elaborate a social doctrine that is a kind of “third way” between what he sees as the materialism of both capitalism and Communism. This, in the view of some, makes the Pope a kind of Social Democrat. The New York Times February 1, 1985 Winsor Nails Coffin Haught: You talked of human rights offenses in Nicaragua, but is anything there as bad as the death squads in El Salvador? [U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Cur- tin] Winsor: The death squads in El Salvador pale by comparison. You have concentration camps in Nicaragua; you don’t have them in Salvador. You have genocide occur- ring in Nicaragua. The plight of the Indians is terrible in the extreme. In Salvador you deal in tens of persons; in Nicaragua the human rights of- fenses go into the tens of thousands of persons. Haught: But there are no Nicaraguan refugees [seeking sanctuary] in River- side Church in New York. Winsor: That’s because it suits the Rev. Coffin’s sense of political hys- teria to do so. We have 125,000 Nicaraguan refugees, most of whom are poor people, in Costa Rica today. That’s the country that I know. Sunday Gazette-Mail Charleston, West Virginia October 7, 1984