‘For a CIA Man, It’s 1954 Again’

A dangerously neglected factor in the current Nicaragua debate is the issue of economic justice. In our commendable efforts to eliminate communist control from Latin American nations, we forget that economic deprivation and powerlessness become a fertile soil for extremist movements.

Communism more easily gains supporters where powerful, and often foreign, corporations profit at the expense of low wages, where peasants suffer from concentration of land ownership, and where literacy, disease and hunger remain widespread. So long as we overlook these factors we are assisting the communist propagandists.

This is the economic counterpart to the fact that military assistance to the contras drives the present government of Nicaragua into the arms of communist nations as their only source of support. By aid of the contras we are militarily shooting ourselves in our own feet. At the same time economically we are ignoring the time bomb ticking in our own stomachs.

Instead of aid to the contras we should be negotiating with the Sandinistas in cooperation with the Contadora process. We should even be ready to aid the Sandinistas in rebuilding their country and accelerating their humanitarian programs for their people, on condition of reducing Soviet ties and expanding democratic procedures.

President Reagan won a measure of approval by belatedly changing his position in the Philippines from support of Ferdinand Marcos to acceptance of Corazon Aquino. May Congress now help the President to win his place in history by shifting his position in Nicaragua!

HARVEY SEIFERT

Claremont