Playing for High Stakes

By James Kelly

Reagan dispatches more "trainers"to El Salvador

The distinctive whack-whacking of a helicopter's rotors broke the still air above the sleepy little town of La Union in eastern El Salvador last week. When it landed, out stepped five U.S. Navy men in civilian dress--the latest contingent of "trainers" sent to El Salvador by Washington. The next day, four men in a gray Toyota pickup truck swerved past the U.S. embassy in San Salvador and raked the bunker-like building with gunfire. No one was injured, no shots were fired back, and the truck quickly sped off. Meanwhile, in cities across the U.S., opponents of American aid to El Salvador's military-civilian junta laid plans for teach-ins, marches, vigils and hunger strikes. It all had a familiar ring.

But it should not have. El Salvador is clearly not another Viet Nam. The superficial parallels are outweighed by some very real differences. Among them: El Salvador is not a sprawling jungle 8,000 miles from American shores, the junta is conscientiously trying to carry out an agrarian reform program, and the 4,000 leftist guerrillas are not backed by a force the size of the North Vietnamese army. Nonetheless, President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State Alexander Haig have invested high stakes in a guerrilla war in a republic the size of Massachusetts. By waging a campaign against "indirect armed aggression" of foreign Communists who are smuggling arms to El Salvador's leftist guerrillas, the Reagan Administration is signaling to the world that a line is being drawn against Soviet expansionism. "The terrorists aren't just aiming at El Salvador," explained Reagan in a White House press conference last week. "They are aiming at the whole of Central and possibly later South America and, I'm sure, eventually North America. What we're doing is trying to stop this destabilizing force of guerrilla warfare and revolution from being exported in here."

As part of its plan to counter subversion in El Salvador, the Reagan Administration announced last week that it was sending 20 more advisers and $25 million in equipment to the Salvadoran government. This brings the total number of U.S. military personnel in El Salvador to 54. In an interview with outgoing CBS Correspondent Walter Cronkite, Reagan stressed the "technicality" that these men would not really be "advisers," but members of "training teams" similar to those working in some 30 foreign countries. Said Reagan: "I certainly don't see any likelihood of us going in with fighting forces."

Yet there was fear on Capitol Hill that the Reagan Administration might be taking its first step into another Big Muddy. Said Democratic Senator John Glenn of Ohio: "I'm not against sending in arms. I get flags up about sending our people in."

Said Representative Jonathan Bingham of New York after attending a briefing by Haig: "It reminded me very much of the meetings I had with General William Westmoreland over Viet Nam. We start out with advisers and they turn into combat advisers and then into ground troops."

But most Congressmen appear willing to let Reagan have his way, and no serious attempt is expected to block the dispatch of the advisers.

Still, opposition to U.S. involvement in El Salvador is growing. Twenty nuns staged a sit-in at the Boston office of House Speaker Tip O'Neill to discuss the situation; O'Neill finally met with them last week. Carrying signs reading U.S. GUNS KILL U.S. NUNS* and NO TAX DOLLARS FOR MURDER, more than 400 people marched outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles. Many of the protests are being organized by the U.S. Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a Washington-based group that is openly sympathetic to the guerrillas. CISPES is sponsoring a hunger strike in 30 cities on March 22 and a National Solidarity Day on April 18.

Administration officials are deeply concerned that the junta, which has undertaken an ambitious land reform program, could be unseated at any time by a rightist-led coup. Those fears were heightened last week when Roberto D'Aubuisson, 37, a former national guard intelligence officer and prominent rightist leader, held a press conference in San Salvador. Wearing a blue baseball cap with laurel leaves and sporting a silver dagger at his side, D'Aubuisson warned that a coup was imminent, adding ominously, "March seems a good month." He contended that the Reagan Administration would support such a coup, and claimed to have held several meetings over the past year with "members of Reagan's group," including Roger Fontaine, now a member of the National Security Council.

The attack on the U.S. embassy took place next day. Officials in both Washington and San Salvador interpreted the strike as a warning by D'Aubuisson to the U.S. not to oppose a coup. Jose Napoleon Duarte, the Christian Democratic president of the junta, immediately ordered D'Aubuisson's arrest. Administration officials vehemently denied that they supported a coup. Said Reagan: "We are opposed to terrorism of the right or left. It would be of the gravest concern to us if there were such a thing [as a coup]."

El Salvador's Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia subsequently asserted that D'Aubuisson's threat of a coup was nothing more than a "siren song." Said Garcia: "You can discount the possibility of a coup. The armed forces support the government totally the way it is now."

At a swearing-in ceremony for members of a new electoral commission, Duarte promised that El Salvador in 1982 would hold its first free and honest elections in 50 years. Though Duarte has steadfastly rejected any negotiated settlement with the leftists, he expressed his willingness last week to hold a "dialogue," adding that "dialogue does not signify negotiation." Reports circulated throughout San Salvador last week that Duarte was planning to fly to West Germany to see former Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Social Democratic Party favors a negotiated settlement. Though Duarte denied the report, he remained tantalizingly ambiguous. Said he: "For the moment I have made no decision to go to Europe, and any speculation about that is just speculation."

Meanwhile, Duarte extended for another 30 days, until April 11, an amnesty period for guerrillas to surrender. He also emphasized the importance of economic as well as military aid from Washington. The Reagan Administration, however, is reluctant to approve a large aid package at this time. Says a senior State Department official: "Big economic aid will be money down a rathole if it goes to an environment that is totally unstable."

The war continued to simmer. Salvadoran troops moved in and cleared guerrillas off the Conchagua volcano, near La Union. The 700 gunmen reportedly stationed there had retreated long before the assault was finished. Government forces also regained control of the tiny town of San Antonio de Los Ranches in Chalatenango, nearly completing the recapture of villages seized by the guerrillas in their failed January offensive.

Peasants in the parched countryside report that many of the revolutionary bands are near starvation, but it is too early to dismiss the leftist cause. The rebels are said to be regrouping and waiting for the May rainy season to launch new attacks. They continue to blow up a power line here and cut telephone wires there in the sort of skirmishing that can drag on interminably, with neither side able to claim victory. "The army has fought the guerrillas to a draw," said one U.S. official in San Salvador last week. "The conflict could now go on as a war of attrition for a long, long time."

--By James Kelly. Reported by Bernard Diederich/San Salvador and Roberto Sum/Washington

*Three American nuns and a lay religious worker were murdered in El Salvador last December by a right-wing death squad. Though the junta's investigation into the deaths has been sluggish, John Bushnell, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, defended the inquiry last week as "thorough."

With reporting by Bernard Diederich/San Salvador, Roberto Sum/Washington

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.