For the Record

Who in France said no? At press time, speculation in Paris is that Mitterrand, asserting title as commander in-chief, gave the negative to U.S. bombers, greatly increasing risk of mission. Chirac, as prime minister, appoints defense minister, but how to make constitutional assertion as planes were readying to fly? Ill-will severe, and observers are wondering whether Mitterrand was simply being spiteful, and testing his authority against that of Chirac. Inside story is bound to break. All France wants the answer, and most of America.

Either the President hasn’t gotten his message across, or the American people just don’t care, or both. At any rate, latest New York Times/CBS News poll on Nicaragua shows that while 59 per cent believe the Nicaraguan government will provide the Soviet Union with bases, and 56 per cent agree the Sandinistas are a threat to other Central American countries, only 33 per cent of Americans support Ronald Reagan’s plea for aid to the Contras. . . . Washington in a dither over do-it-yourself diplomacy by Democratic congressmen in Panama (Contadora meeting) and Argentina last week. In Buenos Aires, a member of Tip O’Neill’s delegation informed President Raul Alfonsin that Reagan was “a warmonger,” and, according to Evans & Novak, Marty Russo (Ill.) told anyone who would listen that “Reagan’s not going to be happy until he gets into a war in Central America.” Alfonsin, incidentally, told O’Neill that he and other Latin American leaders want to encourage “the establishment and strengthening of a pluralist democracy in Nicaragua.” … In Panama, Michael Barnes (Md.), an uninvited guest at Contadora meeting, insisted U.S. was responsible for its collapse, while numbers of Latin American diplomats blamed Sandinista intransigence for the failure. . . . On the other hand, Les Aspin, chairman of House Armed Services Committee, made quick, unpublicized trip to Managua earlier this month and found, to his surprise, more support there for Contras than for Sandinistas. Aspin has in past opposed Contra aid. . . . Novelist Graham Greene, who can be counted upon to oppose the U.S. in any crisis, has returned to London from a trip to Nicaragua and reports that he has found, “as a Catholic, that the stories of religious persecution are a lie.” He should have talked to ten Nicaraguan bishops who recently signed an open letter of protest to the government on its treatment of the church.

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Who in France said no? At press time, speculation in Paris is that Mitterrand, asserting title as commander in-chief, gave the negative to U.S. bombers, greatly increasing risk of mission. Chirac, as prime minister, appoints defense minister, but how to make constitutional assertion as planes were readying to fly? Ill-will severe, and observers are wondering whether Mitterrand was simply being spiteful, and testing his authority against that of Chirac. Inside story is bound to break. All France wants the answer, and most of America.

Either the President hasn’t gotten his message across, or the American people just don’t care, or both. At any rate, latest New York Times/CBS News poll on Nicaragua shows that while 59 per cent believe the Nicaraguan government will provide the Soviet Union with bases, and 56 per cent agree the Sandinistas are a threat to other Central American countries, only 33 per cent of Americans support Ronald Reagan’s plea for aid to the Contras. . . . Washington in a dither over do-it-yourself diplomacy by Democratic congressmen in Panama (Contadora meeting) and Argentina last week. In Buenos Aires, a member of Tip O’Neill’s delegation informed President Raul Alfonsin that Reagan was “a warmonger,” and, according to Evans & Novak, Marty Russo (Ill.) told anyone who would listen that “Reagan’s not going to be happy until he gets into a war in Central America.” Alfonsin, incidentally, told O’Neill that he and other Latin American leaders want to encourage “the establishment and strengthening of a pluralist democracy in Nicaragua.” … In Panama, Michael Barnes (Md.), an uninvited guest at Contadora meeting, insisted U.S. was responsible for its collapse, while numbers of Latin American diplomats blamed Sandinista intransigence for the failure. . . . On the other hand, Les Aspin, chairman of House Armed Services Committee, made quick, unpublicized trip to Managua earlier this month and found, to his surprise, more support there for Contras than for Sandinistas. Aspin has in past opposed Contra aid. . . . Novelist Graham Greene, who can be counted upon to oppose the U.S. in any crisis, has returned to London from a trip to Nicaragua and reports that he has found, “as a Catholic, that the stories of religious persecution are a lie.” He should have talked to ten Nicaraguan bishops who recently signed an open letter of protest to the government on its treatment of the church.