Taking Sides?

Charges of U.S. "manipulation"

As Salvadorans prepared to head for the polls last Sunday in the second and final round of presidential elections, the candidates launched the usual last-minute blitz of charges and countercharges. But one campaigner found some surprising ammunition. Hugo Barrera, the vice-presidential nominee of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), made public the text of a letter from Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina to President Reagan demanding the removal of the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Thomas Pickering. Helms accused Pickering of manipulating the elections, specifically by urging the country's provisional President, Alvaro Magana, to veto an ARENA-sponsored proposal for loosening voting procedures. Wrote Helms: "Mr. Pickering has used the cloak of diplomacy to strangle freedom in the night."

The Helms letter drew quick rebuttals from the White House and congressional leaders. Asserting that Ronald Reagan had "full confidence" in Pickering, White House Spokesman Larry Speakes contended that the Administration had not taken sides in the runoff election between Christian Democrat Jose Napoleon Duarte and ARENA'S Roberto d'Aubuisson. But in a speech on the Senate floor, Helms expanded his attack, contending that the State Department "bent over backwards to facilitate a Duarte victory" and that a member of the U.S. embassy staff in San Salvador told ARENA officials the U.S. would not support D'Aubuisson if he won. State Department officials rejected those charges as well.

Despite the U.S. denials, it is no secret that the Reagan Administration strongly prefers Duarte, if only because a victory by D'Aubuisson, who is frequently alleged to have ties with right-wing death squads, would end any hopes for congressional approval of continued military aid to El Salvador. The election process itself has been carried out with great U.S. encouragement and assistance. Though Pickering is hardly the puppetmaster depicted by Helms, he has not refrained from voicing his government's views. When Duarte and D'Aubuisson were angling for the support of Francisco Jose ("Chachi") Guerrero, leader of the conservative National Conciliation Party, Pickering held talks with the Salvadoran politician and explained U.S. congressional attitudes toward D'Aubuisson, but stopped short of advising political neutrality for Guerrero in the election runoff. Nonetheless, neutrality is the position that Guerrero eventually took.

For his part, Helms is hardly a dispassionate observer. When D'Aubuisson's request for a U.S. visa was denied last November, the Senator loudly complained. Deborah DeMoss, a Helms aide who has visited El Salvador numerous times in the past year, tried to arrange a speaking engagement for D'Aubuisson at Georgetown University last January.

To underscore their concern about the election results, the Democratic leaders of the House of Representatives decided last week to postpone consideration of $62 million in proposed emergency military assistance to El Salvador until after the balloting. Said Democratic Representative Clarence Long of Maryland: "We want to send a notice to the [Salvadoran] military. They had better honor that election."

Reagan is so frustrated by the aid postponement that he may blame Congress in a television address this week. White House aides are especially alarmed by intelligence reports that the guerrillas are planning a major offensive this fall. Some Central American sources say that the rebels are actually planning two major attacks, the first in July to coincide with the Democratic National Convention and the second in October just before the election. In the summer offensive, the rebels hope to expand their control of the northern departments of Morazan and Chalatenango. As part of that effort, the guerrillas will aim a public relations campaign at the Democrats when they gather in San Francisco July 16 to 20.

The October offensive will attempt to make the war a major issue as the U.S. heads for the polls. According to the guerrillas, they will try to assassinate U.S. advisers based at San Miguel and La Union. The rebels say they have trained a hit squad in Morazan department to infiltrate the Salvadoran army and kill key officers as well as their U.S. instructors. Another scenario calls for the insurgents to concentrate on two or three spectacular attacks that would get front-page headlines in the U.S. The guerrillas obviously have decided that last Sunday's election is not the only one that matters.