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(Begin Report by John Martin.)

MR. BRINKLEY: First, the news since the Sunday morning papers: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, angry at what he calls a breach of trust by the CIA, announces he will resign as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence.

"Had the Committee been told about the mining of Nicaragua's harbor," he says, "it would have refused to approve it. But," he says, "the Committee was not adequately briefed and was the victim of a breach of trust."

Here's Senator Moynihan with ABC's John Martin, in today's background report on the boiling dispute about U.S. policy in Central America. John?

MR. MARTIN: Five weeks ago, David, in a room sealed off on the fourth floor of the Capitol, the Director of Central Intelligence mentioned a plan to mine the harbors of Nicaragua. It was one sentence, 27 words, in two hours of words to a select group of Senators.

But this week, like an explosive, that sentence blew up under Ronald Reagan's Central American policy. The House refused to fund it. Both houses called on the President to stop the mining "as a violation of international law," in the words of Senator Barry Goldwater. And this morning, Senator Patrick Moynihan says he is resigning as Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee as a protest to what he calls a violation of trust.

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: Senator Goldwater made his judgment as clear as words could do and four or five days after that, they still

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reject his judgement, so they now have my judgment in the only
it,
way I can make / which is to say, "I resign."

MR. MARTIN: "They" are CIA director William Casey who
insisted in this bulletin to employees this week, that he had noti-
fied Congress on the mining as required by law, and UN Ambassador
Jeane Kirkpatrick, who called the mining "legal and justified."
that

AMBASSADOR KIRKPATRICK: The evidence / Nicaragua is
involved in promoting armed insurgency in El Salvador is truly
beyond dispute. To portray Nicaragua as a victim in the current
situation is a complete Orwellian inversion of what is actually
happening.

MR. MARTIN: It was a week of Orwellian inversions. The
*Washington Post* and *The New York Times* reported that for months CIA
recruits and vessels had been mining Nicaruan waters. Suddenly,
Nicaragua prepared to sue the United States at the World Court in
The Hague. The United States declared it would not accept the
Court's jurisdiction.

MIGUEL D'ESCOTO: This is a clear manifestation of
guilt.

MR. MARTIN: In the Novel "1984" Orwell wrote of words
twisted to mean the opposite. Critics said it sounded Orwellian
to say the United States supports the rule of law by temporarily
avoiding the rule of the World Court.

The American Society of International Law went on record
opposing the decision, but a leading scholar said the mining was
legally justified.

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MR. JOHN NORTON MOORE: When there is an armed attack in violation of the United Nations Charter and the OAS system, then there is a right of defense. And the United States is entitled to respond in ways that are either overt or covert.

MR. MARTIN: Last night, two American attorneys representing Nicaragua left for The Hague to ask for an order restraining the United States. Tomorrow they will meet with the Court's President.

MR. PAUL REICHLER: The Administration knows there is no legal justification for its unlawful covert action against the Government of Nicaragua including its mining of the ports. What the United States is trying to do is act as prosecutor, judge and, literally, executioner.

MR. MARTIN: In its complaint to the Court, Nicaragua says hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded by rebels trained, equipped and sent into battle by the CIA. Until now, Congress has financed those operations, but this week, the House recessed for Easter without approving more funds.

Friday, the President said he'll bypass congress temporarily to get money from emergency funds. The Senate and House, meanwhile, voted overwhelmingly against the mining; 42 Republicans deserted the President.

SENATOR KENNEDY: Clearly, it was illegal. Clearly, it was immoral; and, clearly, ineffective. I say give diplomacy a chance. Give peace a chance. Give negotiations a chance. And that I think is what was being said on the Floor of the United States Senate this week.

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MR. MARTIN: But another Senator who sits on the Intelligence Committee denounced the dispute on notification and the vote.

SENATOR WALLOP: The Committee has been fully informed on all the activities, including that one. And to claim otherwise is disingenuous. It is totally immoral to promise people support, have them put their lives on the line and then walk away and say, "The heat is too much in our kitchen. We can't do that."

MR. MARTIN: But Senator Moynihan insisted that if he had been told of the mining by CIA recruits in direct action:

SENATOR MOYNIHAN: We would have said, "No, you cannot do that." We've tried so hard to insist that what we did was things that could be defensible under law, in particular, under the charter of the Organization of American States.

I am telling you, I resign. I mean they did not brief us.

MR. MARTIN: Some Administration officials are predicting that when Congress returns in about 10 days from its Easter recess, it will vote to resume funding of covert operations against the Sandinistas. But that's just about the time the World Court may be trying to decide whether to listen to Nicaragua's complaint and also just about the time that Senator Moynihan's resignation takes effect.

So, after a week of revolt here on Capitol Hill, perhaps even George Orwell wouldn't try to predict what will happen next. David?

MR. BRINKLEY: John, thank you.

(End of John Martin report.)

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MR. BRINKLEY: Mr. Kissinger, thank you very much for coming in. It is a pleasure to have you with us this morning.

DR. KISSINGER: Pleasure to be here.

MR. BRINKLEY: Here with me are George Will of ABC News and Sam Donaldson, ABC News White House Correspondent.

Mr. Kissinger, as chairman of the bi-partisan commission, you were all over Central America, talked to everybody. What do you think about the current difficulty? The mining? Begin with that. What do you think of it?

DR. KISSINGER: I think the whole debate is really getting to be off the point. The fundamental question that has to be decided is whether the United States can afford Central America to go communist, to be organized -- on the Cuban model, which is what Nicaragua is attempting to do and which is one of the issues in Salvador. That's the fundamental question.

Then we can debate that the means are appropriate to the whether objective, / covert or overt operations should be used and to what extent Americans should be involved. But it seems to me the only issues that get discussed are the last issues and not the fundamental one. And I basically sympathize with the Administration, though I had nothing to do with the making of policy and don't even -- I'm not even kept informed. I say that only to make clear that I support the Administration as a private citizen and not as an official.

MR. BRINKLEY: Well, specifically on the mining. This is being discussed. This week there's a great turmoil in Congress.

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People are resigning and so on.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the basic -- it seems to me the basic up problem posed by Nicaragua is that it is building/military forces that are absolutely unprecedented in Central America, larger than all the forces of all the rest of Central America put together. There are 8,000 Cubans, 3,000 of whom are military; at least 1,000 Bulgarian, Libyan, PLO, the East Germans, Russian Intelligence experts.

If this goes on over an indefinite period of time, the rate of Nicaragua and surrounding countries will become overwhelming. When we were in Costa Rica, which is democratic, unarmed, the leaders there were terrified of the Nicaragua of today.

Now, we have to find, either by negotiations or by other methods, a means of stopping the influx of these arms and, if necessary, of our arms into Central America and return Central American to Central American dimensions.

And in this sense, if -- since negotiations don't seem to get anywhere, I sympathize with the mining, though I don't know any of the details about it.

MR. WILL: You say the debate is off the point. Doesn't the kind of debate we're now having make a point and is it not the following: Your commission unanimously says Central America is vital It is under seige. And we need $8 billion in aid.

We're having a tremendous argument over nickel and dime approaches, $32 million today and a few million tomorrow. There's a hue and cry in the country about the use of small mines in the harbors. Doesn't this indicate that the United States simply is not

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ready to do anything effective to contain what you describe as
Nicaragua's key role in subverting the region?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I frankly think the Administration has
made a mistake in not putting before the American public the
dimensions of the problem and to permit the debate to degenerate into
$50 million increments.

But that's a -- not as crucial as some of the critics who
give the impression that it makes no difference if Central America
becomes communist. And we should put -- I think the public should
be told the full dimensions of what is needed.

What we said in the bi-partisan commission is that there is
an argument for doing nothing. There's an argument for doing enough.
There is no argument for doing too little. And the present crisis
produces much too little.

MR. WILL: Is this a recipe, then, for protracted failure,
the policy we're now following?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that at the present level of
effort produced in large part by our domestic division, it is a
recipe for failure and I believe that failure will cost us more in
come to
money and risk more in terms of the danger of war than to try to / a
conclusion about it.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, if the end is to keep Central America
from going communist, then we're arguing over the means, aren't
we?

DR. KISSINGER: That's right.

MR. DONALDSON: Are any means out of bounds? Are all means

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fair?

DR. KISSINGER: Obviously not, but --

MR. DONALDSON: Well, why not argue over the mining? You say that's a side issue and you seem to suggest as much.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, because, I, frankly, don't see that the effort to cut off the influx of arms into that area is an impermissible means.

MR. DONALDSON: So, mining would be all right?

DR. KISSINGER: I haven't gone into all the details. My --

MR. DONALDSON: But we're asking your opinion, Dr. Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: What my opinion is, yes.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, did you know about it before you signed the report?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

MR. DONALDSON: Did the Administration or anyone else inform you of it?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I was not told about it.

MR. DONALDSON: Because in the report you specifically talk about not using American combat troops, for instance, in El Salvador, but you do not make the same statement about Nicaragua.

DR. KISSINGER: What we say in the report is that American forces should be used only in overwhelming -- if the American national security is overwhelmingly threatened. This is, I think, almost the exact language of the report.

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I believe and I know key members, even democratic members of the commission also believe, that if Central America collapses, our vital national security will, in time, be threatened, at least at the Panama Canal and then there's a high likelihood that we will have to use American forces.

We did not recommend it in the present circumstances and I still believe that it is manageable without American forces in present circumstances.

MR. WILL: But he who says "A" must say "B" as they say. And you're saying that given the fact that our vital interests are engaged and given the fact that the tide is running against us. But in order to prevent the fulfillment of that tide we have to be prepared to use U.S. ground forces.

DR. KISSINGER: I think we are far from this point. Let us first --

MR. WILL: Two years?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I think the present process in which the Administration is putting forward sort of a minimum program that the Congress then cuts into a third, in which every step of the way it is blighted by the fear of what will happen if there is a huge debate. It is so tentative and creates so many doubts in everybody's mind that in two years or less we can arrive at precisely this point, where we will have to decide whether the only way -- whether we can save it is by American forces.

I can't make a judgment on that -- on that now. The danger is very real that that point will be reached. I think we can avoid

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this point if we make up our mind to do -- to do enough. I believe
the Administration should be less timid and put before the public
what is necessary.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, may I go back to the means? Critics
say, of course, that we are in violation of international law, that
the mining of harbors is an act of war. And, furthermore, by refusing
to allow the World Court of Justice to have any jurisdiction, we're
just thumbing our noses at international law.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, Ambassador Kirkpatrick, who is on this
program later, made a speech last week, which I found rather
convincing on the legal aspects. And I'm no expert on the legal
of
side. I find it sort/hypocritical, and a little sickening in a
world in which countries have been overrun, in which Nicaragua
is the headquarters for the guerrilla movement in Salvador, that
suddenly Nicaragua should involve the rule of law.

Whether we should have gone to the supreme -- to the
International Court and saying that we -- we would not accept the
judgment, but we wanted to put our case -- whether that would have
that
been a better tactic, one can argue. But/suddenly in years, where
you -- there are daily incidents of violence, terrorism -- that then
the countries that reject the International Court of Justice, namely,
the communist countries, should be able to drag us into the
International Court of Justice, and we get accused of violating law --
shows a kind of confusion that I find rather appalling and also
hypocracy.

MR. DONALDSON: You're really saying that the end justifies

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the mans?

DR. KISSINGER: I am not -- well, some ends justify some means.

MR. DONALDSON: Does the end of keeping Central America from going communist justify any means that --

DR. KISSINGER: Not any -- no, not any means. We're talking about these means.

MR. DONALDSON: Mining?

DR. KISSINGER: Justify these -- the mining as I know it, and I don't know enough about it, from what I have read and what I understand it -- it justifies it, yes.

MR. BRINKLEY: Thank you, Mr. Kissinger. Thank you very much for coming in. It has been a pleasure to have you with us today.

(Announcements.)

MR. BRINKLEY: Senator Leahy, thank you very much for coming in. Glad to have you with us today.

SENATOR LEAHY: Thank you. Glad to be here.

MR. BRINKLEY: You, I believe, are opposed to the Reagan policies generally in Central America. Specifically on the current events, the mining and so on, the Rio Treaty -- tell me your response to this, the Rio Treaty says an attack on any country in the Americas is considered to be an attack on all. Doesn't that justify the U.S. doing what it is doing?

SENATOR LEAHY: It doesn't justify the U.S. to get itself into a situation where it doesn't look like it knows what it's doing.

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And it certainly doesn't justify us to claim that somehow Nicaragua
is an imminent threat to the United States. Certainly, if, as the
President suggested in the State of the Union speech a year ago.
Nicaragua was allowing Soviet missile sites, offensive missile sites
or defensive missile sites for that matter -- come into Nicaragua.
We would have the opportunity, in fact, the right to go in and remove
that.

That's not what we're talking about. And to try to somehow
work that mining policy into being a defensive policy because of
an attack -- imminent attack or something on the United States -- it
makes no sense at all.

MR. WILL: Are you saying that our security then is not
really directly engaged until there is an imminent attack on the
territory of the United States?

SENATOR LEAHY: Of course not.

MR. WILL: So, given that the House Intelligence Committee,
affirmed later by the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that
Nicaragua is the key to support for the rebels in El Salvador, does
that not engage United States security?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, that's not exactly what the Intelli-
have
.gence Committees / said. And it is certainly --

MR. WILL: Let me --

SENATOR LEAHY: It is certainly not what the Senate
Intelligence Committee has been told. The question of support for
the rebels in El Salvador, support coming from Nicaragua is well-
documented. I have no question about that. But we've heard

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discussions that somehow our actions are going to stop our arms
coming into El Salvador.

So far the Administration has been hard pressed to find a
single instance where this kind of action has stopped arms coming
into El Salvador.

MR. WILL: This is what Senator Moynihan, in his capacity
as chairman said.

SENATOR LEAHY: Vice Chairman.

MR. WILL: Vice Chairman. What the House Intelligence
Committee stated last May is still true. The insurgency in El
Salvador depends for its life blood -- arms, et cetera -- upon
outside assistance from Nicaragua and Cuba. Now, given that that's
the case, is not the use of small mines a proportionate and
reasonable response?

SENATOR LEAHY: Where do the small mines do anything to
stop the arms? The question is, and the Intelligence Committees have
stated very much in both the Boland Amendment and the Senate
Intelligence Committee -- the covert activity was limited as the
Administration told us it would be to the interdicting of arms from
Nicaragua.

Now, that's the statements made on the Hill. It's almost
done with a wink and a shrug, as everybody says going out of the
committee rooms, "Well, you know, this is going to put pressure on
the government. It may well topple the government" and so on.

If that's the purpose, say so. If the purpose of the
mining is to interdict arms, then it has been a collossal failure.

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It has not interdicted any arms. If the purpose of the covert activity is to interdict arms --

MR. DONALDSON: Are you sure? How do you know that?

SENATOR LEAHY: You have to go by what the intelligence people themselves tell us and you have to go by what the Administration -- to look for any example of interdiction to justify their program and come up over and over again and say, "No, we don't have any."

MR. DONALDSON: If the mining of Nicaraguan harbors is justified from any standpoint of U.S. security or otherwise, why not have the U.S. Navy do it?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, I happen to agree with that. The _Washington Post_ today -- the former CIA expert says that -- "Why don't we make it overt?" The problem that we have here and what it boils down to is this, is that we have tried to substitute a covert activity for foreign policy. There is no time in our history that a long-range covert activity has ever successfully substituted for foreign policy. And it is not successfully substituting for one now.

That has been the mistake. That's why there's no consensus of opinion. And, quite frankly, the Administration has not made any effort to get a consensus of opinion on the Hill.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, Senator, I want to try something on you can argue with you and / -- it if you will. And that is the Senate was informed as the House was informed, the committees were informed, no one did anything about it. No one raised a hue and cry until somehow publicly the information got out and there was a feeling

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that maybe the American public was a little excited. Then people
resigned from committees and people give lots of speeches. That's
hypocritical isn't it?

SENATOR LEAHY: You raise an interesting point, Sam, and I --
you sound like kind of a rerun of one of my speeches on the Floor,
although you do it so much better, of course. The thing is -- the
thing is this, some were informed. Certainly I was informed about
the mining and that's why I co-sponsored an amendment --

MR. DONALDSON: Well, was Senator Moynihan in the room with
you?

SENATOR LEAHY: And -- no this was in a separate briefing.
I had missed some briefings, because I was in Vermont on a family
matter that required me to be there -- came back and got further
briefings.

I asked specific questions about the minings going on. I
felt that I was adequately briefed and they were forthcoming and
told me the minings were going on. I voted against covert action,
partly because of that. I joined in an amendment for on the
Floor that --

MR. DONALDSON: I am not asking about your record.

SENATOR LEAHY: No, no, but -- no, I understand, but the
point is this, in discussion of our amendment on the Floor a week
ago, a week and a half ago, there was discussion certainly among the
Senators, at least privately, about the mining and it turns out a
number of Senators that didn't know it.

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But there were Senators who voted one way the week before, in a different way the following week, who knew about the mining in both instances. And I think were influenced solely by the public opinion. And I think that's wrong and that's a lousy job of legislative action.

MR. WILL: In the Newsweek of -- that was on the newsstands on March 12th -- there is a map and it shows where mines are going off. Wasn't there a kind of sense that the U.S., which is supporting the Contras, was supporting that?

SENATOR LEAHY: Yes.

MR. DONALDSON: Should we do everything necessary, as Dr. Kissinger suggests, to prevent communism from spreading to Central America.

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, I think Dr. Kissinger --

MR. DONALDSON: Everything?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, Dr. Kissinger made a point that there is -- there is a mistake in doing too little. You either do enough or you don't do anything. Basically --

MR. DONALDSON: So, what's enough?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, that's -- I tend to agree with the basic principle of what he says until you say, "What's enough?" I mean, are we going to nuke them, build a new canal at the same time or are we actually going to go in there and make an effective policy? We are not doing enough of an effective policy. We are not looking at the -- we are not looking at the fact that there is no

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real military solution short of sending in American troops.

MR. DONALDSON: Would you favor that if necessary?
If necessary?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, you would have to define what is necessary.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, to prevent communism from spreading to El Salvador, to Guatemala, to Honduras.

SENATOR LEAHY: If that is not the situation we are in -- that is not the situation we are in. If we are in danger to the United States, certainly we send in the troops, but that is not what is going on here now. There is a mind set of many people in the Administration that the only thing that's going to work is a military solution and they're wrong. What that does is rules out diplomatic efforts, economic efforts, the Contadora group, all the things that really have a chance of working.

MR. WILL: Are you against sending aid to the Afghanistan freedom fighters, either the United States or other nations, and if so, why is that different than supporting the freedom fighters against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua?

SENATOR LEAHY: Well, I am somewhat constrained in that because whatever aid would go to the Afghan freedom fighters would go through the Senate Intelligence Committee --

MR. WILL: Just as --

SENATOR LEAHY: And it is not a matter that I can discuss.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, again, the newspapers --

MR. WILL: Are you -- as a matter of principle, is it