With a bold offer, Duarte reaches out to El Salvador's rebels
The stratagem was risky, audaciousand brilliant in its simplicity. In a few sentences uttered before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City last week, Salvadoran President José Napoleón Duarte pierced the psychological curtain that has divided his nation through nearly five years of civil war. During a 55-min. address, the stocky, dynamic Christian Democrat announced that he would travel unarmed to meet with his Marxist-Leninist foes, the guerrilla commanders of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (F.M.L.N.). At the meeting,...