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Congress has been bolstered in its skepticism by the attitude of American friends abroad. In London last week, Denis Healey, the pro-American shadow Foreign Secretary of Britain's Labor Party, warned: "There is a growing feeling in Europe that the U.S. is drifting into a very dangerous posture in Central America. Armed intervention by American forces in these countries would be a historic blunder." Actually, of course, armed intervention is politically close to impossible, which is one reason why tough Administration rhetoric does not get anywhere.
France has maintained friendly relations with Nicaragua out of the conviction that such sympathy will help keep the country from moving into the Soviet orbit. Despite U.S. dismay, it has even sold "defensive" weapons to the Sandinista government. Reagan raised this issue when President François Mitterrand visited Washington last week. Said Reagan: "We discussed all facets of it." Mitterrand said that the warm and cordial meeting was too short to resolve any disputes over Central America. Explained Mitterrand later: "Our analysis is different from the start. I think these people must come out of the economic misery in which they are held by the oligarchy. This requires comprehension from the West, or these countries will seek support elsewhere."
President José López Portillo of Mexico feels that tension in the region could be reduced through direct discussions between Washington and Havana. Said he last week: "I am absolutely certain that Cuba is willing to negotiate all the questions worrying the security of the U.S." Haig and Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez met secretly last November in Mexico City, and Haig indicated in his Senate testimony last week that there have been other secret discussions. Said the Secretary: "I can assure you the President has never rejected the concept of exploring every conceivable means possible. Discussions have involved all the contributors to the crisis, Cuba and the Soviet Union as well."
For all that, the Administration still fears that negotiations would only provide a screen for an eventual left-wing victory. Moreover, the Administration keeps insisting, perhaps unnecessarily, that the key to its case must be whether it can provide clear evidence that the Nicaraguans, and their Soviet and Cuban mentors, have in fact played a controlling (rather than just a shadowy but significant) part in the El Salvador civil war. To his critics, Haig is still a long way from making that case convincing. A "white paper" issued by the State Department in February 1981 cited "proof that rebel arms were being channeled by Cuba and the Soviet Union through Nicaragua; the evidence was sloppily presented and exaggerated in some cases, opening the Administration to charges of fraud. Last week the State Department had problems producing the two defectors from the Nicaraguan Air Force who were supposed to tell of their involvement in the Salvadoran insurrection. At the last minute, the appearance of the defectors was postponed because, as a senior official quaintly put it, "the new material is not ready to meet the press." Privately, officials acknowledged some worry that the evidence might not be strong enough.