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The Reagan Administration was concerned with human rights. But publicly denouncing friends on questions of human rights while minimizing the abuse of those rights in the Soviet Union and other totalitarian countries was at an end. El Salvador, vital though the preservation of its democratic future is, represents a symptom of dangerous conditions in the Americas—Cuban adventurism, Soviet strategic ambition.
When I was a private citizen, President José López Portillo of Mexico had told me that the difficulty he had had it a domestic Mexican sense in dealing with the Carter Administration was that, in his words, "a President of Mexico cannot survive by taking positions to the right of the President of the U.S."
Months later, as Secretary of State, I found myself seated next to the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. at a dinner. He leaned over and made an offer. Would the new Administration like to open a discreet line of communication with the rebels in El Salvador? I exploded: no longer, I said, would Washington deal secretly with insurgents who were attempting to overthrow legal governments in the Western Hemisphere. In the next four years, the Americas would see a determined U.S. effort to stamp out Cuban-supported subversion.
The Ambassador was at first startled by my vehemence, but he gripped my hand warmly. "For years," he said fervently, "I have been waiting for an American to speak words such as these. Tonight I will go home and sleep well!"
There was another envoy who needed to hear the message. This was the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoli Dobrynin. "It's good to see you back in Washington, Al," he said when he made his first call on me at the State Department. "You belong here." Coming quickly to the point, I raised with him the question of the transshipment of Soviet arms through Nicaragua to the insurgents in El Salvador. "All lies," said Dobrynin.
"Photographs don't lie," I replied, for the U.S. had been gathering intelligence on arms smuggling for a period of a year or more from human agents and by technological means like satellite photography. "The U.S. is profoundly disturbed by Cuban activities in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world."
Dobrynin said this was certainly no way to start an Administration. How, he asked, should the U.S. and the Soviet Union begin to develop a dialogue? I said, "It is not acceptable to talk peace while acting differently. One statement we can never accept is [President Leonid] Brezhnev's insistence on your right to support so-called wars of liberation whenever and wherever targets of opportunity develop."
This was a flash point. Dobrynin said he could recall no such policy. It would be very unfortunate, he added, if the Soviet leadership formed the impression that the Reagan Administration was hostile to the U.S.S.R., because first impressions often persisted.
"Not hostile," I said. "Offended by Soviet excesses. Confident, determined, prepared to do what is necessary. The Soviet leadership must know that there must be change, for the future good of both sides." Then and subsequently, I stressed our concern with Cuba's role as a Soviet proxy.
Dobrynin complained, "All I ever hear from you is Cuba, Cuba, Cuba!" It