and the people of the United States that very important influence which we have had but which we are losing with many other countries of the hemisphere. When we tried to deny to any sovereign nation the wherewithal to defend itself, we force them to turn elsewhere to meet their requirements. I believe this is what they are doing and that one way or another each will find a way to satisfy its requirements.

I guess what I am trying to say, sir, is that I believe we have gone much too far in imposing sanctions against countries and if we are going to turn it around, we have to make drastic changes in our arms transfer policy, arms transfers are, in fact, increasing throughout the hemisphere but with practically no U.S. input into

it.

Mr. LowRY. Do you have other suggestions in addition to the arms embargo or sanction? Are there other areas in which this Nation could work that you think might be effective in addition to the arms embargo?

Colonel THOMAS. Well, as a starting point, sir, I would have to go back to the revisions in the lifting of the arms embargoes. The lifting of embargoes does not say that we are going to sell to any country anything that they might conceivably want. It would make it then possible, legal, for the United States to do business with them once again, to establish securities, defense ties, and I think we will be in a far more better position to establish a cooperative relationship. And that would, in fact, make it possible for governments to control such things as this.

Mr. LowRY. Do you believe that cooperative relationship need also exist between the United States and Panama?

Do you believe that is equally important, that we also have a good working relationship, cooperative relationship with Panama? Colonel THOMAS. Sir, I believe it is important that we have a good working relationship with each and every country around the world to the extent possible and certainly to the extent that it serves U.S. interests, no matter how small the country.

Mr. LowRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Congressman Lowry.
Congressman Dornan?

Mr. DORNAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also agree with your analysis, Colonel, that the intent is benign and sincere in trying to limit the sale of arms. I have read many books on limiting world arms sales, one almost a century ago called "The Merchant of Death”. When I was a young boy, I read “Arsenal of Democracy." It is a dilemma and hard to figure out which countries are worthy of support and which are not.

I would like to get your observations, given the case we are investigating here today, on the illegal smuggling of arms to a group attempting to overthrow a government by violent means and killing, about the timing aspects here.

Have you been aware, with your Latin America background, that this would be taking place during the implementation period of the treaties in the U.S. Congress; that this gun running would be going on?

Colonel THOMAS. I have been absolutely amazed that they would be so blatant in this type of action, of the particular timing of it, yes, sir.

Mr. DORNAN. One of the things that I will be asking General McAuliffe about, and I would like you to comment on, when you were at the Latin desk for the Air Force, did you also find some confusion in our Pentagon when the Russian Trade Delegations were coming to Panama during the very period that Ambassadors Bunker and Lenowitz were trying to negotiate this treaty?

Was that discussed?

Colonel THOMAS. Not that I recall, sir. I should add at this point that I was not at any time personally involved in the Panama Canal Treaty negotiations or any of the process.

We had one man in the office who worked that job exclusively and I was dealing with other countries of the hemisphere throughout my assignment.

Mr. DORNAN. In your dealings with these other countries, you spent what, 3 years with Nicaragua as an Air Force adviser? Colonel THOMAS. Yes; I did.

Mr. DORNAN. You must have picked up a good feeling for the younger and senior pilots that you were flying with, dealing with. Did you feel that they had an appreciation of some of the aspects of freedom that we cherish but take for granted in this country? Colonel THOMAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. DORNAN. Do you think that there is a middle class in Nicaragua, the families of these military men, many of them who were trained here, that are not that enamored with the autocratic rule of Somoza, but certainly would not want to see a Sandinista alternative?

Colonel THOMAS. I do not think there will come a time in the foreseeable future when the members of Nicaragua would take Sandinista as an alternative to the Somoza dictatorship.

Mr. DORNAN. Given its sheer land mass and its population of way over 100 million people now and the natural resources of Brazil, and the fact that they were a good ally, their young men fought bravely and died all over the slopes of Monte Casino and other battlefields of Italy in combatting fascism, do you think this is one of the major tragedies of the last decade?

Colonel THOMAS. It was a great tragedy. When that happened, I also considered it a great tragedy when a former Member of the Congress made the statement here, not in this room, but made the statement that Brazilians had never fought closer than I believe 500 miles to the front during World War II. That simply was not true. It simply was not true. They were our very staunch allies. They sent, as I recall, some 25,000 people to Italy. There were many, many who were killed there. They gave us access to bases in Brazil for flying across the Atlantic narrows to Africa.

There is no way to overstate the damage done to our country to United States-Brazilian relations when that sort of thing happens. Mr. DORNAN. Are there younger Air Force officers-what time period, colonel, were you in Nicaragua as an air adviser?

Colonel THOMAS. I was there from February 1963 to February 1966.

Mr. DORNAN. So some of the pilots you flew with are now in command positions?

Colonel THOMAS. As a matter of fact, there was a young captain in the Nicaraguan Air Force who was the director of finance at that time. I was also a captain when I went down there.

Mr. DORNAN. And you see them as honorable men?

Colonel THOMAS. Yes, sir, that young captain is a full colonel and a commander of the air force. He is an honorable man, without question.

Mr. DORNAN. Thank you.

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Congressman Dornan.
Congressman Hansen?

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to ask you one or two questions. One is why Panama would be so interested in Nicaragua in particular? Even though there is evidence to believe that Sandinista and other related movements are broader than Nicaragua, and perhaps service in El Salvador or what-can you hear me?

Colonel THOMAS. I hear you fine, sir, but I do not believe your mike is working though.

Mr. HANSEN. Anyway, the point I am wishing to make, do you have any, in your experience in Central American affairs, do you have any reason why Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, why some of these nations might be so interested in Nicaragua in particular?

Cuba, do you think the Bay of Pigs, that it was a staging area for this; that there is really no forgiveness there on the part of Castro? What would be an analysis of why Nicaragua seems to be front and center near the venomous activity of these other activities? Colonel THOMAS. Well, you have already mentioned the fact that Nicaragua was used as a staging area in the Bay of Pigs area. I think it would go back a little further, you would find that the Government of Nicaragua had supported the Government of Cuba in trying to contain Castro before he came to power. That is, they were supporting the Sandinista government. I think those two elements would be a reason to have a longstanding resentment toward the Sandinista government.

Mr. HANSEN. The Somoza government was acting in our interest extensively to do this at the time, so this makes it rather strange to have our supposed friends, Panama and others, fighting against another friend who is very cooperative in a venture that was aborted but, nevertheless, was favorable to the United States? Colonel THOMAS. Yes, sir, it does seem strange.

Mr. HANSEN. Do you find any reason to believe that the governments to the north of Nicaragua are involved in any concerted effort to undercut the Governments of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemela, any of those?

Colonel THOMAS. Sir, I have absolutely no reason to believe that any one of those governments is in any way supporting the Sandinista government. I think to the contrary, they have been extremely careful to maintain at a minimum a neutrality.

Mr. HANSEN. Even though there is infiltration out of those countries into Nicaragua which is known?

Colonel THOMAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. HANSEN. However, then we have the countries to the south, Costa Rica and Panama. Is Costa Rica directly involved by its own government sanction in one way or another, to your knowledge, in support of the Sandinista efforts in Nicaragua?

Colonel THOMAS. My personal belief is that it is or at least has been, and once again I would recommend that the Congress attempt to corroborate that with the administration sources.

Mr. HUBBARD. Do you have one more question?

Mr. HANSEN. I would like to follow up with one more question, if I might, with the indulgence of the Chair.

This then is beyond what we have been given to believe in the press and the public, that Costa Rica is an unwitting victim of infiltrators, and various activities that the government actually is a willing accomplice in this against Nicaragua?

Colonel THOMAS. I find that one a little hard to answer. I believe first that in many respects, Costa Rica has been an unwitting victim of the whole situation.

I do believe, however, that also they have officially sanctioned some source of support of the Sandinista.

Mr. HANSEN. Which may have come under pressure from Panama?

Colonel THOMAS. Or from the Sandinista themselves.
Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Congressman Hansen.
Congressman Carney.

Mr. CARNEY. In your statement you say that the administration appears to be incapable of raising a strong voice of protest against terrorism which emanates from the left.

Could you elaborate on that?

Colonel THOMAS. Yes, sir. The administration has been extremely outspoken in its criticism of various military governments in the hemisphere, on the basis of violations of human rights. Throughout all of this, I have not seen or heard any outcry from the administration regarding the terrorism being committed by such leftist organizations as the Montoneros, the ERP, or others, over the period of the last-slightly over 2 years.

Mr. CARNEY. Would you say it would be fair to say that this is a demonstration of the State Department's selective morality in the Americas?

Colonel THOMAS. I believe I referred to that in my statement, sir, that I think there has been a selective morality practice. I believe it is continuing, and I think it is working to the great discredit and disadvantage of our country.

Mr. CARNEY. Colonel, I appreciate your frankness before this committee, and I am sure you have added an awful lot to it. I will yield to Congressman Dornan.

Mr. DORNAN. Colonel, in the prior witness' period, one of our distinguished colleagues brought up the names of four righteous governments that we were supplying arms to, Saudi Arabia, Iranof course, history is taking care of that one, and Mr. Studds and I were joined to block the sale of Arab aircraft to Iran, for my reason I thought it would fall into the wrong hands, and obviously the F14 Tomcats there did. So I do not have to apologize for that decision.

But he also mentioned Argentina and Uruguay.
Are we supplying arms to Argentina and Uruguay?

Colonel THOMAS. I believe I can give you a complete answer on that, sir. Under the Humphrey amendment that went into effect October 1 last year, a total embargo on all forms of security assistance to Argentina went into effect, that includes all grant assistance, all sales of military equipment, anything on the munitions control list, either for cash or credit, and also it includes the provision of any form of training, either on a grant basis or for cash.

The only thing that would be going to Argentina at this time would be those things which were already on contract, before the law went into effect, and which I understand the administration and the Congress have consented to go ahead and deliver.

Mr. DORNAN. And that Uruguay was one of the highest standard of living nations in South America, well developed, middle class, and ironically it was young children of rich background that involved themselves basically in the Tupamaros period, since they went through that agony, and it is subsidized, have we had any arms transfers to the government there, that could be described as right of center?

Colonel THOMAS. Very limited, sir, as you will recall, there was a piece of legislation which prohibited any former military sales credits to Uruguay for fiscal year 1967. That was known as the Koch amendment.

Mr. DORNAN. Although the history shows there was some arms limitation around the world, it started out as a Marshall plan, and then NATO, if right wing means center of elections, I think we have to reexamine the whole continent, to see where we are under the approach to transferring arms to righteous governments. Thank you.

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, sir.

Congressman Bowen?

Mr. BOWEN. NO QUESTIONS.

Mr. HUBBARD. No questions from Congressmen Wyatt or Lowry? Congressman Lagomarsino?

Mr. LAGOMARSINO. Colonel, I think I agree completely with what you say about our arms transfer policy, particularly in South America and Latin America.

As I recall, we are now the seventh or eighth supplier of arms to that region, whereas we used to be the No. 1, and while No. 1 in this area is not something necessarily to be proud of, I think if we look at the results of that policy, we find that not only have we slipped, but that the amount of arms being sold to that region has actually increased so if the purpose of that was to promote arms stability, and to cut down on the flow of arms into the area, it has not succeeded at all.

One specific example comes to mind, and that is the case of Ecuador, where the Ecuadorians, being, in my opinion, at least rightly worried about the sale of modern fighter bombers from Russia to Peru, asked our Government to sell them fighter aircraft as a protection against those fighter bombers, and remembering also that Peru, not so many years ago, had taken some half of