Material Requested for the SSCI Briefing of 25 May 1983

CIA-RDP85M00363R000902060040-5

THE DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20505
National Intelligence Council NIC 3789
24 May 1983

MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director of Central Intelligence
THROUGH: Special Assistant to the Director for Interdepartmental Affairs
FROM: Constantine C. Menges
National Intelligence Officer for Latin America

SUBJECT: Material You Requested for the SSCI Briefing of 25 May 1983

  1. Attached is the contribution you requested for the evaluative part of you presentation tomorrow along with a list of all intelligence estimates produced during my 20 months as NIO/LA.
  2. Please note that this statement is consistent with the response the NIC gave the SSCI staff to questions about analysis and production in mid-March 1983.

Constantine C. Menges

Attachments:
As stated


Predictive Record of Intelligence Community Estimates on Central America/Mexico: September 1981 to May 1983

Since September 1981, sixteen Intelligence Community coordinated analyses on Latin American issues have been written and nine of these dealt with the Central America/Mexico region. On the whole the predictive performance has been very good: the main trends and warnings of the Central American national intelligence estimates of September 1981, June 1982 and December 1982 were validated by events; the March 1982 estimate on the Salvadoran elections correctly predicted the massive guerrilla military and propaganda effort to disrupt them, the government’s capacity to carry out the elections and came close in predicting the results by party though the 80% voter participation was a surprise; the November 1982 Intelligence Assessment of Cuban hostile international actions correctly identified Cuban subversive and clandestine actions in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East; the November 1982 Interagency Intelligence Memorandum on the Caribbean correctly pointed to the dangerous movement of the Suriname military regime—closer to Cuba—an event which became publicly visible with the December 1982 murder of virtually the entire democratic leadership by Bouterse.

The December 1982 SNIE on “Prospects for Hostilities Between Nicaragua and Honduras” summarized the intelligence on Nicaraguan/Cuban efforts since 1980 to use Honduras as a transit point for weapons shipments to El Salvadoran guerrillas, and to use terrorism to pressure Honduras into neutralism; it correctly predicted that the Nicaraguan/Cuban response to expanded anti-Sandinista activities would be to step up their three year effort to expand and unify the Honduran extreme left.

Predictions not fulfilled include warnings about possible assasinations of moderate Central American leaders, US nationals and the possible introduction of MIG jet fighters into Nicaragua—though public statements by US leaders in reaction to the intelligence data may have deterred this last action.

Next Page Denied

Date:
May 24, 1983
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