How-To War

THE FEDERAL government has made a notable addition to its long list of information booklets and how-to pamphlets on everyday living from buying a used car to fixing your toilet. Now, if you are the ambitious type, someone who has always dreamed of becoming a new Castro or Pinochet, well, the government has something for you.

Now you too can learn in ten easy steps how to overthrow the government of a small Central American nation by reading the Central Intelligence Agency's recently leaked "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare," available soon in paperback.

Intended for the American backed Anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicauragua, this nifty manual contains all the techniques a tyroterrorist could ever want to know, from choosing your next assassination to blackmailing people into turning stoolie. The guiding theme is that a policy of infiltration and "implied terror" can force the populace to switch its allegiance from the ruling government to the rebels.

The Reagan administration has protested that this document was the product of an overzealous contract worker, a simple mistake. That's the problem. This booklet clearly explains the tactics and intentions of our Nicauraguan mercenaries, something Reagan would do only by accident. The Administration has been supporting a small army that hopes to gain power by assassination and hold it through intimidation, precisely the qualities abhorred in the Sandinista government.

What is most unusual about the booklet is that it surprised anyone at all. Even Walter Mondale missed the point when he called for CIA director William Casey's resignation for advocating un-American mischief. The activities of the CIA in the not so-secret Nicaraguan war have been public knowledge for months.

What are the contras supposed to do with their American supplied weapons except blow up things and kill people? What else does CIA training entail? This manual simply spells out the common sense measures that groups from the Boers to the Rhmer Rouge have taken to mount effective insurrections. But aided by a lack of press coverage of that region Reagan has been able to play down the real consequences of his policies, making the contras sound like cartoon GI Joes fighting for truth and justice with guns that only kill Commies. The matter-of-fact Macchiavellianism of the CIA's booklet underscores the ugly truth that we are not with the good guys, which is not to imply that we are lighting them, either.

With any luck at all the discovery of this booklet should stiffen congressional resolve to resist more funds for the contras. But then what is to be done with the remaining books? One good possibility would be to distribute it free of charge to the rebels in El Salvador on the off chance they might follow some of the suggestions. Considering the luck the contras have had and the usual quality of CIA advice, the rebels will roll over and die within a month.