‘For a CIA Man, It’s 1954 Again’

It is wrong for Philip C. Roettinger to compare aid to the contras to the U.S. backing of the 1954 coup in Guatemala. I refer to his article (Editorial Pages, March 16), “For a CIA Man, It’s 1954 Again.”

First, the democratic forces fighting the Sandinistas stand for democratic free elections not the shameful sham elections the Sandinistas staged in 1984. Second, land reform, Sandinista style, has resulted in squeezing out of the Nicaraguan middle class--an important and stabilizing element of the society. The Sandinistas have merely redistributed the privileges of the Somoza oligarchy in an unparalleled patronage to friends and relatives of the revolution.

Lastly, the “confessions” of an ex-operative ignores the Alliance for Progress, which emerged as U.S. policy in 1961. The Alliance for Progress pledged U.S. support to democracy and land reform in Latin America. That policy has never been repudiated, and under President Reagan it has been given a fresh infusion of aid. And the policy is working: Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Brazil have had democratic elections since 1980 and land reform agendas.

Perhaps the self-confessed operative turned painter should take off his rose-colored glasses and take a second look at President Reagan’s Central American policy.

EDWARD G. HEIDIG

Thousand Oaks