NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S. Salvador Embassy a Monument to Yesterday’s War : Central America: Designed during civil conflict, the lavish new complex in a distant suburb seems overdone, out of place.

When Ambassador William Walker moved into the giant new U.S. Embassy here shortly after a cease-fire ended El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, one of his first guests was Joaquin Villalobos, a powerful leader of the anti-government guerrilla movement, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

As they toured the fortress-like complex on the city’s western outskirts, Walker turned to Villalobos, whose forces had attacked the old embassy more than once, and said: “Welcome to a monument to you.”

Villalobos, a recently recanted Marxist and head of the largest and best of the FMLN armies, looked around at the forbidding complex, turned to Walker, smiled and said: “No, it is a reflection of your shortsightedness.”

The embassy--eight massive structures, including 210,000 square feet of office and residential space covering 26 acres of what once was an Indian burial ground--is a bit of both. Its size and resemblance to a fort were dictated by the civil war in this country after 1980, when the FMLN began its campaign to turn El Salvador into a Marxist-Leninist state and to oust any presence of the United States.

Designed in 1986 at the height of the Salvadoran conflict, the embassy is a monument to yesterday’s conflict, designed to protect the American presence from almost any kind of military action short of a nuclear attack and to house one of the largest U.S. bureaucracies in the diplomatic establishment. “It’s as if the Americans never really believed the war would end,” one diplomat said of the complex.

The irony of opening the embassy for its first function--a breakfast for Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Salvadoran officials within a day of the cease-fire in January that ended the war--was not lost on American functionaries.

“I don’t know if it’s a folly or just an unavoidable development at a time when none of us were fortune tellers,” said one official, “but (the complex) does seem a bit much, now, doesn’t it, especially when the major reason for its construction seems over?”

Another U.S. official noted that the completion of the multimillion-dollar compound comes when the United States lacks the money to open 17 embassies needed in newly independent countries around the world, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.

Given all that, the $80-million complex does, indeed, seem overdone for a country now at peace--even more so, considering that El Salvador is a nation with a population of 5.5 million and no strategic military-political importance and only marginal economic interest for the United States.

But in 1986, perhaps even in early 1991, things were different. Besides the normal embassy staff, more than 300 employees of the Agency for International Development worked here, administering a $400-million-a-year aid program; there also were several dozen U.S. military advisers, for a total of more than 450 people.

To make things worse, a killer earthquake in 1986 devastated the old embassy in busy downtown San Salvador, making three of its five stories unusable; that forced the purchase and lease of several office buildings throughout the city.

Officials then put construction of the new compound on a relative fast track, a six-year program with several war-related interruptions. Despite the expedited schedule, only the housing for Marine guards and the ambassador’s residence now are in use; the envoy’s home is unoccupied, since Walker was reassigned and a new ambassador has not yet been confirmed. Soon, though, the foreign aid mission, now reduced to 290 people, moves to its office in the complex; other elements of the American mission will transfer until all U.S. facilities are consolidated by July in the compound.

Occupants of the complex may find it disconcerting. Unlike the old embassy, the new facility--in the suburb of Santa Tecla--is distant and disconnected from the pulse of the country. And at a time when even the Salvadoran army has removed barricades from around its headquarters and barracks, entering the embassy grounds, even for Americans, will take forbearance and patience because of security.

Inside the compound are buff-colored buildings, set at odd angles to remind visitors of “a Mayan village,” the architect said. But the Mayans did not design their temples in the fashion of these buildings with their bulletproof windows, which can’t be opened. In fact, there aren’t many windows here at all.

The compound’s showplace is the two-story ambassador’s residence. It is both isolated and open in uncomfortable fashion: With only a small Marine detachment besides the ambassador living there, the chief of mission has little opportunity for nearby human contact during off-hours; and there is no private space outside the residence--the large patio and back yard are open, as are balconies for the living quarters.

Meantime, there are other inconvenient aspects. The first floor of the main embassy building is a maze so confusing that Walker once led visitors into a utility closet while trying to escort them out the front door. And a helicopter pad--designed to take the largest of such craft--is so close to the residence that when Baker’s chopper landed in January, the rotor wash blew down trees and scattered patio furniture.

As if there were not already enough things packed into the complex--which includes a cafeteria to feed 500 people, a commissary and other service buildings--there already are plans for a second stage. It would include tennis courts, a swimming pool and residences for other diplomats. Officials said the plan for more housing facilities probably will be dropped, but they still hope for the pool and tennis courts.