November 15, 1993
Here In this country we’re lucky to have a wide-open democratic system where the various parties and candidates compete freely, and vigorously debate the best way to make it appear that we have a wide-open democratic system in which the various parties and candidates compete freely.
As a result, things occasionally come out. Now it comes out that the Reagan and Bush administrations, in regards to the alleged participation of the Salvadoran military in the putative death squad activities, were economical with the truth. They withheld information—that is, they disassembled. That’s a post-modern term indicating there isn’t any one particular precise truth, but rather, many perspectives. Well, our perspective was that we had to work with Mr. D’Aubuisson, to be a moderating influence on him, and as we now see, he has in fact curtailed his death squad activities quite a bit. In fact, he is no longer living.
But we have—or rather they have—a democracy down there, and if they get fed up enough with those death squads then they can replace them with other ones, perhaps more modern, or post-modern ones. As John Foster Dulles said to Ike, “the Russians are appealing to the poor people of the earth, who have always wanted to plunder the rich.” Think about it. But not too much.