We received a piece of direct mail sent to us from an outfit in San Francisco entitled U.S. Out of Central America. There we could read: 

We are not from the left or the right, we are not from the same political organization, and we probably have different opinions on many things.

As the very name of the organization and its promotional text indicate, its founders and sponsors are firmly against “rampant, uncontrollable U.S.militarism” in Central America. This is clear; other parts of their statements, however, are unclear or downright false, or products of paltry political mendacity. The authors are simply lying when they write about representing Americans “from the left or the right.” Beginning with the leaflet’s signers (Berrigan, Chomshky, Falk, Mitford, Spock, Waid) and going through the listing of supporters, they are all adherents to the far left of the American political spectrum. Their “different opinions,” as measured against what we know about them from their public activities, are a myth: they have mysteriously failed to resist all Moscow’s global policies, especially in the so­ called Third World, and have shown a uniform fondness for Marxist-Leninist prescriptions in dealing with contemporary issues. We doubt that any of them would ever dare to challenge the Soviet state’s morality and imperial design in any matter, with the possible exception of Sakharov’ smurder. The under writers of the leaflet state:

The CIA mining of Nicaragua’s har­bors has made it clearer than ever that millions of Americans must join in taking a strong stand against U.S. intervention.

They cannot count on our pennies to back their efforts. To any unprejudiced mind, the U. S. should do practically everything possible to bring down the Sandinista totalitarian oppression in Nicaragua. Every Hungarian, Pole, or Czech, who lived through the 1945-1951 period in his country, immediately recognizes that Nicaragua under the Sandinistas’ yoke is a precise replica of the Eastern European model of the so-called “people’s democracy,” where ruth­less atrocities are committed to install the iron-clad communist social infrastructure of power, which would make any political opposition and protest impossible. In Eastern Europe, under the avuncular protec­tion of the Red Army, the process could be as brutal, underhanded, and invisible, as the West could never imagine. In the neighborhood of the American howitzers across the Honduran border, the merry bustling of Russian, Cuban, and native experts on human enslavement have to do some window dressing. Organizations like U.S. Out of Central America, with their loads of Berrigans, Catholic “nuns,” Ramsey Clarks, Pete Seegers and all assortments of fellow travel­ers, will help. Ships of useful fools with Nobel Prize distinctions will bring supplies and encouragement.

In 1945, in Nuremberg, we defined the meaning of war crimes and war criminals. Sooner or later, mankind will have to understand and define the significance of peace criminals. There are plenty of them among us.