212. Editorial Note
A Policy Review Committee (PRC) meeting, chaired by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher on June 11, 1979, surveyed policy options toward Central America and endorsed a revised strategy toward Nicaragua. See Documents 210 and 211. On June 13 President Jimmy Carter reviewed and approved a 6-point strategy on Nicaragua; see Document 470 and Tab B thereto. In telegram 153522 to all American Republic diplomatic posts, June 15, the Department reported that Carter had accepted the PRC’s June 11 recommendation that the United States “should take urgent and immediate action to work with other nations in the Americas to seek an enduring democratic solution to the crisis in Nicaragua.” The Department described the “scenario which we would like to see develop would be to reconvene the 17th MFM ASAP to consider the situation, and pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire, [Page 546] a halt to the flow of arms to Nicaragua and, if possible, a high-level MFM mission to Somoza designed to urge and to help shape a peaceful transition to a representative government.” The Department instructed posts to solicit host government views and make clear that the U.S. Government was supporting and developing the efforts of the Andean Group toward Nicaragua. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790281–0663) In telegram 152375 to Managua, June 14, the Department included an informal translation of the communiqué given to the press by the Foreign Ministers of Ecuador and Venezuela following their visit to Costa Rica and Nicaragua on behalf of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Andean Group. The communiqué noted: “The object of our trip was not to offer a mediation or a concrete formula to solve the grave problems that affect part of Central America. We went to express to the governments of the countries we visited the preoccupation of the Andean Group over Costa Rica, its conviction (Andean Group) that respect for human rights in Nicaragua constitutes the indispensable basis for adopting the democratic solution to the painful problems through which that country is living and the conviction that the orientations that conduct inter-American life and the permanent principles on which it is based require a decided and rapid attitude which guarantees territorial inviolability and, national sovereignty, respect for human rights and the maintenance and support of peace.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790267–0215)