Three weeks after Reagan’s victory, on November 27th, Thanksgiving Day in Washington, heavily armed men stormed the archbishop’s legal aid office at San Jose High School, where the political leaders of the revolution were meeting. The head of the Democratic Revolutionary Front was Enrique Alvarez, a member of one of the country’s wealthy coffee-growing families, who saw the need for change in his country. Alvarez’s mutilated, bullet-ridden corpse, as well as those of four other political leftists, were found on a popular road, a clear message for others.
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Reflecting how dramatically the policy in El Salvador was about to shift, Reagan’s principal foreign policy advisor Jeanne Kirkpatrick reacted to murders thusly: “I must say that I found myself thinking that it’s a reminder that people who live by the sword die by the sword.”
The Salvadoran military now believed it could kill with impunity, and immunity. On December 2, 1980, four American churchwomen—Roman Catholic nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and a lay missionary, Jean Donovan—were seized at the San Salvador International Airport, taken to a remote spot, raped, shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave. Photojournalist Susan Meiselas captured an iconic image of an anguished White at the dusty gravesite as the partially clad bodies were being pulled from the earth with ropes. White knew immediately that the military was responsible. “The bastards won’t get away with this,” he mumbled. But they almost did, with help from the Reagan Administration.
“The nuns were not just nuns,” Kirkpatrick said in response to this killing. “They were political activists. We ought to be a little more clear about this than we actually are,” she told a reporter for the Tampa Tribune. “They were political activists on behalf of the Frente [one of the leftist guerrilla organizations], and somebody who is using violence to oppose the Frente killed these nuns.” Asked if she thought the government had been involved, she said, “The answer is unequivocal. No, I don’t think the government was responsible.”
Kirkpatrick later denied making the statement. The reporter produced the tape.
[...]
Reflecting how dramatically the policy in El Salvador was about to shift, Reagan’s principal foreign policy advisor Jeanne Kirkpatrick reacted to murders thusly: “I must say that I found myself thinking that it’s a reminder that people who live by the sword die by the sword.”
The Salvadoran military now believed it could kill with impunity, and immunity. On December 2, 1980, four American churchwomen—Roman Catholic nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and a lay missionary, Jean Donovan—were seized at the San Salvador International Airport, taken to a remote spot, raped, shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave. Photojournalist Susan Meiselas captured an iconic image of an anguished White at the dusty gravesite as the partially clad bodies were being pulled from the earth with ropes. White knew immediately that the military was responsible. “The bastards won’t get away with this,” he mumbled. But they almost did, with help from the Reagan Administration.
“The nuns were not just nuns,” Kirkpatrick said in response to this killing. “They were political activists. We ought to be a little more clear about this than we actually are,” she told a reporter for the Tampa Tribune. “They were political activists on behalf of the Frente [one of the leftist guerrilla organizations], and somebody who is using violence to oppose the Frente killed these nuns.” Asked if she thought the government had been involved, she said, “The answer is unequivocal. No, I don’t think the government was responsible.”
Kirkpatrick later denied making the statement. The reporter produced the tape.