TFP to Reagan on Kissinger Appointment

Kissinger nomination causes apprehension among the conservative of the three Americas

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) has sent a telegram to President Reagan, the text of which we reproduce below.

All other TFPs and similar organizations in the three Americas (*) — notably the Brazilian TFP whose founder and president, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, inspired the 15 autonomous TFPs around the world — have followed suit.

(*) Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

July 21, 1983

The Honorable Ronald Reagan

President of the United States of America

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President,

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and all the similar organizations in the three Americas have decided to telegraph you at the same time in order to express together the deep concern — more than that, the shock — they felt at the designation of Mr. Henry Kissinger as head of your National Bipartisan Commission on Central America.

The fact is that a characteristically communist process of Vietnamization is developing more and more in Central America. In South America, also, the more or less artificial socio-economic crises, the boiling urban agitations, the spread of rural guerrillas, the rumors of tensions and wars between the various nations, all make one fear a process of Vietnamization in the pear or not too distant future.

Obviously, this situation is possible only because of the increasingly activist policy of Soviet power in Latin America where it wages an unceasing psychological war.

In view of all these facts, the naming of Mr. Henry Kissinger — the public figure whose name symbolizes throughout the world all the disasters and all the shame that the free world suffered in Vietnam — can only cause perplexity, apprehension, and profound discouragement in Latin America; for the head of the new commission on Central America symbolizes all the naive optimism, all the lack of political foresight, all the weaknesses and even more, all the defeatist spirit that led to the handing over of Vietnam.

I hope then, that you, Mr. President, will find a way to resolve the situation inevitably created by the presence of Mr. H. Kissinger in such a high position. This appears to be absolutely indispensable for the preservation of the Faith, peace, and prosperity of Latin America, which preservation in its turn is indispensable today for international peace.

With highest regard and esteem,

John R. Spann

President