The Massacre at El Mozote

Chapter 7 is Danner’s attempt to explain the origins of what became the official version of events for the Reagan Administration, as well as the implications and repercussions of this version. The chapter opens with a description of, and hearty excerpt from, the cable written by Todd Greentree, who had flown into Morazán to investigate the claims that a massacre had taken place. As Danner summarizes, “The only point on which the investigators were ready to confer ‘certainty’—for the rest of the summary consists of careful assertions of what could not be proved”—was a scenario they seem to have built up by combining Army briefings and their own speculation about what was “‘a possibility’” (111). Danner goes on to note that in his discussions with Greentree and another investigator, McKay, “it was clear to them […] that ‘something horrible’ had happened at El Mozote, [and] that ‘there probably had been a massacre’” (112). However, they used the fact that nothing could be “definitively proved” to avoid a politically-volatile situation (113). 

One of the issues that the investigators faced was the difficulty of remaining unbiased and credible. Greentree says that “journalists reporting in El Salvador were thought to be biased,” so that if he reported whatever accounts they were hearing, as the journalists did, “that wouldn’t have had any credibility” (115). In the end, all he had was “an impression. There was no corroborating evidence” (115), and so the report became ultimately dismissive of the rumors. However, this was not the only reason. There was also “political judgement” (116): “The emphasis on ‘clean’ reporting permitted the blinding and deafening of the government, and served to remove [...] what might have proved to be [...] a very inconvenient fact” (117). 

Part of this led to more credence being given to the Salvadoran Army’s and government’s accounts, despite inconsistencies. Two examples of these inconsistencies are 1) the cable’s assertion that the only fact they could glean was that the guerrillas “‘did nothing to remove’ civilians” (112), which the same cable later contradicted by including an account of a couple who said they had been warned by the rebels; and 2) the “fact” that only 300 people lived in El Mozote, meaning the reported numbers of victims could not be true, when in fact it was clear in the reporting that these numbers represented victims not only in El Mozote, but also in “a number of hamlets around it” (118). One of the main roadblocks to getting a more thorough and accurate report was that while the reporters Bonner, Meiselas, and Guillermoprieto were able to actually go to the site and record what they found, Greentree, McKay, and Bleakley were not, due to the army's reticence and the danger of going unaccompanied. 

After Greentree’s cable made the rounds, the issue became a clearly politicized one, with both sides—the Reagan Administration on one, and the Democrats and human-rights groups on the other—agreeing that “the fight would center on information and how it was gathered” (125). The difficulty in acquiring hard evidence meant that the Administration was able to “ignore what was known. In the absence of conclusive, undeniable proof, the government would feel free to assert that all was darkness” (126). The other main argument that won the day was that the reports of the massacre came at such an important time (when Congress needed to vote on whether or not to continue aid to El Salvador) and were used by those who opposed US aid to the Salvadoran government as propaganda: 

Certainly a significant part of this publicity—it is impossible to say how much—was owing, directly and indirectly, to the efforts of those, beginning with the guerrillas and their international propaganda apparatus, who had a strong interest in derailing the Administration’s policy in El Salvador (128). 

This “convenience” made the reports difficult to consider credible. Finally, the overarching concern during the Cold War was preventing the spread of communism, which was seen as much worse than any human rights violations that kept the guerrillas from winning; therefore, aid continued. 

Chapter 7 ends with a discussion of one more of the effects of this episode surrounding the cable and the vote on continued aid to El Salvador. One of the main reporters who broke the story of the massacre, Raymond Bonner of The New York Times, was removed from his South America beat after an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (as well as other sources) criticized what was seen as his left-wing bias. Danner notes in his discussion that these criticisms ended up equating the first-hand reporting of the three reporters mentioned above with the cable from Ambassador Hinton’s office, which was based solely on second-hand accounts.