September 30, 1981

The conservative group Tertium Quids sponsored a lecture by the editor of El Salvador’s largest daily newspaper, El Diario de Hoy, Enrique Altamirano, on “Why the United States Should Be Concerned About El Salvador.” Altamirano asserted that terrorists, not the country’s government, were responsible for the ongoing civil war in El Salvador between the government and the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). And thus, he said, the United States should assist the Salvadoran government militarily.

Abram Feuerstein ’84, founder of Tertium Quids, characterized Altamirano’s audience as “large but antagonistic.”

The Miscellany News

President Reagan saw the populist leftists as a Communist threat and thus backed the Salvadorian government with military aid. The civil war ended in 1992.