An Apple A Day Keeps the Contras at Bay

The details of Mayor Koch's meeting with Daniel Ortega have yet to be revealed, but the conciliatory tone of the two leaders leaves much room for conjecture. New York and Nicaragua share many problems best addressed in a spirit of partnership.

Nicaragua, for example, must struggle with poverty, and so must many New Yorkers. The Sandanistas might profit from some of Gotham's know-how in dealing with the problem. Instead of going to the trouble of restructuring the economy, just raise the rents, replacing slum dwellings with trendy restaurants and boutiques. Poverty may not disappear, but at least it will disappear from sight.

Moreover, years of American pressure have left Nicaragua's economy in shambles. Coffee pickers and cane cutters are desperately needed. In New York the recent stock market crash has put many able-bodied portfolio managers out of work. Why not send them off to Nicaragua, where they can help with the harvest while earning extra cash to pay off Visa charges. Tropical agriculture is a great way to stay in shape, and many of these unfortunates have had to let their health club memberships lapse.

New York, for its part, could use help on more than a few fronts. Postal service, to name but one. If MTA monies were diverted to the Sandanistas, the long awaited trans-Nicaragua canal could finally be built, providing a faster route for crosstown mail delivery

Of course, New York is not confronted by armed insurgents on its borders. But it does have bridge-and-tunnel people. A simple trade would handle things quite nicely. The contras could direct their firepower to Queens' crack wars, where their cocaine stockpiles and body count prowess would fit right in, while New Jersey's finest could invade Nicaragua every weekend, swilling beer and honking horns loudly.

This may seem a pipe dream. The corpse-littered villages the freedom fighters have left in their wake may have made the Nicaraguans too bitter to forgive and forget. But not if they had a New York medical examiner to inspect the bodies and certify them dead of natural causes. Then we could all let bygones be bygones.

In the last analysis, the greatest difficulty besetting both our homelands is the threat of "Yankee Imperialism." Nicaraguans don't want the Yankees storming their shores, and New Yorkers don't want them leaving ours. If only madmen like George Steinbrenner can be dissuaded from their greedy schemes, the hour of peace may well be at hand.

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