A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War Campaign 1558499326, 9781558499324

Citation preview

A CALL TO

CONSCIENCE THE A NTI – CONTRA WAR C AM PAIG N

ROGER PEACE

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A Call to Conscience

a volume in the series Culture, Politics, and the Cold War Edited by Christian Appy other titles in the series James T. Fisher, Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927–1961 Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of “The Feminine Mystique”: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation Christian G. Appy, ed., Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966 H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam and Other American Fantasies Robert D. Dean, Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy Lee Bernstein, The Greatest Menace: Organized Crime in Cold War America David C. Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele, and Michael E. Latham, eds., Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale’s Cold War James Peck, Washington’s China: The National Security World, the Cold War, and the Origins of Globalism Edwin A. Martini, Invisible Enemies: The American War on Vietnam, 1975–2000 Tony Shaw, Hollywood’s Cold War Maureen Ryan, The Other Side of Grief: The Home Front and the Aftermath in American Narratives of the Vietnam War David Hunt, Vietnam’s Southern Revolution: From Peasant Insurrection to Total War Patrick Hagopian, The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing Jeremy Kuzmarov, The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs Robert Surbrug Jr., Beyond Vietnam: The Politics of Protest in Massachusetts, 1974–1990 Larry Grubbs, Secular Missionaries: Americans and African Development in the 1960s Robert A. Jacobs, The Dragon’s Tail: Americans Face the Atomic Age Andrew J. Falk, Upstaging the Cold War: American Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy, 1940–1960 Jerry Lembcke, Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal Anna G. Creadick, Perfectly Average: The Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America Kathleen Donohue, ed., Liberty and Justice for All? Rethinking Politics in Cold War America Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century

A Call to Conscience The Anti–Contra War Campaign

Roger Peace

University of Massachusetts Press

Amherst and Boston

Copyright ¹ 2012 by University of Massachusetts Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America LC 2012007997 ISBN 978-1-55849-932-4 (paper) ISBN 978-1-55849-931-7 (library cloth) Designed by Sally Nichols Set in Arno Pro Printed and bound by Thomson-Shore, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Peace, Roger C. (Roger Craft), 1952– A call to conscience : the anti/Contra War campaign / Roger Peace. p. cm. — (Culture, politics, and the cold war) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55849-932-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-55849-931-7 (library cloth : alk. paper) 1. Peace movements—United States—History—20th century. 2. Nicaragua—Politics and government—1979–1990. 3. Contra Program (Central Intelligence Agency) 4. Solidarity—United States—History—20th century. 5. Solidarity—Nicaragua—History—20th century. 6. United States—Politics and government—1945–1989. 7. Christianity and politics—United States— History—20th century. 8. Americans—Nicaragua—History—20th century. 9. Nicaragua— Relations—United States. 10. United States—Relations—Nicaragua. I. Title. II. Title: Anti/ Contra War campaign. JZ5584.U6P46 2012 327.730728509′04–dc23 2012007997

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available

In memory of Fr. Álvaro Argüello (1933–2010), an exemplary educator who used his intellectual gifts in service to humanity

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1. U.S.-Nicaragua Relations, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Contra War 7 2. An Overview of the Contra War Debate 29 3. Origins of the Anti–Contra War Campaign 53 4. Expansion of the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1983–84 81 5. Organizational Dynamics of a Decentralized Campaign 114 6. The Politics of Transnational Solidarity 145 7. Meeting the Political Challenge, 1985–86 177 8. Sustaining the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1987–90 208 Conclusion 245 Notes 247 List of Personal Interviews and Communications 289 Index 293

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Acknowledgments

I

am grateful to the many individuals who shared their experiences and insights with me via interviews and communications. It was an adventure to gather their stories and I regret that not all can be included here. I am especially indebted to three people. Max Paul Friedman, a mentor and friend, set me on the path of scholarly pursuits and offered valuable advice on early drafts of this book. Father Joe Mulligan, in addition to inspiring me with his life of service, was instrumental in arranging interviews in Nicaragua. Anne Meisenzahl, my wife and intellectual partner, shared my eight-year journey from conception to completion of this book, reading innumerable drafts along the way. I would also like to thank the archivists and staff persons who guided me to organizational and governmental resources, and the following individuals: Harvey Williams and Penn Garvin, for setting up interviews in Nicaragua; Valerie Jean Conner, Matt Childs, and David F. Johnson, for critiquing an early version of this project; Robert Surbrug and Andrew Hunt, for bringing their knowledge of movement history to bear in advising me on a later version; and Christian Appy, Clark Dougan, and Carol Betsch of the University of Massachusetts Press, for guiding this book to the finish line and making the final lap a pleasant one.

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Abbreviations

ACWC AFL-CIO

anti–Contra War campaign American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations AFSC American Friends Service Committee AMNLAE Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (Asociación de Mujeres Nicaraguenses Luisa Amanda Espinoza) APSNICA Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua CALA Community Action on Latin America (Madison, WI) CAOP Central America Organizing Project (Philadelphia, PA) CAPC Central America Peace Campaign CAWG Central America Working Group CEPAD Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development (Consejo Evangélico Pro-Ayuda al Desarrollo), Nicaragua, known in the United States as the Council of Protestant Churches CISPES Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador CITCA Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America (Durham, NC) CNFP or CNFMP Coalition for a New Foreign [and Military] Policy CNSP or CNASP Nicaraguan Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples (Comité Nicaragüense de Solidaridad con los Pueblos), changed in 1987 to Nicaraguan Committee for Friendship, Solidarity, and Peace (Comité Nicaragüense de Amistad, Solidaridad y Paz), Nicaragua

[ xi ]

[ xii ]

Abbreviations COSEP CUSCLIN DRI EPICA

FDN

FMLN FCPJ FOR FSLN IFCO IPS IRTFCA LACASA LASA MFS MINREX NACLA NAM NATO NED NISGUA NJCAN NLC OAS PACCA PCASC PJEC POR

Superior Council for Private Enterprise (Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada), Nicaragua Committee of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua Directorate of International Relations (Dirreción de las Relaciones Internacionales) of the FSLN party, Nicaragua Ecumenical Program for Interamerican Communication and Action; changed in the mid-1980s to Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense), the contra guerrilla force based in Honduras Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional), El Salvador Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice Fellowship of Reconciliation Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional), Nicaragua Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization Institute for Policy Studies Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Association (Miami, FL) Latin American Studies Association Mobilization for Survival Ministry of Foreign Relations (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores), Nicaraguan government North American Congress on Latin America New American Movement North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Endowment for Democracy (U.S. governmentsupported agency) Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala New Jersey Central America Network National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador Organization of American States Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America Portland Central America Committee on Latin America (Portland, OR) Peace and Justice Education Center (Rochester, NY) Pledge of Resistance

Abbreviations ROCLA RTFCA SANE SCLC S/LPD UDEL UNO USIA VFP VPC VOA WCCN WFP WOLA WNYPC

[ xiii ] Rochester Committee on Latin America (Rochester, NY) Religious Task Force on Central America Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy Southern Christian Leadership Conference U.S. State Department Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean Democratic Liberation Union (Unión Democrática de Liberación), Nicaragua National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Opositora), Nicaragua U.S. Information Agency (U.S. government) Veterans for Peace Veterans Peace Convoy Voice of America (U.S. government) Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua Witness for Peace Washington Office on Latin America Western New York Peace Center (Buffalo, NY)

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A Call to Conscience

Introduction

B

ill Gandall was eighteen years old when he first set foot on Nicaraguan soil in 1927. He was part of an expeditionary force of three thousand United States Marines sent to put down an anti-U.S. rebellion led by Augusto Sandino. Ordered by his superiors to obtain information about Sandino “by any means possible,” Gandall and his fellow marines routinely used torture on local residents to extract the requisite information. “We committed a lot of atrocities, of which I was a part,” reflected Gandall sixty years later. “I was just the same as the rest of them.” Over time, however, he said, “I began to see the fallacy of what I had been involved in. And I slowly began to change, to become a better human being because I was developing a conscience.” Gandall’s conscience led him back to Nicaragua in 1985, at the age of seventysix, to witness firsthand the Sandinista government’s reform program and the ill effects of the U.S.-sponsored Contra War. The leftist Sandinistas had come to power through a popularly supported revolution in July 1979. Soon after, former national guardsmen of the deposed Somoza government formed guerrilla units under the guidance of Argentine special forces. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began working with these counterrevolutionaries, or “contras,” in early 1981 and assumed full control the following year. Operating out of bases in Honduras, Costa Rica, and within Nicaragua, the contras destroyed economic assets, attacked rural villages, and killed or kidnapped civilians deemed proSandinista. The CIA also undertook military actions on its own, bombing oil [1]

[2]

Introduction

storage tanks and mining Nicaraguan harbors. Gandall regarded these actions as another egregious U.S. intervention and vowed to do what he could to stop it. For the next five years, he traveled across the U.S., speaking to students, community groups, and the media; joining demonstrations and civil disobedience actions; and raising funds for humanitarian aid, including eleven ambulances sent to the Sandinista government.1 With a patch over one eye and a repertoire of war stories, he was one of the more sought after speakers on the antiwar lecture circuit. His activities elicited a letter from Nicaraguan ambassador Carlos Tünnermann on December 7, 1987: “I believe you are doing such an important job informing people about what really has been going [on] in the armed American interventions and what happens to people of small countries like ours,” wrote Tünnermann. “We commend you for your courage in speaking the truth and sincerely believe that you are serving your country in doing this . . . I wish you much success.”2 Many other U.S. citizens felt the pull of conscience regarding their government’s proxy war against Nicaragua. In April 1983, Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-IA) remarked during a House debate on U.S. aid to the contras, “If the American people could have talked with the common people of Nicaragua, whose women and children are being indiscriminately kidnapped, tortured and killed by terrorists financed by the American taxpayers, they would rise up in legitimate anger and demand that support for criminal activity be ended.”3 Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore Jr. of New York, after visiting Nicaragua in early 1984, used his Easter sermon to decry U.S. intervention as “illegal, inconsistent, ill-advised, and immoral. . . . We simply cannot go around the world shooting and killing innocent men, women, and children as part of our national policy.”4 Other critics made their views known by offering aid and comfort to “the enemy.” On July 27, 1984, a Norwegian ship docked at the port of Corinto and presented the Sandinista government with a cargo of medicines, school supplies, fertilizer, and rolls of newsprint. On board were four Nobel laureates, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, Betty Williams of Northern Ireland, and George Wald and Linus C. Pauling of the United States. Pauling, awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1954, explained why he had come. “It’s a crime,” he said, “a great mistake and ethically very wrong for our Government to be intervening in Latin America in such a way as to cause suffering to people.”5 Unlike the U.S.-engineered coups in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973), the Reagan administration’s attempt to bring down the Sandinista government was not allowed to proceed quietly. A heated debate over U.S. support for the

Introduction

[3]

Salvadoran government was already underway when the covert war against Nicaragua was revealed in the press in early 1982. According to the political scientist Cynthia Arnson, “Reagan’s policy of backing the contras gradually took the place of El Salvador on the agenda in Washington, developing into the single most divisive and bitterly fought foreign policy issue since the war in Vietnam. Reagan devoted more speeches to Nicaragua than to any other single topic.”6 The Reagan administration’s efforts to garner public and congressional support for contra aid was countered by the tenacious, grassroots-based anti–Contra War campaign (ACWC)—the subject of this study. Those who participated in this campaign interpreted the “call to conscience” through different intellectual and experiential frameworks—religion, socialism, pacifism, anti-imperialism, human rights, democratic citizenship, previous military experience, and personal connections in Central America—that generally aligned with a broad liberal-left challenge to the rightist “Reagan revolution” in foreign policy. The ACWC endured for eight years, from the first surge of contra attacks in March 1982 until February 1990, when the Sandinistas were voted out of office and the U.S. government called off the war. No single leader or organization directed this decentralized campaign. Instead, there were overlapping networks of religious, leftist, and peace groups—and smaller numbers of labor, veteran, feminist, and civic groups—working on common “days of action,” educational activities, legislative lobbying, and transnational initiatives. The main political goals of the campaign were to end U.S. aid to the contras and prevent a direct U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Many groups also sought to directly aid the Nicaraguan people and end the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua, instituted in May 1985. Transnational activities were crucial to the overall functioning of the ACWC, as they energized and informed local activism. Activist groups sent peace witnesses to rural Nicaraguan communities under attack by the contras, organized work brigades to assist in coffee harvests, raised millions of dollars for humanitarian aid, established more than eighty United States–Nicaragua sister city partnerships, and facilitated hundreds of study tours. An estimated 100,000 U.S. citizens traveled to Nicaragua during the 1980s.7 Given that no U.S. troops were directly involved in the Contra War, the ACWC necessarily went beyond appeals to self-interest (e.g., bring the troops home, resist the draft) to focus on the costs of the war to the Nicaraguan people, attempting to cultivate empathy and understanding across national borders and identities. The ACWC was part of a larger Central America movement that included

[4]

Introduction

campaigns to halt U.S. aid to the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, based on human rights concerns, and the Sanctuary Movement, which aided refugees from these countries. While related, each campaign had such different sets of international conditions, political challenges, and movement dynamics that separate studies are warranted.8 Historically, the anti–Contra War campaign is linked to a long, if erratic, series of antiwar and anti-interventionist movements dating back to the Anti-Imperialist League of 1898 and encompassing opposition to the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua in the 1920s and the Vietnam War. The ACWC was a direct beneficiary of the anti-interventionist legacy of the Vietnam War. A majority of U.S. citizens, fearing “another Vietnam,” registered their opposition to contra aid in opinion polls from the outset. Many citizens who had conscientiously opposed the Vietnam War were active in the Central American movement of the 1980s. A question often asked about social change movements is whether they were effective in changing government policy. In assessing the political influence of the anti–Vietnam War movement, the historian Melvin Small noted the difficulty of making any exact measurements, given that numerous, mutually reinforcing factors affect policymaking.9 In the case of the ACWC, its quest to cut off U.S. aid to the contras was reinforced by the cautionary lesson of the Vietnam War; the diplomatic efforts of Latin American leaders to achieve a peace settlement; the military strength of the Sandinista government, which precluded the contras’ success; and congressional outrage over the Reagan administration’s illegal actions, particularly the unauthorized mining of Nicaraguan harbors in early 1984. The latter factor tipped the balance of votes in Congress, resulting in an official cutoff of contra aid in October 1984. This victory for the ACWC was short lived, however, as Congress reversed itself and approved “nonlethal” aid for the contras in mid1985, then full military aid in mid-1986. Factors influencing the latter shift included President Ronald Reagan’s landslide reelection in November 1984, the administration’s all-out media and lobbying campaign, and a trip to the Soviet Union by Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega in the spring of 1985, which some members of Congress viewed as an affront to the United States. The momentum shifted again in 1987, this time aided by the Iran-Contra affair (in which the administration illegally sold arms to Iran and used the profits to illegally supply arms to the contras) and the Esquipulas accords, a peace agreement signed by five Central American presidents in August that required the cessation of all outside support for guerrilla forces in the region. From 1987

Introduction

[5]

on, Congress appropriated only “nonlethal” aid for the contras, a compromise representing partial defeat for both sides. The main role of the ACWC in this political battle was to educate the public and mobilize grassroots opposition to contra aid, counteracting the influence of the Reagan administration and rightist groups. Another role was to raise the political cost of a potential U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, which it did by preparing for mass protests and civil disobedience actions. A contingency invasion plan drawn up by Lt. Col. Oliver North in 1985 listed as the first obstacle to overcome, not the Sandinista army, but domestic opposition.10 This study provides a comprehensive historical account of the anti–Contra War campaign and its Nicaraguan connections. Much has been written about the Contra War, the Reagan administration’s foreign policies, and developments within Sandinista Nicaragua, but U.S. citizen opposition to the Contra War has received only limited treatment. Few of the roughly 280 books on the Contra War discuss domestic opposition beyond congressional debates and public opinion polls; and the small number of scholarly studies on the Central America movement provide only partial accounts of anti–Contra War activism.11 This study also incorporates sociological approaches, addressing in three separate chapters the framing of issues in the Contra War debate (chapter 2), the organizational design of the ACWC, including local case studies (chapter 5), and the campaign’s transnational connections, including how those connections were viewed and addressed by the Reagan administration and by the FSLN government (chapter 6). Other chapters in the study proceed chronologically. Chapter 1 offers a concise history of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations, with sections on earlier U.S. interventions in Nicaragua, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Contra War. Chapter 3 explores the origins of the ACWC in various progressive U.S. sectors with connections to Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, leading to the formation of the Nicaraguan solidarity campaign in 1979, the Central America movement in 1980, and the ACWC in 1982. Chapter 4 tells the story of the ACWC in the expansive years of 1983 and 1984, describing its educational, protest, political, and transnational activities. Preference is given to those activities that were widely promoted and cooperatively undertaken. Chapter 7 resumes the chronological story of the ACWC, highlighting the intense political battles over contra aid in 1985 and 1986 along with escalating protests. Chapter 8 charts the development of the campaign from its height in 1987 to its surprising end in 1990.

[6]

Introduction

In telling the story of the anti–Contra War campaign, I have kept the focus on new developments and introduced new organizations along the way. Short biographies of individuals are provided in order to show the range of activist motivations and backgrounds—and to not lose sight of the individual in the movement-building process. My sources of information include interviews and correspondence with eighty-seven individuals, including leaders of national organizations, local volunteers, U.S. citizens living in Nicaragua, and Nicaraguan religious and governmental leaders; informal conversations with other participants; records and publications of activist organizations; relevant U.S. government documents; newspaper articles from across the U.S.; and secondary literature on the subject.12 I have written this account with both the interested public and scholars in mind, particularly historians of peace movements, American foreign relations, and the Reagan era, and social scientists specializing in social movement organizations and transnational advocacy networks. My interest in writing about the anti–Contra War campaign stems from my belief that it was on the right side of history and that it represented the best of the United States. My sympathy for the ACWC, however, does not exclude a critical assessment of its deficiencies and problems. By way of example, the peace historians Charles DeBenedetti and Charles Chatfield, in An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era (1990), identified numerous problems within the anti–Vietnam War movement, including bitter feuds over political demands (negotiations versus immediate withdrawal), tactics (conventional versus confrontational), and styles (radical versus mainstream). The ACWC likewise had its share of problems, although some lessons were arguably learned from the anti–Vietnam War movement. It is my hope is that Americans in the future will want to remember and identify with the opponents of the Contra War, no less than Americans today identify with the abolitionists of the antebellum era, and perhaps with the opponents of imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. It would be entirely appropriate in my view for a U.S. president to belatedly apologize to the Nicaraguan people and offer reparation payments “for all injury caused to Nicaragua,” as required by the International Court of Justice ruling on June 27, 1986.13 Although the anti–Contra War campaign was a dissident movement in the U.S., it was in accord with international law and most world opinion.

CHAPTER 1

U.S.-Nicaragua Relations, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Contra War

T

he United States looms large in the history of Nicaragua. In 1904, one year after acquiring the Panama Canal Zone through “gunboat diplomacy,” President Theodore Roosevelt announced that the United States would henceforth act as an “international police power” in the Western Hemisphere. Operating under this vague mandate, the Taft administration dispatched 400 U.S. Marines to Nicaragua in 1909. Their mission, however, was not to uphold law and order but to aid a Conservative insurrection against the Liberal government of José Santos Zelaya. Three years later, a contingent of 2,700 marines was sent to buoy up the weak Conservative government of Adolfo Díaz. Some 100 marines remained as a legation guard until August 1925. The marines had hardly departed before a new round of fighting began between Liberals and Conservatives in Nicaragua. By December 1926 the two factions had set up rival governments. Once again the United States recognized the Conservative government led by Díaz, while Mexico recognized the Liberal government of Juan Bautista Sacasa. The Coolidge administration viewed Mexico’s position as an affront to the United States. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg warned of a “Mexican-fostered Bolshevist hegemony intervening between the United States and the Panama Canal.”1 On December 23, with Congress in recess, President Calvin Coolidge ordered U.S. warships and marines to Nicaragua to bolster the Díaz government. [7]

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Undersecretary of State Robert Olds candidly explained the reason for this intervention in a memorandum dated January 2, 1927: “There is no room for any outside influence other than ours in this region. . . . Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall. Nicaragua has become a test case.”2 Public rationales were not so explicit. On January 10 President Coolidge told Congress that “disturbances and conditions” in Nicaragua “seriously threaten American lives and property, endanger the stability of all Central America, and put in jeopardy the rights granted by Nicaragua to the United States for the construction of a canal.”3 Six months into the occupation, U.S. officials mediated an agreement between Liberal and Conservative leaders. The agreement called for elections in November 1928 and required both sides to disarm. The elections were held as planned, under the watchful eye of 4,500 U.S. Marines, but one Liberal general, Augusto César Sandino, refused to disarm. Sandino vowed that he and some 400 followers would not lay down their arms until the U.S. Marines left his native land. For the next five years, the marines scoured the rugged countryside in search of the “bandit” Sandino but were unable to capture or kill him, despite the use of airplanes fitted with machine guns and bombs to attack his camps. All told, the U.S. war against Sandino cost the lives of an estimated 3,000 Nicaraguans and 136 U.S. Marines.4 Most Latin American leaders and much of the European press condemned the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. At the Sixth International Conference of American States in Havana in 1928, representatives from El Salvador introduced a resolution stating that “no state may intervene in the internal affairs of another.”5 The U.S. delegate promptly vetoed the measure. Within the United States, opposition was voiced by anti-imperialists such as Scott Nearing, peace advocates such as Jane Addams, civil rights leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois, and at least a dozen progressive senators led by Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and George Norris of Nebraska. Almost as soon as the U.S. troops had departed for Nicaragua, Wheeler demanded their return, along with the dismissal of Secretary of State Kellogg. Two Senate bills were introduced calling for the removal of U.S. troops from Nicaragua; they failed by votes of 52–22 (April 25, 1928) and 48–32 (February 23, 1929).6 Nearing, a socialist economist, and the journalist Joseph Freeman provided theoretical underpinning for the eclectic anti-intervention movement in Dollar Diplomacy: A Study in American Imperialism (1925), which explained that private business interests

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were leading the U.S. government to extend its sovereignty “over populations that had expressed no desire for its presence.”7 Two religious peace groups, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the American Friends Service Committee, attempted to mediate the conflict by arranging for Episcopal minister John Nevin Sayre and a small group of Americans to travel to Nicaragua to meet with Augusto Sandino. Sayre was unable to make direct contact with him but left a message with Sandino’s wife, which read in part, “We wish you to know that we are against imperialism and in favor of independence, freedom, peace and happiness for Nicaragua.”8 Carleton Beals, a reporter for The Nation, did find Sandino and interviewed him. The interview was published in a six-issue series in February–March 1928, providing Sandino with a forum to speak directly to the U.S. public. The Communist Party USA also took part in the Nicaragua anti-intervention movement, forming the All-American Anti-Imperialist League in 1928. Based in New York City, the group raised money for Sandino and organized speaking tours for his half-brother, Sócrates Sandino, a carpenter by trade and resident of Brooklyn since 1926. Outside the United States, the Communist International promoted Augusto Sandino as an exemplary anti-imperialist, making him known to revolutionary groups and national liberation movements worldwide.9 The arguments of the anti-interventionists in the 1920s were similar in many respects to those of Contra War opponents in the 1980s. The earlier anti-interventionists charged that the intervention was illegal, as Congress had not been properly consulted; that Nicaragua presented no risk to Americans or to U.S. security; that evidence of arms transfers (from Mexico) was sketchy; that the administration offered a changing list of explanations for the intervention; that the intervention isolated the United States from world opinion; that diplomacy rather than military intervention should be employed; and that the media was being manipulated by the administration. Sayre expressed his anguish over the affair in a letter to Senator Norris in 1928, writing, “I cannot understand how any intelligent, patriotic citizen can remain silent without protesting, while our President is carrying on an unauthorized and indefensible war against Nicaragua. . . . [F]or certainly, if the President of the United States can carry on war in Nicaragua, without the consent of Congress, he can do the same thing with many other countries.”10 Ending U.S. intervention in Nicaragua proved frustratingly slow. President Herbert Hoover, in his first State of the Union address on December 3, 1929, declared his intention to remove some 1,600 marines in Nicaragua, as “we do not wish to be represented abroad in such manner.”11 Yet the troops remained. On

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January 5, 1931, five days after eight marines had been killed in an ambush, the Senate gave the president a push by approving a nonbinding “sense of the Senate” resolution calling for American forces to be immediately withdrawn from Nicaragua. A year later, with still no withdrawal, Congress passed a bill prohibiting the administration from transporting additional U.S. troops to Nicaragua. The Hoover administration finally got the message and withdrew all U.S. troops in January 1933, leaving in their place the U.S.-trained Nacional Guardia. With the departure of the marines, Sandino quickly negotiated a peace agreement with the newly elected Sacasa government. The fighting ceased, but animosity remained between Sandino and the U.S.-approved commander of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza García. In February 1934, just after Sandino had dined with President Sacasa, Somoza’s men seized and executed Sandino and his top commanders. This was followed by a massacre of Sandino’s men at a farm cooperative where they lived. Unpunished, Somoza maneuvered his way into the presidency in 1937, the beginning of a forty-three-year family dynasty in which political power was passed from father to son to brother through a series of manipulated elections and coups. In the United States, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Nicaragua was followed by a declaration in December 1933 forswearing U.S. military intervention in Latin America—the Good Neighbor Policy. The principle of nonintervention was later written into the United Nations Charter in 1945 and the Charter of the Organization of American States in 1948. With the advent of the Cold War, however, the United States began a new round of interventionism in Latin America, often carried out covertly through the CIA. Concerns in Washington in the 1940s regarding Somoza’s undemocratic methods melted away in the 1950s, as Somoza made himself an indispensable ally of the United States in the Cold War. The Somoza government provided logistical support for the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, and for the expatriate invasion of Cuba in 1961. The United States rewarded the Somoza family regime with military and economic aid, underwriting its dictatorial rule.

The Sandinista Revolution The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, and Tomás Borge. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and the anti-imperialist example of Sandino, the

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three Nicaraguans embarked on the Herculean tasks of bringing down the Somoza government and replacing it with a socialist government that would presumably serve the people. From its inception until 1974, the FSLN had no appreciable military or political influence. This situation changed on December 27, 1974, when FSLN guerrillas invaded the house of a prominent supporter of President Anastasio Somoza during a Christmas party and held the guests hostage. Somoza was compelled to give in to FSLN’s demands: the release of eighteen Sandinista prisoners, the transfer of a half million dollars to the Sandinistas, and the broadcast of two FSLN messages to the public. The FSLN’s outrageous action showed Nicaraguans that Somoza was not invincible. Somoza responded by clamping down on political rights. The repression, which lasted thirty-three months, hindered the FSLN’s operations but served the larger revolutionary goal of inciting popular resentment against the Somoza government. Opposition to Somoza’s rule within Nicaragua had been growing since a massive earthquake struck Managua on December 23, 1972, killing 18,000 people and leveling the center of the city. Much of the international aid that poured into Nicaragua in the aftermath was diverted into Somoza’s profit-making businesses. This brazen act of greed alienated Nicaraguans of all classes. Even the elite private enterprise alliance, the Superior Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), came out against Somoza’s candidacy for president in 1974. Somoza was nevertheless reelected in what was commonly regarded as another fraudulent election. Political opposition coalesced under the Democratic Union for Liberation (UDEL), formed on December 15, 1974. Led by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the well-known publisher of La Prensa, UDEL brought together mainstream business interests, unions, and political parties. In October 1977, just after martial law was lifted, UDEL issued a manifesto calling for the “democratization” of Nicaragua. Published in La Prensa, the manifesto declared that “the present violent situation” was due to “the dictatorship’s institutionalized violence,” and “that peace can be established only by initiating a process of political change that will convert Nicaragua into a truly democratic society . . . built upon administrative honesty, socioeconomic justice, and respect for all human rights.”12 UDEL was the leading political voice for change at this time. The Somoza government was also challenged by the Catholic church, both the hierarchy and the recently emerged “popular church.” Beginning in 1977, Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo wrote a series of pastoral letters denouncing the Somoza government’s abuses. The popular church in Nicaragua went further, with some Christian base communities and priests providing safe

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houses for FSLN rebels. The popular church emerged in Nicaragua in the late 1960s in conjunction with the Catholic church’s new mission to liberate the poor, as set forth by Pope John XXIII (1958–63), the Vatican Council (1962– 65), and Latin American bishops at meetings in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, and in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979. At the Medellín conference, the bishops affirmed the Vatican’s “preferential option for the poor” and called for conscientización, social education, and the building of “Christian base communities.”13 The consciousness-raising aspect of this mission was further developed by Latin American theologians into a comprehensive “liberation theology,” which mixed Christian values with Marxist critiques of power and wealth. In January 1969, some two hundred Nicaraguan priests and nuns met in Managua to discuss and promote the Catholic church’s new mission of liberation. Under pressure, Obando y Bravo and the Nicaraguan church hierarchy endorsed the Medellín principles.14 During the 1980s, however, with the support of a more conservative pope in Rome, Obando y Bravo denounced the popular church as contrary to traditional beliefs and practices. The murder of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro on January 10, 1978, presumably by Somoza’s thugs, marked the beginning of an eighteen-month insurrectionary period that ended with the triumph of FSLN revolutionary forces. The Carter administration, hoping to avoid a Sandinista victory, put pressure on Somoza to negotiate with his moderate political opponents, but Somoza avoided this, calculating that the United States would continue to support him if the only alternative was the FSLN. With political compromise stymied, the challenge moved to the battlefield, where the FSLN was leading the charge. In early 1979 the FSLN united its three contentious factions (distinguished by their different strategies for achieving revolutionary victory) and established a nine-person directorate led by Daniel Ortega. Between February and July 1979, FSLN fighters increased in number from about 2,500 to 5,000 and proceeded to “liberate” towns and regions. The National Guard, aided by Argentine security forces, responded with greater force, at times indiscriminately attacking civilian populations. The FSLN launched its final offensive in late May. On July 17, 1979, Somoza left the country, and two days later Sandinista guerrillas marched into Managua amidst cheers and celebration. The revolution that had taken the lives of some 50,000 Nicaraguans was finally over.15 The dictator was gone and a revolutionary group that claimed to have the well-being of the masses in mind was now in charge.

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The Sandinistas in Power For the Sandinista leadership, only half the battle had been won. The great revolutionary task ahead was to turn popular hopes for a better life among two and a half million Nicaraguans into active support for the FSLN’s socialist-oriented reform program and the FSLN itself. With these goals in mind, the FSLN undertook a highly successful, five-month literacy campaign, from March to August 1980. Coordinated by Fr. Fernando Cardenal, a Jesuit priest, the campaign involved over 100,000 volunteers who taught some 400,000 people to read and write. The country’s illiteracy rate dropped from 50 to 13 percent of the population.16 “During those first five months,” said Fr. Cardenal, “Nicaragua was a single huge school, with part teaching and the other part learning.”17 The literacy campaign drew many middle and upper-class youths into the FSLN program and connected them with the rural poor. It also provided the FSLN with an opportunity to promote itself. One writing exercise in a Sandinista “Education Notebook,” for example, began with the sentence “The FSLN is the vanguard organization of the Nicaraguan people.”18 Minister of Education Carlos Tünnermann, who later became the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States, explained that “literacy work, like all education, is connected to a political process. There’s no such thing as a neutral education.” The Literacy Crusade provided information about FSLN programs in agriculture, health, and education, and it furthermore assured people that the FSLN government “completely recognizes freedom of worship,” according to Tünnermann.19 The most daunting and immediate problem facing the new Sandinista government was an impoverished economy devastated by war. With the treasury left bankrupt by the Somoza government, the FSLN appealed for international assistance and encouraged Sandinismo, a spirit of cooperation and volunteerism in rebuilding the country, at home. FSLN leaders were intent on creating a socialist-oriented economic system that would meet the basic needs of the majority, but they did not regard the Soviet Union, Eastern bloc countries, or Cuba as appropriate economic models. Sandinista Nicaragua was to be a new socialist experiment, allowing for individual ownership and private enterprise. Daniel Ortega later claimed that “it is the Sandinista Revolution which invented perestroika,” the reform model adopted by the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev in the latter half of the 1980s.20 The FSLN directorate, being of mixed class origin itself, was decidedly pragmatic in its approach to reform. 21 On July 19, 1981, before half a million people gathered in the central plaza of

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Managua to celebrate the Revolution’s second anniversary, Ortega announced a new agrarian reform law. The law called for the distribution of available land to over 100,000 campesinos, while also protecting the property rights of large landholders who were producing needed crops. The fact that an estimated 20 percent of arable acreage had been abandoned by Somoza and his allies meant that it was unnecessary to expropriate the land of large landowners, although limitations were later placed on the amount of land a single family could own. The FSLN government also began, in 1981, a major public health campaign consisting of sanitation measures, mass vaccinations, nutritional programs, encouragement of breast-feeding, the training of more doctors, and health education. The health campaign was organized along the lines of the Literacy Crusade, with some 25,000 volunteers mobilized as health workers, or about 1 percent of the population. As a result of the campaign, infant mortality was dramatically reduced within a few years, earning praise from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Partly because of better health care, Nicaragua’s population increased rapidly, from 2.5 million in 1978 to 3.2 million in 1985, a 28 percent increase, which further strained the economy.22 The contribution of Nicaraguan women to health and education programs was significant. According to political scientist Lorraine Bayard de Volo, women “constituted 60% of the literacy brigades, 70% of the brigades for the popular health campaign, 95% of those working in health programs, and 68% of the coordinators of adult education programs.”23 Women had played an important role in the revolutionary upheaval against Somoza, providing an estimated 30 percent of FSLN fighters and a few notable commanders.24 Following the triumph, the all-male FSLN Directorate enlisted women’s continuing participation in the reconstruction of the country through the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (AMNLAE), a Sandinista mass organization. AMNLAE recruited women to participate in projects while also advocating for women’s rights in FSLN assemblies and public venues. In August 1979 the FSLN directorate issued a fundamental statute that provided a framework for full equality between the sexes. “Toward its goal of economic, political, and cultural equality for women,” wrote de Volo, “the FSLN abolished prostitution, banning advertising that exploited women’s bodies, instituted equal pay for equal work, provided health care for mothers and children, built day-care centers, and expanded literacy.”25 For Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, however, the first woman to serve on the Nicaraguan Supreme Court of Justice, the passage of such laws was not enough. “You can be a revolutionary politically

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and ideologically,” she said, “but your normal behavior can still be machismo. And that’s the way it was with the FSLN.”26 An independent women’s movement did not emerge until the end of the Sandinista era in 1990. A key demand of the Nicaraguan people in the wake of Somoza’s ouster was free and fair elections. FSLN leaders were well aware of this demand but reluctant to subject themselves to a popular vote before their reform programs could prove their value. In the meantime, they sought to assure their supremacy in the new Council of State, which opened on May 4, 1980, by reserving a majority of seats for representatives of FSLN mass organizations. This action prompted two members of the five-member Junta (the official governing body in Nicaragua) to resign in protest—Alfonso Robelo, a businessman who later became a contra political leader, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, wife of the martyred publisher. In August 1980 the FSLN directorate announced that national elections would be held for the presidency and national assembly in five years (the date was later moved up to November 1984). FSLN leaders thereupon embarked on a two-track strategy of building democratic institutions from the ground up while also promoting their socialist vision as the ultimate form of democracy. Council of State President Carlos Nuñez, speaking before the council on December 4, 1982, declared that “democracy is the economic regime that assures men and women of their basic needs: food, work, housing, education, and health.”27 True democracy, in other words, lies in a government that serves the people. Despite misgivings, FSLN leaders proceeded to create a multiparty political system in which their leadership and program were not guaranteed. The process involved three steps, according to Fr. Álvaro Argüello, a Jesuit priest at the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica in Managua. The first step was to develop what became the comprehensive Law of Political Parties, based on Western European multiparty models. In November 1981 Argüello was serving in the Council of State as a representative of the religious sector (Association of Nicaraguan Clergy) when council president Nuñez appointed him to a fourteen-member commission assigned this task of drafting the law. “Remember that in the revolution all the institutions were banished, disappeared,” said Argüello. “It was up to the revolution to create new institutions.” It took twenty-one months before the commission completed its final draft of the law, which the Council of State approved on August 17, 1983. “This was the first step in the democratic process,” said Argüello. The second step was “the creation of an electoral process in order to have elected members of the government and to create a new Nicaraguan Assembly.” A second

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commission was formed in late 1982 for the purpose of creating a comprehensive election law. The Council of State approved a new election statute on March 15, 1984. These laws, said Argüello, were “important to the faith of the Nicaraguan people because in fact they were going to see that we were trying to beef up democracy, the participation of people of different political parties. . . . Let the people choose their leaders.” After national elections for National Assembly seats and president were held on November 4, 1984, “the third step to democratize the country was to write down a Constitution,” said Argüello. A new Nicaraguan constitution was ratified in January 1987. “I was part of that first step,” he reflected.28 The FSLN leadership diverged from the Cuban model in more ways than establishing a mixed economy and democratic institutions. It also outlawed the death penalty and set a maximum prison term of thirty years, and it embraced religious freedom. Regarding the latter, the FSLN National Directorate issued an official communiqué on religion on October 7, 1980. The statement guaranteed the inalienable right of citizens to profess their religious beliefs and the right of churches to operate schools and conduct their activities free of government interference. It furthermore assured FSLN members that their religious beliefs would be respected within the party.29 Obando y Bravo was not appeased by this declaration, however, believing that the FSLN was intent on undermining the Church hierarchy and expanding the popular church. The Sandinista leadership did not expect a counterrevolutionary war at the outset, despite the fact that some three thousand former national guardsmen had fled to nearby countries in the last days of the revolution. The official report of the first FSLN organizational meeting after the revolution, held in Managua on September 21–23, 1979, stated: “Though we do not wish to downplay the need for a strong army to take care of national defense, we would point out that at present there is no clear indication that an armed counterrevolution by Somozist forces beyond our borders is going to take place and jeopardize our stability.”30 In May 1980 that assessment changed radically. Defense minister Tomás Borge announced the existence of thirty-two counter-revolutionary camps in Honduras. The Argentine security forces that had aided Somoza in his final days were on hand in Honduras and Guatemala to help the contras get organized. In November COSEP leader Jorge Salazar was killed by FSLN security personnel in circumstances allegedly involving gun-running to the contras.31 The “honeymoon” period was clearly over. The FSLN government began to take a harder line toward its political opponents, fearing conspiratorial ties with the contras or the CIA.

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As tension grew within the country, divisions within the educated class became sharper. In the case of the famous Chamorro family, the eldest son of the deceased publisher, also named Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, opposed the FSLN and eventually became part of the contra directorate. He moved to Costa Rica in late 1984 and began publishing Nicaragua Hoy, a four-page newspaper highly critical of the FSLN government. A second son, Carlos Fernando, served as editor of the pro-Sandinista newspaper, Barricada, the “official organ of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.” Sister Cristiana worked for La Prensa, an independent newspaper that received funding from the U.S. government and was periodically shut down by the FSLN government. Another sister, Claudia, served as Nicaragua’s ambassador to Cuba and to Costa Rica. “Those were tough times. The family was divided,” Claudia later reflected. “I was still a Sandinista and my brother was leading demonstrations in Costa Rica against my embassy. We all thought we wanted what was best for Nicaragua.”32 The mother of this prominent family, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, after resigning from the Junta in April 1980, became a prominent critic of the Sandinistas, although not a contra supporter. She was elected president in February 1990, marking the end of the Sandinista era.

Initial U.S. Responses to the New Sandinista Government On August 23, 1979, thirty-five days after the Sandinista triumph, U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua Lawrence A. Pezzulo sent a twelve-page memorandum to the State Department, assessing the FSLN government and recommending U.S. actions. The long telegram gave no indication that the new Sandinista government constituted a threat to the United States; indeed, quite the contrary: The Nicaraguan Revolution gives every evidence of being an authentic Nicaraguan phenomenon. Its leaders come from a wide spectrum of Nicaraguan society. . . . The Sandinista movement represents a societal consensus that a radical change was needed in Nicaragua. . . . The broad outlines of “Sandinismo” have already been defined by its leaders. It includes a commitment to a democratic form, a compassionate attitude toward its enemies, defense of human rights, respect for private property, a commitment to allow the private sector to be part of a mixed economy, a commitment to freedom of expression and of the press and, in foreign policy, a desire to have good relations with all countries while pursuing a non-aligned posture. . . . It includes a strong Christian element which may explain the very compassionate approach taken toward former enemies.

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Regarding the influence of Cuba, Pezzulo observed, “There is no reason to believe that the Cuban model is more attractive than any other. . . . Cuba will be influential in Nicaragua only insofar as its contributions are acceptable to the Nicaraguans.” He noted that “Cuban involvement thus far publicly has been limited to the supply of medical personnel and equipment” and other humanitarian assistance. On the issue of human rights, Pezzulo wrote, “We are not aware of any press reports of systematic violations of human rights of the new government. On the contrary, most stories expressed wonderment at the peacefulness of the transition.” Pezzulo described in detail the “grave economic crisis” in the country, including “an enormous foreign debt” inherited from the Somoza government and a business community “bereft of funds and suffering serious losses during the insurrection.” He concluded his report with a recommendation to assist the struggling FSLN government: “Realistically, we face only one option: to continue our economic and political support to the Nicaraguan people and government so that they can pursue their own destiny in a peaceful and democratic manner. We welcome the repeated assurances from the GRN [Government of National Reconstruction] of their willingness to establish close and friendly relations with the U.S. We have no moral alternative but to reciprocate generously with a helping hand to a friendly people in economic distress.”33 The Carter administration only partly embraced Pezzulo’s recommendations. It provided $20 million in emergency aid and economic assistance to the new Sandinista government, but at the same time secretly authorized covert aid to dissident political groups within Nicaragua. In May 1980 Congress approved a $75 million aid package that included $70 million in loans, of which 60 percent was reserved for the private sector.34 The aid package was designed as a carrot to encourage economic moderation (limited state control of property and business enterprises), political pluralism, and ties with the West rather than the Soviet bloc. In June 1980, House majority leader Jim Wright (D-TX) traveled to Nicaragua at the behest of President Carter. After meeting with Junta members Daniel Ortega and Arturo Cruz, a businessman who replaced Alfonso Robelo, and other Nicaraguan leaders, Wright noted that prospects for democracy and moderate reform in Nicaragua looked promising.35 In January 1981 three liberal Democratic members of Congress, Gerry Studds of Massachusetts, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, and Robert Edgar of Pennsylvania, toured Nicaragua and met with FSLN leaders. A follow-up report written by Studds stated that the Sandinistas’ main “accomplishment has been to create within Nicaragua a universal commitment to greater social equity and concern for the country’s

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multitude of poor, ill-clothed, ill-fed and sick people. There is a fully shared sense the revolution is necessary and just.”36 In the spirit of establishing friendly relations, the Carter administration invited the military chiefs of staff of the Sandinista Popular Army to tour four U.S. military bases in South Carolina and Georgia in November 1979. Returning from the trip, Comandante Donald Mendoza observed, “The Military Staff of the Sandinista Forces was very impressed and pleased with the cordiality and hospitality bestowed upon them by the officers of the several military bases they visited and they look upon this exchange as a symbol of a deep new friendship that can be cultivated between the new Nicaragua and the United States of America.”37 Relations between the two countries took a downturn in mid-January 1981 when the Carter administration received reports of arms transfers from Nicaragua to Salvadoran guerrillas. The administration suspended further distribution of the $75 million aid package to Nicaragua pending an investigation. On February 14 Ambassador Pezzulo met with Junta leaders Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez to discuss the issue. According to a cable from Pezzullo to Secretary of State Alexander Haig on February 18, the FSLN leaders told Pezzulo that the Nicaraguan government had not authorized any arms transfers, but that unauthorized transfers may have taken place. Ortega said that a firm decision had been taken by the FSLN Directorate to “not permit use of our territory for the transit of arms to El Salvador” and that orders had been given to all units to interdict any such arms traffic. Ortega added, “We understand your concerns about El Salvador and we will not risk our revolution for an uncertain victory in El Salvador.”38

The Reagan Administration’s War against Nicaragua What set the United States against Sandinista Nicaragua had less to do with arms transfers than with changes in U.S. administrations. Reluctant acceptance of the FSLN government by the Carter administration gave way to vehement rejection by the Reagan administration. The Republican Party platform of 1980 deplored “the Marxist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and the Marxist attempts to destabilize El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.” It implicitly endorsed the idea of ousting the Sandinistas, asserting that “we will support the efforts of the Nicaraguan people to establish a free and independent government.”39 President Ronald Reagan, upon entering the White House in January 1981, set out to implement the Republican platform irrespective of Sandinista

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efforts to accommodate U.S. security concerns. On March 9, 1981, he signed a secret presidential finding authorizing the CIA to organize an anti-Sandinista guerrilla force, ostensibly to interdict weapons transfers from Nicaragua to El Salvador.40 The House Committee on Intelligence secretly approved this operation, but expressly forbade the CIA from spending U.S. funds “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua or provoking a military exchange between Nicaragua and Honduras.”41 The Reagan administration continued to accuse the Sandinistas of transferring arms despite a paucity of evidence to back the charge. Speaking for the State Department, William J. Dyess told the New York Times (April 2, 1981), “The response [of the Sandinistas] has been positive. We have no hard evidence of arms movements through Nicaragua during the past few weeks, and propaganda and some other support activities have been curtailed.”42 A later report by the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Evaluation in September 1982 concluded that administration claims of arms transfers were “flawed by several instances of overstatement and overinterpretation.”43 David MacMichael, a CIA analyst specializing in the Western Hemisphere from 1981 to 1983, resigned from the CIA rather than falsify reports alleging Sandinista arms transfers. A year after leaving, MacMichael went public. “I think Congress and the public should know that within the C.I.A. there is pressure to bend information to fit policy,” he told the New York Times in July 1984. His analysis of the information he received led him to conclude that “the Administration and the C.I.A. have systematically misrepresented Nicaraguan involvement in the supply of arms to Salvadoran guerrillas to justify its efforts to overthrow the Nicaraguan Government.” At interagency meetings, he further noted, “there was hardly any discussion of the arms traffic. I couldn’t understand this failure until months later when I realized, like everyone else, that arms interdiction had never been a serious objective.”44

The Contra War In August 1981 Duane R. Clarridge, the new division chief for CIA operations in Latin America, met with contra leaders and their Argentine advisers in Honduras to formally establish the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the main contra fighting force. Led in the field by former national guardsman Col. Enrique Bermúdez, the contras were the centerpiece of the Reagan administration’s strategy to oust the Sandinistas. The FDN, along with recruiting former national guardsmen, recruited peasants from the northern highlands. Some

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joined for pay, generously provided by the U.S. government; some, because of religious fears regarding the Marxist Sandinistas; and some, because of the FSLN economic policies, mainly the government’s “price and market controls . . . and the coercion needed to implement them,” according to Arial C. Armony.45 Some were also kidnapped by the contras and forced to serve, fearing retribution against their families. Traditional religious rejection of “godless communism” was perhaps the strongest motivating factor. One FDN recruit, Eduardo López Valenzuela, a former farmer of corn and beans in Wiwilí, described in a 1985 interview how his contra unit had rejoiced after ambushing a German physician (Dr. Albrecht Pflaum) and thirteen others (two nurses, three civilian government technicians, four other civilians, and four Sandinista reservists) on a rural road near Wiwili on April 30, 1983: “We were happy and shouted again and again, ‘With God and patriotism we will overthrow Communism. Viva the FDN!’” All of the victims were shot through the head and bayoneted.46 According Clarridge, some of the contras “were former members of the National Guard. A lot of them were peasants from the mountainous areas between Honduras and Nicaragua who had been at war with somebody forever. And in many respects were like a bunch of cattle rustlers.”47 On the Atlantic Coast, a separate wing of the contra movement formed among Miskito, Sumu, and Rama ethnic communities. These Afro-Caribbean cultures had long been at odds with the “Spaniard” majority to the west, and some leaders saw an opportunity for independence, or at least political autonomy, in the aftermath of the Sandinista Revolution. The situation was complicated by the presence of the CIA, which sought to exploit the divide. A contra attack on a Sandinista military outpost in the Rio Coco region near Honduras in December 1981 prompted the FSLN government to relocate some 8,500 Miskitos and Sumus to a resettlement camp fifty miles south of the border—an action that FSLN leaders later came to regret. The forced removal along with FSLN security sweeps, arrests, and unauthorized extrajudicial killings in 1982 led to open war. The FSLN government belatedly recognized its errors and began a series of negotiations in late 1983 that eventually led to the return of indigenous peoples to their lands in 1985, and to the Autonomy Statute, enacted in September 1987, which established a large measure of self-rule for the peoples of the Atlantic Coast.48 Another contra faction emerged to the south. Sandinista military hero Edén Pastora Gómez, known as Comandante Cero, defected in July 1981 and was recruited by the CIA. In April 1982 he announced via radio that he was at war

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with the Sandinistas. His small band of guerrilla fighters based in Costa Rica remained independent of the larger, Honduran-based FDN, despite repeated attempts by Washington to bring the two factions together. Pastora abandoned the fight in 1986 and returned to Nicaragua in 1989. The FDN, the main contra force, rarely engaged the FSLN military directly. Its preferred method of “warfare” was to attack weakly defended rural communities deemed pro-Sandinista and kill government civilian workers—doctors, nurses, educators, and local officials. Such tactics were utterly repugnant to the vast majority of Nicaraguans, as noted by the new U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, Anthony Quainton. In a memo dated August 13, 1983, regarding “allegations of a contra massacre,” the ambassador informed the State Department that Nicaraguan newspapers were full of photographs and eyewitness accounts of a recent contra ambush of a bus carrying eighteen civilians near the town of Jinotega two days earlier. Quainton commented, “Incidents such as this in which unarmed civilians, including women and children, are victims provide invaluable grist for the Sandinista propaganda mill. Reports of such activities revive memories of the brutality of Somoza’s National Guard.”49 Yet contra attacks on civilians were not occasional incidents but rather the main “war” strategy. As explained by former contra leader Edgar Chamorro, who left the FDN in the fall of 1984, in a letter to the New York Times in January 1986: “During my four years as a ‘Contra’ director, it was premeditated policy to terrorize civilian noncombatants to prevent them from cooperating with the Government. Hundreds of civilian murders, tortures, and rapes were committed in pursuit of this policy, of which the ‘Contra’ leaders and their C.I.A. superiors were well aware.”50 In addition to arming and directing the contras, the United States conducted a series of military exercises in the region and constructed military bases and airfields in Honduras in what appeared to be preparation for a direct U.S. invasion. The Pentagon’s Big Pine II, a six-month military exercise lasting from September 1983 to February 1984, involved five thousand U.S. soldiers, nineteen ships, and over two hundred jet fighters. In early 1984, the United States employed CIA operatives to destroy oil storage facilities and mine Nicaraguan harbors, resulting in damages to seven vessels owned by six different nations. Private U.S. mercenary groups also engaged in attacks. On September 1, 1984, two members of the paramilitary group Civilian Military Assistance were killed when their Hughes 500 helicopter was shot down during an attack on a Nicaraguan military training school in Santa Clara, located between Jalapa and Ocotal, near the Honduran border. The assault, which reportedly killed four

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children, also involved Cessna O-2A airplanes supplied by the CIA. The Reagan administration disclaimed any responsibility.51 The illegal mining of Nicaraguan harbors prompted an angry Congress to cut off all aid to the contras in 1984, but the contras nevertheless remained active in the field through the administration’s illegal fundraising and supply network, later revealed in the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987. Operating out of the basement of the White House, Lt. Col. Oliver North and company tapped hidden Pentagon funds, sold arms to Iran and used the profits to purchase arms for the contras. Administration officials also solicited money from other nations, including $32 million from Saudi Arabia between July 1984 and March 1985.52 Illegal arms supplies notwithstanding, by late 1984 it was clear to administration officials that the contras could not oust the FSLN government by themselves. In a memo to CIA director William Casey in December 1984, CIA deputy director for intelligence Robert Gates stated that “the contras, even with American support, cannot overthrow the Sandinista regime.” He recommended to his superior that the United States initiate air strikes against Nicaragua and recognize the contras as a government in exile.53 Lt. Col. North devised a more elaborate contingency plan in July 1985, envisioning a scenario in which the contras would entice the Sandinista army to chase them into Honduras, thus providing the necessary justification for a direct U.S. military response. North deemed U.S. public opposition to such a U.S. invasion the number-one stumbling block, but not an insurmountable problem. “The American people currently consider U.S. full-scale military involvement in Nicaragua as unacceptable,” he wrote, but “acceptance of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua could change drastically should the Sandinista military invade either Honduras or Costa Rica.”54 As it turned out, plans for direct U.S. military action were kept on the back burner while the administration pursued a less controversial strategy that combined sustained military pressure by the contras with increased economic pressure and support for internal opposition groups. On May 1, 1985, the Reagan administration announced an economic embargo against Nicaragua, cutting off all U.S. trade. Although the embargo hurt private business owners in Nicaragua, the administration calculated that it would further depress the Nicaraguan economy and thus undermine popular support for the Sandinistas. As Casey explained the strategy, speaking before the University Club in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 1986, “History shows that a combination of nagging insurgent military pressure and progressive withdrawal of domestic and

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international support is what brings down or alters an unpopular government. . . . The process is already underway in Nicaragua.”55 Casey’s long-term strategy ultimately succeeded, as war and economic hardship made it impossible for the FSLN to deliver on its promises to improve life for the masses. In February 1990, the Sandinistas were voted out of power, ironically through the very election machinery they had created during the 1980s. The costs of the eight-year Contra War on Nicaraguans were substantial: approximately 30,000 Nicaraguans killed, thousands more maimed and wounded, 350,000 internally displaced, and $9 billion in economic damages. “By any measure,” wrote sociologist Lynn Horton, “Nicaragua’s armed conflict of the 1980s took a devastating human and economic toll.”56

Scuttle Diplomacy The Reagan administration had ample opportunity to resolve its security concerns through negotiation, but peaceful coexistence with Sandinista Nicaragua was not its goal. Ambassador Pezzulo’s last attempt at diplomacy before leaving his post in August 1981 involved setting up talks between Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders and Sandinista officials in Managua on August 12–13. The two negotiating parties succeeded in establishing an equation in which Nicaragua would guarantee an end to arms transfers to Salvadoran guerrillas and limit the size of its armed forces in exchange for a pledge of nonintervention from the United States. Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel d’Escoto proposed a joint international patrol along the HondurasNicaraguan border to verify that no arms were being transferred. Senior Reagan administration officials, however, would have nothing to do with either the Enders agreement or d’Escoto’s practical suggestion, as they were organizing the contras into military units at that very time. Nor was the administration interested in a proposal by Mexican president José López Portillo in February 1982 that followed along the same lines as the Enders talks and required the closing of contra camps. The European Parliament endorsed the Mexican proposal and over one hundred members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to President Reagan urging acceptance; but the hard-liners in the Reagan administration, according to Latin American specialist William M. LeoGrande, “sought to delay the talks as long as possible, insisting, as they had the previous summer, on an agenda of demands the Sandinistas would reject.”57 These demands included imbalanced security proposals, such that the Sandinistas would disarm while the United States would only consider

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altering its interventionist policies, and requirements that the Sandinistas negotiate power-sharing with the contras. According to political scientist Kenneth E. Sharpe, the Reagan administration was opposed to any negotiated settlement “that recognized the legitimacy of the Nicaraguan government. By destroying all other alternatives, the contras were made to seem the only alternative.”58 In January 1983 the foreign ministers of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama launched a regional peace initiative known as Contadora, named for the island off Panama where the diplomats met. In September 1984 a breakthrough occurred when five Central American presidents agreed to a draft treaty that required the cessation of all outside support for “irregular forces and armed bands” (e.g., U.S. support for the contras) and banned foreign military bases, schools, and exercises in the region.59 FSLN leaders signed the treaty on condition that Washington support it without change. “Prospects for the treaty seemed excellent at first,” noted political scientist Peter H. Smith. “The United Nations, the OAS, and the European Community all expressed their strong support.” Caught off guard, the administration sent Secretary of State George Shultz to the capitals of Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to pressure the respective leaders to modify the treaty. As Smith put it, “Washington set out to scuttle the plan.”60 Administration officials ultimately succeeded in persuading Honduras to insist on adjustments to the treaty, which effectively destroyed it. A renewed effort to advance the Contadora peace process began in July 1985, when Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Peru formed the Contadora Support Group. Together with the original Contadora nations, the eight governments represented 85 percent of the population of Latin America. Diplomatic negotiations eventually led to a peace treaty signed by five Central American presidents at Esquipulas, Guatemala, on August 7, 1987. Costa Rican president Oscar Arias played a key role in pressuring all sides to compromise. The agreement required a cessation of all outside support for guerrilla forces and stipulated that the Sandinistas hold talks with the contras. The Reagan administration, caught off guard again, could not undo this treaty but nevertheless managed to sabotage it by not complying with the requirement that it cease support for the contras. According to Rep. James M. Jeffords, a moderate Republican congressman from Vermont who lobbied the White House to support the Arias peace plan, “Our government undermined that agreement almost immediately.”61 Washington’s scuttle diplomacy was accompanied by an Orwellian publicity campaign that proclaimed the administration’s ardent desire for a peaceful

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settlement and blamed the Sandinistas for any lack of progress at the negotiating table. This public performance was largely designed to convince Congress to continue appropriating contra aid. At a meeting of the National Security Planning Group on June 25, 1984, President Reagan expressed the view that “if we are just talking about negotiations with Nicaragua, that is so far-fetched to imagine that a communist government like that would make any reasonable deal with us, but if it is to get Congress to support the anti-Sandinistas, then that can be helpful.”62 FSLN leaders, for their part, believed that they had made reasonable concessions. They had guaranteed that there would be no arms transfers from Nicaragua and called for joint border patrols; they had pledged not to allow any Soviet or Cuban bases on Nicaraguan soil; and they had refrained from importing Soviet warplanes. Beyond these concessions, however, they asserted the right to defend themselves against a foreign-supported insurgency operating out of bases in neighboring states. Foreign Minister d’Escoto quipped that the U.S. position amounted to “You drop dead or else I kill you.”63 When, at times, negotiations progressed despite administration intransigence, U.S. officials fell back on the fail-safe argument that the Sandinistas could not be trusted to carry out any agreement. As Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliot Abrams said in August 1985, “It is preposterous to think we could sign a deal with the Sandinistas and expect it to be kept.”64 Again, in January 1988 a State Department official remarked, “Our basic strategy doesn’t change. It is to persuade Congress that Ortega cannot be trusted and there is a need to maintain [contra] aid as an insurance policy.”65 Negotiations, in short, would never be allowed to undermine U.S. support for the contras.

Internal Intervention The Reagan administration’s strategy for ousting the Sandinistas depended in part on encouraging and manipulating opposition groups within Nicaragua. Subsidies to opposition groups were provided through the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED was created in late 1983 for the ostensible purpose of promoting democracy in Nicaragua, thus allowing Congress to openly fund the agency. Between 1984 and 1988 NED provided about $2 million in grants to Nicaraguan opposition groups, with La Prensa receiving the largest amount. Funds were channeled through various U.S. organizations and institutes, including the AFL-CIO’s American Institute for Free Labor Development, then became difficult to trace in Nicaragua, as recipient

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groups did not want it known that they were receiving money from the U.S. government.66 Cardinal Obando y Bravo denied receiving any U.S. funds, but Fr. Frederico Argüello, a priest close to Obando, acknowledged the receipt of substantial sums from unnamed sources “to help the church and the poor.”67 The Reagan administration also provided Nicaraguan radio stations with anti-Sandinista programming through the Voice of America (VOA). A VOA report in July 1983 noted that the agency “regularly supplies programming based on VOA broadcasts and taped package programs to 14 Nicaraguan radio stations, 12 of which are in Managua. Radio Catolica is regularly supplied with seven package programs and with Correspondents’ Feed material.”68 Whether this VOA programming won any hearts and minds in Nicaragua is another matter. After listening to VOA broadcasts on February 6 and 16, 1985, Spanish writer Teófilo Cabestrero remarked on the surreal quality of hearing President Reagan describe the contras as “fighters for freedom and democracy” amidst almost daily news reports of contra murders, kidnappings, and rapes.69 The Reagan administration’s efforts to foment opposition from within and counterrevolution from without had a predictable effect in pushing the FSLN government to clamp down on opposition groups and the press. On March 15, 1982, the Junta decreed a state of emergency that limited habeas corpus rights and suspended freedom of the press, the right to strike, and the right to organize anti-Sandinista demonstrations. Some FSLN cadres went further and took it upon themselves to root out suspected subversives. In August 1982, for example, Sandinista activists occupied local churches they believed to be “part of a CIAorchestrated campaign of ideological subversion of the revolution.”70 In July 1984 the FSLN government loosened restrictions on public activities in order to allow for political campaigning. Diplomatic historian Mark T. Gilderhus, summarized the Sandinistas’ mixed human rights record: “During the contra war the Sandinistas refrained from systematic repression of the opposition but not from periodic harassment. Their government compiled a mixed record: It censored the main opposition newspaper, La Prensa, and also radio broadcasts put on by the Roman Catholic Church, yet opposition parties ran candidates in the 1984 elections and also participated in writing the new constitution. And their wartime restrictions on civil liberties never resulted in the wholesale abuses so common in El Salvador, Guatemala, and formerly in Somoza’s Nicaragua.”71 In the Nicaraguan national elections held on November 4, 1984, seven political parties participated. The FSLN won 63 percent of the national vote and sixty-one of ninety seats in the national assembly. Three non-Marxist parties won a total

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twenty-nine seats, and the three socialist and communist parties (not associated with the FSLN) won a total of six seats. Some 1,000 foreign journalists and 450 official observers from thirty-five countries were on hand to observe the elections.72 Among the official observers were fifteen U.S. scholars affiliated with the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). LASA delegates met with representatives of all political parties, electoral officials, government officials, and leaders from different sectors of society during their week-long stay. The final LASA report concluded, “Clearly, the Nicaraguan electoral process in 1984 was manipulated, as the U.S. Government so often charged. However, the manipulation was not the work of the Sandinistas—who had every interest in making these elections as demonstrably fair, pluralistic, and competitive as possible—but of the Reagan Administration, whose interest apparently was in making the elections seem as unfair, ideologically one-sided, and uncompetitive as possible.”73 The Reagan administration attempted to sabotage the elections in part by pressuring its favored presidential candidate, Arturo Cruz, to pull out of the race, which he did.74 On the very day of the elections, the administration “revealed” to the press that Soviet fighter planes were arriving in Nicaragua. The charge was baseless but nonetheless served to divert U.S. media attention from the elections. Administration officials also declared on that day that “any agreement on security issues must be linked to moves toward democratic rule,” implying that no democratic elections were taking place.75 In the final analysis, the Reagan administration’s support for “democracy” in Nicaragua, like its support for diplomatic negotiations, was a chimera, as its single-minded goal was the removal of the Sandinistas from power. As Alejandro Bendaña, an official in the Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1984–1990), described it, “The U.S. would support the results of a ‘free’ election only if its own side won.”76

CHAPTER 2

An Overview of the Contra War Debate

U

. S. aid to the contras began in secret, but once exposed in the media, the Reagan administration went to great lengths to win public and congressional approval. President Reagan delivered three nationally televised addresses on Central America or Nicaragua (April 27, 1983, May 9, 1984, and March 16, 1986)—apart from three more on the Iran-Contra affair—and twenty-two radio addresses with a major focus on Nicaragua. Top administration officials also spoke out, the State Department issued a series of background papers, and two new agencies were created in 1983 to promote administration views far and wide: the White House Outreach Group, headed by Faith Ryan Whittlesey, and the State Department Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD), headed by Otto Reich. The rationale for the creation of these agencies was set forth in a confidential strategy paper dated May 5, 1983. “Our Central American policy is facing an essentially apathetic and in some particulars hostile U.S. public,” the report stated. The cause of this apathy and opposition was traced to the news media, which was reporting “on the alleged U.S.-backed ‘covert’ war against the Sandinistas” rather than on “the repression of pluralism by the Sandinistas.” It was thus necessary “to shift the focus of public debate,” the report concluded.1 Nineteen months later, the Office of Public Diplomacy was able to report progress: “S/LPD has maintained a considerable and sustained media education program through briefings and backgrounders, which attained a significant [ 29 ]

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measure of success and are extremely well received by the media,” stated a December 1984 report. “On several occasions S/LPD has ‘killed’ erroneous news stories by providing correct data or information about events before major news networks have broadcast.” The report also noted that between October 1, 1983, and November 23, 1984, S/LPD had sponsored 1,870 speaking engagements and interviews in over 1,000 U.S. cities and towns and had distributed information to private organizations so as to create “a multiplier effect for the distribution of our message.”2 The White House Outreach Group, meanwhile, had enlisted conservative business, labor, religious, and veterans’ groups in a Washington-led effort to generate grassroots pressure on Congress. According to the Washington Post (August 10, 1983), some “150 organizations have participated in weekly ‘outreach’ meetings in the Executive Office Building in which prominent administration officials, including the president, have been featured speakers.” Both the White House Outreach Group and S/LPD reported to a special planning group within the National Security Council, established in January 1983 for the purpose of “overall planning, direction, coordination, and monitoring of implementation of public diplomacy activities.”3 The Reagan administration also recruited anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans to make its case. For example, a conference was held in Washington on July 19, 1983, the fourth anniversary of the Sandinista triumph, in which anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan labor leaders, journalists, and opposition party leaders were brought in to hobnob with members of Congress and the media. Also attending were FDN Director Adolfo Calero and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. The conference took place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and was officially sponsored by the Ad Hoc Committee for Democracy in Nicaragua, a coalition of over thirty pro-Reagan organizations.4 In the fall of 1984, S/LPD hired International Business Communications (IBC) to conduct a speaking tour in the Northeast of anti-Sandinista Central Americans, stipulating, “It is understood that I.B.C. will strive to obtain local sponsorship for the largest possible number of program events in order to project an image of grassroots support and involvement with respect to the message being transmitted.” The Office of the Inspector General later determined that $84,000 in payments to IBC should be recovered by the U.S. government, due to the inappropriate use of taxpayer funds to influence the U.S. public and Congress.5

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Administration Themes and Arguments The major themes and arguments advanced by the Reagan administration fell into three main categories: security issues, the nature of the Sandinista government, and the role of the contras. Security issues were framed in the Cold War context, such that Nicaragua was said to be an “outpost of the Soviet empire,” “exporting revolution,” and engaged in a military buildup beyond its defensive needs. The heralded Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America ( January 1984), chaired by former national security adviser Henry Kissinger, added the issue of U.S. “credibility,” warning that the “triumph of hostile forces in what the Soviets call the ‘strategic rear’ of the United States would be read as a sign of U.S. impotence.”6 The United States, in other words, had to maintain hegemonic control over Central America in order to be considered a credible superpower. Although there was also no legal basis whatsoever in domestic or international law that justified foreign military intervention for the purpose of bringing freedom and democracy to a nation, the administration made it appear so by highlighting the real and imagined abuses of the Sandinista government. “There seems to be no crime to which the Sandinistas will not stoop—this is an outlaw regime,” declared Reagan in a televised address to the nation on March 16, 1986. “Could there be any greater tragedy than for us to sit back and permit this cancer to spread, leaving my successor to face far more agonizing decisions in the years ahead?”7 In contrast to the dark, foreboding picture drawn of the Sandinistas, the contras were painted in the bright colors of American idealism. Administration officials hailed the contras as democratic reformers, “freedom fighters,” heroes, and “our brothers.”8 President Reagan told the American people at various times that it was “our moral responsibility” to aid the contras; that the United States had the “moral authority” to do so; that subduing the Sandinistas constituted “a great moral challenge for the entire free world”; and that the contras were the “moral equivalent of our founding fathers.”9 The overall theme for propagation was summarized in the S/LPD “Public Diplomacy Action Plan,” dated March 12, 1985: “The Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters are fighters for freedom in the American tradition; FSLN are evil.”10 Once the administration had established these themes, it was loath to alter them, as any acknowledgment of improvement in the security situation, of progress in democracy in Sandinista Nicaragua, or of evidence of contra atrocities would weaken its case for contra aid before Congress and the public.

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Ideological Underpinnings The salience of administration’s themes and arguments depended in large part on three overlapping conceptual frameworks: hegemonic assumptions regarding the U.S. role in Central America, Cold War ideology, and military patriotism. Americans who embraced these frameworks tended to support the Reagan administration’s policies in Central America, although other considerations could affect this. Hegemonic assumptions were implicit in the idea that the United States had the right and responsibility to intervene in Nicaragua—in the 1920s as well as in the 1980s. Typical of the administration’s thinking was an S/LPD strategy paper in March 1984, which declared that the United States would not allow any “foreign inspired and supported insurgency” in Central America, as if the U.S.-supported contra insurgency were not exactly that.11 Similarly, in November 1987 President Reagan stated in his weekly radio address, without a hint of irony, that the Contra War was “a Nicaraguan conflict that should be resolved by Nicaraguans.”12 U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, in short, was not considered foreign intervention at all. Nicaragua was colloquially referred to as “our backyard,” a sphere of influence that the United States had the right to dominate. U.S. leaders did not explicitly acknowledge the principle of hegemony because this would mean recognizing the “right” of the Soviet Union to dominate its self-declared sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Hard-line Cold War ideology reinforced U.S. hegemonic assumptions by linking Sandinista Nicaragua to despotic “communism” and by grafting the counterrevolutionary mission of the contras onto what many believed to be the global mission of the United States—to promote freedom and democracy abroad. Within this ideological framework, it was virtually impossible to believe that the Marxist Sandinistas could hold free and fair elections or that the United States could sponsor terrorism in Nicaragua. The grafting began with the president’s first major address on Central America on April 27, 1983, in which the words “free” or “freedom” were used thirty-three times. Reagan declared that the United States was protecting the “free world,” defending freedom in the Caribbean basin, facing the “challenge to freedom and security in our own hemisphere,” and supporting freedom fighters, freedom of religion, a free press, freedom of speech, free labor unions, free institutions, free elections, and “freedom from political oppression.”13 Closely allied with Cold War ideology was a patriotic view of America’s role

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in the world, in which U.S. foreign policy was regarded a priori as benevolent and protective, irrespective of intentions, interests, and actual results. According to this view, the more power and influence the United States acquired, the more the world benefited. At root, this view conflated national identity with high moral principles, such that the nation and its foreign policies were assumed to embody those principles. Some military patriots took this further and decried any criticism of U.S. wars and foreign policies as “un-American.” President Reagan came close to this in accusing his Contra War critics of being in league with “Sandinista Communists” and “running a sophisticated disinformation campaign of lies and distortion.”14 More subtly, the “Reagan revolution” sought to diminish citizen attachment to the liberal social welfare state in favor of the patriotic military state, accompanied by a shift in government spending from domestic to military programs (the military budget nearly doubled between 1981 and 1986). The bonds of national unity were to be constructed, not on the basis of mutual support, but on the basis of the nation’s military strength and global influence, on Pax Americana. Ronald Reagan, christened the “Great Communicator” in the press, was able to invoke these ideological themes and assumptions by using appealing and understandable language, but their resonance depended more fundamentally on having been historically affixed to the American identity and outlook by past presidents and policymakers. Reagan’s speech on April 27, 1983, took its cue from President Harry Truman’s famous speech on March 12, 1947, which first set forth the Cold War framework. Truman warned that if the United States stood by and allowed a communist victory in Greece, that nation would disappear “as an independent state . . . disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East . . . and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation.”15 Reagan similarly warned that if the United States remained passive in Central America, that region would be “delivered to totalitarianism,” followed by the “destabilization of an entire region from the Panama Canal to Mexico on our southern border . . . and we ourselves are left vulnerable to new dangers.”16 Both speeches ignored salient facts-on-the-ground in the interest of framing the issue as a mythological battle between freedom and totalitarianism. Truman failed to mention that the Greek communists had previously participated in the Greek legislature before the British-supported royalist government engaged in a wave of repression. He labeled the communist-led faction “terrorist,” while according the British-backed royalist government the potential for becoming a “self-respecting democracy.” Reagan administration officials similarly identified rightist authoritarian regimes as potentially democratic, while denying this possibility to leftist governments.

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The salience of Truman’s message at the time depended in large part on Americans’ recent experience in World War II. Truman used the word “communist” only once in his speech but repeated the phrase “totalitarian regimes” four times. If most Americans were hazy on the details of the Greek situation, they understood well the idea of opposing totalitarian nations such as Nazi Germany. Truman’s Cold War ideology essentially placed the Soviet Union into a preset “enemy” image that had been solidified in World War II. It was thus unnecessary to define or explain “communism” precisely, as the Soviet regime served as an adequate negative image. This lack of clear definition allowed Truman and subsequent administrations to conflate real and imagined “communist threats” with a variety of developments: national liberation movements in Asia and Africa, leftist revolutions and reform governments in Latin America, democratic communist and socialist parties in France and Italy, coalition governments that included communists, governments receiving military aid from the Soviet Union, and groups holding Marxist beliefs. Virtually any left-of-center challenge to U.S. economic interests, political influence, or military power was labeled a “communist threat.” Cold War ideology reigned in U.S. foreign policymaking for a generation, but came under duress in the 1970s, allowing for a shift toward liberal foreign policies and views. The lengthy and unwinnable Vietnam War imposed a sense of caution regarding possible interventions in the future—the “Vietnam syndrome.” The policy of détente implemented by the Nixon administration challenged hard-line anticommunist views as “peaceful coexistence” proved possible after all. In the mid-1970s Congress enacted laws ending the CIA’s secret involvement in Angola, prohibiting CIA assassinations, and establishing human rights standards for U.S. foreign aid. President Jimmy Carter secured a new Panama Canal treaty (a symbolic return to the Good Neighbor Policy), endorsed human rights principles, and worked with other nations to fashion the Law of the Sea Treaty under the United Nations. Granted that the Carter administration abandoned détente in the wake of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979, the liberal legacy continued into the next decade. Popular antipathy toward U.S. interventionism remained strong; human rights standards and CIA restrictions remained on the books; and continuing friendly relations between the United States and Communist China undermined the “domino theory” of communist world domination. Reagan’s vociferous revival of Cold War ideology in the early 1980s was aimed at overcoming the liberal legacy of the previous decade and restoring the ideological fundamentalism of the pre–Vietnam War era. In reinterpreting the Vietnam

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War as a “noble cause” that “should have been won,” Reagan sought to wash away any questions of guilt arising from the deaths of two million Vietnamese people.17 He derided détente as a ruse and once again interpreted diverse conflicts in the Third World as evidence of the Kremlin’s desire for global domination. “Let us not delude ourselves,” said Reagan while on the campaign trail in June 1980. “The Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on. If they weren’t engaged in this game of dominoes, there wouldn’t be any hotspots in the world.”18 As president, Reagan embarked on an aggressive rollback strategy that involved U.S. covert support for guerrilla factions in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia, countries either led by Marxist governments or embroiled in civil wars. In his State of the Union Address in January 1984, Reagan cast his policies as part of a “crusade for renewal” in which the United States has “the will to defend peace and freedom.”19 Winning the Contra War in Nicaragua would presumably redeem America from its fall in Vietnam.

Definitions As the terms rightist, conservative, liberal, and leftist are commonly used here, it is necessary to briefly define these perspectives in the context of the Cold War debate in the United States. The following definitions reflect approximate policy orientations (and are personified for convenience); the views of actual parties may overlap or integrate different aspects, thus producing modifications.20 The rightist position in the Cold War debate was that of “rollback,” rolling back “communist” influence. This was mainly applied in the developing world (e.g., the Reagan Doctrine) rather than in Eastern Europe. Rightists tended to view international power politics as a zero-sum game: if the United States did not assert control in a given region, the Soviet Union and its allies would; hence, it was better for the United States to dominate. This was also the logic of past empires, which sought peace by defeating all rivals—Pax Romana. The conservative position was that of “containment,” which aimed to hold the line against “communist expansion” without catalyzing nuclear war. Conservative “realists” were more cognizant than their rightist allies of the limits of U.S. military and economic resources, and thus they aspired to construct a world order in which U.S. “vital interests” would be safeguarded through realpolitik alliances, global economic arrangements, and military intervention when necessary. Conservatives were leery of ideological crusades but nonetheless dependent upon Cold War ideology to engender the requisite public support for America’s demanding “world policeman” role.

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The liberal position in the Cold War debate was that of “peaceful coexistence” with communist nations, a view predicated on the recognition of our common humanity (rather than national loyalties). The liberal position has often been misunderstood, in part because of references to “Cold War liberals” such as Truman, who were liberal on domestic issues but conservative on foreign policy matters.21 Liberals advocated tolerance of different economic systems, support for the United Nations, human rights principles (not conflated with national self-interest), and a “good neighbor policy” with Latin America. The leftist position in the Cold War debate was barely audible in Washington but could be heard among dissident groups and, more tentatively, in academia. Leftists envisioned a fundamental reordering of economic priorities toward a more equal distribution of economic resources and political power. Without this redistribution, they argued, revolutionary turmoil was inevitable—and some welcomed turmoil as an opportunity to establish ideal societies. (Conflicting views within the left are discussed in the next chapter.) The Reagan administration’s foreign policy was largely a product of rightist and conservative orientations. William LeoGrande, in Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (1998), identified these factions respectively as “hardliners” and “pragmatists.” The hardliners, he wrote, “were opposed to any diplomatic accord that left the Sandinistas in power,” while the pragmatists were willing to pursue negotiations if “traditional U.S. security interests . . . could be reasonably safeguarded by diplomatic compromise.” President Reagan and his top staff were of the “hardliner” group and had the final word on Central America policy. Representing the liberal view were Democrats who rejected “Reagan’s Manichaean conception of international affairs” and “pointed to the nearly universal opposition to U.S. policy among allies in Latin America and Western Europe.” Whatever the differences between “hardliners” and “pragmatists,” noted LeoGrande, “both regarded the policy prescriptions of the liberal Democrats in Congress as anathema.”22 The ACWC was largely a product of liberal and leftist orientations.

Themes and Arguments of the Anti–Contra War Campaign Critics of the Contra War necessarily responded to administration claims and rationales, but they also sought to establish their own line of discourse, taking the offensive in the debate. The ACWC had no overarching coordinating

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agency equivalent to the Office of Public Diplomacy, but participating groups shared information and resources, held common educational events, and promoted common “talking points.” The major themes advanced by Contra War opponents are divided here into seven categories. Because the opponents differed in their thematic priorities and emphases, the themes are discussed in the order of their perceived receptivity in Congress and the mainstream media.23 The first three themes—administration violations of the law, the Vietnam analogy, and the need for diplomacy— garnered enough support in Congress to compel the Reagan administration to claim it was abiding by all U.S. laws, would not send U.S. troops into Nicaragua, and was pursuing negotiations in good faith. The fourth theme of contra terrorism became a hot issue in Congress and the media in 1985, but faded into the background thereafter. The fifth theme of self-determination under international law had a marginal effect on U.S. policymakers and opinion leaders, but reinforced international opposition to the Contra War. The sixth theme concerning the positive nature of the Sandinista reform program was strongly advanced by some segments of the ACWC, but not by others; it was largely rejected by the mainstream media and Congress, but nonetheless generated considerable grassroots interest in Nicaragua and facilitated transnational solidarity work. The last theme involving broad challenges to Cold War ideology and hegemonic assumptions also gained little traction in the mainstream media and Congress. Its importance lay in establishing an alternative framework for understanding the Central American situation and in contributing to long-enduring efforts to cultivate a progressive peace consciousness in the body politic.

Violations of U.S. Laws During the 1970s, Congress enacted a number of laws designed to rein in the “imperial presidency” and ensure democratic accountability in foreign policymaking.24 The Reagan administration sought to reverse this trend in general and, more specifically, to avoid congressional oversight of its Nicaragua policy insofar as possible. Democratic accountability was not the most pressing issue for most anti– Contra War groups, but it was a concern, and it provided a lever for challenging the administration’s overall Nicaragua policy. ACWC groups along with civic groups such as Common Cause charged the administration with violating a number of U.S. laws. According to a sixteen-page paper produced by the Central America Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., “Arguments and Evidence:

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Ten Talking Points against Contra Aid” (1987), the laws broken included the Boland amendments of 1982 and 1984, the Neutrality Act of 1794, the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, constitutional requirements (Art. I, Sec. 9) regarding the handling of appropriated funds, and the Executive Order on Intelligence Activities (EO 12333) prohibiting direct or indirect U.S. participation in assassinations.25 A sixty-eight-page booklet published by the Institute for Policy Studies, In Contempt of Congress: The Reagan Record of Deceit & Illegality on Central America (1985), contrasted the “claims made by Reagan officials before Congress and the reality of U.S. policy,” highlighting the lies and deceptions accompanying violations of the law.26 The National Lawyers Guild and other groups sponsored the public “War Crimes Tribunal on Central America and the Caribbean” in New York City in October 1984, which gathered testimony on administration illegalities and “the human suffering caused by U.S. military activities.”27 The findings were delivered to the United Nations Center for Human Rights. The mainstream media proved to be an ally of the ACWC on this particular theme. In early 1982 the press revealed leaked government documents that made the covert war overt and questioned the official rationale for contra aid (interdicting arms transfers). In September 1984 newspapers reported that the administration was secretly raising millions of dollars for the contras from private sources and foreign governments. From 1984 through 1986 there were periodic probes into the administration’s illegal supply line to the contras, although this did not become a scandal until October 1986.28 These exposés embarrassed and angered the administration but did not rise to the level of challenging overall administration policy. Administration illegalities had a direct bearing on the Contra War debate in Congress. News reports of the CIA’s mining of Nicaraguan harbors in April 1984 prompted a cutoff of aid that year. Speaker of the House Thomas Phillip “Tip” O’Neill decried Reagan’s policy toward Nicaragua as “morally and legally indefensible.”29 Rep. David Bonior (D-MI), chair of the House Democratic Task Force on Central America, spoke for many liberals in charging that “the drive to wage this war has led the administration to bypass our system of checks and balances, to ignore the Constitution of the United States, and to subvert the law of the land.”30 Congressional investigations into the Iran-Contra affair in 1987 confirmed what many ACWC activists and their Nicaraguan contacts had long been saying—that the administration never ceased to arm and direct the contras. Sen. David Durenberger (R-MN), chair of the Senate Intelligence

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Committee, found the administration’s lack of accountability so troubling that he broke with his party on this issue and voted against contra aid in 1988.31 For most Republicans and conservative Democrats, however, the procedural trespasses of the administration were not enough to invalidate other reasons for supporting contras. One reason for the lower priority assigned to this theme by most ACWC groups was that most activists were not accustomed to being champions of law and order. Many, after all, supported or engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience actions such as offering sanctuary for illegal refugees or conducting “sitins” at congressional offices. Those who embraced civil disobedience generally saw themselves as operating on a higher moral plane, their goal being to bring the nation’s laws into conformity with their moral vision—“divine obedience,” as religious activists called it. Lt. Col. Oliver North and other administration officials similarly disobeyed laws for a higher cause in their own minds, the cause being to fight communism. Activist civil disobedience, however, was not life threatening and did not undermine the constitutional division of powers.

Lessons from Vietnam Central America activist groups employed the Vietnam analogy as a wakeup call to rekindle public antipathy toward interventionism. In May 1983, for example, activist groups sponsored a demonstration, the Call to Action, in Washington, DC, under the banner of “No Vietnam War in Central America.” A newspaper advertisement for this demonstration quoted Lyndon Johnson as saying “We seek no wider war,” followed by a quote from Ronald Reagan: “There is no thought of sending American combat troops to Central America.”32 The message was clear: protest now in order to avoid “another Vietnam.” Both leftist and liberal groups within the Central America movement promoted this theme, recognizing its salience in mainstream America. In the summer of 1983 the solidarity group Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador (CISPES) adopted the poster board slogan “No Vietnam War in Central America,” while the liberal peace group SANE issued press statements to the effect that continued funding of the contras would lead down the slippery slope to direct U.S. involvement. However salient this theme, it was deficient in one important respect for the ACWC, as it did not directly address the Contra War. Preventing the introduction of U.S. troops, in other words, would not stop the contras from wreaking havoc in Nicaragua. When played up as the leading theme, as in the 1984 Central America Peace Campaign’s slogan “Talks

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Not Troops,” the impression could be given that, as long as U.S. troops were not sent, the situation was under control. For the most part, ACWC groups avoided giving this impression by blending the theme with others, particularly contra atrocities, that spoke directly to U.S. support for the contras. Fears of a direct U.S. invasion of Nicaragua rose dramatically in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983. Many U.S. citizens—and most Nicaraguans—believed that Nicaragua was the next target. Activists organized the Pledge of Resistance in early 1984, preparing for massive demonstrations and civil disobedience actions so as to deter such an invasion. The idea of preventing a direct invasion was also behind legislation introduced by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) that year, which called for a ban on the funding of U.S. combat forces in El Salvador or Nicaragua unless Congress declared war. The bill was defeated in the Senate, 63–31. A similar bill in the House passed, 341–64, but the House-Senate conference committee diluted the language to a nonbinding advisory to the president, which predictably had no effect. Concerns were also expressed in and out of Congress about the stationing of U.S. military forces in Honduras and nearby waters, which began in October 1981. By June 1984, Kennedy noted, the United States had over a thousand troops in Honduras on a sustained basis and U.S. personnel were operating ships in the Pacific from which U.S. operatives were mining harbors and conducting raids.33 Rep. Clarence Long (D-MD) expressed anxiety over these military maneuvers, saying, “My worry is that this will provoke an incident, a ‘sinking of the Maine,’ that will force us into action.”34 The Reagan administration, for its part, attempted to turn the Vietnam analogy to its advantage by declaring that U.S. troops would not be needed in Nicaragua as long as the contras received adequate funding. Secretary of State George Shultz, speaking to the American Bar Association on May 23, 1985, warned that if members of Congress did not approve renewed aid to the contras, “they are hastening the day when the threat will grow, and we will be faced with an agonizing choice about the use of U.S. combat troops.”35 The administration’s transparent strategy was designed to narrow the choice to two options: fund the contras or send in U.S. troops. Activists took the possibility of a U.S. invasion very seriously, in part because the Reagan administration suffered little domestic political fallout from the invasion of Grenada. The anti-interventionist “lesson of Vietnam” proved more porous than many had thought. U.S. citizens were not anti-interventionist per se, it seems, but only wanted to avoid “no-win” wars and large numbers of U.S. casualties. The quick U.S. victory in

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Grenada, achieved with relatively few U.S. casualties, slipped under the radar of the liberal-left “lesson of Vietnam.” With regard to Nicaragua, however, the possibility of a quagmire did exist, as the Sandinista government, with much popular support, promised fierce resistance.

Diplomacy over War The theme of diplomacy-over-war became the standard liberal position in the Contra War debate, invoked by religious leaders, liberal Democrats in Congress, governments abroad, and ACWC groups. The American Lutheran church, to take one example, passed a resolution in June 1983 urging the U.S. government to support the “resolution of conflicts in Central America through non-military means” and to suspend “both covert and overt actions seeking to destabilize the government of Nicaragua.” Similarly, Catholic archbishop James A. Hickey testified before a congressional hearing on March 17, 1983: “The bishops of the United States called in November 1981 for a U.S. policy that would engage Nicaragua diplomatically, not isolate it. . . . In contrast to this recommendation of positive diplomatic engagement, U.S. policy toward Nicaragua presently has the effect of deepening the internal crises in the country and escalating the dangers of war in the region.” In October 1983 Catholic archbishop John R. Quinn of the Archdiocese of San Francisco wrote in a pastoral letter, “The position of the Bishops of the U.S. on Central America is clear and consistent: it affirms the need for a political and diplomatic solution in Central America, not a military solution.”36 Beyond advocating the principle of peaceful diplomacy, Contra War opponents educated themselves and their communities on the particulars of negotiations—the issues, changing positions, arguments and rationales, and procedures involved. Such knowledge was necessary if they were to effectively counter the Reagan administration’s claim that it was negotiating in good faith. To aid the educational process, various policy-oriented groups—the Central America Historical Institute, Institute for Policy Studies, Center for International Policy, and others—produced easy-to-read reports that were distributed through activist and religious networks. The Center for International Policy, for example, produced two eight-page primers, “Contadora: The Treaty on Balance” (September 1984) and “Arias Primer” ( June 1987), both providing information on the progress of negotiations. Most Latin American and Western European leaders strongly endorsed peaceful negotiations. Indeed, their advice to the president was exactly opposite that of the Kissinger Commission, which called for a strong U.S. hand in Central

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America. “The European allies of the U.S. shared neither its analysis of the problem nor its response,” noted one scholarly critique. “As European involvement increased in the region, it tended to support Latin American diplomatic efforts.”37 Latin American diplomatic efforts lent support to congressional opponents of contra aid by providing an alternative policy they could support. In March 1986 the House Democratic Caucus reiterated its support for the Contadora peace process in a nineteen-page position paper, which declared that U.S. policy “must be centered on diplomacy and the search for negotiated political solutions to the region’s conflicts, rather than on the use of force.”38 One reason for the popularity of this theme was that it could be advocated without a radical critique of U.S. foreign policy or a favorable attitude toward the Sandinistas. As an example of the latter, the editors of the New York Times published an editorial on November 7, 1984, in which they flatly rejected the validity of the Nicaraguan elections held three days earlier but nevertheless argued that internal developments within Nicaragua could not “serve as justification for U.S. policy. . . . The political contest can be fought by diplomacy and economic means. It does not warrant U.S. sponsored invasion or terrorism.”39

Contra Terrorism What infused ACWC activists with the most energy, outrage, and determination to educate their fellow citizens was the theme of contra terrorism—systematic contra attacks against civilians. A decade earlier, anti-Vietnam War protesters had similarly been incensed at the brutal effects of massive U.S. air attacks and the use of napalm on civilians. This theme focused on the grisly nature of the war itself, on contra violence, rather than on justifications for the war. It often evoked strong emotional responses, as the killing of innocent people violates people’s fundamental sense of justice and human rights. It also violates internationally recognized norms related to the treatment of civilians in war. The emotional and moral power of this theme was enhanced when conveyed by people with personal experience in Nicaragua, as was often the case. One organization, Witness for Peace (WFP), created by religious activists in 1983, brought more than four thousand U.S. citizens to Nicaragua to witness firsthand the destruction wrought by the contras. Long-term volunteers furthermore produced detailed reports identifying those killed, wounded, or kidnapped. The mainstream media was slow to pick up on this information, often describing reports of contra atrocities as allegations. The media began to take more interest after a CIA “assassination manual” was discovered in mid-October 1984. This

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134-page manual, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, was published in Spanish and distributed to the contras. It advised the contras to avoid “explicit terror” against the general population in favor of the “selective use of violence” against Nicaraguan officials, judges, security officers, and others. “If possible, professional criminals should be hired to carry out specific selective ‘jobs,’” the manual stated.40 Upon learning about the manual, Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, commented, “The administration has launched an aggressive anti-terrorism campaign, and yet we seem to be engaged in the very same terrorist activities which we deplore elsewhere.”41 The Reagan administration attempted damage control by claiming that the manual had been produced by a low-level CIA employee with no official authorization. For the next few months, a spate of articles on contra attacks appeared in major newspapers. Still, most articles treated civilian casualties as a byproduct of war, offering little information about the victims and invoking little sympathy. To take one example, a New York Times article titled “In a Nicaraguan Village, ‘We’re Used to Gunfire’” (November 11, 1984), reported that the small town of San Rafael del Norte, located in the mountainous region northwest of Jinotega, had been attacked by the contras twice within the last six months. The first attack had resulted in the deaths of “fourteen persons,” and the second attack had left “nearly 20 residents” dead, according to the report. No further details were provided as to who these people were or why they were killed. The main storylines concerned the relative strength of contra and Sandinista forces in the area and the loyalties of area residents. A townsperson was quoted as saying, “This is a contra town. . . . Everyone knows it. No one attends Sandinista demonstrations.” Yet why contra forces would twice attack a “contra town” and kill its residents was not explained.42 Investigative reports by Witness for Peace, Americas Watch, and others offered more thorough and personal accounts of contra attacks and revealed their systematic nature. Reagan administration officials claimed that such reports were “bought and paid for by the Sandinistas” and berated the Sandinistas as “a more serious violator of human rights than the contras.” They furthermore insisted that the contras were needed to keep the pressure on the Sandinista government to change its ways.43 The latter claim prompted the Jesuit editors of Envío in Managua to write, “To refer to actions that result in nearly 50,000 victims, of whom more than 22,000 are dead . . . as ‘pressure’ is a criminal twisting of reality.”44 In the final analysis, the furor raised over contra attacks on civilians tarnished the reputation

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of the contras but did not impel Congress to end contra aid, as had happened after the unauthorized mining of Nicaraguan harbors in 1984. By the spring of 1986, the shock value appeared to have worn off and, despite continuing reports of contra attacks on civilians, Congress approved full military aid for the contras that summer.

International Law Opponents of the Contra War argued that the United States had no right to intervene in Nicaragua regardless of the character of the Sandinistas. They held up Nicaragua’s right of “self-determination” under international law, which meant that Nicaraguans had the right to revolt against the U.S.-supported Somoza dictatorship, to set up their own form of government, to choose a neo-Marxist course of economic development, and to establish an independent foreign policy. Contra War opponents pointed to the charters of the Organization of American States and the United Nations, both of which prohibited intervention in another nation’s internal affairs.45 Some members of Congress adopted this line of thinking as well. During a debate in Congress in May 1984, for example, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-NY) said, “I just wonder who gives us the right to tell the people of Central America what to do and what not to do. It is not ours to win or lose. Central America belongs to the Central Americans.”46 The principle of national self-determination was tested in a suit brought before the International Court of Justice, or World Court, by Nicaragua following the mining of Nicaraguan harbors in April 1984. The Reagan administration informed the UN that it would not recognize the jurisdiction of the court in the matter, but nonetheless attempted to defend itself in the court of public opinion by arguing that its actions were consistent with the established principle of “collective defense,” alleging Nicaraguan arms transfers to Salvadoran rebels. On June 27, 1986, the court ruled against the United States in a 142-page opinion, supported by twelve of the fifteen judges. The ruling stated that “the evidence is insufficient to satisfy the Court that the Government of Nicaragua was responsible for any flow of arms.” The court furthermore declared that “by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua,” the United States was acting “in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.”47 The ruling obliged the United States to cease its support for the contras and make reparation payments to Nicaragua. The Reagan administration

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ignored the ruling. The World Federalist Association, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Concerned U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua (CUSCLIN) filed suit in federal court to make the U.S. government abide by the court ruling, but to no avail.48 The Reagan administration suffered virtually no domestic political fallout from its defiance of international law. When the United States formally announced on January 18, 1985, that it would not participate in the World Court case, the editors of the New York Times sided with the administration, writing that “there was legitimate doubt whether Nicaragua had proper standing, under present rules, to bring this case before the World Court.”49 One who strongly disagreed with this position was syndicated columnist Anthony Lewis, who despaired at the administration’s cavalier attitude toward international obligations and the public’s longing “for the simple world of the frontier myth, in which a man tough enough could set things right on his own.”50 The response in Western Europe was decidedly critical. According to a U.S. Information Agency report, “Condemnation was unanimous when the U.S. said it will not accept the World Court’s jurisdiction.”51 Activist-scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies sought to break through the nationalist mindset with a twenty-page booklet, Outcast among Allies: The International Costs of Reagan’s War against Nicaragua (November 1985). As a result of the Reagan administration’s aggressive policy toward Nicaragua, they argued, “American credibility with nations that are most important to our national welfare . . . is eroding.” The authors noted that thirteen of the fifteen members of the UN Security Council had approved a draft resolution in 1984 calling for an immediate end to “all threats, attacks and overt and covert hostile acts against the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Nicaragua, in particular the mining of its ports.”52 The United States, they concluded, was turning away from the community of nations and becoming a law unto itself, a rogue nation. The Reagan administration’s rejection of the World Court ruling was part of a pattern of disengagement from international cooperation. The Carter administration had taken tentative steps toward working more closely with the UN, but the Reagan administration reversed this and began withholding a portion of U.S. dues in order to force changes in the UN in accordance with U.S. prerogatives. Despite the arm-twisting, the United Nations General Assembly voted its disapproval of U.S. attacks on Nicaragua and the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, urged U.S. compliance with the World Court’s ruling on Nicaragua in 1986, and denounced the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989.53

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What’s Good about Nicaragua? The Sandinista Revolution sparked a wave of excitement and hope among leftists in the United States and around the world. The FSLN government’s policies at the outset seemed to confirm their idealism. Books such as What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua (1982) reported on the progress of FSLN reforms with approval: “More than 40,000 landless rural farmers received access to land. . . . Production of basic food crops increased. . . . Consumption of basic food soared. . . . Infant mortality rate was cut by one-third.”54 Although the Contra War severely limited FSLN achievements as the decade wore on, support from abroad for the new Nicaragua remained strong, evident in a continual stream of international volunteers and humanitarian aid projects. The anti–Contra War campaign as a whole was more ambivalent about Sandinista Nicaragua. Views among activists ranged from ardent support for the FSLN party and government, to approval of the FSLN reform program in the interest of the masses, to political impartiality, to animosity toward the “authoritarian” FSLN. The majority of activists fell into the second category, hoping that Sandinista reforms would truly help the poor majority. Activists and commentators during in the 1980s often drew a distinction between “solidarity” and “anti-interventionist” groups, but in fact, all ACWC groups were anti-interventionist and the distinction lay in calibrated views toward Sandinista Nicaragua. Beyond activists’ own views was the strategic question of how to respond to administration charges of Sandinista “totalitarianism.” Some believed that it was best to avoid the murky issue of the character of the Sandinistas and keep the focus on the wrongheadedness of U.S. interventionism. This would presumably make the ACWC more credible in the eyes of members of Congress and the media, who generally disparaged the Sandinistas. “If the vote were on whether you like the Sandinistas,” said Rep. Michael Barnes (D-MD), an opponent of the Contra War, “it’d be 20–1 for the contras. But that’s not the issue, and that’s well understood here in Congress.”55 In fact, contra supporters did make the character of the Sandinistas an issue, calculating that this would give them an advantage in the contra aid debate. According to the scholars Cynthia Arnson and Philip Brenner, attempts by Contra War opponents to broaden the debate to include “Reagan’s portrayal of the Sandinista government” could well

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be counterproductive in terms of reaching “moderate to conservative ‘swing’ voters.”56 Other activists, however, believed that avoiding discussion of the Sandinistas would only allow the administration to frame the debate to its advantage. Should the administration’s stereotypical view of the Sandinistas prevail, they argued, the ACWC would be hard-pressed to counter a host of other claims, including the claim that the Sandinistas could not be trusted to keep agreements and the claim that the Sandinistas intended to take over Central America. The anti– Contra War campaign could hardly expect to win the political debate if the administration’s ideological presumptions prevailed. Political calculations aside, there were U.S. religious missionaries in Nicaragua whose life work demanded an honest accounting of what was taking place in Sandinista Nicaragua. Most welcomed Sandinista reforms, which reinforced their own efforts to assist and empower the poor. In a response to President Reagan’s address on April 27, 1983, forty-seven Catholic and Protestant religious workers issued a statement that read in part: We feel President Reagan’s address presented a very distorted view of the Central American reality to the American people. As religious workers in Nicaragua, we have found that we are free— and encouraged—to exercise the preferential option for the poor stressed by the Latin American bishops at Medellin and Puebla. Nicaragua is one of the few Latin American countries in which those efforts for the poor are echoed rather than repressed by the government. We do not deny problems, nor mistakes—but we must not confuse errors with systematic repression. We know repression. In other Central American countries, we have all lost friends and co-religious who were killed by U.S. backed military or paramilitary forces for their work with the poor.57

U.S. scholars of Latin America also challenged the administration’s “totalitarian” depiction of Sandinista Nicaragua, whether explicitly or implicitly. Writing in journals such as the Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Perspectives, Latin American Research Review, and NACLA Report on the Americas, they described the Sandinista government’s assistance to privately owned farms, popular support for Sandinista programs, and the diversity of political parties within Nicaragua. Thomas W. Walker, in Reagan versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (1987), wrote that most of the Reagan

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administration’s “allegations were either completely groundless or very nearly so. . . . Far from being a coterie of wild-eyed ideologues, the Sandinistas behaved in a pragmatic and indeed moderate fashion throughout the first seven years.”58 The divide within the ACWC over the issue of how to address the Sandinistas was more apparent in Washington than at the grassroots. At the local level, there was simply too much interest in Sandinista Nicaragua for the topic to be avoided. Tens of thousands of U.S. citizens traveled to Nicaragua and invariably contrasted their experiences with the diabolical picture of Sandinista Nicaragua drawn by the Reagan administration. This gap between administration claims and the Nicaraguan reality was the source of many speeches, slideshows, and discussions at the local level. Still, knowledgeable speakers exercised caution when speaking before general audiences. Aynn Setright, a long-term Witness for Peace volunteer who returned annually to her home state of Wyoming, reflected on her many talks to community and university groups. “I think I was very conscious about not going on about the achievements of the Sandinista Revolution because I tried to make the focus what the United States was doing,” she said. “I could have waxed on about that, but I knew that that was a trap that I didn’t want to fall into, and I did not want other people coming up and saying that I was just doing Sandinista propaganda.” Setright would typically begin by describing her work as an ambulance driver in the north central village of Bocana de Paiwas, a war zone area. “I would tell the stories of what the contras did. And I would say, why is the United States investing so much in this war? . . . Wouldn’t it have been nice if the United States would have sent a couple hundred thousand doctors to Nicaragua?59 Despite the efforts of religious missionaries, scholars, and activists to debunk administration claims regarding the Sandinistas, the administration’s negative view prevailed in the mainstream media and Congress. Little was written or said in the media about Sandinista educational, health, and land reform programs and their benefits to the Nicaraguan population, although some balance of views was provided in local news coverage of U.S. activists who traveled to Nicaragua. Local editors were intrigued by the fact that so many U.S. citizens were visiting Nicaragua and that community groups were forming sister city partnerships and raising humanitarian aid for a nation with which the U.S. government was effectively at war.60 As for Congress, William LeoGrande, who served as a staff person for the House Democratic Task Force on Central America in 1985–86, wrote that even

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though the administration’s “exaggerated rhetoric was discounted, it had effect. It skewed the terms of debate, shifting the ground from the question of effectiveness and propriety of the Contra War to the issue of the Sandinista government’s character.” In the end, he continued, “Democrats generally conceded the evils of the Sandinistas, but kept insisting that Reagan’s policy was too aggressive. . . . This posture proved to be untenable. If the Sandinistas were even half as bad as Reagan insisted, then certainly the United States needed to do something.”61 Whether or not a unified ACWC would have been able to alter the Reagan administration’s framing of Sandinista Nicaragua is a matter of debate, but in hindsight it appears that the effort was necessary.

Meeting the Ideological Challenge Opponents of the Contra War faced a daunting challenge in countering the nationalistic, hegemonic, and Cold War ideological assumptions that underlay the Reagan administration’s Central America policies. As with the previous theme, Contra War opponents were not all of one mind as to how to proceed in this deeper realm of analysis. As a practical matter, any discussion of the Cold War could range far and wide, diverting attention from Central America. Also, not all critics and activists were up to the task of assessing the broad dimensions of U.S. foreign policy or the history of U.S. interventionism and the Cold War, even if they agreed on the main outlines. The most common approach was to challenge the East-West framing of Central America issues. One widely circulated booklet, Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean ( January 1984), produced by Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA), addressed the relationship between poverty, oppression, revolution, and U.S. security. This ninety-five-page booklet explained that “revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala are rooted in poverty and political oppression,” and that the economic system in each country “has been dominated for generations by a wealthy few,” often with the support of the U.S. government.62 The Reagan administration’s claims of “communist subversion” and “export of revolution” in Central America were thus recast as a problem of internal maldistribution of wealth and power. Another popular booklet, John Lamperti’s What Are We Afraid Of? An Assessment of the “Communist Threat” in Central America (1988), published by the American Friends Service Committee, addressed common fears about communism. Lamperti, a professor of mathematics and computer science at

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Dartmouth College, wrote that “U.S. government publications invariably describe Nicaragua’s leadership as ‘Marxist-Leninist,’ but what that concept means, and why the United States should fear it, are never explained.” Mild in tone, Lamperti’s sixteen-page series of questions and answers refuted a host of administration claims about Nicaragua, including the alleged threat posed by Nicaragua to its neighbors and the United States.63 Many points about Cold War ideology were raised in a rather scattershot way. Some pointed out that even if Nicaragua were “communist,” this did not mean that it was a threat to the United States, as the United States and China maintained friendly ties.64 Some argued, in line with liberation theology, that Marxism and Christianity were not antithetical but, rather, potential allies in addressing poverty, exploitation, and human suffering. Some challenged the presumed dichotomy between democracy and communism, noting that there were many socialist and communist political parties in the world that played by democratic rules. Many pointed out that the United States could hardly claim to be a champion of democracy in Nicaragua, having supported the repressive Somoza regime for forty-three years. “The truth is,” wrote Mayes Crispin, national co-coordinator of Nicaragua Network in the late 1980s, “the U.S. has done everything in its power to thwart Nicaraguan democracy.”65 In an op-ed article on July 3, 1983, the historian Walter LaFeber challenged the notion that revolution and good government could not be reconciled. Responding to a comment by Secretary of State George Shultz that the United States would not tolerate “people shooting their way into power” in Central America, LaFeber reminded readers that the United States had done exactly that in 1776 and still managed to create a decent government.66 Other scholars in the progressive revisionist tradition called attention to economic interests underlying U.S. policies in Central America. Although there were no major U.S. companies in Nicaragua comparable to the United Fruit Company in Guatemala in the 1950s, critics such as Noam Chomsky argued that Nicaragua was important to the overall international capitalist order, as a successful socialist-oriented economic program in Nicaragua would inspire imitation in other poor countries.67 In a similar vein, Sergio Ramírez, noted Nicaraguan writer, Junta member, and vice-president in the latter 1980s, explained that Nicaragua’s “export of revolution” was not based on encouraging violent revolution abroad but on promoting an alternative to the capitalist model of permanent underdevelopment in Latin America. “How can one prevent a peasant from another Central American country from hearing, from

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finding out, from realizing that in Nicaragua land is given to other poor and barefoot peasants like him? . . . In this sense, we export our revolution.”68 The overall leftist critique of the situation in Nicaragua differed sharply from that of the Reagan administration. Instead of the Sandinistas being “evil,” the FSLN government was attempting to create a society in which people would have a measure of economic security and dignity. Instead of the contras being “freedom fighters,” they were engaged in state-supported terrorism. Instead of the United States being the champion of freedom and democracy, it had historically been on the side of oppression. Instead of the Soviet Union being the source of unrest in Central America, it was a minor player in the region, posing no threat to the United States. This radical assessment was rejected out of hand by the mainstream media. While the media were not averse to publishing evidence and arguments contrary to Reagan administration claims and assertions, they rarely challenged underlying hegemonic assumptions or the overarching Cold War ideological framework. In one scholarly study of television news reports on Nicaragua produced by ABC, CBS, and CNN, Leonardo Salazar concluded that the Reagan administration’s point of view was consistently presented as the main story line. While noting differences between the networks, Salazar judged that the news media as a whole “did not present nor represent the claims of U.S. groups who radically challenge the claims of the status quo in the U.S.”69 Members of Congress were even less inclined to question Cold War fundamentals, given four decades of bipartisan commitment to containing “communism.” Many liberal members were fearful of being labeled “soft” on communism or “weak” on defense. In the spring of 1985, Rep. Dan Daniel (D-VA) circulated a letter to his Democratic Party colleagues, warning, “If we now fail to oppose the spread of communism in this hemisphere, and we are once more perceived to be soft on defense and communism, then we could be shut out completely in the next election.”70 Following a House vote in June 1985 to approve $27 million in “nonlethal” aid for the contras, Democratic Party majority leader Jim Wright explained, “Nobody wants to be portrayed as friendly toward Communism.”71 Although the Reagan administration held clear advantage in the ideological realm, this did not overcome all other considerations as far as public opinion was concerned. Public support for contra aid never reached a majority, according to opinion polls taken over the course of the decade. Polls taken between April 1983 and June 1988 showed public support for contra aid ranging from 25 to 29 percent, and opposition ranging from 56 to 58 percent, with one exception

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between July and September 1987, when the gap narrowed from roughly 30 percent to 6. Pollsters have speculated that the shift was due to Lt. Col. Oliver North’s patriotic testimony in televised hearings before a joint congressional committee in July 1987. By June 1988 the gap had widened again to 30 percent, with 27 percent in favor of contra aid and 57 percent opposed to it. When asked about direct U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua, public opposition was even stronger, ranging from 60 to 76 percent in Harris polls conducted between 1985 and 1987.72 Members of Congress who opposed contra aid could take heart in these polls and the ACWC could take some credit for them. President Reagan noted in his memoir that “one of the greatest frustrations during those eight years was my inability to communicate to the American people and to Congress the seriousness of the threat we faced in Central America.”73

CHAPTER 3

Origins of the Anti–Contra War Campaign

T

he anti–Contra War campaign emerged out of progressive U.S. sectors with connections to Latin America along with the post– Vietnam War peace movement. The Nicaragua solidarity campaign coalesced in early 1979, the Central America movement in 1980, and the anti–Contra War campaign in early 1982, drawing together an eclectic mix of groups.

Progressive Religious Networks Liberation theology had the effect of drawing Christian liberals closer to the political left and pushing them further from the religious right—in both the United States and Latin America. One result in the United States was a more sympathetic view of Latin American revolutionaries. According to the historian Edward T. Brett, “until 1985 most of the U.S. Catholic popular press sympathized with the Sandinistas, and several periodicals continued for the most part to do so throughout the decade.”1 The foremost proponent of liberation theology in the United States was the (Catholic) Maryknoll publishing house, Orbis Books, founded in 1970 with the assistance of Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, later to become the minister of foreign affairs in the Sandinista government. Liberation theology and its corresponding manifestations in the popular church and Christian base communities had a great effect on U.S. missionaries [ 53 ]

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serving in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. According to Margaret Swedish, director of the Religious Task Force on Central America, these religious workers not only began “to discover the real structural causes of the misery in which most of the people they served were living—the result of nearly five hundred years of colonial oppression—but they encountered sectors within the Latin church that were taking on a new model of pastoral work from within that reality, a model perhaps best expressed in the Basic Christian Communities movement.”2 Protestants in Latin America also took up liberation theology. In the early 1960s the Latin American Protestant Commission for Christian Education (Comisión Evangélica Latinoamericana de Educación Cristiana) was formed to carry out an “evangelical option on behalf of the poor” and assist “their liberation in every Latin American situation.”3 The World Council of Churches provided institutional support for this mission. In the United States, Rev. Philip Wheaton, an Episcopal minister who served in the Dominican Republic from 1952 to 1964, created the Ecumenical Program for Interamerican Communication and Action (EPICA) in 1968. Its dual purpose was to promote solidarity between U.S. and Latin American progressive sectors and to raise awareness in the United States regarding the historic roots of poverty, repression, and war in Latin America. The main U.S. Protestant connection in Nicaragua was the Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development (CEPAD), which formed in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 1972. Although Protestants constituted a smaller proportion of the Nicaraguan population than Catholics, membership was on the rise, growing from 3 percent in 1979 to 15 percent in 1985.4 Among the various Catholic orders, the Jesuits played a key role in developing transnational connections between progressive sectors in the United States and Nicaragua during the 1980s. The Jesuits administered a major university, two high schools, several urban and rural parishes, and the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica. In June 1981 Jesuit priests at the latter initiated a high-quality news journal called Envío, published in Spanish, English, German, and French for international audiences. “We felt that Nicaragua was not understood because of the ideological campaign of the United States against Nicaragua,” said Fr. Álvaro Argüello, a founder of the journal. “We wanted to clarify, explain, from the people who lived the experience, what was happening in the country and to ask for solidarity. That was the motivation.”5 The Jesuits generally supported the FSLN reform program but maintained a

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“critical distance” from the party, according to Fr. Joseph Mulligan, so as to make independent assessments of policies. Mulligan, a North American Jesuit who moved to Nicaragua in 1986, lived in a house with Frs. Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal, respectively the ministers of culture and education in the FSLN government, and worked as a translator and writer for the English language edition of Envío. He also assisted in the caring of those wounded or maimed in contra attacks, an undertaking, he said, that “helped me to better understand the reality.” He saw his role as both ministering to the needs of Nicaraguans and raising consciousness in the United States—a “reverse mission.”6 What impressed U.S. people of faith most about Sandinista Nicaragua was that so many Nicaraguans of faith supported the FSLN reform program. The idea of uplifting the poor crossed religious and political lines. Rev. Richard Shaull, a Presbyterian missionary in Latin America for twenty years and professor emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote in Christianity and Crisis ( July 12, 1982), “Concern for improving the lot of the poor is not just a slogan; it seems to be the motivating force of the revolution.”7 Presbyterian missionaries James and Margaret Goff, who spent more than three decades in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Nicaragua, argued that the popular church’s connection to the FSLN was more than a tactical alliance: “What brings the Popular Church and the Sandinistas together, rather than the imagined ‘front’ mechanism, are shared ideals, specifically a shared commitment to empower the poor to transform their material and spiritual conditions. These ideals led the two groups to work together during the struggle to oust Somoza and to continue cooperating in the attempt to build a just society that favors the poor.”8 The Goffs moved to Managua in 1981 and worked as editors and writers at the Antonio Valdivieso Ecumenical Center, a progressive religious center founded in 1979. The fact that Nicaraguan priests Miguel d’Escoto and Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal were part of the FSLN government, however controversial within the Catholic church, furthermore reinforced the connection between the FSLN and Christianity, or at least the popular church version. Other FSLN officials who openly professed their religious faith were Carlos Tünnermann, the first minister of education who later became ambassador to the United States; Roberto Argüello, president of the Supreme Court; and María del Socorro Gutiérrez de Barreto, general secretary of the Ministry of Housing.9

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Leftist/Socialist Solidarity In June 1981, Michael Harrington visited Nicaragua as part of a Socialist International delegation. The democratic socialist leader and author of The Other America (1962) was encouraged by what he saw—the potential of the Sandinista government for raising the standard of living and empowering its citizens. Nicaragua, he wrote, could become the “good domino,” a model for other developing nations. Harrington warned that the road to a humanistic socialist society was fraught with dangers from within and without, but that there was hope and expectation among the people for great changes to come. “The bronzed, lined and sometimes toothless faces of men and women filled with evident hope had not been conjured up in Moscow or Havana.”10 The left in the United States was a diverse lot in the 1970s and early 1980s, hardly worthy of a single title. The intellectual left consisted of Marxist scholars, revisionist historians, dependency theorists, liberation theologians, and popular writers such as Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, and Harrington. The activist left was divided into two main tendencies, democratic reformist and pro-revolution. The Moscow-affiliated Communist Party, which was neither pro-democracy nor pro-revolution, was a fading third tendency. The democratic reformists were represented by the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and the New American Movement (NAM), both established in the early 1970s and aligned with the democratic socialist parties of Europe and the Socialist International. In 1982 DSOC and NAM merged to become the Democratic Socialists of America, led by Harrington. The pro-revolution tendency was subdivided into Maoist, Trotskyist, and other minor factions. Some activists associated with this tendency joined Central America groups in the 1980s, but only the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party had a perceptible role in the Central America movement. Pro-revolution activists did not take up arms themselves, but generally held the view that forcible measures were needed to redistribute wealth and power to the masses. Most believed that revolutionary change would emerge on the periphery of capitalist power centers—in places like Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador—and that the role of the left in developed nations was to cultivate popular support for these revolutions and provide material aid if possible. However radical this world view, what marginalized pro-revolution groups, even on the left, was their sectarian infighting and organizational manipulation—taking over other groups and using them as fronts. According to one independent leftist in Portland, Oregon,

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Bill Bigelow, what the radical left needed was to dispense with “organizational chauvinism” and develop “a commitment to the bigger picture.”11 In the 1980s that bigger picture entailed an understanding of how the “Reagan revolution” challenged leftists and liberals alike, requiring cooperation in the building of broad-based oppositional movements. Cooperation was difficult in part because of historically different approaches to organizing movements. Generally speaking, from the liberal point of view, leftists were trying to move too far, too fast, and with too few people; and the left’s laundry list of demands and insistence on connecting all the issues made it nearly impossible to conduct an effective political campaign. From the leftist point of view, liberals were trying to win the political game without analyzing or addressing underlying causes and systems; thus they wanted to win the “war on poverty” without examining capitalism’s deficiencies, enact environmental laws without advocating socialist-type planning, and stop wars without challenging underlying hegemonic and ideological assumptions, all of which allowed the right to set the terms of debate—a recipe for ultimate failure. Progress in cooperation was arguably made in the 1980s, but not without difficulty. Richard Healey, a lifelong activist on the left, reflected that some leftists “had internal fights about who was more left, who was really anti-imperialist, who was really revolutionary, and even which comandante were you aligned with in Nicaragua.” The bulk of activists did not care about these arguments, he said, but they were evident at the upper level. Healey was well versed in the political culture of the left. His mother, Dorothy Healey, had been a longtime leader in the Communist Party USA. Richard, born in 1943, attended his first demonstration at the age of six. He was active in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam war movements, formed a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society in New Orleans during the 1960s, assisted in the formation of the New American Movement in 1971, and became NAM’s national director during the 1970s. He also earned a doctorate in mathematics from UCLA and taught sociology at Loyola University in Chicago for a time. A talented coalition builder, Healey served as executive director of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, a leading group in the Central America movement, from 1982 to 1986. He came to the group with a larger vision of change as well as extensive organizing experience. His big picture embraced a nuanced leftist analysis that made connections between issues of the Contra War, nuclear weapons, attitudes toward the USSR, and global economics. “That fact that I could bring that to bear for Coalition was useful,” he

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said, although he was frustrated that the coalition did not take up a broad educational campaign connecting global issues. Deepening the analysis on specific issues proved easier. “If you just laid this stuff out, not calling it Marxist, they were with us,” he said, referring to the liberal church denominations involved in the coalition. “My respect for church people was very high.”12 Twenty years before the Sandinista triumph, leftist solidarity with Latin America was sparked by the Cuban Revolution of 1959. The Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) formed that year to support Fidel’s Castro’s revolutionary transformation of Cuba. According to the historian Van Gosse, FPCC attracted “thousands of disaffected liberals, newly leftist youth and African Americans.” In December 1960 FPCC sponsored a “Christmas Tour of Cuba,” in which 326 North Americans visited the island on a good will mission. The following month the U.S. State Department issued a ruling that required anyone who wanted to travel to Cuba to first obtain special permission, which effectively shut down this travel connection. The FPCC fell apart in late 1961, a casualty of an unfriendly takeover by the Young Socialist Alliance, a Socialist Workers Party youth group, and a declining pool of Cuba supporters.13 Leftist solidarity with the Cuban Revolution reemerged during the heyday of anti–Vietnam War protests. Venceremos Brigades were organized between 1969 and 1972, in which hundreds of mostly youthful U.S. citizens traveled to Cuba in order to assist sugar cane harvests. The State Department’s restrictions on travel to Cuba had not held up in the Supreme Court. In United States v. Lee Levi Laub ( January 10, 1967), the court ruled that traveling to Cuba without explicit State Department permission did not constitute a crime. Kent Spriggs, a thirty-one-year-old lawyer and director of Legal Services in Los Angeles in 1967, was a junior associate of the law firm representing Lee Levi Laub. In June 1971 he and two others led a harvest brigade of 150 Americans to Cuba. The group flew to Mexico City, then to Havana, and returned two months later on a steamer to Nova Scotia. The work of cutting cane was extremely demanding, Spriggs recalled: “The first two weeks I thought I was going to die. The last four weeks were hard, but not killing.” Spriggs went to Cuba, he reflected, because “I thought the [U.S. economic] blockade was wrong. It failed to respect the sovereignty of Cuba through their revolutionary process. Going down there was voting with our feet.” During his stay, Spriggs was impressed with Cuba’s progress in meeting basic needs. “My whole adult life has been troubled by the maldistribution of wealth,” he said. “It was very clear by 1971 that Cuba had gone a long way toward redistributing

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wealth. Everyone had access to health care. They had built an incredible amount of housing for poor people. Despite the fact that they did not have democratic elections, I thought there was a lot to like. The literacy program was so successful UNESCO declared Cuba illiteracy-free.”14 Spriggs went on to become a successful civil rights lawyer. He was elected to the Tallahassee City Commission in 1981 and served as the city’s mayor in 1984. Others who found inspiration in the Cuban Revolution were the founders of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), established in 1966. At the beginning, reflected Judith Adler Hellman, a staff member in 1970–71, “the focus of our attention and hope was the Cuban Revolution. The readers and writers of the NACLA Newsletter tended to view the future of Latin America and the Caribbean as resting on the possibility of reproducing something like the Cuban model elsewhere in the region.” The Cuban model, however, attracted few liberals, whether because of its revolutionary origins, leftist authoritarianism, ties with the Soviet Union, or socialist economy. In 1970, another model emerged in Latin America that avoided the first three of the limitations outlined above. The election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile excited new interest in democratic socialism among leftists as well as liberals. The editors of NACLA Newsletter joined a new Chile solidarity movement, cosponsoring organizational meetings around the country. They defined their role as building solidarity between progressive North American and Latin American sectors: “Solidarity involves a sense of common struggle and, to some degree, common risk. It is based on the conviction that an injury to one is an injury to all.”15 For Rev. Philip Wheaton of EPICA, the democratic socialist experiment in Chile embodied the spirit of liberation theology. EPICA organized North American delegations to Chile to witness developments firsthand. One delegation attended a “Christians for Socialism” conference in Santiago in April 1972. That same month, a regional conference was held on the Cornell campus in Ithaca, New York. That meeting inspired Rev. Art Lloyd, an Episcopal campus minister at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, to form a new group, the Community Action on Latin America (CALA). CALA was one of the many local groups in the Chile solidarity campaign to make the transition to Central America issues in the 1980s. Like many other activists, Lloyd was shocked when the Allende government was overthrown in a military coup on September 11, 1973. Upon hearing the news, he and a fellow minister sent letters to local religious and civic leaders: “We write to you about a concern that weighs heavily upon our hearts as

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Christians and Americans. . . . We mourn the death of democracy in Chile.” Describing the coup as a “bloodbath” and noting “probable U.S. involvement,” the two ministers urged their friends and associates to write to elected officials.16 Most assuredly, those letters fell on deaf ears in the White House, as the Nixon administration immediately restored U.S. aid to Chile, signifying U.S. approval of General Augusto Pinochet’s violent assault on Allende’s supporters.

Human Rights Activism The coup in Chile transformed a hopeful solidarity campaign into a somber human rights campaign, which nonetheless drew a wider circle of activists. The reconstructed Chile campaign pressured Congress to cut off U.S. aid to the Pinochet regime, demanded that the Chilean government release political prisoners, organized a nationwide boycott of Chilean goods, assisted Chilean refugees in the United States, and conducted educational programs.17 The Chile human rights campaign blended in with a broader human rights movement aimed at ending U.S. aid to repressive regimes and dictatorships abroad. The first target of concern before Chile was Brazil. Following a military coup in 1964, the Brazilian government rounded up political dissidents and imprisoned and tortured them. Groups of religious leaders, scholars, and activists—operating clandestinely in Brazil—began a transnational campaign to expose this repression and gain the release of political prisoners. The U.S. media paid little attention to the issue until the spring of 1970, following the publication of an eighteen-page booklet, Brazil: A Report on Terror, by the American Committee for Information on Brazil. The New York Times editorialized on April 29: “It is no longer possible to discount the accumulating evidence that a great many innocents—including wives and even children of suspected subversives—have suffered horribly.” According to the U.S. scholar James N. Green, “the underlying organizing practices developed by clergy, academics, exiles, and activists . . . proved extremely fruitful as interests shifted from Brazil to Chile and Argentina, and then later Central America.”18 Human rights became a popular political issue in the mid-to-late 1970s. Congress enacted new human rights standards for foreign aid, Jimmy Carter hailed it as the “soul of our foreign policy” in a December 1978 speech, foundations funded a host of new human rights advocacy groups, and two human rights advocates were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—Amnesty International

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in 1977 and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina in 1980. “By 1977,” wrote the political scientist Lars Schoultz, “the combined interest groups concerned with repression of human rights in Latin America had become one of the largest, most active, and most visible foreign policy forces in Washington.” Their lobbying efforts were only partly successful, however, as the various regimes hired public relations firms to counter the human rights lobby and cultivate support from conservative politicians and business interests. The Somoza government spent a total of $571,000 on public relations firms from mid-1975 to mid-1977.19 A number of organizations that would later become involved in the Central America movement were active in human rights campaigns. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) was formed in the wake of the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile. Founder Joe Eldridge, a native of Tennessee, was in Chile when the coup took place. Underwritten mainly by religious denominations, WOLA combined the functions of research, education, lobbying, and activism.20 The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) combined its human rights advocacy with humanitarian aid work. During the 1960s, it created the Human Rights/Global Justice Program within its Peace Education Division and initiated new Central America aid programs. In the aftermath of the Sandinista victory, AFSC provided grants to the Nicaraguan Health Ministry, Agrarian Reform Ministry, and other agencies for the purpose of training health care workers in remote rural areas.21 Another pacifist group, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), organized international gatherings for nonviolent social justice reformers across Latin America. These gatherings culminated in the formation of Service for Peace and Justice in Latin America (SERPAJ) at a meeting in Colombia in 1974. SERPAJ focused on the “dirty war” in Argentina, in which the rightist government set out to annihilate leftist radicals and reformers. An estimated 30,000 people were “disappeared” between 1976 and 1983. SERPAJ director Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned by the Argentine government for a year and tortured.22

Other Connections The main organization for scholars concerned with Latin America was the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), founded in 1966 in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. “This was the decisive moment for U.S. Latin Americanists when hundreds of colleagues signed a petition, published

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in the New York Times, condemning the U.S. intervention,” reflected Ronald H. Chilcote. During the 1970s, LASA members published research papers on repression in Argentina, Guatemala, Chile, and other Latin American nations under military rule. As more scholars from Latin America joined LASA, human rights became personal. Those who “went through the authoritarian period in Latin America,” wrote Teri Karl, “helped provide places for Latin Americans to work when they had no place to work. Most of us protested oppression.”23 The featured speakers at a LASA meeting on October 10–12, 1980, were Nicaraguan Junta member Sergio Ramírez, FSLN foreign minister Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, and U.S. deputy undersecretary of state James Cheek. According to one account of the meeting, applause for the two Sandinista leaders led Cheek to criticize the audience as naive, which in turn catalyzed a heated debate.24 At the March 1982 LASA meeting, a resolution was adopted that condemned U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. In 1982 a group of activist scholars and intellectuals associated with the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) created a new organization, Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA). According to William LeoGrande, a member of the executive board, the group’s goals were “to formulate a coherent alternative policy” to the Reagan administration’s Central America policies, “to mobilize people in the academic community,” to educate journalists and members of Congress about the “realities of the region,” and to provide activists with solid information “so their lobbying efforts would be well grounded.”25 The Jesuit father Xabier Gorostiaga of the Regional Office for Economic and Social Research in Managua also served on PACCA’s executive board. Robert Stark, a former Catholic priest with extensive experience in Central America, served as director of this loose-knit organization, which was housed in the IPS office in Washington. The Sandinista Revolution attracted the interest of activists and intellectuals concerned with women’s issues. The FSLN’s decrees of August 1979 establishing a legal foundation for women’s equality sparked debate over how far the Sandinista Revolution would go in this direction and what would actually be achieved. Margaret Randall, in Sandino’s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle (1981) interviewed women involved in the revolutionary struggle along with their mothers, refashioning the heroic image of revolutionaries long associated with Che Guevara into a more balanced and humanistic portrayal.26 During the 1980s, a group of women in the United States formed MADRE, which initiated humanitarian aid projects of benefit to Nicaragua

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women. MADRE tapped into women’s networks in the United States and created a bridge of solidarity with women’s groups and projects in Nicaragua.

The Post–Vietnam War Peace Movement Thousands of individuals who participated in the anti–Vietnam War movement became involved in the Central America movement and ACWC during the 1980s. Many saw the Contra War as another misguided attempt to save a poor country from “communism” by unleashing terror against its people. The anti–Vietnam War movement paved the way for the Central America movement in a few different ways. It challenged the reign of experts on foreign policy and encouraged active citizen participation. It deflected charges of anti-Americanism and of being manipulated by communists and foreign powers. Along with the civil rights movement, it made street protests “normal.” It pushed mainstream religious denominations, particularly the Catholic church, toward an antiwar stand. It established a link with liberal Democrats in Congress. Finally, it involved many “declarations of conscience” in which people pledged to speak out or take action against the war. All of these elements helped the Central America movement to quickly establish itself as a legitimate voice of dissent in the early 1980s. The rather chaotic organizational infrastructure of the anti–Vietnam War movement did not last, but continuity and institutional memory were nonetheless maintained through participating groups, including peace organizations, religious denominations, and unions such as the United Auto Workers, which broke with the AFL-CIO in 1969 and called for an immediate end to the Vietnam War. Among the national peace organizations involved in both the anti–Vietnam War movement and the anti–Contra War campaign were AFSC, FOR, Clergy and Laity Concerned, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), Vietnam Veterans against the War, War Resisters League, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Due in large part to the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, which sought a bilateral halt to the nuclear arms race, the peace movement experienced a revival in the 1980s. The number of local, state, and national groups grew from 1,300 in 1983 to 5,700 in 1985, to over 7,000 in 1986.27 During the latter half of the 1970s, two new national peace and justice coalitions were established, the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP) in 1976, and Mobilization for Survival (MFS) in 1977. Each had

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its own base of supporters, style of organizing, and set of multi-issue goals. CNFMP was supported by forty national organizations, half of them religious, and had a mainstream profile, with a focus on lobbying. It maintained working groups on disarmament, human rights, and budget issues, each of which produced its own legislative alerts and background papers. MFS led a network of thirty-three organizations and tapped into the alternative culture, emphasizing dramatic protest actions. It grew mainly out of the anti–nuclear power movement, which rose and fell between 1974 and 1982. MFS embodied the spirit of mass mobilizations during the Vietnam War era. As one MFS tee shirt logo put it, “We do demos.” CNFMP was the more important of the two in the Central America movement, at least until it was dissolved in 1988. When Central America issues rose to the forefront in the early 1980s, a separate committee, the Central America Working Group, was created out of the Human Rights Working Group, becoming the center of legislative strategy and lobbying. Mobilization for Survival took up Central America issues as the anti-nuclear power movement began to taper off. At its fifth annual conference in December 1981, MFS participants agreed to add “Nonintervention” to a ten-point list of concerns. The following year, “Peace and Justice in Central America” became the second highest priority.28 Within the anti–Contra War campaign, the MFS protest style of organizing found a home in the Pledge of Resistance campaign that began in 1984. The Vietnam War catalyzed many acts of conscience in the form of civil disobedience. For Joseph Mulligan, a young Jesuit seminarian in the late 1960s, the path to civil disobedience was a step-by-step process of learning and reflection. Mulligan underwent, in his own words, “a gradual but steady formation of conscience both in terms of informing myself about the realities of the war; and then looking at that reality from the point of view of my conscience, my faith, my Christian commitment, and saying, well, I just have to speak out in the loudest possible way against this.” His superiors at the seminary, located forty miles west of Chicago, “might not have agreed completely, but they respected my judgment,” he said. On May 25, 1969, Mulligan and seven others broke into a draft board office on the south side of Chicago and destroyed draft records. This action resulted in a two-year prison term for Mulligan at a medium-security federal prison in Sandstone, Minnesota. His formation of conscience did not end with the Vietnam War:

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I think what happened to a lot of us who were involved in the Vietnam War and who were analyzing the war is that we began to see that this was not a fluke, this was not a unique case of intervention. It was part of a whole pattern of U.S. intervention in many parts of the world, which we began to call imperialism and began to understand imperialism; in the case of Vietnam, how the United States had supported the French and then replaced them, basically taking over, essentially interfering in the internal affairs of another country in the name of anti-communism. There was obviously an issue of communism there, but it was not threatening the shores of California. From there, then, I began to see other parts of the world, especially Latin America, as other theaters of U.S. intervention in one way or another. . . . the Dominican Republic . . . the brutal, violent overthrow of Salvador Allende . . . the history of Guatemala, the military coup in 1954 supported by the CIA. . . . A common pattern in all of these was essentially protecting U.S. economic interests, corporate interests, whether it be for natural resources in those countries of the exploitation of cheap labor, or having those countries as markets; basically keeping them well within the international capitalist business system. So I think that I, like many others, began to develop that kind of thinking.29

The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign In the years leading up to the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, small solidarity committees formed in the cities of New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and New Orleans. Nicaraguans who had fled the Somoza regime, often members of the FSLN, were instrumental in organizing a number of these committees, including Casa Nicaragua in San Francisco and the Nicaraguan Solidarity Organization in Washington, DC. Their general goals were to educate U.S. citizens about the situation in Nicaragua, organize opposition to the Somoza government, and cultivate support and raise money for the FSLN.30 On February 24–25, 1979, representatives of these local solidarity groups joined with representatives of progressive religious and human rights organizations to form the Nicaragua Network in Solidarity with the Nicaraguan People, later shortened to Nicaragua Network. EPICA director Phil Wheaton, a key organizer of the conference, envisioned a broad-based coalition of liberal-left groups

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that would work to educate U.S. citizens at the grassroots level and to change U.S. policies in Washington.31 Some two hundred people attended the conference. They passed resolutions declaring that “the United States government bears a direct responsibility for the long suffering of the Nicaraguan people,” and that the “people of the United States have a special responsibility to show concrete solidarity with the Nicaraguan people, and to work to make the U.S. government end all forms of intervention in Nicaragua.” Participants agreed to hold a celebration of solidarity during the week of April 22–29, 1979, “during which people will be urged to contact their Representatives and Senators as well as to participate in related marches, teach-ins, and political and cultural events.”32 The new organization set up an office at the EPICA headquarters in Washington and designated as its temporary coordinator Yvonne Dilling, a graduate of the Peace Studies Program at Manchester College who had only recently begun to work at EPICA.33 In May Nicaragua Network opened its own office on Dupont Circle and hired David Funkhouser as its first full-time coordinator. Funkhouser was an ordained Episcopal priest who had spent a year in Guatemala in 1978 as a Peace Corps volunteer. He attended the founding conference of Nicaragua Network as a representative of AFSC. He was hired, he said, because “I was available and had good facility with Spanish, and my values were in line with the work, of course.” As coordinator from May 1979 until July 1981, his main tasks were to publish a monthly newsletter, circulate Nicaraguan speakers, raise funds for the literacy crusade, and coordinate activities with local solidarity groups. “It was a challenge,” said Funkhouser. “It was learn as you go.” Operating on a “bare bones” budget, Funkhouser nevertheless managed to visit local solidarity groups every few months—in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, New Orleans, and elsewhere. By the time Sandinista guerrillas marched into Managua on July 19, 1979, the organization had twenty loosely connected local solidarity committees.34 The triumph of the Sandinista Revolution was cause for celebration among solidarity activists. Tim Jeffries of Marin County, California, recalled, “When the Nicaraguan people defeated the U.S.-created and -imposed Somoza dynasty, I, like so many dreamers of a just world, was giddy with admiration and joy at the proof that a determined people could stand up to the world’s biggest bully.” Jeffries became a member of the Nicaragua Network executive committee and later helped establish the Fairfax-Condega Sister City Project, California’s first official sister city with Nicaragua.35 Most Nicaraguan émigrés returned to their home country following the triumph, including DC activist Saúl Arana, who

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became the director of the North American Section of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry.36 Nicaragua Network’s second national conference, held in Detroit on November 17–18, 1979, drew over three hundred participants. The mood was upbeat and the program was very ambitious as compared to available resources. Among the speakers were Phillip Berryman of AFSC, Roger Burbach of NACLA, Phil Wheaton of EPICA, Peggy Healy of WOLA, and Delores Schaeffer of NonIntervention in Chile. A blue ribbon panel of Nicaraguan officials and FSLN representatives attended the conference: Moisés Hassan, a member of the Junta; Rafael Solis, ambassador to the United States; Victor Hugo Tinoco, ambassador to the UN; Alejandro Bendaña, counselor to the UN; Fr. Victor Lopez of Christians for Socialism; and FSLN representatives Mónica Baltodano and Hilda Voldt. Hassan discussed the current situation in Nicaragua. He began somewhat boastfully by saying that in the four months since taking power, the Sandinista government had “been able to maintain the absolute trust and confidence of the Nicaraguan people.” He then described the government’s various campaigns underway in education, health care, public services, and the economy, followed by a description of many problems therein. He set forth no strategy or action priorities for U.S. groups but emphasized the character of the Sandinista Revolution that drew them to the cause. “This Sandinista Revolution has two fundamental directions,” he said. “First, the Nicaraguan Revolution proudly proclaims it is independent, sovereign, a free and self-determining process. Second, the objective is to work for the well-being of the most dispossessed classes, the poorest, the peasant class, the working class.” At question-and-answer sessions, conferees discussed the international situation, developments within Nicaragua, and how U.S. solidarity activists might assist Sandinista Nicaragua. In regard to the situation in El Salvador, Hassan emphasized the FSLN’s solidarity with Salvadoran revolutionary organizations, but Ambassador Tinoco, the diplomat, spoke of the Sandinista government’s “attitude of realism,” saying, “We trust the organizations in El Salvador will move the revolution forward.” Tinoco understood that any tangible support provided by the FSLN to Salvadoran revolutionaries would cause serious problems with the United States and thus was cautioning against it. Ambassador Solis discussed the importance of educational work in the United States and the need to “strengthen information dissemination from Nicaragua.” The Nicaraguan point of view had been pushed out of U.S. news, he said. “One thing we would like to do is to have better information exchange between peoples,

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Sandinistas and solidarity groups in this country. The Nicaraguan people here should be asked to speak.” At the Sunday session, participants tried to nail down specific actions to be taken. Baltodano related that the FSLN had established three programmatic priorities: a literacy campaign, a tools campaign, and a medical campaign. She suggested that solidarity groups assist the literacy campaign by providing 250,000 yards of cloth and other materials that could be used to make 140,000 uniforms and badges. The donation of the cloth, she said, would “give employment to a large number of presently unemployed women.” The conferees agreed to support all three campaigns. The national office was assigned the literacy campaign; the Boston Solidarity Committee took on the “Medical Aid for Nicaragua” campaign, and the Detroit Nicaragua Solidarity Committee adopted the tools campaign. The national office was also directed to facilitate grassroots education by organizing tours of Nicaraguan speakers, a broader speakers bureau, a media campaign, and a catalog of educational resources. A national solidarity week was planned for February 17–23, 1980, “during which people will be urged to join with Nicaragua in commemorating the struggle of Sandino.” Conferees furthermore identified three political goals to pursue, according to meeting notes: (1) “pressuring the U.S. government to grant generous and unconditional aid to Nicaragua;” (2) the “cancellation of Nicaragua’s foreign debt which was inherited from Somoza;” and (3) the “extradition of Somoza (if he returns to the U.S.).” The means of exerting pressure on the Carter administration and Congress were not spelled out. The final conference declaration stated, “We recognize that the best way to defend the Nicaraguan revolution is by raising political consciousness in this country.” Conference participants estimated that $500,000 would be needed to carry out the various planned activities and to pay staff salaries over the next year. Local groups were obliged to help raise these funds.37 The Washington, DC, solidarity group reportedly raised $10,000 for Nicaragua in the six months following the July revolution. During the planned solidarity week in February 1980, the DC group co-sponsored two speakers from Nicaragua, Noel González of the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Sayda Hernandez of the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women.38 These speakers and others toured fifteen U.S. cities in all. The connection between Nicaragua Network and the FSLN grew stronger in the aftermath of the second national conference. An article in Barricada

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on July 8, 1980, reviewed the history of U.S. solidarity with Augusto Sandino and praised Nicaragua Network’s current efforts, concluding, “From the many lessons of solidarity work in the U.S., one thing is clear: the North American people can be and are in solidarity.”39 Nicaragua Network, in turn, edged closer to an uncritical view of the FSLN. The Nicaragua Network Newsletter of August 1980, for example, reprinted on its front page an article from Barricada that equated the will of the FSLN party with the will of the Nicaraguan people, a common FSLN theme. The occasion was the first anniversary celebration of the revolutionary triumph: The people of Sandino ratified yesterday the indisputable position of the FSLN as vanguard in the revolutionary process. The combative presence of hundreds of thousands of men, women, workers of the country and the city, confirmed that after a year of struggle and sacrifice, the people maintain their unshakable confidence in the FSLN and the Government of National Construction. Once again, the people have voted for the Revolution and the FSLN. . . . This is the essence of yesterday’s mass demonstration: the consolidation of the unity between the people and the vanguard to guarantee the implementation of the revolutionary program.40

There was little nuance in this self-promotion by the FSLN. The complicated history of competing groups and contending visions leading up to the overthrow of Somoza was omitted in favor of presenting the FSLN as the embodiment of the revolutionary ideal. Such expressions were particularly common during the “honeymoon” period following the Sandinista victory. Nicaragua Network’s attachment to the FSLN set it apart from other liberal and progressive organizations, but the latter were by no means antagonistic to Sandinista social reforms, which included building democratic institutions; outlawing of the death penalty; initiating beneficial health, education, and land reform programs; and allowing for private enterprise. The FSLN government’s moderate and popular form of socialism eased liberal fears of leftist authoritarianism, although not entirely and not for all activists and groups, which in turn allowed for a liberal-leftist-religious alliance to develop, similar to that of the Chile campaign. Nicaragua Network led the leftist section of this informal alliance but not the whole of the anti–Contra War campaign when it emerged in 1982.

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The Central America Movement In the aftermath of the Sandinista military victory in Nicaragua, a wave of rightist repression took place in El Salvador and Guatemala. Salvadoran death squads roamed the country murdering opposition political leaders, labor union leaders, religious workers, and others viewed as threats to the military-dominated government. Guatemalan security forces massacred peaceful demonstrators and decimated Mayan communities thought to be sympathetic to guerrillas. The repression prompted tens of thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans to leave their homelands for Honduras, Mexico, and the United States. In February 1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador wrote to President Jimmy Carter, pleading, “If you really want to defend human rights, prohibit the giving of military assistance to the Salvadoran government.”41 On March 23 Romero publicly denounced the Salvadoran government’s repression and called on military personnel to disobey their commanders’ orders to kill other Salvadorans. The following day, Romero was assassinated in his church. His martyrdom became a symbol of the repression in El Salvador. U.S. support for the Salvadoran government’s repression became a growing concern among human rights advocates in the United States. On March 7, 1980, two weeks before Romero was murdered, Catholic activists founded the Religious Task Force on El Salvador (later renamed the Religious Task Force on Central America, or RTFCA), based in Washington, DC. Two months later Protestant activists formed the Inter-Religious Task Force on El Salvador (later renamed the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America, or IRTFCA), based in New York City. Together these two religious networks became the “connecting glue for local faith-based solidarity groups across the country,” according to Margaret Swedish, director of the RTFCA.42 They took up the cause of Romero, educating local church communities, lobbying members of Congress, and organizing demonstrations against U.S. support for the Salvadoran government. Leftist solidarity activists, meanwhile, formed the Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador (CISPES) in October 1980, the same month that five Salvadoran rebel factions merged to form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). CISPES developed a dynamic outreach program. By March 1982 the group claimed 300 local committees and campus groups, a halfdozen regional centers, and a strong central committee at the national level.43 Another national solidarity group, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) was formed in 1981. NISGUA had a more moderate

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profile than CISPES, with its support coming mainly from “academics and church people with an abiding personal interest in Guatemala,” according to the activist-historian Van Gosse.44 NISGUA remained a small network throughout the decade. This was most likely due to the fact that the Carter administration had already cut off U.S. military aid to the Guatemalan government and thus the repression was not directly tied to U.S. support (the campaign lacked a political handle). The Salvadoran government, in contrast, was heavily dependent on U.S. military aid. On December 2, 1980, four U.S. citizens—Maryknoll sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, Ursuline sister Dorothy Kazel, and lay missionary Jean Donovan— were raped and murdered by Salvadoran soldiers. The Carter administration immediately suspended military aid but resumed it six weeks later so as to enable the Salvadoran government to survive a rebel offensive launched in January 1981. Questions arose in Washington as to whether U.S. troops would be needed to shore up the Salvadoran government. Conservatives warned of “another Cuba” if the rebels won, while liberals warned of “another Vietnam” if the U.S. militarily intervened.45 To counter public fears of the latter, the Reagan administration promised in March 1981 to limit the number of U.S. military advisers to fifty-five. This limit on direct military involvement, coupled with U.S.-engineered elections in March 1982, ultimately enabled the administration to win congressional approval for most of the aid it requested through the decade, despite reports of continuing systematic political murders. The Romero Christian Legal Aid Office in San Salvador, for example, reported that during the first eight months of 1982, there were a total of 3,059 political murders, “nearly all of them the result of action by Government agents against civilians not involved in military combat.”46 During the 1980s, large numbers of Salvadorans and Guatemalans entered the United States illegally and established themselves in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC. Salvadoran émigrés played a role in the formation of CISPES and its educational outreach efforts.47 According to one Salvadoran immigrant, “The Salvadorans told stories of opposition activists tortured and killed with sadism and cruelty, piles of beheaded corpses appearing on the main streets of the cities, citizens kidnapped and disappeared by the so-called ‘Security Forces’ and massacres of hundreds of peasants. These reports moved thousands of U.S. citizens to participate in solidarity actions.”48 CISPES openly supported the FMLN and its political arm, the Revolutionary

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Democratic Front. At the founding conference in New York on October 11–12, 1980 (another was held in Los Angeles the previous weekend), participants declared that Salvadoran revolutionaries were engaged in a “just war of legitimate defense.”49 CISPES itself was not a revolutionary group, nor did it send arms to the rebels; rather, it provided tangible assistance to the FMLN through projects such as Medical Aid to El Salvador, a Los Angeles-based operation that distributed aid to regions under FMLN control. At the CISPES national convention in 1985, CISPES attendees debated and approved a proposal to define their organization as the “North American front of the Salvadoran revolution.” Notwithstanding its support for the FMLN, CISPES shaped its outreach message in the U.S. to highlight the egregious human rights abuses of the Salvadoran government and the danger of “another Vietnam.” CISPES organizers avoided leftist ideological rhetoric so as not to appear too radical to potential supporters and allies. Van Gosse, who served as a CISPES student outreach coordinator, pointed out that “anyone looking for the words ‘capitalist,’ ‘socialist’ or ‘imperialist’ in its direct-mail appeals, its newspaper Alert! Focus on Central America, or its voluminous internal program mailings, would be severely disappointed.”50 CISPES acknowledged its desire to see an FMLN victory, but this was not the point of its educational outreach efforts. “Our whole idea was to educate people about the history of Central America,” said Félix Masud-Piloto, coordinator of the CISPES chapter at Florida State University and a native of Cuba. “We’re not about sending weapons. We’re about education in the U.S.” As a graduate student and teaching assistant in Latin American history during the 1980s, Masud-Piloto gave many talks to student and community groups about Central America, highlighting the conditions that gave rise to social unrest going back a hundred years. His message regarding revolution was “Let them do what they need to do.”51 By stressing salient themes and minimizing revolutionary jargon, CISPES was able to maintain amicable relations with liberal, religious, human rights, and peace groups. According to Margaret Swedish, the relationship between the Religious Task Force on Central America and CISPES involved both “a collaboration and a tension.” RTFCA did not support the FMLN, but neither did it condemn revolutionary violence. “What was remarkable,” said Swedish, “is that this issue did not break open more than it did. People were so focused on human rights and stopping Salvadoran aid that these underlying issues were minimized.” Swedish described CISPES as “one of the most talented organizations” in grassroots organizing work. In Washington, however, she deemed the

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most influential group “the Catholic social justice lobby, which had a lot of very skilled people from a variety of bases.”52 That opinion was reiterated by Rep. Michael Barnes (D-MD), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, who remarked to the press in March 1982, “The group that has the most credibility and that I sense is listened to most by my constituents is the Catholic Church. I’m not sure how they mobilize people, but they are certainly well-mobilized.”53 The Catholic social justice lobby had millions of church members as a base, an institutional support structure, experienced lobbyists, and leaders who spoke out frequently on Central America issues.54 Swedish was raised Catholic and inspired by the “progressive Catholic peace and justice movement,” according to her own account. She grew up in Milwaukee and attended colleges in Milwaukee and Boulder during the Vietnam War era. Her first connection with Latin America was through her volunteer work at a soup kitchen in Montreal that assisted refugees from Chile and Argentina. She came to Washington, DC, in 1979 and became the director of RTFCA in 1981, a role she continued until 2004.55 On March 24, 1981, the first anniversary of Romero’s assassination, the Central America movement made its public debut. Some 3,000 demonstrators marched in Boston, 1,500 in New York City, and hundreds in other cities and on campuses across the country.56 Two days later, CNFMP held a press conference in which members of the Congressional Black Caucus denounced the Reagan administration’s policies toward El Salvador and South Africa, tying together the two issues under the mantle of human rights.57 On April 18 another demonstration was held in New York that drew between 3,500 and 10,000 protesters. Two weeks later, on May 2, some 20,000 people demonstrated at the Pentagon in what the New York Times described as “the largest antiwar protest seen here” since the Vietnam War. Another 5,000 marched in San Francisco that day.58 Activities on campuses also accelerated. At Princeton University in mid-February 1982, a standing-room only crowd of 500 attended a film showing, El Salvador: Another Vietnam. A new local group was formed that night, the Committee Against Intervention in Central America.59 As Central America groups emerged around the country, CNFMP organized a national conference in Washington, DC, on June 10, 1981, with the idea of connecting organizations and building a broad-based, united movement. Titled “The Reagan Foreign Policy: Intervention vs. Human Rights,” the conference drew approximately two hundred activists for two days of plenary discussions, workshops, and strategy sessions. Among the featured speakers

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were Democratic Socialist leader Michael Harrington and Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts. According to a follow-up report, “The conference strengthened ties to local and national solidarity organizations,” including Nicaragua Network, CISPES, and NISGUA. “We established new relations with the Socialist International, our Canadian neighbors, and we developed more labor contacts.” Organizers judged that they had met their major objectives, which included promoting “the Coalition as the central organizer in Central America work,” but noted that “attendance could have been better.”60 Labor unions emerged as a distinct force in the Central America movement with the formation of the National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador (NLC), an association of union presidents founded in September 1981. Led by Jack Sheinkman, secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, Douglas Fraser, president of the United Auto Workers, and William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists, NLC challenged the Cold War views of the AFL-CIO. Twenty-three union presidents joined the NLC, representing over seven million workers. David Dyson, an ordained Presbyterian minister, served as NLC’s single staff person until 1984, when he was joined by Daniel Cantor. Dyson “had for two decades linked the worlds of religious faith and labor activism,” according to the political scientist Andrew Battista. He made ten trips to El Salvador during the 1980s, some of which involved looking for “disappeared” Salvadoran labor leaders.61 NLC activities included sending labor delegations to El Salvador, forming “sister unions,” bringing Salvadoran labor leaders to the United States to testify before Congressional committees, and cosponsoring the largest Central America demonstration of the decade in April 1987. NLC took up opposition to contra aid in the mid-1980s. The group allied itself with political lobby groups such as CNFMP and SANE and veered away from leftist solidarity groups such as CISPES and Nicaragua Network. On the quieter side of the Central America movement, the Sanctuary Movement offered assistance and refuge to Central American refugees. An estimated one million Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing repression in their native lands made the journey across Mexico and entered the United States clandestinely during the 1980s.62 Sanctuary projects developed independently in California and Arizona and spread across the country. By mid-decade, hundreds of religious congregations and communities had declared themselves “sanctuaries,” offering material and legal assistance. According to the

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sociologist Sharon Erickson Nepstad, “The illegal nature of sanctuary work prevents a precise count, but some have estimated that 70,000 North Americans and 2,000–3,000 Central American refugees were involved in the movement.” As one U.S. sanctuary volunteer explained, “The sanctuary movement was ingenious because, with the network of churches that developed through the underground railroad, you had refugees that were moving into communities all around the United States and telling their stories.”63 Between 1980 and 1982, the crisis in El Salvador led many local Nicaragua solidarity groups to shift their emphasis to El Salvador. The Portland [Oregon] Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, which formed in the wake of the Sandinista Revolution in early 1979, changed its name to the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC) in 1980 in order to incorporate the Salvadoran struggle. In one month alone, January 1981, PCASC organized two folk music benefits, a press conference, a demonstration, and an “Ecumenical Procession,” all protesting U.S. aid to the Salvadoran government. In San Antonio the Nicaragua Committee picketed the El Salvador consulate in protest of that government’s repression. In Miami the Nicaragua Solidarity Committee changed its name to the Latin America and Caribbean Solidarity Association.64 The crossover to El Salvador diminished Nicaragua activism but ultimately benefited it by increasing public interest in Central America issues. On the third anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in July 1982, Nicaragua Network counted at last sixteen active local affiliates.65 Among the various organizations involved in the Central America movement was the American Friends Service Committee (ASFC), one of the most wellestablished peace and justice organizations in the United States. For more than six decades, AFSC had been organizing campaigns, working in coalitions, educating the U.S. public, lobbying Congress, and providing humanitarian aid abroad. Although the Society of Friends (Quakers) was a relatively small religious denomination, its members were strongly committed to peace and justice issues, evident in their financial support for both the AFSC and its sister organization, Friends Committee on National Legislation, based in Washington, DC. The AFSC’s annual budget approved by the board of directors in 1985 was $17,637,000.66 AFSC maintained a national office in Philadelphia, a research team (National Action/Research on the Military Industrial Complex), an office at the United Nations, nine regional offices, and at least twenty-three local offices. Regional

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and local offices kept the national office in touch with grassroots developments and enabled AFSC to implement its plans and projects quickly. In 1981 AFSC’s Peace Education Division had a total of ninety full-time staff, along with many student interns and volunteers. This made AFSC’s peace education network the largest in the United States, according to Jack Malinowski, human rights coordinator of the Peace Education Division. “Our main strength was a national network of activists in about forty cities plus having people on the ground in Central America.” Malinowski’s own path to peace activism originated during the Vietnam War, which “changed my direction,” he said. He grew up in Pennsylvania as a Roman Catholic and became a Quaker in the 1960s, studied religion in graduate schools at Notre Dame and Temple University, and taught at St. Joseph’s College, a Jesuit school in Philadelphia, before joining the AFSC national staff.67 Unlike Nicaragua Network, AFSC did not regard the FSLN as the “vanguard party.” According to Malinowki, “We were wary of, shall we say, the Leninist model and too much ideology rooted in a Marxist-Leninist approach. We also knew that unless they allowed some dissent and participation on the political level, they were going to undermine themselves and give Reagan ammunition.” In March 1981 AFSC inquired of the Sandinista government about the status of a human rights advocate, José Estaban Gonzales, who allegedly had been jailed by the FSLN government as a political prisoner.68 On the whole, however, noted Malinowski, “AFSC has basically been behind popular movements for social change even when they used methods with which we disagree. . . . We give more ground to underdogs.”69 AFSC expanded its Central America activities in the early 1980s. It developed new educational resources, including a slideshow, “Central America: Roots of the Crisis,” sponsored speaking tours in the United States, and organized more fact-finding delegations to Central America. One AFSC-sponsored study tour departed for Central America and the Caribbean on November 21, 1980. Led by Phillip Berryman, eight of its eighteen participants were African American or Latino. The group’s report on Nicaragua noted “sharply opposing views of almost every situation” among Nicaraguans and “the enormous expectations of people which cannot be fulfilled in the short run,” due to an impoverished economy.70 Phillip and Angela Berryman played important roles in shaping AFSC’s Central America work—as speakers, study tour guides in Central America, staff members, and advisers. The couple had lived in Central America for over

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a decade before returning to the United States in 1980 and finding employment with AFSC. Angela went on speaking tours on the East Coast and coordinated a series of teach-ins in Philadelphia on Guatemala. Phillip, who was well-versed in liberation theology and Latin America history, traveled across the United States speaking to community groups, news reporters, radio audiences, and college students, including a largely white audience at Vanderbilt University and a largely black audience at Tennessee State University. His talks typically addressed the roots of the crises in Central America, the role of the church, and the role of the United States in the region. When questions arose from the audience as to the relationship between pacifist groups such as AFSC and violent revolutionaries, Berryman would often reply, “If the AFSC would have nothing to do with violent groups, it would mean that AFSC would have nothing to do with the U.S. government.”71 Phillip Berryman elaborated further on this subject in an article in WIN Magazine (March 1981), a pacifist journal associated with the War Resisters League. He argued that the “first principle is not nonviolence but liberation.” Hence, pacifists “cannot condemn those who, after trying nonviolent means, feel they have no choice but to take up arms.” He furthermore argued that conditions in Latin America were different from “areas where ‘classical’ nonviolence struggles had proved successful”—e.g., the Indian independence movement and U.S. civil rights struggles—and that those in power in Latin America have repeatedly shown they “can assassinate with impunity.”72 AFSC, as an organization, had long wrestled with the problem of how to balance its commitments to both nonviolence and social justice. The AFSC board of directors attempted to clarify its position in a statement on January 24, 1981. The statement reiterated AFSC’s commitment to “to work for social justice and to aid victims of oppression,” and it firmly denied “the legitimacy of violence however extreme the provocation.” The latter principle, however, did not exclude AFSC from developing relationships with groups engaged in revolutionary violence: “Those who labor under structures of injustice and violence will set their own course for breaking free from oppression. We will not support the choice of violence, but where basic human rights and social equity are at issue, Quakers and the AFSC need to be engaged in common cause to the limit of our beliefs, resources, and program capacity. . . . The AFSC will not easily forsake those with whom we have worked nor abandon the cause of the oppressed.”73 The internal discussion over nonviolence and social justice did not hamper AFSC’s outreach efforts. At the San Francisco regional office, for example, staff

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person Chris Coleman noted in his report to the national office in April 1981 that over the previous six weeks, he had spoken to seventeen groups in seven northern California cities and recruited over 250 people to work on Central America issues. Looking back over the previous two years, Coleman wrote that his work with Nicaragua had involved assisting the formation of the Nicaraguan Interfaith Committee for Action, promoting educational activities among church groups, organizing a lobbying campaign against U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, helping collect three tons of medical supplies, raising $13,000 for food and the literacy campaign, cosponsoring a western regional conference on Nicaragua, and cosponsoring a July 19th celebration that involved over 100 East Bay groups and the mayor of Berkeley.74 All in all, AFSC’s local and regional offices were generous with their resources, often facilitating the development of independent local groups and even chapters of other national organizations. This selfless quality arguably had a positive effect on the Central America movement in terms of working toward common goals and reducing organizational competition.

The Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1982 The Contra War began in earnest in March 1982. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency report, “In the 100 day period from 14 March to 21 June, at least 106 insurgent incidents occurred within Nicaragua.”75 Word of the attacks spread quickly through the Central America network. On March 22 AFSC executive director Asia A. Bennett sent a letter to President Reagan and members of Congress urging a halt to “any United States complicity in terrorist actions and covert operations against the Nicaraguan government or any government in Central America or the Caribbean.” U.S. policies, insisted Bennett, must be “based on principles of self-determination, non-intervention, and mutual respect.”76 That same day, the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy sent out a legislative update urging support for legislation introduced by Rep. Michael Barnes, which would “prohibit U.S. support for military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.”77 U.S. citizens living in Nicaragua held a press conference in Managua on March 25, reading an open letter of protest directed to U.S. ambassador Anthony Quainton. By the end of the month, 104 congressional representatives had signed a letter to President Reagan urging acceptance of a peace initiative proposed by Mexican president López Portillo. Planned demonstrations against U.S. aid to the Salvadoran government now

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added the demand to end U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. On March 27, 1982, between 23,000 and 50,000 people demonstrated in New York City; another 15,000 marched in Philadelphia, and smaller numbers in Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Denver, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. In West Germany 4,000 people staged a protest march at the U.S. Consulate in Bremen, organized by the Bremen chapter of the Nicaragua–El Salvador Committee.78 Two months later, peace and religious groups released to the press the “Statement in Opposition to Covert Intervention in Nicaragua,” signed by 120 prominent religious and civic leaders. The statement read in part, “A policy of covert intervention against a sovereign nation fundamentally violates international law. . . . This covert operation contradicts the democratic ideals of the United States and the principle that a people have a right to determine their own future.”79 In September 1982 a delegation of fourteen representatives from the major national peace organizations went on a fact-finding tour to Nicaragua and Honduras. The purpose of the trip was to gather more information about the U.S. military buildup in Honduras, the “role of U.S. military advisers in relationship to terrorist activities along the Honduran and Nicaraguan border,” and the effects of the “CIA plan to support the destabilization of Nicaragua.” The delegates traveled to the northern and eastern reaches of Nicaragua and met with Sandinista and U.S. officials, including U.S. ambassador John Negroponte in Honduras. Their eight-page report cited “armed aggression against the civilian population by former Nicaraguan National Guardsmen” and concluded: “We believe that more than any other factor, it is the United States’ attempt to preserve its historic political, economic and cultural hegemony in the area which is preventing the fulfillment of the Nicaraguan and Honduran peoples’ longing for peace, independence, self-determination and equitable economic development. We found that U.S. policy toward Nicaragua and Honduras, instead of promoting the establishment of democracy, freedom and peace, is having exactly the opposite effect.”80 In October 1982, representatives from a number of peace organizations— AFSC, SANE, FOR, Clergy and Laity Concerned, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and War Resisters League—met to consider creating a unified Central America peace campaign.81 It would take more than a year, however, before an umbrella organization by that name would be launched. In the meantime, news reports were raising public awareness of the “covert” war against Nicaragua, particularly a nine-page cover story in Newsweek (November 8, 1982).82 In Congress, opposition to the not-so-covert war was led by representatives

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Michael Barnes (D-MD) and Tom Harkin (D-IA). On December 8, after the House tabled legislation introduced by Barnes, Harkin introduced a similar amendment to the 1983 Defense Appropriation bill that called for a cutoff of U.S. assistance to any group “carrying out military activities in or against Nicaragua.”83 In the ensuing debate, it was revealed that the House Intelligence Committee had already secretly approved this restriction last April, appropriating aid to the contras only for the purpose of weapons interdiction. Rep. Edward Boland (D-MA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, subsequently offered an amendment openly incorporating this restriction, replacing Harkin’s bill. The House approved the Boland Amendment unanimously and President Reagan signed it into law on December 21, 1982. The amendment did nothing to change the contras’ strategy or diminish contra attacks, but it did establish a legal basis for Congress to monitor administration actions, setting the stage for future political battles over contra aid. For Central America activists, the Boland Amendment was profoundly inadequate, as it restricted only the official purpose of the aid, not the aid itself.

CHAPTER 4

Expansion of the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1983–84

T

he Contra War became a hot political topic in Washington in 1983. The first volley was fired on April 13, 1983, when Rep. Edward Boland publicly denounced the administration for lack of compliance with the recently enacted Boland Amendment. Two weeks later, he introduced legislation to cut off all aid to the contras. President Reagan chose that very day, April 27, to present his case to the American people and Congress in a nationally televised address. His full-throated endorsement of the contras excited much news coverage but failed to sway the Democratic Party majority in the House. On July 28, the House voted 228–195 to prohibit U.S. funding, directly or indirectly, of any military operations against Nicaragua. The Senate, however, with its Republican majority, approved a contra aid package, thus leaving the matter to a joint House-Senate conference. In November, the joint conference appropriated $24 million in military aid for fiscal year (FY) 1984 (beginning October 1, 1983). The Reagan administration won the battle that year, but not without arousing a great deal of opposition. The New York Times reporter Leslie Gelb wrote in July 1983, “Not since the Vietnam War has an issue so engaged the political passions of the President and his advisers, Congress, the public and many nations around the world, as recent Reagan Administration decisions about Central America.”1 Historians have made much of the rise of the religious right in the early [ 81 ]

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1980s, but in the foreign policy arena, at least, it was the liberal religious community that rose up and made waves. Mainline liberal religious denominations played a leading role in the rapid expansion of the anti–Contra War campaign in 1983 and 1984, providing both an organizational base and a respectable public image. Between 1982 and 1984, over twenty U.S. Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and ecumenical organizations issued statements in opposition to U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua. Each statement provided authoritative approval for local congregations and individuals to challenge the U.S. government on this issue—in essence, to assert the primacy of religious values over governmental policy.2 These faith networks also had clout in Washington. According to the political scientists Cynthia Arnson and Philip Brenner, “The most numerous and effective groups arrayed against the president’s policies in Central America were religious. . . . Virtually all of the major Protestant denominations had Washington offices responsible for linking their congregants to the national political process.”3 Well-known peace and justice leaders included Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., senior minister at Riverside Church in Manhattan, and Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, the founding president of Pax Christi. Part of the motivation for religious involvement came from personal and institutional ties with Nicaragua. In mid-1984 there were eighty-six U.S. Catholic missionaries living in Nicaragua. “They ask us to do all we can in the United States to counter U.S. policies,” said Rev. Anthony D. Bellagamba, executive director of the U.S. Catholic Missions Association. According to the Washington Post, reports and letters from the U.S. missionaries in Nicaragua were “widely circulated within the religious community” and “generally favored the social initiatives of the Sandinista revolution and detailed the suffering of villagers from contra raids.”4 Gustavo Parajón, a Baptist minister, medical doctor, and director of the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches (CEPAD), wrote to the various U.S. Protestant denominations in 1983, urging them to “denounce the atrocities committed by the counter-revolutionaries attacking our country, of which our brethren are victims. These groups are clearly trained and financed by the government of the U.S. and as they invade our country they are planting death, panic and desperation among our people.” Parajón’s appeal was incorporated into a resolution adopted by the United Methodist Church General Conference in May 1984. The resolution called on the U.S. government to “refrain from any activities . . . designed to destabilize existing governments.”5 Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill attributed his opposition to the Reagan administration’s Central America policies in part to his connection with the

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Maryknoll Catholic order. As he told the New York Times (September 12, 1984), “I have great trust in that order. When the nuns and priests come through, I ask them questions . . . and I’m sure I get the truth. I haven’t found any of these missionaries who aren’t absolutely opposed to this policy. . . . I think it’s disgraceful what the Nicaraguan rebels are doing, tearing down schools and health care centers and murdering the civilian population.” One of O’Neill’s contacts in Nicaragua was Peggy Healy, a Maryknoll nun based in Managua. Healy encouraged O’Neill to stand firm against contra aid, which he did.6 O’Neill’s firm stand was also supported by his relatively liberal constituency in Massachusetts. Indeed, every member of the House and Senate from the state voted consistently against contra aid. Moreover, at the request of the Boston Coordinating Council on Central America, Governor Michael Dukakis signed resolutions in 1983 and 1984 declaring September 15 a “Day for Peace and Justice in Central America.” The resolutions called on citizens to “express their concern over the grave situation in whatever ways they feel are appropriate.”7 One of the many claims made by the Reagan administration was that the Sandinista government was persecuting Nicaraguan Jews. Rabbi Balfour Brickner of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, having twice visited Nicaragua, felt obliged to refute this claim in an opinion column in the Philadelphia Daily News in December 1984. “No Jew I met in Nicaragua complained about anti-Semitism,” he wrote. “In fact, they most vigorously rejected the charge. The government doesn’t persecute Catholics or Protestants either. It does challenge, and sometimes expels, those who, in religious garb, conduct counter-revolutionary activities.” Addressing the U.S. role in Nicaragua, Rabbi Brickner asserted, “America is waging an illegal and an unjust war against the sovereign nation of Nicaragua.” This, he said, “is sinful. Ought not that be a matter of Jewish concern?”8 Reagan administration officials attempted to deflect the outpouring of criticism from the liberal religious community by intimating that U.S. religious leaders were aiding America’s Cold War enemy. On March 8, 1983, Secretary of State George Shultz complained to a House subcommittee about U.S. “churchmen who want to see Soviet influence in El Salvador improve.” The following day, Vice President George Bush told the press that he was unable to understand how Catholics could support Marxist revolutionary movements in Central America.9 United Nations ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, in an op-ed article in the Washington Post on April 17, went a step further and accused administration critics of willful deception, declaring that “a very well organized lobby works

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indefatigably to confuse the moral, political and intellectual questions involved in U.S. policy toward Central America.”10 By the summer of 1983, the White House Outreach Group and the Office of Public Diplomacy were actively engaged in a covert effort to manipulate and intimidate the mainstream media (see Chapter 2). Hence, on August 9 Faith Ryan Whittlesey, the White House Outreach Group director, accused both the news media and religious leaders of promoting a “deliberate distortion” of the Nicaraguan situation. “I think the media has tried to portray what we think are the bad guys, the communists, as Robin Hoods,” she said. “And I think the confusion has been deliberate and that accounts for some of the ignorance [of the U.S. public].” American church leaders, too, she said, “tend to characterize the Sandinistas as Robin Hoods, essentially fighting for social justice.”11 Some U.S. religious leaders did, in fact, view revolutions in Central America as having just goals, even as they eschewed revolutionary violence. Ten days before Whittlesey’s published comments, Rev. William Sloane Coffin had argued in an opinion piece in the New York Times (July 31, 1983) that “the revolutions brewing in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras share the same legitimate twin goals of the Sandinista revolution: to stop the exploitation of the many by the few and to end foreign domination.” Coffin also affirmed the consensus position in the liberal religious community, writing, “You don’t have to think that the Sandinistas are doing anything right to know that the United States is doing everything wrong.”12 Coffin penned the article just after returning from a week-long trip to Nicaragua, where he and 156 other North Americans stayed in the border town of Jalapa, a target of repeated contra attacks (the trip marked the beginning of Witness for Peace, discussed later). Never afraid of controversy, Coffin had organized “freedom rides” in the civil rights movement and been a leader in the anti– Vietnam War movement. During the 1980s, he played prominent roles in antinuclear weapons campaigns and the Central America movement.13 For many peace activists, the most pressing issue in the early 1980s was the nuclear arms race. Thousands of new peace groups emerged in support of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, which advocated an immediate, bilateral (United States–Soviet Union) halt to the production, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons. SANE, the largest national disarmament organization with 80,000 members, took on Central America issues in the summer of 1983. SANE was founded in 1957 as the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, with the goals of halting open-air nuclear testing (in Nevada) and curbing the arms race. The

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group made its first transition to anti-intervention work at the outset of the Vietnam War. To director David Cortright, who was part of the G.I. peace movement during the war, taking on Central America issues was both necessary and difficult. It was necessary because the violence was escalating. “There was the reality on the ground in Nicaragua,” said Cortright. “The war had started to take a toll . . . causing a tremendous amount of suffering and death. We felt frustration and anger at what our government was doing. We could not call ourselves peace activists without doing something about this issue.” It was difficult because SANE was fully engaged in the Freeze campaign, stopping the MX missile, and other disarmament and budgetary issues. “It was a big stretch to take on Central America issues,” he said.14 Notwithstanding the organizational challenge, Cortright wrote a memo to the SANE staff on July 23, 1983: “The time has come for us to take a stand and make an organizational commitment to opposing the American war [in Nicaragua]. We can no longer purport to be a leading national peace organization and remain on the sidelines in this crucial struggle.”15 Cortright and other SANE staff members visited Nicaragua in October 1984. Like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), SANE had a capable organization. Its professional staff included two lobbyists, four field organizers, four communications and media experts, and others. SANE approached the Central America movement in a businesslike manner, examining needs and opportunities. Cortright asked Richard Healey, director of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, how SANE could best contribute to the movement. Healey suggested that SANE help draw in more peace and disarmament groups. In August and September 1983, SANE tested the waters to see if its own local chapters were interested in taking up Central America issues. The feedback was mildly encouraging. Local coordinators in the Southeast noted that most activists saw the arms race and intervention as “all of one piece,” but “we need to be cautious about not pushing some folks too far.” The national office nevertheless pushed. SANE cosponsored a six-week tour of five Central American youth leaders to ten U.S. cities that fall; the SANE World newsletter and its Spanish-language counterpart published more articles on Central America; and SANE’s radio program, Consider the Alternatives, began producing programs on Central America.16 Robert Musil, who directed the SANE radio program, took two trips to Nicaragua in 1983 and 1984, during which time he interviewed FSLN leaders Daniel Ortega, Bayardo Arce, Miguel d’Escoto, and other notable Nicaraguans.

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In the United States, said Musil, “I interviewed anyone of note, including solidarity workers, nuns, activists, etcetera, when they returned to or were visiting the U.S.” During the Vietnam War, Musil had been an army captain who taught communications and policy at the Defense Information School in Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. When ordered to go to Vietnam, he refused and applied for conscientious objector status. He had come to the view that the “war was illegal” and that the “tactics used were illegal,” based on Geneva conventions. After leaving the army, Musil earned a doctorate at Northwestern University in American studies.17 The surprise U.S. invasion of Grenada on October 25, 1983, sparked new interest in anti-intervention among peace groups. Multi-issue national peace organizations developed a new educational campaign called the “Deadly Connection,” which tied together the issues of interventionism and the nuclear arms race. The basic concept was that U.S. intervention in Central America and elsewhere increased Cold War tension, which in turn exacerbated the nuclear arms race, which in turn brought the superpowers closer to nuclear war. Whatever the educational value of this concept, the main goal was organizational—to pull more peace and disarmament groups into the Central America movement. On November 2, 1983, the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP), Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), SANE, and other groups sponsored a “Deadly Connection” conference in Washington, DC, attracting over five hundred people. Cortright addressed the topic “Why is Central America becoming a compelling issue for disarmament organizations?”18 Similar conferences were organized by AFSC and Mobilization for Survival (MFS) in Boston, Philadelphia, and Connecticut towns over the winter of 1983–84. MFS made the “deadly connection” campaign one of its top priorities at its annual conference in January 1984, stating its intention “to increase the number of people willing and able to respond to U.S. military intervention, regardless of the kinds of weapons used or the region of the world in which it occurs.”19 Many local and state disarmament groups did, in fact, take up Central America issues in 1983 and 1984. The Florida Coalition for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, for example, conducted a survey of its thirty-five member groups in October 1984, one year after the Grenada invasion, and found that most were engaged in Central America issues. The state organization, which began in early 1982 with assistance from the AFSC office in St. Petersburg, changed its name to the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice in early 1985 in order to reflect its broader agenda. Not all peace groups worked on Central America issues and

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many did so as a second or third priority, but the infusion of peace groups into the anti–Contra War campaign (ACWC) provided a significant boost.

Protests and the Pledge of Resistance There were many demonstrations against U.S. intervention in Central America in 1983 and 1984, mostly small and local. One mid-size demonstration took place at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, on July 2, 1983, attended by 7,500 people. Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran and author, delivered the main message.20 Planning was already under way for a larger demonstration in Washington on November 12 when the U.S. invasion of Grenada took place. The ad hoc coalition of national groups organizing the event quickly added “Opposition to U.S. intervention in the Caribbean” to their demands regarding El Salvador and Nicaragua. Rev. Coffin and Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) announced the rally at a press conference on October 27. An advertisement placed in the New York Times one day before the demonstration read: “If President Reagan Can Get Away with the Invasion of Grenada, What Next?”21 The rally on November 12 drew approximately 20,000 people, according to Capitol police. People gathered at three locations, then marched to the Ellipse, just south of the White House. Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democratic Party presidential contender, told the crowd that the same assumptions that had “put us into Vietnam” were at work in Central America. “Latin America is not our back door,” he said. “It’s next door and we must respect our next-door neighbors.” A statement by former senator George McGovern (D-SD) was read that said in part, “I want you to know that I stand with you.” Rep. Ted Weiss (D-NY) told the cheering crowd that he and eight other members of Congress had called for the impeachment of Reagan. The demonstration was peaceful despite a small group of counterprotestors who tried to block the antiwar marchers by sitting down in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, which led to the arrest of eighteen. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe all covered the demonstration, highlighting Jackson’s speech but also quoting others. The New York Times described it as “festive rally.” The Washington Post noted that a few protesters were carrying American flags. One of the flag bearers, Tim Rowe of Northampton, Massachusetts, was quoted as saying, “This flag can stand for peace and justice.”22 Organizers of the rally considered it a success in terms of numbers of people

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attending, publicity, and cooperation among national organizations. The planning committee consisted of representatives from more than a dozen organizations, including AFSC, CISPES, CNFMP, Democratic Socialists of America, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, MFS, National Student Association, Nicaragua Network, NISGUA, SANE, and the Socialist Workers Party. Jim Matlack of the AFSC office in Washington reported to the national office in Philadelphia, “My overall impression of the [planning] process was quite favorable to the dedication, cooperation, and hard work of the lead organizers in this effort.” He added, “They are, of course, understaffed and underfunded with a constantly shifting context of world events in which to work. The scale of the effort seems much larger than the resources available to meet it.”23 On November 2–4, 1983, one week after the U.S. invasion of Grenada, fifty-three representatives of Christian peace organizations gathered for a retreat at the Kirkridge Center in northern Pennsylvania. Led by Jim Wallis and Jim Rice, they considered the question of how to deter a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. One idea put forth was to recruit people to go to Nicaragua and stand unarmed before the invading U.S. force. Another, more pragmatic idea was to have people occupy congressional offices in acts of civil disobedience. The latter became the basis for a new plan of action that became known as the Pledge of Resistance. After further refinement by interested parties over the next few months, the plan was published in Sojourners (August 1984) under the title “Pledge of Resistance: A Contingency Plan in the Event of a U.S. Invasion of Nicaragua.” Written by Jim Wallis, the article described the mechanics of the plan and ended with the statement, “If the armies of the United States are mobilized to wage war on Nicaragua, may a mighty nonviolent army of U.S. citizens also be mobilized to wage peace.”24 The first mass recruitment took place in San Francisco on October 9, 1984. Seven hundred people signed the pledge in front of the Federal Building, taking an oath to join with others in acts of civil disobedience or legal protest “as my conscience leads me . . . in order to prevent or halt further death and destruction in Central America.”25 A microphone was set up for individuals to explain to the gathered crowd why they were signing the pledge. Ken Butigan, a doctoral student in theology, organized the event with the help of progressive groups in the area. The AFSC office in San Francisco subsidized Butigan with $50 per week and provided him with office space. The following week, Butigan joined representatives of national groups at the Sojourners office in Washington, DC, to establish a national Pledge of Resistance campaign. Two committees were formed, an analyst

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group and a signal group. The analyst group was charged with advising the signal group on political and international developments; the signal group was given the authority to activate the national Pledge network.26 More than twenty activist organizations immediately endorsed the Pledge campaign and made commitments to promote it. A national Pledge office was opened in Washington and a number of local groups were enlisted as regional coordinators. The Pledge of Resistance (POR) sign-up proved to be an excellent outreach tool for local groups. Pledge drives took place in all regions of the nation, including the southern states of Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. “Some of our states have been going to town,” said Gail Phares, who served as regional Pledge coordinator for the Southeast. 27 The Pledge sign-up knew no organizational boundaries. In Atlanta a chapter of Clergy and Laity Concerned coordinated the operation; in Seattle, it was a Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) chapter; in Philadelphia, a new POR group was formed. The Seattle group gained the endorsement of the Church Council of Greater Seattle and merited an article in the Seattle Times that kindly listed FOR’s telephone number for those interested. By the end of 1984, 42,000 people had signed the pledge nationwide, with about half committed to civil disobedience.28 In the course of becoming a mass mobilization vehicle, the original religious identity of the Pledge campaign became somewhat diluted. Given the decentralized nature of the Pledge sign-up operation, local groups could choose how they wanted to present it. Some groups reinforced the original religious, or specifically Christian, character of the Pledge, while others did not. The Pledge of Resistance became, in the words of the national Pledge handbook (1986), a “broadly-based campaign, spanning the religious, peace and justice, and anti-interventionist communities.”29 The two strongest local pledge groups were located in San Francisco and Boston. In San Francisco Butigan’s successful fund-raising appeals enabled him to move out of the AFSC office and open a downtown office with two paid staff persons. Bay Area organizers linked the Pledge to the American political tradition of protest dating back to the Boston Tea Party. One local Pledge flyer, addressing the question of whether public protests are “effective in such a crisis,” asserted that national mobilizations against the Vietnam War had “succeeded more than most of us ever dreamed,” as “Nixon was threatening the possible use of nuclear weapons against North Vietnam.”30 Such claims served to imbue the Pledge campaign with an expectation of political influence. Granted that Pledge signers were motivated by their individual consciences, most hoped

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that by joining with others in timely fashion, their protests would achieve concrete results—preventing a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. In Boston the Pledge campaign was permeated by an activist subculture that integrated interpersonal support networks with social change activism. The roots of this eclectic subculture lay in pacifist “direct action” groups that formed during the late 1950s, the civil rights movement, the anti–Vietnam War movement, feminist consciousness-raising groups, and recent anti–nuclear power and anti– nuclear weapons protest movements. The organizational design of the Boston Pledge group reflected this activist subculture in the form of affinity groups, consensus decision making, and nonviolence training workshops. Affinity groups were designed to cultivate a sense of belonging and trust among participants and allow for participatory (consensus) decision making. Training workshops primed participants for civil disobedience by role-playing arrest scenarios. Affinity groups were not for everybody, of course, and many Bostonians signed the pledge regardless of cultural associations. The Boston group ultimately signed up 3,400 people. All in all, wrote the sociologist James Hannon, a participant observer, “the early organizing efforts of the Pledge were a spectacular success.”31 At the national level, the early organizational success of the Pledge campaign may be attributed to a sense of urgency regarding a possible U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, the simplicity of the sign-up method, and the existence of hundreds of activist groups ready to spread the campaign in local communities. The Pledge had its limitations as well: it appealed to those already persuaded on the issue; it was narrowly focused on protest actions; and, initially at least, it did not directly address the Contra War. The latter deficiency was rectified by the spring of 1985, as national POR organizers incorporated contra aid legislation into the Pledge signal system. The Pledge campaign, as such, became a key component of the ACWC and the vehicle of choice for many activists.

Legislation and Political Action In the legislative arena, CNFMP took the lead in rallying opposition to the Contra War. CNFMP kept track of bills in Congress, how members voted, when members would be in their home districts, and what “talking points” to raise in communicating with them. It sent out periodic press releases, held training conferences, joined with other groups in organizing campaigns, and coordinated lobbying efforts through its Central America Working Group (CAWG).

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Margaret Swedish, director of the Religious Task Force on Central America (RTFCA), described CAWG as “the main place where everyone sat together. . . . That was the vehicle that we joined to do our lobbying work together.” CAWG convened weekly meetings to plan strategy and divide tasks. Although each group had its “own rhetoric and logic,” said Swedish, “we worked together on singular goals. It was an amazing collaboration.” On key bills, representatives took responsibility for getting the word out to local contacts across the country. “We coordinated strategy—we tried not to duplicate efforts,” said Yvonne Dilling, director of Witness for Peace (WFP). Dilling had served as temporary coordinator of Nicaragua Network in early 1979 and became the first WFP director in October 1983. “Everybody had their strengths,” she said. The particular strength of WFP lay in providing “a never-ending stream of people who would bother their Congresspersons. So when CAWG wanted to talk with aides in twenty-five offices, they had this huge pool to do it.” The cooperation that developed in CAWG drew high praise from participants. “That was our best—working cooperatively,” said CNFMP director Richard Healey. “It was well done,” said SANE director David Cortright. “I had the impression it was like Monday lobby group on arms control, very focused, very business like around legislation.” Healey credited CAWG coordinators Cindy Buhl and Bill Spencer with keeping the committee on task and maintaining the spirit of teamwork among the autonomous groups.32 The leftist solidarity groups, Nicaragua Network and CISPES, were fully engaged in the political program, distancing themselves from radical leftists who eschewed political lobbying in favor of building grassroots support for sweeping social transformation. “We mobilized CISPES around contra aid because it was the big legislative battle,” said Van Gosse, CISPES student outreach coordinator. If the Reagan administration and its rightist allies “won on that, they could win everything else. Whereas, if they were pushed back, if they were wholly or partially defeated on contra aid, then we would have space to win on something else.” He added that “it was a mark of the increasing realism and maturity of my organization that we did get involved.”33 CAWG’s lobbying strategy typically involved targeting “swing votes,” those members of Congress who had either changed their vote on Central America legislation or indicated some willingness to do so. Fewer than one in seven House and Senate members were considered “swing votes” on the contra aid issue. These select members of Congress were the focus of heavy lobbying from both sides in their home districts and in Washington. One

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designated “swing vote,” Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), had voted against authorizing covert operations in Central America in December 1982 but was considered susceptible to administration pressure and thus targeted by all concerned for constituent pressure. In early 1984 the senator received so many letters and phone calls on the contra aid issue that he set up a special meeting at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Philadelphia in mid-March. Specter brought with him to the meeting James Michael, deputy secretary of state for inter-American affairs, to explain the administration’s position. When Michael spoke, according to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer, most of the audience of 150 “jeered, hissed and, at one point, stood and turned their backs.” Twenty-five people reportedly spoke against U.S. policy and no one spoke in favor of it. Among the critics were Kenneth Sharp, political science professor at Swarthmore College, and Phillip Berryman of AFSC.34 The meeting did not immediately persuade Specter, as he voted in June for a $14 million contra aid measure. In 1985 and 1986, however, he reversed himself and voted against all contra aid proposals. In the House of Representatives, CAWG members worked closely with the House Democratic Task Force on Central America, chaired by Rep. David Bonior. Kathy Gille, Bonior’s legislative assistant who staffed the task force, described the relationship with CAWG as “synergistic.” She attended CAWG’s weekly meetings, which were usually held at the Methodist building across from the Capitol. “It was the best experience of my life working with that group of people,” she reflected, “people who were so profoundly committed” to changing public policy. “They were able to hold out an alternative view and to do it in a way that appealed to Congress. They had a sophisticated lobbying strategy.” The House task force rated members of Congress on a one-tofive scale on the contra aid issue, ranging from those who strongly opposed contra aid to Reagan’s ardent supporters. What was most important in terms of influencing the middle range of congressional representatives was the framing of issues, according to Gille. The battle over contra aid “was largely a matter of perceptions,” she said. The Reagan administration framed the issues as a “communist takeover” in Nicaragua and the “threat of Nicaraguan expansion into El Salvador.” The task force countered with alternative frames: “no more Vietnams,” international law, human rights, and democratic accountability (highlighting the misuse of funds). Gille credited the people and organizations involved in CAWG with “continually feeding us alternative viewpoints from the region.”35

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Rep. David Bonior was appointed by Speaker O’Neill to lead the Task Force on Central America when the first Boland Amendment came up in early 1982. His work included lobbying other members of Congress, speaking to the media, monitoring diplomatic negotiations, and strategizing with groups such as CAWG. “There was a huge network of people and organizations in the country working on this,” he said. “It was quite an amazing network. We had a really good connection with religious groups.” In 1985 the task force was renamed the Democratic Leadership Council on Central America. On a half dozen occasions Bonior was asked to present the Democratic Party’s response to Ronald Reagan’s Saturday morning radio addresses on Central America. He also brought members of Congress to Nicaragua in order “to see our point of view,” as he said. Bonior was strongly committed to ending the Contra War. “The fact that we were arming and financing the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua was very, very disturbing to me,” he said. “I was opposed to this kind of imperialism. Cold War proxies end up in wars in which people lose their lives.” IPS director Robert Borosage described Bonior as “a huge champion against the contras,” one who earned great respect from ACWC groups.36 Born in 1945, Bonior grew up in a working class neighborhood in Detroit and attended Catholic schools. “My interest in Central America started with nuns interested in Haiti and Nicaragua,” he said. He learned about the corruption of the Somoza regime and liberation theology, absorbing its principled worldview. “Somewhere in grade school that message was drubbed into me.” Bonior served in the U.S. Air Force from 1968 to 1972, but not in Vietnam, and graduated from Chapman College with a master’s degree in history. He was elected to the Michigan state house of representatives in 1972 and to the U.S. Congress in 1976. As a freshman in the House, he was put on the Panama Canal Subcommittee and spent much of his time working with the Carter administration on the Panama Canal treaties. He often traveled to Panama and spent time in Nicaragua as well. Being aware of the history of U.S. intervention in the region and its ill effects, Bonior was “inclined to let the revolution play itself out,” as he said. “They ought to have the right to play out their own destiny.” Bonior became the chief deputy whip under Speaker Jim Wright in 1987. He was actively involved in the diplomatic negotiations leading up to the Esquipulas accords of August 1987.37 The lobbying efforts of Bonior’s task force and CAWG were greatly assisted by revelations in April 1984 of the Reagan administration’s illegal mining of

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Nicaragua harbors. Incensed at the administration’s callous disregard for democratic accountability, the House passed a second Boland Amendment in July and again in October, which cut off all contra funding for FY 1985. The House refused to accommodate the Senate this time, and U.S. aid to the contras officially ceased. It was a great political victory for the ACWC, but tenuous. Moreover, contra attacks continued unabated in Nicaragua due to the administration’s illegal supply network. On December 1, 1983, representatives of several national organizations met to discuss how to build a stronger and more politically influential Central America movement.38 Out of this meeting came two new, overlapping projects, the Central America Peace Campaign (CAPC) and the Central America Education Project (CAEP). CAPC was designated the main vehicle for political organizing, while CAEP was the tax-deductible agency for producing educational materials. Both were employed in “a coordinated field operation to do grassroots education in key areas throughout the country,” the political goal being to generate pressure on swing members of Congress. By mid-1984 sixteen national organizations were serving on the CAPC steering committee, including religious and secular peace groups, solidarity groups, and Washington policy groups.39 It was a genuine cooperative effort among the various groups, although funding was tenuous. Nine of these organizations committed staff and resources to the grassroots-building project, which focused on a dozen congressional districts. CAPC also hired four field organizers to work in Texas, South Florida, and the state of Washington. The field operation stimulated activism and raised public awareness in the applicable regions, but the immediate political benefits were slight. Only one representative changed his or her vote. Republican Rep. Joel Pritchard of the first district in Washington had voted against contra aid in July 1983, then for it in October that year. In May 1984, after much lobbying pressure, he voted against contra aid again—a success for the ACWC. To secure the latter vote, field organizer Jamie K. Donaldson persuaded ten labor leaders, four church leaders, and three members of a newly formed commission, the Mayor’s Commission on Central America, to send telegrams or call Pritchard. Donaldson arranged for a twelve-member delegation to meet with Prichard on March 20. He also organized a petition drive that involved thirty organizations in the area. The petitions were delivered to Prichard with more than seven thousand signatures. Unfortunately for the ACWC, Pritchard was replaced in 1985

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by John Miller, a conservative Republican who consistently supported contra aid. Notwithstanding the letdown, the Central America Peace Campaign in the state of Washington continued even after the national office folded at the end of 1986. CAPC’s most important role was to represent the Central America movement at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, July 14–19, 1984. On May 10 SANE held a press conference to announce a “major effort on Central America” in regard to the upcoming Democratic Party convention. “We are one of the peace groups which worked hard to end the war in Vietnam,” said director David Cortright. “We have no intention of allowing this administration to put our country back in that situation again.”40 Prior to the convention, CAPC organizers sent educational packets and questionnaires to hundreds of delegates and promoted a media ad campaign with the slogan “Talks Not Troops.” At the convention itself, CAPC hosted an initial reception for delegates followed by daily briefings for both delegates and the press. CAPC gained valuable allies in two presidential hopefuls, Sen. Gary Hart and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Hart’s “Central America Peace Plank” opposed “unilateral intervention” and sought “to make clear in the record the difference between the Democratic Party and the Reagan Administration with respect to our approach in Central America.” Jackson, after traveling to Nicaragua in late June, more pointedly called for an end to contra aid and the removal of all U.S. military installations in Honduras. “Our foreign policy must be characterized by mutual respect, not by gunboat diplomacy, big stick diplomacy, and threats,” he declared in his keynote address on July 18. Vice-President Walter Mondale was on record as opposing contra aid, but he took the position at the convention that the party platform was not the place to restrict foreign policy options. A Los Angeles Times poll of 92 percent of the convention delegates found that 84 percent of those polled thought that President Reagan’s Central American policy should be an important issue in the fall campaign, with 10 percent saying it should be the most important. CAPC’s own questionnaire, returned by 1,003 delegates, or 25 percent of the total, found that 90 percent were opposed to the “CIA arming and supporting rebels in Nicaragua trying to overthrow the Sandinista government in that country.”41 Delegates to the Democratic Party convention ultimately approved a peace plank on Central America, but the long prelude in the document actually reinforced some of President Reagan’s cherished themes—that the Sandinistas were totalitarian and were intent on promoting revolution elsewhere—before calling

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for an end to contra aid. The relevant passages in the platform on Nicaragua began by declaring that Reagan’s policies were a failure for having made the hemisphere more unstable, more hostile to the United States, and more impoverished. It also noted that “our support for the contras and for the covert war has strengthened the totalitarians at the expense of the moderates,” and that the “Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaragua have all encouraged instability and supported revolution in the region.” The peace plank nevertheless ended with an unequivocal policy statement: “We must terminate our support for the Contras and other paramilitary groups fighting in Nicaragua. We must halt those U.S. military exercises in the region which are being conducted for no other real purpose than to intimidate or provoke the Nicaraguan government or which may be used as a pretext for deeper U.S. military involvement in the area. And, we must evidence our firm willingness to work for a demilitarized Central America, including the mutual withdrawal of all foreign forces and military advisers from the region.”42 In the aftermath of the Democratic convention, the Democratic Party nominee, Walter Mondale, shifted rightward in response to a barrage of charges by President Reagan portraying him as weak on defense. In mid-September Mondale said that if the Sandinistas “rejected a good-faith compromise and continued to export revolution in Central America, he would respond with a ‘quarantine.’ ”43 Mondale’s backtracking did not inoculate him from rhetorical attacks from the right. Indeed, in the sole foreign policy debate of the election campaign, which was nationally televised on October 20, 1984, Reagan accused the former vice-president of offering the Soviets “unilateral concessions” on arms control, of voting “against military strength in the 1970s,” of being “possessed” by the idea that U.S. military strength constitutes “a threat to world peace,” and of devoting his “political career to opposing strength, exposing us to dangerous unnecessary risks.”44 Mondale’s retreat from the Democratic Party platform was disheartening to anti–Contra War activists, to say the least. Although Congress had cut off funds for the contras in 1984 and U.S. public opinion remained steadfastly opposed to contra aid, activists were uneasy over future political prospects.

Educational Outreach Educational outreach involved the promotion of ACWC themes and arguments by numerous parties through various means—speeches, newsletters, press releases, and so forth—to a range of audiences. The purpose of educational

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outreach was not only to inform and persuade people, but also to encourage them to take responsibility for their government’s actions and to become involved in the ACWC. For those already persuaded, mainly in liberal and left quarters, education was still needed to reinforce the importance of the issue amid competing issues and to keep people apprised of international and political developments and campaign strategies. Rather than “preaching to the choir,” such educational outreach served to cultivate a base of informed supporters, members, and volunteers willing and able to expand the reach of the campaign. An important part of educational outreach involved bringing the reality of the Contra War closer to the people of the United States. The geographical proximity of Nicaragua combined with the FSLN government’s openness to visitors and the relative safety of Nicaraguan cities allowed for easy travel. The novelty of U.S. citizens visiting the land of the “enemy” became the source of many house parties, community presentations, and newsletter articles. Although most did not go into war zones, the effects of the Contra War were visible in this small nation; and the hospitality of the Nicaraguan people, as well as the freedom to travel around the country, marked a sharp contrast to the “totalitarian” image of Nicaragua put forth by the Reagan administration. Many of the talk and slideshow presentations of returning visitors focused on particular developments in Sandinista Nicaragua, such as medical care, education, or women’s rights, which often attracted people with similar interests in U.S. communities. One common educational vehicle across the nation was “Central America Week,” held annually in March to commemorate the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero. Promoted nationally by the two religious task forces, RTFCA and IRTFCA (Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America), the content of activities was left up to local groups. In Philadelphia the week of activities in March 1983 included presentations by Salvadoran refugees, “teach-ins” on U.S. foreign policy at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, a talk on health care in Nicaragua by Dr. Mercedes Zweigle, and a program on women in Central America. David Funkhouser, director of the Central America Organizing Project in Philadelphia (and former coordinator of Nicaragua Network), raised the memory of the Vietnam War in speaking to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Many people see a lot of parallels between the way this country is getting involved in Central America and the way it entered the war in Southeast Asia,” he said.45 The Vietnam analogy became the number one theme among ACWC groups in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Mobilization for Survival launched a national recruitment campaign with the slogan “Do you have five

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minutes to prevent another Vietnam in Central America?” A New York City group, Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, placed an advertisement in the New York Times ( January 22, 1984), which read: “Vietnam? We are starting down the Vietnam road again. Thousands of U.S. troops are already on the ground in Honduras.” The ad listed more than seventy upcoming Central America events in northeastern cities, including poetry readings, films, lectures, performances, and an “art and solidarity” panel discussion.46 The task of producing both readily usable information and in-depth background papers fell to a number of Washington policy organizations: Center for International Policy, Central America Historical Institute, Commission on U.S.–Central American Relations, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, IPS, Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center, and Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA). On the weightier side of educational materials was PACCA’s signature work, Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean, published in January 1984. The lengthy booklet did not actually offer a blueprint for the future but rather a principled, historical analysis that challenged the “ill-fitting East-West framework on Central America.” Its conclusion inverted the conservative Cold War ideological paradigm: “The historical enemies of freedom and justice in the small countries of Central America have not been communists, much less Soviets, but the ruling aristocracies whose militaries have been trained by the United States and by U.S. forces themselves.”47 With articles and information on Central America proliferating, the Central America Resource Center in Austin, Texas, began publishing the Central America Writers Bulletin in the spring of 1983. This semiannual publication provided annotated lists of all newspaper articles and books on Central America published during the previous six months—a useful tool for researchers and writers. The center also surveyed Central America groups and produced a directory identifying each group’s issues, activities, location, and national affiliations. The first directory came out in 1984. An updated third edition in 1987 listed 1,075 local, state, and national organizations working on Central America issues.48 Apart from activist groups and religious denominations, the ACWC had many allies among independent progressive media. Ample criticism of Reagan’s Central America policies could be found in popular magazines such as The Nation, The Progressive, and Mother Jones; in Latin Americanist journals such as NACLA Report on the Americas, Envío, and Nicaraguan Perspectives (initiated by the Nicaraguan Information Center in Berkeley in July 1981); in religious

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journals such as Sojourners, Christianity and Crisis, and Tikkun; and on Pacifica Radio, which ran its first series on the Contra War in July 1982 and maintained a steady stream of reports and interviews.49 The ACWC also had a few consistent allies in the mainstream media, such as syndicated columnists Tom Wicker and Anthony Lewis. Wicker wrote more than one hundred articles critical of the Reagan administration’s Central America policies during the 1980s, with the first published on June 1, 1982. To take one example, Wicker wrote on March 27, 1984, “It’s sheer hypocrisy, too, for Mr. Reagan to push a guerrilla insurgency against Nicaragua while denouncing such tactics in El Salvador. . . . What does he imagine the efforts of the C.I.A.-directed contras amount to, if not ‘state terrorism’?”50

IFCO’s Central America Information Weeks One organization that made a noteworthy contribution to both educating the wider public and building grassroots organizations was the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO). Founded in 1967 for the purpose of creating and sustaining organizations dedicated to social justice, IFCO took up Central America work in the summer of 1983. “We became convinced that our main task was education,” said Rev. Lucius Walker, an African American Baptist pastor and director of IFCO. There was “abysmal ignorance” of the region; and “people had blinders on” as to “the historical role that the U.S. had played in Nicaragua and the region.” The means of education chosen by Walker and the IFCO staff were statewide Central America Information Weeks (not to be confused with annual Central America weeks), in which hundreds of educational activities were organized across a state in a single week. Walker’s own dedication to social justice began in Union County, New Jersey, where he grew up. While in high school, he “got a call to ministry,” as he put it, which entailed a commitment to social justice. “The realities of my family and community led me to see that there were some basic systemic root causes to the poverty and issues we were facing,” reflected Walker. “I was called to address those realities as a central objective of my ministry.” After graduating from Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts and becoming an ordained American Baptist minister, he began working at a Christian Center in Milwaukee in 1957. From 1973 to 1978 he served as the associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches. Philosophically, Walker was of the view that there was “no contradiction whatsoever” between Christianity and Marxism.

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The first Central America Information Week took place in Kansas in September 1983. This was followed by campaigns in Washington, Oregon, and Ohio in 1984, and in Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky in subsequent years. IFCO typically brought to a state thirty-five to forty resource people who had lived or worked in Central America or who were themselves Central American. “We were just bringing people together and giving them an opportunity to talk and share,” said Walker. “We tried to keep it as simple and direct as possible, and free of jargon as possible. We did not use language of the extreme left.” Walker wanted people from the United States and Central America “to meet so they could eyeball each other and share their analyses. . . . The point was to break through cultural and ideological barriers, and encourage empathy and understanding.” IFCO field organizers Sharon Haas and Don McClain would typically arrive in a state three months in advance of the targeted week of activities in order to recruit community activists as local coordinators and discuss possible speaking engagements and media interviews. The mass of activities undertaken generally attracted favorable media coverage. According to Walker, IFCO activities “were able to turn a lot of editorial policies around and get the media to cover issues that they were not covering.” IFCO organizers were diligent in keeping records and assessing their work. IFCO’s first four statewide campaigns produced 150 events in 31 Kansas communities, 222 events in 37 Washington communities, 201 events in 36 Oregon communities, and 607 events in 97 Ohio communities. The Ohio campaign, said Sheila Darrow of the Ohio Council of Churches, was “by all accounts a success.” Following the week of activities in Ohio (November 11–18, 1984), a meeting was held on December 1 for the purpose of establishing a permanent statewide network. Local group representatives attending agreed to form a coordinating committee that would circulate information on resources, speakers, legislative bills, travel tours, and work opportunities in Nicaragua, and coordinate lobbying delegations, a legislative-alert phone tree, and a statewide Emergency Response Network (the Pledge sign-up). Like AFSC, IFCO was generous in its organizing work, offering much to local groups and asking little in return other than participation. Unlike AFSC, however, IFCO ran on a very tight budget and was not part of the Washington lobby network or the ad hoc coalitions that planned demonstrations. IFCO kept its focus on building grassroots organizations and sustaining local activism. IFCO organizers routinely encountered “feelings of ineffectiveness” and “discouragement, despair, and exhaustion” among activists; and they sought to counter this

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by helping to develop well-organized groups with clear goals and a division of labor. In working with local and state organizations, IFCO maintained a strict policy of openness and inclusion. “We always insisted that whenever we came to town, we would never participate in any divisiveness,” said Walker. “There might have been some people on the left who did not want to sit down with other people. We were not going to allow in any way our strategy to be diverted by sectarianism. At least they would have to sit at the same table. We would have it no other way.”51

AFSC’s Media Project In mid-1984, the AFSC staff held a meeting in Philadelphia in which they assessed the overall state of the Central America movement, including its progress in promoting educational themes. Under the heading of “relative successes,” they noted public identification of the “contras as terrorists” and recognition of “the economic roots of the conflict.” They deemed the movement “less successful” in generating “enthusiasm for the Contadora process.” Under the heading of “setbacks or failures,” they listed the public’s tenuous grasp of the “reality of war in El Salvador and Nicaragua,” the difficulty of countering “administration depictions of Sandinista Nicaragua as repressive, undemocratic, Cuba-like,” and “public ignorance of the principle of self-determination.” Out of this reflective discussion came a renewed commitment to “reframe the debate in the media.”52 That commitment took shape in the new Central America Media Project, suggested by AFSC staff persons Phillip Berryman, Angela Berryman, and Jack Malinowski. According to Angela Berryman, writing in July 1984, newspaper editorial writers “have not given detailed consideration to alternative proposals, in part because they have had little access to information on them.” The media project involved putting together packets of information and recruiting local volunteers to deliver these packets personally to editorial boards and international news editors. The targets were “the 300 daily papers which constitute the vast majority of newspapers in the United States, as well as local T.V. and radio stations.” The media packets included PACCA’s Changing Course, two pamphlets written by Phillip Berryman, What’s Wrong in Central America and What to Do About It (AFSC, 1984) and Talking Sense about Nicaragua (AFSC, 1984), and materials on the Contadora negotiations and Central American refugees. A new staff person was hired to coordinate the project, and in early December 475 media packets were sent to local contacts. As it turned out, fewer than one hundred of the local contacts actually

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arranged meetings with media personnel. The others, according to an AFSC follow-up report, “had lost their nerve about going to the newspaper because they anticipated a hostile response.” Those who did meet with media personnel generally received a favorable hearing. In the case of the Newport News in Virginia, for example, a visiting delegation of four was encouraged by the editor, Ernie Gates, to submit op-ed articles to the paper in the future. The overall meager results of the Central America Media Project suggested to the AFSC staff that local contacts and activists, especially those living in conservative communities, “needed more support, encouragement, and training” and “that the program operated on an unrealistic, short time frame.”53 That assessment could well apply to CAPC’s grassroots organizing project and other educational efforts, which generally required more time, consistency, expertise, and resources in order to reframe the debate. All in all, the educational efforts of ACWC groups were most effective in local settings where personal experiences in Nicaragua were invoked. Influencing the mass media was more difficult, but opponents of the Contra War at least offered a critical discourse and made progress on some themes.

Transnational Activities Transnational activities in 1983 and 1984 were many and varied. Dozens of national and local organizations sponsored study tours of Sandinista Nicaragua. Many employed the services of Marazul Tours or Tropical Tours, professional travel agencies located in New York City. Over the course of the decade, Marazul alone arranged for 25,000 people to travel to Nicaragua, according to program director Bob Guild. He described the agency’s purpose as helping “Americans to see Third World countries with social systems different from our own. . . . We’re not saying they should love these systems; we’re just saying they should try to understand them.”54 One of the more popular tours focused on the Nicaraguan elections scheduled for November 4, 1984. Between August 1 and October 31, 1984, Marazul arranged twenty-four group tours, each lasting ten to fourteen days. Tropical Tours similarly organized tours lasting eight days. The latter included meetings with representatives of the FSLN, opposition political parties, the Supreme Electoral Council, La Prensa, Barricada, the Antonio Valdivieso Ecumenical Center, the Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women,

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neighborhood defense committees, trade unions, and agricultural cooperatives; and there were visits to factories, schools, agricultural cooperatives, hospitals, and childcare centers.55 Apart from study tours, some norteamericanos learned about the new Nicaragua by attending one of the progressive Spanish language schools in the country. Casa Nicaragüense de Español, located in Managua, held language classes in the morning and arranged educational meetings and cultural activities in the afternoon and evening.

Witness for Peace In April 1983 Gail Phares led a group of thirty religious leaders to three northern border towns of Nicaragua that had recently been attacked by the contras. According to Phares, “One of these villages was under attack when we arrived. We were within 200 yards of the Honduran border where the contra leader who called himself ‘El Diablo’ was based. The people told us that the contras had stopped shooting because they could see us. I remember thinking, ‘We have got to stop President Reagan from destroying the Nicaraguan revolution—as the U.S. had done in Guatemala in 1954.’ ” On the bus returning to Managua, the visiting norteamericanos talked about holding a large vigil of U.S. citizens in the Nicaraguan war zone. The following week, Phares and others discussed the idea with CEPAD leaders Sixto Ulloa and Gustavo Parajón, who in turn arranged a meeting with FSLN officials Ernesto Cardenal, Sergio Ramírez, and Tomás Borge. Interior Minister Borge was reluctant to allow North Americans to put themselves in danger, lest the Reagan administration use them as an excuse for intervention, but ultimately he approved the vigil “in a place where you would be safe.”56 Phares returned to North Carolina and began making contacts out of her office at the Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America (CITCA), located in Durham, North Carolina, enlisting the support of the IRTFCA and other groups. On the Nicaraguan side, CEPAD handled arrangements for an upcoming trip. A CEPAD flyer listed the first purpose of the trip as “stop the killing in the Nicaraguan border zone.” Another purpose was to “increase international support for the people of Nicaragua.”57 On July 2, 1983, a delegation of 157 North Americans from thirty-one states and Puerto Rico arrived in Managua. Many brought with them small gifts such as baseballs for their hosts in Jalapa. On the ten-hour trip from Managua to Jalapa, military vehicles with Nicaraguan troops escorted the caravan, as contras were known to be in the area. According to Chuck Jacobsen, a high school teacher from Tallahassee, Florida, “The bus got stuck on the way there and the group proceeded

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to ride in open pickup trucks to Jalapa.” Upon arriving, the group was briefed on the military situation. Residents showed them a bomb shelter covered with wood they had built, and pieces of U.S.-made mortar shells and oil cans they had collected. The visitors slept that night in a brand new school built by the Sandinista government, guarded by soldiers on the perimeter.58 The visitors heard many stories over the next few days. The highlight of the trip was a vigil on July 6 in which guests and hosts held hands across a field. On the last night there, about 20 people attended a meeting to discuss plans for a permanent witness. One month later, CEPAD leaders and a small group of Americans led by David Sweet, a professor of Latin American history, managed to secure the FSLN government’s approval of a permanent witness project. An agreement was reached in which the American witnesses would be given the same travel privileges as foreign journalists, allowing them to travel in all but the most dangerous areas.59 The new organization would be called Acción Permanente Cristiana por la Paz (Permanent Christian Action for Peace) in Nicaragua and Witness for Peace in the United States. Witness for Peace (WFP) was formally established at a meeting of twenty people in Philadelphia on October 8–10, 1983. The group was all white and highly educated, with a wealth of progressive organizing experience. A steering committee of six was named and Yvonne Dilling, at the age of twenty-eight, was chosen as national coordinator. The group agreed on three principles for the new organization: nonviolence, nonpartisanship in relation to the FSLN, and public identification as a “biblically-based community of U.S. citizens who stand with the Nicaraguan people.” The latter language represented a compromise between those who wanted to define the group as Christian and those who sought a broader religious identity. Jim Wallis argued for the former, while Phyllis Taylor, a Jew, argued for the latter. Despite the compromise, Wallis presented the new organization in the November 1983 issue of Sojourners with a Christian overlay, writing, “We are moved not by any political ideology or program, but by the call of faith. . . . We remember that the peace of Christ, which we have been given to share, was won through the cross.” The first WFP press release on November 17, 1983, was more down to earth, explaining the group’s purposes as, first, to “establish a human shield to protect the people of Nicaragua from the violence of the U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary forces,” and second, to generate public opposition to “the covert war being waged by the U.S. government against the people of Nicaragua.”60 WFP’s type of nonviolent action was well suited to Yvonne Dilling. She

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had traveled through Nicaragua in September 1979 and worked in Honduras with Salvadoran refugees in the early 1980s. “The experiences in Nicaragua left me with a political realism,” she wrote to a pacifist friend in 1981. She noted with some consternation that the violent revolution in Nicaragua had succeeded, whereas nonviolent attempts to remove the Somoza regime had failed. Moreover, despite the violence of the revolution, the Sandinista government had inaugurated a new era of hope and progress in Nicaragua. The lesson for Dilling was that nonviolent action, if it is to have real value, must be strategic and effective.61 Gail Phares was similarly oriented toward productive results. She wanted thousands of U.S. citizens to travel to Nicaragua and witness firsthand the effects of the Contra War in order to “come back rarin’ to go” as community activists. “We need organizers, not dead people,” she quipped.62 Gail Phares grew up in a devout Catholic family in Devils Lake, North Dakota, the oldest of nine children. She attended Catholic schools and developed a strong desire to help people, along with a “strong sense of God’s love and presence.” In 1957 she joined the Maryknoll order. Her service as a nun, she said, “took me out of my comfort zone—out of my comfortable life in North Dakota—and in time would make it possible for me to live and work in Nicaragua and later Guatemala.” She became critically conscious of the role played by the U.S. government and capitalism in the poverty she saw in both countries. Living in Siuma, Nicaragua, from 1963 to 1966, she shared a house with Maura Clarke, one of the four American women murdered by Salvadoran security forces in December 1980. In Guatemala she witnessed the ruthless counter-insurgency campaign carried out by Guatemalan security forces, with the assistance of U.S. arms and trainers. “Over 200,000 people were killed by the Guatemalan Army, mostly unarmed peasants but also students, college professors, trade union organizers, journalists, priests, pastors, and nuns,” said Phares. “Many of my students and friends were murdered. People were tortured, disappeared, and killed because they dared to live and preach the Gospel.” Phares left the Maryknoll Order in 1970 but retained her commitment to the liberating social justice mission of the church. During the next decade, she married Robert Phares, a Social Security administrative judge, gave birth to two daughters, earned a master’s degree in Latin American studies from American University, and worked in Washington with the Interamerican Foundation, overseeing antipoverty projects in Latin America. During the 1980s, she applied her considerable energy and organizational talents to the Central America movement, helping to found three national organizations—NISGUA, Witness

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for Peace, and the Pledge of Resistance—along with CITCA, which developed twenty-six chapters in the Carolinas. She later wrote that at times she became emotionally exhausted and “it was difficult to balance everything.” She praised her husband, Bob, for making her work possible “through his support for our daughters and our family.” Phares never lost her sense of mission: “My family extends to people all across the world. I believe that as people of faith we are called to work for the Kingdom now—for peace and justice.”63 Witness for Peace quickly moved into action following the October 1983 meeting. Within two months, Dilling, the steering committee, and many dedicated volunteers had set up offices in Washington, DC, Durham, and Santa Cruz; established an advisory committee of influential religious leaders; sent out fund-raising appeals to potential supporters; and organized the first long- and short-term delegations to Nicaragua, aided by twenty-seven local support groups that formed around the country. The support groups grew to ninety by April 1984. On October 27, 1983, four long-term volunteers arrived in Jalapa, followed five weeks later by the first short-term delegation. Thus began, said Phares, “the longest nonviolent presence in an active war zone in history.”64 In 1984 WFP sent two short-term delegations a month on average, each with eighteen people. According to a WFP report: “These delegations traveled the dangerous roads, shared with Nicaraguan families, worked in the fields with their Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, experiencing to a degree the tension, the danger, the fear experienced each day by campesinos in the war zone. The delegations then returned to the U.S., ready to relate these experiences.”65 Long-term volunteers focused initially on coordinating short-term delegations in Nicaragua but soon began documenting contra attacks as well. This was deemed necessary because of a dearth of news about such attacks in the U.S. media in 1983 and much of 1984. On June 2, 1984, long-term volunteer Peter Olson discovered a copy of the CIAproduced Freedom Fighter’s Manual, which set off a chain of communications that ultimately led to a national exposé of this “assassination manual” in October. Long-term volunteers gradually branched out from Jalapa, establishing a presence in Ocotal, Somotillo, San Pedro del Norte, Jinotega, Matagalpa, Paiwas, San Juan del Sur, and Bluefields on the eastern coast. Their reporting also expanded to cover various developments in Nicaragua, including the Nicaraguan electoral process in 1984 (interviewing different political party leaders about their freedom to organize and campaign), the military situation, and the relationship between the Sandinista government and churches. Information and documentation was relayed from the field to the Managua office, then to the Washington

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office, where it was repackaged into press releases, WFP newsletter articles, and mailings to local contacts. Successful fund-raising appeals allowed WFP to expand its staff in Washington and to hire its first coordinator in Managua, Arnold Snyder, in February 1984. The highlight of 1984 was the WFP-sponsored National Peace Vigil in Nicaragua from June 26 to July 4; it included a ceremony in Jalapa in which some two hundred U.S. citizens participated. The first WFP delegations received mixed reviews in the U.S. press. The fact that Americans were traveling to war zones in Nicaragua was deemed newsworthy, but perspectives on the credibility of the organization varied. One of the more positive articles, published in the Washington Post (December 1, 1983), described WFP as an “unusual experiment in political nonviolence” that had grown out of the religious community. The reporter Marjorie Hyer noted that, despite the dangers in Nicaragua, the WFP office “has been flooded with applicants,” such that its rotation teams were filled through 1984.66 Anne Keegan, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (August 4, 1984), on the other hand, portrayed WFP as a brainwashing operation. Without identifying anyone by name or using any direct quotes, Keegan wrote of the U.S. visitors: “Some thought they had been given a guided, pro-government tour that shielded them from some of the negative realities of the Sandinista government. Others thought they had been herded around blindly and led to so many vigils that the vigils had become meaningless.”67 The WFP office in Washington tried to keep the focus on contra attacks, but both WFP delegations and the media were often more interested in the nature of the new Nicaragua. The first short-term delegation from Florida, for example, which traveled to Nicaragua in September 1984, produced a lengthy paper assessing human rights, economic and social programs, military conscription, and church-state relations—in addition to documenting the results of contra attacks. “We went to Nicaragua motivated by a primary concern for the victims of war and violence,” wrote team member John Frank in his summary report. “Most of us left Nicaragua with both supportive and critical feelings about the Sandinista government, but all of us believe that the positive forces for economic justice since the revolution deserve our nurture and support.” After a three-day training period, the twelve-person Florida delegation traveled to the north-central area near the Honduran border, staying in Jalapa, San Juan de Limay, and La Estancia, the latter being a cooperative resettlement project. They ate and worked alongside their hosts, celebrated a birthday party, worshipped at churches, and listened to stories. In talking with residents, the norteamericanos recorded the names of persons who had been killed, wounded,

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or kidnapped in recent contra attacks and the circumstances surrounding those attacks. In Managua they met with Bob Fretz, consul general of the U.S. Embassy. Fretz defended administration policy, but equivocated on some points, according to Frank. Regarding the contras, Fretz told the visiting group, “there isn’t one other country on the face of the earth that has stood up and said, ‘Yes, we think you are right to support the Contras, we think they’re a great bunch of guys.’ ” Asked about Reagan’s demeaning descriptions of Nicaragua, Fretz said, “Would I call Nicaragua a reign of communist terror and a totalitarian dungeon? I wouldn’t.”68 The Gainesville Sun wrote a story about Frank and the Florida WFP delegation. Headlined “ ‘Witness for Peace’ Says He Saw Genuine Progress in Nicaragua,” the article did not mention the Contra War until the seventh paragraph. More interesting to the reporter were Frank’s comments on positive developments in Sandinista Nicaragua: illiteracy and infant mortality down, health care and farm ownership up, and pluralistic democracy moving forward.69 All WFP delegates committed themselves to speaking to community groups and local media upon their return. “We encouraged education in the community,” said Dilling, such as writing opinion columns and letters to the editor, and speaking to community groups. “The media team at Sojourners would say, You have a local angle on an international issue, so use your local opportunities. Speak to different groups, call your newspaper, let your church do a send-off and do a press release; get covered.” What caught the attention of the press, said Dilling, was the local angle and “making it personal. It’s not just that this nation is suffering the effects of U.S. foreign policy, it’s this person I met . . . José, who has lost his children due to the contras, paid for by U.S. tax dollars.”70 WFP’s educational activities at the national level included arranging a speaking tour for five Nicaraguan church workers, holding forty-eight “Citizen Hearings on Nicaragua” across the United States in October 1984, and publishing a booklength report, Bitter Witness, documenting contra attacks.71

International Work Brigades (Nicaragua Network) On November 10, 1983, two weeks after the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the Nicaraguan government issued a call for assistance in harvesting the valuable coffee crop. Contra attacks had caused massive relocations, and rural communities were being forced to maintain twenty-four hour vigilance, leading to a critical shortage of labor. Most of the labor needed was supplied by Nicaraguans, but some 1,500 internationalists answered the call for help as well, including 660 U.S. citizens.

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Like WFP delegations, the North American brigadistas saw their mission as one of “accompaniment” with Nicaraguans; but unlike the former, they identified themselves as witnesses to the benefits of the Sandinista Revolution as well. As the Brigadista Bulletin explained, “Brigadistas have a special role as witnesses to the daily reality of the war against Nicaragua that our government is sponsoring. We are witnesses, as well, to the literal meaning of the revolution in the lives of Nicaraguans: to their pride and faith as they defend what they are building.”72 As with WFP volunteers, the dangers, exhilaration, and camaraderie of the experience in Nicaragua had a galvanizing effect on those who went. Returning brigadistas launched the Brigadista Bulletin in February 1984 in order keep in touch with each other, share stories, and encourage activism. A section of the newsletter was devoted to discussing methods for educational outreach. In Vermont returning brigadistas joined WFP activists and others in setting up a statewide conference on March 24, 1984. Their activities in the state appeared to have some influence on Congressman James Jeffords, a moderate Republican who voted consistently against contra aid. He recorded in his memoir, “I knew that I had the support of many Vermonters; a score of towns had gone so far as to voice opposition to U.S. military intervention in Central America at their traditional town meetings.”73 Jeffords was elected to the Senate in 1988. Nicaragua Network organized four brigades in 1984: a cultural workers’ brigade in August, a reforestation brigade in September, a construction brigade in November, and another coffee harvest brigade over the winter of 1984–85. In the fall of 1984, Nicaragua Exchange was created to coordinate the expeditions, relieving the national office of this responsibility. Operating out of New York City, Nicaragua Exchange was formally incorporated under the fiscal sponsorship of the IFCO. The staff made concerted efforts to include “as many different kinds of people as possible, and not just longtime Nicaragua activists,” according to staff members. It recruited “Third World” participants (racial and ethnic minorities) and organized a brigade of veterans. The main hindrance in recruitment was that a brigadista needed two to four weeks free from work responsibilities and at least $1,000 for the trip. Nicaragua Exchange could provide only limited subsidies.74 A shortage of funds ultimately forced Nicaragua Exchange to dissolve in June 1987, thus returning the coordination of work brigades to Nicaragua Network.

CUSCLIN Yet another effect of the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983 was the formation of the Committee of U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua (CUSCLIN).

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Rev. Jim Goff served as the first coordinator of the group, which included many long-time U.S. religious workers in Nicaragua. CUSCLIN members wanted both the U.S. government and the Nicaraguan people to know that U.S. citizens in Nicaragua did not support the Reagan administration’s aggressive policies. Most important, they did not want to be used as an excuse for a U.S. invasion, as had happened in Grenada (the administration claimed that U.S. medical students were in danger). CUSCLIN began weekly vigils in front of the U.S. Embassy in Managua, an activity that quickly became a popular attraction for international visitors. According to CUSCLIN’s “Policy and Guidelines for Thursday Vigils,” the vigils were to be “a permanent witness to our rejection of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua.” Secondary purposes were to “express support for the Sandinista Revolution” and to “generate energy for ongoing organizing and consciousnessraising among visitors who will return to the U.S. and work in solidarity.” The guidelines mandated that the protests be peaceful, “respecting U.S. Embassy personnel and symbols (such as the U.S. flag).” Such courtesy was also good politics, as both CUSCLIN members and international visitors often met with Embassy personnel.75 In addition to holding weekly vigils, members of CUSCLIN served as guides and interpreters for visiting delegations. Like the WFP office in Managua, they kept their contacts in the United States apprised of developments in Nicaragua. CUSCLIN members were the subject of a twenty-seven-minute documentary film, Waiting for the Invasion: U.S. Citizens in Nicaragua (produced by Icarus Films in 1984). This professionally made film was shown on the Public Broadcasting Service and cable television, and at various theaters, universities, churches, community arts centers, museums, and film festivals in the United States. It won the Best Documentary award at the Global Village Documentary Festival in New York City in 1984.76

Humanitarian Aid Humanitarian aid projects originated out of different networks and focused on different needs within Nicaragua. Each project tapped into a different, if overlapping, constituency, drawing more people into the anti–Contra War campaign. In the summer of 1983, a group of U.S. women traveled to the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua “to witness the impact of the US sponsored contra war.” Upon return, they formed MADRE, an organization dedicated to educating the U.S. public about Nicaragua and raising funds for health clinics, child care centers,

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and other projects. Founding director Kathy Engel raised two million dollars in 1984 for the Bertha Calderón Hospital in Managua, a hospital specializing in women’s care. Operating out of New York City, this women-led group began a twinning project that paired Nicaraguan and U.S. day care centers, schools, and health clinics. MADRE also sponsored exchange tours of U.S. and Nicaraguan mothers and organized fund-raising drives to help Nicaraguan mothers sustain their families.77 Two groups operating out of California offered technical expertise to Sandinista Nicaragua. TecNica, based in Berkeley, sent agricultural technicians, computer engineers, and skilled trade workers, advertising its program as “liberation technology.” APSNICA (Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua), based in Topanga, provided building construction experts and donated building tools. Another project, Bikes Not Bombs, was initiated by Karl Kurz, based in Boston. Its purpose was to provide Nicaraguans with environmentally sound transportation and reduce the country’s dependence on oil. The organization donated hundreds of bikes and established a bicycle repair shop in Managua. Nicaragua Network, in addition to organizing work brigades, consolidated its humanitarian aid efforts under the Humanitarian Assistance for Nicaraguan Democracy (HAND) program. Funds were raised for agricultural, medical, and educational tools and supplies, which were directed to rural communities that had been disrupted by the war. AFSC also donated medical and school supplies along with toys. The Quixote Center, based in Hyattsville, Maryland, became a central hub for humanitarian aid projects through its systematic collection and shipment system. Bill Callahan, a Jesuit priest with a doctorate in physics, and Dolly Pomerleau, a former nun and high school principle, founded the Catholicbased Quixote Center in 1976. Callahan lived in Nicaragua for four months in early 1983, learning Spanish and exploring the country. Pomerleau traveled to Nicaragua in the fall of 1983 with a women’s delegation. “Everybody was coming back from Nicaragua and wanted to do something to help,” she said. The center first became involved in the provision of humanitarian aid in response to a request for medical supplies from Maryknoll sisters in Nicaragua. The Quixote Center appealed to its supporters, and the response was gratifying. The center was able to send $40,000 worth of medicines and equipment in early 1984. Over the next eighteen months, the Quixote Center developed an informal national network as it gathered four hundred tons of goods and supplies, valued at over $3 million, from individuals and groups. These were shipped in twenty-ton

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cargo containers, each costing about $6,000. The aid was distributed in Nicaragua by the Institute of John XXIII, a Jesuit social action agency headed by Ketxu Amezua. To encourage local groups to participate, the Quixote Center provided modest start-up grants. The center also developed a way to get medical supplies to Nicaragua quickly. “Everyone that went down with Witness for Peace took a thirty-pound blue duffle bag with medical supplies,” said Callahan. Like other groups, the Quixote Center blended its humanitarian aid efforts with educational activities. It published an easy-to-read booklet titled Nicaragua: Look at the Reality, which described the positive reforms taking place in Sandinista Nicaragua. Some 300,000 copies were freely distributed to individuals and groups.78

Sister Cities Sister cities originated in the 1950s as part of a Cold War cultural offensive. “People to People” programs, said President Dwight Eisenhower in September 1956, would “wage peace with all the vigor and resourcefulness and universal participation of wartime.”79 When the Wisconsin-Nicaragua Partners was launched in 1964, Wisconsin Governor John W. Reynolds praised the Somoza government as a “bastion of Western democracy and freedom, facing Castro and Communism.”80 The new United States–Nicaragua sister cities that formed in the 1980s were quite at odds with this Cold War perspective. The guiding ethos centered on dissolving enemy images through personal contact and cultural understanding. According to Wisconsin sister city activists Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton, “People-to-people contact re-humanizes the dehumanized images manufactured by the political factories of hate, the images which prepare us to do violence to one another.”81 Sister city projects had a number of desirable attributes for activists: they were locally organized (and not dependent on Washington); they facilitated travel and interpersonal relationships between U.S. and Nicaraguan citizens; they provided tangible benefits to the Nicaraguan people; and they served to educate U.S. citizens. In January 1984 Wisconsin activists created a new state network, the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN), which rejected the Cold War animosity of its predecessor in favor of a congenial relationship with Sandinista Nicaragua. WCCN became the center for a multitude of projects in the state, from putting together a collection of Nicaraguan poetry to sponsoring tours in Nicaragua of health professionals from the University of Wisconsin. Some called it “citizen diplomacy” or “détente from below.” More than forty-five local groups linked up with

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WCCN. The following year WCCN took on the additional role of facilitating sister city partnerships across the United States. Chilsen and Rampton later wrote a “how-to” book, Friends in Deed: The Story of U.S. Nicaragua Sister Cities (1988), in which they defined the sister city movement as “a means for U.S. citizens to learn more about Nicaragua without adopting a political commitment that they may not feel comfortable making.”82 This was a minimal definition, to be sure, as the organizing impetus for virtually all sister city programs came from dedicated Contra War opponents. Rampton himself noted that “the Contra War was the main reason I got involved in WCCN.” Still, the public promotion of sister cities in nonpolitical terms of “building friendship between peoples” served the ACWC well, as it drew “new” people into activism and allowed them to develop their views and commitments at their own pace. This moderate approach to organizing suited Sheldon Rampton personally. He had grown up in a devout Mormon family in Las Vegas and been “indoctrinated by this ideology,” as he put it. After a year of college at Princeton, he became a Mormon missionary in Japan for two years, where he learned to speak Japanese. As his political views developed, he quit the church and returned to college. He got involved with leftist causes, including Central America solidarity, while studying English at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1979. “I think when I started off I was something of an angry young man,” he said. “Not only was I a radical activist in college, I was also pretty hostile to religion.” That hostility dissolved as Rampton began working with religious activists like Art and Sue Lloyd, who served on the WCCN board with him. What is most important, said Rampton, is working with “people of good will.”83

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nlike the anti–Vietnam War movement, in which activist groups argued for years over whether to demand immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops or a negotiated settlement, there were no division in the anti–Contra War campaign over immediate political goals. Participating groups were united in seeking an immediate end to U.S. support for the contras, opposing a direct U.S. invasion of Nicaragua and, after May 1985, calling for an end to the U.S. trade embargo. These common political goals did much to mitigate differences in philosophies, organizing styles, tactical preferences, and constituencies. Although there was no central leadership body comparable to the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Clearinghouse in St. Louis, the ACWC and Central America movement developed a number of cooperative venues that served to align organizational strategies and activities: annual Central America weeks; lobbying and legislative strategy coordinated by the Central America Working Group (CAWG); nationally coordinated demonstrations (November 1983, April 1985, October 1986, and April 1987); a movement presence at the Democratic Party convention in 1984 via the Central America Peace Campaign (CAPC); a nationwide protest network via the Pledge of Resistance (POR); a United States–Nicaragua sister city movement facilitated by the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN); and a common humanitarian aid shipment system developed by the Quixote Center. [ 114 ]

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Whether the sum of these projects added up to a well-coordinated campaign is a matter of debate. David Reed, who followed Richard Healey as director of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP), described the anti-intervention movement in 1986 as “for the most part, reactive, unable to anticipate and prepare for coming events.” He bemoaned “the absence of a clear division of labor among the many groups in the anti-intervention movement” and an organizational tendency toward “turf protection.”1 The scholar-activist William M. LeoGrande was more sanguine about the Central America movement. “You had a degree of division of labor” and the “coordination of groups was quite good,” he said. The fact that there were so many different groups was “appropriate as different constituencies were reached. To force everyone into one mold was unnecessary.”2 The historian-activist Van Gosse also found much to admire in the Central America movement, describing it as “a movement of bewildering diversity, an oddly workable cacophony of individual and institutional histories, and highly developed organizational practices.” Yet he also noted an excessive degree of “local autonomy” within the movement and a self-defeating tendency among some groups to “attack leadership whenever possible.” “What is missing,” he wrote, “is some central leadership” that could coordinate “sustained campaigns of public education and action.”3 Virtually all activists recognized the need for some degree of national coordination of activities for reasons of both efficiency and effectiveness. It was hardly worthwhile for one national group to call for a national “day of action” without the support of other organizations and related publicity. To be considered a credible movement in the press as well as to generate enthusiasm within the movement, sizable numbers of people were needed at events and demonstrations. Similarly, the more agreement on a common set of educational themes to promote, the more likely these themes would be amplified in the media and influence the public discourse. Yet there was also a strong desire among activists to maintain their separate organizations, as each had its own range of issues, base of supporters, cultural identity, and philosophical perspective. The loose construction of the ACWC allowed diverse groups to maintain their autonomy and cooperate where they saw fit, avoiding schisms. Leftist and pacifist groups could espouse their radical critiques of U.S. foreign policy; liberal groups could maintain their political focus and respectable image; and religious groups could retain their faith-based identity, embodied in prayers, sermons, rituals, symbols, and language. Decentralization did not resolve differences between groups, but it generally kept conflicts within bounds. One small conflict occurred at the third United

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States–Nicaragua Sister Cities Conference in Managua in June 1988. As recalled by Sheldon Rampton of WCCN, a leftist solidarity activist from the West Coast got up during a workshop and denounced a WCCN brochure for emphasizing solidarity with the Nicaraguan people (the word “people” was underlined) rather than with the FSLN. “You know,” said Rampton, “it was very much a Nicaragua Network type of line—support for the Sandinistas was a principle in and of itself.” The moment passed without further ado, but Rampton came away from the meeting feeling that the “ideological types” were scolding WCCN delegates. “Over time,” he said, “I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that we were less clear in our political line. We really did have a different political line than those people, and I think ours was more correct. . . . We were really grounded in the idea of support for the people of Nicaragua. . . . They were much more overtly political.” For the most part, the two organizations got along with each other. “We were never really hostile or had a problem with Nicaragua Network . . . and they were never, to my knowledge, hostile to us,” said Rampton. “But it was a different approach to things, a different emphasis.”4 The loose construction of the ACWC allowed these networks to coexist and work in the same direction. In fact, there were four transnational solidarity networks that made noteworthy contributions to the ACWC: leftist solidarity (brigadistas) led by Nicaragua Network; people-to-people partnerships led by WCCN; religious solidarity facilitated by the religious task forces RTFCA and IRTFCA; and the nonviolent activist “accompaniment” project of Witness for Peace (WFP). Within single organizations, differences could become more acute, as identities and priorities had to be established. Katherine Hoyt, who served as a POR coordinator while working at the Michigan Interfaith Committee on Central American Human Rights, quipped that some “groups couldn’t agree on a minute of silence. They couldn’t agree on a prayer or whether to hold hands.”5 The issue of religious-versus-secular identity became a source of tension within the national Pledge of Resistance, at least for some of the founders. As Jim Rice expressed it in an interview by the sociologist Christian Smith, some church people felt they were “being pushed aside” as the campaign expanded and became more heterogeneous. Dennis Marker recalled “fighting to preserve the religious character” of the Pledge.6 Undoubtedly, those who wanted the Pledge to maintain a strictly religious identity felt a sense of loss as it was taken up by secular groups and activists; yet religious activism remained vital to the Pledge and religious groups could still maintain their identity. In the San Francisco Bay area, which had “a stronger

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secular/political/dissident emphasis,” noted regional coordinator Ken Butigan, “faith-based activists nevertheless played an important role in the Pledge.” Of the 250 Pledge affinity groups in the area, 25 identified themselves as being part of a distinctly “religious cluster.” Butigan’s own motivation, he wrote, “was rooted in faith-based nonviolence committed to peace, justice, and the well-being of all.” As national Pledge coordinator from 1987 to 1990, “I always was a ‘bridge figure’ between religious and secular communities.”7 Identity politics pervaded the ACWC and Central America movement no less than other social change movements. Groups evinced different, if overlapping, cultural-political-ideological orientations: leftist (socialist) solidarity, religious solidarity, political liberalism, humanitarianism, nonviolent activism, unionism, and feminism. Most activists gravitated toward the groups and networks that best fit their own philosophy and style. The decentralized ACWC allowed for such differences while also facilitating cooperation among groups on joint projects. For the most part, activists kept their eyes on the prize of ending the Contra War. While decentralization had its benefits in terms of minimizing conflicts, it had at least three deficiencies that inhibited the anti–Contra War campaign’s overall effectiveness. One was the lack of a designated spokesperson or recognized leader to whom the media could turn for commentary. While the press interviewed various local and national ACWC leaders from time to time, it more often sought out members of Congress for criticism of administration policy. A designated national spokesperson or group could have kept the ACWC’s themes and arguments in the forefront and established the campaign’s identity in the public mind. A second deficiency was the lack of a common communication vehicle—a weekly newspaper or magazine—offering a holistic view of the ACWC. Given the range of activities undertaken, it was difficult for even activists to see how all the pieces fit together. Such a vehicle could have kept track of ACWC activities, reported on key political and diplomatic developments, provided information on upcoming events and new resources, served as a forum for discussion of issues, and perhaps profiled individual activists and groups. A campaign newspaper would arguably have given activists a stronger sense of movement identity, increased public recognition of the ACWC, and furthered educational outreach. To some degree, the monthly journal Nuclear Times did this for the disarmament movement. A third, if partial, deficiency was the lack of national coordination with

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respect to grassroots organizing. Local groups were typically inundated with requests for participation in national campaigns and activities. As described by Eric Fried of Santa Rosa, California, “National and regional offices of all the groups compete for the limited energy and money of local, grassroots groups, often leading locals to a sense of being overwhelmed and frustrated.”8 From the vantage point of local organizers, local groups had less money and fewer staff but were expected to implement the ambitious plans of national groups. National organizers, on the other hand, fretted over whether their plans would be carried out at the local level. Some felt that national organizations were giving more than they were receiving from local groups in terms of financial support. Many national organizations did, in fact, commit themselves to building a strong grassroots base, but they did not necessarily work together in this. SANE had a formal chapter system and spent roughly 40 percent of its program budget on its field organizing department. WFP had eleven regional offices and numerous local affiliates by the end of 1988. POR had nine regional coordinators and claimed four hundred affiliates.9 The religious task forces cultivated peace and justice committees in churches and synagogues. Nicaragua Network facilitated the development of leftist solidarity groups. CISPES was one of the few organizations that initiated chapters on college campuses. CNFMP did not have chapters or affiliates but held periodic training workshops and sent out field organizers, mainly for the purpose of developing legislative alert networks. AFSC had an integrated national-regional-local office network and often assisted other organizations at the local level. The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) likewise worked across organizational boundaries in facilitating state networks and coalitions in the nine states where it held Central America Information Weeks. The Central America Peace Campaign (CAPC) developed a cooperative outreach effort in 1984, but lack of funding undermined the effort after a short time. All in all, there was much grassroots organizing activity, with some of it being cooperative, but this fell short of a comprehensive strategy and a coordinated national-local program that could sustain public education and action. These were not the only problems of the ACWC, to be sure. There was a noticeable divide between groups focused on nonviolent direct action (POR and Mobilization for Survival) and those focused on lobbying (CNFMP/CAWG, CAPC, and SANE). This tactical divide had cultural overtones as well, as the former prided itself on challenging the status quo while the latter strove for respectability and sought access to elite decision-makers. The differences between the

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two networks made strategic coordination difficult and at times resulted in competition and duplication. In January 1984, for example, CAPC introduced a petition, “Pledge for Non-Intervention in Central America,” at the same time that POR was circulating its pledge sign-up list. As it turned out, the CAPC petition fell by the wayside as local groups eagerly circulated the POR pledge. The different orientations were also evident in the organization of the largest Central America demonstration of the decade, the “Mobe” (Mobilization) in April 1987. The Mobe steering committee was divided between those who favored the inclusion of elected officials in the design and promotion of the demonstration, and those who wanted to keep the focus on grassroots mobilization, more or less challenging rather than including elected officials. In the aftermath, those of the former persuasion criticized the latter for “the lack of attention devoted to the Congress by the Mobilization.”10 Another problem involved fundraising. CNFMP director Richard Healey, who raised funds for different foreign policy campaigns, reflected that “raising money for the Freeze campaign was incredibly easy,” but “for Central America, very hard.”11 In September 1984 the CAPC executive committee noted that “many groups working on Central American issues were seeking backing from the same sources.” In order to create a more unified network, the committee deemed it “imperative” that fundraising efforts be coordinated.12 No effort was actually made to do this, but CAPC at least was not allowed to become another permanent Washington coalition competing with other groups for funds. CAPC remained dependent upon the contributions of participating groups along with a few foundation grants. This did not suffice. At the end of 1984 CAPC had to lay off its three field organizers and reduce its staff in Washington from three to one. The group rebounded in the spring of 1985 but hit another financial draught in the fall of 1986 and was dissolved.13 POR, in contrast, established itself as a separate organization and developed its own financial base of support along with local affiliates. Although this added to the overall competition for funding, POR survived through the 1980s. In West Germany, by way of contrast, peace organizations succeeded in creating a single national coordinating body in the early 1980s. This appeared to solve some problems and create others. As Alice Holmes Cooper described it in Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements since 1945 (1996), “the peace movement put together the broadest and most durable coalition on the political center and left in West German history.” This coalition reached “from the extraparliamentary extremes well into mainstream parties and churches.” The coalition had

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a coordinating committee consisting of twenty-six member groups, its composition “carefully balanced between five factions: religious groups, the independent (nonparty) left, Greens, Social Democrats, and Moscow-oriented communists.” Yet this closer cooperation and centralized decision making also produced considerable friction. “The movement’s sheer heterogeneity,” noted Cooper, “made cohesion difficult and conflict frequent.” Moreover, once the original uniting goal was not achieved—preventing U.S. Pershing II missiles from being deployed on European soil—“old conflicts resurfaced without the overarching compromises available to tame them.” The “Coordinating Committee meetings increasingly consisted of fruitless searches for a new central agenda under which other projects could be subsumed.”14

Local Organizing Structures Local organizations developed three ways to avoid competition and duplication—merging groups, building coalitions, and networking—each being a progressively looser construction. In Sonoma County, California, a new POR group formed in 1984 amid the surge of interest in the Pledge nationwide. Within a short time, it became apparent to local activists that maintaining a separate POR chapter along with an existing solidarity coalition, People for Peace in Central America, only created more organizational work. Hence, in 1985 the POR chapter merged with the solidarity coalition, which had already consolidated the chapters of Nicaragua Network, CISPES, and NISGUA.15 In Philadelphia activists established a coalition, the Central America Organizing Project (CAOP), which acted as a project center and facilitated and publicized the activities of participating groups. At least eighteen groups were involved, including a WFP chapter, a feminist solidarity group, a coffee brigade, a lawyer’s committee, an interuniversity committee, and a health rights committee.16 Each week, CAOP arranged to visit one of the area’s newspapers and one community association in order to promote projects underway. The group was committed to “thoroughly strategic grassroots work,” wrote staff person Donna Cooper in the spring of 1984. “We are committed to a slow grassroots process, and already we feel the positive results of this style. The base of concerned people, the respect from the press and the calls we receive from members of groups who want to help, are all encouraging signs.”17 In Tallahassee, a city with a population of about 100,000 in 1985, the answer

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for a half-dozen groups concerned with Central America was networking. An initial attempt was made to develop an inclusive Central America coalition, but differences over support for the FMLN could not be resolved between members of the Tallahassee Peace Coalition (TPC) and the CISPES chapter at Florida State University. The looser network allowed for cordial relations and cooperation in the planning and implementation of activities. The TPC newsletter publicized the activities of all the groups, including the CISPES chapter, a Veterans for Peace chapter, Pax Christi Tallahassee, and two sanctuary groups.18 Although each group was distinct, the newsletter provided a holistic view of the progressive peace movement in one community. As with national networking, local networking did not preclude philosophical conflicts. To take one example, TPC volunteer Victoria Martinez recalled an experience while staffing an information table in which she argued with “a fanatical leftist ideologue in our group who wanted me to endorse the Sandinistas during our tabling,” as she described it. Martinez, who was born and raised in Cuba, felt that supporting the FSLN “seriously detracted from the credibility of our movement, which promoted a peaceful resolution of the conflict and didn’t take sides.”19

A Multiracial Movement? Although leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, Congressional Black Caucus, Rainbow Coalition, and Jesse Jackson presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988 all lent support to the Central America movement, the AfricanAmerican community as a whole was not drawn to Central America issues. Religious leadership on Central America issues was exerted by predominantly white churches. The foreign policy campaign that hit home in the African-American community was the antiapartheid movement related to South Africa, which was perceived as a civil rights issue. The sociologist Christian Smith surveyed 452 WFP short-term delegates and 129 Sanctuary Movement activists and found that 96 percent of WFP volunteers and 98 percent of Sanctuary activists were white (the surveys did not distinguish Hispanic from Anglo whites.)20 At the national POR meeting in November 1985, participants noted that “although POR has provided leadership to women, a weakness is that it is almost an all white organization.” They brainstormed how “to explicitly include people of color.”21 Other national groups similarly sought to increase minority participation. WFP did so through its recruitment of volunteers for short-term delegations to

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Nicaragua in the latter half of the 1980s.22 In the mid-1980s the AFSC board decided to hire more Third World activists to staff its local offices, and to focus more of its outreach activities on minority communities. By June 1987 Jack Malinowski and Angie Berryman could write that AFSC had made progress in bringing minorities into the Central America movement.23 The organizers of Central America demonstrations in Washington in April 1985 and April 1987 made concerted efforts to reach out to the African-American community, in part by linking Central America and South Africa issues. In the latter demonstration, African American staff were hired, but the rush of events and short timeline resulted in little substantive coalition-building. A month after the demonstration, former staff members fired off a memo titled “Meeting Racism in the Mobilization,” in which they charged that the steering committee had failed to include “Third World organizations at the very outset” in the planning of the event. Minority participation, including Latinos, was nevertheless estimated at 20 percent of the 100,000 people who attended.24 At the local level, the Seattle/Managua sister city project was described by Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton as “an outstanding example of multi-ethnic, multi-racial organizing. Of its delegations that have visited Nicaragua, 48 percent come from Chicano, Asian, Black, Indian, and other non-white communities.”25 Reaching out to Latinos proved easier in some local areas, apart from the Cuban American community in Miami. Many local groups sponsored Latin American dances, dinners, and performances. A strong Latina voice was added to the Central America movement when Angela Sanbrano, a Mexican American, was elected as director of CISPES in 1985.

State Networks: Case Studies State organizations connected Central America activists and groups on an wider but still accessible scale. Organizations ranged considerably in their development and influence, as may be seen in the two examples below.

New Jersey The New Jersey Central American Network (NJCAN) was fortunate to operate under the umbrella of New Jersey SANE, based in Montclair, which provided NJCAN with office space and a paid coordinator. At its peak NJCAN consisted of about sixty organizations, including peace and religious groups, Pledge

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groups, four sister city programs, SANE chapters, CISPES chapters, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom chapters, veterans groups, medical aid groups, TecNica, and a Quixote Center (Quest for Peace) project. “We worked together so well,” said Barbra Apfelbaum, who coordinated the network from 1983 to 1990. “People were mutually supportive.” Van Gosse, who represented CISPES in NJCAN beginning in the fall of 1985, similarly noted the spirit of cooperation. NJCAN “was a very good formation because it allowed us to work cooperatively,” he said. “People got along. We were all in it together. We had democratic functioning.” Activists understood and accepted the fact that there were different perspectives within this network, according to Gosse, who also served on the NJCAN steering committee.26 The important thing was to focus on the common goals of ending U.S. interventionism in Nicaragua and El Salvador. New Jersey’s fourteen-member House delegation was split on the issue of contra aid, with eight voting consistently against it and six voting consistently for it. One New Jersey senator opposed contra aid while the other, Sen. Bill Bradley, was deemed a “swing vote.” Bradley voted against contra aid in 1984 and 1985, then for it in 1986 and 1987, then switched back to opposing it in 1988. NJCAN groups expended much effort on lobbying Bradley. Andy Mills, a volunteer, organized a constant flow of people to travel from New Jersey to Washington in what he called a “peace mission.” Other activists and local groups organized demonstrations around the state whenever contra aid votes were coming up—at the Newark train station, federal buildings, and the local offices of senators and representatives. “It’s a small state,” said Gosse, “You can get around. We implemented all the Pledge calls for civil disobedience.” NJCAN’s Central America Week activities in March 1986 attracted the attention of the New York Times. Apfelbaum told a reporter that the week’s activities were designed “to reach as many citizens as possible and to urge them to influence their lawmakers to stop U.S. dollars from paying for military support in Nicaragua and El Salvador.” In Trenton this message was conveyed by a prominent cast of speakers, including a state senator, three local assemblymen, the dean of graduate studies of the New York Theological Seminary, the chairman of the English Department at Kean College, the director of the Communications Workers of America, and the president of Church Women United. Assemblyman Byron M. Baer (D-37th district) introduced a resolution in the state legislature at the time calling on the president and Congress “to discontinue overt and covert operations directed at Nicaragua.” More than 120 Bergen County Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders signed a statement urging the United

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States to “cease funding covert and overt operations directed against Nicaragua and support the Contadora peace initiatives to end the militarization of Central America.” The Bergen County Committee on Central America (BCCCA) developed the statement and made contact with each clergy member, according to Bob Guild, a BCCCA volunteer. During the week of activities, Guild spoke at a rally in Ridgewood. At Rutgers University, fifty-two students participated in a three-day fast to protest the war and raise $5,000 for Nicaraguan relief.27 Twenty years earlier, in the spring of 1966, Guild had participated in a fast against the Vietnam War. “I’ve always viewed myself as a radical,” he said. Guild grew up in a small town in Massachusetts with conservative parents. He was radicalized by the civil rights movement, joined the anti–Vietnam War movement while a student at Wesleyan University, worked full-time for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late 1960s, and became a community and union organizer. During the 1980s, in addition to serving as program director of Marazul Tours, he was one of two county coordinators for the Rainbow Coalition and served as vice-chair for the Jesse Jackson campaign in 1988. In Bergen County, said Guild, “there were several multiracial communities, and it was very important for us to reach out to Latino and black communities.” He recruited SANE and Central America activists to join the Rainbow Coalition and encouraged Rainbow Coalition activists to participate in Central America activities. His work with BCCCA included organizing meetings with elected officials, raising humanitarian aid for Nicaragua, and, in 1986, helping to form a sister county program between Bergen County and the department of Rivas, south of Managua. BCCCA tended to stay away from civil disobedience actions, he noted. “In some communities, it was perhaps not the best way of bringing people into the movement.”28 NJCAN coordinator Barbra Apfelbaum, before becoming a full-time activist, obtained a PhD in Italian language and literature, and taught two years at Yale and Bryn Mawr colleges. Raised in a Jewish family of “good FDR liberal democrats” in Philadelphia, her activism began with attendance at anti– Vietnam War demonstrations during her college years. After entering upon an academic career, she decided that she “wanted to do something more important and meaningful.” She worked for five years with the New American Movement (NAM) in New Haven. “It was really that combination of education and activism that characterized those years with NAM,” she said. “They had really smart people who were open to ideas, the exact opposite of sectarianism.” A selfdescribed socialist-feminist, Apfelbaum became an excellent meeting facilitator—a valuable skill in activist circles. Working with NJCAN groups in the

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1980s, she found that her politics were to the left of New Jersey SANE, which nonetheless had a “quite liberal” base. The Montclair–Pearl Lagoon sister city program had a more leftist orientation, she noted, but some of her friends on the left “were a little bit disdainful or dismissive of liberals in SANE.” Apfelbaum was just as eager to raise consciousness as her friends, “but you don’t just wake up a leftist. You need personal conversations and meaningful experiences.” she said. “I felt it was important to work with and respect people whose views were not as left as mine.” Apfelbaum kept NJCAN focused on the work at hand. “I don’t ever remember getting bogged down in sectarian fights,” she said. “We never did have those kind of debates or arguments at NJCAN meetings.”29 Van Gosse, in reflecting on his experiences with NJCAN, said that what he valued most was people coming together from different traditions, “from faith traditions, from the older disarmament movement, from the anti–Vietnam War movement,” and from the solidarity movement. “The nice thing about NJCAN is that you had people of every age. There were key people in their seventies, and quite a few, and there were college students, and people from these different traditions. . . . For me, the Central America movement was a harvesting of these different traditions, where people had learned quite a lot, especially through Vietnam, but not only Vietnam. There was a lot of experience. We weren’t starting over from scratch.”30

Florida Organizing in Florida proved more difficult, partly because of the size of the state, partly because of the overall conservative temperament of the population and members of Congress on foreign policy issues, and partly because of the organizers’ relative lack of experience and resources. Orlando, which lies at the center of the state, is 447 miles from Pensacola and 406 miles from Key West. Of the state’s nineteen members of Congress, thirteen voted for contra aid and six opposed it in 1984, when the mining of Nicaraguan harbors was an issue. In subsequent years, only one voted against contra aid in 1985, two in 1986, and three in 1987 and 1988. Both Florida senators, one Democrat and one Republican, supported contra aid. Perhaps because they had a steeper hill to climb than their counterparts in New Jersey, Florida’s peace and justice activists, on the whole, were less inclined toward lobbying strategies and more inclined toward protest actions. The first Central America groups in Florida were solidarity groups, formed in Miami, Gainesville, Tallahassee (CISPES chapter), Tampa, and Orlando.31

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Peace groups increasingly took up Central America issues in 1983 and 1984, aided by the “deadly connection” and Pledge of Resistance campaigns. A loose POR Florida network formed in 1984, coordinated by Pax Christi director John Frank. “In many respects,” said Frank, “the POR wasn’t so much an organization as it was a means to engage all these Central America groups and activists. The Pledge became a calling card to do an action.” By mid-1985 a dozen local groups had collected pledge commitments from roughly one thousand individuals across the state, with eighty committed to civil disobedience.32 Local groups initiated a number of Central America demonstrations that year, but without overall coordination.33 A statewide Pledge conference was held at Eckerd College on February 22, 1986. By this time, however, the Pledge campaign was starting to lose momentum in Florida, and in any case its protest orientation made it a limited organizing tool in Florida, as education and persuasion were needed to attract larger numbers. The catalyst for creating a modest statewide Central America network was the Central America Information Week held in Florida April 6–13, 1986, sponsored by IFCO and the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (FCPJ). IFCO organizers Sharon Haas and Don McClain settled into an office provided by the Florida Council of Churches in Orlando for three months of planning and preparation. They eventually involved 162 local volunteer coordinators, who organized 662 speaking engagements and press conferences in 106 communities. A follow-up statewide meeting was held on April 26, attended by 81 people. The attendees were divided about equally between representatives of religious, peace, and leftist organizations, according to an IFCO report.34 Out of that meeting came the new Central America Task Force (CATF) operating under the auspices of FCPJ, composed of about 40 groups at the time. An increase in FCPJ’s rather meager budget in 1986 and 1987 allowed for the hiring of two part-time CATF coordinators, Bill Lazar and Beth Raps.35 Raps, who was twenty-four in 1986, also coordinated the Florida Coalition’s feminist task force. The Central America Task Force was more of an information network than a coordinating body, the one exception being a demonstration organized by Lazar in December 1986, in response to a new contra training program at Hurlburt Field, near Ft. Walton Beach (see chapter 7). Raps, being relatively new to Central America issues, looked to local groups for direction. “I would travel, meet with local groups, become informed of what they were doing,” she said. “I was not in the position to be able to offer much help. . . . At first I was feeling kind of inadequate. I remember all these national networks calling me, asking

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me to help get letters to representatives regarding upcoming votes in Congress.” She felt a lot of pressure, she said, but over time got to the point where she could assess priorities. “I remember saying no to national groups, we have another priority at this time. Other times we did do things with them.” Raps facilitated local delegation visits to congressional representatives’ offices, but she stayed in the background, as FCPJ was a tax-exempt organization and could not be involved in lobbying for more than a small percentage of its work. Raps continued to learn on the job. She became a full-time FCPJ staff person in 1987, devoting half of her time to Central America work. Although she left the following year, CATF continued to function as a low-key information network.36 Perhaps the most difficult city in the nation in which to do Central America organizing work was Miami, and the Orlando-based CATF was not much help in this regard. A rally against the Contra War organized by the Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Organization (LACASA) and other local groups drew a violent response. Held at the Torch of Friendship in downtown Biscayne Park on March 22, 1986, the anti-contra rally drew about three hundred people, according to Jack Lieberman, a key organizer. However, “there was a mob of about two thousand people who showed up across the street, throwing rocks, forcing us to end our rally,” he said. “It’s amazing that no one was really hurt.” There were, in fact, some minor injuries at the rally. An anti–Contra War protester was struck on the head with a white cross that he had been holding; a member of Miami’s crisis response team was hit by a rock and had to be taken to a nearby hospital; and many people were pelted with eggs, including Miami commissioner Rosario Kennedy. Speakers at the anti–Contra War rally included state senator Jack Gordon and state representative Mike Friedman. On the opposite side of Biscayne Boulevard, Miami mayor Xavier Suarez made a five-minute speech to the pro-contra crowd in which he condemned the presence of “Marxist groups” across the street. Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban-American National Foundation, compared the anti–Contra War protest to a Nazi march in Miami Beach’s Jewish neighborhoods, or a Ku Klux Klan rally in Liberty City (a black section of Miami).37 The comparison of the anti–Contra War protesters to Nazis was particularly offensive to Lieberman. Born in 1950, he spent his early years in a Jewish working class neighborhood in Philadelphia, where he came into contact with Holocaust survivors. “When I would go to the delicatessen or the food store, I would see people with numbers on their arms,” he said. “This was before people started talking about the Holocaust. It was shunned.” Lieberman nevertheless

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absorbed the message. “My bedrock of activism was my early experience as a Jew in the generation right after the Holocaust,” he said. As a young man, Lieberman became involved in labor union struggles, the civil rights movement, and the anti–Vietnam War movement. He joined Students for a Democratic Society and the Socialist Workers Party for a time. He was known at Florida State University as “Radical Jack.” Lieberman became a founding member of the Miami group, LACASA, formed in July 1979, and attended an international solidarity conference in Managua on January 26, 1981. Later that year, he was personally threatened by a militant group called Omega Siete. “Someone knocked on my door, asked for me, and said he was there to sell me a funeral plot, that I had set up an appointment to purchase a plot,” Lieberman recounted. “A lot of people were intimidated from being active because of the violent climate here.” LACASA found allies in the local Pax Christi chapter, the Miami AFSC office, and the South Florida Peace Coalition. “We all worked together,” he said. Lieberman’s volunteer activism in the 1980s also included being the social action director at a local synagogue. At one anti–contra aid demonstration in Hollywood in May 1985, he placed a sign on his nine-month-old daughter’s stroller that read, “Contras are Reagan’s SS” (Schutzstaffen, an elite unit under Adolf Hitler).38

Local Organizations: Case Studies This section examines four different kinds of local organizations active in the anti– Contra War campaign: a sister city program in Baltimore, a Pledge of Resistance group in Buffalo, a Latin American committee within a peace group in Rochester, New York, and a solidarity group in Portland, Oregon. All four were still active in 2011, indicating strong bonds and commitments cultivated by these groups.

Casa Baltimore/San Juan de Limay Sister-City Program At the core of most sister city programs were a few key people who made things happen. In the case of the Baltimore–San Juan de Limay sister city program, established in November 1985, Nan McCurdy and Philip Mitchell provided the initial inspiration and organizing energy. Nan had been a pharmacist in St. Louis with little knowledge of Central America prior to visiting Guatemala in 1981. Soon after her return, she met and fell in love with Phil Mitchell, who had served in the Peace Corps in Chile in 1963–64. The couple first got involved with Sanctuary movement activities at a Lutheran Church in St. Louis.

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The U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983 jolted the couple into full-time activism. “We had to do something,” said Nan. They organized a delegation of ex–Peace Corps volunteers for a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua in February 1984. That summer they moved to Baltimore. “There was not a big movement in Baltimore in regard to protests,” said Nan, “so we encouraged the idea of a sister relationship.” The couple set about forming an interfaith group in Baltimore, then went to the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington and met with staff member Rita Clark and Ambassador Carlos Tünnermann. They later received word that Baltimore could be paired with San Juan de Limay, a village twelve kilometers from the Honduran border, northwest of Estelí. In January 1985 the contras had attacked Limay and left fifteen people dead. Despite the danger, Phil and Nan decided to go to Limay for a year. They sold all of their worldly possessions, advertising this in the Baltimore Sun as a “Sellout for peace in Nicaragua,” and arrived in Nicaragua on November 3, 1985. That same month, a dedication ceremony was held at Baltimore’s St. John’s United Methodist Church to formally establish the Casa Baltimore-Limay sister city program. The first delegation from Baltimore arrived in San Juan de Limay in January 1986. Nan and Phil ended up staying a total of three years, returning occasionally to the United States. San Juan de Limay was an area hit hard by the contras. In addition to attacking the town, they kidnapped young men and tried to persuade them to join the contras. Those who refused were killed. Tranquilino Garmendia, the chairperson of the Baltimore-Limay sister city program on the Limay side, had three of his sons killed by the contras. “Almost every family had someone killed, tortured, kidnapped, or disappeared,” said Nan. Nan and Phil regarded their work as a “pastoral ministry of accompaniment.” They shared their lives with the people of the town and recounted the stories they heard to Americans back home. Nan taught English at the community high school—teenagers on weekday mornings and adults in the evenings. The couple got to know the people of the community “well enough for them to cry and share their stories with us,” said Nan. “ ‘We can’t go to the U.S. and tell our stories,’ some would say. ‘You have to be our loudspeaker.’ We felt an incredible commitment to do that.” By communicating the reality of the Nicaraguan situation, Nan and Phil hoped to make a contribution to stopping the Contra War. “That was really the purpose of what we were doing—to stop the war,” said Nan. In the spring of 1986, the contras engaged in a series of attacks on passenger vehicles near the town. A WFP delegation was ready to travel to San Juan de Limay in November 1986, but the Sandinista government would not allow it

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because of the danger. The trauma of war continued. Within a period of two weeks in late 1987, Nan recalled, the couple attended three funerals of young men killed by the contras. The McCurdy-Mitchells documented these and other deaths with photographs of the corpses. They also took pictures of “cute” children in the community and sent these to the United States as well, as if to sharpen the contrast. During their three years in San Juan de Limay, Nan and Phil hosted some thirty U.S. groups, mostly from Baltimore. Almost all who returned to Baltimore from San Juan de Limay spoke at community gatherings and to congregations about their experiences, often using slide presentations. The Casa Baltimore/Limay sister city project reached out to the Baltimore community through these gatherings along with its monthly newsletter, which included news of upcoming events and delegations, autobiographical letters from Limay residents, legislative alerts, and voting records of members of Congress. The two congressional representatives from the Baltimore area, Democrats Barbara Mikulski and Parren J. Mitchell, voted consistently against contra aid through 1986. Their replacements, Democrats Benjamin Cardin and Kweisi Mfume, similarly voted against contra aid in 1987 and 1988. Casa Baltimore/Limay, housed at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Baltimore, defined itself as an interfaith group on a mission of friendship and support. It was. The church’s congregation was “very progressive,” according to Barbara Larcom, who traveled to Nicaragua with a delegation in mid-1989 and became program coordinator in 1992. “We did not have to get into the ins and outs of pacifism,” she said. It was enough to know our government was “slaughtering people we know and love in our sister city of Limay.” Funds were raised through a donor pledge program (approximately thirty people each pledging from $15 to $25 per month), donations, benefits, and an occasional grant. A portion of the money was allocated for humanitarian aid projects in San Juan de Limay. A committee of Limay residents recommended projects to the Baltimore committee, which in turn chose which to fund. Sometimes the Baltimore group suggested projects as well. One of the major funding projects was the purchase and maintenance of emergency vehicles and school buses. Visiting delegations also carried with them needed medical supplies. Nan and Phil McCurdy-Mitchell, after completing their time in San Juan de Limay, became full-time workers with the Board of Global Ministries of the Methodist Church, which assigned them to the Antonio de Valdivieso Ecumenical Center in Managua for a time. Phil Mitchell died in 1991. Barbara Larcom continued on as coordinator of Casa Baltimore/Limay and also helped

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to organize the U.S.-Nicaraguan sister cities conference held in Managua on July 16–17, 2005.39

The Buffalo Pledge of Resistance “There are plenty of people who think that things are not going right in the world, but they don’t really see any advantages to joining an organization,” said Terry Bisson, a college math instructor. This was true of Bisson until a friend presented him with a Pledge sign-up sheet in 1984 and said, “If you’re against war you should sign this.” Bisson, in his mid-thirties, did. “And you know,” he said, “immediately once you sign something like that you had to go to meetings to talk about what would be the grounds under which you would do civil disobedience, and that led to long, long discussions of tactics and background. Then you had to go to these Central America dinners because, how were you going to understand what was going on in all these different countries.” The Buffalo Pledge of Resistance group was formed in early 1984 under the auspices of the Western New York Peace Center (WNYPC), which began in 1967 as an affiliate of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam. As in other cities, the Buffalo Pledge organized small affinity groups to prepare people for civil disobedience actions and protests. “The affinity is, for me,” said Bisson, “the foundation of my whole activity in the Latin American solidarity movement. I’m still partly in the same affinity group that I was in 1984.” Bisson never traveled to Latin America, but his sense of solidarity with his local affinity group motivated him to keep informed and active. “What I found in Buffalo was that there were plenty of people coming through who had direct stories to tell about Central America,” he said. The Pledge meetings “were really open discussion meetings,” with all kinds of people involved. The Buffalo Pledge avoided the narrow protest orientation inherent in the Pledge campaign through its connection with WNYPC, participating in broader educational and political activities. The WNYPC, for its part, assisted the Pledge group by hiring a staff person to manage and expand Pledge activities. Jim Mang, co-director of WNYPC, pointed out that the formation of nonviolent affinity groups in the Pledge campaign went “more smoothly here because, during the Freeze Campaign and Women’s Encampment at Seneca Falls, there was a lot of civil disobedience training here, and maybe two or three affinity groups out of the Buffalo area that formed.” Mang, a former Catholic priest who married a former nun, had engaged in civil disobedience actions during the Vietnam War and been jailed along with William Sloane Coffin. In

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the early 1980s he participated in an anti–nuclear weapons affinity group. “Our affinity group was arrested three different times at the Army Depot” at Seneca Falls, said Mang. “A lot of those same people continued with the Pledge.” The Buffalo POR conducted its first protest action at the downtown Federal Building in June 1985, in response to congressional approval of a $27 million “non-lethal” aid package for the contras. Fifty people were arrested “for sitting on the steps where the senators had their offices,” according to Bisson. Although not exactly blocking the entrance, the protesters “did make it a little difficult. It was lunchtime.” The demonstrators were charged, fingerprinted, and released. A later court hearing, however, dismissed the charges. Another civil disobedience action took place on March 3, 1986, this time in response to the president’s request for $100 million in military aid to the contras. A total of 35 people were arrested for trespassing at the Buffalo Federal Building while another 120 participated in a legal protest outside. Beyond protests, the Buffalo POR joined WNYPC in sponsoring educational programs, holding Latin America dinners, and lobbying members of Congress. Representing the Buffalo area were Republican Rep. Jack F. Kemp, who supported contra aid, and two Democrats, Rep. Henry J. Novak and Rep. John J. LaFalce, who both opposed to it. WNYPC members met regularly with the Democratic representatives, encouraging them to take leadership on Central America issues in Congress. Activists also attended Kemp’s town meetings to ask him questions about Central America and “put pressure on him,” according to Mang. Kemp’s pro-contra votes prompted some Buffalo activists to work for his opponent, Jim Keane, in the 1986 congressional elections (Keane lost). In 1989 the Buffalo Pledge group changed its name to the Latin America Solidarity Association and continued to meet once a month as a committee of WNYPC. Although the issues have changed over the years, the group has continued to foster sustained commitments and camaraderie.40

The Rochester Committee on Latin America One of the many local peace groups that formed during the Vietnam War was the faith-based Rochester Peace and Justice Education Center (PJEC), another affiliate of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam. PJEC members first became involved in Latin America issues in 1973, in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile. A new PJEC committee was formed that year, the Rochester Committee on Latin America (ROCLA). ROCLA activists participated in the Chile solidarity campaign by holding “teach-ins” at local high schools

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and colleges, meeting with local newspaper editorial boards, and organizing benefit concerts. When ROCLA shifted its focus to Central America in 1979–80, the group’s mailing list expanded from forty to some three hundred.41 As with other cities, local interest was stimulated by Rochesterians traveling to Nicaragua. Anne Meisenzahl went in December 1981 to learn about early childhood education and the Rural School of Education and Work. Upon return, she worked with the photojournalist Jamie Stillings to create a 130-slide presentation, “Nicaragua: Portrait of a Revolution,” which they presented to church and community groups. Another ROCLA member, Marilyn Anderson, traveled regularly to Guatemala to photograph indigenous weavers as well as document the devastating effects of the government’s repression. Anderson and other ROCLA members arranged for Guatemalan textiles to be sold at the annual International Folk Festival sponsored by the Rochester Museum and Science. ROCLA also organized citywide arts festivals from 1985 to 1988, which included arts and crafts exhibits, concerts, readings, and performances—creative means of reaching new audiences. Other ROCLA activities included sponsoring Central America speakers, organizing annual commemorations of the Nicaraguan Revolution, and raising funds for Medical Aid to El Salvador and Radio Venceremos, the rebel voice in El Salvador.42 The latter activity prompted concern within the larger peace group. PJEC was not officially pacifist, but it leaned strongly in that direction. According to Jon Garlock, who served as ROCLA convener from 1982 to 1987, the idea “that in certain situations armed struggle is justified tended to polarize PJEC members and proved a particularly difficult debate for some members of the PJEC steering committee who were committed pacifists.” The issue was discussed at length without definitive resolution. Finally, at the end of 1987 the PJEC steering committee simply gave ROCLA more autonomy over its programming and budget, diluting the controversy without actually resolving it. A number of other controversial issues came up over the years: how “militant” to be at demonstrations, how critical to be of the Sandinista Party in Nicaragua, how to attract the younger generation, and how to involve labor union members. The latter issue was of particular concern to Garlock, a member of the Rochester Central Labor Council, which represented over a hundred local unions and sixty thousand members. Garlock chaired the labor council’s education committee and initiated a Latin America solidarity committee within it. ROCLA’s main connections, however, were with religious congregations. ROCLA was an enthusiastic participant in the Pledge of Resistance campaign.

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In late 1984 a subcommittee was formed, the Nicaragua Invasion Contingency Action (NICA), for the purpose of coordinating Pledge actions. Dr. Peter Mott, a physician and professor at the University of Rochester, served as co-chair of NICA and maintained contact with the national Pledge office in Washington. Those who signed up for civil disobedience were directed to one of three affinity groups for support and training. “I remember our affinity group as being a lot of fun,” said Kathleen Kern, then a twenty-four-year-old student at the Colgate Rochester Divinity School. To promote the Pledge, NICA sponsored a full-page advertisement in the City Newspaper on December 6, 1984, encouraging citizens to “join us in opposing U.S. intervention and helping the people of Nicaragua.” The ad challenged the Reagan administration’s depiction of Nicaragua as “totalitarian,” noted progress made by the FSLN government in literacy and health care, and asserted that the United States, rather than Nicaragua, was violating international law and supporting terrorism. It demanded an end to U.S. contra aid and urged support of the Contadora negotiations and “a political solution in the region.”43 On the political front, ROCLA members successfully lobbied Rep. Frank J. Horton, a Republican, to vote against contra aid in 1983 and 1984. In 1985, however, Horton gave in to administration pressure and voted for “nonlethal” aid to the contras. The latter vote prompted a protest by ROCLA/NICA at the Rochester Federal Building on June 12. According to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, nine “chanting protesters, six women and three men, were charged with disorderly conduct.” One of the protesters, Bob Good, told the press, “We had to disrupt the peace a little bit to let the people know the United States is disrupting the lives of thousands in Nicaragua.”44 Bob Good’s brother, Jim, was working at the time in Paiwas, Nicaragua, using his carpentry skills to help displaced families and widows. ROCLA members continued to lobby Representative Horton, and in 1986 he bucked the party line and resumed voting against contra aid. He did so in subsequent years as well, arguably testifying to the influence of Contra War opponents in the 29th Congressional District of New York. ROCLA members also worked to elect Democratic challenger Louise Slaughter to the 30th District House seat occupied by Republican Rep. Fred Eckert, a consistent supporter of contra aid. Slaughter won in the November 1986 elections and thereafter voted against contra aid. Soon after being elected, Slaughter traveled with a congressional delegation to Nicaragua. She met regularly with ROCLA members to discuss issues and encouraged them to provide her with information.

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In addition to educational and cultural programs, protests, and lobbying efforts, ROCLA members began a sister city program. On December 4, 1986, Henrietta Levine contacted the Nicaraguan Embassy about possible sister cities. The embassy suggested pairing Rochester with El Sauce, an agricultural community with a population of twenty-six thousand located in northwestern Nicaragua, about forty kilometers south of San Juan de Limay. In January 1987 Zelmira García of the Nicaraguan Embassy came to speak to ROCLA members about the project. The sister city idea gained sponsorship from Metro-Act, a Rochester social justice organization founded in the 1960s, and was formally launched in February 1987. A letter written by El Sauce’s municipal coordinator, Antonio Ruíz García, on June 3, 1987, welcomed the new sister city relationship, placing it in the context of the Contra War: “It is clear that the bonds of friendship between the people of Rochester and El Sauce will be of great significance, proving once again that the Nicaraguan people and the people of the United States are not at war with each other. The war from which we deliver ourselves is a dirty and unjust one that is organized and directed by the government of Reagan, and does not represent the people of the United States. You are the ones, compañeros, who can contribute to putting an end to the bloodshed.”45 Levine, a founding member of ROCLA in 1973, became the first chairperson of the Rochester–El Sauce sister city program, known as Ciudad Hermana. Born in 1920, she was raised in a conservative Jewish family and married at the age of eighteen. In the 1940s she began working with groups advocating fair employment practices and an end to prejudice against African Americans and Jews. She became the first Jewish secretary hired by the Colgate Divinity School in Rochester. She served for two years as president of the Rochester section of the National Council of Jewish Women and took part in the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and especially the peace movement. “The 1960s for me were anti–Vietnam War years,” she said. During a protest against the Contra War outside the Rochester Federal Building in late 1987, Levine invited Dr. Arnie Matlin, a pediatrician and ROCLA member, to join her on an upcoming trip to Nicaragua in January. The purpose of the trip was to prepare the way for the first Rochester sister city delegation to El Sauce in June 1988. Matlin went with Levine and took his seventeen year-old daughter, Sally, with him. He was highly impressed with what he saw despite the deteriorating economy: “For the first time in my life I had found a country whose government was dedicated to helping the poorest of its citizens. In Nicaragua Libre, health care was a right of the people and the responsibility of

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the government. In Nicaragua, schools and child care centers were free and open to all. In Nicaragua Libre, the revolutionary vanguard resisted the temptation to become a dictatorship, remaining true to the Nicaraguan people they vowed to serve.”46 Upon return Matlin and his daughter made presentations “to a dozen service organizations, a high school assembly, and on any other platform we could find to spread the word,” he recalled. The sister city program added a practical dimension to ROCLA’s outreach efforts. A “shoe boxes for peace” project was initiated in which supplies such as aspirin, soap, and small toys were collected. Metro-Act coordinator Maria Scipione told the press that money for the contras “is killing people twice,” once in Nicaragua, and the other in U.S. “communities from which money is being taken to fight the Contra War.”47 Scipione and Levine attempted to make inroads into black and Latino communities in Rochester, but this proved difficult. Rochester had experienced a “white flight” to the suburbs in the 1970s, leaving an impoverished downtown area with a largely African-American population. “I don’t think that we were ever successful in our effort to reach out to the black community,” reflected Levine. “It’s very hard to make people realize how these things directly affect their lives.” After Hurricane Joan devastated Nicaragua in October 1988, Ciudad Hermana donated a water pump system, medical supplies, and a truck—driven from Rochester to El Sauce as part of an IFCO Pastors for Peace caravan in December 1988 (see chapter 8). Ciudad Hermana’s most substantial gift was an ongoing program in which medical students from the University of Rochester worked in El Sauce’s health clinic. Two other projects were personally funded by Arnie Matlin, a preschool in El Sauce and college scholarships for two or three medical students each year. Matlin returned to Nicaragua on average once a year for the next two decades. In 2004 the FSLN party awarded him the Hero of the Revolution medal, the only U.S. citizen to have ever received one. His solidarity work over the years included serving on the Nicaragua Network executive committee. “I’ve never given up on Nicaragua,” he said in 2006.

The Portland Central America Solidarity Committee In Portland, Oregon, the main vehicle for progressive organizing on Central America issues was the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC). The group formed in early 1979, following a film on the Nicaraguan Revolution shown at the Portland Community College. Originally named the Portland Nicaragua Solidarity Committee, the group changed its name to

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PCASC in 1980. The group linked up with all three solidarity networks, Nicaragua Network, CISPES, and NISGUA, but retained its autonomy as an independent leftist group. Diane Hess, who served as the first PCASC coordinator, noted that there were ideological differences within the group, but these were “more a matter of emphasis” than a divide. There was a common desire to educate the Portland community and mobilize opposition to the Reagan administration’s Central America policies.48 Hess coordinated the first major PCASC initiative, a referendum on the November 1982 ballot asking Multnomah County residents whether the United States should terminate military aid to El Salvador and withdraw its military personnel. The promotion of this initiative began a year in advance, engaged between 200 and 300 volunteers, and expanded PCASC membership rolls “from hundreds to thousands,” according to Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson, who served as PCASC development coordinator in the mid-1980s. To convince the county commission to put the measure on the ballot, PCASC volunteers collected 12,880 petition signatures at house parties and public settings. Following the city commission’s approval of the referendum, PCASC distributed 200,000 brochures, participated in at least 11 radio talk programs, and obtained endorsements from Portland’s two major newspapers and some 100 organizations and community leaders. The latter included a dozen state representatives and Portland’s two congressional representatives, Les AuCoin and Ron Wyden (both Democrats). In garnering public support for the ballot measure, PCASC focused on the bread-and-butter issue of how much money the United States was spending on El Salvador and what citizens were getting for their money. Conservative opponents put out a flyer that read, “Don’t be tricked by communists! Vote No on #7! . . . Measure 7 is purely a propaganda ploy by local liberal Red sympathizers!” This red-baiting strategy did not appear to work, as voters approved the measure by a 75 percent margin (135,050 to 44,729). Ironically, the measure did not “get commitments or support from the organized left, many of whom criticized our electoral strategy,” according to an internal PCASC report. “Some groups even opposed us publicly.”49 This extreme leftist orientation classically viewed liberal reform as siphoning energy from radical change and thus a threat to the ultraleftist program. Such views remained on the fringes of PCASC. PCASC leaders made a conscious decision to avoid open advocacy of socialism or revolution. During the El Salvador referendum campaign, the labor organizer Jamie Partridge challenged the PCASC leadership to endorse socialism, arguing that PCASC was in fact supporting socialist revolutions in El Salvador

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and Nicaragua. How, he asked, can a socialist consciousness in the United States be cultivated if the word “socialism” itself is banished? But the PCASC steering committee saw no advantage in using this word. Partridge accepted the steering committee’s decision and continued to work on the campaign. As for supporting the FMLN, Hess noted, “We understood internally that CISPES was supporting the FMLN, but I don’t think that is what we projected into the broader community. I don’t think people here even knew much about CISPES.” The ability of PCASC to win hearts and minds in the Portland community was due in large part to the sensible manner in which its themes and arguments were communicated. Diane Hess, in particular, had a knack for translating “radical” ideas into common language. Born in 1955, she grew up with politically active parents in Los Angeles, her mother being the president of the local teachers’ union. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, she became “a young lefty, concerned about U.S. policy,” in her words. In speaking with different audiences in the 1980s, Hess characteristically appealed to common values, but framed them in a “radical” context. For example, in a speech commemorating “Nicaragua Independence Day” given at Lewis and Clark College on July 19, 1986, Hess encouraged the audience to accept “the responsibilities of democracy” and uphold the principle of freedom—by opposing U.S. interventionism in Nicaragua. She compared the Sandinista Revolution to the American Revolution of 1776, except that the contras were linked to the mercenary Hessians employed by the British, and the Sandinistas, to the rebelling colonists. Daniel Ortega’s words, “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees,” were compared to Patrick Henry’s famous saying, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Having inverted the Reagan administration’s image of the contras as liberators, Hess underscored that it is “our country which has become destructive to the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in Nicaragua and other parts of the world.” She ended on a positive note, saying, “I believe Americans and Nicaraguans share the same dream . . . of offering a better, more peaceful future to our children.”50 PCASC encouraged Portlanders to travel to Nicaragua and witness developments firsthand. Many did so, and upon return they created slide presentations for showings around the community. In the fall of 1983 PCASC developed a more organized approach. Jamie Partridge, Millie Thayer, Susan Feldman, and Kathy Gordon, each having returned from separate trips to Nicaragua, pooled their slides and wrote a script for a half-hour slide presentation titled “Nicaragua and Us.” The composite slide presentation was the centerpiece of the Community

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Education Campaign, in which trained volunteers presented the slideshow in living rooms, classrooms, union halls, churches, and community centers. More than thirty volunteers participated in training workshops, which role-played question-and-answer sessions with potential audiences. In the first half of 1984, close to fifty showings of “Nicaragua and Us” took place, each followed by a discussion session. “We wanted to make the revolution come alive for people by presenting stories of Nicaraguans we had met,” said Kathy Gordon. PCASC’s other educational activities included bringing Nicaraguan speakers such as Gustavo Parajón of CEPAD to Portland, producing a monthly newsletter, maintaining a regular speakers bureau, sponsoring film festivals on Central America, and participating in the statewide Central America Information Week sponsored by IFCO. The latter was held May 6–13, 1984, and featured twenty speakers from El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala in two hundred events across the state. PCASC became the central hub for Central America activism in Portland. “Sometimes we were coordinating,” said Hess, “sometimes we just kept up with what was going on.” PCASC operated primarily on volunteer energy, with coordination provided by one or two paid staff persons. The group networked and cosponsored activities with many other local groups, including the Committee for Health Rights in Central America (CHRICA).51 Each group had its own audience and projects. CHRICA, for example, targeted medical students for educational programs on Central America and collected much-needed medical supplies for Nicaragua, particularly I-V tubing, medications, and gauze. PCASC became involved with the Pledge of Resistance campaign, but not to the extent that some other local organizations did. At a statewide POR organizational meeting on November 17, 1984, Oregon activists expressed concern that PCASC’s labor allies would not condone civil disobedience actions; and some noted that the Pledge campaign did not directly address the Contra War.52 PCASC remedied the latter problem by asking all Pledge signers to participate in other PCASC activities, such as letter-writing parties, the Community Education Campaign, humanitarian aid projects, or a developing sister city program. Diane Hess and Chuck Bell of the Fellowship of Reconciliation served as local Pledge coordinators. Portlanders responded to the first Pledge demonstrations on June 12, 1985, by holding a vigil in which over 300 people participated.53 The next Pledge-related demonstration in Portland took place on March 15, 1986, five days before the House was scheduled to vote on a $100 million contra aid package. The community turned out 350 “spirited opponents,” according to a

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PCASC report. They “came out to sing, shout, hear speakers representing a variety of constituencies,” and to jeer at “Ronbo” Reagan (an actor), the lone interventionist voice at the rally.54 On the political front, PCASC members developed a friendly relationship with Rep. Les AuCoin and met with him often. “It was startling to me how much he knew about the issues and how passionate he was,” said Bill Bigelow, a member of the PCASC newsletter team. “His staff was great,” said Hess. “We were really friends with them.” PCASC members also developed cordial relationships with Rep. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, and Sen. Mark Hatfield, a liberal Republican on foreign policy issues. Republican Senator Bob Packwood, on the other hand, “was like the enemy,” said Hess. “We met with him. He was really rude.” Both Portland representatives (AuCoin and Wyden) and Sen. Hatfield voted consistently against contra aid in the 1980s. PCASC nevertheless encouraged Portlanders to keep writing to their Washington representatives, encouraging them to “speak out to your colleagues and to the public” against any and all kinds of aid to the contras, including so-called nonlethal aid. This was the message delivered to AuCoin and Wyden on April 14, 1986, signed by over seventy Portlanders who had traveled to Nicaragua since 1979.55 Perhaps the most successful PCASC organizing effort was the creation of a sister city program between Portland and Corinto, a city of twenty-seven thousand people on the northwestern coast. Planning began in the fall of 1983, with Hess initially coordinating the effort. PCASC and affiliated groups generated community support for the program, which the Portland City Council approved on April 17, 1985. City Commissioner Dick Bogle told an audience of two hundred people at the meeting: Based on the letters and phone calls received in my office and the testimony I have heard today, the will of the public is quite clear to me. I’ve heard testimony from the sectors of education, medicine, religion, the arts, labor; and in each of those arenas, it’s very clear there has already been established a people’s sister city relationship. All that’s left to do now is to formalize that relationship and to broaden its base. I think that this is an opportunity for the soul of Portland to grow culturally and humanistically . . . we are truly reaching out and embracing the people of Corinto.56

In mid-September 1985 Corinto’s mayor, Francisco Tapia Mata, a dentist by trade, arrived in Portland and was treated as an honored guest. He spoke to a number of groups and held a news conference in which he explained the

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importance of the sister city program to the people of Corinto. “What we most need from Portland is its solidarity . . . to have people here understand how we truly are in Nicaragua,” he said through an interpreter. Noting that the people of Corinto continue to suffer because of the Contra War, he added, “If I could speak with the president of the United States, I would ask him to remember that two hundred years ago, thirteen American colonies fought against English colonialism to have the right to live the way they wanted to live. This is the same right that we are asking him to respect.”57 The sister city program, which shared office space with PCASC, hosted other visitors from Nicaragua as well, including a folkloric dance troupe. PCASC also sponsored multilevel Spanish classes and held benefits to raise funds for humanitarian aid projects. One project provided Corinto’s hospital with an emergency generator, air conditioner, and water pump. Organizers furthermore cultivated relationships between particular schools, churches, and health clinics in Portland and Corinto. All in all, PCASC was remarkably successful in its outreach efforts, particularly for a self-identified leftist solidarity group. Its success may be attributed to at least four factors: a relatively hospitable liberal environment in Portland, talented organizers who could recruit volunteers and manage projects, a capacity for communicating its themes and arguments in a sensible manner, and the ability to diffuse sectarianism and maintain internal unity. Regarding the latter, PCASC was able to avoid much of the infighting over ideology, strategy, and leadership that historically had marginalized the left. There were many debates, to be sure, but in the end the spirit of unity prevailed. “Sectarianism here was not as intense as in the Bay area,” said Hess. Bill Kowalczyk moved to Portland from Eugene, Oregon, in 1983. He came with a great deal of experience and family history on the left, his grandfather being a member of the Communist Party. “In Portland,” reflected Kowalczyk, “we didn’t have that level of sectarian tension. I mean, it was kind of there in the background, but generally it wasn’t that significant of an issue. . . . People in this town really tended to downplay whatever affiliation they had with whatever party they happened to be associated with.” As a result, he said, people could debate theoretical issues “without the same kind of animosity” that characterized hard-line left groups. Lynn and Cathie DeWeese-Parkinson, both veterans of many leftist battles, identified four reasons why PCASC was able to rise above sectarianism: there were enough unaligned leftists in PCASC to overcome small leftist groups; good personal relations developed over the course of time; PCASC was engaged in productive activities, often with positive results;

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and Portland was a small enough city that people knew they had to “live with each other.” The PCASC newsletter, the Central America Update, initiated in March 1984, provided a forum for discussion and debate on a range of issues. It was designed, according to Bill Bigelow, as both a “news outlet” and a place to reflect on “what it means to do solidarity work. . . what the movement meant.” The newsletter contained a “Viewpoint” section for this purpose, featuring analyses, reflections, and debates among PCASC activists. Issues discussed included how to work with moderate-liberal congressional opponents of Reagan’s policies; whether, when, and how to criticize the Sandinistas; whether PCASC as a group should support particular political candidates; how to educate U.S. citizens on socialism without waving a red flag; how to respond to red-baiting; and rationales for civil disobedience. The newsletter editorial board, noted Bigelow, was comprised of “prominent social justice activists,” including Frank Giese, Patsy Kullberg, Chris Neilson, Bill Resnick, and Millie Thayer. Bigelow, a self-described independent leftist, grew up in a Presbyterian household in the San Francisco Bay area. He began teaching high school history and social studies in Portland in 1978. During the 1980s, he developed a high school curriculum on Central America issues, and with fellow teacher Thayer, organized the Teachers Committee on Central America in the Portland area. When it came to organizing, Bigelow looked at the big picture. “There are a lot of left groups who see recruiting people to their organization as the equivalent of building consciousness and building the movement and all that, when in fact, what they are really doing is just recruiting people to their organization,” he explained. Whatever the merits of their particular ideology, he said, “to the extent that the people who carry that ideology are just concerned about getting people in their discrete organization, then it absolutely becomes an obstacle to working together and building a social movement.” On April 28, 1987, Portland native Ben Linder and two of his Nicaraguan co-workers, Sergio Hernández and Pablo Rosales, were killed by the contras while working on a hydro-electric project near the village of San José de Bocay, located west of Wiwilí. Linder had been living in Nicaragua since August 1983, utilizing his engineering skills in the service of the Nicaraguan National Energy Institute and amusing audiences with his unicycle-riding clown acts. He had returned to the United States in September 1986 for a six-week speaking tour in order to raise funds for the completion of the hydro-electric project. His death came as a great shock to the Portland community. “People were hurt and in a

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fury over what happened to Ben and the family. The family was very beloved in Portland,” said Cathie DeWeese-Parkinson. “It brought the reality of the Contra War home here in a way that maybe was not true in other places,” said Bigelow. “I remember I spent 24/7 in the office after that. People would come and leave groceries for us. The phones were ringing all the time. U.S. foreign policy just hit people in a way that it had not before. There was massive disgust.” News of Ben’s death sparked an impromptu gathering of fifteen hundred Portlanders at the Federal Building on the evening of April 28. The following day, Representative AuCoin issued a statement, which read in part: Yesterday the war in Nicaragua came home to Portland. This war was organized by officials of our government and paid for with our taxes. . . . I am full of anger and sadness: Anger at those in this Administration who spend more time financing this Godforsaken war than they do solving poverty in Central America. Overwhelming sadness, that a dedicated young man has lost his life for caring enough to work for development in peasant communities in spite of the dangers. . . . Count on me to do everything I can to make sure this insanity stops. I asked Secretary of State George Schultz today to start an investigation of this incident immediately.58

Sen. Hatfield also issued a statement that day, declaring that Ben Linder “was the victim of a war for which the United States bears a major responsibility. And it is a war which might not be necessary if we were about the business of searching for a solution instead of military victories.”59 In early May, the Multnomah County Commission unanimously approved resolutions that honored Ben Linder and condemned contra aid. In Salem, the state capital, a majority of state legislators signed a letter to the Oregon congressional delegation calling for an immediate halt to contra aid, an end to the U.S. embargo, and an investigation into the role of U.S. agencies in the murder of civilians like Ben.60 (A one-day congressional hearing was held in May—see chapter 7.) Within three weeks the Ben Linder Memorial Fund, created by his parents to continue the Cua-Bocay hydroelectric project, had raised $25,000. The Portland-Corinto Sister Cities Association initiated the Ben Linder Construction Brigade, with the goal of helping to rebuild hospitals and health clinics in Corinto. Among those who participated in the Ben Linder Construction Brigade was Carlos Flores, a Salvadoran immigrant who arrived in Portland in 1986. He was initially hesitant to become involved in any kind of activism. “The war [in El

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Salvador] was still happening,” he said. “People still had relatives in El Salvador. You had to be careful about who you talked to, find who you can trust.” Flores left El Salvador at the age of fifteen because he feared he would be linked to the revolutionaries—a relative had been killed by the right-wing death squads. “My brother was still there,” he said. “This was something I was always worried about—his safety.” The catalyst for his involvement in PCASC activities in 1988 was a talk he attended at Portland State University (PSU) given by Dr. Charlie Clements about El Salvador. “Soon after that talk,” he said, “I started meeting with students at PSU, the Central America Study and Action Group.” He also met Martin Gonzalez of the Portland AFSC office and the two quickly became friends. Flores started helping with AFSC activities, then assisted a PCASCsponsored walk-a-thon benefit. “So, little by little I started participating,” he said. “I met great people. You could feel that commitment.” PCASC was still functioning in 2011. Its office was located in a building that served as a part-time community center for the multicultural neighborhood.61 “One measure of success,” said Bill Bigelow, “is when people join a project that may be limited, such as supporting Nicaragua, and then stay in the movement for social justice beyond that particular issue. I think there were a lot of people who came into PCASC and are still involved . . . and the fact that PCASC is still around is utterly extraordinary.”

CHAPTER 6

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hat progressive activists hailed as “solidarity” with the Nicaraguan people, the Reagan administration and its rightist allies decried as a Sandinista conspiracy. On April 2, 1985, with votes on contra aid coming up in Congress, President Reagan told Washington Post reporters that the reason his Nicaragua policy lacked public support was that “we’ve been subjected, in this country, to a very sophisticated lobbying campaign by a totalitarian government—the Sandinistas.” Three weeks later, he declared in a national radio address, “The Sandinista Communists are lobbying your senators and representatives. Together with the misguided sympathizers in this country, they’ve been running a sophisticated disinformation campaign of lies and distortion.”1 Reagan returned to this theme the following year. On March 11, 1986, he claimed that lack of public support for his Nicaragua policy was due to “a great disinformation network that is at work throughout our country.” As a result, he said, “a great many people are confused.”2 Internal memoranda indicate that President Reagan’s statements reflected a common bureaucratic mindset.3 A memorandum titled “Public Diplomacy and Central America” (May 1, 1983), written by Kate Semarad, an official with the Agency for International Development, warned of a “Soviet-orchestrated effort to influence the United States Congress, the national media, and the general public.” Soviet propaganda agencies, she wrote, were circulating “fabricated allegations of massacres” by U.S. allies in Central America. To counter these [ 145 ]

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allegations, she advised, “We can and must go over the heads of our Marxist opponents directly to the American people.”4 A fifty-page report from the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD), titled “Sandinista Disinformation” (September 1, 1984), identified the ringleader of the “Sandinista disinformation campaign” as Maryknoll Father Miguel d’Escoto, the FSLN government’s minister of foreign affairs. “He spearheaded the organization of a Nicaragua solidarity network in the United States and Europe, even organizing training sessions for activists on how to present the message.” Two other Nicaraguan religious leaders, Gustavo Parajón and Sixto Ulloa, both of the Council of Protestant Churches (CEPAD), were identified as “fervent spokesmen of Sandinista propaganda and hosts to the many tour groups that visit Nicaragua.” The U.S. citizens most likely to succumb to this propaganda were those “who are continually in disagreement with all U.S. foreign policy” and “naive idealists who believe in any movement that calls itself revolutionary.”5 In an effort to find out how deep this “Sandinista propaganda” had reached into the American heartland, S/LPD underwrote a study by the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) in the fall of 1984. ISA interviewed 250 U.S. organizations involved in Latin American issues, including policy-oriented research institutes, universities, interest groups, humanitarian and human rights organizations, service organizations, and lobby groups. The ISA report, dated January 1, 1985, concluded that most of these groups maintained a liberal-left orientation: “What appears most unusual about the Latin American affairs area—in comparison to those of, say, Europe or the Soviet Union—is the heavily liberal-radical orientation of the vast majority of the entities which are active in the field. This is not a political judgment on the part of the ISA staff, but rather the obvious empirical result of our research. The left of center predominance is so striking . . . that it could hardly be ignored even by the most superficial observers.”6 This objective assessment did not appear to change the thinking of S/LPD director Otto Reich, who continued to maintain that Sandinista propaganda was responsible for the lack of public support for administration policies, not only in the United States but also in Western Europe. In an S/LPD report titled “Public Diplomacy Plan for Europe” ( July 29, 1985), Reich wrote, “Because the Sandinista, FMLN, and other communist propaganda supporters work so effectively in Europe, our effort to counter their activities and explain our views will have to be intensive and sustained over a long period of time.”7 Another S/LPD report (December 17, 1985) predicted, “The Sandinistas will probably

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mount a campaign beginning in early January to persuade Congress to withdraw support from the Nicaraguan armed forces [contras]. The campaign will be run from the grass-roots level and directed at religious groups, the media, and special interest groups.”8 By the time Robert Kagan took charge of S/LPD in April 1986, it was clear that S/LPD’s strategy needed revision, as the agency had thus far failed to stem the tide of domestic opposition. Kagan necessarily acknowledged the domestic sources of opposition to the Contra War so as to devise a more effective counterstrategy. In a memo to National Security Council adviser Walter Raymond Jr. (September 18, 1986), he wrote: Church-based supporters of the Sandinistas have been able to frame much of the public debate on Nicaragua. . . . [They are] dominating the flow of information to local churches, parishes, and synagogues. Many of the denominational national offices and their respective justice and peace committees and offices of social policy reflect the views of pro-Sandinista religious activists. This bias is bolstered by such church-supported groups as the Washington Office on Latin America and Witness for Peace, and is reinforced by inexpensive solidarity tours of Nicaragua. Opposition to U.S. policy in Central America has continued to be a central effort of many DC-based religious offices and their support network. Because of this, any public diplomacy effort must reach the local level and respond to the charges and allegations made by the various inter-religious networks supportive of the Sandinistas.9

Kagan still missed the point that most U.S. religious organizations and activist groups did not base their opposition to the Contra War on whether or not they supported the Sandinistas. As Thomas Quigley, head of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Office of International Justice and Peace, pointed out, “people who disapprove strongly of U.S. efforts to overthrow the [Nicaraguan] government and fund the Contras can still be quite critical of the Sandinistas.”10 What the liberal U.S. religious community held in common with the FSLN government was a belief that the U.S.-directed Contra War “is immoral, illegal, and unwise,” as Bishop Thomas Gumbleton told a Congressional subcommittee in 1987, speaking for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.11 Opinions regarding the nature of the FSLN and its reform program were more diverse, although most liberal religious groups approved of Sandinista reforms in health care, education, and land redistribution in the interest of the masses.

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One of the ways in which the Reagan administration sought to undermine its opponents was to discourage travel to Nicaragua. In mid-1983 the administration closed six Nicaraguan consulates in the United States, thereby making it more difficult for U.S. citizens to obtain visas. The Nicaraguan government responded by allowing U.S. citizens to enter the country without visas, even placing an advertisement in the New York Times to announce this.12 In early 1984 the administration employed more intimidating tactics, directing the FBI and Customs agents to question returning brigadistas and other U.S. travelers to Sandinista Nicaragua. “Within months of the first brigades,” wrote the sociologist Sharon E. Nepstad, “several brigadistas were contacted by FBI agents who wanted to discuss their trips to Nicaragua and whether they had been approached by representatives of the Sandinista government.”13 Nicaragua Network sent out warning letters to inform travelers of their rights and offer advice as to how to respond to questions. During a Congressional inquiry in April 1985, FBI director William H. Webster testified that agents had questioned one hundred U.S. travelers to Nicaragua about their activities and contacts in Nicaragua. Rep. Don Edwards (D-CA), after hearing Webster’s testimony, said, “These FBI interviews have the odor of harassment. We want to know what they’re doing with various groups and people who are not even suspected of committing crimes, but are diligent in their opposition to the president’s policies in Central America.” The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed suit on behalf of Edward Haase, a freelance journalist whose diary and address book had been photocopied by the FBI at the Miami airport when he returned from Nicaragua on January 16, 1985. A federal district judge dismissed the suit after the FBI promised to not use any of the “evidence” obtained. This litigation, along with pressure from members of Congress, led U.S. Customs to issue new rules barring such searches.14 The administration took more forceful action against the Sanctuary Movement and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Prominent sanctuary leaders were arrested and put on trial in 1984 and 1985, and CISPES was placed under investigation as a potential illegal foreign agent and supporter of international terrorism. After years of FBI surveillance, however, no charges were brought against CISPES. In September 1988 CCR obtained through the Freedom of Information Act 1,320 pages of documents on FBI activities from 1981 to 1985. The documents revealed that the FBI had placed under investigation 2,370 individuals and 1,330 groups in the United States. In July 1989 the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a 150-page report that called the FBI

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investigation of CISPES “a serious failure in F.B.I. management” but did not criticize the White House.15 Part of the administration’s “public diplomacy” strategy involved encouraging and sometimes subsidizing rightist groups to attack the anti–Contra War campaign and Central America movement. In the mid-1980s, at the height of the political debate over contra aid, a half-dozen rightist think tanks produced a spate of books and articles denouncing opponents of administration policy as the pawns of revolutionary communists and the Soviet Union. The book titles convey the message: The Revolution Lobby (1985); The Washington Battle for Central America: The Unmet Challenge of the “Red Chorus” (1986); The Red Orchestra: Instruments of Soviet Policy in Latin America and the Caribbean (1986); Second Front: Advancing Latin American Revolution in Washington (1986); and Prophets or Useful Idiots? Church Organizations Attacking U.S. Central America Policy (1986). One of the more prolific writers of such works, J. Michael Waller, contracted with S/LPD to produce a study on the “Central American Church Connection,” to be distributed to “a variety of leadership groups and priority audiences.”16 The Institute on Religion and Democracy, a rightist group founded in 1981, specifically targeted Witness for Peace. In a press release on October 15, 1986, headlined “The False Witness of Witness for Peace,” the institute charged that WFP was engaged in “deception” and “betrayal of solidarity with persecuted Christians in Nicaragua,” and that the group was abusing its “religious witness for partisan political purposes.” In response, on November 25 the WFP steering committee issued a statement declaring that it was “speaking the truth about the effects of U.S. support for the contras, because our government is responsible for their terrorist attacks on civilian targets.”17 Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, the alleged ringleader of the “Sandinista propaganda campaign,” was indeed influential in the United States, but this was hardly a conspiracy. D’Escoto’s influence stemmed from his long-standing contacts in the religious community and his well-known advocacy of liberation theology. D’Escoto was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1933, the oldest son of Nicaraguan parents. His maternal grandfather was German and his mother and uncles had been educated in Germany—and also trapped there during World War I. His father worked as a movie actor in southern California, sometimes doubling for Rudolph Valentino, according to d’Escoto. The family returned to Nicaragua when Miguel was a young child. Being from a well-off family, Miguel was given the option at the age of fourteen

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to study abroad. His father suggested Spain, but Miguel said he wanted to go to the United States, where he might learn about democracy. Spain, he said, was too much like Nicaragua in being ruled by a dictatorship. Miguel got his wish. He attended a private high school in Berkeley, California, where he became fluent in English and found excitement in following the baseball heroics of Jackie Robinson. D’Escoto recalled a formative experience when a fellow student told him that Jackie Robinson was not a good baseball player. Miguel responded that Robinson was indeed a very good player. “He cannot be good,” said the other boy. “Why he cannot be good?” asked Miguel. “Because he is black,” came the reply. D’Escoto never forgot the answer. He came to understand America’s cultural prejudices and also to admire those Americans who challenged discrimination and injustice. “If I were to choose the people who most influenced me in my life and who were paradigmatic figures for me,” he reflected, “I would choose four, of which two were American. One is Martin Luther King and the other one is Dorothy Day. . . . The others would be [Mohandas] Gandhi and [Leo] Tolstoy.” His study of U.S. history also led him to admire William Lloyd Garrison, the famous abolitionist. An original painting of Garrison, along with two original mastheads of Garrison’s newsletter, The Liberator, hang in his Managua home. D’Escoto pursued his higher education at a seminary in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where he studied philosophy. He entered the Maryknoll seminary at Ossining, New York, in 1953 and was ordained a priest in 1961. He served as a missionary in Chile from 1963 to 1969, a time when liberation theology was sweeping through Latin America and progressive reform was gaining momentum in Chile. Upon return to the United States in 1970, d’Escoto helped found Orbis Books and became its publisher. In 1977 he became a member of the influential Group of Twelve in Nicaragua, which brought the FSLN into the political dialogue at the time.18 During the 1980s, while serving as minister of foreign relations, d’Escoto continued to reach out to the U.S. religious community. In an article in Sojourners (March 1983), for example, he linked the liberation theology movement in Latin America to Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement in North America. The spirit of King was alive and well in Sandinista Nicaragua, he wrote, as people of faith were undertaking “the common task of searching for a more human and just society.” He assured readers of this progressive Christian magazine that a “reservoir of Christian values” underlay the Sandinista Revolution and that, after the revolution, “a great amount of forgiveness was manifested.” He explained the economics of Sandinista Nicaragua in straightforward moral

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terms: “The revolution demands that we abandon ideas of only ourselves becoming better off. It demands a great amount of brotherhood and sisterhood and sharing and thinking not only of myself but of us.”19 D’Escoto’s younger sister, Rita, was also born in the United States. During the 1950s, while working at the United Nations Division of Social Affairs, she fell in love with a West Point cadet named John Clark. The two were married in 1956 and had six children, all being U.S. citizens. On June 2, 1970, Lt. Col. John Clark was killed in action in Vietnam. One and a half years later, Rita sent her two oldest children, Sophia and Margarita (identical twins, age thirteen), to live with extended family in Nicaragua. The sisters arrived just after the devastating earthquake hit Managua in December 1972 and stayed for two and a half years. They finished high school in the United States and returned to Nicaragua during summers. Sophia graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 with a BA in government, writing her final research paper on the Sandinista Revolution. In late 1980 Sophia Clark moved to Nicaragua and began working at the Department of North American Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, headed by her uncle. “Father Miguel was truly a mentor for me,” she said. “He’s my godfather but he was also a political mentor to me.” Sophia’s physical appearance as a gringa—blond hair and light skin—made some of her colleagues wary, but she soon gained their confidence. She became a translator at top-level meetings between Daniel Ortega and visiting English-speaking dignitaries. In protest against the Contra War, she renounced her U.S. citizenship. Sophia’s sister, Margarita, moved to Nicaragua in 1982 and began working as a health volunteer in Ciudad Sandino. Still retaining her U.S. citizenship, she became deputy director of international relations of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers. Her tasks included making arrangements for such notable visitors as Salmon Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes, Graham Greene, Harold Pinter, Martin Sheen, and Daryl Hannah. “I said to my sister,” said Sophia, “you get all the fun people, I get all the members of Congress.” In 1986 Sophia returned to the United States to become the first secretary of the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, DC, joining her mother and brother Michael there. Rita Clark remained eternally hopeful that U.S. citizens would recognize the grievous error of the Contra War. “I have a great love for this country,” she said. “To me, seeing how the U.S. was acting in Nicaragua, I can’t tell you how painful it was.” After the FSLN party lost the elections of February 1990, Rita continued her transnational solidarity work through the newly created Nicaragua–United States Friendship Office.20

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More than a few Nicaraguans were intimately familiar with the United States. Junta member Moisés Hassan obtained his doctorate in civil engineering from the University of North Carolina at Raleigh in 1971. Minister of Foreign Trade Alejandro Martínez Cuenca majored in economics at Vanderbilt in the 1970s. Alejandro Bendaña, Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, obtained his doctorate in history from Harvard University in 1979 (and became a visiting professor of history at the University of Chicago in 1993). Nora Astorga, Nicaragua’s Deputy Representative at the United Nations, went to medical school in Washington, DC, in 1967–68. Gustavo Parajón, head of CEPAD and an ordained Baptist minister, attended Case Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland and went on to obtain a master’s degree in public health from Harvard. His American-born wife, Joan, grew up near Chicago.21 In contrast to the cardboard stereotypes of Sandinista Nicaragua circulating among Reagan administration officials, many Nicaraguan political and religious leaders were well versed in American culture, politics, and history.

Views of Solidarity from Nicaragua FSLN leaders typically described those abroad who aided Nicaragua as being in “solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution.” This definition did not necessarily match the self-definitions of foreign organizations involved in Nicaragua. Among U.S. groups, only Nicaragua Network and its affiliates defined their solidarity along the same lines as the FSLN, being supportive of both the FSLN and its reform program. Religious groups identified themselves as being in solidarity with their Nicaraguan counterparts or the Nicaraguan people. Sister cities defined their involvement in terms of building people-to-people friendship at the local level. Humanitarian aid groups tended to label themselves “nonpolitical,” irrespective of the fact that their assistance worked in tandem with FSLN programs of economic uplift. FSLN leaders understood these differences and encouraged each in their own right, but nonetheless identified all of these groups as being in solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution. It was in their interest to do so, after all, as international support boosted their credibility in the eyes of the Nicaraguan people. Oddly, then, both the Reagan administration and the FSLN identified U.S. groups involved in Nicaragua as being pro-Sandinista, the former viewing this as diabolical and the latter viewing it as a blessing. While FSLN leaders encouraged international solidarity, what they needed

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most was domestic support for their reform program, or popular solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution. This was cultivated in a number of ways: by memorializing those who had fallen during the revolution; by enlisting popular participation in the literacy crusade, health brigades, and Sandinista mass organizations; by emphasizing that “the revolution was made to create a new society,” as Interior Minister Tomás Borge declared; by making Sandino the national patriarch; and by promoting Sandinismo, the spirit of cooperation and sacrifice for the good of the whole.22 “The greatest advance of our revolution,” said Fr. Ernesto Cardenal, minister of culture, “is the brotherhood it has produced.”23 The FSLN’s efforts to cultivate popular and international solidarity often blended together. The development of international solidarity went through three phases, according to Comandante Dora María Téllez. During the period of revolutionary struggle, the FSLN focused on developing “relations of solidarity” with groups in other countries, and “particularly with Cuba.” Following the assumption of power, “solidarity expanded and broadened” to generate international support for the FSLN’s reform program and the “political perspective of the Revolution.” During the Contra War period (1982–90), “the solidarity movement took on a different role and became much more important in regard to the aggression begun by Reagan.”24

Revolutionary Solidarity Dora María Téllez and René Nuñez were both guerrilla fighters during the revolutionary period. Téllez began working with the FSLN in 1972 and went underground in 1976, leaving behind her medical studies at the University of León. Her family did not see her again for three years. She became one of a handful of women commanders in the FSLN and led guerrilla units in the final battle for León in June 1979—at the age of twenty-three. Following the military triumph, Téllez was appointed deputy president of the Council of State, then minister of health in 1985. René Nuñez left his university studies in civil engineering to join the FSLN in 1967. He was imprisoned twice by the Somoza government, spending a total of four years in prison. His release in August 1978 was part of a hostage exchange deal arranged with Somoza after FSLN guerrillas took over the National Assembly. Téllez was second in command during that operation. Nuñez left for Cuba and returned when revolution forces were triumphing in León. During the 1980s, he served in three official capacities, as secretary of the FSLN Directorate, director of the Office on Religious Affairs, and minister

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to the President’s Office. For both Nuñez and Téllez, the revolutionary period embodied the spirit of Sandinismo. “All the militants trained during that period are the same—forged in the struggle, with a tremendous commitment to the Organization [FSLN], and to the Nicaraguan people,” said Téllez. “That faith in the people, no one really knows where it comes from. . . . We revolutionaries are visionaries to a certain extent.”25 According to Nuñez, international solidarity during the revolutionary period involved sending groups of people out of the country—to the United States, Mexico, other Central American countries, Venezuela, some European countries. Their primary mission was to develop solidarity committees, foster support and raise money for the FSLN, and spread “the story of the Sandinistas.” Some solidarity groups in Latin America also sent arms, doctors, and a few hundred volunteer fighters, most of whom joined the FSLN’s Simon Bolívar brigade. The most important FSLN connection was the Cuban government and people, according to Nuñez. “Cuban solidarity was a special case, because they were there from the very beginning and were there when the Sandinistas grew.” The Cuban government provided military training and a safe haven for FSLN operatives, but did not send people to fight in Nicaragua.26 Panama was also a place of refuge. In late September 1978, a conference titled the Continental Conference of Solidarity with the People of Nicaragua was held in Panama City, attended by some one hundred international supporters, including a half-dozen U.S. citizens. According to the U.S. Embassy, which monitored the meeting, the purpose of the conference was “to determine ways in which ‘solidarity’ with the Nicaraguan people could be made manifest.” Discussions centered on the formation of volunteer brigades to join the anti-Somoza fight and on building solidarity movements in the home countries of participants.27 On the diplomatic front, the FSLN established formal relations with the governments of Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico in 1978. “Connections were made with government officials in order that the Sandinista Party, even though it was not in the government, would be able to go to the Organization of American States and make statements,” said Nuñez. This diplomacy paid off when the United States came to the OAS in June 1979 with a last-minute proposal to create an interim government to replace Somoza—in order to head off an expected FSLN victory. The OAS rejected the measure and voted instead to demand Somoza’s resignation. Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and Ecuador furthermore broke off diplomatic relations with the Somoza government.28

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Postrevolutionary Solidarity In the postrevolutionary period, the revolutionary rhetoric that had galvanized Nicaraguans into action against the “dictator” was refashioned into a call for participation in the revolutionary process. The military triumph in July 1979 had the immediate effect of validating revolutionary rhetoric, but governance ultimately required a shift toward pragmatism in both domestic and international affairs. FSLN leaders faced the daunting task of meeting the nation’s pressing economic needs with extremely limited resources. They needed the support of business owners, skilled technicians, managers, and international aid organizations irrespective of political ideology. In foreign affairs, the FSLN was obliged to abide by international (UN and OAS) rules that proscribed support for revolutionaries in other countries. Those who wanted to aid the revolutionary struggle in El Salvador had to contend with the possibility that this would open the door to U.S. support for counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua. Revolutionary rhetoric, as such, was constrained. FSLN public statements gravitated toward calling for “a negotiated solution to the Salvadoran conflict.”29 The two FSLN agencies most responsible for both international and transnational relationships in the post-revolutionary period and beyond were the government’s Ministry of Foreign Relations (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, or MINREX) and the party’s Directorate of International Relations (Dirreción de las Relaciones Internacionales, or DRI). Overall coordination fell to a small commission composed of National Directorate members Bayardo Arce and Daniel Ortega; the minister and vice minister of foreign relations, respectively, Miguel d’Escoto and Victor Hugo Tinoco; the head of the DRI, which for many years was Julio López; and occasionally the chief of the army. This commission was a very stable group, according to Tinoco, holding almost weekly meetings for ten years. “It oversaw the whole relationship of international solidarity,” he said. Arce was the main force in the commission in the first half of the 1980s, while Ortega exerted more influence in the latter half of the decade.30 MINREX, as a government bureau, dealt with other governments, foreign political parties, Nicaraguan embassies, multinational agencies, and diplomatic initiatives. “Because we could not afford to have embassies everywhere in the world,” said d’Escoto, “I was practically forced to travel the whole world in order to meet with heads of state.”31 MINREX officials worked at a brisk pace to secure loans and aid from other governments and international agencies. These efforts paid off. During its first thirty-two months of existence, the Sandinista government received $1.2 billion in external financing and $260 million in direct aid.32

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The aid came from Latin America, Western Europe, the socialist bloc, and Arab oil exporters, mainly Libya, in keeping with the FSLN’s announced policy of “walking on four legs,” designed to reduce dependence on the United States.33 The foreign aid, however, was not enough to prevent an economic crisis in the summer of 1981; hence the need for additional assistance from international humanitarian aid and solidarity organizations. The FSLN government often delegated the coordination of aid projects to its various ministries. “Each ministry had its own kind of work and its own particular work with solidarity groups as well, such as in the area of health,” said Tinoco.34 Agencies directly coordinating international aid and programs included the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Construction, National Energy Institute, Ministry of Social Welfare (which had its own Office of Foreign Cooperation), Ministry for Agrarian Development and Reform (which helped make arrangements for international work brigades), and the Directorate of Municipal and Regional Affairs (which worked with foreign embassies and local municipalities to facilitate sister city partnerships). DRI, being a party vehicle, was more ideological than MINREX. DRI worked closely with the FSLN Department of Propaganda and Political Education and with Barricada, the official party newspaper, which published an English-language edition for international audiences. The staff at MINREX and DRI were sometimes called upon to work on joint projects. When Ronald Reagan was elected in November 1980, for example, Bayardo Arce requested that the North American desks of MINREX and DRI work together to produce a chronology of all statements made by the Santa Fe committee about Nicaragua and the situation in Central America (the Santa Fe committee was a rightist group that influenced the Republican Party platform on Central America). The idea was to gain a better understanding of the thinking of the incoming Reagan administration.35 In 1980 DRI established the Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples (CNSP) for the dual purpose of facilitating international solidarity relationships and cultivating an internationalist consciousness among the Nicaraguan people. According to staff member Ana Patricia Elvir, CNSP facilitated “experiential education,” in which Nicaraguans met with internationalists working on various projects in the country for mutual education and sharing of perspectives. CNSP also conducted information campaigns to educate Nicaraguans about international issues, albeit from an anti-imperialist perspective—such issues as the Salvadoran people’s struggle for justice, the

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“Palestinian people’s right for identity and territory,” and “the achievements of countries in the socialist camp.” CNSP became the main contact for leftist solidarity groups abroad, including Nicaragua Network in the United States. The agency was governed by a board of directors made up of representatives of Sandinista mass organizations, which met twice a year.36 Sandinista mass organizations also developed transnational relationships on their own. The Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women connected with other women’s groups; Sandinista labor unions connected with their counterparts; and the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers developed relationships with writers, actors, and artists abroad. The latter group was headed by Rosario Murillo, a well-known poet and Daniel Ortega’s partner. At the nongovernmental and nonparty level, there were many kinds of transnational connections—business, professional, educational, and especially religious. There were, of course, deep and historic transnational ties among Catholic orders and Protestant denominations, and many norteamericano missionaries were serving in Nicaragua. Other religious entities that cultivated relationships abroad were the Jesuit-run Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, the Catholic-based Institute of John XXIII, the Protestant-based CEPAD, the Antonio Valdivieso Ecumenical Center, and CONFER (the Nicaraguan Conference of Religious). The FSLN government encouraged these independent relationships as a counterweight to the influence of the Catholic hierarchy, even subsidizing liberation theology conferences in Managua. The potential for building international solidarity and support for the new Nicaragua was evident in the rush of international visitors in the postrevolutionary period. “Virtually everywhere I went there were people from other countries,” observed Harvey Williams, a sociology professor from California. Many came because they thought “what was happening here was good” and wanted to be part of it. The Nicaraguan people were eager to talk with international visitors. They “were very much interested in having us get the story straight,” said Williams. The FSLN government welcomed these international visitors and encouraged their interest. According to Thomas Walker, distinguished Latin Americanist scholar at Ohio University, FSLN leaders “seemed determined from the very beginning to be very open. . . . Their attitude was, ‘This is a Nicaraguan revolution. This is not a Cuban revolution. We’re going to do things our way.’ And being open was their way.” Being open also fit the post-revolutionary pragmatic outlook, as the FSLN obtained aid from wherever it could, be it foreign governments, nongovernmental organizations, religious denominations, solidarity

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organizations, or individual cooperantes—foreigners with technical expertise working in Nicaragua. The FSLN government placed dozens of internationalists in governmental positions, including Williams, who worked at the Ministry of Labor for six months in 1985.37

International Solidarity during the Contra War In the fall of 1981 Javier Chamorro, Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations, spoke at the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco on the importance of solidarity activities in the United States. “Though the war is over,” he said, “solidarity work is still important to educate the American public about recent developments in Nicaragua and to counteract the campaign of disinformation that is being conducted against Nicaragua.”38 As the Contra War heated up, solidarity appeals grew more urgent. At a meeting of the Standing Committee of Intellectuals for the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Our America, held in Managua on March 4, 1982, Junta member Sergio Ramírez called upon intellectuals “to protest against any kind of intervention in Central America or the Caribbean.” He raised the memory of the Vietnam War, saying, “We know that the U.S. people’s sense of justice has not been dulled and that they cannot so easily forget the past. We are confident that they will stand beside the peoples of Latin America and the world, that they will form a bastion to hold back intervention in Central America.”39 That same month, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the son of the martyred Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and editor of Barricada, spoke at a meeting in Toronto on March 31, 1982. He described how Somocistas (ex–national guardsmen) operating near the Honduran border had killed 141 Nicaraguans in the past eighteen months. He then asked his audience to join in solidarity with Nicaragua: “We hope that the solidarity work done here might also become a source of strength for us. We hope it can be united with the efforts of the people of the United States in order to build a very powerful anti-interventionist movement.”40 Similar appeals for international solidarity and support were made at the Continental Conference for Peace and Sovereignty in Central America and the Caribbean, held in Managua from April 21 to 23, 1983. Complementing these international appeals for solidarity were domestic calls for popular defense of the revolution. These calls typically lacked Ramírez’s confidence that U.S. citizens would rise to the occasion and prevent the U.S.

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government from invading Nicaragua. FSLN directorate members Tomás Borge, Daniel Ortega, Luis Carrión, Humberto Ortega, Jaime Wheelock, and others spoke frequently on the need to “defend the revolution” against Yankee imperialism. Wheelock, speaking at a May Day rally (May 1, 1984) before a crowd of some 30,000 people in Chinandega, a town in northwestern Nicaragua, declared that the “world is with Nicaragua. . . . Even allies of the United States are opposed to the policy of the Reagan administration.” He warned that a Vietnam-like quagmire awaited a U.S. invasion: “And it will cost them to intervene here, because the people are mobilized for defense. He who intervenes here can expect to suffer tens of thousands of casualties, to be buried with marines and flags back in the United States—that is, if they manage to get out of Nicaragua.”41 Wheelock thus made it clear that if Americans did not learn from their fiasco in Vietnam, Nicaraguans would reteach them the lesson. What he did not mention was that the “lesson of Vietnam” had cost the Vietnamese people dearly.

Sandinistas in the United States FSLN leaders balanced these dire warnings at home with renewed efforts to forge bonds with progressive U.S. sectors and present a human face to the American people. In early October 1984 Daniel Ortega, Rosario Murillo, and Miguel d’Escoto embarked on a nine-day speaking tour through New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Atlanta. Their purpose was to counter the Reagan administration’s “campaign of disinformation about Nicaragua,” according to Ortega. Visiting the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the Christianbased Habitat for Humanity was rehabilitating tenement housing, Ortega thanked Habitat for its plans to build low-cost housing in Nicaragua and told residents of the neighborhood, “May the power of construction always be greater than the power of destruction.” In Los Angeles, Ortega was presented with an official Certificate of Welcome by city councilman Robert C. Farrell. He later attended a Beverly Hills garden party hosted by the Committee of Concern for Central America, a group that included Hollywood actors. Ortega invited those gathered to visit Nicaragua and humbly declared, “Our revolution is not perfect, but we’re trying to construct a better society.”42 Such soft-sell rhetoric was designed to dissolve the menacing images of the Sandinistas drawn by the Reagan administration and its rightist allies. Although markedly different in tone from the fiery anti-imperialist speeches at home, both had the same objectives of ending U.S. intervention

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in Nicaragua and preventing a direct U.S. invasion, thus allowing the FSLN to get on with the business of reform and development. That the political culture in at least some parts of the United States did not buy administration stereotypes of Nicaragua became clear when Daniel Ortega spoke at the Park Slope United Methodist Church in Brooklyn on July 27, 1986. After listening to Ortega admonish the Reagan administration for not abiding by the recent World Court decision and not listening to U.S. public opinion, the audience gave the FSLN leader a standing ovation accompanied by thunderous shouts of “Viva Nicaragua Libre!” according to the New York Times.43 The city of Brooklyn had recently established a sister city relationship with the Nicaraguan town of San Juan del Rio Coco. As part of this partnership, the Park Slope Methodist Church had established a sister congregation relationship with La Merced, a Roman Catholic church. Eight days before Ortega’s speech, according to a Brooklyn newspaper, the “Brooklyn/San Juan del Rio Coco project held a parade with a marching salsa band and steel drums to mark July 19, the anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution.”44 A few weeks after Ortega spoke, the contras once again attacked San Juan del Rio Coco, leaving seven dead. Brooklyn residents held a memorial service, attended by Nora Astorga, FSLN representative at the UN, and sent $2,500 to the Nicaraguan community to support a water project and health clinic.45 Although FSLN leaders and Nicaraguans in general typically distinguished between the “imperialist” U.S. government and its citizens, it was nonetheless eye opening for many Nicaraguans to meet so many U.S. citizens who opposed their own government’s policies and wanted to help the Nicaraguan people. Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, vice president of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court of Justice, came into contact with many Americans. As vice president of the Nicaraguan Commission for Peace as well, she “worked with international groups opposed to the U.S. embargo, groups that brought supplies to Nicaragua, and also groups that brought work brigades to Nicaragua,” by her own account. “I realized,” she said, “there was a big difference between the position of the people and the government of the United States, because I was working with people that opposed their government’s policy toward Nicaragua.” In 1984 Nuñez de Escorcia assisted former New York district attorney Reed Brody in gathering data on contra attacks on civilians, later published in Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission, September 1984–January 1985 (1985). She also visited many U.S. cities during the 1980s, speaking at universities (University of California, Berkeley and New York University), public

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forums, and conferences. She would typically explain “how the legal system was working in Nicaragua and how we were implementing law.”46 Other FSLN officials who spoke in the United States during the 1980s included Sergio Ramirez, Jaime Wheelock, Alejandro Bendaña, Ernesto Cardenal, Dora María Téllez, Javier Chamorro, Carlos Tünnermann, and Rosa Carlota Tünnermann. FSLN leaders also made their views known on occasion by writing op-ed articles. Daniel Ortega had three published in the New York Times (March 13, 1985, January 14, 1988, and November 3, 1989); Sergio Ramírez had one published in the same newspaper ( July 26, 1983); and Tomás Borge was interviewed by the Washington Post ( July 31, 1983) and Playboy magazine (August 1983).

The Foreign Ministry During the Contra War, the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry directed its efforts toward isolating the United States internationally, even as the United States tried to isolate Nicaragua. Miguel d’Escoto found that many of his counterparts, including the foreign ministers of NATO countries, understood and sympathized with Nicaragua‘s position, even if they would not say so publicly. “It was really interesting,” he said, “how some who were perceived to be the closest friends of the United States did not agree with the U.S. position. . . . I was amazed to see how they understood exactly what the facts were.”47 MINREX held its own in the competition for international support and allies. Tinoco and Astorga successfully lobbied African and Asian nations to give Nicaragua a seat on the UN Security Council in 1983, over the vehement objection of the U.S. representative. D’Escoto and Tinoco convinced Western European leaders in 1984 to reject a U.S. request to cut off aid to Nicaragua.48 In May 1985, in direct opposition to the U.S. embargo, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada all increased their trade with Nicaragua and extended new credits.49 At the UN, the General Assembly passed resolutions opposing the U.S. embargo in 1985 and urging U.S. compliance with the World Court decision in 1986. The favorable World Court ruling was a major diplomatic coup for Nicaragua, buttressing European and Latin American opposition to what was clearly defined as U.S. aggression toward Nicaragua. It was largely at d’Escoto’s insistence that the Nicaraguan government took its case to the World Court in 1984, according to Sophia Clark, as some FSLN leaders feared that the Court would rule against Nicaragua, in deference to U.S. pressure.50 Clark’s job at the North American division of MINREX was to research and analyze political developments in the United States, so that when members of

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Congress came to visit Nicaragua, FSLN officials would know where they stood on the issues, how they had voted, and their party’s positions. Many members of Congress did visit Nicaragua. During the Congressional Easter recess in 1985, for example, twenty senators and representatives, both Republican and Democrat, came in five separate delegations.51 The FSLN had no formal relationship with the Democratic Party leadership, but MINREX officials worked with individual members, particularly Tom Harkin, John Kerry, and Christopher Dodd in the Senate, and Jim Wright and David Bonior in the House. Tinoco, as deputy foreign minister in charge of relations with the U.S. and Latin American governments, regularly traveled to Washington and met with Democratic Party members of Congress. “I had very cordial relations with Democrats,” he said. “I did a lot of lobbying. I met a lot of congressional representatives and senators.” The amicable feeling was mutual on the part of Rep. Bonior. “Of the Sandinistas, he was my favorite,” said Bonior. “I really admire him.” Bonior was less impressed with other FSLN officials. “Some were very easy and good to work with, others were almost impossible to work with.” He placed in the latter category Miguel d’Escoto. “He had no patience,” said Bonior. Notwithstanding the Reagan administration’s frequent denunciations of the “Sandinista lobby,” Nicaraguan diplomats operated like dozens of other governmental lobbies in Washington; and certainly the Nicaraguan lobby was one of the smaller ones. Meeting with U.S. elected officials was normal procedure for foreign governments, including the former Somoza government of Nicaragua. Moreover, while the Reagan administration alleged conspiratorial and malicious designs by the “Sandinista lobby,” it arranged and paid for anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans to come to Washington to lobby members of Congress. The administration was essentially trying to win the contra aid “debate” by shutting out one side. Tinoco, Clark, and the MINREX staff worked with a number of ACWC groups, including the Washington Office on Latin America, Nicaragua Network, and “specific solidarity groups, for example, in Los Angeles and San Francisco.” Tinoco considered these and other groups common allies in the struggle to end the Contra War. “My perception was that all these groups were very valuable,” he said. “Their activities in Nicaragua had political repercussions, as they would return to the U.S. and put pressure on their members of Congress.” Although “they could not stop the continuation of Reagan’s policy, solidarity made it more difficult for Reagan to carry out what he wanted to do and at one point he had to resort to illegal methods—the Iran-Contra scandal.

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Solidarity was very important.” In Sophia Clark’s estimation, anti–Contra War groups were “enormously effective” in countering the Reagan administration’s negative stereotypes of Nicaragua. She furthermore credited the international solidarity movement with helping Nicaragua “survive the embargo.”52

The Nicaraguan Embassy The Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington maintained regular communication with U.S. activist groups and frequently responded to their requests for speakers. According to Clark, who became first secretary of the embassy in 1986, “When groups in the U.S. knew that someone would be coming . . . we would start getting calls from different solidarity groups in the U.S., and we would have to communicate with the Foreign Ministry . . . to let them know that there was an interest.” The embassy typically relied on ACWC groups to make arrangements for speakers. Clark accompanied Dora María Téllez on a speaking tour that took them to Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Berkeley, and finally to the annual convention of the American Public Health Association in Las Vegas in September 1986. They visited U.S. hospitals and spoke with media in cities along the way. “We were particularly looking for alternative ways to give a different image to the media,” said Clark. I think Nicaraguans were very, very good in what I would call talking in non-ideological terms and also talking on an equal basis. We weren’t talking down to people. We weren’t making excuses for ourselves. We were just saying, you know, how would you feel if people came in and told you that you couldn’t do this, you couldn’t do that. . . . So I think people could disagree with us, but at least they didn‘t think that we were this horrible monster . . . threatening the security of their country.53

The Nicaraguan Embassy was the site of dueling demonstrations on one occasion. On March 26, 1985, at 4:00 p.m., Rev. Bill Callahan, director of the Quixote Center, received a telephone call from the Nicaraguan Embassy. He was informed that a pro-contra demonstration was scheduled to take place in front of the embassy the next day, organized by a group from Miami called Concerned Citizens for Democracy. “Can you do anything about it?” asked the embassy staff person. Callahan met with his staff and volunteers at the Quixote Center, and they decided to hold a counterdemonstration. A flurry of calls went out to the center’s supporters. The next day there were 150 pro-contra demonstrators standing in front of the embassy and 200 anti-contra demonstrators surrounding

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them. Callahan led the latter group in offering prayers for peace. Afterward, he and five others visited with Ambassador Tünnermann inside the embassy.54

The Nicaraguan Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples (CNSP) During the Contra War, international visitors, study tours, and aid projects became more abundant in Nicaragua. “Nicaragua was more visited during those years than ever before in its history,” said Miguel d’Escoto, “and then again, by far, more than half of the visitors came from the United States.” As a priest as well as foreign minister, d’Escoto was especially sought out by religious groups. He sensed in many of his visitors a genuine empathy for the Nicaraguan people. They opposed the Contra War, he said, not because too many Americans were dying, but because they grieved for Nicaraguans.55 In mid-1985 Salomón Alarcón, a spokesperson for CNSP, told a Washington Post journalist, “Without neglecting the importance of the rest of the world, we think that solidarity from the North American people has a special role to play. The visitors are . . . very important, because our objective is not only to have these people pick coffee or build houses, but also to have them inform the U.S. public about our process.” Alarcón estimated that his committee alone had arranged for three thousand U.S. citizens to visit Nicaragua in 1984, with more arriving through other agencies.56 The mission of CNSP broadened during the Contra War period to include making arrangements for international brigadistas and distributing humanitarian aid. When the FSLN government called for national and international volunteers to assist the coffee harvest in the winter of 1983–84, it was up to the CNSP staff to recruit the internationalists and help make arrangements for their stay, working in conjunction with the Ministry for Agrarian Development and Reform. CNSP later recruited and arranged for brigadistas to assist cotton harvests, building construction, and environmental projects as well as more coffee harvests. A Washington Post reporter who embedded himself in a volunteer work brigade in 1985 noted, “The word ‘brigadista’ carried power. Unlike the Spanish world for journalist, ‘periodista,’ which often inspired more questions than it answered, ‘brigadista’ implied work, political support and comradeship.”57 For Ana Patricia Elvir, who joined the CNSP staff in 1986, a typical work day might involve receiving an international solidarity brigade in the morning and conducting an educational seminar for the group in the afternoon, as she explained it. Topics of discussion could include the state of the counterrevolution, the Sandinista government’s efforts for peace, the human and material

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needs resulting from contra aggression, and in that context the importance of the international volunteers to Nicaragua. In the evening she might devote her time to answering the questions of interested foreign journalists or perhaps attend a meeting or demonstration in support of solidarity with the people of South Africa against the apartheid regime and its intervention in Angola.58 On June 1, 1985, in response to the recently imposed U.S. embargo against Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega inaugurated a new international solidarity campaign, Nicaragua Must Survive (La Campaña Nicaragua Debe Sobrevivir). Its purpose was to help Nicaragua overcome the effects of the embargo by increasing the volume of international material aid received—food, medicines, educational and agricultural supplies—and improving the distribution of that aid. Although Nicaragua received a fair amount of material support from the international community, much of it went to specific projects and particular communities. CNSP was directed to remedy this problem by creating a centralized distribution system that would spread the aid more evenly. The international response to the new campaign was very positive, according to Elvir. She estimated that two thousand “international solidarity committees” joined the campaign worldwide. In Mexico, Argentina, and Canada, the Nicaragua Debe Sobrevivir campaign became known as Ships for Peace (Barcos por la Paz), a reference to the ships that embarked for Nicaragua full of supplies collected by “people’s organizations” in these countries. Elvir estimated the total value of the material contributions to Nicaragua at $5 million annually. The process of collecting these goods also provided “opportunities to condemn the war and disseminate information about its consequences,” she said.59 In the United States, the Nicaragua Debe Sobrevivir campaign was promoted as the Let Nicaragua Live campaign by Nicaragua Network. Money raised and goods collected by local solidarity committees and others were transferred to CNSP, then distributed to worthy projects in Nicaragua. As part of this effort, Nicaragua Network undertook a unique program, Oats for Peace, in which it contracted with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a network of African American family farm cooperatives in the South, to grow and process 225 tons of oats. The program was designed to help struggling black farmers in the South as well as provide a nutritious oatmeal drink to Nicaraguan orphanages and children’s hospitals. “The first harvest,” said Nicaragua Network coordinator Chuck Kaufman, “was largely a learning experience with lots of technical problems. We finally had to bring the oats back to the U.S., rough mill them here, rebag them, and ship them back for final processing in Nicaragua.”60

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In 1987 CNSP merged with three other organizations—the Nicaraguan Commission for Peace, the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal of Our America, and the Nicaraguan Association of Friendship with the Socialist Countries—to become the Nicaraguan Council for Friendship, Solidarity, and Peace (Consejo Nicaragüense de Amistad, Solidaridad y Paz, or CNASP). The merger was designed to improve coordination of political education activities, said Elvir, toward the twin goals of promoting within Nicaragua a “new vision of international relations between the peoples of different countries,” and securing international condemnation of “the injustice of the war of aggression against Nicaragua” and the U.S. “economic blockade.”61

Religious Connections Miguel d’Escoto responded to the U.S. economic embargo against Nicaragua by undertaking a fast. As he explained to Envío, the fast was an act of conscience by a Christian priest “faced with the death and destruction in Nicaragua due to the war of aggression declared against us by the government of the United States.”62 On July 7, 1985, at the age of fifty-two, he began a fast that would last twenty-six days. Sympathy poured in from around the world. More than five thousand people from twenty-eight countries visited d’Escoto in Managua during the first three weeks. Among them was a delegation of eight from the United States, led by Marjorie Tuite, a Dominican sister and founder of the Women’s Coalition to Stop Intervention in Central America. Tuite joined d’Escoto in his fast, as did Rev. Philip Cousins, president of the National Council of Churches, and Rabbi Irwin Blank, president of the Synagogue Council of America. The Nicaraguan government declared a “National Fast Day” on July 26. Thousands of Nicaraguans fasted as prayer groups and vigils were held around the country. In the United States, “National Fast Days” were held on July 26 and July 27, with fifty people fasting in the Detroit area alone, including Bishop Thomas Gumbleton. In Mexico, over seven hundred priests fasted in support of d’Escoto.63 The FSLN government’s Office of Religious Affairs was created to encourage progressive religious solidarity. Headed by René and Leana Nuñez, the office assisted Witness for Peace and other international groups in such matters as obtaining scarce supplies, arranging meetings with government officials, and obtaining approval of projects. René Nuñez had grown up in a Catholic family, gone to church, and confessed once a year during his youth. “But once I became a university student, I left my religious practices for my political evolution,” he said. “At that point, liberation theology was not around, and it seemed to me

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that it was more important to dedicate myself to struggling for poor people than to be praying in church.” When the Catholic Church later adopted its “preferential option for the poor,” Nuñez found congruence with his political beliefs. “There is no contradiction between being both Christian and Marxist,” he said. That view was similarly expressed by FSLN founder Carlos Fonseca, who wrote that “unity between true revolutionaries and true Christians is fundamental in the Frente Sandinista.”64 One of the main functions of the Office of Religious Affairs was to make arrangements for visiting religious delegations, of which there were many. “The vehicle for communication and for bringing people down was always the Nicaraguan people and people from the church specifically,” said Nuñez. Religious delegations would come with many questions about Nicaragua. Upon their arrival, “we would give them an introductory talk about Nicaragua and answer questions they had,” he said. The office would often arrange for delegations to visit international aid projects such as “the vaccination effort, the literacy drive, the adult education projects, health projects. . . . At the end, we would have another meeting to have a political interchange, suggestions, questions, anything. This is to say, there was a government very interested in sharing with them.” Nuñez asserted that what motivated international visitors to help Nicaragua in the end was not some kind of FSLN indoctrination, if that were possible, but rather their direct personal experiences in the country: After visiting different places in the country, seeing the programs that were in place, seeing the necessities of the people, they would come and say they wanted to help the Revolution, help Nicaragua. Their consciences would be raised because they would see the reality of this small country and the injustices of such a small country under attack. So it was the reality, the plain reality, that they were seeing and living that raised their consciences. And that’s where we saw them rejecting the official government line of the U.S. and working so that Nicaraguans would have the right to develop their own country.

The religious groups that undertook projects in Nicaragua, he noted, developed both “solidarity among the different churches that were doing work here” and “solidarity with Nicaragua.”65

Sister City/State Partnerships The sister city movement played an important role in stimulating international support and solidarity relationships at the local level. By 1988, there were 84

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Nicaraguan pairings with U.S. cities and 209 with European cities.66 According to Nicaraguan researchers Manuel Ortega Hegg and Günther Maihold, the initial impetus to develop sister cities came from European delegations in the early 1980s. The latter generally viewed Sandinista Nicaragua as model project for overcoming the North-South divide between developed and underdeveloped nations. From the Nicaraguan side, sister cities had three principal functions: to establish friendly relations and solidarity with people of different countries; to gain assistance in local development projects; and to resist the Reagan administration’s attempt to isolate Nicaragua internationally and to strangle it economically.67 The Nicaraguan-European sister cities that emerged focused on specific development projects in Nicaragua, the top three areas being education, health care, and municipal services. Large Nicaraguan cities and regions developed multiple partnerships, with each European partner taking on a project. Estelí, the third largest city in Nicaragua, partnered with seventeen European cities—four in Germany, three in France, two in Italy, two in Sweden, and one each in Holland, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Finland, and Norway. The good works produced by these partnerships included the construction of schools, a recreational center, a children’s park, and a large medical center.68 NicaraguanU.S. pairings emerged slowly at first, then blossomed mid-decade, increasing from ten in 1985 to eighty-four in 1988. The first national conference of U.S.Nicaraguan sister cities, held in Boulder in April 1985, was attended by fifteen U.S. organizers and Luís Mendez from the Nicaraguan Embassy. The fourth conference, held in Managua, July 20–26, 1988, in conjunction with the ninth anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution, drew representatives from fifty-five U.S. cities.69 The FSLN government encouraged these partnerships, albeit without offering much tangible support. Of 138 sister cities surveyed by Hegg and Maihold, one-half received some type of governmental assistance in getting started, mainly in facilitating communication and travel. Another 10 percent received help from religious agencies. For the most part, once the application for a sister city partnership was approved by the Nicaraguan Directorate of Municipal and Regional Affairs, the local committees were on their own. There were many problems at the local level at the outset, according to Hegg and Maihold. Difficulties included the planning and management of projects, due in part to a lack of local expertise, maintaining communication between sister cities, and establishing a structure for participation and decision-making within sister city

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committees (Comités de Hermanamientos).70 Overall, the spirit of Sandinismo appeared to prevail in this movement, encouraged by the participatory character of sister city projects and their productive results.

Danger Zones International brigadistas, Witness for Peace volunteers, and cooperantes working in remote areas of Nicaragua all faced the possibility of contra attacks. The contras killed two internationalists in the spring of 1983, Pierre Grosjean, a French doctor, and Albrecht Pflaum, a West German doctor, both of which elicited citizen protests in their home countries. The first German brigadistas who arrived in December 1983 came with the intention of both assisting the coffee harvest and forestalling “an American intervention” by having “as many Europeans as possible in Nicaragua,” according to coordinator Michael Rüder. “We offered something like protection.” Rüder and a thirteen-member staff coordinated their operations from a networking center in the Ruhr Valley industrial city of Wuppertal. Over the next three years, more than a thousand West German brigadistas came to Nicaragua, aiding harvests and helping to build houses, schools, and hospitals. During that time, the contras killed two West Germans, raped two, and kidnapped and released ten.71 It was much worse for Nicaraguan campesinos. The Ministry for Agrarian Development and Reform reported that during the coffee harvest in the winter of 1984–85, the contras killed 131 Nicaraguan civilians engaged in picking, processing, or transporting coffee beans.72 The FSLN government was very concerned about the safety of internationalists in Nicaragua. According to René Nuñez, who dealt with them in his capacity as minister to the President’s Office, the various delegations that “arrived with the idea of being a shield to protect the Nicaraguan people by their presence” would still have a measure of government protection: “What we would do is have our military intelligence scout areas where they wanted to go beforehand and if battles were not being fought there at that moment, we would say, go ahead; but if the area was a heavy conflict zone, then we would ask them not to go to that area. . . . When they would travel to a more dangerous zone, the Army would know that and would actually open a periphery zone around them, enabling the Army to confront anything that would happen before it got to them.” With regard to Witness for Peace volunteers, Nuñez noted that it was not in the interest of the contras to harm Americans, given that their sponsor was the U.S. government. As such, the presence of WFP volunteers in communities did appear to deter contra attacks. “It is obvious,” said Nuñez, “that the presence

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of the North Americans in more heavily fought over zones limited the actions that the contras would take in those areas.”73 Aynn Setright, a WFP staffer in Managua, voiced a similar view. Although WFP volunteers offered no actual protection, she said, “Nicaraguans felt safer if there was a U.S. presence in their communities because they thought the contras knew who was buttering their bread and they wouldn’t attack a community if there were U.S. citizens there.”74 Contra violence grew worse in 1986. Contra bands mined rural roads, resulting in the indiscriminate killing and maiming of civilians. On February 16, 1986, a pickup truck driven by the Swiss agronomist Maurice Demierre hit a land mine. Following the explosion, contras waiting in ambush killed Demierre and two women and two children. On July 28, the contras ambushed two civilian vehicles in the northern province of Jinotega, killing five people. Three of the five were internationalists—from West Germany, Switzerland, and France. The following day, nearly two thousand people rallied outside the U.S. Embassy in Managua in protest. The murders prompted the Swiss and West German governments to demand that the Nicaraguan government take stronger measures to protect foreign citizens or else they would call their citizens home. The FSLN government acceded to these requests and required 430 foreign brigadistas and other internationalists working in war zones to relocate to well-protected areas. “We want to show you don’t have to die to be in solidarity with Nicaragua,” explained CNSP spokesperson Salomón Alarcón. Many internationalists were saddened by the order, as they hoped to finish the schools, health clinics, and other projects they had started. Exempted from the FSLN order were religious groups not directly involved in government projects, such as WFP. The contra leadership, for its part, appeared to be encouraged by its successful intimidation of foreign governments. In a radio broadcast from Honduras on September 5, 1986, it demanded that foreign governments “warn their citizens of the perils of traveling in areas of its operations.” These operations were said to cover eleven regions, or nearly all of Nicaragua.75 One of the internationalists who continued to work in a war zone was Ben Linder, the only American killed by the contras. His burial took place in Matagalpa on April 30, 1987. Daniel Ortega spoke at the funeral along with John and Miriam Linder, Ben‘s brother and sister, respectively. A funeral procession of 10,000 people proceeded through the streets of the city to a hillside cemetery. One of the pall-bearers was Andrew Young, Atlanta mayor and former U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Upon his return, Young and Mayor Mike Mears

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of Decatur, Georgia, joined 150 people at another memorial service held for Ben Linder in Decatur. Young told those gathered, “The war of the contras is not a war against the Sandinista government. It’s a war against the Nicaraguan people—against teachers, doctors, and people trying to grow food. . . . The United States of America cannot consider itself a bastion of freedom and human dignity if it continues to support the likes of the contras.”76 U.S. citizens living in Nicaragua honored Linder by naming their new meetinghouse in Managua after him—Casa Ben Linder. Contra violence did not stop internationalists from working in Nicaragua. According to the Envío team, writing in February 1988: The number of international brigadistas visiting Nicaragua doubled in 1987, totaling more than 8,000 from Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Latin America, the United States and other parts of the world. Since 1983, according to the Nicaraguan Committee in Solidarity with the People (CNSP), more than 20,000 brigadistas have given their services to Nicaragua, and many internationalists involved in solidarity, religious or NGO [nongovernmental organization]-sponsored social service and development projects have taken up residence here for longer periods. Some have given their lives, as well. Since 1983, the contras have killed 14 internationalists, raped 4, and kidnapped 59. But they have not managed to put a stop to this very personal way of showing international support for Nicaragua.77

The Western European Connection There was a broad consensus in Western Europe against the Contra War. Western European leaders expressed their disagreement with Washington by supporting the Contadora peace negotiations, endorsing adjudication by the World Court, opposing the U.S. embargo, and offering material assistance to the Nicaraguan government. Public opinion in Western European countries lent support to these actions, and thousands of citizens became involved in Nicaragua solidarity activities. Many Western Europeans were already up in arms over a NATO decision in 1979 to deploy U.S. Pershing II and Cruise missiles on Western European soil. Massive demonstrations took place in cities across Western Europe between 1981

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and 1983. Some demonstrators connected the issues of nuclear weapons and U.S. Central America policy. “Recent demonstrations against the nuclear missiles have included signs and slogans critical of U.S. policy in Central America,” reported the Washington Post (August 10, 1983). “European governments have begun to fear that the scheduled maneuvers [of U.S. troops in Honduras] will give added impetus to the general anti-American tone of the protests.”78 The central issue, however, was not whether Western Europeans were “anti-American,” but whether they could trust the United States under Reagan to act as a responsible ally and world power. European security, after all, was intricately connected to U.S. foreign policy. Flora Lewis, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, wrote from Copenhagen on April 19, 1984, that “the peace movement has burgeoned here in the last two years,” stimulated most recently by U.S. “moves around Nicaragua,” which were giving President Reagan an “image of recklessness.”79 When President Reagan visited Ireland on June 3, 1984, he was met with a protest march of some three to five thousand people and given a lecture on diplomacy by Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald. According to the New York Times, the prime minister “implicitly rebuked the United States for its policy in Central America” and endorsed the Contadora negotiations. “With many of these Latin American countries,” said FitzGerald, “our people have close emotional ties through the work of our priests and nuns and lay helpers there, who seek to relieve the poverty of the people and to give them back their dignity.” Reagan ignored the criticism and focused instead on terrorism in Ireland, saying, “I can’t think of anything more vulgar than Americans providing anyone in Ireland the means of killing his fellow man.”80 In early 1985, Spain’s foreign minister, Fernando Moran, warned the United States that an invasion of Nicaragua would force Spain to withdraw from NATO.81 This diplomatic warning was followed a few months later by massive demonstrations against both NATO bases in Spain and U.S. policies toward Nicaragua. The catalyst for the demonstrations was a visit to Spain by President Reagan on May 6, 1985. An estimated 1 million Spaniards marched in “largely peaceful protests across Spain,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “A Nicaraguan flag was tied to a tall pedestal topped by a statue of Christopher Columbus in Madrid’s central Colon Plaza, drawing wild cheers from what the police estimated were 75,000 protesters. . . . Speakers repeatedly condemned Reagan’s trade embargo against Nicaragua.” In Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city, police estimated the number of demonstrators at 225,000. Spanish Prime

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Minister Felipe Gonzalez subtly indicated his opposition to the U.S. policy toward Nicaragua by welcoming Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to Spain the following weekend.82 In the Netherlands two religious peace groups, the Interchurch Peace Council and Pax Christi, initiated a “twinning” movement between Western and Eastern European independent groups, a project described as “détente from below.” This was soon followed by a municipal twinning project between Western European and Nicaraguan cities and towns. “A special movement grew in the mid-eighties expressing solidarity with the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua,” wrote peace activist Dion van den Berg. “The campaign was quite successful and in only a few years time more than twenty of such friendship links with Nicaragua were established.” In May 1988 Amsterdam was the site of the First European Conference on City Linking with Nicaragua, attended by 350 people from over fifteen countries.83 Another avenue of activism involved organizing Nicaragua solidarity groups in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign in London, for example, which had seven paid staff persons in 1989, organized coffee harvest brigades to Nicaragua, raised funds for medical supplies, sold Sandino and Sandinista paraphernalia—shirts, baseball caps, and mugs—to raise more funds, and published a quarterly magazine, Nicaragua Today.84 Such grassroots activism was complemented by the diplomatic efforts of former German chancellor Willy Brandt, leader of the Social Democratic Party and president of the Socialist International, who urged Western European parties and governments to aid Sandinista Nicaragua as well as encourage its move toward democracy.85 On the eastern side of the iron curtain, dissident groups involved in the “détente from below” movement joined Western activists in calling for an end to U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. The circuitous process that led to this concord of voices began with Eastern European activists demanding freedom and political rights for themselves. Unlike Sandinista Nicaragua, Eastern European governments repressed independent connections with Western groups, even those promoting détente and disarmament. Hounded by their own governments, Eastern European activists insisted that Western groups make human rights part of their common agenda. “Amid earnest discussions,” wrote the historian Lawrence Wittner, “Western activists came to agree with their Eastern allies that there could be no peace without a loosening of the political restrictions on freedom.”86 Western groups such as European Nuclear Disarmament

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issued statements calling on Eastern European governments to permit independent organizing and release political prisoners. A number of Eastern activists and groups, in turn, joined Western activists in opposing U.S. interventionism in Central America. In early 1986, prominent activists from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union signed a petition circulated by the Campaign for Peace & Democracy/East & West demanding an immediate end to “the Reagan administration’s escalating war on Nicaragua.” The petition linked U.S. intervention in Central America to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, and asserted that both undermined peace and human rights. “We defend the democratic right of every nation to self-determination in complete freedom from superpower control,” it stated, “whether that domination is justified by the Brezhnev doctrine in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, or by Reagan’s claims of U.S. special interests in Central America and the Caribbean.”87 Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia similarly promoted a principled human rights policy, issuing statements against U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, apartheid in South Africa, and repression in Poland.

Western European Public Opinion The Reagan administration was well aware that its Central America policies were not supported in Western Europe, as the United States Information Agency (USIA) regularly polled Western European publics. A USIA survey in June-July 1984 asked the citizens of four countries whether they approved or disapproved of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. The results in all cases showed high rates of disapproval: 44 percent (disapproval) to 14 percent (approval) in Britain; 40 to 9 percent in the Netherlands, 50 to 22 percent in Italy; and 44 to 6 percent in Spain. The survey also found that that those who were better educated and more informed about Central America issues were more likely to oppose U.S. policies. “The informed public in each country is even more critical of U.S. policies than the general public,” noted the report.88 The latter finding was reinforced in another set of USIA surveys taken in Great Britain, West Germany, and Italy between December 1982 and June 1984, except that the question was whether the United States was morally superior to the Soviet Union. A plurality in each country judged this to be so, but “the more influential [citizens] in the countries surveyed tend to be least convinced of U.S. moral superiority over the USSR.” This finding had profound implications for USIA informational programs, according to the USIA analyst Leo P. Crespi:

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“Such a pattern of findings suggests that the absence of judgments of higher U.S. than Soviet moral standing is not a simple matter of ignorance of the facts that support such a judgment. . . . This means that views of U.S. political morality as compared to the USSR are not likely to be improved merely by information programs. More intensive efforts will be required in the direction of argumentation and persuasion.”89 Notably, Crespi did not suggest altering U.S. policies, but only devising better arguments to persuade Western Europeans of America’s moral superiority. America’s image as a responsible world power did not improve in 1985. A USIA summary report dated May 10, 1985, found that, except for West Germany “where opinion is divided, more see the U.S. as a threat to peace and stability in Central America than as a positive influence for change.” Once again, in all countries surveyed—Great Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Denmark—those who were more knowledgeable about the issues held this view by larger proportions.90 USIA analysts also assessed the content of 148 West European editorials and 143 Latin American editorials written between February 14 and May 9, 1985, and found: “More than twice as many editorials and by-line commentaries during the examined period were critical of U.S. policy than the Nicaraguan government and its policies.”91

Historical Perspective The divide between the Reagan administration and Western Europe over U.S. intervention in Central America had deeper historical roots beyond the issues of the 1980s. The experience of two devastating wars on European soil within thirty years left many Europeans with a stronger aversion to war and a greater willingness to explore peaceful alternatives than the United States. Western European leaders led the way to détente, beginning in the mid-1950s, and many citizens saw no reason to end it in the 1980s. In the aftermath of World War II, Western European leaders took steps to gradually dilute national animosities through the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC), which greatly reduced the likelihood of another fratricidal war in Europe. Western European nations also gave up their colonial empires in the thirty-year period following World War II, albeit not without a fight in the case of France. This major historical change arguably underpinned a more critical view of Great Power hegemony, whether practiced by the United States or the Soviet Union, and greater respect for international institutions and law. In the United States, meanwhile, many citizens became enamored with the

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idea that the world had entered upon the “American century,” a new era in which U.S. ideals and global influence would reign supreme and peace would be secured by U.S. military supremacy. As European nations gave up their empires, the United States expanded its global reach, inheriting its role in Greece from Great Britain and its role in Vietnam from France. In the early 1960s French President Charles de Gaulle, having renounced imperialism, offered to broker an agreement with Ho Chi Minh for a neutral, united Vietnam, but Presidents Kennedy and Johnson would have none of it.92 Nor would President Reagan listen to Western European leaders on resolving Central America issues in the 1980s. While wary of the powerful Soviet Union, few Western Europeans considered the Truman Doctrine’s Manichean division of the world into free and totalitarian societies a plausible blueprint for policymaking. Even British ambassador Sir Oliver Wright, speaking in Washington in April 1985, noted that Europeans had “adopted over the years a distinctively less apocalyptic way of thinking and talking about the threat to their neighborhood than the Reagan administration conveys when it speaks of the comparatively minuscule Soviet presence in Cuba and Nicaragua.”93 The Reagan administration’s difficulty in selling its foreign policies in Western Europe was not caused by communist conspirators or Sandinista operatives, but by the reasonable concerns among Western Europeans for international stability and their own security, if not a more just and peaceful world order as well.

CHAPTER 7

Meeting the Political Challenge, 1985–86

I

n early 1985 the Reagan administration launched an all-out media and lobbying offensive aimed at winning Congressional approval of $14 million in “humanitarian assistance” to the contras. Strengthened by his landslide reelection, President Reagan ratcheted up the verbal war. He accused the Sandinistas of attempting “to spread communism to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, and elsewhere,” and lauded the contras as “our brothers.”1 The administration ruled out for the time being the “direct application of U.S. military force” against Nicaragua but maintained that this “must realistically be recognized as an eventual option, given our stakes in the region, if other policy alternatives fail.”2 Secretary of State George Shultz furthermore warned that failure to support the contras would constitute “a shameful surrender—a betrayal not only of brave men and women but of our highest ideas and the national security of the United States.”3 Liberal Democrats in Congress countered with a $14 million aid package that allocated $10 million for the Contadora peace negotiations and $4 million for international border guards so as to prevent any arms transfers. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill accused the White House of abandoning its original goal of halting arms transfers and seeking instead the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government.4 The issue of contra atrocities continued to reverberate on Capitol Hill in the wake of the discovery of a CIA “assassination manual” in October 1984. In late [ 177 ]

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December contra commander Bosco Matamoros acknowledged “several hundred cases” of rebel abuses against civilians over the previous two years.5 In early March 1985 Reed Brody, former assistant attorney general of New York, released a report documenting twenty-eight cases of contra attacks on Nicaraguan civilians between September 1984 and January 1985, based on the sworn affidavits of 145 witnesses. The New York Times sent reporters to Nicaraguan war zones to interview four of Brody’s witnesses, selected randomly. All confirmed their testimony.6 Other detailed reports of contra atrocities were produced by Witness for Peace and Americas Watch. A report by Americas Watch on March 5, 1985, noted a significant increase in contra attacks on civilians and a “sharp decline in violations of the laws of war by the Nicaraguan government following 1982.”7 Rep. Samuel Gejdenson (D-CT), chair of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, commented the following day, “It’s clear we have a situation where the contra targets are primarily and almost exclusively civilians.” He furthermore warned, “Should Congress approve the administration’s request for contra aid, we would become knowing accomplices to the crimes of the contras.”8 Gejdenson’s subcommittee held a three-day hearing on the issue in midApril. Among those testifying was Nancy Donovan, a Maryknoll sister who had been kidnapped by the contras on January 8, 1985, and held at gunpoint for a day. Donovan offered detailed evidence of recent contra attacks, describing the sequence of events and names of those killed, wounded, or kidnapped. Former CIA director Adm. Stansfield Turner also testified, reluctantly acknowledging contra terrorism: Rightly or wrongly, there are many of us today who see the actions of the contras as being beneath the ethical standards we would like the United States to employ. And specifically, I believe it is irrefutable that a number of the contras’ actions have to be characterized as terrorism, as State-supported terrorism. Until we put this issue of the contras behind us, I believe we are going to have a deeper controversy in our body politic than is healthy. And I believe that the CIA already has been badly hurt by its involvement with the contras, and will be hurt more if we continue.9

Mobilizing against the Contra War, 1985 Anti–Contra War campaign groups pressed the issue of contra terrorism with

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their own educational and media activities. On February 12, SANE held a press conference on Capitol Hill to kick off a media advertisement campaign focused on the “human rights atrocities committed by the contras in Nicaragua.” Newspaper ads and thirty-second television and radio spots were placed in media outlets located in the congressional districts of “swing” members of Congress. Two local television companies initially rejected the ads as too controversial, but one later approved them after receiving documentation regarding the murder of civilians by the contras. The newspaper ads posed a question to members of Congress, “If you vote for more support to the U.S.-backed contra ‘freedom-fighters,’ will it be a vote for heroism or terrorism?”10 The ads directly responded to President Reagan’s radio address on February 16, in which he described the contras as the “true heroes of the Nicaraguan struggle.” Operating separately from SANE, Nicaragua Network and the Institute for Food and Development Policy initiated an advertisement campaign in early 1985 with a similar focus on the human costs of the Contra War. Nicaragua Network also joined with Witness for Peace, MADRE, and other groups in developing and distributing a poster that graphically depicted the effects of the war in the form of deceased children in open coffins.11 The Central America Working Group’s lobbying plan in 1985 targeted fifty-five “swing” members of Congress—twenty Republicans and thirty-five Democrats. Participating national organizations each chose one or more members with whom to meet and report back to the committee. A CAWG subcommittee was formed to generate grassroots pressure in designated congressional districts. The subcommittee sent out information packets that included legislative updates, information about members of Congress, and a sample phone script highlighting contra human rights abuses. Local contacts were encouraged to flood members of Congress with letters and phone calls, and to undertake visible actions such as press conferences, paid advertisements, and public hearings in which people with direct experience in Nicaragua presented testimony.12 In mid-April, CAWG’s parent group, the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, brought television actors Mike Farrell (of the M.A.S.H. series) and Robert Foxworth (of the Falcon Crest series) to lobby members of Congress, which gained some press attention. The two actors were part of the Committee of Concern for Central America, based in Hollywood, California, and brought with them a letter signed by fifty other Hollywood celebrities.13 Unions associated with the National Labor Committee (NLC) weighed in on the contra aid issue in 1985. The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers

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Union endorsed a resolution calling on the U.S. government “to end all military support for the contras.” The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees approved a more nuanced resolution: “Whatever disagreements American unionists have about the nature of the Sandinista revolution, we do agree on one central point: the U.S. support of the counterrevolutionary forces known as the contras is illegal, immoral, and contrary to the best interests of the American and Nicaraguan people.” The NLC was critical of the FSLN government for harassing opposition labor unions but nonetheless insisted, according to the historian Andrew Battista, “that in Nicaragua there was no repression of unions or murder and torture of union leaders, as there was in El Salvador.” The leftist Labor Network on Central America, based in Oakland, California, in contrast, was very supportive of the Sandinista government. A follow-up report on a West Coast delegation to Nicaragua in September 1984 noted the “unprecedented gains” made by workers since the Sandinistas took over.14 The issue of contra aid was hotly debated at the AFL-CIO convention in October 1985. While the AFL-CIO leadership was generally in accord with the Cold War views of the Reagan administration, the repression of unions in El Salvador prompted a closer review of Central America policies. In regard to Nicaragua, the lack of support among Nicaraguan labor unions for the contras led the AFL-CIO to take no official stand on the issue of contra aid in 1985. This allowed NLC-related unions to take the lead on this issue, albeit not without criticism from the right.15 A small but important constituency that took up the anti–Contra War cause in the mid-1980s was antiwar veterans. When Vietnam veteran Jerry Genesio and his wife, Judy, traveled to Nicaragua on a short-term Witness for Peace delegation in April 1984, they had no plans to initiate a new organization. Upon return, the couple put together a slideshow and made presentations in towns across their home state of Maine. According to Jerry’s account, his background as a Marine Corps officer and the couple’s middle-class image helped gain them respectful attention from audiences. Jerry spoke about his brother’s death in Vietnam in 1969 and his own struggle to make sense of that war. He perceived among his listeners a “widespread misconception” that a person cannot be both a military veteran and a peace activist. In talking about Sandinista Nicaragua, the Genesios shared their personal experiences and the testimonies of families who had lost loved ones in contra attacks. The Genesios’ travels brought them into contact with antiwar veterans across Maine and, through correspondence, with veterans across the country,

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including members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. A series of organizational meetings were held between April and June 1985, and in July, Veterans for Peace (VFP) was formally established. “We had come together because of our disdain for Reagan Administration policies in Central America,” wrote Jerry.16 Veterans for Peace held its first national convention in Portland, Maine, in August 1986. The participation of veterans in the ACWC generally improved the campaign’s public image and also led to a number of new projects.

April 1985 Demonstrations With Congress scheduled to vote on contra aid on Tuesday, April 23, an ad hoc coalition of national organizations initiated demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco on the Saturday before. Hoping to bring together different activist networks and draw larger crowds, they set forth four broad demands: disarmament, an end to U.S. interventionism, an end to apartheid in South Africa, and reductions in military spending.17 While this multi-issue agenda served its stated purposes, it also had the effect of diluting the focus on contra aid at a critical political juncture. The demonstration in Washington on April 20 drew an estimated 26,000 people, according to the U.S. Park Police, or as many as 100,000, according to rally organizers. The Washington Post reported that the rally was “peaceful and orderly” with a diversity of people attending. Protesters marched down the streets carrying coffins and chanting slogans such as “Stop the bombing, stop the war, U.S. out of El Salvador.” Rev. Jesse Jackson, a keynote speaker, chastised the Reagan administration for trying to bring down a government in Nicaragua that was helping its people, while supporting a government in South Africa that was oppressing its people. Besides marches and speeches, the rally featured cultural art displays, skits, poetry, and music. The San Francisco demonstration drew some 50,000 people, according to police estimates. Union banners were prominently displayed at the latter rally, reflecting efforts by West Coast activists to involve local unions in Central America issues and build leftist laborsolidarity alliances. Smaller rallies were also held in Los Angeles and Seattle.18 The issue that garnered the most national press attention was opposition to South African apartheid. The anti-apartheid movement had exploded onto the political scene in recent months, with hundreds of student and community groups pressing for sanctions against the South African government, and for boycotts of, and divestment in, companies doing business in South Africa. (The movement achieved a significant political victory with the passage of the

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Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, enacted in October 1986 over President Reagan’s veto.) Next on the media’s radar were Central America and disarmament issues, the messages of the demonstrators being sparingly presented through a few choice quotes. The main theme was the diversity of the crowd and its sponsors. The New York Times noted that the demonstration was “organized by a coalition of more than 80 groups that included activists from labor unions, civil rights organizations and churches.”19 The Saturday rally in Washington was followed by “lobby days” on Monday and Tuesday, and a civil disobedience action on Tuesday as well. The latter focused solely on the contra aid issue and involved more than three hundred protesters, who blocked entrances to the White House. The Washington Post reported the details of the action, noting that it took police officers hours to carry the limp protesters into police vans, but said little about the reasons for the civil disobedience. Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who was arrested, was quoted as saying, “Our president has an obsession about intervening.”20

Congress Votes for “Humanitarian Assistance” for the Contras The ACWC won a temporary victory in Congress when the House voted on April 23 to reject the administration’s request for $14 million in contra aid by a vote of 248–180 (the Senate voted 53–46 that day to approve the measure). The following day the House narrowly defeated, 215–213, a compromise proposal to provide $14 million in “humanitarian assistance” to the contras. The closeness of the latter vote indicated trouble ahead for the ACWC. Less than two months later, on June 12, the House reversed itself and approved $27 million in “humanitarian assistance” for the contras by the substantial margin of 248–184. Seven Republicans and twenty-six Democrats switched their vote between April 23 and June 12, with seventeen of the latter being from the South.21 The switch was attributed in part to a recent visit by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to the Soviet Union, the actual purpose of which was to obtain subsidized oil from the Soviet Union in the wake of the new U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua, declared on May 1. Also, President Reagan had sent a letter to Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-OK), who led the Democratic switch, promising not to seek the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government, to resume bilateral negotiations with the Sandinistas, and to remove human rights violators among the contras.22 The day after the House vote, members of the Committee of U.S. Citizens in Nicaragua (CUSCLIN) issued a statement from Managua that condemned the

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so-called humanitarian aid as a legal fiction. The statement pointed out that the Geneva Conventions and Protocols had established three conditions for humanitarian aid: it must be distributed by parties independent of the conflict; it must be distributed on the basis of need and only to noncombatants; and it must be impartially offered to all affected civilians on both sides of the conflict. The contra aid package approved by Congress met none of these conditions. The CUSCLIN statement described a recent contra attack near San Jose de Bocay that had left twelve civilians dead and ended with the admonition, “Humanitarian aid should not be used to kill.”23 The compromise “humanitarian aid” package of 1985 changed the shape of the contra aid debate by opening up a new middle ground between opposing sides. Contra War opponents now faced the prospect of having to choose between military aid and “nonlethal” aid if votes for ending contra aid fell short. This political dilemma remained in the background during 1986, as the administration sought and won full military aid for the contras, but it returned in later years when Congress voted on a series of “nonlethal” aid measures.

The Pledge of Resistance, 1985 Unlike multi-issue demonstrations, the Pledge campaign responded directly to the Nicaraguan situation. By early 1985, some 55,000 people had signed the pledge, providing a sizable base upon which to draw for demonstrations. The national POR office was prepared at this time to send a signal to local groups to initiate mass demonstrations should Congress approve contra aid, but the rejection of Reagan’s proposal in the House on April 23 made this unnecessary. A new impetus for action turned up a week later, when President Reagan imposed an economic embargo against Nicaragua. Many local groups regarded this as sufficient cause for protest, and without a signal from the national POR office, initiated demonstrations and civil disobedience actions. An estimated 10,000 people participated in these actions nationwide, with most taking place at federal office buildings on May 7 and 8. Approximately 2,000 people were arrested, including 559 in Boston, 443 in San Francisco, and 183 in New York City.24 Legal penalties were generally light or nonexistent. Authorities in Boston dropped all charges against the 559 trespassers at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building. In Denver, where 22 POR activists were arrested for occupying a U.S. senator’s office, the activists pleaded “not guilty” and took their case to court. At the trial the judge allowed the jury to hear “evidence of necessity,” by which the defendants claimed that their civil disobedience actions

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constituted an “emergency measure to avoid imminent public or private injury.” The jury acquitted all of the defendants.25 In Seattle, where Pledge organizers had gathered 1,200 pledge signatures, fourteen people occupied the lobby of the Federal Building overnight and were not arrested. The demonstrators left peacefully in the morning, only to return in the evening for the next eleven nights. A spokesperson for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Federal Protective Service, Ross Buffington, said, “We will not bother them as long as they are peaceful and are not disturbing anyone else.” Local Pledge coordinator Ken Finch used the unusual civil disobedience action as an opportunity for public relations. “We’ve decided to maintain at least a minimal presence here and do outreach work,” he said.26 When the House approved the $27 million “nonlethal” contra aid package on June 12, 1985, the national POR office did not hesitate to give the signal for action. Protests took place across the nation once again, with some 1,200 persons arrested in civil disobedience actions.27 In Philadelphia, 103 protesters occupied the local Federal Building. Organized into nine affinity groups, four of the groups occupied Sen. John Heinz’s office on the ninth floor. Some 400 to 500 people remained outside the building, engaged in celebrative singing, prayer, leafleting, and chants of “Where’s Senator Heinz?”28 Such spirited protests notwithstanding, the passage of the “nonlethal” contra aid package was a significant setback for the ACWC. According to San Francisco Bay area coordinator Ken Butigan, “Virtually everyone felt leaden with the crushing defeat and the sense of the enormity of the opposition.”29 Sill, the Pledge actions provided an outlet for frustration, an occasion for camaraderie, and an opportunity for educating the public. The Pledge network continued to grow, reaching 70,000 people by September 1985, and 100,000 by 1987.30 On November 18, 1985, the national POR board met in Washington to analyze the state of the campaign and set future directions. Attending were representatives of eight national organizations, the national POR staff, and nine regional coordinators. Angela Berryman of the American Friends Service Committee chaired the meeting. Participants brainstormed the campaign’s strengths and weaknesses. Strengths included building a sizable organization, bringing in new people, and involving the grassroots. Weakness included a “gap” in communication between local groups and the national office, difficulties in sustaining commitments from “new people,” and being “almost an all white organization.” On the sensitive issue of religious identification, participants opted for a statement that identified POR signers as “people of conscience, including people of faith,

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who make a formal commitment to nonviolent direct action.” This presumably would provide enough room for faith-based groups to retain their identity within POR.31 Having broadened the Pledge to include contra aid legislation and the economic embargo, POR organizers now examined the tactical limitations of the Pledge. For local groups in politically conservative areas, educational events as opposed to dramatic protests might well be more persuasive; and for groups in districts where members of Congress already opposed contra aid, there was no reason to demonstrate against these officials. POR leaders thus advised that local groups should engage in activities most suitable to their situation. These activities “could include delegation visits to congressional offices, press conferences, vigils, demonstrations, and other legal activities.” Organizers also decided not to wait for congressional votes on contra aid, but to set two definitive dates for action, May 17, 1986, and a day to be announced in early October. With these changes, the POR campaign remade itself into a flexible network adaptable to local conditions. At the same time, the distinction between POR and other national groups began to blur, as many national groups were prodding local groups to undertake multiple activities. Nor did the four educational themes adopted at the conference differentiate POR. These themes—the illegality of the Contra War, contra atrocities, diplomatic alternatives, and the cost of the war to U.S. citizens—were all commonly promoted.32 The Pledge campaign was nonetheless one of a handful of national organizations devoted almost entirely to Nicaragua, the others being Nicaragua Network, Witness for Peace, CUSCLIN, and the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua. For many local POR groups, the Pledge remained the direct-action arm of the anti– Contra War campaign.

The Home Front, 1986 The lead-up to Congressional voting on contra aid in the spring of 1986 entailed another all-out political and media battle, even more ferocious than the previous year. A slew of pro-contra groups joined administration officials and agencies in pushing a new $100 military aid package. Among the better-funded private groups were the Heritage Foundation, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty (NEPL), the Council for Inter-American Security (CIS), and Citizens for Reagan. In early 1986, NEPL spent $1.2 million for a series of six

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television ads, and another $800,000 for a nationwide speaking tour of anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans; and CIS spent $2.84 million on lobbying and media activities.33 Citizens for Reagan, formed in 1980, targeted fifty-two members of Congress for an intensive lobbying and advertising campaign. In the district of Republican Sherwood Boehlert in upstate New York, for example, the group purchased advertisements on two Utica radio stations and sent letters to 10,000 Republicans. The letters declared that “Congressman Boehlert hasn’t yet found reason to vote for aid to the freedom fighters” and implored constituents to “help convince Congressman Boehlert to support the President.”34 Boehlert had voted against both military and “nonlethal” aid in 1985. Despite the pressure from the right, he voted against contra aid again in 1986. In Florida Citizens for Reagan targeted Rep. Kenneth H. “Buddy” MacKay, a Democrat. The group sponsored full-page ads in two local newspapers in Ocala in early 1986, headlined “Whose Buddy Is He?” The ads accused MacKay of letting down the “pro-American freedom fighters” who were fighting “the communist Sandinista regime.” MacKay had voted against contra aid in 1983, 1984, and April 1985, but he approved “nonlethal” aid in June 1985. Ironically, the ads moved many local citizens to express their support for MacKay. MacKay’s press secretary, Greg Farmer, said that before the ads were published, calls were running 70 to 30 percent in favor of contra aid, but afterwards, it was 60 to 40 percent against contra aid. “People here don’t like it when outsiders come in and take cheap shots at a third-generation Ocalan,” said Farmer.35 Two residents of Ocala, Tim Fogarty and Lynne Rigmey-Barolet, spouses and ardent opponents of the Contra War, arranged a meeting with MacKay at his local office in early 1986. Rigmey-Barolet had recently returned from a short-term Witness for Peace delegation to Bocana de Paiwas, a war zone. Upon entering MacKay’s office, she placed on his desk a collection of photos of people killed by the contras. MacKay got very mad, according to Fogarty. “He took it very personally. ‘You’re saying that I’m responsible for these people’s deaths? But I’m not responsible.’ He sort of didn’t go where we wanted—how to stop this,” said Fogarty. The couple subsequently contacted the pastor of the local Presbyterian Church where MacKay was a deacon, hoping that the pastor and the denomination’s stand against the Contra War would influence MacKay.36 In early 1986 the Presbyterian Church USA sent letters to fifty-four Presbyterian senators and representatives, encouraging them to vote against contra aid. MacKay, as it turned out, did vote against contra aid in 1986. Other religious denominations and organizations also made their views

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known to members of Congress. The American Jewish Congress informed representatives of its unequivocal resolution adopted on March 18, 1986: “We urge the Administration and the Congress to bring an immediate end to our undeclared war against the Government of Nicaragua and to cease supplying money, arms, munitions and political legitimacy to the contras.”37 Religious groups organized a demonstration on the steps of the Capitol on March 4, 1986. A statement was read, which said in part: “We refuse to allow the deception to go on unchallenged or to accept the senseless violence. Together we say, ‘In the name of God, stop the lies, stop the killing.’ ” The statement had been signed by over one hundred religious leaders, including five Catholic bishops, six United Methodist bishops, six Episcopal bishops, and the president of the United Church of Christ. A few days after this demonstration, Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the press that religious leaders who opposed President Reagan’s Central America policies were naive and beholden to “a left-wing, pacifist and isolationist ideology.”38 Rep. David Bonior, a devout Catholic, offered a counterpoint view. “The Church in this country has been the single most important force working for peace in Central America,” he said. It has provided “an alternative view of the problems and possibilities in Central America.”39 It was precisely the credibility of the liberal religious lobby that provoked the right to attack it. The Reagan administration and its rightist allies were conducting a virulent rhetorical offensive against the Central America movement and ACWC at this time (see chapter 6). Not only did the administration want to shut out alternative views; it also needed to deflect charges of state-sponsored terrorism. As President Reagan told reporters at a question-and-answer press conference on June 13, 1986, contra attacks against civilians were not to be believed because “much of this we have found is a part of a disinformation campaign tending to discredit them.”40 Some members of Congress who supported contra aid similarly found it useful to discredit the messenger. In response to a letter from Mark Becker, a Witness for Peace volunteer who spent nine months in Nicaragua, Rep. Bob Whittaker (R-KS) wrote on March 3, 1986, “Contrary to many reports of biased organizations, I have seen little meaningful progress by the Sandinista regime to accommodate dissent. . . . This convinces me that some well-intentioned visitors are seeing only what the Marxist government wants them to see.” Becker received a more favorable response from Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SC), who wrote, “I will continue to oppose the Administration’s ill-conceived military approach to the unrest in Central America and support a diplomatic solution to the conflict there.”41

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The Congressional Battle The stakes were set high in 1986, as the proposed $100 million military and economic aid package for the contras signified a dramatic increase in killing power and expansion of the war. Every group involved in the ACWC activated its members and supporters to write or visit their members of Congress. SANE, with 11,000 members in “swing” congressional districts, set up phone banks and letter-writing projects in at least fifteen congressional districts. Jack Sheinkman, the moving force in National Labor Committee, sent out letters to union members on February 7, urging them to tell their representatives in Congress to “oppose any and all aid, military or humanitarian, to the Contras.”42 Veterans for Peace members met with members of Congress, demonstrated in front of the White House, and held a press conference in mid-April 1986 hosted by Rep. Robert J. Mrazek (D-NY), a Vietnam veteran. CAWG regrouped for the political battle in 1986 with another list of targeted “swing” voters similar to that of the previous year. One of those targeted was Jim Sasser (D-TN), who had opposed contra aid in 1984 and 1985 but was considered susceptible to administration and conservative influence. In early 1986 a revived Central America Peace Campaign focused its resources solely on Tennessee, targeting Sasser and a few “swing” House members. Another group, Neighbor-toNeighbor, newly formed in 1985 by Fred Ross, a veteran farmworker organizer, also sent people to Tennessee. Neighbor-to-Neighbor utilized house parties and a 28-minute documentary film, Faces of War, to reach new people. The film, narrated by Mike Farrell, illustrated the devastating effects of U.S. policies in El Salvador and Nicaragua, as seen through the eyes of six Americans working in the region. Discussion and letter writing typically followed the film showing. In sizing up the political battle in the mid-1980s, the political scientists Cynthia Arnson and Philip Brenner judged that pro-contra groups held an advantage over their adversaries due to the active support of the White House, “considerable financial resources,” and the nationalistic appeal of Cold War ideology. Anticontra groups, on the other hand, were deemed to have more “personal energy,” a stronger grassroots base, and the support of most mainline religious denominations. “Anti-contra Democrats,” wrote Arnson and Brenner, “relied on the considerable activity of groups around the country—especially religious organizations—to convince potentially wavering members that opposition to aid would not have electoral repercussions despite the president’s popularity.”43 As the Senate vote scheduled for March 27 approached, Senator Sasser was inundated with letters and telephone calls. According to his legislative aide, in

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one day alone—Monday, March 18—the senator received more than 1,300 calls, of which about 48 percent were for contra aid and 52 percent were against it.44 In the end, Sasser voted against the administration’s contra aid package, which nevertheless passed in the Senate, 53–47. The battle then shifted to the House. On March 20 the House had rejected Reagan’s $100 million contra aid proposal by a vote of 222–210. Over the next two months, however, a “few dozen swing voters were the subject of extraordinary presidential attention,” according to William LeoGrande. “Reagan badgered them, threatened them, courted them, and promised them favors.”45 He managed to convince eleven representatives to switch their votes, enough for a victory. On June 25, in a stunning reversal, the House voted to approve the president’s proposal by a vote of 221–209. The aid package not only provided ample funds for a new contra military offensive, but also removed all restrictions on CIA activities and allowed contras to be trained in the United States. The aid was scheduled for release on October 24, 1986. Opponents tried once more to defeat the measure—Senator Sasser introduced an amendment to delete the $100 million in aid for the contras—but this was rejected, 57–42, on August 12. The ACWC, having won the legislative battle in 1984, was at its political nadir. The vote in Congress was also a defeat for the campaign’s international allies and for international law. Two days after the vote, the World Court found the United States guilty of violating international law by training, arming, and financing a guerrilla war against Nicaragua. Unbeknownst to all parties at the time, the political momentum would shift again in the fall, due in part to the Iran-Contra affair, which undermined the president’s credibility, and to Democratic party gains in Congress in the November elections. Democrats gained eight seats in the Senate, giving them the majority, and also increased their majority in the House. According to William LeoGrande and Philip Brenner, “The 1986 election reduced the pro-contra coalition by 11 votes [in the House], allowing opponents of contra aid to narrowly defeat President Reagan’s requests for additional military assistance” in subsequent years.46 As the majority party in Congress, the Democrats would have the power to convene hearings on administration illegalities.

Educational Outreach U.S. News & World Report (March 17, 1986), after taking an informal survey of newspaper editorial positions, reported that the nation’s newspapers were “sharply divided” on the issue of contra aid. Those favoring contra aid generally

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accepted President Reagan’s view of Sandinista Nicaragua as a “Communist stronghold,” according to the report, while those opposed highlighted the illegitimacy of overthrowing another government and expressed preference for a negotiated settlement.47 There were no surveys taken of news reporting, but over the last few years a perceptible tilt toward criticism of Reagan’s Nicaragua policy could be seen, in part because of President Reagan’s exaggerated claims. One tart commentary was offered by Newsweek (March 31, 1986): Reagan’s own State Department contradicted the president’s assertion that Brazilian radicals are being trained in Nicaragua. The Drug Enforcement Administration can’t substantiate his charge that the Sandinistas have been involved in international narcotics trafficking. And at least one prominent rabbi rebutted his charge that the “entire Jewish community” had been “forced to flee Nicaragua.” Residents of Harlingen, Texas, meanwhile were bemused to hear the president say that Nicaraguan “terrorists and subversives” were “just two days” driving from their town, which is more than 2,000 miles from Managua.48

ACWC groups welcomed such commentaries that cast doubt upon the president’s credibility, but they also found much to criticize in the mainstream media. Major gripes included declining reports of contra atrocities in 1986, a consistent failure to question U.S. hegemonic assumptions (e.g., that the U.S. had the right to direct a war against Nicaragua), and superficial coverage of ACWC demonstrations. Regarding the latter, POR coordinator Ken Butigan complained that media coverage of Pledge demonstrations almost always focused on “the potential for social unrest” with “little or no treatment of the complex social issues which draw people to risk arrest on principle.”49 ACWC groups varied in their sophistication in terms of working with the media, but the campaign as a whole had its own set of limitations: there was no common educational strategy for addressing the “complex social issues” surrounding the Contra War; the campaign lacked a central spokesperson or group that could present its case to the media and public; and a sizable number of groups may have relied too heavily on demonstrations to convey their substantive themes and arguments. The media was predictably enticed by the prominent display of signs and banners at demonstrations, proffering slogans such as “Farm Aid, Not Contra Aid,” “Stop the Lies, Stop the Killing,” “Peace through Peace,” and “The People United Will Never Be Defeated.” This photogenic medium sometimes became the message.50

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The ACWC continued to promote its multiple educational themes and arguments through various means. The bedrock principle for many Contra War opponents remained the diplomacy-over-war theme. An open letter to members of Congress, signed by forty-nine leaders of religious denominations, peace and justice groups, labor unions, and civic groups on April 8, 1986, called on Congress to promote “good faith negotiations” aimed at achieving a “political settlement to the Central American conflict.”51 The theme of contra atrocities was also high on the list, despite the mainstream media’s apparent decision that this was no longer “news.” The Commission on U.S.–Central American Relations, a Washington policy group formed in 1982, underwrote a speaking tour around the country by former contra leader Edgar Chamorro. Chamorro’s message regarding systematic contra attacks on civilians was reinforced by the Witness for Peace network, which by mid-1986 had grown to seventy-eight organizational contacts in thirty-two states.52 Regarding other themes, the effort to humanize Nicaragua took form in advertisements on Boston public buses, which showed photographs of Nicaraguan children under the headline “Nicaragua Is Not Our Enemy.” The ads were sponsored by a local coalition called United for Peace With Nicaragua. Similar ads were placed on twelve billboards in Atlanta in April 1986, sponsored by local groups.53 SANE continued to play up the Vietnam analogy. One of its media advertisements was specifically addressed to Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-WI) with the headline “Please Don’t Send Our Dollars or Our Boys to a Nicaraguan War.”54 The Institute for Policy Studies concentrated on administration illegalities, both domestic and international, producing two succinct booklets for circulation in 1985, In Contempt of Congress: The Reagan Record of Deceit and Illegality on Central America and Outcast among Allies: The International Costs of Reagan’s War against Nicaragua. The contributions of independent academics, intellectuals, and writers added depth to the campaign’s educational themes. At least ninety-two academic and general audience books were published on the Contra War between 1983 and 1987, with the majority being critical of administration policies. This was all the more so among scholarly studies.55 According to Stephen Webre, writing in Latin American Research Review (1986), “Much of the recent literature on Central America has appeared in the form of multi-author works. Most are critical of Washington’s role in the region and most aspire to contribute to the policy debate, although the majority probably end by preaching to the converted.”56 Critical scholarship did not merely preach to the converted, however; it

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provided a solid intellectual foundation for activist arguments and themes, and a base of knowledge from which the media and public could draw in questioning administration claims and rationales.

Protests and Patriotism, 1986 Approval of the $100 million contra aid package in the House on June 25, 1986, sparked an outpouring of demonstrations in cities across the nation, most of them small. In Minneapolis protesters occupied the Federal Building and the local office of Rep. Bill Frenzel. Among the fifty-seven people arrested was Erica Bouza, wife of Minneapolis police chief Tony Bouza. She declared that the protesters only wanted “the American government to leave Nicaragua in peace.” Activists were especially aggrieved by the fact that Frenzel, a Republican, had switched his vote. Two months earlier, when he had voted against contra aid, activists had been so delighted that they organized a march to support him.57 On August 4, a week before the final vote in the Senate on the contra aid package, a civil disobedience action was held in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, DC, in which 112 people were arrested.

Veterans Fast for Life The impending resurgence of the Contra War impelled two veterans, Charles Liteky and George Mizo, to begin a fast, the Veterans Fast for Life, on September 1, 1986. They were joined on September 15 by two other veterans, Brian Willson and Duncan Murphy. Liteky had served as an army chaplain in Vietnam and received the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing his fellow soldiers during an attack. Mizo, who had also served in Vietnam, described their current mission as a “fast for life, to stop the killing in Nicaragua.” The four spent much of their time on the steps of the Capitol, where they attracted an increasing number of people. Murphy, a World War II veteran, remarked, “We tried everything else to stop the atrocities funded with our tax money and nothing else worked.”58 The Veterans Fast for Life was not officially endorsed by the Veterans for Peace, but many VFP members nonetheless lent their support by holding vigils in their local communities. Veterans in the Boston area set up a “tent city” on the Boston Common and maintained a twenty-four-hour vigil for peace. A rally there on September 29 drew a thousand people, among them, John Barr,

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a retired Marine Corps colonel who had been in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Barr told the Boston Globe that he came “to show his disapproval for ‘the U.S. government supporting terrorism in Nicaragua.’ ”59 In Washington a rally was held at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on October 9. Liteky, who had left his Medal of Honor at the memorial in an envelope marked “Ronald Reagan” in late July, now returned to discard his Purple Heart. In all, veterans at the demonstration renounced more than seventy war medals, ribbons, and commendations. The four vets finally ended their fast on October 17, after forty-six days for Liteky and Mizo. All were extremely weak but still managed to stand and walk to the microphones at a press conference that day. Mizo noted that the public response to their fast was “incredible,” as they had received 7,000 to 10,000 pieces of mail and thousands of phone calls. The four later appeared on Phil Donahue’s television talk show. They vowed to continue their protest through other means.60

October 1986 Demonstrations On the weekend of October 24–25, 1986, coinciding with the scheduled release of contra aid approved by Congress, demonstrations were held in at least fifteen cities, organized by a host of local and national groups, including the Pledge campaign. An estimated 10,000 people marched in Los Angeles, 5,000 in New York City, 4,000 in Washington, DC, 3,500 in Chicago, 2,000 in San Francisco, and 2,000 in Boston.61 Most of these demonstrations embraced numerous issues, which once again had the effect of diluting each issue, at least in eyes of the media. Ben A. Franklin, a reporter for the New York Times, described the demonstration in Washington as a “polyglot” protest against the Reagan administration and only briefly listed the various causes. Moreover, he noted that in gathering information for the article he had called the demonstration headquarters and received the following recorded message: “Say no to U.S. intervention in Central America and the Middle East. Say no to apartheid in South Africa and racism at home. Say no to nuclear weapons, nuclear power at home and militarism.”62 Clearly, media relations was not a top priority for the Washington organizers. Another issue related to communicating a clear message arose in Seattle, where 103 people were arrested after sitting on crosswalks and blocking downtown traffic in a demonstration on October 24 organized by the local POR group. This disruptive civil disobedience tactic had been employed on occasion, as in a Detroit demonstration in June 1985, when the local Pledge group closed

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down Michigan Avenue for forty-five minutes, but it was not widely used in the ACWC or Central America movement. Following the action in Seattle, a local activist, Dan Raphael, wrote a letter to the local Pledge group in which he argued that causing traffic delays only results in public animosity toward protestors and diverts attention from the group’s message. Describing the action as “a kind of nonviolent machismo,” he suggested that the group undertake as an alternative “the mundane task of approaching the public in dozens of largely unspectacular ways.” Seattle POR organizer Ken Finch was unconvinced, replying, “Though I think it was generally understood by the public that our message was mainly intended for Washington, DC, we were also openly challenging our fellow citizens here to accept responsibility and act to stop the bloodshed. To this end I introduced the slogan, ‘Only You Can Stop The War!’ ”63 Whether or not the public in Seattle understood that the action was directed at Washington, there was still the question of whether this disruptive tactic constituted an effective means of communicating the group’s message. The civil disobedience actions of the civil rights movement, in comparison, had involved common, nonthreatening “illegal” actions such as sitting at lunch counters and in the front of buses, the significance of which was easily grasped by the public. The tactic of blocking traffic was also different in kind from the more serious illegal actions of breaking into draft board offices and destroying files, which took place during the Vietnam War. The latter, however, were directed at a specific government agency deemed to be part of the “killing machine,” which at least made strategic sense. The national POR office published the Seattle controversy in its January 1987 newsletter but offered no comment. It maintained only one cardinal rule for civil disobedience actions, nonviolence, leaving local groups to work out their own approaches.

National Guard Deployment In the absence of U.S. troops fighting in Nicaragua, the deployment of National Guard units to Honduras established a tangible connection between local communities and U.S. foreign policies. Pentagon plans in 1986 called for 9,000 National Guard members from forty-three states and territories to train in Central America, with 5,300 deployed in Honduras. Their job was to build roads and other kinds of infrastructure needed for the rapid deployment of U.S. military forces in the region, and to train in realistic conditions of war. In Oregon, citizen groups appealed to the governor and state legislators to prevent Oregon National Guard units from being sent to Honduras, scheduled for

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February 1, 1986. United in opposition to the deployment were the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, the Catholic Peace Ministry of Oregon, the Council for Human Rights in Latin America, and a number of peace group chapters. At the request of these groups, Vera Katz, speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives, and John Kitzhaber, president of the Oregon Senate, wrote a letter to Governor Victor Atiyeh, urging him to abort the mission: “By cooperating with the United States government’s militaristic intrusion into the affairs of another nation, we are abdicating our moral responsibility to work for peaceful resolution in the region.” The governor was not persuaded, and the guard units were sent. On January 31, the night before departure, opponents held a vigil at the Portland Airport.64 Other governors joined the ACWC in opposing guard deployments to Central America. In February 1986 Gov. Bruce Babbitt of Arizona accused the Reagan administration of sending guardsmen to the Honduran-Nicaraguan border in order to provide a “pretext” for a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts charged that the administration was usurping the state’s constitutional authority over the guard units. He and Gov. Joseph Brennan of Maine refused to allow their units to participate.65 This resistance prompted the administration to seek passage in Congress of the Montgomery Amendment, which denied governors the right to control their state guard units. A majority of governors meeting in South Carolina in early September indicated their opposition to this amendment, but Congress nevertheless approved it, and President Reagan signed it into law in early November. A variety of local groups were involved in the National Guard issue, including Pledge of Resistance groups in St. Louis and Boulder, Veterans for Peace groups in Minneapolis and southern Maine, and other local groups in Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. On February 11, 1986, in St. Louis, Pledge activists held a demonstration aimed at persuading Gov. John Ashcroft to keep the state’s National Guard units from being sent to Honduras. Ellen Whitt, a University of Missouri political science professor, told USA Today, “They’re building an infrastructure that would allow the United States to conduct a full-scale war. It’s the same thing that happened in Vietnam in ’61 and ’62.”66 The St. Louis POR, with support from fourteen national organizations, established the National Guard Clearinghouse, which kept track of developments and informed local and state groups of guard unit plans.67

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Contra Training in Florida The Reagan administration initially kept its plans for contra training in the United States secret. After a month of speculation in the press, however, the Washington Post revealed on November 27, 1986, that seventy contras had arrived at Hurlburt Field in north Florida for a six-week training course. Hurlburt Field is home to Air Force special operations and lies adjacent to Eglin Air Force Base, a 724-square-mile reservation (two-thirds the size of Rhode Island) near Ft. Walton Beach. The Panhandle region of Florida was also home to many retired military personnel and known for its conservative political orientation, and hence it was well represented by Rep. Earl Hutto (D–Panama City). Hutto welcomed the contras’ presence, telling the Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, “We have to do what we can to prevent the solidification of another MarxistLeninist regime like we have in Cuba.”68 In Orlando, meanwhile, the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (FCPJ) decided that a demonstration was needed in the area to let it be known that the contras were not welcome in Florida. Part-time staff person Bill Lazar traveled to Ft. Walton Beach to lay the groundwork for a demonstration there on December 13. Speaking with a local news reporter from The Log, he described the contras as “terrorists” and insisted, “They have no business being in this country, and we don’t want them here.”69 While Lazar was making plans, a small group of antiwar protesters led by Fr. Roy Bourgeois conducted a civil disobedience action on Sunday, November 30. Bourgeois, a U.S. Navy veteran and a Maryknoll priest, was arrested along with two other Catholic priests for trespassing at the Hurlburt Field gate. Another twenty demonstrators conducted a four-hour legal protest outside the gate. Bourgeois refused to give his name and was held in custody until trial on December 16. The two other priests, Fr. James Sinotte and Fr. Tony Egan, were released the same day. Bourgeois later told U.S. magistrate Susan Novotny, “I tried to stop a crime from taking place: the arming and training of Contras in Florida.” He served a thirty-day jail term.70 FCPJ organizers hoped to attract a larger crowd at their upcoming demonstration. As news of the contras’ presence in north Florida spread, a dozen national organizations and twenty-three Florida organizations signed on as cosponsors.71 Upon hearing about the planned demonstration, Harry Aderholt, a retired Air Force brigadier general and the past president of the Air Commando Association, decided that a counterdemonstration was needed, a “protest against the protesters.” He and Carl Gustman, an employee of a local defense contractor,

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began planning a pro-contra rally at the same site and on the same day. “We support the contra training and the role it plays in our defense,” said Gustman. “We want to show that our country is doing what needs to be done—we don’t need more communist countries.”72 The potential for a clash between the two groups of demonstrators led Aderholt and Lazar to sit down and talk on December 10. As reported in the Playground Daily News, Lazar asked Aderholt to help him divide the space in front of Hurlburt Field, but Aderholt refused. Aderholt wanted a list of all the peace activists who planned to participate, as well as Lazar’s assurance that they would “behave themselves.” Lazar refused to give such assurance, expecting another civil disobedience action to take place. Aderholt then commented, “You people are the violent ones, not us. You throw blood; you carry coffins. What you are is professional agitators. You aren’t from here and you don’t belong here.”73 In fact, relatively few people from the local area were part of the anticontra group, but there were some. One was Patricia Edminsten, a University of West Florida associate professor, who explained to The Log, “Although there are people out there who might back us, there are many who tend to draw the line when it comes to getting out and marching with a placard.”74 Few residents, in other words, wanted to antagonize their neighbors over the issue. On the night before the December 13 rally, opponents of the contras held an open meeting at the Ft. Walton Beach Municipal Auditorium. Among the speakers were military veterans Bill Gandall and Charles Liteky. Gandall recounted his experience as a marine in the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua in the late 1920s. “We were a completely brainwashed outfit,” he said. “But when I came home, I began to see that our policy of manifest destiny was all wrong.” He also talked about his recent visit to Nicaragua and gave the Sandinista government high marks for instituting health and education programs for the Nicaraguan people. Liteky, having recovered from his long fast, spoke about his experience in Vietnam. “For 4½ years I was a Catholic chaplain in the Army,” he said. “And, at the time, I supported the Vietnam War, until I found out the whole thing was a lie. Now I see it starting again in Central America, with the tapestry of lies starting to unravel before our eyes. . . . What we want to do is stop the killing in Nicaragua.” Local residents who did not attend this meeting could still read about it in the local newspapers, which gave a fair amount of coverage to the speakers. Aderholt, for his part, continued to publicly refer to Contra War opponents as “professional agitators.”75 The two demonstrations took place as planned on December 13. Some two hundred anti-contra protesters rallied on one side of the street, while a hundred

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pro-contra demonstrators rallied on the other side. The antiwar crowd included a caravan of seventeen from Gainesville, Florida, as well as activists from as far away as Albany, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut. Thirty-four members of the press were present, along with twenty plain-clothes police officers and twentyfive members of the Florida Highway Patrol’s riot unit. There was no serious disorder, however, only a ritual civil disobedience action by eleven antiwar protesters at the Hurlburt Field gate. As each protester was arrested for stepping across the property line, the pro-contra group across the street applauded. Tom Fischer of the Tallahassee Veterans for Peace checked with police officers to make sure that the larger antiwar group was not blocking traffic or otherwise breaking the law. On the anti-contra side of the street, banners and signs read, “Be All You Can Be—Work for Peace,” “Contra Aid Is Murder,” and “Stop Training Contra Terrorists.” On the other side, the signs read, “Help Contras, Stop Communism” and “Free Nicaragua from Slavery.” Gustman appeared at the pro-contra rally wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “I’m a Contra, too.” Waving an American flag, he yelled to motorists, “They’re passing out communist propaganda. You don’t want to read it.” Aderholt was pleased with the hundred-person pro-contra turnout. “I’d have been happier, of course, if everyone in Fort Walton Beach had come out,” he said. “But I think this is great.” The front page of the Playground Daily News on the following morning featured a large photograph of anti-contra protesters lying motionless on the street, their placards partly covering their bodies. The adjacent title read, “Protesters ask for arrest and get it.” The article itself, however, described how Liteky and other protesters had carried out their civil disobedience action in a dignified manner. Liteky, with Bible in hand, even spoke well of Hurlburt security officers, describing them as “very courteous.” The controversy did not end with the dueling demonstrations. Gustman told the Pensacola News-Journal that his next step was to organize a pro–United States parade on December 22. “It’s not the contra issue,” he said. “It’s more being proud to be an American type of thing.” Ft. Walton Beach resident Jackie Delacruz, whose husband had fought in Vietnam, had stood with the anti-contra protesters on December 13. She also felt proud of her country, telling the Pensacola News-Journal, “I am standing up for my country, my town, my friends, and neighbors.” Another local resident who participated in the anti-contra protest, Renee Williams, said of the whole affair, “I think it was an excellent example of how people with opposing views can express them without becoming violent. . . . We carried flags and crosses. We felt as much patriotism as they did.”76 Whether or not the anti–Contra

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War protesters persuaded anyone, they at least sparked a public debate on this foreign policy issue, challenging the unexamined assumption that patriotism means always supporting the nation’s wars and foreign policies.

A Solitary Vigil Sometimes a small demonstration can have a large effect on individuals. Such was the case with the solitary vigil of Grace Gyori, a Presbyterian missionary who stood outside a post office in Chicago’s Loop each day in the summer of 1985, protesting the “U.S. war on Central America.” Rev. Grant Gallup, an Episcopal minister working with low-income communities on Chicago’s West Side, was moved by her witness. “She stood there,” reflected Gallup, “with an array of little wooden crosses planted in coffee cans set on the pavement. Each had the name of a victim of U.S. terror in Guatemala.” Gyori told Gallup about an upcoming trip to Mexico and Central America that fall. Gallup decided to go. His visit to Nicaragua in particular excited his interest in liberation theology and social change. He returned again in 1986, 1987, and 1988, each time with a different sponsoring group, whether religious or political. In 1989 he accepted a one-year appointment as a liaison officer to the Episcopal Church in Nicaragua. He remained in the country thereafter and founded Casa Ave Maria in Managua, “a house of hospitality, study, sojourn, and service,” which provided free classes in English, piano, guitar, dance, painting, drawing, and computer skills.77 Sister Gyori’s singular protest thus led at least one person to devote his life to helping the Nicaraguan people.

Nicaragua Connections, 1985–86 There were many notable humanitarian aid efforts in 1985–86. AFSC, MADRE, Nicaragua Network, the Quixote Center, and a growing number of sister cities sent medical, educational, and agricultural supplies. TecNica and Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua provided technicians and tools. Independent solidaridados such as Ben Linder and Fred Royce added their individual contributions. Royce, a native of Jacksonville, established an agricultural mechanics school near Matagalpa. By April 1987 Nicaragua Network and its offshoot, Nicaragua Exchange, had arranged for 1,400 Americans to participate in coffee, cotton, construction, and other international work brigades.78 Coordinators Debra Reuben and Sylvia Sherman emphasized that solidarity was a two-way

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street and not simply charity, “a relationship based on mutual interests and respect. North Americans have in fact learned a great deal from the Nicaraguan people.”79 A continuing stream of U.S. visitors and study tours did indeed learn much from Nicaraguans. CUSCLIN members and the Envío staff often helped make arrangements for meetings and seminars. A new group, Trade for Peace, arose in May 1985 in response to the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, the group began importing small amounts of goods from Nicaragua and selling them in the United States in outright defiance of the embargo. A complaint from Citizens for Reagan brought the group to the attention of U.S. Customs, which later raided a member’s house, seizing coffee and crafts.80 Another small but notable group that joined in Nicaragua solidarity efforts consisted of the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteer American force that had fought against Francisco Franco’s fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s. The aging members of this group included Bill Gandall, Ted Veltfort, and Abe Osheroff, all lifelong leftists. Gandall and Veltfort had both driven ambulances in Spain (Gandall had also trained American, French, and Moroccan volunteers in guerrilla warfare). After visiting Nicaragua in 1985, the two began a fundraising project that resulted in eleven ambulances being delivered to Nicaragua. Osheroff, meanwhile, initiated the Lincoln Construction Brigade in the fall of 1985. With the help of a dozen younger volunteers, they built twenty-nine wooden houses in the small farming cooperative in Mombachito, located near the city of Granada.81

The Quixote Center’s Quest for Peace Project Congressional approval of the $27 million “humanitarian aid” package for the contras in June 1985 inspired the Quixote Center to initiate the Quest for Peace project. Announced on December 12, 1985, its goal was to raise $27 million in real humanitarian aid for the Nicaraguan people, contrasting it with the administration’s support for armed guerrillas. The goal was reached in late May 1986. Almost one-half of the $27 million worth of aid was raised though the Quixote Center. Director Bill Callahan tabulated the rest by conservatively estimating the value of all material aid and donated labor, including the labor of brigadistas. The project ultimately involved 425 organizations and 2,500 individuals, creating an informal network of humanitarian aid groups in the process. Following congressional approval of a $100 million contra aid package in mid-1986, the Quixote Center repeated the process, setting a new goal at the

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same amount. Over 600 organizations took part in the second effort, and the Quixote Center staff increased to twelve in order to meet the demand. At a press conference on November 24, 1986, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Sister Janet Roesener, and Rev. Joseph Lowery announced that $11.5 million had thus far been collected in “life-sustaining” humanitarian aid. In promoting the campaign, Quixote Center staff members and field organizers gave some 150 workshops and talks in communities across the United States. The goal of $100 million in aid was reached in mid-1987, with the Quixote Center responsible for raising about 45 percent of it. The aid included food, clothing, educational items, medical equipment and supplies, and agricultural tools. It was used in part to assist displaced families and to build a forty-bed hospital in the small northern rural community of El Viejo. One of the major contributors to the hospital was the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh, who gathered medical equipment worth $450,000 from seventeen area hospitals.82 In Nicaragua the hospitals were filling up with casualties from land mines planted on rural roads by the contras. Michael Gillen, on a tour of Nicaragua with a dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, noted that a civilian hospital in the city of Esteli “seemed loaded with recent mine blast-related amputees.”83 Jim Burchell, a field organizer for the Quixote Center in the northeastern states, viewed the Quest for Peace project as a multi-pronged organizing tool. Beyond raising humanitarian aid for the Nicaraguan people, he sought to involve more people in the ACWC, build cooperation and local coalitions among activist groups, educate U.S. citizens about Nicaragua, support grassroots pressure on Congress, and generate positive publicity for anti–Contra War groups. The Quest for Peace project, he said, was a “very effective way of pulling activists together and giving them something concrete to do as well as involving new people.” In his educational presentations, Burchell would “put a real human face” on foreign policy issues. “If I went to a church and said I wanted to talk about structural adjustment, I would get nowhere,” he explained. “But if I said I wanted to talk about poor people in Nicaragua, then that opens the door. . . . People ask why there are street children. So we’re able to make the transition” to underlying systems. “We don’t treat poverty in Nicaragua as a natural disaster. It’s man made.” Burchell’s own journey into social change began in high school in Rochester, New Hampshire, during the Vietnam War years. Having initially “bought the line about the nature of our country,” he became aware of a deep contradiction between the rhetoric of democracy and human rights, and the reality of the

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U.S. war in Vietnam. “I just saw the hypocrisy of it,” he said. The United States refused to allow Vietnam “the right of self-determination.” After spending a few semesters at the University of Virginia, Burchell returned to New Hampshire in 1976 to run for a seat in the legislature. He won, at the age of twenty-one, and served three two-year terms. During this period, he also won a seat on the Rochester city council and served a four-year term. Burchell returned to college and earned a master’s in public policy from the University of Michigan in 1985. While in Ann Arbor, he brought his legislative experience and knowledge to bear in assisting a referendum on Reagan’s Central America policies in 1985–86. About this same time, he was recruited by Rev. Bill Callahan to work on the Quest for Peace project. Although not a “theistic person,” he said, he grew to respect “all these radical Catholics.” Burchell described himself as a democrat “with a small d,” one who believes in “the ideals that were embodied in the formation of our country” and in “the basic rules of civilization.”84 As in the Vietnam War, he saw the U.S. role in Nicaragua as contrary to the principles of freedom and democracy for which the United States presumably stands.

The Hasenfus Affair in Madison International developments and local activism crossed paths in Madison, Wisconsin, in the fall of 1986. On October 5 a U.S. cargo plane supplying arms and aid to the contras inside Nicaragua was shot down by Sandinista troops. Eugene Hasenfus, an air cargo handler, survived the ordeal and was arrested by the Sandinista government. He was tried in a Nicaraguan court and sentenced to a thirty-year jail term. Hasenfus’s home was in Marinette, Wisconsin. The following month, Nicaraguan vice president Sergio Ramírez visited Madison at the invitation of the Wisconsin-León sister state program. After touring the state capitol, Ramírez spoke to a welcoming crowd of over a thousand people at Saint Paul’s Catholic Church. He later met with Gov. Anthony Earl, held two press conferences, and spoke with the family of Eugene Hasenfus. “Our main interest,” said Ramírez at one of the press conferences, is that “a new Hasenfus won’t be in the future, that no North American citizen will be involved in illegal actions against a legal government.” Ramírez extended an invitation to the Hasenfus family to visit Nicaragua. Sandy Coppens, Eugene Hasenfus’s sister, was impressed with Ramírez, saying, “He was very encouraging, very warm.”85 A week before Christmas, President Ortega pardoned Hasenfus as a gesture of good will. Nicaraguan Supreme Court justice Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia signed the official pardon, even though she strongly disagreed with it, believing

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that Hasenfus’s actions made him a war criminal.86 Hasenfus was turned over to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), who arrived in Managua in late December with Sally Hasenfus, the pardoned prisoner’s wife. “This is a Christmas and New Year message to the American people,” said Ortega. “It is a very concrete message of peace.”87

Witness for Peace in Nicaragua Witness for Peace continued to expand in 1985 and 1986, organizing short-term delegations and arranging for long-term volunteers to stay in rural communities. In February 1985 WFP hired two staff persons in Managua, Sharon Hostetler, who coordinated operations out of the CEPAD office, and Ed Griffin-Nolan, who managed media relations. By July 1987 the Managua office had grown to a staff of fourteen—five U.S. citizens and nine Nicaraguans.88 The big story in 1985 was the abduction in August of a boat full of WFP volunteers and journalists. Following an increase in contra attacks on Nicaragua’s southern border, WFP volunteers decided that they would take a “peace cruise” down the San Juan River in August, hopefully defusing the situation by putting U.S. citizens in the area. WFP held a press conference to announce the trip but few media people came. Then on August 4, contra commander Edén Pastora announced that anyone going beyond a certain point along the river would be shot. “When he made that public statement,” said Hostetler, “all of a sudden we asked, are we going to do this?” WFP organizers decided to call another press conference. This time the media turned out in full force, and a number of reporters volunteered to ride on the fifty-foot barge. “And so we had all the press on the boat when our group was kidnapped,” said Hostetler. On August 7 contra forces on the banks of the river fired warning shots, forcing the boat to shore. They held twenty-nine WFP members and eighteen journalists at gunpoint. Hostetler received the news immediately through a shortwave radio kept by Griffin-Nolan. “We called our office in Washington, DC, and they started calling the State Department. . . . Then I called Leana [Nuñez of the FSLN Office of Religious Affairs] and our partners, telling them our group’s been kidnapped. Then I called the U.S. Embassy and they actually sent people over to our office.” The captured contingent was marched up a muddy hill by seven armed men. The nonviolent activists kept conversing with the soldiers and managed to establish a measure of rapport, despite the circumstances. The group also negotiated their return to the boat for the night. The contra commander, “William,”

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the son of a National Guardsman, was apparently under orders not to harm the group. His superior, “Daniel,” arrived the next morning and gave the group permission to leave. Before doing so, the norteamericanos asked the contra soldiers to join them in prayer. “All but two let go their rifles for just a moment and joined hands to say the Lord’s Prayer,” noted Ed Griffin-Nolan in his account of the incident. The twenty-nine-hour ordeal made front-page news in Nicaragua and across the United States. The Reagan administration immediately attempted to discredit WFP by claiming that the capture had been staged. The WFP office in Washington called a news conference to rebut the charge. Some media commentators called WFP “Witless for Peace,” said Hostetler. “But then later in the Contra War, we were a main source of information for the mass media for what was happening in the war. We had to work hard on our credibility. And we took it very seriously; for example, in the documentation, we never used or printed anything that we didn’t have . . . two corroborating sources who would say, yes, that’s what happened.”89 WFP underwent subtle changes in the Nicaraguan setting with regard to its identification as “a prayerful, biblical” community, originally stated in the WFP Charter. According to Managua coordinators Sharon Hostetler and Daniel Erdsman, during the 1984–86 period, WFP staff and long-term volunteers became less concerned with establishing a specifically religious community than with simply creating community, inclusive of different religious and secular views. “The very nature of the work has attracted people who ‘do not fit the mold,’ whether those people defined themselves in traditional religious terms or not,” they wrote. People came with views ranging “from traditional Catholic to New Age to individual philosophy.” Any attempt to narrow the boundaries of religious identity risked alienating some people, they argued. What evolved instead in the long-term team (LTT) was an effort to build an inclusive community around the WFP mission in Nicaragua. “The LTT with its diversity laid less emphasis on the ‘Biblical, prayerful’ phrase and more on the ‘we welcome others who differ from us.’ ”90 A professionally made documentary film, Destination Nicaragua (Empowerment Project, 58 min.), released in March 1986, followed Witness for Peace groups and others as they journeyed through rural villages and cooperative farms, allowing viewers to absorb the reality with little added commentary. “When the delegates arrive in Jalapa,” wrote one film reviewer, “they meet a mother who describes how she found her son’s mutilated body after one contra attack on their

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village. After this heart-wrenching scene, one wonders how anyone could want to support the contras, but the film makes no comment.”91 WFP volunteers were not immune to the pathos nor the danger. Aynn Setright first came to Nicaragua as part of a short-term WFP delegation in 1985, at the age of twenty-five. She went on to become a long-term volunteer and worked as an ambulance driver in the north central village of Bocana de Paiwas, a war zone. Jim Feldt, a U.S. priest from Wisconsin who headed the village parish, had requested a WFP volunteer to drive the parish-owned ambulance, thinking that the contras would “think twice before killing a U.S. person,” according to Setright. “I remember thinking, now this whole theory of me being a gringa and driving the ambulance may work if the contras stop me and see me. But how is this going to work on a land mine, which is indiscriminate? . . . I would sometimes come up to a mud puddle and think . . . If I were a contra, where would I put the mine? Would I put it on the left? Would I put it on the right? I’m here today, so I always made the right decision about where to drive. But it was scary. It was very scary.” Setright grew up in a conservative Catholic family in Wyoming. She became an exchange student in Brazil in 1978. When the Sandinistas toppled the Somoza regime on July 19, 1979, she recalled, “People are out on the streets, dancing the samba, and I’m thinking, what’s going on? Brazil itself was living under a military dictatorship at the time, so this was kind of an expression of the people, out on the streets dancing. There was something in my consciousness about a liberation movement that was born then.” Setright later attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where the future UN ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, was her political theory adviser. “I just didn’t agree with anything she said,” said Setright. After Reagan was elected, she lost her enthusiasm for a career in the foreign service and returned to Wyoming. As a peace activist at the University of Wyoming at Laramie, she debated Rep. Dick Cheney, the Wyoming congressional representative, two years in a row. She became interested in Nicaragua when a Maryknoll lay missionary, Pat Carr, came to the university on a speaking tour in 1983. After finishing college in 1985 she joined with WFP. She was fluent in Portuguese but still learning Spanish. “In those days, there were about forty long-term volunteers,” she said. The WFP team was mainly looking for “people who could keep a cool head, who were able to do fund-raising and grassroots organizing in the United States, people they could trust.” Setright was one of a dozen new WFP longterm volunteers that year.

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The local parish in Paiwas headed by Pastor Feldt was engaged in resettling internally displaced families that had left their mountain farms because of contra attacks. The Sandinista government provided land for cooperative resettlement communities. This made Paiwas and the roads leading to it the target of frequent contra attacks. Neither the Red Cross nor the Health Ministry would go to Paiwas because it was considered too dangerous. The nearest town was about three hours’ drive. As Setright drove her ambulance back and forth, she sometimes met contras face to face. “I was stopped a dozen times,” she said. Once the contras stopped her and took an injured Sandinista soldier from the ambulance and presumably killed him. After that, she insisted that injured soldiers riding with her undress to their underwear. “But you could tell they were soldiers because they had bad feet from wearing wet socks and dirty wet boots for twenty-four hours a day for three months at a time,” she said. “I would never take anybody armed.” Some of the contras who stopped her, said Setright, were high on speed [an amphetamine]. “They had a baggie full of white crosses, and they were just popping them.” One time, a contra put a grenade right beside her. “They wanted to know where we were going with this tin/zinc sheet roofing; why was I helping the Sandinistas; why wouldn’t I give him a ride; why wouldn’t I let them take the zinc; what was I doing with these people; who were these men; were they really Sandinistas; was I really a Sandinista?” Another time, contras forced Setright out of her vehicle: They tied my hands behind my back. They walked me up to a little ranchito at the top of a hill. . . . I was sitting on a little stool . . . and they had a huge radio there. And this guy, this contra who stopped me, was talking in Spanish and must have been to Honduras, because I heard a guy with a Southern [U.S.] accent in Spanish telling the guy, “No queremos nada con la iglesia . . . Es una monja, verdad, es una monja.” They thought I was a nun. . . . My fear was that the Sandinistas were going to come in and try to have some rescue operation, and the danger was when the two groups met. I felt okay if I was just with the contras. And I was okay with the Sandinistas.

The contras let Setright go. They later ambushed a vehicle driven by Setright’s co-worker, killing her and two little girls with a grenade launched at the vehicle. “She was a civilian, a Nicaraguan woman, mother of seven,” said Setright. After completing her one-year duty, Setright did not feel ready to go back to the United States. “I was just too traumatized by all the things I had seen with the

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ambulance,” she said. So she stayed in Paiwas and continued to work with Pastor Feldt. At one point she became the target of a contra ambush designed to kidnap her. “I actually had to leave the country for a little while because there was a contra who apparently had seen me from afar and I was a pretty strong, strappy young gal and he took a shine to me,” she said. “And he set up a couple ambushes to capture me. I just got out by the luck of my hide.” In one case, she was advised by local people of a contra ambush ahead and turned back. “And then he took it out on them,” she said. Despite all the danger and tragedy she experienced, Setright reflected: I felt privileged to be here. I thought that I was the luckiest person alive, because I was in Nicaragua during this absolutely incredible moment of Nicaragua’s history. It’s such a contradiction because, in spite of the fact that mostly what I remember is the war and the tragedy, what was so sustaining during that period of time was indeed the celebration of life, to be together with all of these other people who are like-minded, Nicaraguans and from other countries, who are all together in the same thing. And you feel like you have this very insignificant part of something that’s so much bigger than who you are at any given time. That was a really heady feeling.92

CHAPTER 8

Sustaining the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1987–90

R

ecent events have given us the opportunity to make 1987 a turning point in the six year U.S. war in Central America,” wrote Steven Slade, national Pledge of Resistance coordinator, in early 1987. “After years of struggle to simply slow the pace of escalation, we now have the chance to actually reverse the direction of U.S. policy. This is the chance we have been waiting for.” Slade pointed to three developments as sources of hope: Democratic Party control in both houses of Congress, a decline in the administration’s credibility due to the Iran-Contra affair, and an increase in the credibility of the anti–Contra War campaign.1 The ACWC was at its height in early 1987. More than 1,000 local, state, and national organizations were working against the administration’s Central America policies.2 Approximately 100,000 individuals had made a “commitment to take nonviolent action to prevent further harm to Nicaragua” via the Pledge campaign.3 More than 2,200 U.S. citizens had participated in Witness for Peace delegations, accompanying Nicaraguans in war zones.4 Witness for Peace director Betsy Crites noted in July 1987, “WFP has advanced to a new level of prominence in recent months as our work at building relations with Congress, colleague organizations and the press has come to fruition. The mainstream press in Managua and Washington generally consider WFP a credible source.”5 Religious leaders, unfazed by red-baiting, continued to speak out strongly [ 208 ]

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against the Contra War, and labor unions were increasingly engaged in the issue. “By 1986,” wrote David Dyson of the National Labor Committee, “it was clear that the labor side of anti-intervention work had advanced faster and farther than anyone had thought possible.”6 Public opinion also remained solidly opposed to contra aid. According to a February 1987 poll commissioned by Time magazine, 52 percent of Americans favored cutting off all military support to the contras, while 26 percent favored additional military aid. The poll also revealed that 62 percent believed that it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that U.S. troops would end up fighting in Nicaragua.7

Protests and Politics, 1987–88 The first major initiative of the anti–Contra War campaign in 1987 was the Lenten Witness to End the War in Nicaragua, a seven-week series of demonstrations and civil disobedience actions at the Capitol organized by religious denominations. In the first demonstration, on Ash Wednesday, March 4, three hundred people gathered for a prayer service, and five prominent religious leaders were arrested after refusing to leave the Capitol Rotunda. The five declared that they were “willing to go to jail for their belief that U.S. policy in Nicaragua is wrong,” according to the Boston Globe.8 Each of the next six Wednesday actions was led by a different set of denominations, respectively: Episcopal and Moravian; Presbyterian and Lutheran; Methodist; Church of the Brethren and Unitarian Universalist; Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ; and, on April 15, Roman Catholic. In all, some two thousand people participated in the demonstrations and eighty-two religious leaders and laypersons were arrested. Participants also lobbied Congress in between the weekly demonstrations.9 The first legislative battle fell short of victory, but gains were made in the House. On March 11 the House voted 230–196 to place a six-month moratorium on $40 million in contra aid that had been previously approved. Although the measure was later rejected by the Senate, the substantial margin of opposition to contra aid in the House convinced the Reagan administration to delay submission of a new proposal until at least September. The elaborately planned and executed Lenten Witness for Peace garnered less press attention than a trial the next month involving Amy Carter, daughter of the former president. A sophomore at Brown University, Carter and

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fifty-nine others had been arrested on November 24, 1986, for occupying a building at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, in protest against CIA recruitment on the campus. Fifteen of the sixty protesters, including Carter and Abbie Hoffman, a well-known leader of the anti–Vietnam War movement, pleaded innocent to charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct. At their trial in mid-April, the defendants employed the “necessity” defense, arguing that their illegal trespass was justified in order to prevent greater harm to others. The CIA, they asserted, was engaged in criminal activity in Nicaragua, harming innocent people. To substantiate their case, the defendants brought in eleven expert witnesses, including former contra leader Edgar Chamorro and former National Security Council aide Daniel Ellsberg. After two days of testimony, the judge acquitted the defendants. Upon leaving the courthouse, the exonerated defendants were cheered by hundreds of supporters. Carter recounted to the press, “My parents told me they were proud of me.”10

The April 25th Mobilization David Reed, the new executive director of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, was more interested in expanding the popular base of the Central America movement than escalating its tactics. In mid-1986, Reed and David Dyson began discussing how labor unions might be brought into “a nationwide, unified effort that could put tens of thousands of people in the streets,” according to Dyson.11 Reed and Dyson set up a retreat at the Machinists Lodge in Placid Harbor, Maryland, on September 12, 1986, and invited representatives of national peace, labor, and religious organizations along with foundation representatives to discuss the possibility of organizing a major demonstration focused on Central America in the spring. There was general enthusiasm for the idea at the meeting. The group decided that religious denominations and labor unions should officially sponsor the demonstration in order to present a mainstream image and reach as wide an audience as possible. Over the next few weeks, plans were solidified as to the structure of the steering committee and nature of the demonstration, nicknamed “the Mobe.” A thirty-five member steering committee was created, with equal representation from five sectors: labor unions, religious denominations, faith-based activist groups such as AFSC and Witness for Peace, secular peace and justice groups such as SANE, Rainbow Coalition, and Democratic Socialists of America, and solidarity groups such as CISPES and Nicaragua Network. Leslie Cagan, program coordinator for Mobilization for Survival from 1980 to 1986 and an

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experienced organizer of mass demonstrations, was hired as the Mobe coordinator, in charge of staff and general operations. In working out plans for the Mobe, labor representatives opposed a proposal to add a civil disobedience component, arguing that this would undermine the desired mainstream image, but a majority voted to approve an action on the Monday following the main demonstration on Saturday, April 25. Denominational representatives argued against adding more issues to the agenda, fearing a dilution of the focus on Central America, but they were outvoted on one addition—southern Africa issues (apartheid in South Africa and U.S. support for Angolan rebels). Three antiapartheid groups were subsequently invited to join the solidarity sector of the steering committee, and the demonstration was officially titled the “National Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Central America and Southern Africa.” The Mobe steering committee set forth four instrumental goals: to “express citizen outrage”; to demonstrate “the high domestic political costs of continuing and escalating the U.S. intervention in Central America and southern Africa”; to “broaden the public debate over U.S. foreign policy in general and the Reagan Doctrine in particular”; and to broaden the anti-intervention movement.12 The steering committee decided not to take on any more issues, despite appeals from disarmament and social justice issue groups. The majority view was that too many demands would scare away the labor movement and dilute the anti-interventionist message. Local organizations and coalitions were nevertheless allowed to take on issues as they pleased. SANE/Freeze (a merger of SANE and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign), Mobilization for Survival, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (all on the steering committee) sent out letters encouraging local disarmament activists to come to the demonstration and “bring banners, signs and literature which address some of the pressing disarmament issues.”13 On the West Coast activists grumbled at the two-issue limit and organized their own West Coast alliance to plan a demonstration in San Francisco on the same day, with more expansive demands. As the planning proceeded, the Mobe evolved into a complex set of events and activities, each of which required considerable time, effort, and money to organize. In addition to the main event on Saturday, which included a morning rally, a march to the Capitol, and an afternoon rally, plans called for a benefit concert on Friday evening, training for civil disobedience on Sunday, an interfaith service on Sunday afternoon, a civil disobedience action at CIA headquarters on Monday, lobbying at the Capitol on Monday, and “teach-ins” during the

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week. The Mobe opened a national office, hired staff, and initiated meetings with local organizers to spread the word. With limited time and funding available, however, some critical aspects of organizing were delayed or left undone. According to a follow-up report by scholars Beverly Bickel, Philip Brenner, and William LeoGrande (hereafter called the Bickel report), the national Mobe office failed to produce a national leaflet publicizing the Mobe, as well as literature “drawing out the links between the two issues”; a media person was not hired until February, and that person “had no previous experience with this scale of national media work”; and a lobbying coordinator was not hired until three weeks before the planned lobby day.14 Another set of problems emerged around the idea of uniting the Central America movement, which was predominantly white, with the antiapartheid movement, which resonated with the African-American community. There was little time to develop any substantial connections between the two issue campaigns, let alone an alliance. The Bickel report noted an “absence of black church networks and leadership in the mobilization.” The fact that the official “Call” for the mobilization did not list any sponsoring organizations on its letterhead made it difficult to garner support in the African-American community, which expected to see some prominent African-American names and organizations listed. Labor unions proved to be the most adept at facilitating minority involvement, albeit from within their own ranks.15 The Mobe’s efforts to recruit labor union members were successful despite the expected opposition of the AFL-CIO. Twenty-four labor union presidents endorsed the Mobe, including the presidents of the United Automobile Workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Communications Workers of America, and the National Education Association. In March, AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland sent out letters to state and local labor councils urging them to actively oppose the mobilization. In early April John T. Joyce, president of the Bricklayers & Allied Craftsmen, distributed a sixteen-page critique of the mobilization, alleging connections between the Mobe’s sponsoring groups and Central American revolutionaries. The latter accusation was reiterated in an open letter by Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, published in the New York Times on April 19, titled “Avoiding the Wrong Crowd.”16 These efforts did not deter some 25,000 to 40,000 union members from attending the rally in Washington on April 25. The Washington rally drew approximately 100,000 people despite inclement weather—rain, wind gusts up to twenty m.p.h., and a temperature of forty-seven

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degrees. Another 30,000 people attended the protest in San Francisco.17 Some 170 local coalitions organized buses and car pools to one or the other demonstration. The largest contingent came from New York City, which filled 500 buses to Washington. The demonstrators gathered at the Ellipse behind the White House for a morning rally, then marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, waving signs and chanting slogans: “Boycott South Africa, Not Nicaragua,” “Student Aid, Not Contra Aid,” “Stop the Bombing in El Salvador,” “Let Nicaragua Live,” and “Give Peace a Chance.” The lead contingent included religious leaders Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Thomas Gumbleton of Pax Christi; congressional representatives Major Owens (D-NY), David Bonior (D-MI), and John Conyers (D-MI); peace activists William Sloane Coffin, Cora Weiss, David Cortright, and Daniel Ellsberg; and union representative Cleveland Robinson, Eleanor Smeal of the National Organization of Women, Maria Teresa Tula from CoMadres (Committee of Mothers of the Disappeared and Assassinated from El Salvador), and Fr. César Jerez, president of the Jesuit University of Nicaragua. The afternoon rally featured many speeches, skits by the Bread and Puppet Theater, performances by singers Jackson Browne and Holly Near, and readings by poet June Jordan. On Sunday, over 700 people attended the interfaith service.18 The following day, 563 people were arrested at CIA headquarters while 1,500 people rallied in support. The focus of this action was ending contra aid. The chant that went around was “USA, CIA, out of Nicaragua.”19 News coverage of the April 25 rally and civil disobedience action was not unfavorable, but neither did it offer much in the way of education about the issues. Articles focused on the actions at hand, the recognized personalities in attendance, and the conflict over foreign policy within the labor movement. There was no significant discussion of Central America or South Africa issues and no mention of the Reagan Doctrine. In the view of the political scientist Philip Brenner, the Mobe “didn’t have a clear theme.” It used terms such as “peace and justice,” but “those were such vague themes that they didn’t teach anything.” Granted that the Reagan Doctrine was “a very, very hard thing to explain to the media,” the Mobe “did not send a clear message that linked southern Africa and Central America.” William LeoGrande offered a more upbeat assessment, arguing that the Mobe stimulated interest in the issue, which in turn could lead to further education: “A Mobe like this can serve an educational function without actually providing much in the way of direct education. It can be a catalyst that gets people focused on the issue, which they then learn about from other sources.

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In fact, getting people’s attention to an issue is really what these demonstrations are all about—which is why they’re called mobilizations.”20

The Iran-Contra Affair The televised Iran-Contra hearings in Congress from May 5 to August 6, 1987, proved to be a rather tepid affair. Lt. Col. Oliver North pointed to his superiors as the source of the Iran-contra arms exchanges, but Congress let President Reagan and Vice President George Bush off the hook. Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh concluded in his final report (August 1993) that the “policies behind both the Iran and contra operations were fully reviewed and developed at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration.”21 Worse still for the ACWC, North’s testimony made him a hero in conservative circles and beyond. Testifying between July 7 and 14, North presented himself as the ultimate patriot, a bureaucratic “Rambo,” who had to go beyond the law in order to save the country from its enemies. One beneficial result for the ACWC of the Iran-Contra investigation and indictments was the disruption of the administration’s “public diplomacy” operation. Carl R. “Spitz” Channell, director of the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, pleaded guilty in April 1987 to conspiring to defraud the government by funneling tax-exempt funds to the contras. Channell and his organization had also played a major role in domestic propaganda operations, raising millions of dollars for the purchase of air time on radio and television and sponsoring speaking tours of anti-Sandinista Nicaraguans.22 The Office of Public Diplomacy (S/LPD) was shut down in 1987 after the General Accounting Office concluded that the agency had engaged “in prohibited, covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public to support the Administration’s Latin American policies.”23 A later investigation by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs confirmed that S/LPD had illegally used taxpayer funds for the purpose of domestic propaganda. The committee report, dated September 7, 1988, stated that S/LPD had employed “groups of private citizens outside the government” that had “raised money for contra weapons, lobbied the Congress, ran sophisticated media campaigns in targeted congressional districts, and worked with S/LPD to influence American public opinion through manipulation of the American press.”24 Ironically, much of the press appeared less concerned with this systematic manipulation of the fourth estate than with the question of whether Ronald Reagan’s reputation could be restored.

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Countdown ’87 In June 1987 national ACWC groups created a new lobbying and media campaign called “Countdown ’87 Campaign to End Contra Aid.” The sobering reality of political defeat the previous year inspired a new level of dedication, cooperation, and strategic thinking. There was a determination to win the political battle this year and Countdown ’87 was the primary vehicle. The ACWC had four political assets—a strong activist base, supportive public opinion, committed Democratic Party leaders, and international support—that needed to be maximized and woven together. Campaign ’87 began by creating a united front of national groups, building on the cooperation developed in the Central America Working Group. Participating organizations included the Coalition for a New Foreign Policy (formerly the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy), the National Labor Committee, Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America, Institute for Policy Studies, SANE, Witness for Peace, Nicaragua Network, Neighbor-to-Neighbor, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, and others. To ensure integration with the Democratic Party, the campaign created an oversight board, chaired by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), that worked with the House Democratic Task Force on Central America, headed by Rep. David Bonior (D-MI) and Executive Floor Assistant Kathy Gille. Taking a lesson from the Mobe, a coordinator was hired who was thoroughly familiar with the workings of Congress—Rosa DeLauro, administrative assistant and chief of staff for Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) from 1981 to 1987. (DeLauro was elected to the House of Representatives from a Connecticut district in 1990.) The campaign’s political strategy centered on influencing twenty-nine “swing” members of Congress—twenty-three House members and six senators (ten Democrats and nineteen Republicans). National groups along with some state groups divided up the congressional districts and states, sent in field organizers, recruited local activists, and designed information and arguments specific to each member and district or state. The operative goals at the local level were to generate massive numbers of constituent phone calls and letters, arrange meetings between members of Congress and influential community members, and influence the public discourse through letters to the editor, opinion columns, and media events. The national campaign, for its part, arranged for the production of thirtysecond television commercials, sixty-second radio spots, and newspaper advertisements placed in the home districts of targeted members of Congress. The

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professionally produced television ads reminded audiences of the Vietnam War and appealed to economic sensibilities: “Since 1982, the American taxpayer has aided the contras to the tune of $250 million—$25,000 for every contra now under arms. You can stop this tragic waste of our national resources.”25 To pay for these ads, the Countdown campaign raised more than $1 million with the help of popular musicians—Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Don Henley, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bonnie Raitt, and others—who performed at benefit concerts in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington. Campaign ’87 integrated supportive public opinion by commissioning surveys in particular congressional districts. The idea was partly inspired by surveys on contra aid taken by the Stanley Greenberg polling agency in two localities, Oklahoma City and the Chicago suburbs. The Greenberg report (August 20, 1987) found “strong antipathies” to U.S. support for the contras, concluding: “For years, the American majority opposed to Contra aid has held firm, despite presidential appeals and major events; it will almost certainly outlast the present debates.”26 The surveys commissioned by Campaign ’87, beginning in October, yielded similar results, even in Republicandominated districts. In New York’s 34th congressional district, represented by Republican Amo Houghton, the survey indicated that 64 percent of likely voters were opposed to further contra aid; and in Pennsylvania’s 19th district, represented by Republican Bill Goodling, 63 percent of likely voters opposed to contra aid.27 The national office and local groups used these survey results in their lobbying efforts and press releases. Pro-contra groups were also engaged in the political battle. In early 1987 the National Conservative Foundation initiated a $250,000 advertising campaign with the message that legislators should not “abandon” the contras. Citizens for Reagan and the Council for Inter-American Security sent out “Nicaragua Action Kits,” which contained preaddressed postcards to members of Congress, a “Wanted” poster with Daniel Ortega’s picture on it, and bumper stickers that read “Support Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters.”28 Opponents of the Contra War received a great boost when the five Central American presidents signed the Esquipulas accords on August 7, 1987. Drafted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the agreement required a cessation of all outside support for guerrilla forces and stipulated that the Sandinistas must hold talks with the contras. Arias later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic efforts. The Reagan administration took revenge against Arias by funneling $433,000 to his political opponents in Costa Rica through the National

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Endowment for Democracy and the Republican Institute for International Affairs.29 Not surprisingly, the administration ignored the treaty requirement demanding an end to U.S. aid to the contras (outside support for guerrillas). In early September Secretary of State Shultz announced to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration would seek $270 million in new contra aid from Congress. ACWC groups responded to Shultz’s announcement by organizing a callin campaign and holding a press conference in Washington on September 15. A statement was presented at the press conference titled “In the Name of God—Stop U.S. Contra Terrorism,” signed by two hundred national religious leaders. On September 24 Witness for Peace released a ninety-ninepage report, compiled from February through July 1987, which documented twelve contra attacks on rural communities in which eighty-four civilians were killed. The report was released simultaneously in sixty cities, with activists in each city holding press conferences. At the press conference in Atlanta, held at the Central Presbyterian Church, WFP staff person Makini Coleman remarked, “Without the U.S. support there would be no contras, so we are asking all freedom-loving people, all American citizens to come together and oppose any more funding for the contras.”30

Nuremberg Actions The spirited protests that followed congressional approval of military aid to the contras in the summer of 1986 had not exhausted themselves after a year. One memorable demonstration had a tragic outcome. The Naval Weapons Station in Concord, California, had been the site of many protests during the Vietnam War, which is one reason why Brian Willson and fellow Vietnam veterans chose it as a target. The station shipped trainloads of weapons and ammunition to cargo ships on the West Coast, which found their way to destinations beyond, including Central America. On September 1, 1987, Willson and two others sat on the train tracks to prevent a munitions train from departing. The train did not stop, however, and Willson was run over, his legs crushed beyond repair. Ten days before the incident, Willson had written a letter to Commander Lonnie Cagle at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, informing him that he planned to sit on the tracks every day for forty days while fasting. He recounted the destruction and murder wrought by the contras in Nicaragua and asserted that U.S. support for the contras “violates a number of domestic and international laws.” An attorney by profession, Willson said he felt obliged, based on the

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precedent of the Nuremberg trials of 1945, to “do everything reasonable in our power to make known the crimes of our country and to stop them from continuing.”31 He called his protest the “Nuremberg Actions.” On November 18, 1987, forty-eight days after being run over, Willson presented similar testimony to the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations, explaining that contra attacks on “civilian targets such as health clinics, schools and farms, and torture and murder many of the civilians” violate international law as well as “fundamental standards of decency and fair rules.”32 Born on the Fourth of July in 1941, Willson had grown up in a conservative environment in upstate New York. He was a “total believer in the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War” when he first set foot in Vietnam as an air force officer in March 1969. Assigned to examine the effects of bombing on villages, Willson witnessed firsthand the grotesque deaths and maiming of civilians. He experienced a deep revulsion and, ultimately, a paradigm shift in consciousness. After leaving the air force at the rank of captain in 1970, he became an ardent critic of the war and a proponent of nonviolence. His first trip through the war zones of Nicaragua in January 1986 reminded him of Vietnam and intensified his commitment to take action. He joined the Veterans Fast for Life in September, then returned to Nicaragua with the newly formed Veterans Peace Action Team in March 1987. Trekking through the countryside between Jinotega and Wiwilí, the group of nine witnessed the results of a recent contra attack on the community of El Cedro. They vowed to help rebuild a destroyed health clinic in the town. A succession of Veterans Peace Action Teams followed to El Cedro, hammers in hand.33 In the aftermath of the train incident, sympathy poured in. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued a statement expressing “sorrow and outrage for what happened to Brian Willson.” Rep. Ron Dellums (D-CA) called for a full congressional investigation, saying, “There is absolutely no excuse for what happened.” From Managua, Daniel Ortega declared that Willson’s “act of solidarity” would not be in vain; and Rosario Murillo traveled to the United States with four of her children to wish Willson well and attend a follow-up protest at the same site.34 Willson, after recovering and being fitted with artificial legs, continued his activism, becoming a recognized leader in the Central America movement.

Countdown ’87 in 1988 In late January 1988, after a five-month delay, the Reagan administration presented to Congress its much anticipated proposal for contra aid. The measure

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called for $36.25 million in military and non-military aid for a four-month period. Countdown ’87 continued into 1988, accompanied by a rising tide of advertisements, lobbying days, and grassroots activities. Sojourners news editor Vicki Kemper summed up local activities over the last few months in the January issue: “Since August, more than 220 local groups in 42 states had held hundreds of vigils and demonstrations against contra aid, groups had made more than 300 visits to congressional offices and sent more than 90,000 letters opposing contra aid to members of Congress, and scores of activists had been arrested for committing acts of civil disobedience.”35 With the vote on contra aid approaching in Congress, over one hundred religious leaders signed a statement declaring that any “additional aid to the Contras in any form or any amount would violate the Central American peace plan,” and that the “immoral Contra war policy must finally be ended.” The statement was inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), representing the Rochester, New York, area.36 Adding to this moral suasion, all seven Democratic presidential candidates (Bruce Babbitt, Michael Dukakis, Richard Gephardt, Albert Gore Jr., Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Paul Simon) were on record against contra aid.37 Another impetus for all parties to reject contra aid came from abroad. The International Verification Commission, which was set up to monitor the progress of the Esquipulas peace agreement, issued a report in mid-January reiterating that a “definitive halt” of U.S. aid to the contras was “an indispensable requirement for the success of . . . peace efforts” in Central America. The commission, which was made up of representatives from the five Central American nations and eight Contadora nations, effectively blunted the Reagan administration’s efforts to sabotage the peace agreement. As the Los Angeles Times noted, “The Reagan administration has been pressing Nicaragua’s four neighbors to declare the peace plan a failure and to focus blame on the Sandinista government in order to bolster a White House bid for new aid to the U.S.-backed Contras.”38 One indication of growing disenchantment with the Contra War was a statement signed by thirty-nine mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC, in January 1988. The two-paragraph “Mayors’ Initiative for Peace in Central America” endorsed the Arias peace plan and called for an end to contra aid. The initiative was a joint project of Berkeley mayor Loni Hancock, the Berkeley-León Sister City Project, the Nicaragua Information Center, and Neighbor-to-Neighbor. At a press conference, Lionel Wilson, mayor of Oakland, told reporters, “According to all polls, our citizens strongly support the peace

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plan and are overwhelmingly opposed to further funding of the contras.” Of the thirty-nine mayors who signed the statement, five were from southern states (Atlanta, Birmingham, Louisville, New Orleans, and San Antonio). Mayor Raul Martinez of Hialeah, Florida, however, called a press conference to express his opposition to the initiative.39 When the House vote took place on February 3, 1988. Contra War opponents eked out a victory. After ten hours of debate, the House voted 219–211 to reject the president’s contra aid request. (The measure passed in the Senate, 51–48, but to no avail.) A change of only five votes in the House would have reversed the outcome. Jean Walsh, codirector of the Witness for Peace office in Washington, DC, credited Countdown ’87 with influencing at least four crucial votes. All in all, of the twenty-three “swing” House members targeted by Countdown ’87, six voted against contra aid. Of those six, two changed their vote from 1986, two were freshmen and had not voted on the issue before, and two who had voted previously against contra aid did so again. Rep. Les Aspin (D-WI) was one of the two House members who changed his vote to oppose the contra aid measure. According to Campaign ’87 reports, he received 2,700 letters and 500 phone calls from constituents and held meetings with the state Democratic Party chair, the president of the state AFL-CIO, and the director of Wisconsin Council of Churches. An anti-contra rally was held at his district office and sixty-one labor leaders published an open letter asking him to oppose contra aid. The Wisconsin Action Coalition coordinated the lobbying effort.40 The victory celebration did not last long. Speaker Jim Wright, in order to secure the votes of “moderate” Democrats, had promised to introduce a compromise “nonlethal” aid package in the near future. He assigned Rep. Bonior the task of crafting this compromise. With reservations, Bonior developed a proposal that offered $16 million in “nonlethal” aid distributed through a neutral party, and prohibited further distribution of military aid. Bonior’s compromise bill “split the coalition,” according to IPS director Robert Borosage, who served on the Countdown ’87 oversight board. As the thrust of the ACWC from the outset had been to oppose any and all aid to the contras, many activists could not in good conscience support Bonior’s “nonlethal” proposal. Others, however, recognized the political quandary and made accommodations. As Borosage described it, Countdown ’87 and the “more sophisticated legislative groups, mainly church lobbies,” went with the proposal, owing to the “credibility of Bonior in making the call” and the belief that they

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could “come back for more later.” Groups that opposed the measure included Nicaragua Network, CISPES, and a large number of locals. “It was a struggle for everybody,” said Kathy Gille. “It was a struggle for us,” referring to the House Democratic Task Force on Central America. “We were never for humanitarian aid to the contras. To give humanitarian aid to a military force was the same as giving military aid.” Yet once it became clear that there were not enough votes to permanently cut off contra aid, the next best option was to allow for some nonlethal aid that would support the demobilization of the contras. That, at least, was what Rep. Bonior had in mind. “I was originally opposed to nonlethal aid because it was fungible,” said Bonior. “But it became necessary at some point to do that to wind it [the Contra War] down.” Gille similarly argued that the aid was “aimed at demobilizing the contras in an unclear situation. . . . We felt this demobilization effort was real and that it needed support.” She praised the “sophistication of the campaign” for being “able to take a risk in this way. One of the problems of grassroots organizing is that you do it on a moral basis . . . thus it’s very hard to do a nuanced strategy.”41 As it turned out, it was the Republicans who rejected the compromise measure (all but five), believing that they would get another chance to vote for military aid. Two dozen liberal Democrats also refused to go along with the compromise, believing that the aid could not be justified in light of the contras’ abominable human rights record and continuing defiance of the Esquipulas accords. The vote on March 3 was 216–208 against Bonior’s proposal. The defeat of Bonior’s compromise had the unanticipated effect of impelling some contra leaders to accept an invitation from FSLN leaders to negotiate a settlement. They met on March 21 in the tiny town of Sapoá on Nicaragua’s southern border. Two days later, Sandinista representatives and contra leaders Diógenes Hernández and Walter Calderón signed an agreement stipulating a sixty-day ceasefire, amnesty for returning contras, and access to humanitarian aid for the contras channeled through neutral organizations. The contra leadership had been in turmoil during the last few months, with civilian leaders Adolfo Calero and Alfredo Cesar, both businessmen, at odds with the top military chief, ex-national guardsman Enrique Bermúdez. The civilian leaders had indicated some willingness to negotiate with the Sandinistas, given the insecurity of contra funding in Congress, the signing of the Esquipulas accords, which called for the dissolution of the contras, and demands by the Honduran government for the contras to leave. Bermúdez rejected the Sapoá agreement and expelled the two contra leaders who had signed it. He openly declared on Costa Rica’s Radio

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Impacto on March 27 that “the forces under my command will continue fighting until we win a complete victory.” The ceasefire, as such, did not hold.42 In the United States, the Sapoá agreement led to speculation in the media that the Contra War was on its last legs, with pundits writing contra obituaries. Reports of the contras’ demise, however, were highly exaggerated, as contra attacks continued to exact lethal results.43 Still, the reigning idea in Congress was that “nonlethal” aid would facilitate the peace process. On March 30–31, the House and Senate voted for a new aid package, extended another lifeline to the contras under the auspices of demobilization. The aid included $17.7 million in “nonlethal” aid to the contras (food, clothing, shelter, and medical supplies), $17.7 million for children in Nicaragua who were victims of the war, and $10 million for a verification commission as set forth in the Sapoá agreement. The bill stipulated that aid to the contras must be delivered by “neutral organizations,” consistent with the Sapoá agreement. The votes were 345–70 in the House and 88–7 in the Senate. Most liberal Democrats voted for the measure, believing that they were aiding the peace process. Most Republicans conceded that this was the best deal they could get at the time.

The Honduran “Invasion” The Reagan administration still had on the back burner Lt. Col. Oliver North’s contingency plan, in which the United States would undertake military action against Nicaragua in response to a Nicaraguan “invasion” of Honduras. The administration, in fact, had never ceased preparing for a direct attack on Nicaragua. In May 1987, for example, 50,000 U.S. troops engaged in a mock invasion of the eastern coast of Honduras as part of a month-long exercise known as “Solid Shield ’87.” On March 16, 1988, six weeks after Congress had voted down Reagan’s military aid package, an opportunity arose for direct U.S. involvement. Sandinista forces had chased a group of contras back to their bases in Honduras, temporarily crossing the border. President Reagan responded by immediately ordering 3,200 U.S. troops to Honduras. Skepticism abounded as to the necessity and wisdom of the president’s action. Honduran President José Azcona played down the border incident, as he was intent on relieving his country of the contras rather than reinforcing their mission with U.S. troops. Two days after U.S. troops were sent, former president Jimmy Carter told a meeting of university presidents, “I think it is a serious mistake. It’s another example of where President Reagan is exaggerating the situation for his own purposes.” House Speaker Jim Wright accused White House

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officials of “obviously trying to do everything in their power to keep the war going.” U.S. News & World Report subtitled its report on the incident “American Troops in Honduras May Be the Last Ploy in Conflict.” The article noted that Congress was reluctant to believe the administration due to a “history of misleading the Congress.” Indeed, only six weeks earlier, the New York Times had revealed a secret CIA plan to arrange for an Eastern Block arms shipment to be captured in El Salvador and falsely link it to Nicaragua.44 The president’s credibility gap, it seems, had become a chasm. Contra War opponents had remained vigilant over the years in preparing for the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, as it was known that President Reagan did not want to leave office with the Sandinistas in power. Following the deployment of U.S. troops to Honduras on March 16, the national Pledge of Resistance office gave the signal for local demonstrations and civil disobedience actions. These took place in over 100 U.S. cities over the next twelve days, with many “sit-ins” at federal buildings. A total of 900 demonstrators were arrested, including 250 in San Francisco. In Washington, DC, a dozen demonstrators blocked traffic in front of the White House. In Seattle, rather than blocking traffic this time, protesters drove their cars in circles around the Federal Building and blasted their horns for an hour, while others stood on the sidewalks waving signs that denounced the U.S. intervention.45 Ultimately, the combination of domestic protests, elite criticism, press skepticism, and international opposition was enough to restrain the administration from further military action.

Educational Outreach, 1987–88 The efforts of anti–Contra War activists and intellectuals to advance their themes and arguments were aided by political and international developments in the latter part of the 1980s. The Iran-Contra scandal, of course, validated their allegations of administration illegalities. The Esquipulas Treaty in August 1987 reinforced the theme of diplomacy over war. The earlier World Court decision in June 1986 placed the ACWC on the side of international law and allied it with the international community. Regarding other themes, despite the administration’s “successful” invasion of Grenada in October 1983, the ACWC was able to make the anti-interventionist “Vietnam syndrome” stick with respect to Nicaragua. And despite President Reagan’s heartfelt endorsement of the contras. the consistent documentation of

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contra attacks on civilians by Witness for Peace and other groups severely tarnished the reputation of the contras, Time magazine wrote in March 1987 that contras “have hurt their cause by failing to distinguish between civilian and military targets. There were recent reports of contras burning down a small community’s church-sponsored health clinic.”46 Opponents of the Contra War also made some progress in humanizing Nicaraguans through their many local transnational activities and news coverage of such, even if the Sandinista government continued to be framed in Cold War stereotypes. Another point raised by various groups was the cost of the Contra War. This “guns versus butter” theme was a standard of the peace movement, but it was useful only to a degree in the anti–Contra War campaign. The overall cost of contra aid was a pittance compared to the Pentagon budget. For fiscal conservatives who supported Reagan’s Nicaragua policy, the contras were a bargain as compared to sending in U.S. troops. Contra War opponents, including most recently, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, nevertheless found this theme a useful hook for gaining public attention—for example, your tax dollars are going to the contras. The new détente that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 1980s theoretically weakened the administration’s case against Nicaragua, as the alleged security dangers posed by Sandinista Nicaragua were seen to originate in the Soviet Union. If the United States could make friends with the “evil empire,” as Ronald Reagan did in May 1987, why not the Sandinistas as well, which had already embarked on perestroika-like reforms? Yet the administration did not follow this line of logic, being relentlessly committed to reestablishing a pro-U.S. government in America’s “backyard.” President Reagan continued to make the same arguments and accusations against Nicaragua. On February 2, 1988, for example, he declared in an address from the Oval Office, “With Cuban and Soviet-bloc aid, Nicaragua is being transformed into a beachhead for aggression against the United States.” He once again identified the Sandinistas as a “communist dictatorship in Nicaragua,” and the contras as “freedom fighters,” and cast doubt on any peace agreement, asking rhetorically if “we can trust the Sandinistas to keep their word.”47 It remained an uphill battle for Contra War opponents to cultivate a progressive understanding of the Central American situation. AFSC staff persons Jack Malinowski and Angie Berryman lamented in an internal analysis dated June 1, 1987, that few U.S. citizens “have a realistic view of what is going on in Nicaragua,” as the Reagan administration’s “campaign of lies and distortions has taken its toll on public perceptions.” Although majority opinion remained opposed to contra

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aid, they wrote, this “has yet to be translated into active concern by most people.” Robert Stark, director of Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA), was similarly aware of the great distance still to be traveled in establishing a progressive mindset in the body politic. “With the administration policy in disarray,” he wrote in mid-1988, “progressive forces have the opportunity to put forward policy alternatives.” To succeed, however, much educational work “remains to be done, because the national security assumptions that underlie a policy of dominating Central America remain unchallenged.”48 Stark did not mean that activist groups had not persistently challenged national security assumptions, but that the results thus far had been meager. In 1987 and 1988 ACWC groups continued their efforts to raise consciousness and encourage involvement in the campaign. AFSC produced a new fourteen-page brochure in April 1987 titled “Talking Sense About Nicaragua,” which used a question-and-answer format to examine a dozen negative assumptions about Sandinista Nicaragua. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee produced an informative, 315-page study and action guide, A Journey to Understanding (1988), that became the source book for many study groups, religious and secular. Nicaragua Network and the Nicaragua Information Center in Berkeley produced an updated two-page flyer, “Nicaragua’s Revolution at Six Years: A Look at the Achievements,” which provided an overview of Nicaragua’s achievements in literacy, health, and food security as well as the Sandinista government’s efforts on behalf of peace. In the wake of the ceasefire agreement at Sapoá in March 1988, PACCA added a new section to its Changing Course manifesto titled “Alternative Policy for Peace in Central America.” Witness for Peace added a new element to its periodic reports on contra attacks—videos. The WFP report, “Contra Activities: 18 Incidents, December 1986 to November 1987,” came with a video filmed on location. New films and television programs were independently produced as well. A fifty-two-minute film, The World Is Watching (White Pine Pictures, 1987), critically analyzed how news was gathered and reported from Nicaragua. The Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline program ran a one-hour investigative report, “The War in Nicaragua” in May 1987. Pacifica Radio aired eleven and a half hours of programming on Nicaragua in 1987, including a program on the Conference in the Spirit of Ben Linder in Portland in October 1987. The building process in El Cedro was captured in a documentary film, The War in El Cedro: American Veterans in Nicaragua (Northstar Productions, 1987, 50 min.). The following year, a hard-hitting film, Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (Empowerment

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Project, 1988, 72 min.), was released in theaters in eighty cities across the United States. The film probed administration violations of the law beyond the mild congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra affair. It won the American Film and Video Association’s Blue Ribbon Award for Best Documentary. Activist groups in many cities organized discussions following the film and recruited people outside the theaters.49 Circulating speakers around the country continued to be a popular method of educational outreach. AFSC sponsored a tour of Nicaraguan teachers in 1987, with a special focus on reaching Latino and African-American audiences. IRTFCA sponsored a tour of eleven Central American pastors and lay people who spoke in eighteen cities in 1988. The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization organized two successful Central America Information Weeks—in South Carolina (1987) and in Kentucky (1988). In conservative South Carolina IFCO recruited eighty-five local coordinators in sixty-eight communities who organized 623 events.50 U.S. Marine veteran Bill Gandall maintained his regular schedule of speaking engagements at college campuses and churches. Still strong at the age of eighty, he participated in a civil disobedience action in West Palm Beach, Florida, in February 1989. After spending a spent a night in jail, he was on his way to speak at the University of Connecticut the next day.51 Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States Carlos Tünnermann also made the rounds as a speaker. The Washington Post (April 19, 1987) noted that during his “frequent speeches to community groups around the country, he often asks whether anyone present has visited Nicaragua. ‘There are always three or four hands,’ ” he said. President Reagan ordered the expulsion of Ambassador Tünnermann and seven others at the Nicaraguan Embassy, including Sophia Clark, one day after the Nicaraguan government expelled the U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, Richard Melton, and seven others at the American Embassy at Managua for allegedly encouraging opposition demonstrations.52 The most popular speakers on the ACWC lecture circuit in 1987 were members of the Linder family. In the aftermath of Ben Linder’s death on April 28, father David, mother Elisabeth, brother John, age thirty-two, and sister Miriam, age thirty, went on speaking tours from June through December, covering fortythree states, six Canadian provinces, and Sweden and Norway. David, a physician, was active in the Portland-Corinto sister city program. During World War II he had served as an army medic and been shot in the elbow during the Battle of the Bulge. Elisabeth, a legal aide with the Washington County Public

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Defender’s Office, was active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In 1938, she and her Jewish family had fled Czechoslovakia, ahead of Adolf Hitler’s troops, and settled in Mexico.53 To coordinate the logistics of the tours, the family set up a Ben Linder Peace Tour office across the hall from Nicaragua Network in Washington, DC. John Linder, who was active in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), hired Jerry Freiwirth, a fellow SWP member, and Teresa Delgadillo, who had been living in Nicaragua as a reporter for The Militant, an SWP newspaper. “The Socialist Workers Party was quite helpful on this tour,” said John. “It was a great example of a leftwing party working in a completely unifying way.” The Linder Peace Tour office was assisted by three national groups, Nicaragua Network, Quixote Center, and Witness for Peace, each of which provided local contacts for making arrangements. John and Miriam started out together in Miami, but after three cities they split apart in order to cover more ground. David and Elisabeth also traveled separately, as both speakers were in high demand. “Wherever I have gone,” said Elisabeth, “they have filled every place. At my first appearance in a church in New York, there were probably two hundred people outside who wouldn’t leave, so we spoke to them on the steps.”54 The Linder Peace Tour also recruited four of Ben’s coworkers from Nicaragua to speak in the United States. John Linder had visited his brother in Nicaragua in January 1984, staying for two months. During that time, he joined a Nicaraguan coffee-picking brigade made up of employees of the Nicaraguan Energy Institute. They worked for three weeks at a farm where the contras had recently killed a number of farm workers. “I was sleeping with thirteen Nicaraguans every night and picking coffee with two hundred Nicaraguans,” he recounted. During his 1987 speaking tour, John spoke at community gatherings from Miami to Portland, Oregon. “It was union halls, community centers, churches, and a few campuses,” he said. In late July, while traveling through the prairie states, John stopped in the town of Canton, South Dakota, to hear Vice President George Bush deliver a speech. In the question-and-answer session that followed, John stood up and introduced himself. “I’m John Linder. I’m the brother of Ben Linder, who was murdered by the contras in Nicaragua on April 28, 1987.” He described what Ben was doing and the circumstances of his death, ending with, “my brother was shot in the head at point-blank range as he lay wounded. . . . Nobody from the administration that you represent has condemned my brother’s killing.” Bush replied that he empathized with the Linder family, but that Ben had “made his choice” to support “those who are in that Nicaraguan regime.” Bush followed this response with an

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attack on the Sandinistas for allegedly reneging on their pledge to hold elections and practice democracy. He then declared that the Sandinistas had “done a great job getting out what I think is the propaganda side. We have got to do a better job getting the truth out. Then I think the American people will respond.”55 The interchange made front-page news in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Administration officials missed few opportunities to get their message out. Such was the case with the one-day hearing on the death of Ben Linder convened by the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs on May 13, 1987. Chairman Rep. George Crockett (D-MI) opened the meeting with a statement demanding “an end to a policy which threatens American lives” and harms “innocent citizens of Nicaragua.” He noted that since 1981 “2,032 women, 1,996 children, 176 school teachers and 52 doctors have been kidnapped, killed or wounded. There are 9,132 war orphans and 250,000 displaced persons.” Elliot Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, speaking for the administration, made no apologies for the contras and instead called for Americans to leave Nicaragua. He argued that “there is an enormous amount of danger for those roughly 1,500–2,000 Americans in Nicaragua. And this hearing may actually do some good if it alerts more Americans who are thinking of going down there to the danger.” Abrams did not mention the crucial fact that the sole source of this danger to Americans was the U.S.-backed contras. Michael Ratner, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, testified that contra actions and statements in 1986 indicated a new policy of killing internationalists so as to scare them away. “I believe the contras are now willing to take the risk of one or two days of bad publicity in order to stem the flow of foreigners to Nicaragua,” he said.56

Nicaragua Connections, 1987–88 The sizable presence of U.S. citizens in Nicaragua remained in the last years of the decade. The flow of Americans to Nicaragua continued through missionary work, study tours, international work brigades, Witness for Peace delegations, and individual projects. “Since the Sandinistas came to power in 1979,” reported the Washington Post on May 3, 1987, “U.S. peace groups, churches and various organizations are estimated to have sent more than 60,000 American volunteers to Nicaragua.”57 Veterans for Peace opened an office in Managua in the spring of 1988, staffed by Joe Ryan of Tallahassee. The Quixote Center,

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AFSC, Nicaragua Network, MADRE, TecNica, APSNICA, sister city programs, and other groups continued to provide humanitarian aid, particularly after Hurricane Joan slammed into the eastern coast of Nicaragua on October 21, 1988. The Quixote Center shipped sixty-eight cargo containers of goods to Nicaragua between October 1988 and February 1989.58 A separate shipment of tools, medical supplies, and building equipment sent by APSNICA in 1988 was seized by U.S. Customs. The California-based organization declared that the U.S. government’s actions were “clearly harassment” and that “all of the materials seized are unquestionably exempt from the U.S. trade embargo.”59 The FSLN government invited Witness for Peace volunteers to accompany its 250 peace commissions into the war zones. Established as part of the contra reconciliation process, the commissions sought out contra groups and encouraged them to return to their communities under the FSLN government’s new amnesty law. The commissions also hoped to win the release of an estimated 5,000 civilians kidnapped by the contras. WFP began a new publication, Peace Watch, to monitor the reconciliation process.60 The Quixote Center developed an independent initiative to support the peace process. In February 1988, the center initiated the Communities of Peace and Friendship project, which raised funds to resettle former contras and otherwise assisted “community-based efforts to rebuild and reconcile in Nicaragua.” The Quixote Center raised nearly $30,000 in the first six months for twenty-four community projects, including $2,000 for the Nicaraguan Red Cross. The center also developed a secret plan to buy out 10 percent of the contra army on the eastern coast of Nicaragua. According to a Quixote Center report: “After quiet negotiations we focused on 400 Miskito fighters who indicated that, if supported, they would drop out with their weapons and resettle in their original homeland south of Puerto Cabezas. To sidestep the embargo, we organized in Canada, gathered supplies and shipped them to the East Coast of Nicaragua. A few months later, the newspapers reported that 400 Miskito fighters had dropped out of the war and returned to their homes.”61

Walk in Peace In October 1986 Don Mosley was riding in the back of a truck with a group of Nicaraguans traveling to the northern town of Jinotega. Among the travelers was Carmen Picado, who had recently lost both her legs while riding in the back of a similar truck that had hit a land mine. Two family members—her sister’s husband, Amancio Sanchez, pastor of a Pentecostal Christian Mission church in the town of Pantasma, and Sanchez’s seven-year-old daughter—had

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lost their right legs in the same explosion. After meeting with the family members, Mosley envisioned a new aid project that would provide artificial limbs to an estimated two thousand amputees in Nicaragua, nearly one-third of whom had lost legs or arms within the last year. He named the project “Walk in Peace.” With the help of former president Jimmy Carter, who served with Mosley on the International Board of Directors of Habitat for Humanity, Mosley obtained visas for Picado and the Sanchezes to come to the United States. When they arrived in Atlanta on February 7, 1987, Mosley took them to the Emory Center, where they were fitted with artificial limbs. Carter came by for a visit, chatting with them in Spanish. On February 25 Mosley held a press conference in Washington, DC, with the Nicaraguan family present, to announce the new Walk in Peace project. Word of the project spread quickly through the religious and activist networks. Local community groups organized walk-a-thons and other fundraising events. The money raised was channeled through the Council of Protestant Churches (CEPAD) to either the Aldo Chavaria Rehabilitation Hospital, which set up a new prosthesis workshop, or the Velez Pais Children’s Hospital, both located in Managua. Over the next few years, Walk in Peace provided the money for hundreds of amputees to receive artificial limbs, without regard to their politics.62 Don Mosley grew up in Waco, Texas, in a Christian fundamentalist environment. His devotion to “true Christian living” never wavered, he said, but his understanding of what this meant evolved considerably. He began his humanitarian service in the Peace Corps, being one of the first to apply in the early 1960s. He served in Malaysia and South Korea, becoming a regional Peace Corps director with supervision over from 100 to 125 volunteers in South Korea from 1967 to 1969. In 1970 he settled into a new life at Koinonia, an intentional Christian community in Americus, Georgia. Nine years later he helped establish a nearby sister community, Jubilee Partners, which was dedicated to Christian service. Mosley, a pacifist, also served as the national chairperson of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) from 1984 to 1986. He first visited Nicaragua in February 1984 as part of an eighteen-person fact-finding delegation, co-sponsored by WFP and FOR. At the time, he wrestled in his own mind with the question of pacifism in a revolutionary context. “Part of my reason for coming had been to probe the question of nonviolence, to find out how people caught up in this conflict could reconcile armed struggle with the teachings of Jesus,” he later wrote. Then “it struck me with great force that I was asking the wrong question—and the wrong people. The real question with which I should be struggling was, what could I do to change the awful

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circumstances that promoted this mutual slaughter?”63 That same year, Mosley helped initiate a new Habitat for Humanity housing project in Nicaragua. This Christian nonprofit group maintained a low political profile but offered steady assistance to the Nicaraguan people. By 2007 the group had sponsored the building of 4,500 houses in Nicaragua. Mosley had been instrumental in persuading former President Carter to join the international board of Habitat for Humanity. Thus, it was not unusual for the two to discuss Carter’s impending trip to Nicaragua while at a board meeting in January 1986. Carter hoped to independently mediate an agreement between FSLN and contra leaders. The State Department had advised Carter to limit his meetings and get out of the country quickly, so as not to place himself in danger, but Mosley encouraged him to take his time and meet with a variety of groups and individuals representing different interests. The following month, Carter embarked on a ten-day trip to Latin America, with three days in Nicaragua. He first flew to Venezuela to meet with a prominent contra leader, then to Managua to meet with FSLN leaders. Although he was unable to broker an agreement, he developed cordial relations with FSLN leaders. Carter and Daniel Ortega drove together to the new Habitat project in German Pomares, where they met with co-directors Jim and Sarah Hornsby, and Julie Knop. Four years later, Carter returned to Nicaragua as an international election observer. Mosley’s efforts on behalf of peace never ceased after visiting Nicaragua in early 1984. In addition to initiating humanitarian aid projects, he went on speaking tours across the United States, making more than five hundred presentations in thirty states. He spoke at churches, college campuses, community meetings, conferences, and protest rallies. In one church in Indiana, Mosley recalled, the pastor walked out after he spoke of the warmth of the Nicaraguan people. Apparently, said Mosley, “the attribution of Christian compassion to an enemy touched a raw nerve in the pastor.” He was also called “a damned communist” at times, he noted, presumably because “many people found it difficult to find any mistake in U.S. policy.”

Material Aid Convoys Like other humanitarian aid projects undertaken by activist groups, material aid caravans were organized with multiple purposes in mind: providing direct aid to Nicaraguans, educating U.S. citizens, attracting favorable publicity, involving activists, and encouraging community support. All of these elements were part of two material aid caravans that made their way to Nicaragua in 1988, the

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Veterans Peace Convoy, from May through July, and IFCO’s Pastors for Peace caravan, from October through December. The Veterans Peace Convoy (VPC) was organized by representatives from seven organizations: Veterans Peace Action Teams, Smedley Butler Brigade (the Boston chapter of VFP), Quixote Center, Nicaragua Network, Chicanos Against Military Intervention in Latin America, MADRE, and the Ben Linder Memorial Fund. The caravan originated from different parts of the United States—Seattle; Missoula, Montana; Minneapolis; and Caribou, Maine—and stopped in over 100 cities in 42 states before converging in Laredo, Texas, on June 7, 1988. There were 106 convoy members and 37 trucks and buses filled with 30 tons of food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid.64 On June 15 the convoy arrived at the Mexican border but was blocked from going through by U.S. Customs, which claimed that the aid was not allowed under the rules of the embargo. Customs officials seized four trucks and held them for a week. The rest of the convoy, meanwhile, turned around and headed for Washington, DC. Upon arriving in Washington, thirty vehicles circled the White House in protest. “We intend to lobby and gain support for this convoy to pass,” said VPC organizer Gerry Condon of San Francisco. “We want to feed the children, not the war.” The media picked up on the unfolding drama, making the convoy national news. Rep. Mickey Leland (D-TX) introduced a resolution in the House advising the treasury secretary not to regulate the donation of articles designed to relieve human suffering in Nicaragua. “It’s wrong to thwart the humanitarian impulses of the American people,” said Leland.65 The convoy also became a popular cause in activist circles. Protesters in Boston recreated the Boston Tea Party by dumping copies of the embargo order into the harbor. Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the Detroit Archdiocese, speaking in Boston, decried the embargo as “illegal and immoral.”66 Local groups raised money for the convoy to keep it going. Some convoy members had to leave in order to return to their jobs and families, but replacements filled in. The convoy, with fifty people and twenty vehicles, drove back to Laredo and attempted another crossing on July 8. Rebuffed by U.S. Customs once again, eight members in three vehicles attempted to dodge a police blockade and cross the border. The eight were arrested and their vehicles impounded. Press coverage of the veterans’ travail continued at a high level as the group waited at the border. Finally, on July 15 the remaining convoy of fourteen trucks and one bus was allowed to cross. VPC members were elated but puzzled by the sudden switch in U.S. actions. On July 29 the convoy arrived in Managua. The

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veterans were received by President Daniel Ortega in a public ceremony. “These people are representatives of the American people who don’t want war, they want peace,” said Ortega. “While Reagan sends arms to the contras to murder our children, he tried also to obstruct this caravan.” Holding up a baby bottle taken out of a box of goods delivered, Ortega said, “This is what Reagan did not want to arrive.”67 The Veterans Peace Convoy paved the way for subsequent convoys, as a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights resulted in a ruling against the administration’s interpretation of the embargo. U.S. District Judge George P. Kazan in Laredo ruled on October 1, 1988, that the president has no authority to regulate or prohibit U.S. citizens’ donations to foreign countries intended to relieve human suffering.68 Lucius Walker, IFCO’s director, began thinking about organizing a material aid caravan to Nicaragua while recovering from a bullet wound in his buttocks. On August 2, 1988, the contras had attacked a civilian passenger ferry on the Rio Coco in northeastern Nicaragua on which he was riding. Two persons were killed; and Walker, age fifty-seven, was one of the twenty-nine wounded. The bullet “didn’t kill me,” said Walker, “but it sure got my attention.”69 Walker conferred with his staff, and they decided to initiate a Pastors for Peace Convoy that fall. With IFCO’s talented organizers and many contacts around the country, it did not take long to set up the operation. Like the Veterans for Peace Convoy, the Pastors for Peace Convoy originated from different regions of the United States, holding meetings and press conferences and collecting materials and medicines along the way. There were six legs in all, involving 54 people and 19 trucks. They traveled through 78 U.S. cities before converging at San Antonio on December 9. Crossing the Mexican border took a full day, but there were no legal problems. The caravan arrived intact in Managua on Christmas Eve 1988, with 120 tons of humanitarian aid. Most of the aid was delivered to church-related agencies. Some went to the Bluefields area, on the eastern coast, which had been devastated by Hurricane Joan. The contingent of trucks that traveled to Bluefields was halted for a night by FSLN security forces, due to contra activity in the area.70 A second Pastors for Peace Convoy followed in 1989. This one delivered 26 trucks worth over $200,000 and 200 tons of humanitarian aid, valued at over $1 million. The second caravan held events in 106 cities covering 36 states and was aided by over 250 local churches, peace and solidarity groups, and community organizations. “Each stop along a route involved some combination of education

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event, press conference, community gathering and/or material aid collection,” noted an IFCO report. The Pastors for Peace caravans attracted local news coverage but did not receive the national attention garnered by the Veterans Peace Convoy.71

New Challenges and the Unexpected Outcome, 1989–90 The limits of the anti–Contra War campaign’s inroads into U.S. politics became clear in the presidential election campaign of 1988. Gov. Michael Dukakis, the Democratic Party candidate running against Vice President George Bush, had heretofore been an outspoken opponent of the contra aid. He had filed suit to prevent the Massachusetts National Guard from being sent to Honduras in May 1988. He had publicly admonished the Reagan administration for “using National Guard training in Central America as part of its ill-advised and illegal strategy to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.”72 Yet during the fall election campaign, Dukakis chose as his running mate an ardent supporter of contra aid, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, and said very little about Nicaragua while on the campaign trail. The Democratic Party platform in 1988, in contrast to the lengthy discussion of Central America issues in the 1984 platform, stated only that the Reagan administration had “consistently undermined” the peace process in Central America.73 The Democrats hoped that their Massachusetts-Texas combination would produce the same results as the Kennedy-Johnson ticket in 1960, but this was not to be. Upon entering the White House in January 1989, President George H. W. Bush revised the Nicaragua strategy. Recognizing that the reputation of the contras had been tarnished beyond repair, the new administration rhetorically emphasized its support for the Sandinista government’s internal opponents, albeit while still supporting and directing the contras. Like the Reagan administration, the Bush administration ignored the requirement in the Esquipulas accords that the United States cease its support for the contras. The Bush administration enticed and pressured opposition political parties to unite under the banner of the National Opposition Union (UNO), in preparation for national elections set for February 25, 1990. UNO consisted of fourteen political parties—four on the right, seven in the middle, and three on the far left, including the Nicaraguan Communist Party. The lack of agreement on ideology and policy was of no concern to the Bush administration, as the only important objective was to defeat the FSLN at the ballot box.

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The FSLN, for its part, lived up to its obligation under the Esquipulas accords to hold democratic elections, inviting international observers to monitor the process. At the request of the FSLN government, the UN sent 170 official delegates and the OAS sent another 200, all of whom were given unrestricted access to voting centers and political parties throughout the election campaign. The Bush administration paid little attention to UN verification and reserved the right to judge the elections for itself, much as the Reagan administration had done in 1984. The administration’s not-so-subtle message was that only if the FSLN lost would the elections be considered valid. Congress as a whole went along with the Bush administration’s strategy. On April 13, 1989, a bipartisan accord was reached in which Congress approved nearly $50 million in nonmilitary aid for the contras, thus keeping them in the field through the upcoming national elections. In October 1989 Congress approved another $9 million for the ostensible purpose of supporting democratic institutions in Nicaragua. The New York Times noted that the $9 million would be used “to assist opposition parties in the election next February and to support international observers.”74 Much of that money went to UNO presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro, enabling her to promote her campaign more vigorously and keep the disparate parties of her coalition in line. The mainstream media in the United States also moved in tandem with the administration’s shift in focus to UNO. Contra attacks, when reported at all, were depicted as the last vestige of a fading and tiresome war. Anti-Sandinista demonstrations, on the other hand, were prominently featured in the news. Notwithstanding ceasefire talks, Sandinista peace commissions, and premature obituaries, the U.S.-supplied contras continued their attacks in the northern and central areas of Nicaragua. A Witness for Peace summary report in October 1989 described fifty-one contra attacks on civilian communities that had occurred between April 13 and October 14, 1989. The grisly results of these attacks were seventy-one persons murdered, forty-seven wounded, and seventy-eight kidnapped. Some of the attacks were aimed at disrupting voter registration drives, thus contradicting administration depictions of the contras as guarantors of democratic elections.75 The anti–Contra War campaign faced a new set of challenges in 1989, largely a result of the widespread impression that the Contra War was ending. Bob Greene, editor of the quarterly Nicaragua Network News, stressed in the summer of 1989 that activists needed to spread the word that “the war is not over.”76 To counter what Greene called the “concerted misinformation campaign carried

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out through the media,” Nicaragua Network joined with Witness for Peace, Quixote Center, and FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to organize a new campaign, the Emergency Response Campaign. Its objective was to respond to “the lies we feel are most damaging to Nicaragua during the electoral process.” Its rather complicated procedure entailed recruiting representatives of various ACWC organizations to monitor media stories on Nicaragua and identify the most egregious; copies of the selected articles and suggested responses would then be sent to local contacts, who in turn would find community leaders to write letters to the offending editors and publications. The organizers of the Emergency Response Campaign hoped to see at least one critical letter-to-theeditor published in response to each offending article—a rather modest goal. The coordinating national groups also put together a new media packet and sent it to grassroots contacts.77 There was a noticeable decline in anti–Contra War activism in 1989. Peace groups began to drift away as the likelihood of a direct U.S. invasion diminished—or so it appeared before the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989. The Pledge of Resistance, having fulfilled its primary mission in responding to the Honduran incident in March 1988, shifted its attention to El Salvador. The POR national office joined CISPES in organizing a large nonviolent civil disobedient action at the Pentagon in October 1988, in which 240 people were arrested. The Coalition for a New Foreign Policy went out of business in 1988, although its lobbying committee, the Central America Working Group, continued, refashioning itself as the Latin American Working Group. Fewer people volunteered for Witness for Peace short-term delegations, prompting the national WFP office to pare down its planned trips in 1989 from twenty-nine to twenty-one.78 There was also a general decline in funding for ACWC groups. For WFP, the drop-off began in 1988, after an expansion of staff and resources the previous year. WFP was forced to eliminate eight staff positions in 1988.79 IFCO was forced to nix plans for Central America Information Weeks in Georgia and Texas in 1989. IRTFCA had to stop publishing its monthly publication, Update Central America, at the end of 1989. Donations to the Quixote Center’s Communities of Peace and Friendship project came in more slowly than expected, ultimately taking ten years to raise the targeted amount of $2 million. As anti–Contra War groups struggled to keep their issue before the public and sustain their own organizations, the Bush administration gained advantage in framing its strategy as a legitimate effort to support democracy in Nicaragua. Officials typically presented the issue in terms of whether the Sandinista leadership could

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be trusted to hold free and fair elections, banking on the inculcated Cold War ideological assumption that Marxism and democracy could not be reconciled. Paul Doughty, a member of the Latin American Studies Association delegation that had observed the Nicaraguan elections in 1984, bemoaned the fact that the media and Congress had largely accepted the administration’s view of Nicaragua’s earlier elections. “The LASA report, as valuable as it was,” he said in 1989, “was massively and deliberately ignored by the U.S. government and media, and despite the fact that it was sent to every member of Congress and their staffs, plus all major and regional media, public recognition of its findings was virtually zero.”80 The administration’s switching of horses from the contras to UNO furthermore undermined the ACWC’s strong suit—public aversion to contra atrocities. Activist groups such as WFP had invested considerable energy in promoting the idea that the contras were terrorists, but the administration’s de-emphasis on the contras now made the administration appear less culpable for contra atrocities, when the media reported them at all. In response to the Bush administration’s “democracy” initiative, SANE, Witness for Peace, and other national organizations initiated the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua, designed to broadcast the message that the United States has no business subsidizing political parties and manipulating elections in other countries. As part of the campaign, 250 religious leaders signed a letter to members of Congress urging opposition to the use of any U.S. funds to influence the Nicaraguan elections, whether covert or overt. Nicaragua Network and the Quixote Center sponsored another project called “Pens and Pencils for Nicaraguan Elections.” Estimating that the election process would cost the Nicaraguan government $10 million, constituting “a huge strain on Nicaragua’s meager resources,” the two organizations pledged to provide 280,000 pens, 200,000 pencils, and 100,000 felt markers needed to register voters and do the balloting. Nicaragua Network ultimately raised $100,000 to meet the material costs of the national elections, according to coordinator Chuck Kaufman.81 Beyond election-related work, Nicaragua Network continued to raise money for the Let Nicaragua Live campaign and organized harvest and construction brigades to Nicaragua in 1989. It joined Witness for Peace in cosponsoring a tour of U.S. cities by Nicaragua’s premier Afro-Latin Band, Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy and Mancotal, from September 15 to October 30, 1989. A number of ACWC groups organized delegations to observe the Nicaraguan elections. Veterans for Peace sent thirty-nine individuals, with most assigned to rural villages in the combat zones. LASA organized a delegation of scholars to

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monitor the election process, as it had in 1984. By far, the largest number of U.S. observers arrived in Nicaragua through sister city programs. Forty sister cities and states sent 450 U.S. citizens under the aegis of the Ad Hoc Coalition of Sister Cities, created in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on October 7, 1989. Local delegations ranged in size from two to forty persons. Each person paid his or her own costs, amounting to approximately $1,200 per person. To counter the charge that these sister city groups were biased in favor of the FSLN, many of the delegations included local officials. The Ann Arbor delegation, for example, which traveled to sister city Juigalpa, included the city clerk, a former city council member, a current state representative, and a former Michigan congressman. The New Haven–Leon sister city program invited representatives from “credible organizations” such as the Yale Law School, the League of Women Voters, the mayor’s office, and congressional offices. The Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua’s delegation included former Wisconsin governor Anthony Earl and municipal officials from the state.82 The Sandinista leadership fully expected the FSLN to win the election despite the depressed state of the economy and ongoing war in the northern highlands. In a May 1989 interview, interior minister Tomás Borge acknowledged that Nicaraguans were distressed by the economic situation, but he nonetheless predicted that “the immense majority of Nicaraguans will choose their historic project. . . . Here the people vote on the basis of their political consciousness, not their stomachs. That is the great miracle of a genuine revolution.”83 It was thus a shock to FSLN leaders and their supporters when the FSLN lost the national elections, and by a substantial margin. UNO won 54.7 percent of the national vote and gained fifty-one seats in the National Assembly, as compared to the FSLN’s 40.8 percent of the vote and thirty-eight seats.84 Daniel Ortega conceded victory to Violeta Chamorro and her coalition. Nicaraguan observer María López Vigil, who later became an Envío editor, believed that the vote was largely a response to U.S. intimidation. “Everyone understood that if Violeta won, the war would end,” she said. “Nicaraguans voted for peace and for an end to the draft.”85 Heike Amelung, a member of the Gainesville-Matagalpa sister city election delegation, similarly observed, “Although these elections were technically free and fair, this cannot be said of their political and economic context. After nine years of what Pentagon strategists call ‘low intensity warfare,’ the Nicaraguan people did indeed (as Reagan wanted them to) ‘cry Uncle.’ ”86 Many U.S. activists understood the pressures on Nicaraguan voters but

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were still upset and disappointed at the outcome. Brian Willson, an election observer, said he was “shocked, and in deep anguish and grieving” over the FSLN’s electoral loss. He regarded the new Chamorro government as a “U.S. client government” that “can’t possibly represent the Nicaraguan people.”87 Two days after the elections, Sam Hope, executive director of Witness for Peace, issued a statement declaring that “U.S. policy has bludgeoned the people of Nicaragua into submission. Thirty thousand graves dot the countryside, while the wounded and maimed struggle for life amid wheelchairs and crutches.”88 Chuck Kaufman, Nicaragua Network director, commented on the “irony of providing implements for the Sandinista defeat,” referring to the hundreds of thousands of pens, pencils, and markers provided by Nicaragua Network for the elections.89 Barbra Apfelbaum, who went with a New Jersey delegation to monitor the elections, reflected on her own assumptions. “For me personally,” she said, “I remember thinking . . . maybe there was a kind of naiveté we had, a false ideal or a false idealization of the Nicaraguan people. It was very humbling, in a way.”90

After the Contra War With the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas, the United States ceased its support for contra military operations and refashioned its aid to help resettle the contras in Nicaragua. President Bush congratulated Violeta Chamorro and declared, “Given a clear mandate for peace and democracy, there is no reason at all for further military activity from any quarter.”91 It would take much work and healing, however, for the contras to reintegrate into Nicaraguan society. Almost a year and a half later, more than 4,000 armed contras remained in the countryside. As of June 10, 1991, according to a Witness for Peace report, 11,228 of approximately 15,600 contras had disarmed.92 A core of activists and groups remained committed to Nicaragua in the postSandinista era. In August 1990,some 2,500 people packed Manhattan’s Riverside Church to hear former president and FSLN leader Daniel Ortega speak. According to one news report, “Solidarity members pointed to the turnout as evidence of continuing interest in Nicaragua.”93 Nicaragua Network vowed it would continue to support the FSLN and “defend the Sandinista Revolution.” In practical terms this meant helping to “preserve from rollback by the Chamorro government” rural land reform programs and worker-owned industries. TecNica

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similarly revised its strategy to emphasize support for unions, health clinics, cooperatives, and organizations of disabled veterans, although it continued to send individual volunteers as well. A number of other organizations continued to provide humanitarian aid as well: the Quixote Center, AFSC, the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, Walk in Peace, Habitat for Humanity, and many sister city programs. Thirteen years after the FSLN defeat, the 2003 U.S.Nicaragua Sister Cities Directory compiled by WCCN listed thirty active sister city programs.94 Three new organizations were initiated in 1990 and 1991. Rita Clark founded the Nicaragua–United States Friendship Office in order to continue to build bonds of solidarity between the two countries. Jim Burchell initiated Peaceworks, which organized tours, material aid, and a range of projects related to Nicaragua. Dorothy Granada of Los Angeles founded the Women’s Empowerment Project, which worked with the Maria Luisa Ortiz Cooperative and Women’s Center in Mulukuku to establish a new health clinic. In addition, WCCN created a separate Women’s Empowerment Project for the purpose of establishing the first women’s shelters in Nicaragua and supporting public campaigns to stop violence against women. Working with CEPAD, WCCN also initiated the Community Development Loan Fund in 1992, which provided micro-loans to small farms and businesses, particularly those led by women.95 In Nicaragua CUSCLIN reorganized itself as the Ecumenical Committee of English-Speaking Religious Personnel and continued to meet at the Ben Linder House in Managua. On October 18 and 19, 1991, the first international solidarity conference was held in Managua since the FSLN defeat. According to Katherine Hoyt, Nicaragua Network coordinator, the conference “gave groups from different continents and countries the opportunity to share experiences and make connections and reaffirm their commitments to working to help the people of Nicaragua defend the gains of the revolution.” The conference was named “The Heroes and Martyrs of Solidarity with Nicaragua,” in honor of the internationalists who gave their lives in service to the Nicaraguan people.96 The Central America movement continued for a few more years. The murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and the housekeeper’s daughter by the Salvadoran military in November 1989 sparked a new wave of protests against U.S. aid to the Salvadoran government. Congress cut the aid in half in 1990. A peace agreement ending the Salvadoran civil war was signed in January 1992. Another ending the Guatemalan civil war was signed in June 1994. International Truth Commissions investigating these wars verified the

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claims of the Central America movement regarding the systematic murder of civilians by government forces and rightist paramilitary squads. 97 With the arrival of peace in El Salvador, representatives of U.S. Central America groups organized the Central America Solidarity Roundtable conference in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, on October 22–25, 1992. Attending were leaders of most of the key organizations involved in the ACWC and Central America movement. Peter and Gail Mott of the Rochester Committee on Latin America (ROCLA) were the conveners of the meeting. After sharing their views on issues and programs underway, the representatives envisioned four common goals for the future: educating U.S. citizens about the region, building bridges between the people of the United States and Central American nations, changing U.S. policy so as to allow “self-development by the people of the Region,” and promoting “an economic order which allows all to participate and to have what they need” both within the United States and Central America. They agreed to continue networking and to publish an online monthly newsletter, Interconnect.98 The Central America movement ultimately faded into a broader network of progressive groups concerned with Latin America. The latter initiated campaigns in the 1990s against “structural adjustment” programs of the International Monetary Fund, “free trade” proposals such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), and various “privatization” schemes. All were deemed corporate vehicles for maintaining exploitive and inequitable economic conditions and for dismantling social welfare programs in poor nations. WFP Managua coordinator Sharon Hostetler, speaking in 2006, mused that WFP and other activist groups had “missed some opportunity” to broaden the discussion to economic issues during the 1980s. “We didn’t ask ourselves, where does solidarity take you?” she said.99 WFP expanded its educational focus to include economic issues and also opened offices in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba (1999–2005).100 The Pledge of Resistance national office closed its doors in August 1993, but at least one organization carried on the nonviolent activist tradition with respect to Latin America, the School of Americas (SOA) Watch. Founded in 1990 by Father Roy Bourgeois, its main goal was to close down the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia, where thousands of Latin American military personnel had been trained since 1946 (the school was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001). Another SOA Watch project involved meeting with Latin America leaders and urging them to withdraw their military personnel from the U.S. training program. As of November

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2007, the presidents of five nations—Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Bolivia—had announced plans to do so.101 In Nicaragua the Chamorro government received loan subsidies and debt write-offs from the Bush administration amounting to nearly $1 billion from 1990 through 1992. In exchange, the United States expected the Chamorro government to cut governmental expenditures, privatize industries, and restore property to former large landowners, which it did.102 As with other underdeveloped economies, however, the lack of an internal market—too many poor people— limited entrepreneurial opportunities, business profits, and growth, consigning Nicaragua to the same fate as other perpetually underdeveloped nations. During the first year of Chamorro’s presidency, unemployment soared to nearly one-half the work force. “A chaotic scramble for choice farmland has sparked bloody property feuds that contributed last year to a 25 percent drop in cultivated acreage, a severe blow to Nicaragua’s agrarian-based economy,” reported the Los Angeles Times (April 15, 1991).103 The Chamorro government added to the misery of the poor by cutting government subsidies for transportation and basic foods such as rice, beans, and tortillas. The FSLN became the largest opposition party in the aftermath of the 1990 elections, but it was unable to stem the tide of capitalist retrenchment under Chamorro. The party was furthermore consumed by internal criticism that had previously been held in check. The issue of authoritarianism broke the party apart in 1995. A new Sandinista party was formed, the Sandinista Renovation Movement, led by Sergio Ramírez, Dora María Téllez, and Victor Hugo Tinoco. Remaining with the FSLN were Daniel Ortega, Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, and René Nuñez. In 2006, sixteen years after being voted out of office, Daniel Ortega and the FSLN were returned to power with a plurality of the vote. The FSLN program this time was modest, reflecting economic constraints. The party’s former glory had all but disappeared for a new generation of Nicaraguans. For some, the greatest loss of the former Sandinista era was the spirit of Sandinismo. “Before 1990,” reminisced Leonel Calero Calderón in 2006, “there was hope and national self-esteem. People were proud to be part of the projects that unified people. After 1990, there developed more selfishness, above ethics, above ‘God’s will.’ ‘Business is business’ became the reigning idea, which provoked divisions and corruption.” Calero served as the coordinator of the Casa de Cultura Conthecatl in the town of Condega (north-central Nicaragua), and was active in the Condega-Bend (Oregon) sister city program.104 Bill Gandall died on March 29, 1991, at the age of eight-two. The son of Russian

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and Jewish immigrants, his life spanned two eras of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua a half-century apart. In his first experience in Nicaragua as a U.S. marine, at the age of eighteen, he was led to believe that he was there to protect the people from the outlaw Sandino. He later came to question that rationale and also to regret his own participation in the intervention. “I felt bad about the things I did there,” Gandall said in a November 1989 interview. “I developed a conscience.” On his second trip to Nicaragua in 1985, he once again felt a desire to protect the Nicaraguan people, but this time he identified the danger as coming from the U.S. government and its proxy army of contra guerrillas. With his understanding and conscience in accord, Gandall became a tireless activist in the anti–Contra War campaign for the next five years. “Wild Bill” also became something of a sensation in his home county of Palm Beach, Florida, agitating for various causes, including veterans’ benefits. He was honored by the Palm Beach County commissioners in October 1990 for his contribution to peacemaking. As had happened in the past, however, Gandall had more to say than the commissioners wanted to hear, and he was later escorted out of the meeting for interrupting the proceedings. In making peace with his conscience, Bill Gandall made himself a gadfly of America.105

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T

he path to a humanistic socialist society was indeed difficult for Nicaragua. The Sandinista experiment might have fallen on its own, due to intransigent poverty, poorly managed programs, business opposition, or other internal causes, but the Reagan and Bush administrations were not willing to take the chance. They sought to foreclose the possibility of a viable socialist-oriented economy in Latin America by beating Nicaragua into submission through terrorism and sabotage. In the end, this proved nothing about socialism, but only that a powerful nation can bully a smaller one. To the Latin Americanist historian Thomas Walker, the Contra War was “one of the greatest human tragedies of the second half of the twentieth century.”1 Those who opposed the Contra War did not believe that the tragedy of American foreign policy was inevitable. They raised objections to both the hegemonic purpose of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and its brutal means. They challenged the Reagan administration’s nationalistic conception of morality in foreign affairs and offered alternative frameworks for understanding the revolutionary turmoil in Central America. They joined with the international community in asserting Nicaragua’s right under international law to conduct its own economic, political, and international affairs. Working with great heart, Contra War opponents developed an unprecedented level of transnational connections in Nicaragua, undermining administration stereotypes of the “enemy” and providing tangible assistance to the Nicaraguan people. Those who served in [ 245 ]

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Nicaragua as Witness for Peace volunteers, brigadistas, or individual cooperantes showed the Nicaraguan people the better part of the United States. The anti–Contra War campaign’s call to conscience was energized by a sense of democratic responsibility for the nation’s foreign policies, a sense of closeness to the Nicaraguan people, and a belief in the possibilities of social change organizing. Motivated citizens joined activist groups and committees of various philosophical and religious hues. They became practiced in the arts of conversing on substantive foreign policy issues, organizing events and activities, thinking strategically, and working cooperatively. They created organizations, networks of groups, ad hoc coalitions, and cooperative venues to unite their efforts so as to influence the public discourse and congressional legislation. They found ways to involve more people through a range of activities calibrated to suit different levels of time, talent, and motivation, ranging from the simple act of signing a petition to high risk “accompaniment” in Nicaragua. The various groups involved in the anti–Contra War campaign recognized their common interests and found ways to overcome differences in political philosophy, outreach strategies, and organizational styles, enabling the campaign to endure for eight years. Although unsuccessful in actually stopping the Contra War, the anti–Contra War campaign strengthened public and congressional opposition to contra aid, which in turn limited the Reagan administration’s options with respect to both contra operations and a direct U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. The ACWC extended the debate in Washington to communities across the nation, refusing to let the “imperial presidency” and its propaganda agencies dominate the domestic discourse. The campaign was part of a larger and longer struggle to cultivate a compassionate and progressive peace consciousness in the body politic. Other campaigns and movements have similarly fought on the moral frontier of foreign policymaking, often losing political battles but nonetheless influencing another generation of citizens and preparing them for future campaigns. If, as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” then history books should properly identify the protagonists of the late twentieth century as those nonviolent activists who gathered in the capitals of Eastern Europe to protest Soviet domination, those who organized opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa, and those who challenged the U.S.-directed terrorist war against Nicaragua.2

Notes

The following abbreviations are used throughout the notes: DDRS NARA NSA PED SCPC WHS

Declassified Document Retrieval System National Archives and Record Administration National Security Archive Peace Education Division of AFSC (archive division) Swarthmore College Peace Collection (archive) Wisconsin Historical Society (archive)

Introduction  1. Donald Caswell and Rick Campbell, “Touring Nicaragua: A Soldier’s Story,” Zelo Magazine (Winter Park, FL), Summer 1988, Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) archive, Veterans for Peace (VFP) files, box 1, folder 6; Garry Duffy, “Peace Advocate Recounts Events That Led Him to His Current Beliefs,” Green Valley News, June 1, 1988, 1, 9, ibid.; and Michael Greenwood, “After a Night in Jail, Gandall Is at UConn,” The Daily Campus (University of Connecticut), Feb. 28, 1989, 1, ibid.  2. Ambassador Carlos Tünnermann, letter to Bill Gandall, Dec. 7, 1987, WHS, VFP files, box 1, folder 6.  3. Martin Tolchin, “Key House Member Fears U.S. Breaks Law on Nicaragua,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 1983, A1.  4. Kenneth A. Briggs, “Episcopal Bishop Calls U.S. Latin Policy ‘Illegal and Immoral,’ ” New York Times, Apr. 23, 1984, A9.  5. Stephen Kinzer, “Gift-Laden Ship Docks in Nicaragua,” New York Times, July 28, 1984, 3.  6. Cynthia Arnson, Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America, 1976–1993 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), ix.

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Notes to Pages 3–6

 7. The 100,000 figure was cited by Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States Carlos Tünnermann in a letter to the editor published in the New York Times, Apr. 26, 1986; also in Marcos Membreño Idiáquez, “Whither U.S. Solidarity with Nicaragua?” Envío, no. 189 (Apr. 1997). Envío newsletters are located at the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, in Managua, and are now available online at www.envio.org.  8. At least sixteen books and dissertations have been written on the Sanctuary Movement alone. See books by Ignatius Bau, Ann Crittenden, Hilary Cunningham, Miriam Davidson, Renny Golden and Michael McConnell, Robin Lorentzen, Gary MacEoin (editor), Judith McDaniel, Elma L. Otter and Dorothy F. Pine, Dick Simpson and Clinton Stockwell, and Robert Tomsho; and dissertations by Jeanne Clark, Susan Coutin, Anne Marie Hildreth, Rachel Ovryn-Rivera, and Angela Stout.  9. Melvin Small, “Influencing the Decision Makers: The Vietnam Experience,” Journal of Peace Research 24, no. 2 (1987): 185–97. See also William LeoGrande and Philip Brenner, “The House Divided: Ideological Polarization over Aid to the Nicaraguan ‘Contras,’” Legislative Studies Quarterly 18, no. 1 (Feb. 1993): 105–36. 10. Lt. Col. Oliver North, “U.S. Political/Military Strategy for Nicaragua” (Plan to Overthrow the Sandinista Government), July 15, 1985, reprinted in Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, eds., The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New York: New Press, 1993), 50. 11. I have found 284 books with at least 50 pages devoted to the Contra War. The Central America movement and various aspects thereof are examined in the following studies: Andrew Battista, “Unions and Cold War Foreign Policy in the 1980s: The National Labor Committee, the AFL-CIO, and Central America” (Diplomatic History, 2002); Edward T. Brett, “The Attempts of Grassroots Religious Groups to Change U.S. Policy toward Central America: Their Methods, Successes, and Failures” (Journal of Church and State, August 1991); Ross Gelbspan, Break-Ins, Death Threats, and the FBI: The Covert War against the Central American Movement (1991); Van Gosse, “ ‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era” (The Year Left, 1988); Gosse, “Active Engagement: The Legacy of Central America Solidarity” (NACLA Report on the Americas, March/ April 1995); Sharon E. Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central America Solidarity Movement (2004); Héctor Perla, “Sí Nicaragua Veñcio, El Salvador Veñcera: Central American Agency in the Creation of the U.S.-Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement” (Latin American Research Review, 2008); Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (1996); and Robert E. Surbrug, Beyond Vietnam: The Politics of Protest in Massachusetts, 1974–1990 (2009). 12. Of the eighty-seven individuals interviewed by this author, twenty-three were directors, staff persons, or board members of national organizations during the 1980s; forty-five were local/state organizers and activists; seventeen were Americans who had lived and worked in Nicaragua for extended periods of time; two were legislative aides and one was a member of Congress; and ten were Nicaraguan, of whom seven were FSLN officials. (The numbers add up to more than eighty-seven because some individuals had more than one role.) 13. “Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America),” International Court of Justice, www.icj-cij.org/ docket/files/70/6503.pdf.

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1. U.S.-Nicaragua Relations, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Contra War  1. “Coolidge Sends More Ships and Marines to Nicaragua; Seeks Democrats’ Support; Urges Senate to Unite,” New York Times, Jan. 7, 1927, 1.  2. Robert Olds, Undersecretary of State, Memorandum, Jan. 2, 1927, quoted in David F. Schmitz, Thank God They’re on Our Side: The United States & Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921–1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 50–51.  3. President Calvin Coolidge, “Intervention in Nicaragua,” Interwar documents, 1927, entered in the Congressional Record 69, 2nd Session, 1324–26, www.mtholyoke.edu/acad /intrel/cc101.htm.  4. The 3,000 figure is cited in Charles F. Howlett, “Neighborly Concern: John Nevin Sayre and the Mission of Peace and Goodwill to Nicaragua, 1927–28,” The Americas 45, no. 1 ( July 1988), 20. Regarding the 136 U.S. Marines who died in Nicaragua, Neill Macaulay, in The Sandino Affair (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967), notes that only 47 were killed in the fighting; the remainder died from accidents, airplane crashes, murders, and suicides.  5. Howard Jones, Quest for Security: A History of U.S. Foreign Relations, Vol. II, From 1897 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1996), 352. For foreign views, see the following: “Score U.S. on Nicaragua: Press in London and Paris Condemns Our Policy There,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1927, 4; “Criticism from Peru; Lima Paper Assails Intervention in Free, if Small, Nation,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1927, 4; and “Costa Rican Objections; Secretary Kellogg’s Foreign Policy Is Called Imperialistic,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1927, 4.  6. Robert David Johnson, The Peace Progressives and American Foreign Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 217, 337. See also “Coolidge Is Assailed in Both Houses for Policy in Mexico and Nicaragua,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1927, 1; and Anne Regis Winkler-Morey, “The Anti-Imperialist Impulse: Public Opposition to U.S. Policy toward Mexico and Nicaragua (Winter of 1926–27)” (MA thesis, University of Minnesota, 1993).  7. Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy: A Study in American Imperialism (New York: B. W. Huebsch and the Viking Press, 1925), 195. Other critical works of the era include Harold Norman Denny, Dollars for Bullets: The Story of American Rule in Nicaragua (New York: Dial Press, 1929) and Rafael de Nogales, The Looting of Nicaragua (1928; New York: Arno Press, 1970).  8. Howlett, “Neighborly Concern,” 34.  9. Macaulay, Sandino Affair, 112–13. 10. Howlett, “Neighborly Concern,” 38–39. 1 1 . President Herbert Hoover, “State of the Union Address, Dec. 3, 1929,” American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=22021. 12. “UDEL’s Manifesto (1977),” published in La Prensa, Oct. 19, 1977, reprinted in Robert S. Leiken and Barry Rubin, eds., The Central American Crisis Reader (New York: Summit Books, 1987), 169. 13. “Catholic Bishops: Medellín Declaration (1968),” reprinted ibid., 126. 14. Dennis Gilbert, Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 133. 15. Mary B. Vanderlaan, Revolution and Foreign Policy in Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 65. 16. FSLN National Directorate, Participatory Democracy in Nicaragua (Managua, 1984, English translation), 75–77.

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Notes to Pages 13–18

17. Philip Zwerling and Connie Martin, Nicaragua: A New Kind of Revolution (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1985), 76. 18. Nicaragua, Triunfa en la Alfabetización: Documentos y Testimonios de la Cruzada Nacional de Alfabetización (San José, Costa Rica: Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones, 1981), 488. 19. Teófilo Cabestrero, Revolutionaries for the Gospel: Testimonies of Fifteen Christians in the Nicaraguan Government, translated from the Spanish by Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986), 34. 20. Pierre Hurel, “Ortega ne red pas les armes” (interview with Daniel Ortega), Paris Match, Mar. 22, 1990, quoted in Thomas Walker, ed., Revolution and Counterrevolution in Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 10. Dr. Walker also related this information to me in a telephone interview, May 21, 2007. 21. In regard to the nine-member Sandinista Directorate, two were from upper-class families, four from middle-class homes, and three from the working class. Gilbert, Sandinistas, 42. 22. Envío team, “The Agrarian Reform Law In Nicaragua,” Envío, no. 3 (Aug. 1981); and Larry Rohter, “Nicaragua Has a Postwar Baby Boom,” New York Times, Feb. 24, 1985, 15. 23. Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs: Gender Identity Politics in Nicaragua, 1979–1999 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 35–36. 24. Margaret Randall, Sandino’s Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 5. Randall interviewed commanders Dora María Téllez, Leticia Herrera, and Mónica Baltodano. 25. Volo, Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs, 35. 26. Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006, with Harold Urbina Cruz translating. 27. Carlos Núñez, President of the Council of State, speech at a special session to close the Third Legislative Period (Dec. 4, 1982), translated copy, WHS, Nicaragua Network files, box 1. On the tension between the FSLN vanguard approach and participatory democracy, see Katherine Hoyt, The Many Faces of Sandinista Democracy (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1997). 28. Fr. Álvaro Argüello, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006; and Central American Historical Institute, “The Question of Pluralism: Negotiations Continue on Law of Political Parties” ( Jan. 28, 1983), reprinted in Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer, eds., The Nicaragua Reader: Documents of a Revolution under Fire (New York: Grove Press, 1983), 79–83. Fr. Argüello died in Managua on May 24, 2010. 29. “Official Communiqué of the National Directorate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front on Religion,” Oct. 7, 1980, in FSLN National Directorate, Participatory Democracy, 133–37. 30. “FSLN: ‘Seventy-Two Hours’ Document (September 1979),” reprinted in Leiken and Rubin, Central American Crisis Reader, 220. 31. Envío team, “Two Faces of UNO,” Envío, no. 108 ( July 1990). 32. Nora Boustany, “Veteran of Nicaragua’s Political Turmoil Draws Lesson from Her Child’s Short Life,” Washington Post, May 16, 2003, A24. See also William Branigin, “Nicaraguan Family Fights Own Civil War—1 Editor Joins Contras, Other is Sandinista,” Washington Post, Feb. 21, 1987, A20. 33. Lawrence A. Pezzulo (U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua), “Confidential Cable to the U.S. State Department,” Aug. 23, 1979, National Security Archive (NSA), Nicaragua

Notes to Pages 18–22

34.

35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50.

[ 251 ]

collection, NI01063. This and many other documents at the NSA are available online, www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 30; and Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1988), 41–42. Rep. Jim Wright, Worth It All: My War for Peace (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993). Gerry E. Studds, “Central America, 1981: Report to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives,” quoted in Robert E. Surbrug Jr., “‘Thinking Globally’: Political Movements on the Left in Massachusetts, 1974–1990” (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2003), 429. Nicaraguan Embassy (Washington, DC), “Sandinista Military Staff Tours United States Military Bases,” Nicaragua Newsletter 1, no. 1 ( Jan. 1980), 11, Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC), Central America Working Group (CAWG) files, box 3. “U.S. Ambassador Lawrence Pezzulo, Cable to Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr., Dept. of State, Secret, February 18, 1981,” 1–2, Declassified Documents Retrieval System (DDRS) online, accessed through Florida State University. The Committee of Santa Fe, A New Inter-American Policy for the Eighties (Washington, DC: Council for Inter-American Security, 1980), 1; and “1980 Republican Party Platform,” The Patriot Post, http://patriotpost.us/document/1980-republican-platform. “Finding Pursuant to Section 662 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended, Concerning Operations Undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency in Foreign Countries, Other Than Those Intended Solely for the Purpose of Intelligence Collection” (Presidential Finding, declassified sections), Mar. 9, 1981, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI01287. Bernard Weinraub, “Congress Renews Curbs on Actions against Nicaragua: Measure Forbids U.S. Support for Military Moves Aimed at Toppling Sandinists,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 1982, A1. “U.S. Halts Economic Aid to Nicaragua,” New York Times, Apr. 2, 1981, A3. David Hoffman and George Lardner Jr., “Hill Panel to Disclose Criticism of Intelligence on Central America,” Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1982, A3. Philip Taubman, “In from the Cold and Hot for Truth,” New York Times, July 11, 1984, B6. Ariel C. Armony, Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-communist Crusade in Central America, 1977–1984 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1997), 115. Dieter Eich and Carlos Rincón, The Contras: Interviews with Anti-Sandinistas (San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1985), 64; and Envío team, “Nicaragua Struggles to Avoid Regional War,” Envío, no. 23 (May 1983). Duane Clarridge, quoted in “Backyard,” CNN Cold War series (videotape), no. 18. See also Alejandro Bendaña, Una Tragedia Campesina: Testimonios de la Resistencia (Managua, Center for International Studies, 1991); Christopher Dickey, With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985); and Lynn Horton, Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994 (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998). Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 101–5; and Thomas W. Walker, Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003), 114. “Allegations of Contra Massacre,” Confidential Cable from Ambassador Anthony Quainton to Dept. of State, Aug. 13, 1983, 1–2, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI01791. Edgar Chamorro, “Letter to the Editor,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1986, A22.

[ 252 ]

Notes to Pages 23–27

51. Philip Taubman, “2 Americans Assert U.S. Assisted Private Effort Against Latin Left,” New York Times, Sept. 6, 1984, A10; Taubman, “Letting Citizens Give Rebels Aid Was U.S. Policy,” New York Times, Sept. 11, 1984, A1; and Peter Kornbluh, Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention; Reagan’s Wars against the Sandinistas (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 1987), 59. 52. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 392. 53. Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, “Memorandum to Director of Central Intelligence; Subject: Nicaragua,” Dec. 14, 1984, 1, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00656. 54. Lt. Col. Oliver North, “U.S. Political/Military Strategy for Nicaragua” (Plan to Overthrow the Sandinista Government), July 15, 1985, reprinted in Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, eds., The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New York: New Press, 1993), 50. 55. “Remarks of CIA Director William J. Casey before the University Club, September 18, 1986,” Washington, DC, DDRS online. 56. According to Lynn Horton, in Peasants in Arms, “Out of a population of approximately 3.5 million, 30,865 Nicaraguans were killed during the war” (xv). Internal displacement figures are cited in Walker, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 52. Economic damage costs of $9 billion are cited in both of the above studies. 57. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 289, 120. Ambassador Pezzulo, in a 1989 interview, commented that what the administration actually proposed to the Sandinistas “was damned insulting, and crass.” Ambassador Lawrence A. Pezzulo, interview by Arthur R. Day, Feb. 24, 1989, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004pez01. 58. Kenneth E. Sharpe, “The Post-Vietnam Formula under Siege: The Imperial Presidency and Central America,” Political Science Quarterly 102, no. 4 (Winter 1987–88), 564. 59. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 361. 60. Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 212. 61. Sen. James M. Jeffords, An Independent Man: Adventures of a Public Servant (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 184. 62. National Security Council, “National Security Planning Group Meeting, June 25, 1984; Subject: Central America,” 7, 10, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00463. 63. Joanne Omang and David Hoffman, “Reagan Sends Dole to Seek Pope’s Advice on Central America, Washington Post, Apr. 6, 1985, A16. 64. Shirley Christian, “Reagan Aides See No Possibility of an Accord with Sandinistas,” New York Times, Aug. 18. 1985, A1. 65. Elaine Sciolino, “Reagan Will Seek Contra Arms Aid Despite New Move; Managua Vow Dismissed,” New York Times, Jan. 18, 1988, A1. 66. “C.I.A. Aid to Rebels Reported,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 1986, A8; and LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 543. 67. “A symbol of opposition to Sandinista rule: Cardinal Obando y Bravo,” Newsweek, June 15, 1987, 27–28, www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/contrascardinal.html. 68. Ernesto Uribe and David Varie, “Distribution of VOA Broadcast Material to Domestic Radio Stations in Nicaragua,” Memorandum, July 18, 1983, 1–2, National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), RG 306, USIA Regular and Special Reports of the Office of Research, 1983–87.

Notes to Pages 27–30

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69. Teófilo Cabestrero, Blood of the Innocent: Victims of the Contras’ War in Nicaragua, translated from the Spanish by Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 2. 70. Gilbert, Sandinistas, 141. 71. Mark T. Gilderhus, The Second Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1899 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Books, 2000), 229. 72. “Election Draws Many U.S. Observers,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 1984, 21. See also “Nicaragua’s 1984 Elections—A History Worth the Retelling,” Envío, no. 102 ( Jan. 1990). 73. Latin American Studies Association (LASA), The Electoral Process in Nicaragua: Domestic and International Influences (Austin, TX: LASA, 1984), 1, 31–32, available online: www. williamgbecker.com/lasa_1984.pdf. Other reports of international observers include: Thom Kerstiens and Piet Nelissen (official Dutch government observers), “Report on the Elections in Nicaragua, 4 November 1984”; Irish Inter-Party Parliamentary Delegation, The Elections in Nicaragua, November, 1984 (Dublin: Irish Parliament, 1984); Parliamentary Human Rights Group, “Report of a British Parliamentary Delegation to Nicaragua to Observe the Presidential and National Assembly Elections, 4 November 1984”; and Willy Brandt and Thorvald Stoltenberg, “Statement [on Nicaraguan Elections on behalf of the Socialist International],” Bonn, Nov. 7, 1984. 74. See Philip Taubman, “Key Aides Dispute U.S. Role in Nicaraguan Vote,” New York Times, Oct. 21, 1984, A12. Taubman writes: “Since May [1984], when American policy toward the elections was formed, the Administration has wanted the opposition candidate, Arturo Jose Cruz, either to not enter the race or, if he did, to withdraw before the election, claiming conditions were unfair. ‘The Administration never contemplated letting Cruz stay in the race,’ one official said, ‘because then the Sandinistas could justifiably claim that the elections were legitimate, making it much harder for the United States to oppose the Nicaraguan government.’ ” See also Taubman, “U.S. Seeks to Sway Opinion on Nicaragua,” New York Times, Nov. 14, 1984, A10. 75. Philip Taubman, “The Nicaraguan Vote; Results Will Probably Heighten Tensions Between Washington and the Sandinistas,” New York Times, Nov. 5, 1984, A12. 76. Alejandro Bendaña, “Nicaragua’s and Latin America’s ‘Lessons’ for Iraq,” in Silent War: The US’ Ideological and Economic Occupation of Iraq, Mar. 1, 2004, online: http://aworldtowin.net/documents/Iraq_Dossier.pdf. 2. An Overview of the Contra War Debate  1. U.S. Dept. of State, Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD), “Public Diplomacy Strategy Paper: Central America,” May 5, 1983, 1–2, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, no. IC00096.  2. S/LPD Summary Report, Dec. 1, 1984, 2–4, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, no. IC00639.  3. Lou Cannon, “‘Distortion’ on Latin Policy Decried,” Washington Post, Aug. 10, 1983; and National Security Decision Directive 77, signed by President Reagan, Jan. 14, 1983, quoted in Peter Kornbluh, Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention; Reagan’s Wars Against the Sandinistas (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 1987), 160.  4. Ad Hoc Committee for Democracy in Nicaragua (announcement), “Day-long conference to present a comprehensive look at the Nicaraguan revolution four years later, July 19, 1983,” WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 3.  5. Francis D. Gomez, International Business Communications, “Payment for Services for the Period September 1 through December 31, 1984,” Memorandum, Aug. 1, 1984, 2, NSA,

[ 254 ]

Notes to Pages 31–36

Iran-Contra collection, IC00519; and U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs Staff Report, “State Department and Intelligence Community in Domestic Activities Related to the Iran/Contra Affair,” Sept. 7, 1988, 24, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI03127.  6. Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1984), 111. The Reagan administration also periodically accused Sandinista Nicaragua of being part of a terrorist network and a drug-smuggling ring, and a source of illegal refugees to the U.S. It was the contras, however, who were found to be involved in drug trafficking, according to a Senate Foreign Relations report released Apr. 13, 1989.  7. President Ronald W. Reagan, “Address to the Nation on the Situation in Nicaragua, Mar. 16, 1986,” The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, www.reagan.utexas.edu (hereafter referred to as the Reagan Public Papers).  8. President Reagan, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America,” Apr. 27, 1983, Reagan Public Papers; Bernard Weinraub, “President Calls Sandinista Foes ‘Our Brothers,’” New York Times, Feb. 17. 1985, A1; and President Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on Central America,” Feb. 16, 1985, American Presidency Project, www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38231.  9. President Reagan, speeches on Apr. 27, 1983, May 9, 1984, Oct. 21, 1984, Mar. 30, 1985, Feb. 4, 1986, and Feb. 2, 1988, Reagan Public Papers. 10. Col. Daniel Jacobowitz, “Public Diplomacy Action Plan: Support for the White House Educational Campaign,” Mar. 12, 1985, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00934, 2–3. 11. “Public Diplomacy Strategy Paper: Central America,” Mar. 19, 1984, 7, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00369. 12. John Goshko, “Diplomacy by Wright, Ortega Hit,” Washington Post, Nov. 15, 1987. 13. President Reagan, “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America,” Apr. 27, 1983, Reagan Public Papers. There was a domestic political component to anticommunism as well, as it served to unify the three-part New Right coalition of business interests, social traditionalists, and foreign policy conservatives, which respectively denounced “communism” as anticapitalist, irreligious, and expansionist. 14. President Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on the Central American Peace Proposal,” Apr. 20, 1985, Reagan Public Papers. 15. President Harry S. Truman, “Address of the President of the United States: Recommendation for Assistance to Greece and Turkey, Mar. 12, 1947,” Truman Presidential Museum and Library, www.trumanlibrary.org. 16. President Reagan, “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America, Apr. 27, 1983,” Reagan Public Papers. 17. Howell Raines, “Reagan Calls Arms Race Essential to Avoid a ‘Surrender’ or ‘Defeat,’” New York Times, Aug. 19, 1980, D17. 18. Ronald Reagan, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1980, 1, cited in Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–2000 (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 316. 19. President Reagan, “Address before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on the State of the Union, January 25, 1984,” Reagan Public Papers. 20. Absolute ideological values such as freedom and democracy should not be identified with any particular position, as each group/position enunciated noble principles to suit its particular perspective and policy recommendations. 21. The confusion over the liberal position on foreign policy issues may be seen in Tony

Notes to Pages 36–40

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Smith’s study, A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise (New York: Routledge, 2007), which describes U.S. foreign policy as “liberal imperialism.” He writes of “the liberal imperialists who organized the Iraq War,” and adds, “Prior to the administration of George W. Bush, no presidency since Wilson’s time had been more liberal in world affairs than Reagan’s” (71). Smith’s reading of liberal and conservative hinges on the ideological rationales used to justify policies, rather than on the nature of the policies themselves. 22. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 510–11 and ix–x. 23. Two sociologists have examined the framing of issues in the Central America debate of the 1980s: Charlotte Ryan, in Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots Organizing (Boston: South End Press, 1991), and Christian Smith, in Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Both studies identify six frames, three of which correspond to each other. All of the frames identified are incorporated into my seven-part analysis, with the additional frame of administration illegalities. 24. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in The Imperial Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), defined the “imperial presidency” as the “unprecedented centralization of decisions over war and peace in the Presidency” (208). Congressional legislation enacted during the 1970s that restricted presidential prerogatives include the following: the Church-Cooper Amendment (1970), which prohibited the Nixon administration from sending combat troops into Cambodia; the War Powers Act (1973), which placed a time limit on the deployment of U.S. combat troops abroad; the Hughes-Ryan Amendment (1974), which required the president to report “in a timely fashion” on all CIA covert operations; the Clark Amendment (1976), which ended CIA operations in Angola (rescinded in 1985); and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978), which required court-supervised monitoring of domestic surveillance operations. 25. Betsy Cohen, Charles Roberts, and Jim Lobe, “Arguments and Evidence: Ten Talking Points against Contra Aid” (Washington, DC: Central America Historical Institute, Georgetown University, Oct. 1987), 10–11. 26. Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), In Contempt of Congress: The Reagan Record of Deceit and Illegality on Central America (Washington, DC: IPS, 1985), 5. 27. Paul Ramshaw and Tom Steers, eds., Intervention on Trial: The New York War Crimes Tribunal on Central America and the Caribbean (New York: Praeger, 1984), xvii. 28. See, e.g., Alfonso Chardy, “U.S. Found to Skirt Ban on Aid to Contras, Miami Herald, June 24, 1985; and Chardy, “Despite Ban, U.S. Helping Contras,” Miami Herald, June 8, 1986. 29. David Rogers and Robert S. Greenberger, “Democrats Assail Reagan’s Policy on Nicaragua—U.S. Mining of Ports Creates Strong House Opposition to Funding the Guerrillas,” Wall Street Journal, Apr. 10, 1984, 1. 30. Rep. David E. Bonior, Congressional Record, Mar. 11, 1987, H1246–47, cited in LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 487. 31. Philip Shenon, “Senator Durenberger Stirs New Concern with Outspokenness,” New York Times, Apr. 8, 1987, B6. Durenberger voted for contra aid in 1984 and 1985, split his votes in 1986, and voted against aid in 1988. 32. “No Viet Nam war in Central America!” (advertisement), New York Times, May 1, 1983, E7. 33. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, “Is the Reagan Administration Policy toward Nicaragua Sound? Pro and Con,” The Congressional Digest 63, no. 11 (Nov. 1984), 267.

[ 256 ]

Notes to Pages 40–45

34. George J. Church, “A Big Stick Approach: U.S. Policy in Central America Becomes Tougher—and Harder to Sell,” Time magazine 122, no. 7 (Aug. 8, 1983). 35. “U.S. Military Is Termed Prepared for Any Move against Nicaragua,” New York Times, June 4, 1985, A1. 36. Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America (IRTFCA), Peacemaking II: U.S. Religious Statements on Central America (New York: IRTFCA, ca. late 1984 or early 1985), 7, 80; and Archbishop James A. Hickey, testimony given to a joint session of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs and the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, Mar. 7, 1983, AFSC archive, Peace Education Division (PED) files. 37. Cristina Eguizábal, David Lewis, Larry Minear, Peter Sollis and Thomas G. Weiss, “Humanitarian Challenges in Central America: Learning the Lessons of Recent Armed Conflicts,” Humanitarianism and War Project, Occasional Paper #14, p. 10, http://repository.forcedmigration.org/pdf/?pid=fmo:2637. See also James LeMoyne, “Europeans Back Contadora Drive,” New York Times, Sept. 30, 1984, A7. 38. John Felton, “Reagan and the ‘Contra’ Question: Cloudy Policy Goals, Cloudy Outlook on Hill,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Online (Mar. 15, 1986), http://library.cqpress. com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/cqweekly/WR099406386. 39. “Nobody Wins in Nicaragua” (editorial), New York Times, Nov. 7, 1984, A26. 40. “C.I.A. Said to Produce Manual for anti-Sandinistas,” New York Times, Oct. 15, 1984. 41. Joel Brinkley, “Democrats Assail C.I.A. Primer for Latin Rebels,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 1984, A6. 42. Gordon Mott, “In a Nicaraguan Village, ‘We’re Used to Gunfire,’” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1984, 17. 43. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams is quoted in Reed Brody, Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission, September 1984–January 1985 (Boston: South End Press, 1985), 8; Felton, “Reagan and the ‘Contra’ Question”; and Philip Taubman, “C.I.A., Too, May Be Hurt in Nicaragua,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1984, E4. 44. Envío team, “Conclusions: Whither Central America,” Envío, no. 81 (Mar. 1988). 45. The United Nations Charter, Art. 2, Sec. 4, states, “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The Organization of American States Charter of 1948, Art. 15, states, “No State or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State.” 46. “From the Well: Shadows of a Foreign Policy,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 1984, 1. 47. “Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America),” www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/70/6457.pdf. See also Abram Chayes, “Nicaragua, the United States, and the World Court,” Columbia Law Review 85, no. 7 (Nov. 1985), 1445–82. 48. “WFA Files Suit in Federal Court to Enforce World Court Judgment,” World Federalist 11, no. 4 (Autumn 1986), 1. 49. “Scorning the World Court” (editorial), New York Times, Jan. 20, 1985, E22. 50. Anthony Lewis, “In Age of Reagan, Law Doesn’t Matter,” Tallahassee Democrat, Oct. 12, 1985. 51. United States Information Agency (USIA), Office of Research, “West European Press Reaction to Mining of Nicaraguan Ports,” Apr. 25, 1984, NARA, RG 306, Regular and Special Reports of the Office of Research, 1983–87.

Notes to Pages 45–51

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52. Daniel Siegel and Tom Spaulding, with Peter Kornbluh, Outcast Among Allies: The International Costs of Reagan’s War against Nicaragua (Washington, DC: IPS, 1985), 1, 7. 53. William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000), 184–99. 54. Joseph Collins, Francis Moore Lappé, and Nick Allen, What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1982), 4. 55. Joanne Omang, “Contra Aid Fight Nears,” Washington Post, Apr. 15, 1985, A1. 56. Cynthia J. Arnson and Philip Brenner, “The Limits of Lobbying: Interest Groups, Congress, and Aid to the Contras,” in Richard Sobel, ed., Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), 196–97. 57. “Statement by U.S. Religious in Nicaragua in Response to Address by President Reagan to Joint Session of Congress,” Apr. 29, 1983, CUSCLIN records, Managua. 58. Thomas W. Walker, ed., Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 3–4. 59. Aynn Setright, interview by the author, Managua, June 25, 2006. 60. See, e.g., Harriet Ludwig, “‘Witness for Peace’ Says He Saw Genuine Progress in Nicaragua,” Gainesville Sun, Oct. 13, 1984, 1B. 61. William M. LeoGrande, “The Contras and Congress,” in Walker, Reagan Versus the Sandinistas, 222; and LeoGrande, “The Controversy over Contra Aid, 1981–90: A Historical Narrative,” in Richard Sobel, Public Opinion, 44. 62. Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA), Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: IPS, 1984), 13–14. 63. John Lamperti, What Are We Afraid Of? An Assessment of the “Communist Threat” in Central America (Boston: South End Press, 1988), 5, 7. 64. See, e.g., Dr. Peter Mott, “U.S. Aids Real Communists in China, Falsely Invents Them in Nicaragua” (op-ed), Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Sept. 24, 1985, 6A. 65. Mayee Crispin, “Dear Friend of the Nicaragua Network” (mass mailing letter), July 17, 1989, author’s collection. 66. Walter LaFeber, “Marking Revolution Opposing Revolution,” New York Times (op-ed), July 3, 1983, E13. The quote from Secretary of State Shultz comes from his testimony before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Senate Appropriations Committee, Mar. 22, 1983. 67. Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants (Tucson, AZ: Odonian Press, 1986), 42. 68. Sergio Ramírez, “The Unfinished American Revolution and Nicaragua Today,” July 14, 1983, reprinted in Marlene Dixon and Susanne Jonas, eds., Nicaragua Under Siege (San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1984), 211. 69. Leonardo Salazar, “Discourses on Terrorism and Nicaragua: A Case Study of Television,” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1988), 205–6. See also Sandra H. Dickson, “Propaganda and the Press: The Treatment of the United States–Nicaraguan Conflict by the Washington Post and the Washington Times” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 1989). Dickson analyzed 1,539 articles in the Washington Post and the Washington Times, and concluded that, while there were differences between the two papers, the results of her content analyses “lent credence to the notion that the U.S. press serves as a legitimator of the ‘government line’” (abstract). 70. Quoted in Rep. Jim Wright, Worth It All: My War for Peace (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993), 78.

[ 258 ]

Notes to Pages 51–60

71. Steven V. Roberts, “House Reverses Earlier Ban on Aid to Nicaragua Rebels; Passes $27 Million Package,” New York Times, June 13, 1985, A1. 72. Poll results are tabulated in Richard Sobel, Public Opinion, 22–28, 59–70. 73. Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 471. 3. Origins of the Anti–Contra War Campaign  1. Edward T. Brett, The U.S. Catholic Press on Central America: From Cold War Anticommunism to Social Justice (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 112.  2. Margaret Swedish, “The Religious Roots of Solidarity,” www.nathannewman.org/EDIN /.mags/.cross/.40/.40salv/.swedish.html.  3. Dafne Sabanes Plou, “Ecumenical History of Latin America,” World Council of Churches (WCC), http://overcomingviolence.org/en/about-dov/annual-focus/2006-latin-america/ecumenical-history-of-latin-america.html (from “A History of the Ecumenical Movement,” 2004, WCC Publications).  4. Betsy Cohn and Patricia Hynds, “The Manipulation of the Religion Issue,” in Thomas W. Walker, ed., Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 101.  5. Fr. Álvaro Argüello, interview by the author, June 26, 2006, Managua.  6. Fr. Joseph Mulligan, S.J., interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 9, 2010.  7. Richard Shaull, “Leaven in the Loaf: The Nicaraguan Difference,” Christianity and Crisis ( July 12, 1982), 211, 210.  8. James and Margaret Goff, “The Church Confronting Change,” Nicaraguan Perspectives, no. 17 (Summer/Fall 1989), 27.  9. Teófilo Cabestrero, Revolutionaries for the Gospel: Testimonies of Fifteen Christians in the Nicaraguan Government, translated from the Spanish by Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986). See also Michael Dodson and Laura O’Shaughnessy, The Other Revolution: The Church and the Popular Struggle in Nicaragua (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). 10. Michael Harrington, “The Good Domino,” in Marvin E. Gettleman et al., eds., El Salvador: Central America in the New Cold War (New York: Grove Press, 1981), 313. 11. Bill Bigelow, interview by the author, Portland, OR, May 28, 2007. 12. Richard Healey, telephone interview with the author, Dec. 17, 2006. Regarding Healey’s mother, see Dorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 13. Van Gosse, “Active Engagement: The Legacy of Central America Solidarity,” NACLA Report on the Americas 28, no. 5 (Mar.–Apr. 1995), www.nacla.org; and Van Gosse, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America and the Making of a New Left (New York: Verso, 1993), 161–62, 244. 14. Kent Spriggs, telephone interviews with the author, Nov. 10, 2007, and Dec. 19, 2009. 15. Judith Adler Hellman, “Annual Essay on Social Movements: Revolution, Reform, and Reaction,” NACLA Report on the Americas 30, no. 6 (May/June 1997); and “Reinventing Solidarity,” NACLA Report on the Americas 28, no. 5 (Mar.–Apr. 1995). 16. The Rev. Arthur Lloyd, St. Francis House, and the Rev. Lowell Fewster, Madison Campus Ministry, “A letter to the Churches in the Madison area,” Sept. 14, 1973, WHS, Community Action for Latin America (CALA) files, box 2, folder 1. The author interviewed Rev. Lloyd along with Sue Lloyd, Carol Bracewell, and Sheldon Rampton in Madison, WI, on July 20, 2006.

Notes to Pages 60–62

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17. See Margaret Power, “The U.S. Movement in Solidarity with Chile in the 1970s,” Latin American Perspectives 36, no. 6 (2009), 46–66. 18. James N. Green, We Cannot Remain Silent: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 164, 366. 19. Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 115, 75, 60. 20. See www.wola.org/publications/thirty_years_of_advocacy_for_human_rights_democracy_and_social_justice. 21. The AFSC grants to Nicaragua, amounting to $190,000 in 1982, assisted vaccination campaigns, sanitation, curative services, and health education. Nicaragua was one of a dozen countries in Latin America to receive such grants. Dick Erstad, “Eloesser Fund,” Memorandum to Betsy Deisroth, Michael Valoris, Sept. 21, 2004, AFSC archive, International Development Division files; and “Reconstruction in Nicaragua: AFSC Gives Support,” ca. 1980, ibid. 22. See Ron Pagnucco, “The Transnational Strategies of the Service for Peace and Justice in Latin America,” in Jackie Smith, Charles Chatfield, and Ron Pagnucco, eds., Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity beyond the State (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997): 123–38; and “Argentina: Ex-dictator Sentenced in Murders,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 2010, A14. 23. Ronald H. Chilcote, “The Legacy of the Sixties and Its Impact on Academics,” LASA Forum 37, no. 2 (Spring 2006), 24; and Teri Karl, “Comments on the Presentations about LASA in the 1960s,” ibid., 25. 24. Richard Erstad, “Latin America Studies Association Meeting—October 10–12, 1980,” Memorandum to Latin America panel, Oct. 30, 1980, AFSC archive, International Development Division files. 25. William LeoGrande, e-mail communication with the author, July 10, 2007. In addition to PACCA, WOLA, and EPICA, which are described in this chapter, there were a number of other progressive policy-oriented organizations, or “think tanks,” that contributed to the Central America movement in the 1980s (founding dates noted): Institute for Policy Studies (1963), Council on Hemispheric Affairs (1975), Center for International Policy (1975), Institute for Food and Development Policy (1975), Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center (1979), Nicaraguan Information Center in Berkeley (1981), Central American Historical Institute (1982), Commission on U.S.–Central American Relations (1982), and the Central America Resource Center in Austin (1983). Publications of the latter center along with the newsletters of a variety of Central America groups are located at the Benson Library, University of Texas at Austin. 26. Margaret Randall, Sandino’s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle, edited by Lunda Yanz (Vancouver/Toronto: New Star Books, 1981). See also Randall, Gathering Rage: The Failure of Twentieth Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1992); Randall, Sandino’s Daughters Revisited: Feminism in Nicaragua (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994); Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs: Gender Identity Politics in Nicaragua, 1979–1999 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Karen Kampwirth, Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas (Ohio University Press, 2004); Katherine Isbester, Still Fighting: The Nicaraguan Women’s Movement, 1977–2000 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001); and Clare Weber, “Women to Women: Dissident Citizen Diplomacy in Nicaragua,” in Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai, eds.,

[ 260 ]

Notes to Pages 63–70

Women’s Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics (New York: Routledge, 2002), 45–64. 27. Carl Conetta, ed., Peace Resource Book, 1988/89: A Comprehensive Guide to Issues, Groups, and Literature (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), vii. 28. “New Directions: Conference Decisions,” The Mobilizer (Mobilization for Survival newsletter) 2, no. 1 (Winter 1982), 6; and “Mobilization for Survival 1983 Program: Ongoing Campaigns and Priorities,” The Mobilizer 2, no. 4 (Winter 1983), 11. 29. Fr. Joseph Mulligan, interview by the author. On conscience and the Vietnam War, see Christian G. Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides (New York: Penguin Books, 2003); Charles DeBenedetti, “On the Significance of Citizen Peace Activism: America, 1961–1975,” Peace and Change 9, no. 2/3 (1983), 6–20; Mitchell K. Hall, Because of Their Faith: CALCAV and Religious Opposition to the Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); and Andrew Hunt, The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans against the War (New York: New York University Press, 1999). 30. David Funkhouser, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 20, 2006; René Nuñez, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 11, 2010, with Galen Cohee Baynes translating; Hector Perla, “Si Nicaragua Venció, El Salvador Vencerá: Central American Agency in the Creation of the U.S.-Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement,” Latin American Research Review 43, no. 2 (2008), 147; Marcos Membreño Idiáquez, “Whither U.S. Solidarity with Nicaragua?” Envío, no. 189 (Apr. 1997); and Van Gosse, “‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era,” in Michael Sprinker and Mike Davis, eds., The Year Left, vol. 3: Reshaping the U.S. Left: Popular Struggles in the 1980s (New York: Verso, 1988), 20–21. 31. Phil Wheaton’s inclusive vision was noted by Yvonne Dilling in a telephone interview by the author, Mar. 3, 2007. 32. “Declaration from the National Conference on Nicaragua, Feb. 24–25, 1979,” WHS, Nicaragua Network files, box 3. 33. Yvonne Dilling, interview by the author. 34. David Funkhouser, interview by the author. 35. Tim Jeffries, “Serendipity,” in “Reminiscences of the 25th Anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution,” 2004, Nicaragua Network website, www.nicanet.org/archive/global/reminiscences_revolution_tim.php. 36. Nicaragua Network, “Nicaragua Network Hotline,” Feb. 17, 2009, www.nicanet/org-/?p=621. 37. Jim McGinnis, “Notes (rough copy) from Nicaragua Conference, Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, Nov. 16, 17, 18 [1979],” SCPC, CAWG files, DG-145; “Declaration from the Second National Conference on Nicaragua, November 17–18, 1979,” ibid.; attached to McGinnis’s twenty pages of notes are two pages of meeting notes by Diane Passmore, titled “Outcomes, Resolutions, Directions from the Second National Conference on Nicaragua,” ibid.; and “Second National Conference On Nicaragua, Detroit, Michigan, Nov. 16–18, 1979, Conference Agenda,” WHS, Nicaragua Network files, box 3. 38. Judith Valente, “D.C.-Area Hispanics Collect Funds to Spread Revolutionary Information,” Washington Post, Feb. 25, 1980, A20. 39. Nicaragua Network Newsletter 2, no. 7 (Aug. 1980), 1, North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) microfilm archive, reel #11, Latin America Collection (4th floor), Smathers Library, University of Florida, Gainesville. 40. Nicaragua Network Newsletter 2, no. 7 (Aug. 1980), 1, NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11. 41. Archbishop Oscar Romero, Letter to President Carter, Feb. 12, 1980, quoted in Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America outreach letter, May 1989, author’s collection.

Notes to Pages 70–75

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42. Margaret Swedish, telephone interview by the author, Feb. 17, 2007. 43. Terri Shaw, “Mimeographs Roar in Propaganda War,” Washington Post, Mar. 7, 1982, A1; and Van Gosse, “Radical, Pragmatic, and Successful,” Crossroads Magazine, no. 40 (Apr. 1994), www.nathannewman.org/EDIN/.mags/.cross/.40/.40salv/.40salv.html. 44. Gosse, “‘The North American Front,’” 30. 45. President Reagan formally approved a policy designed to prevent the “proliferation of Cuba-model states” in Central America in April 1982. Raymond Bonner, “President Approved Policy of Preventing ‘Cuba-Model States,’” New York Times, Apr. 7, 1983, A1. 46. Cited in “Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador,” 31, www.derechos.org/ nizkor/salvador/informes/truth.html. 47. Gosse, “Radical, Pragmatic and Successful”; and Van Gosse, telephone interview by the author, Sept. 29, 2006. 48. Aquiles Magana, “The Heart, Soul and Engine,” Crossroads Magazine, no. 40 (Apr. 1994), www.nathannewman.org/EDIN/.mags/.cross/.40/.40salv/.magana.html. See also Nora Hamilton and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Seeking Community in a Global City (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001). 49. “Resolution from the East Coast Conference,” Oct. 11–12, 1980, quoted in Gosse, “‘The North American Front,’” 45–46, note 15. 50. Gosse, “Radical, Pragmatic, and Successful.” 51. Felix Masud-Piloto, telephone interview by the author, July 21, 2007. 52. Margaret Swedish, interview by the author. 53. Terri Shaw, “Mimeographs Roar in Propaganda War,” Washington Post, Mar. 7, 1982, A1. 54. See, e.g., Juan De Onis, “Catholic Bishops Ask End of Arms Aid to El Salvador,” New York Times, Nov. 9, 1980, 15; Kenneth Briggs, “Catholic Bishops Criticize Aid to El Salvador,” New York Times, Nov. 20, 1981, A17; and Briggs, “U.S, Catholic Bishops Opposing Administration’s Salvador Policy,” New York Times, Feb. 21, 1982, 1. 55. Margaret Swedish, interview by the author. 56. Raymond Bonner, “Protests on Salvador Are Staged across U.S.,” New York Times, Mar. 25, 1981, 3. See also Bonner, “The Agony of El Salvador,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 1981, 7. 57. Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP), “El Salvador: U.S. Policy in Crisis,” Campaign Against U.S. Intervention, Legislative Update #1, Apr. 3, 1981, AFSC archive, PED files. 58. Timothy M. Phelps, “U.S. Role in El Salvador Protested,” New York Times, Apr. 19, 1981, A26; and Juan de Onis, “Capital Rally Assails Arms to Salvador,” New York Times, May 4, 1981, A3. 59. Stona Fitch, “El Salvador Dispels Apathy at Princeton,” New York Times, Mar. 14, 1982, 16. 60. CNFMP, “Central America Conference Report,” June 1981, AFSC archive, PED files. 61. Andrew Battista, “Unions and Cold War Foreign Policy in the 1980s: The National Labor Committee, the AFL-CIO, and Central America,” Diplomatic History 26, no. 3 (Summer 2002), 39, 410–11, 442. 62. Susan Gzesh, “Central Americans and Asylum Policy in the Reagan Era,” Migration Information Source, Apr. 2006, www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=384. 63. Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Convictions of the Soul: Religion, Culture, and Agency in the Central American Solidarity Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 132, 133. 64. Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC) organizational records and newsletters; Nicaragua Network Newsletter 3, no. 1 ( Jan.–Feb. 1981), NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11; and Jack Lieberman, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 24, 2006.

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Notes to Pages 75–80

65. Nicaragua Network staff, “A Partial Listing of What NNSNP Committees Are Doing around the Flood and July 19” [1982], SCPC, CAWG files, DG-145. 66. AFSC budget figure and locations of regional and local offices were provided by archivist Barbara Montabana, Philadelphia AFSC office. 67. Jack Malinowski, “Central America Human Rights Program, 1982–1983: A Proposal by the AFSC Peace Education Division,” AFSC archive, PED files; Malinowski, “AFSC Program Related to Central America,” Memorandum to Board of Directors, CarEth Foundation, Sept. 17, 1981, 1, ibid; and Jack Malinowski, telephone interview by the author, July 23, 2007. 68. Jack Malinowski,“Recent Arrest of Human Rights Spokesman in Nicaragua,” Memorandum to Asia Bennett (executive director), Mar. 5, 1981, AFSC archive, PED files. 69. Jack Malinowski, interview by the author. 70. “Countries in Crisis: Report of an AFSC Study Tour to Central America and the Caribbean,” Nov.–Dec. 1980, 2 and 11–12, AFSC archive, PED files; and “Message from Phil Berryman,” Nov. 1980, ibid. 71. Phillip Berryman, interview by the author, Philadelphia, May 18, 2006. Berryman authored two books on the subject of liberation ideology: The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in Central American Revolutions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984) and Liberation Theology: Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond (New York: Pantheon, 1987). 72. Phillip Berryman, “Central America: Prospects for Nonviolence,” WIN Magazine, Mar. 15, 1981, AFSC archive, PED files. 73. AFSC, “Board Perspectives on AFSC’s Nonviolent Role in Relation to Groups Struggling for Social Justice,” Jan. 24, 1981, 1–2, AFSC archive, PED files. 74. Chris Coleman, “Staff Report to AFSC National Office, Peace Education Committee,” AFSC archive, PED files. 75. Defense Intelligence Agency Report, July 1982, quoted in Peter Kornbluh, Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention; Reagan’s Wars against the Sandinistas (Washington, DC: Institute for Policy Studies, 1987) 23. 76. Asia A. Bennett, letter to President Ronald Reagan, Mar. 22, 1981, AFSC archive, PED files. 77. CNFMP, “Nicaragua and U.S. Covert Action,” Campaign Against U.S. Intervention, Legislative Update #19, Mar. 22, 1982, SCPC, CAWG files, DG-145. 78. Martin Tolchin, “Thousands in Washington March to Protest U.S. Policy in Salvador,” New York Times, Mar. 28, 1982, A18. 79. “Statement in Opposition to Covert Intervention in Nicaragua,” May 1982, AFSC archive, PED files. 80. “Report of a U.S. Peace Delegation to Nicaragua and Honduras, Sept. 5–14, 1982,” AFSC archive, PED files. The delegates on the trip represented AFSC, Clergy and Laity Concerned, CNFMP, FOR, IRTFCA, MFS, National Assembly of Women Religious, Pax Christi, SANE, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and U.S. Peace Council. 81. Jack Malinowski, “Contribution to Central America Peace Campaign,” Memorandum to NPED Interim Committee, Oct. 27, 1982, AFSC archive, PED files. 82. “A Secret War in Nicaragua,” Newsweek, Nov. 8, 1982. There were earlier stories suggesting that the United States was engaged in a covert war against Nicaragua: e.g., Don Oberdorfer and Patrick Tyler, “Reagan Backs Action Plan for Central America,” Washington Post, Feb. 14, 1982. 83. Sen. Tom Harkin, letter to Diane Passmore, Dec. 16, 1982, SCPC, CAWG files, box 3.

Notes to Pages 81–86

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4. Expansion of the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1983–84  1. Leslie H. Gelb, “The Boiling Point: White House Puts Central America on a Front Burner,” New York Times, July 24, 1983, E1.  2. Inter-religious Task Force on Central America (IRTFCA), Peacemaking II: U.S. Religious Statements on Central America (New York: IRTFCA, ca. late 1984 or 1985), 49, 39–40. Denominational statements were issued by the United Hebrew Association and the following churches: American Baptist, American Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, Church of the Brethren, Episcopal, Mennonite, Moravian, Presbyterian, Religious Society of Friends, United Church of Christ, Unitarian, and United Methodist. Pastoral letters were issued by five Catholic bishops and archbishops.  3. Cynthia J. Arnson and Philip Brenner, “The Limits of Lobbying: Interest Groups, Congress, and Aid to the Contras,” in Richard Sobel, ed., Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), 195.  4. Joanne Omang, “Catholic Groups Differ with Pope over Nicaragua,” Washington Post, July 23, 1984, A1.  5. IRTFCA, Peacemaking II, 55, 57.  6. Philip Taubman, “The Speaker and His Sources on Latin America,” New York Times, Sept. 12, 1984, B10.  7. “A Proclamation by His Excellency Michael S. Dukakis, Governor,” quoted in Robert E. Surbrug Jr., Beyond Vietnam: The Politics of Protest in Massachusetts, 1974–1990 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), 180.  8. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, “What’s Jewish in Nicaragua” (guest opinion), Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 1, 1984, 14.  9. Charles Mohr, “Reagan Receives Bishops’ Protests,” New York Times, Mar. 10, 1983, A7. Secretary of State Shultz spoke before a joint session of the House Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs and the House Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations. 10. Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Communism in Central America” (op-ed), Washington Post, Apr. 17, 1983, D8. 11. Lou Cannon, “‘Distortion’ on Latin Policy Decried,” Washington Post, Aug. 10, 1983. 12. William Sloane Coffin, “Nicaragua Is Not An Enemy” (op-ed), New York Times, July 31, 1983, E19. 13. See Warren Goldstein, William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006). 14. David Cortright, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 13, 2006. For a history of SANE, see Milton S. Katz, Ban the Bomb: A History of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, 1957–1985 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986). 15. David Cortright, “Opposing the War in Central America,” Memorandum to Staff, July 26, 1983, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, Series G, box 78. 16. “Response from Charlie’s District Coordinators on Central America,” attached to David Cortright, Memorandum, July 26, 1983; and “Report on Central America Educational Activities, October 1983–June 1985, SANE” (n.d.), ibid. 17. Robert Musil, interview by the author, June 27, 2005; and e-mail communication, June 4, 2005. 18. “Report on Central America Educational Activities, October 1983–June 1985, SANE”(no date), SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, box 78.

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Notes to Pages 86–90

19. “Mobilization for Survival 1984 Program,” The Mobilizer 3, no. 4 (Spring 1984), 6–7. The issue of whether disarmament organizations should become involved in the Central America movement was debated by Joseph Gerson and Theo Brown in the February 1984 issue of Nuclear Times, the main forum for the disarmament movement. Gerson, the peace secretary of AFSC, called for a multi-issue peace movement, uniting its “two wings” of disarmament and anti-interventionism. Brown, executive direction of Ground Zero, argued that incorporating a multi-issue agenda would reduce the ability of disarmament organizations to reach new constituencies. “The more baggage we add to our central concern about nuclear war, the more obstacles we put in the way of new people who would come to the issue,” said Brown. “Forum: Deadly Connections,” Nuclear Times 2, no. 4 (Feb. 1984), 11–13. See also Joseph Gerson, ed., The Deadly Connection: Nuclear War and U.S. Intervention (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1986). 20. Peter Peri and Caryle Murphy, “Opposing Groups Air Latin America Views at Vietnam Memorial,” Washington Post, July 3, 1983, A1. 21. “If President Reagan Can Get Away with the Invasion of Grenada, What Next?” (advertisement), New York Times, Nov. 11, 1983, B22. The advertisement was officially sponsored by AFSC. 22. Susan Trausch, “20,000 Protest Invasion, U.S. Role in Latin America,” Boston Globe, Nov. 13, 1983; Robert Pear, “Washington Rally Draws Thousands,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1983, 17; and Caryle Murphy, “20,000 Protest against U.S. Policy,” Washington Post, Nov. 13, 1983, B1. 23. Jim Matlack, AFSC Washington office, “Planning Meeting for November 12 Rally,” Memorandum to Joe Volk et al. (national office), Oct. 27, 1983, AFSC archive, PED files. 24. The original sponsors of the Pledge included AFSC, CALC, FOR, IRTFCA, New Call to Peacemaking, Pax Christi, SANE, SCLC, Sojourners, WFP, and World Peacemakers. 25. The Emergency Response Network (Ken Butigan et. al., eds.), Basta! No Mandate for War: A Pledge of Resistance Handbook (Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1986), preface. 26. The original twelve-member analyst group included Richard Barnet of IPS, Yvonne Dilling and Buddy Summers of WFP, William LeoGrande of American University, David MacMichael, former CIA analyst, Debbie Reuben of Nicaragua Network, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, and representatives from the Center for Defense Information, CAPC, CISPES, NISGUA, and WOLA. The original eight-member signal group consisted of Ken Butigan of the Emergency Response Network in San Francisco, Suzanna Cepeda of SANE, Timothy McDonald of SCLC, Jim Wallis, and representatives from CISPES, Nicaragua Network, NISGUA, and WOLA. 27. Emergency Response Network, Basta!, 22. 28. Ibid.; and Charles Lee Moriwaki, “Protest Effort Planned if U.S. Invades Nicaragua,” Seattle Times, Nov. 17, 1984, D12. 29. Emergency Response Network, Basta!, 1. 30. Pledge of Resistance Emergency Response Network (San Francisco), “Are You Pledging to Do Nonviolent Civil Disobedience?” (two-page flyer), AFSC archive, PED files. 31. James Thaddeus Hannon, “Identity and Participation in a Social Movement Organization, the Boston-Area Pledge of Resistance” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1991), 268–69. Hannon points to tension between the personal and the political, arguing that the former got in the way of the latter at times, but the evidence he presents would rather indicate that personal support networks helped sustain social activist

Notes to Pages 91–98

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commitments. Barbara Epstein draws a sharper distinction between the personal and the political in Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991). 32. Margaret Swedish, telephone interview by the author, Feb. 17, 2007; Yvonne Dilling, telephone interview by the author, Mar. 3, 2007; Richard Healey, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 17, 2006; and David Cortright, interview by the author. 33. Van Gosse, telephone interview by the author, Sept. 29, 2006. 34. Sara Solovitch, “Specter’s Aid Votes Are Challenged,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 18, 1984. 35. Kathy Gille, telephone interview by the author, June 30, 2011. 36. Robert Borosage, telephone interview by the author, May 27, 2011. 37. Rep. David Bonior, telephone interview by the author, June 27, 2011. 38. Information for this section was gleaned from the following: National Central America Anti-Intervention Coalition Meeting notes, Dec. 1, 1983, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, Series G, box 78; Central America Education Project (CAEP), “Dear Friends” letter, Apr. 6, 1984, ibid.; Karen A. Thomas, CAEP Director, “To Friends and Allies, July 27, 1984, Re: Six Month Progress Report,” ibid.; CAEP Coordinating Committee Meeting minutes by Emily Bloch, Apr. 5, 1983, ibid.; “National Campaign for Peace in Central America: The Time for Action Is Now,” Jan. 1984, ibid.; Jean Walsh, Central America Peace Campaign (CAPC), “Dear Friends” letter of Dec. 20, 1984 (summarizing the year’s activities), ibid.; Frank Vardeman, “Report on Field Operations,” July 25, 1984, ibid.; Jamie K. Donaldson, “Monthly Report and Workplan,” Mar. 30, 1984, ibid.; and “Working Paper for a Central America Peace Alternative,” Mar. 1984, ibid. 39. The CAPC steering committee consisted of religious peace groups AFSC, Clergy and Laity Concerned, IRTFCA, and RTFCA; secular peace groups CNFMP, MFS, and SANE; solidarity groups Nicaragua Network, CISPES, and NISGUA; and Washington policy groups Caribbean Basin Information Project, Commission on U.S.-Central America Relations, IPS, and WOLA. 40. SANE press release, “SANE announces major effort on Central America,” May 10, 1984, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, Series G, box 78. 41. CAPC, “Central America Peace Campaign, Preliminary Democratic Delegate Poll Results as of July 15, 1984,” SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, Series G, box 78; Richard E. Meyer, “Hart Threatening to Fight for Central America Plank,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1984; and Jesse Jackson, keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, July 18, 1984, www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jessejackson1984dnc.htm. 42. “Democratic Party Platform of 1984,” in “Political Party Platforms,” The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29608 #axzz1asY94Za2. 43. Leslie H. Gelb, “Isolate Nicaragua if It Won’t Bend, Mondale Suggests,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1984, A1. 44. Francis X. Clines, “Mondale and Reagan Make Sharp Policy Attacks,” New York Times, Oct, 21, 1984, 30. 45. Beth Gillin, “Across Nation This Week, Protests of U.S. Policy in Central America,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 18, 1984, 3F. 46. Holly Sklar, “Central America: No Time to Lose,” The Mobilizer 4, no. 1 (Summer 1984), 9; and “Vietnam? Artists Call against U.S. Intervention in Central America” (advertisement), New York Times, Jan. 22, 1984, E6. 47. Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA), Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: IPS, 1984), 32.

[ 266 ]

Notes to Pages 98–105

48. Central America Resource Center, Directory of Central America Organizations, 3rd Edition, 1987 (Austin, TX: Central America Resource Center, 1986), Introduction. 49. Pacifica Radio Archives online, www.pacificaradioarchives.org. 50. Tom Wicker, “Reagan’s Terrorists,” New York Times, Mar. 27, 1984, A31. 51. Information in this section is from the following sources: Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., telephone interviews by the author, Aug. 20 and Aug. 30, 2007; IFCO, “35 Years of Continued Struggle for Peace and Justice,” www.ifconews.org/about/IFCO-history.htm; IFCO, Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Review of Central America Information Weeks (New York: IFCO, 1986); and An IFCO Report on Central America Information Week Conducted in Ohio, November 11–18, 1984, 1–2, 26, WHS archive, WCCN files, box 4. Rev. Lucius Walker Jr. died on Sept. 7, 2010. 52. “Reframing the debate in the media” was a recommendation by AFSC staff persons at a meeting on Oct. 15, 1984, a few months after the meeting to assess successes and failures in the Central America movement. Jack Malinowski, “Summary from AFSC input to meeting of Washington, DC, groups working on Central America,” Oct. 15, 1984, AFSC archive, PED files. 53. Jack Malinowski, “A Proposal: Negotiation Not Intervention: An AFSC Response to U.S. Policy in Central America, Spring, 1984–Spring, 1985,” AFSC archive, PED files; Angela Berryman, “Proposal for Local Media Project,” July 10, 1984, ibid.; and Betsy Berger, project director, “Evaluation of the Central America Media Project,” Feb. 20, 1985, 2, ibid. 54. Medea Benjamin and Andrea Freedman, Bridging the Global Gap: A Handbook to Linking Citizens of the First and Third Worlds (Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1989), 21; and Barbara Feinman, “Nicaragua Holiday,” Washington Post, May 29, 1984, C1. The 25,000 figure was cited by Bob Guild in a telephone interview by the author, July 11, 2007. 55. Marazul Tours, “1984 Programs to Nicaragua,” Aug. 13, 1984, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 4, Tours to Nicaragua folder; and Tropical Tours, Inc., “Election Tour, October 28 thru November 5, 1984,” ibid. 56. Ed Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace: A Story of Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1991), 28. See also Smith, Resisting Reagan, 70–78. Borge is quoted by Gail Phares, e-mail communication with author, May 2, 2011. 57. Council of Protestant Churches (CEPAD), “Program for the Christian Peace Vigil of Our Brothers and Sisters from the United States” ( July 2–8, 1983), Chuck Jacobsen’s collection. 58. Chuck Jacobsen, interview by author, Tallahassee, FL, May 6, 2006. 59. Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace, 46. 60. Jim Wallis, “Witness for Peace,” Sojourners, Nov. 1983; and “Press release, Nov. 17, 1983: Christians to Obstruct U.S. Policy in Nicaragua,” SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. Jim Wallis was a radical reformer in the Christian prophetic tradition. In his book, The Call to Conversion, he wrote that Christians must break free of “false security” and “spiritual paralysis” so as to work for national redemption and the “conversion of the church in the midst of a crumbling empire, an empire to which the church is now closely allied.” Jim Wallis, The Call to Conversion (San Francisco: Harper, 1981), xxi. 61. Yvonne Dilling and Mary Jo Bowman, “Revolutionary Violence: A Dialogue on Central America,” originally published in the Manchester College Bulletin of the Peace Studies Institute ( June 1981); reprinted in the A. J. Muste Memorial Institute Essay Series, no. 8, (New York: A. J. Memorial Institute, n.d.), 29. 62. Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace, 63.

Notes to Pages 106–112

[ 267 ]

63. Gail Phares, e-mail communication with the author, May 2, 2011; Robertson Barrett, “Spiritual activist lobbies for peace,” News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), Aug. 6, 1989; and Peter A. Geniesse, “A Profile of Gail Phares,” Sojourners, Nov.–Dec. 2003, http://d1112418. domain.com/CITCA/docs/Pharesl.pdf. 64. “Peace Action Award Dinner, April 7, 2005, Acceptance Speech by Gail Phares,” CITCA; see Gail Phares, “Witness for Peace SE History 25 Years, April 1982 to 2007,” http:// d1112418.domain.com/CITCA/history25.htm. 65. Daniel Erdman and Sharon Hostetler, “History and Evolution of the WFP Program in Nicaragua” (Report to Steering Committee), Jan. 22, 1988, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 66. Marjorie Hyer, “21 Leave Here for Nicaragua to Be ‘Human Shield,’” Washington Post, Dec. 1, 1983, A34. 67. Anne Keegan, “Americans Carry Peace Plea to Nicaragua War Zone,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 5, 1984, 18. 68. Helen Brewer and John W. Frank, The Report of the Florida Delegation of Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, September 9–23, 1984 (Gainesville, FL: Pax Christi Florida, 1985). 69. Harriet Ludwig, “‘Witness for Peace’ Says He Saw Genuine Progress in Nicaragua,” Gainesville Sun (FL), Oct. 13, 1984, 1B. 70. Yvonne Dilling, telephone interview by the author. 71. Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace, 102. 72. “1983–84 Volunteer Work Brigades of the National Network in Solidarity with the Nicaragua People,” Brigadista Bulletin, Mar. 13, 1984, 1, NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11. See also “U.S. Volunteers Help Nicaragua with the Harvest,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 1984, A4. 73. Senator James M. Jeffords, An Independent Man: Adventures of a Public Servant (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 184. 74. “Special Report from the Third World Brigade,” Brigadista Bulletin, no. 23 (Mar. 1986,) NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11. 75. “Policy and Guidelines for Thursday Vigils, CUSCLIN,” n.d., CUSCLIN records, Managua. CUSCLIN organizational records and literature were made available to the author by Penn Garvin. 76. Peace Education Project of the Mobilization for Survival, “Understanding Central America through Media,” 1986, author’s collection; and http://deedeehalleck.blogspot. com/2011/02/looking-bad.html. 77. MADRE, “History,” www.madre.org/index/meet-madre-1/who-we-are-49/history-161. html; and James McGinnis, Solidarity with the People of Nicaragua (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 139–40. 78. Rev. Bill Callahan and Dolly Pomerleau, interview by the author, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006; and Douglas Martin, “Rev. William R. Callahan Dies at 78, Dissident Who Challenged the Vatican,” New York Times, July 11, 2010, 24. See also David Cortright’s interview with Callahan in Peace Works: The Citizen’s Role in Ending the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 224–26. Quixote Center organizational records and literature were made available to the author by co-directors Bill Callahan and Dolly Pomerleau. 79. Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 235. 80. Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton, Friends in Deed: The Story of U.S.-Nicaragua Sister Cities (Madison: Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, 1988), 20. 81. Ibid., x.

[ 268 ]

Notes to Pages 113–121

82. Ibid., 6. 83. Sheldon Rampton, interview by the author, Madison, WI, July 20, 2006. 5. Organizational Dynamics of a Decentralized Campaign  1. David Reed, “U.S. Estimates War in Central America,” Coalition Close-up (CNFMP) 8, no. 3 (Fall 1986), 2–3.  2. William LeoGrande, interview by the author, Washington, DC, May 23, 2006.  3. Van Gosse, “Active Engagement: The Legacy of Central America Solidarity,” NACLA Report on the Americas 28, no. 5 (Mar.–Apr. 1995), www.nacla.org; and Gosse, “‘The North American Front’: Central American Solidarity in the Reagan Era,” in Michael Sprinker and Mike Davis, eds., The Year Left, vol. 3: Reshaping the U.S. Left: Popular Struggles in the 1980s (New York: Verso, 1988), 42–43, 39.  4. Sheldon Rampton, interview by the author, Madison, WI, July 20, 2006.  5. Katherine Hoyt, in-person interview by the author, Washington, DC, June 27, 2005.  6. Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 335.  7. Ken Butigan, e-mail communication with the author, October 14–15, 2011.  8. Eric Fried, “Letters,” Brigadista Bulletin no. 24 (Apr. 1986), NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11.  9. Letter from David Cortright to the author, May 1, 1984, author’s collection; Betsy Crites, “Witness for Peace Year End Report, 1988,” SCPC, WFP files, DG-149; and “Summary of the Minutes of the Pledge of Resistance National Meeting,” Nov. 18, 1985, afternoon session, AFSC archive, PED files. 10. Beverly Bickel, Philip Brenner, and William LeoGrande, Challenging the Reagan Doctrine: A Summation of the April 25th Mobilization (Washington, DC: The Foreign Policy Education Fund, Oct. 1987), 21, 42. 11. Richard Healey, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 17, 2006. There were a number of small foundations that funded Central America work, including the A. J. Muste Institute Foundation, Agape Foundation, Arca Foundation, Capp Street Foundation, Peace Development Fund, Sunflower Foundation, and Resist Foundation. 12. “Meeting Minutes of the Executive Committee,” CAPC, Sept. 13, 1984, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, Series G, box 78; and “Meeting Minutes of the CAPC Coordinating Committee,” June 17, 1985, ibid. 13. “Meeting Minutes of the CAPC Coordinating Committee,” June 17, 1985; and Kathy Flewellen, “Central America Peace Campaign on the Road Again,” Central America Peace Campaign newsletter, July–Sept. 1985, 1. 14. Alice Holmes Cooper, Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements since 1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 205, 207, 229. 15. Eric Fried, “Letters.” 16. “Special Central America Issue, Keeping in Touch,” The Bread and Roses Community Fund (newsletter), Winter–Spring 1984, SCPC, Central America Working Group (Philadelphia) files, DG-145, box 3. 17. Donna Cooper, “Organizing Notes: Bringing Central America to Philadelphians,” The Mobilizer 3, no. 4 (Spring 1984), 22–23. 18. The author was a founder and co-coordinator of the Tallahassee Peace Coalition and convened its Central America committees during the 1980s.

Notes to Pages 121–127

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19. Victoria Martinez, responses to author’s questionnaire, July 2, 2006. 20. Smith, Resisting Reagan, 380, 171, table 7.1. 21. “Minutes of the National Pledge of Resistance Meeting,” Nov. 19, 1985, morning session, AFSC archive, PED files. The perception of the Central America movement as being overwhelmingly “white” was also noted by Bob Guild, Van Gosse, and Jack Malinowski, all interviewed by the author. 22. In March 1988 WFP hired Makini Coleman, an African American, to coordinate delegations to the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, where the population was largely Afro-Caribbean. Coleman soon leveled charges of racism at WFP, claiming that her leadership was being unfairly scrutinized because of her race. In an effort to resolve issues, on June 6, 1988, national director Betsy Crites and Coleman sent a twelve-page memo on “Racism and Inclusion” to all WFP staff, steering committee, and regional coordinators. WFP also held a racism workshop in Managua for long-term volunteers in July 1988. Betsy Crites and Makini Coleman, “Memo” to steering committee, staff, regional coordinators, and long-term volunteers, regarding “Atlantic Coast Program” June 6, 1988, 9, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 23. Jack Malinowski and Angie Berryman, “Recommended Cuts in Human Rights/Global Issues Program,” Memorandum to Budget and Priorities Subcommittee, June 1, 1987, AFSC archive, PED files. 24. Bickel, Brenner, and LeoGrande, Challenging the Reagan Doctrine, 59, 48. 25. Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton, Friends in Deed: The Story of U.S.-Nicaragua Sister Cities (Madison: Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, 1988), 41. 26. Barbra Apfelbaum, telephone interview by the author, July 11, 2007, and e-mail communication; and Van Gosse, telephone interview by the author, Sept. 29, 2006. 27. Patricia Squires, “Aiding Contras Opposed,” New York Times, Mar. 16, 1986, 695; and Bob Guild, telephone interview by the author, July 11, 2007. Guild provided the author with a copy of the “Statement on Central America” signed by religious leaders of Bergen County. 28. Bob Guild, interview by the author. 29. Barbra Apfelbaum, interview by the author. 30. Van Gosse, interview by the author. 31. “Florida Conference Against Intervention” meeting notes, July 21, 1984, Friends Meeting House, Orlando, author’s collection. The author participated in the founding of the Florida Coalition in 1982 and briefly served on its board of directors. FCPJ organizational records, literature, and media publicity was made available to the author by coordinator Bob Tancig at FCPJ headquarters in Graham. 32. John Frank, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 4, 2006; and Frank, “Report on Local Groups in Florida Participating in Pledge of Resistance,” Jan. 18, 1985, John Frank’s collection. 33. Some 150 people rallied at the federal building in Tallahassee in February 1985; a series of demonstrations took place in Gainesville between February and April; two-dozen members of the South Florida Coalition for Non-intervention in Central America protested contra aid outside the local office of Rep. Larry Smith in Hollywood in mid-May; and a demonstration in Orlando organized by the Central Florida POR brought out 75 people in June. 34. Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), An IFCO Report on Central America Information Week in Florida, April 6–13 (New York: IFCO, 1986). 35. Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (FCPJ) financial reports (various years), author’s collection. 36. Beth Raps, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 17, 2006. Information for this section

[ 270 ]

Notes to Pages 127–137

was also gathered from the author’s telephone interview with FCPJ coordinator Bruce Gagnon, Oct. 16, 2006. 37. Jack Lieberman, telephone interview by the author, Dec. 24, 2006; Luis Feldstein Soto and Fabiola Santiago, “Demonstrations Turn Ugly Violence Mars Miami Pro-Contra Protest,” Mar. 23, 1986, Miami Herald, A1; and Marc Fisher, “Miami Tests Meaning of Free Speech,” Miami Herald, Mar. 30, 1986, B1. 38. Jack Lieberman, interview by the author; and Renee Krause, “Activists Picket Smith on Contras,” Sun Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale), May 15, 1985, B13. 39. Nan McCurdy, telephone interview by the author, Nov. 29, 2006; Barbara Larcom, interviews by the author, Washington, DC, June 27, 2005, and Baltimore, May 20, 2006; and Casa Baltimore/Limay organizational newsletters and literature, 1986–1990, made available to the author by Barbara Larcom. 40. Jim Mang and Terry Bisson, interview by the author, Buffalo, NY, July 17, 2006; and “Reflections on Civil Disobedience,” Dovetail, no. 6 ( July 1986), 5–6. The latter publication along with WNYPC organizational literature were made available to the author by Terry Bisson and WNYPC director Jim Mang. 41. Mailing list figures were cited by Jon Garlock, interview by the author, July 16, 2006, and by Terry Lindsey, telephone interview by the author, July 15, 2006. Unless otherwise noted, the information for this section on Rochester has come from interviews and communications with the following nine persons, all in Rochester, NY, in June–July 2006: Marilyn Anderson, Michael Argaman, Jon Garlock, Bob Good (telephone), Kathleen Kern, Henrietta Levine (telephone), Terry Lindsey (telephone), Dr. Arnie Matlin (telephone and e-mail communication), and Dr. Peter Mott; and, second, from organizational records and literature of ROCLA, made available to the author by members and former staff persons. Metro Justice coordinator Jon Greenbaum assisted the author in identifying Rochester people to contact for this section; the author also interviewed Rochester native Anne Meisenzahl in Tallahassee, FL, Oct. 30, 2004. 42. Michele Sprint-Moore, “Rochester Committee on Latin America: A Brief History of the Last Three Decades,” Update on the Americas (a bimonthly publication of ROCLA), Special Edition, Oct.–Nov. 2000, 4, 7. 43. “Why Is the Reagan Administration at War with Nicaragua?” (advertisement), City Newspaper: A Journal of Urban News and Opinion (Rochester), Dec. 6, 1984, 2. 44. Todd Lighty, “Nine Nicaragua-Aid Foes Arrested,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 13, 1985, 1B. 45. Antonio Ruíz García ( Junta de Gobierno Municipal, El Sauce, Nicaragua), letter to Rochester sister city, June 3, 1987, translated by Susan Cergol, Henrietta Levine’s collection. 46. Arnie Matlin, “Nicaragua Libre,” Nicaragua Network online, www.nicanet.org/archive/ global/reminiscences_revolution_arnie.php. 47. Michele Moore, “Building Links to Nicaragua,” City Newspaper: A Journal of Urban News and Opinion (n.d., ca. Feb. 1988), Henrietta Levine’s collection. 48. Unless otherwise noted, the information from this section on Portland has come, first, from nine interviews with activists conducted in Portland, Oregon, May 26–28, 2007: Bill Bigelow, Cathie DeWeese-Parkinson, Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson, Diane Drum, Carlos Flores, Diane Hess, Bill Kowalczyk, John Linder, and Jamie Partridge; and second, from PCASC organization records and newsletters (Central America Update) made available to the author by members, former staff persons, and then-current staff person Dan Denvir, who also helped arrange meetings and interviews.

Notes to Pages 137–146

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49. “The Pledge of Resistance,” Central America Update 1, no. 9 (Dec. 1984/Jan. 1985), 3. 50. Diane Hess, “Notes for Nicaragua Independence Day Speech, July 19, 1986, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon” (provided to the author by Hess). 51. PCASC also networked with the following groups: Portland Labor Committee on Central America and the Caribbean, Teachers’ Committee on Central America, Council for Human Rights in Latin America, Rainbow Coalition, Sanctuary Coalition, Black United Front, American Indian Movement, the Portland AFSC office, Pax Christi and FOR chapters, and campus groups at Lewis and Clark College, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland Community College, Portland State University, and Reed College. 52. Bill Bigelow and Jan Fenton, “PCASC Wants You to Volunteer,” Central America Update 1, no. 8 (Nov. 1984), 3. 53. Holly Allen and Jan Fenton, “Congress Approves Aid to the Contras . . . and the Pledge Responds,” ibid., 2, no. 5 ( July/Aug. 1985), 1, 5. 54. Millie Thayer, “No Contra Aid,” ibid., 3, no. 2 (Apr. 1986), 5. 55. “Portland vs. the Contras,” ibid., 3, no. 3 (May 1986), 1. 56. Dick Bogle, City Commissioner, “Excerpts from the Testimony,” ibid., 2, no. 3 (May 1985), 3. 57. Richard Read, “Nicaraguan Mayor Calls for ‘Solidarity,’” Oregonian, Sept. 17, 1985. 58. “Statement by the Honorable Les AuCoin,” Apr. 29, 1987, PCASC records. 59. “Statement by Senator Mark O. Hatfield” (press release), Apr. 29, 1987, PCASC records. 60. Francie Royce and Millie Thayer, “Mourning and Organizing,” Central America Update 4, no. 4 ( June 1987), 2; and “Rebuilding in Ben’s Name, ibid., 4, no. 6 (Sept. 1987), 2. 61. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Multnomah County had 584,000 people in 1990, of which 12,400 spoke Spanish at home. 6. The Politics of Transnational Solidarity  1. “A Reagan Interview,” Washington Post, Apr. 2, 1985, A12 (the interviewers were Lou Cannon and Dave Hoffman); and President Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on the Central American Peace Proposal,” Apr. 20, 1985, The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, www.reagan.utexas.edu. See also David Hoffman, “Reagan Attacks Nicaragua Plan,” Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1985, A1.  2. John Felton, “Reagan and the ‘Contra’ Question: Cloudy Policy Goals, Cloudy Outlook on Hill,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Mar. 15, 1986, 601–5.  3. In September 1981 President Reagan signed a “counterpropaganda initiative” proposed by Charles Z. Wick, head of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), designed “to cope with Soviet propaganda and disinformation.” Dubbed “Project Truth,” the initiative established working groups for various regions and issues, with one devoted exclusively to Nicaragua. This USIA operation set the tone for later creations such as the Office of Public Diplomacy (S/LPD) and White House Outreach Group. Wick had no international or foreign policy experience prior to his appointment in 1981. His credentials for office lay in being a long-time friend of Ronald Reagan, an excellent fund-raiser, and a conservative ideologue. Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 408.  4. Kate Semarad, Associate Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, “Public Diplomacy and Central America,” Memorandum to Gerald Helman, May 1, 1983, 1, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00092.

[ 272 ]

Notes to Pages 146–153

 5. Geraldine O’Leary de Macias, “Sandinista Disinformation,” Public Diplomacy Office Review, Sept. 1, 1984, nonclassified report, 1–3, 6, 13, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI02192.  6. William Perry and Peter Wehner, Institute for the Study of the Americas, “The Latin Americanist Establishment: A Survey of Involvement; An Interpretive Report,” Jan. 1, 1985, Public Diplomacy Office Review copy, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00683. William Perry signed a contract with S/LPD for $9,850 on July 19, 1984.  7. Otto J. Reich, “Public Diplomacy Plan for Europe,” Secret Memorandum to Walter Raymond Jr., July 29, 1985, 1, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC01369.  8. S/LPD, “Ninety-Day Plan,” Revision 5, Dec. 17, 1985, 2, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC02006.  9. Robert Kagan, “Public Diplomacy Plan for Explaining U.S. Central American Policy to the U.S. Religious Community,” Confidential Memorandum to Walter Raymond Jr., Sept. 18, 1986, 1, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC03439. 10. Joanne Omang, “Catholic Groups Differ With Pope Over Nicaragua,” New York Times, July 23, 1984, A1. 11. United States Volunteers in Nicaragua and the Death of Benjamin Linder; Hearings before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, first session, May 13, 1987 (reprint from the collection of the University of Michigan Library, 2010), 118. 12. “The Embassy of Nicaragua Informs U.S. Citizens Traveling to Nicaragua” (advertisement), New York Times, July 3, 1983, E6. 13. Sharon E. Nepstad, “Nicaragua Libre: High-Risk Activism in the U.S.-Nicaragua Solidarity Movement” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1996), 67. 14. David Burnham, “F.B.I. Questions Visitors to Nicaragua,” New York Times, Apr. 18, 1985, A3; and Howard Kurtz, “FBI Probing Nicaragua Visitors; Bureau Declines to Explain Purpose; Rep. Edwards Plans Hearings,” New York Times, May 12, 1987, A12. 15. Philip Shenon, “Papers Show Wide Surveillance of Reagan Critics,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1988, A1; Kathy Bodivitz, “U.S. Salvador Policy Foes: Big FBI Probe of Protest Groups,” San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1988, A1; Ross Gelbspan, “Suit Seeks FBI’s Files on Dissidents,” Boston Globe, Nov. 30, 1988, 8; and Michael Wines, “Panel Criticizes F.B.I. for Scrutiny of U.S. Group,” New York Times, July 17, 1989. 16. “Contract Purchase Order to Pay J. Michael Waller—Resume Attached,” Aug. 3, 1984, NSA, Iran-Contra collection, IC00524. 17. “Response of the National Steering Committee of Witness for Peace to the October 1986 Statement and Press Release Made By the Institute on Religion and Democracy,” Nov. 25, 1986, in Betsy Crites, Witness for Peace Memorandum to WFP Steering Committee, Staff and Regional Coordinators, Dec. 9, 1986, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 18. Miguel d’Escoto, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 12, 2010; and “Maryknoll Welcomes Nicaraguan,” New York Times, June 30, 1986, B2. 19. Miguel d’Escoto, “An Unfinished Canvas,” Sojourners, Mar. 1983. 20. Rita Clark, telephone interview by the author, Oct. 30, 2006; and Sophia Clark, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 9, 2010. 21. Ron Ridenour, Yankee Sandinistas: Interviews with North Americans Living and Working in the New Nicaragua (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1986). 22. Tomás Borge, “This Revolution Was Made to Create a New Society” (excerpts from speech given in Managua on May 1, 1982), reprinted in Bruce Marcus, ed., Nicaragua: The Sandinista People’s Revolution; Speeches by Sandinista Leaders (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1985), 22.

Notes to Pages 153–159

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23. Ernesto Cardenal, “Toward a New Democracy of Culture” (excepts from the statement of Ernesto Cardenal before UNESCO in Paris, Apr. 17, 1982), reprinted in Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer, eds., Nicaragua, Unfinished Revolution; The New Nicaragua Reader (New York: Grove Press, 1986), 417. 24. Dora María Téllez, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 8, 2010, with Joseph Mulligan translating. 25. Ibid.; Margaret Randall, Sandino’s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle, edited by Lunda Yanz (Vancouver/Toronto: New Star Books, 1981), 53; and René Nuñez, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 11, 2010, with Galen Cohee Bayne translating. 26. René Nuñez, interview by the author; and William Grigsby, “Passionate Memories from Times of Solidarity,” Envío, no. 276 ( July 2004). 27. Ambler H. Moss Jr., U. S. Embassy, Panama, Confidential Cable, Oct. 6, 1978, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI00372. In an earlier cable, the Embassy reported that “1500 to 16 hundred Panamanian Volunteers are ready to go to Nicaragua to fight against Anastasio Somoza Debayle.” Victor H. Dikeos, U.S. Embassy, Panama, Confidential Cable, Sept. 15, 1978, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI00242. 28. René Nuñez, interview by the author. 29. See, for example, Against Imperialist Aggressions and Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean: Continental Conference for Peace and Sovereignty in Central America and the Caribbean, Managua, Nicaragua, April 21–23, 1983 (Managua: Conference Proceedings, 1983), 27. 30. Victor Hugo Tinoco, interview by the author, Managua, Mar. 10, 2010, with Joseph Mulligan translating. 31. Miguel d’Escoto, interview by the author. 32. Junta for National Reconstruction, “The Philosophy and Policies of the Government of Nicaragua” (Mar. 1982), reprinted in Rosset and Vandermeer, Nicaraguan Reader, 261. 33. Richard Fagan, “The Nicaraguan Crisis,” Monthly Review 4, no. 6 (Nov. 1982), reprinted in ibid., 30. 34. Victor Hugo Tinoco, interview by the author. The independence of agencies was also noted by Dora María Téllez. 35. Sophia Clark, interview by the author. 36. Ana Patricia Elvir, e-mail communication with the author, Sept. 2007 and Dec. 2009. 37. Harvey Williams, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006; and Thomas W. Walker, telephone interview by the author, May 21, 2007. Williams first came to Nicaragua after the earthquake struck in 1972. He was employed at the Ministry of Labor and taught courses at the University of Central America in Managua during the Somoza years. He returned to the United States in 1976 and regularly visited Nicaragua thereafter. 38. Annie O’Connor, “Nicaraguan Ambassador to U.N. Urges Solidarity,” Nicaraguan Perspectives 1, no. 2 (Fall 1981), 15. 39. Sergio Ramírez, “U.S. Working People Can Stop Intervention in Central America” (Mar. 4, 1982), reprinted in Marcus, Nicaragua: The Sandinista People’s Revolution, 6. 40. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, “Without Solidarity It Is Difficult to Talk About Revolution” (Toronto, Canada, Mar. 31, 1982), reprinted in ibid., 14, 17. 41. Jamie Wheelock, “The Sandinista Front Is the Organization of the Working People” (May 1, 1984), reprinted in ibid., 284. 42. Joanne Omang, “Nicaraguan Leader Makes U.S. Tour,” Washington Post, Oct. 9, 1984, A3; “Construction Brigade Leaves for Nicaragua,” Brigadista Bulletin no. 10, Nov. 1984,

[ 274 ]

Notes to Pages 160–168

NACLA microfilm archive, reel #11; William Becker, “The Home Front,” www.williamgbecker.com/HomeFront.php; and Jacob V. Lamar, “Battle for Hearts and Minds: The Sandinistas and Contras Vie for U.S. support,” Time, April 22, 1985, 20. 43. “Sandinista Makes His Case on a Brooklyn Church Visit,” New York Times, July 28, 1986, A2. 44. Liz Koch, “Marchers Bridge Nicaragua/U.S. Gap,” The Phoenix (Brooklyn community newspaper), July 29, 1986, 1, quoted in Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton, Friends in Deed: The Story of U.S.-Nicaragua Sister Cities (Madison: Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, 1988), 50. 45. Lydia Chavez, “Nicaragua Is Aided by Sister City Projects,” New York Times, Feb. 1, 1987, E6. 46. Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006, with Harold Urbina Cruz translating. 47. Miguel d’Escoto, interview by the author. 48. George de Loma, “Europe vows to expand Latin Aid,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 30, 1984, 3. 49. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 430. 50. Sophia Clark, interview by the author. 51. Envío team, “The Embargo: A Time for Solidarity,” Envío, no. 47 (May 1985). 52. Victor Hugo Tinoco, interview by the author; Rep. David Bonior, telephone interview by the author, June 27, 2011; and Sophia Clark, interview by the author. 53. Sophia Clark, interview by the author. 54. Rev. Bill Callahan, interview by the author, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006; and “ProSandinistas, Opponents March,” Washington Post, Mar. 28, 1985, D5. 55. Miguel d’Escoto, interview by the author. 56. Edward Cody, “Americans Pay Tribute to a Revolution,” Washington Post, July 23, 1985, A9. 57. Neil Henry, “Inside the Revolution,” Washington Post, Sept. 29, 1985, 6. 58. Ana Patricia Elvir, e-mail communication with the author. 59. Ibid. 60. Chuck Kaufman and Katherine Hoyt (Nicaragua Network coordinators), e-mail communications with the author, Sept. 2007. 61. Ana Patricia Elvir, e-mail communication with the author. 62. Envío team, “Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Fasts for Peace: An Interview with Father Miguel D’Escoto,” Envío, No. 49 ( July 1985). 63. “Nicaragua Official Expected to End Fast,” Washington Post, Aug. 3, 1985, A25; Millie Thayer, “Priest’s Fast Ignites Widespread Support,” (PCASC) Central America Update 2, no. 6 (Sept. 1985), 3; and Katherine Hoyt, 30 Years of Memories: Dictatorship, Revolution, and Nicaragua Solidarity (Washington, DC: Nicaragua Network Education Fund, 1996), 141. 64. Carlos Fonseca, Bajo las Banderas del Sandinismo (reprint; Managua: Nueva Nicaragua, 1981), 199, quoted in English in Joseph E. Mulligan, The Nicaraguan Church and the Revolution (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1991), 222. 65. René Nuñez, interview by the author. 66. Chilsen and Rampton, Friends in Deed, appendixes. 67. This outline is a summary of objectives listed by Manuel Ortega Hegg and Günther Maihold in La Cooperación Intermunicipal e Intercomunal y Los Hermanamientos de Ciudades en Nicaragua 1980–1990 (Managua: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1991), 13, 8, 18–19. 68. Ibid., 56; and Chilsen and Rampton, Friends in Deed, 138. 69. Chilsen and Rampton, Friends in Deed, 3, 6, 22; and Hegg and Maihold, La Cooperación Intermunicipal, 14.

Notes to Pages 169–176

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70. Hegg and Maihold, La Cooperación Intermunicipal, 10, 27–29. 71. James M. Markham, “Young Germans Hear the Sandinistas’ Drummer,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1986, A2. See also “Death of German Prompts Protests,” New York Times, May 4, 1983, A9. 72. Mary Dakin et. al., eds., Nicaragua: 4th Battle of the Coffee Harvest (London: Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, ca. early 1986), 2. 73. René Nuñez, interview by the author. 74. Aynn Setright, interview by the author, Managua, June 25, 2006. 75. “Foreign Volunteers Ordered to Quit Nicaraguan War Zones—Move Follows Contra Attacks on West European Workers,” Washington Post, Sept. 21, 1988, A21. 76. “Decatur and Atlanta Mayors Mourn Ben Linder,” Bulletin of Municipal Foreign Policy 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1987), 21. 77. Envío team, “International Solidarity on the Upswing,” Envío, no. 80 (Feb. 1988). 78. William Drozdiak, “Europe Concerned Over Central America’s Impact on Alliance,” Washington Post, Aug. 10, 1983, A16. 79. Flora Lewis, “Foreign Affairs: Signal From the Voters.” New York Times, Apr. 19, 1984, A19. 80. R. W. Apple, “Ireland’s Premier Chides President,” New York Times, June 4, 1984, A1. 81. Jack Nelson, “Latin Policy of U.S. Viewed as Dividing NATO,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 17, 1985. 82. “Spaniards Protest Visit by Reagan,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 1985, 13. 83. Dion van den Berg, “Local Governments’ Support for the Peace Movement in the 1980s: the Example of Dutch Municipalities” ( June 2008), www.citydiplomacy.org/fileadmin/ user_upload/813093_Binnenwerk_en4.pdf. 84. Peter Slevin, “Britons Champion Sandinistas vs. U.S.,” Miami Herald, Aug. 11, 1989, 17A. There were also “North-South” committees and activities that were part of the larger European Nuclear Disarmament campaign. See London School of Economics archive, European Nuclear Disarmament papers, box 51. 85. Eusebio Mujal-León, “The West German Social Democratic Party and the Politics of Internationalism in Central America,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 29, no. 4 (Winter 1987–88), 99. 86. Lawrence S. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 239. 87. Joanne Landy, Jiri Dienstbier, Eva Kanturkova, Vaclav Maly, and Anna Sabatova Jr. et al., “Protests on Nicaragua” (letter to the editor), New York Review of Books, Feb. 13, 1986, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1986/feb/13/protests-on-nicaragua. 88. USIA Office of Research, “West Europeans Critical of U.S. Central American Policy” Research Memorandum, Aug. 30, 1984, 1, 4, 5, NARA, RG 306, Regular and Special Reports of the Office of Research, 1983–87. 89. Leo P. Crespi, “West European Views of U.S. versus Soviet Moral Standing in International Behavior,” Sept. 19, 1984, 1, 6, ibid. 90. C. Ritchey Sloan, USIA Office of Research, “West Europeans Remain Detached but Critical of U.S. Policy in Central America,” May 10, 1985, Research Memorandum, 1, 11 (table), ibid. 91. Steven K. Smith, USIA Office of Research, “Latin American and West European Press Generally Critical of U.S. Policy Towards Nicaragua,” May 17, 1985, 2, ibid. 92. See Sean J. McLaughlin, “De Gaulle’s Peace Program for Vietnam: The Kennedy Years,” Peace and Change 36, no. 2 (Apr. 2010), 218–61.

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Notes to Pages 176–179

93. Phillip Geyelin, “Do Americans Really Understand Western Europe?” Washington Post, Apr. 25, 1985, A23. 7. Meeting the Political Challenge, 1985–86  1. Bernard Weinraub, “President Calls Sandinista Foes ‘Our Brothers,’” New York Times, Feb. 17, 1985, A1.  2. Hedrick Smith, “A Larger Force of Latin Rebels Sought by U.S.,” New York Times, Apr. 17, 1985, A1.  3. David Hoffman and Margaret Shapiro, “Democrats, Reagan Reach Aid Impasse,” Washington Post, Apr. 23, 1985, A1.  4. Hedrick Smith, “O’Neill Turns against Reagan,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1985, A6.  5. Joel Brinkley, “Nicaragua Rebels Accused of Abuses,” New York Times, Dec. 27, 1984, A1. Regarding contra attacks on civilians, Adolfo Calero, chairman of the FDN, made the implausible argument that the contras were fighting in self-defense, telling reporter Stephen Kinzer, “What they [Sandinistas] call a cooperative is also a troop concentration full of armed people. We are not killing civilians. We are fighting armed people and returning fire when fire is directed against us.” Stephen Kinzer, “Nicaraguan Rebels Step Up Raids in Coffee Areas as Harvest Nears,” New York Times, Nov. 23, 1984, A1.  6. Reed Brody, Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission, September 1984–January 1985 (Boston: South End Press, 1985); and Larry Rohter, “Nicaragua Rebels Accused of Abuses: Private Group Reports Pattern of Attacks and Atrocities,” New York Times, Mar. 7, 1985, A1.  7. An Americas Watch Report: Violations of the Laws of War by Both Sides in Nicaragua, 1981– 1985 (Washington, DC: Americas Watch, Mar. 1985), 1.  8. Joanne Omang, “Inquiry Finds Atrocities by Nicaraguan ‘Contras,’” Washington Post, Mar. 7, 1985, A14.  9. “Statement of Adm. Stansfield Turner, Former Director of Central Intelligence” (Apr. 16, 1985), U.S. Support for the Contras, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Ninth Congress, First Session, April 16, 17 and 18, 1985 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 4. 10. John Carmody, “The TV Column,” Washington Post, Apr. 12, 1985; and SANE advertisement (n.d.), SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G, box 78. 11. Debra Reuben, Nicaragua Network letter to affiliates and friends, Feb. 1985, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 3. 12. CAWG meeting notes and plans, Jan. 10, 1985, SCPC, CAWG files, DG-058; and “Suggested Actions for Local Organizers on Covert Aid Debate,” Mar. 27, 1985, ibid. CAWG at this time included representatives of peace and solidarity organizations (CNFMP, CISPES, Nicaragua Network, NISGUA, Quixote Center, SANE, RTFCA, WFP, U.S. Out of Central America, and WOLA), church denominations (American Baptist, Church of the Brethren, Church World Service, Presbyterian Church, United Church of Christ, and Unitarian Universalist Association), and civic and labor groups (International Longshoreman and Warehousemen’s Union, League of United Latin American Citizens, and Common Cause). 13. Desson Howe, “Hollywood Invasion,” Washington Post, Apr. 13, 1985, D3; and Jacob V. Lamar Jr., “Battle for Hearts and Minds: The Sandinistas and Contras Vie for U.S. Support,” Time 125 (Apr. 22, 1985), 20.

Notes to Pages 180–184

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14. Daniel Cantor and Juliet Schor, Tunnel Vision: Labor, the World Economy, and Central America, PACCA Series on the Domestic Roots of U.S. Foreign Policy (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 9; Andrew Battista, “Unions and Cold War Foreign Policy in the 1980s: The National Labor Committee, the AFL-CIO, and Central America,” Diplomatic History 26, no. 3 (Summer 2002), 429; and Labor Network on Central America, Nicaragua: Labor, Democracy, and the Struggle for Peace: Report of the West Coast Trade Union Delegation to Nicaragua (Oakland, CA: Labor Network on Central America, Nov. 1984), 31. 15. Battista, “Unions and Cold War Foreign Policy in the 1980s,” 438, 434–35. NLC unions made further progress at the 1987 AFL-CIO convention when the latter passed a resolution calling for an end to both U.S. military aid to the contras and Soviet and Cuban aid to the Nicaraguan government. 16. Jerry Genesio, Veterans for Peace: The First Decade (Falmouth, ME: Pequawket Press, 1997), 17, 27. 17. A promotional flyer by the War Resisters League included, under the subheading of “antiinterventionism,” the regions of Central America, “the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and Europe.” War Resisters League, “4 Days in April: April 19–22 Protest in Washington, D.C.,” author’s collection. 18. Martin Well and Margaret Engel, “Reagan Policies Protested,” Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1985, B1. 19. Stephen Engelberg, “Thousands Join Protest in Washington,” New York Times, Apr. 21, 1985, 22A. The organizations that signed on as sponsors of the demonstrations went beyond foreign policy groups and included the American Indian Movement, Congress of National Black Churches, League of United Latin American Citizens, Rainbow Coalition, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, U.S. Student Association, International Association of Machinists, International Chemical Workers Union, International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, United Electrical Workers, and United Food and Commercial Workers. 20. Karlyn Barker, “More Than 300 Arrested in White House Protest,” Washington Post, Apr. 23, 1985, B1. 21. Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, “1985 Voting Record,” authors collection. 22. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 434. 23. CUSCLIN press statement, June 13, 1985, CUSCLIN records. 24. Overall estimates are cited in Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 83. Specific figures for arrests are cited in “300 Seized in San Francisco in Nicaragua Protest” (Associated Press), New York Times, May 9, 1985, A6, and in Thomas Palmer, “Charges Dropped against 559 at JFK Nicaragua Protest,” Boston Globe, May 31, 1985. 25. William P. Quigley, “The Necessity Defense in Civil Disobedience Cases: Bring in the Jury,” New England Law Review 28, no. 3 (Fall 2003), 10, www.loyno.edu/~quigley/Articles/articlecivil_disobedience_and_publi.pdf. 26. Ronald W. Powell, “Group in 12th Day of Nicaragua Protest in Federal Building,” Seattle Times, May 21, 1985, B1. 27. Smith, Resisting Reagan, 83. 28. “National Pledge Action,” Witness for Peace (Philadelphia chapter newsletter), June 1985, 1, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149.

[ 278 ]

Notes to Pages 184–191

29. Ken Butigan, “The Pledge of Resistance,” Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, http:// paceebene.org/nvns/nonviolence-news-service-archive/pledge-resistance, 12. 30. The figure of 70,000 is noted in “Minutes of the POR National Meeting for Monday, Nov. 18, 1985,” 1, AFSC archive, PED files. The 100,000 figure is noted in Ken Butigan, “The Pledge of Resistance,” 7. 31. “Minutes of the POR National Meeting for Monday, Nov. 18, 1985,” 1–4. 32. “Minutes of the POR National Meeting for Monday, Nov. 18, 1985,” 1–4; and Pledge of Resistance, “Contra Aid Alert,” Jan. 9, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G. 33. Cynthia J. Arnson and Philip Brenner, “The Limits of Lobbying: Interest Groups, Congress, and Aid to the Contras,” in Richard Sobel, ed., Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), 203. 34. “Briefing: The Nicaragua Push,” New York Times, Mar. 13, 1986, A24. 35. Lore Croghan, “Battle over Aid to Contras Fought on Ad Front,” Adweek, Mar. 31, 1986, 23, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 7. 36. Tim Fogarty, telephone interview by the author, Feb. 22, 2007. 37. American Jewish Congress, “Dear Representative” (letter), Mar. 19, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G. 38. “Religious Figures Protest Contra Aid,” New York Times, Mar. 5, 1986, A4. 39. Michael J. McManus, “Religious Leaders Unite in Opposing Aid for Contras,” Providence Journal (Providence, RI), Mar. 22, 1986, A9. 40. President Ronald Reagan, “Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at a White House Luncheon for Regional Editors and Broadcasters,” June 13, 1986, The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, www.reagan.utexas. edu. 41. Rep. Bob Wittaker, letter to Mark Becker, Mar. 3, 1986, in Mark Becker, “Walking Through the New Nicaragua” (Bethel College, KS: Peace Studies Internship Paper, Aug. 1986), Appendix, www.yachana.org/reports/nicawfp; and Rep. Tom Daschle, letter to Mark Becker, June 30, 1986, ibid. 42. SANE News Release, “SANE to Continue Opposition to Contra Aid,” Mar. 20, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G; and David Dyson and Daniel Cantor, “To Friends and Supporters” (NLC outreach letter), Feb. 7, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G. 43. Arnson and Brenner, “The Limits of Lobbying,” 203–4, 209, 211. 44. Kevin Ellis, “Citizens Respond on Contra Aid Plea,” The Tennessean, Mar. 18, 1986. 45. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 473. 46. William LeoGrande and Philip Brenner, “The House Divided: Ideological Polarization over Aid to the Nicaraguan ‘Contras,’” Legislative Studies Quarterly 18, no. 1 (Feb. 1993): 122. 47. “Aid for the Contras, yes and no; nation’s newspapers split over Reagan’s plan to help guerrillas,” U.S. News & World Report, Mar. 17, 1986, 71. 48. Melinda Beck, with David Newell and Margaret Garrard Warner, “Aid to the Contras: Saying No—For Now,” Newsweek, Mar. 31, 1986, 20. 49. Ken Butigan, “Crossing the Line,” Pledge of Resistance Newsletter, Winter 1987, 1, author’s collection. 50. These slogans were gathered from the national POR Campaign’s “Synopsis of Regional Actions” (brief reports on activities in various cities, Oct. 25, 1986 and Nov. 1–2 demonstrations), n.d., WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 7. 51. “Dear Representative” (CAWG form letter to representatives), Apr. 8, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G.

Notes to Pages 191–195

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52. Robin Toner, “They Who Beg to Differ on Aid to Nicaragua,” New York Times, Mar. 14, 1986, A14; and Ed Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace: A Story of Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 165. 53. Croghan, “Battle over Aid to Contras”; and National POR Campaign, “Pledge Actions, February–May, 1986,” Cornell University, Kroch Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, CUSLAR (Cornell University Committee on U.S–Latin American Relations) files (collection #39/6/2796), box 6. 54. “Congressman Gunderson, Please Don’t Send Our Dollars or Our Boys to a Nicaraguan War” (advertisement), Leader Telegram (Chippewa Falls, WI), Apr. 11, 1986, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 7; and SANE News Release, “SANE to Continue Opposition to Contra Aid,” Mar. 20, 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G. 55. In reviewing the ninety-two books (with 50 pages or more on the Contra War), I found fifty-one to have a strong critical or leftist orientation, while fourteen were clearly supportive of administration claims. Scholars who authored studies (books and articles) critical of the administration’s policy toward Nicaragua, published between 1983 and 1987, include the following: Morris J. Blachman, John A. Booth, E. Bradford Burns, Noam Chomsky, Kenneth M. Coleman, Martin Diskin, Marlene Dixon, George C. Herring, Eldon Kenworthy, Peter Kornbluh, Walter LaFeber, William M. LeoGrande, Kent Norsworthy, William I. Robinson, Lars Schoultz, Kenneth E. Sharpe, Jack Spence, Wayne Smith, and Thomas W. Walker. 56. Stephen Webre, “Central America and the United States in the 1980s: Recent Descriptions and Prescriptions,” Latin American Research Review 21, no. 3 (1986), 184. 57. Bob von Sternberg, “57 Arrested in Protests against U.S. Latin Policy,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, June 27, 1986, B1. 58. Joel Brinkley, “Four Veterans Ending Fast on Policy in Nicaragua,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 1986, A16; Randy Furst, “Fast Was Vet’s Last-Ditch Effort to Protest U.S. Nicaragua Role,” Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Oct. 25, 1986, A14; and David Behrens, “A Fast in the Name of Peace,” Newsday (Long Island, NY), Oct. 8, 1986, 4. 59. Bella English, “Rally against Contra Aid Draws 1,000,” Boston Globe, Sept. 29, 1986, 17. 60. “War Medals Returned to Protest U.S. Policy,” New York Times, Oct. 10, 1986, A22; Penny Pagano, “Fast against Contras Marks Its 39th Day,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 10, 1986, 12; and Penny Pagano, “Four Veterans Say Other Efforts Will Go On, Fast over Central America Policy to End,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 1986, 14. 61. Actions for Peace, Jobs and Justice, letter, July 17, 1986 (plans for October 25, 1986 regional demonstrations), WHS, Nicaragua Network files, box 7; and “Synopsis of Regional Actions” (brief reports on activities in various cities, Oct. 25, 1986 and Nov. 1–2 demonstrations), n.d., ibid. 62. Ben A. Franklin, “Polyglot Protest Planned Today,” New York Times, Oct. 25, 1986, A1. 63. “Dialog: Reaching Out or Acting Out?” Pledge of Resistance Newsletter, Winter 1987, 2, author’s collection. 64. Bob Rini, “Local News: Oregon Guard in Central America,” (PCASC) Central America Update 3, no. 1 (Mar. 1986), 2. 65. “Weekend Warriors No More,” Time 128 (Sept. 8, 1986), 26–27. 66. “National Guard Trips to Honduras Draw Fire,” USA Today, Feb. 11, 1986. 67. St. Louis POR (National Guard Clearinghouse), “The National Guard in Central America and Other Local Military Connections: Organizing Guide,” Dec. 1986, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G; and Peggy Moore (St. Louis Pledge), “Honduran Training:

[ 280 ]

68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82.

Notes to Pages 196–201

National Guard and Reserve,” Pledge of Resistance Newsletter, Winter 1987; and “Local Military Connections,” ibid. Tracy Wenzel, “Secrecy Cloaks Contra-Training Plan,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Nov. 29, 1986, B1. “Are Contras Training at Eglin? Peace Activists on Lookout for Where to Protest,” Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 23, 1986, B5; and Bob Benz, “Pro-Contra Demonstration Planned,” The Log (Fort Walton Beach), Dec. 8, 1986. “Priest Won’t Promise to End ‘Contra’ Protest, Is Ordered Held without Bail,” St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 2, 1986. Betsy Crites, “Endorsers of Hurlburt Field Action Dec. 13, 1986, as of 12/5/86,” Memorandum to Witness for Peace Steering Committee, Dec. 9, 1986, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. Tracy Wenzel, “Protesters Plan Vigil over Contra Funding,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 3, 1986; and Tracy Wenzel, “Aderholt Denies Contra Dealings,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 6, 1986. The Air Commando Association is made up of retired Air Force personnel. Tracy Wenzel, “Rivals Debate Contra Situation,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 11, 1986. Bob Benz, “Marchers Air Opposing Contra Views, The Log, Dec. 13, 1986, 1A. Tracy Wenzel, “Peace Activists Ready for Rally,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 13, 1986, 1. Robert Kuntz and Tracy Wenzel, “Deputies Prepared for Protest,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 14, 1986, 1B; Tracy Wenzel, “Contra Backers Give Their Side of the Story,” ibid.; Tracy Wenzel, “Protesters Ask for Arrest and Get It,” Ft. Walton Beach Daily News, Dec. 14, 1986, 1A; “Hurlburt Protests Are Peaceful, but 10 Are Detained and One Arrested,” Pensacola News Journal, Dec. 14, 1986, 13A; Elizabeth Donavan, “Anti-Contra Protester: Those Arrested Give Up Freedom for Beliefs,” Pensacola News-Journal, Dec. 14, 1986; Barbara Janesh, “Pro-Contra Rally Organizer Plans Pro-American Parade,” Pensacola News-Journal, Dec. 14, 1986; Dudley Clendinen, “Friends and Foes of Contras Rally at Florida Base,” New York Times, Dec. 14, 1986, 20; Lee Forst, “Opponents Uncertain of Future Contra Rallies,” Ft. Walton Beach Playground Daily News, Dec. 15, 1986, 1A; and Tom Fischer, e-mail communication with the author, June 12, 2010. Rev. Grant Gallup, interview by the author, Managua, June 16, 2006; and Gallup, e-mail communication, June 2006. Joanne Omang, “U.S. Groups Counter Contra Aid with Private ‘Quest for Peace’; Multimillion-Dollar Effort Includes Medicine, School Supplies,” Washington Post, Apr. 19, 1987, A20. Debra Reuben and Sylvia Sherman, “Ten Years of Solidarity: A Nicaragua Network History,” Nicaraguan Perspectives, no. 17 (Summer/Fall 1989), 51. Mary Beth George, “Activists Target Trade Embargo,” The Guardian, Nicaragua Anniversary Supplement, Summer 1989, 6. William R. Long, “For U.S. Volunteers Aiding Nicaraguans, Thanksgiving Came Early,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28, 1985; Virginia Escalante, “An Old Warrior Continues His Battle on the Road to Nicaragua,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 28, 1986, 1; “Theodore Ernest, Jr. Veltfort,” Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, www.alba-valb.org/volunteers/theodoreernest-jr-veltfort; and Larry Aydlette, “Ex-Soldier, 81, Now Battles for Peace, Veterans’ Rights,” Palm Beach Post, Nov. 19, 1989, 1B. Quixote Center, “Quest for Peace 20th Anniversary Celebration: An Interactive History

Notes to Pages 201–209

83. 84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89.

90. 91.

92.

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of the Quest for Peace,” Quest for Peace News, No. 68, June 2006; “Quest for Peace: A Campaign to Send $100 Million in True Humanitarian Aid to the People of Nicaragua”; “Quest for Peace National Tally Report—December 15, 1986”; and Rev. Bill Callahan and Dolly Pomerleau, interview by the author, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006. Michael Gillen, “Memories of Nicaragua, 1986,” The Veteran (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) 29, no. 2 (Fall/winter 1999), 28, www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=180. Jim Burchell, telephone interviews by the author, July 16, 2007, and May 4, 2011. Rogers Worthington, “Pardon for Hasenfus ‘Possible,’” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 21, 1986, 12; and Liz Chilsen and Sheldon Rampton, Friends in Deed: The Story of U.S.-Nicaragua Sister Cities (Madison: Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua, 1988), 12. Vilma Nuñez de Escorcia, interview by the author. Stephen Kinzer, “Hasenfus Is Freed by Nicaraguans and Heads Home,” New York Times, Dec. 18, 1986. Daniel Erdman and Sharon Hostetler, “History and Evolution of the WFP Program in Nicaragua,” Jan. 22, 1988, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. Sharon Hostetler, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006; Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace, 149, 153; and “Clergymen Assert Abduction in Nicaragua Wasn’t Staged,” New York Times, Aug. 15, 1985, A3. Sharon Hostetler and Daniel Erdsman, “Spiritual Basis of the Long-Term Team Work in Nicaragua,” Jan. 1989, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. Joan Friedberg, “A Review: Destination Nicaragua: The Documentary,” The Messenger, Mar. 13, 1986, Empowerment Project, www.empowermentproject.org/pages/destactual _rev.html. Aynn Setright, interview by the author, Managua, June 25, 2006.

8. Sustaining the Anti–Contra War Campaign, 1987–90  1. Steven Slade, “The Chance We’ve Been Waiting For,” Pledge of Resistance Newsletter, Winter 1987, 1.  2. Central America Resource Center, Directory of Central America Organizations, Introduction.  3. Ken Butigan, “The Pledge of Resistance,” Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service, Jan. 18, 2006, http://paceebene.org/nvns/nonviolence-news-service-archive/pledge-resistance.  4. Gail Phares and Rev. Bill Webber, Witness for Peace letter to Rev. Phillip Cousin, National Council of Churches, Nov. 30, 1986, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149.  5. Betsy Crites, Memorandum to WFP Staff, Steering Committee and Regional Coordinators, July 22, 1987, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149.  6. Dave Dyson, “Labor Takes the Field,” 4, www.nathannewman.org/EDIN/.mags/. cross/.40/.40salv/.dyson.html.  7. Richard Stengel, “Congress Shows Its Impatience: With an Artful Ploy, It Registers Coolness toward the Contras,” Time, Mar. 23, 1987, 16–17.  8. James L. Franklin, “5 Christian Leaders Charged in Protest,” Boston Globe, Mar. 14, 1987, 19. The five leaders were Rev. Arie Brower, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, Rev. John Humbert, president of the Disciples of Christ Church, Rev. Avery Post, president of the United Church of Christ, Rev. Joseph Nangle of the Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and Doris Anne Younger, general director of Church Women United.  9. Beverly Bickel, Philip Brenner, and William LeoGrande, Challenging the Reagan Doctrine:

[ 282 ]

Notes to Pages 210–216

A Summation of the April 25th Mobilization (Washington, DC: The Foreign Policy Education Fund, Oct. 1987), 8–10, 39. 10. Matthew L. Wald, “Amy Carter Tells Court She Sat in Road to Alter C.I.A. Policy,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 1987, A17; and Wald, “Amy Carter Is Acquitted over Protest,” New York Times, Apr. 16, 1987, A17. 11. Dyson, “Labor Takes the Field,” 5. The source of much of the information in this section is from Bickel et al., Challenging the Reagan Doctrine. 12. Bickel et al., Challenging the Reagan Doctrine, 6. The makeup of the Steering Committee for the April 25th mobilization was not listed in the Mobe’s publications, but it would appear from various reports that the faith-based activist sector included AFSC, IRTFCA, National Council of Churches, POR, Quixote Center, RTFCA, and WFP; the secular peace and justice sector included CNFMP, Democratic Socialists of America, MFS, Rainbow Coalition, SANE/Freeze, Washington Peace Center, and WILPF; and the solidarity sector, which combined Central America and Southern Africa groups, included CISPES, NISGUA, Nicaragua Network, MADRE, American Committee on Africa, TransAfrica, and Washington Office on Africa. 13. The National Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Central America and Southern Africa, “Dear Disarmament Activist” (letter), Mar. 6, 1987, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G. 14. Bickel et al., Challenging the Reagan Doctrine, 25, 48, 20, 45. 15. Ibid., 28, 34, 37, 48. 16. Joel Freedman, Assistant to the President for Economic Development, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, “An Analysis of the April 25th Mobilization.” Memorandum to John T. Joyce, Apr. 2, 1987, 11, SCPC, SANE files, DG-058, series G; and Albert Shanker, “Avoiding the ‘Wrong Crowd’” (display ad), New York Times, Apr. 19, 1987, E7. 17. Wayne King, “Thousands Protest U.S. Policy in Central America,” New York Times, Apr. 26, 1987, A32. The U.S. Capitol Police estimated the total turnout in Washington at 75,000. 18. Ibid.; and Bickel et al., Challenging the Reagan Doctrine, 10–11. 19. Lee Hockstader, “560 Arrested at CIA Headquarters: Throng Protesting U.S. Foreign Policy Snarls Traffic in McLean,” Washington Post, Apr. 28, 1987, A1. 20. Philip Brenner, telephone interview by the author, July 19, 2007; and William LeoGrande, e-mail communication with the author, July 10, 2007. 21. Lawrence E. Walsh, “Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters,” vol. 1, Investigations and Prosecutions, Aug. 4, 1993, Washington, DC, Executive Summary, www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh. See also Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne, eds., The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New York: New Press, 1993), 338. 22. Richard L. Berke and Kenneth B. Noble, “Lobbying and Contributions by Conservative Fund-Raiser Evoke Questions,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1987, A10; and Daniel K. Inouye and Lee H. Hamilton, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, with the Minority View, abridged edition (New York: Random House, 1988), xxvii. 23. Harry Van Cleve, Comptroller General of the U.S. General Accounting Office, nonclassified letter to Rep. Jack Brooks and Rep. Dante B. Fascell, Sept. 30, 1987, NSA, IranContra collection, IC04287. 24. Committee on Foreign Affairs Staff Report, U.S. House of Representatives, State Department and Intelligence Community Involvement in Domestic Activities Related to the Iran/ Contra Affair, Sept. 7, 1988, 24, NSA, Nicaragua collection, NI02137. 25. Dan Chapman, “Lobby Groups Take Aim at the Undecideds,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Online ( Jan. 30, 1988), 200; Andrew Rosenthal, “Campaign Formed Opposing

Notes to Pages 216–224

[ 283 ]

Contras,” New York Times, Aug. 14, 1987, A8; and “Coalition Lobbying Against Contra Aid,” Nuclear Times 5, no. 5 ( July/Aug. 1987), 33. 26. Stanley B. Greenberg, “Contra Aid: American Antipathy to Foreign Engagement,” Aug. 20, 1987, 18, www.gqrr.com/articles/1693/3757_r_contraaid_082087.pdf. 27. Countdown ’87 Highlights: Field Organizing—February, 1988, Bonior Papers, Wayne State University, box 66, cited in Paul Thomas Dean, “Unusual Campaign: NGO’s Long Battle to End Contra Aid” (PhD diss., Washington State University, May 2011), 129, 141. 28. Rosenthal, “Campaign Formed Opposing Contras.” 29. William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977– 1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 528. 30. Kathy Scruggs, “Contras Are Killing Civilians, Report Claims,” Atlanta Constitution, Sept. 24, 1987, A4. 31. S. Brian Willson, letter to Capt. Lonnie Cagle, Commander Concord Naval Weapons Station, Aug. 21, 1987, WHS archive, VFP files, box 2, folder 11. 32. “Excerpts from Testimony Prepared and Presented by S. Brian Willson for Hearings Conducted by the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations, Washington, DC, November 18, 1987,” www.brianwillson.com/evracnwstest.html. 33. S. Brian Willson, “Autobiography,” www.brianwillson.com/autobiography; and “Americans Visit Military Zone, Protesters in Nicaragua,” San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 5, 1987, 15. 34. “Ortega’s Partner to Visit Man Run Over by Train,” Houston Chronicle, Sept. 4, 1987, 4. 35. Vicki Kemper, “The Times: Grassroots Campaigns for Peace in Nicaragua,” Sojourners 17, no. 1 ( Jan. 1988), 11–12. 36. Dean, “Unusual Campaign,” 178. 37. Rosa DeLauro, “All Seven Democratic Presidential Candidates Oppose Contra Aid Bill” (press release), Feb. 2, 1988, Bonior Papers, cited in Dean, “Unusual Campaign,” 173 footnote. 38. Richard Boudreaux, “U.S. Must End Contra Aid, Latin Report Says: International Panel Views Support for Rebels, Non-Compliance by 4 Nations as Barring Peace,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 14, 1988. 39. “Central America: 39 Mayors Sign Anti–Contra Initiative,” Bulletin of Municipal Foreign Policy 2, no. 2 (Spring 1988), 28–29. 40. Dean, “Unusual Campaign,” 190, 130–32. 41. Robert Borosage, Kathy Gille, and David Bonior interviews by the author. 42 Envío team, “Sapoá—A New Benchmark,” Envío, no. 83 (May 1988). 43. See, e.g., Julia Preston, “28 Deaths, Mostly Civilian, Are Laid to Contras in Nicaragua: Neighbor Northern Towns Jolted by Explosions,” Washington Post, Feb. 10, 1988, A1. 44. “Reagan Action in Honduras Stirs Demonstrations in U.S.,” New York Times, Mar. 19, 1988, 5; Peter Ross, “The End Game in Nicaragua (American Troops in Honduras May be Last Ploy in Conflict),” U.S. News and World Report, 104, no. 12 (Mar. 28, 1988), 16; and Steven Engelberg with Elaine Sciolino, “A U.S. Frame-up of Nicaragua Charged,” New York Times, Feb. 4, 1988, A1. 45. “Reagan Action in Honduras Stirs Demonstrations in U.S.,” New York Times; and “Protesters Hit Streets over U.S. Troop Move,” Seattle Times, Mar. 19, 1988, A1. The figure of 900 total arrests was cited in Christian Smith, Resisting Reagan: The U.S. Central America Peace Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 85. 46. Stengel, “Congress Shows Its Impatience.” 47. President Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Aid to the Nicaraguan Democratic

[ 284 ]

Notes to Pages 225–230

Resistance,” February 2, 1988, The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, www.reagan.utexas.edu. 48. Jack Malinowski and Angie Berryman, “Recommended Cuts in Human Rights/Global Issues Program,” Memorandum to Budget and Priorities Subcommittee, June 1, 1987, AFSC archive, PED files; and Robert Stark and Colin Danby, “After Contra Aid Defeat— What Next?” Nicaraguan Perspectives, no. 15 (Summer 1988), 13. 49. “Cover-Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair,” Empowerment Project, www.empowermentproject.org/pages/coverup.html. 50. Sharon Haas, Don McClain, and Lucius Walker, IFCO fundraising letter, June 11, 1987, WHS, WCCN files, box 4. 51. Michael Greenwood, “After a Night in Jail, Gandall is at UConn,” The Daily Campus, Feb. 28, 1989, WHS VFP files, box 1, folder 6. 52. Joanne Omang, “U.S. Groups Counter Contra Aid with Private ‘Quest for Peace,’ Multimillion-dollar Effort Includes Medicine, School Supplies,” Washington Post, Apr. 19, 1987, A20; and John M. Goshko, “Expelled Nicaraguan Envoy Beats Deadline; Tünnermann, 7 Others Ousted in Retaliation for Sandinista Action Against U.S.,” Washington Post, July 16, 1988, A16. 53. John Linder, interview by the author, Portland, Oregon, May 27, 2007 (used throughout this section on the Linder family tour); Ben Linder Memorial Fund Newsletter, Autumn 1989, PCASC records; and Bill Donahue, “A Personal Mission; Northwest Living: Ben’s Legacy,” The Oregonian, April 19, 1992, www.stanford.edu/group/arts/nicaragua/student/linder/local1.html. 54. Tim Calvert, “Linder Family Tours for Peace,” (PCASC) Central America Update 4, no. 6 (Sept. 1987), 7. 55. Gerald M. Boyd, “Bush Debates With Brother of American Slain by Contras,” New York Times, Aug. 1, 1987, A1; and Frank Clifford, “Audience Hails Vice-President’s Reply, Brother of Man Slain by Contras Confronts Bush,” Los Angeles Times, Aug., 1, 1987. 56. United States Volunteers in Nicaragua and the Death of Benjamin Linder; Hearings before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, first session, May 13, 1987 (reprint from the collection of the University of Michigan Library, 2010), 2, 65, 96. 57. William Branigin, “Americans in Nicaragua Undeterred by Killing: Linder’s Death Spotlights Volunteer Brigade,” Washington Post, May 3, 1987, A21. 58. Quixote Center, “Rebuilding Nicaragua, April 1989 Report,” 1, Quixote Center records. 59. Envío team, “Nicaragua Tries Peace Moves While Waiting for US Voters,” Envío, no. 88 (Nov. 1988). 60. Ed Griffin-Nolan, Witness for Peace: A Story of Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1991), 192, 196. 61. Quixote Center, “Rebuilding Nicaragua, April 1989 Report,” 3; and “Quest for Peace 20th Anniversary Celebration,” Quest for Peace News, no. 68 ( June 2006), 2, Quixote Center records. 62. Sources for this section include the following: Don Mosley, telephone interview by the author, August 1, 2007; Don Mosley, with Joyce Hollyday, With Our Own Eyes: The Dramatic Story of a Christian Response to the Wounds of War, Racism, and Oppression (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996); “Nicaragua: Walk in Peace,” Update Central America (IRTFCA newsletter), May–June 1987, 5; and Jubilee Partners Report, Dec. 1989, 4. All quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the Mosley interview.

Notes to Pages 231–238

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63. Mosley, With Our Own Eyes, 151. 64. Veterans Peace Convoy Update, July 1, 1988, WHS archive, VFP files, box 2, folder 6; and Ed Deaton, interview by the author, Tallahassee, Oct. 1, 2004. 65. “Nicaragua Supply Convoy Protests at White House,” Sun Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale) (AP), June 24, 1988, 3A. See also Peter Applebome, “Talks Over Convoy Reach Dead End,” New York Times, June 15, 1988, A6. 66. Nicholas W. Pilugin, “U.S. Policy against Aid to Nicaragua Is Target of Harbor Demonstration,” Boston Globe, July 10, 1988, 24. 67. “Ortega Receives U.S. Convoy in Public Ceremony,” Boston Globe (AP), July 30, 1988. 68. “Nicaragua Embargo Weakened by Ruling,” Boston Globe, Oct. 2, 1988. 69. “Minister’s Mission is Nicaragua,” USA Today, July 17, 1989, 2A. 70. IFCO Pastors for Peace Convoy (1988), author’s collection. The author drove the Miami truck in the convoy and went to the Bluefields area. 71. IFCO Pastors for Peace Caravan to Nicaragua, July–August 1989 (New York: IFCO, 1989), 11. This IFCO report includes copies of local news articles on the caravan. Figures on the value of aid and numbers of events, drivers, and people reached are cited on p. 5. 72. Gov. Michael Dukakis, quoted in Martin Binkin and William W. Kaufmann, U.S. Army Guard and Reserve: Rhetoric, Realities, Risks (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1989), 82. See also “Dukakis Loses Appeal on National Guard,” Washington Post, Oct. 26, 1988, A14. 73. “1988 Democratic Party Platform,” The Patriot Post, http://patriotpost.us/document /1988-democratic-platform. 74. Michael Oreskes, “Senate Votes, 64 to 35, to Send Money to the Opposition Parties in Nicaragua: Arms Are No Longer the Issue. Now It’s a Matter of Sound Trucks,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 1989, A1. 75. WFP, “Nicaragua Hotline: Summary of Documented Contra Attacks After Passage of Bipartisan Accord, April 13–October 14, 1989,” SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 76. Bob Greene, Nicaragua’s Continuing Challenge,” Nicaragua Network News 2, no. 4 (Summer 1989), 5, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 3. 77. “National Media Response Campaign,” Nicaragua Network Subscriber Service 1, no. 3 (Sept. 15, 1989), 1; and “Quest for Peace Media Project,” The Activist (FCPJ Central America Project newsletter), no. 2 (Nov. 1989), 3, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 4. 78. Lucy Harris, Coordinator of Short-Term Delegations, “Update on WFP Delegations,” Memorandum to Steering Committee, Regional Coordinators, Staff, and Long-Term Team, July 6, 1989, 2, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 79. Betsy Crites, “Year-End Report, Witness for Peace, 1988,” 2, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149. 80. Sheldon Rampton, “Sister Cities Gear Up for Nicaraguan Elections,” Bulletin of Municipal Foreign Policy 3, no. 4 (Autumn 1989), 34. 81. “SANE/Freeze Weekly Legislative Report, Week of September 25, 1989,” author’s collection; Nicaragua Network and Quest for Peace, fundraising letter regarding the “Pens and Pencils for Nicaraguan Elections” project, July 1, 1989, author’s collection.; and Chuck Kaufman, conversations with the author, June 2006. 82. “The Nicaraguan Elections of February 25, 1990, Report of the Ad Hoc Coalition of United States Sister Cities for Election Observation in Nicaragua,” March 12, 1990, WHS, WCCN files, box 4; and Rampton, “Sister Cities Gear Up for Nicaraguan Elections.”  83. Rampton, “Sister Cities Gear Up for Nicaraguan Elections.”  84. “1990 Election Results,” Nicaraguan Perspectives, no. 19 (Fall/Winter 1990), 3.

[ 286 ]

Notes to Pages 238–242

 85. María López Vigil, director of Envío magazine in 2006, comments at a meeting with a visiting group of U.S. citizens, organized by Nicaragua Network and Kairos House in Managua, June 19, 2006.  86. Heike Amelung, “Nicaragua’s Election,” The Activist (Gainesville, FL), no. 6, (Mar. 1990), 1, WHS archive, Nicaragua Network files, box 4.  87. Jay Mathews, “Settlement Reached in Protest Case,” Portland Press Herald (Portland, OR), Aug. 9, 1990, WHS archive, VFP files, box 1, folder 2.  88. Sam R. Hope, “A Statement Regarding the Elections in Nicaragua,” Feb. 27, 1990, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149.  89. Chuck Kaufman, conversations with the author, June 2006.  90. Barbra Apfelbaum, telephone interview by the author, July 11, 2007.  91. “The Morning After in Nicaragua,” New York Times (editorial), Feb. 27, 1990.  92. Witness for Peace, “Special Report from Nicaragua: Contra Demobilization,” June 11, 1990, SCPC, WFP files, DG-149.  93. Steven Crabill, “Sandinistas Out; So Are Tourists,” The Record (Hackensack, NJ), Aug. 21, 1990, C22.  94. Katherine Hoyt, 30 Years of Memories: Dictatorship, Revolution, and Nicaragua Solidarity (Washington, DC: Nicaragua Network Education Fund, 1996), 147; Hari Dillon, letter to TecNica friends and supporters, Nov. 28, 1990, author’s collection; and WCCN, “2003 US-Nicaragua Sister Cities Directory,” author’s collection.  95. Clair Weber, Visions of Solidarity: U.S. Peace Activists in Nicaragua, from War to Women’s Activism and Globalization (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 95, 88. For an annotated list of U.S. groups involved in Nicaragua as of 2011, see “Links: National Groups with Nicaragua Programs,” www.nicanet.org/archive/nicanet_links.php.  96. Hoyt, 30 Years of Memories, 147.  97. See United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, From Madness to Hope: The 12 Year War in El Salvador (Mar. 1993), and Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification, Guatemala: Memory of Silence (Feb. 1999).  98. “Central America Solidarity Roundtable, October 22–25, 1992: Report of Proceedings,” 18, made available to the author by Peter Mott, conference organizer. Conference participants included representatives from AFSC (Angela Berryman), CITCA (Gail Phares), CAWG, CISPES, EPICA, FOR, Neighbor to Neighbor, Nicaragua Network (Katherine Hoyt), PACCA (Robert Stark), RTFCA (Margaret Swedish), Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, WFP, and WOLA.  99. Sharon Hostetler, interview by the author, Managua, June 26, 2006. 100. WFP Nicaragua Team, “Dead-End Trade Deal Nears Dead End,” Witness for Peace Newsletter 24, no. 2 (Fall 2007), 6. 101. SOA Watch, “Evo Morales Announces: ‘No More Bolivian Soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC!’” Oct. 11, 2007, www.soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =1600. 102. Tim Merrill, ed., Nicaragua: A Country Study (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1993), www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9296.html. 103. Richard Boudreaux, “Nicaragua Economy Worse After Chamorro’s 1st Year,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 15, 1991. 104. Leonel Calero Calderón, comments at a meeting with community leaders from Condega, organized by Nicaragua Network and Kairos House in Managua, held in Condega, June 22, 2006.

Notes to Pages 243–246

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105. Larry Aydlette, “Ex-Soldier, 81, Now Battles for Peace, Veterans’ Rights,” Palm Beach Post, Nov. 19, 1989, 1B; and Jane Musgrave, “Gadfly Gets Honored—Then Gets HeaveHo,” Sun Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale), Oct. 17, 1990, 5B. Conclusion   1. Thomas W. Walker, ed., Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), xiii.   2. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” Address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, Aug. 16, 1967, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford. edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/where_do_we_go_from_here _delivered_at_the_11th_annual_sclc_convention.

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List of Personal Interviews and Communications

Anderson, Marilyn. In person, taped, Rochester, NY, July 16, 2006 (Rochester activist). Anonymous. In person, Nicaraguan Embassy, Washington, DC, May 23, 2006. Apfelbaum, Barbra. Telephone, July 11, 2007. (NJCAN state coordinator). Arenas, Carlos. In person, Madison, WI, July 19, 2006 (WCCN coordinator in 2006). Argamon, Michael. In person, taped, Rochester, NY, July 16, 2006 (Rochester activist). Argüello Hurtado, Father Álvaro. In person, taped, Managua, June 26, 2006 (part of the Envío team and Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, Managua). Berryman, Philip. In person, Philadelphia, May 18, 2006 (AFSC national staff person and speaker; author). Bigelow, Bill. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 28, 2007 (Portland activist and PCASC newsletter editor). Bisson, Terry. In person, taped, Buffalo, NY, July 17, 2006 (Buffalo activist). Bonior, David. Telephone, June 27, 2011 (congressional representative from Michigan, chair of the House Democratic Task Force on Central America). Borosage, Robert. Telephone, May 27, 2011 (IPS director). Bracewell, Carol. In person, taped, Madison, July 20, 2006. (CALA coordinator in 2006.) Brenner, Philip. Telephone, July 19, 2007, and email communication (author). Burchell, Jim. Telephone, July 16, 2007, and May 4, 2011 (NJCAN activist; Quixote Center field staff). Butigan, Ken. E-mail communication, October 14–15, 2011 (POR coordinator, San Francisco Bay area and national level). Butler, Judy. In person, taped, Managua, June 25, 2006 (Envío editor in Managua). Callahan, Rev. William. In person, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006 (Quixote Center codirector). [ 289 ]

[ 290 ]

Personal Interviews and Communications

Clark, Rita. Telephone, Oct. 30, 2006 (Nicaraguan Embassy staff person; founder of the U.S.Nicaragua Friendship Society in 1990). Clark, Sophia. In person, taped, Mar. 9, 2010, Managua (Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry, Dept. of North American Affairs staff person; first secretary at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington, DC). Cortright, David. Telephone, Oct. 13, 2006 (SANE executive director). Deaton, Ed. In person, Tallahassee, FL, Oct. 1, 2004 (Tallahassee VFP chapter president). D’Escoto Brockmann, Fr. Miguel. In person, taped, Mar. 12, 2010, Managua (minister of foreign relations in the FSLN government). DeWeese-Parkinson, Cathie. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 26, 2007 (PCASC steering committee member). DeWeese-Parkinson, Lynn. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 26, 2007 (PCASC coordinator). Dilling, Yvonne. Telephone, Mar. 4, 2007 (temporary coordinator of Nicaragua Network; WFP national director). Drum, Diane. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (Portland activist). Elvir, Ana Patricia. Email communications, Sept. 2007 and Nov/Dec. 2009 (CNASP coordinator in Nicaragua). Fischer, Tom. Email communication, Sept. 12, 2010, and other conversations (VFP activist in Tallahassee). Flores, Carlos. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (Portland activist). Fogarty, Tim. Telephone, Feb. 22, 2007 (local activist in Ocala, FL; Habitat for Humanity volunteer in Nicaragua). Frank, John. Telephone, Oct. 4, 2006 (Florida Pax Christi coordinator; Florida POR coordinator). Funkhouser, David. Telephone, Dec. 20, 2006 (Nicaragua Network national coordinator; Philadelphia CAOP staff person). Gagnon, Bruce. Telephone, Oct. 18, 2006 (FCPJ state coordinator). Gallup, Grant Mauricio. In person, Managua, June 16, 2006 (independent religious activist in Nicaragua). Garlock, Jon. In person, taped, Rochester, NY, July 16, 2006 (ROCLA coordinator). Gille, Kathy. Telephone, June 30, 2011 (foreign policy aide to Rep. David Bonior and staff person for the House Democratic Task Force on Central America). Good, Bob. Telephone, July 2006 (Rochester, NY, activist). Gosse, Van. Telephone, taped, Sept. 29, 2006 (national CISPES student outreach coordinator; NJCAN member; author). Guild, Bob. Telephone, July 11, 2007, and email communication (New Jersey activist; program director of Marazul Tours). Hall, Lillian. In person, Managua, July 14, 2004 (Quaker House in Managua staff person). Healey, Richard. Telephone, Dec. 17, 2006 (CNFMP national director). Hess, Diane. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (PCASC coordinator). Hochstetler, Kenn. In person, taped, Tallahassee, FL, Aug. 31, 2006 (assisted Quaker-based Alternatives to Violence program in Nicaragua in 1994). Hostetler, Sharon. In person, taped, Managua, June 23, 2006 (WFP coordinator in Managua). Hoyt, Katherine. In person, Washington, DC, July 27, 2005 (Michigan Interfaith Committee on Central American Human Rights coordinator; Nicaragua Network national staff person beginning in 1991; author).

Personal Interviews and Communications

[ 291 ]

Jacobsen, Chuck. In person, Tallahassee, FL, May 6, 2006 (Tallahassee activist). Kampwirth, Karen. In person, Nicaragua, June 18, 2006 (author). Kaufman, Chuck. In person, Washington, DC, July 27, 2005, and subsequent conversations and email communications (Nicaragua Network national staff person beginning in August 1987). Kern, Kathleen. In person, taped, Rochester, NY, July 16, 2006 (Rochester activist). Kowalczyk, Bill. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (Portland activist). Larcom, Barbara. In person, Washington, DC, July 27, 2005, and Baltimore, May 20, 2006 (Baltimore activist, coordinator of Baltimore–San Juan de Limay sister city program beginning in 1992). LeoGrande, William M. In person, Washington, DC, May 23, 2006, and email communications (staff person for the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Central America in 1985–86; PACCA board member; POR Signal Committee member; author). Levine, Henrietta. Telephone, July 18, 2006, and correspondence (Rochester, NY, activist and coordinator of Ciudad Hermana sister city program). Lieberman, Jack. Telephone interview, Dec. 24, 2006 (founding member of LACASA, Miami). Linder, John. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (activist in New Orleans and Portland; Ben Linder Peace Tour speaker in 1987). Lindsey, Terry. Telephone, July 2006 (Rochester, NY, activist). Lloyd, Rev. Art. In person, taped, Madison, WI, July 20, 2006 (founding member of CALA, Madison). Lloyd, Sue. In person, taped, Madison, WI, July 20, 2006 (Madison activist; WCCN staff person). Loudon, Tom. In person, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006 (WFP long-term volunteer). Malinowski, Jack. Telephone, July 23, 2007 (AFSC Peace Education Division national coordinator). Mang, Jim. In person, taped, Buffalo, NY, July 17, 2006 (WNYPC coordinator). Martinez, Victoria. Questionnaire completed, July 2, 2006 (Tallahassee, FL, activist). Masud-Piloto, Félix. Telephone, July 21, 2007 (coordinator of CISPES chapter at Florida State University). Matlin, Arnie. Telephone, Rochester, NY, July 2006, and other correspondence (Rochester activist). McCurdy, Nan. Telephone, Nov. 29, 2006 (founder of Casa Baltimore/Limay; lived and worked in San Juan de Limay). Meisenzahl, Anne. In person, Tallahassee, FL, Oct. 30, 2004 (Rochester, NY, activist). Mosley, Don. Telephone, Aug. 1, 2007 (founder of Habitat for Humanity and Walk in Peace projects in Nicaragua; FOR national coordinator, 1984–86; author). Mott, Peter. In person, taped, Rochester, NY, July 16, 2006 (Rochester activist). Mulligan, Fr. Joseph. In person, March 9, 2010, Managua ( Jesuit missionary in Nicaragua; Envío English editor and writer; author). Musil, Robert. In person, Washington, DC, June 27, 2005, and email communication, June 4, 2005. (director of SANE radio program, Consider the Alternatives). Nuñez de Escorcio, Vilma. In person, taped, Managua, June 26, 2006 (vice president of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court of Justice; active in Nicaraguan peace, human rights, and women’s rights groups). Nuñez Téllez, René. In person, taped, March 11, 2010, Managua (secretary of the FSLN

[ 292 ]

Personal Interviews and Communications

Directorate, director of the Office on Religious Affairs, and minister to the President’s Office). Paine, Ruth Hyde. Questionnaire, May 29, 2005, and email communication (Pro-Nica coordinator, St. Petersburg, FL). Partridge, Jamie. In person, taped, Portland, OR, May 27, 2007 (Portland activist). Phares, Gail. Email communication, May 2, 2011 (CITCA founder and cofounder of NISGUA, WFP, and POR). Pomerleau, Dolly. In person, Hyattsville, MD, May 25, 2006 (Quixote Center codirector). Rampton, Sheldon. In person, taped, Madison, WI, July 20, 2006 (WCCN board member; author). Raps, Beth. Telephone, Oct. 17, 2006 (FCPJ Central America Network coordinator). Schestopol, Abe. In person, Tallahassee, FL, Jan. 17, 2007, and Dec. 19, 2009 (Tallahassee activist). Setright, Aynn. In person, taped, Managua, June 25, 2006 (WFP long-term volunteer and independent activist in Nicaragua). Spriggs, Kent. Telephone, Nov. 10, 2007, and Dec. 19, 2009 (helped coordinate Venceremos brigade to Cuba in 1971). Swedish, Margaret. Telephone, Feb. 18, 2007 (RTFCA national director; author). Téllez, Dora María. In person, taped, Mar. 8, 2010, Managua (deputy president of the Council of State in the FSLN government, 1979–84, and minister of health, 1985–90). Tinoco Fonseca, Victor Hugo. In person, taped, Mar. 10, 2010, Managua (deputy foreign minister in the FSLN government). Walker, Lucius. Telephone, Aug. 20 and Aug. 30, 2007 (IFCO national director). Walker, Thomas W. Telephone, May 21, 2007 (led LASA delegations to Nicaragua; author). Williams, Harvey. In person, partly taped, Managua, June 15 and 26, 2006 (led LASA delegations to Nicaragua with Tom Walker; author).

Index

Abrams, Elliot, 26, 228 Addams, Jane, 8 Ad Hoc Committee for Democracy in Nicaragua, 30 affinity groups, 90, 117, 131–32, 134, 184 Afghanistan, 34, 35 AFL-CIO, 26, 63, 74, 180, 212, 277n15 agrarian reform, 14 Alarcón, Salomón, 164, 170 All-American Anti-Imperialist League, 9 Allende, Salvador, 59; overthrow of (1973), 59–60, 61 Amelung, Heike, 238 American Committee for Information on Brazil, 60, 282n12 American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 9, 63, 75–78, 122, 226; in anti– Contra War coalitions, 79, 86, 88, 118, 210, 262n80, 265n39, 282n12, 286n98; educational resources developed by, 49–50, 76, 101–2, 225; and humanitarian aid, 61, 78, 111, 199, 229, 240; and nonviolence, 77–78; and Pledge of Resistance, 88, 184, 264n24 American Institute for Free Labor Development, 26

American Lutheran church, 41, 263n2 Americas Watch, 43, 178 Amezua, Ketxu, 112 Amnesty International, 60–61 AMNLAE (Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women), 14, 68, 102, 157 Anderson, Marilyn, 133 anti–Vietnam War movement, 6, 63, 64, 194; as inspiration, 89; parallels of, with anti–Contra War campaign, 6, 42, 63; problems within, 6, 114; veterans of, in Central America movement, 4, 63, 64–65, 124, 131, 135, 210 Antonio Valdivieso Ecumenical Center, 55, 102, 130, 157 Apfelbaum, Barbra, 123, 124–25, 239 April 1987 Mobilization (Washington, DC), 119, 122, 210–14 Arana, Saúl, 66–67 Arce, Bayardo, 85, 155, 156 Architects and Planners in Support of Nicaragua (APSNICA), 111, 129 Argentina, 25, 61, 165, 242. See also Argentine security forces Argentine security forces, 1, 12, 16, 20 [ 293 ]

[ 294 ] Argüello, Álvaro, 15–16, 54, 250n28 Argüello, Frederico, 27 Argüello, Roberto, 55 Arias, Oscar, 25, 216–17; peace plan sponsored by: see Esquipulas accords Armony, Arial C., 21 Arnson, Cynthia, 3, 46–47, 82, 188 Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America, 98 Aspin, Les, 220 Astorga, Nora, 152, 160, 161 Atlanta, Ga., 66, 89, 159, 191, 217, 220, 230 Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, 21, 110, 269n22 AuCoin, Les, 137, 140, 143 Baer, Byron M., 123 Baez, Joan, 216 Baltimore, Md. See Casa Baltimore/San Juan de Limay sister city project Baltodano, Mónica, 67, 68 Barnes, Michael, 46, 73, 78, 79–80 Barricada, 17, 68–69, 102, 156, 158 Bayard de Volo, Lorraine, 14 Beals, Carleton, 9 Bedell, Berkley, 2 Bell, Chuck, 139 Bellagamba, Anthony D., 82 Bendaña, Alejandro, 28, 67, 152, 161 Bennett, Asia, 78 Bentsen, Lloyd, 234 Bergen County Committee on Central America (BCCCA), 124 Bermúdez, Enrique, 20, 221–22 Berryman, Angela, 76–77, 101, 122, 184, 224–25 Berryman, Phillip, 67, 76–77, 92, 101 Bickel, Beverly, 212 Bigelow, Bill, 56–57, 140, 142, 143, 144 Bikes Not Bombs, 111 Bisson, Terry, 131, 132 Blank, Irwin, 166 Bogle, Dick, 140 Boland, Edward, 80, 81. See also Boland amendments Boland amendments (1982 and 1984), 38, 80, 81, 93, 94 Bonior, David, 93, 162, 187, 213; as leader of

Index Contra War opponents in U.S. House, 38, 92, 93, 215, 220–21 Borge, Tomás, 10–11, 16, 103, 153, 159, 161, 238 Borosage, Robert, 93, 220–21 Boston, Mass., 71, 83, 86, 89, 111, 191; antiwar veterans in, 192–93, 232; demonstrations in, 73, 183, 192–93, 232; Nicaraguan speakers in, 159, 163; in 1970s, 65, 66; Pledge of Resistance in, 89, 90, 183 Bradley, Bill, 123 Brazil, 25, 60, 190, 205 Bread and Puppet Theater, 213 Brenner, Philip, 46–47, 82, 188, 189, 212, 213 Brett, Edward T., 53 Brickner, Balfour, 83 Britain. See Great Britain Brody, Reed, 160, 178 Browne, Jackson, 213 Buffalo Pledge of Resistance, 131–32 Buhl, Cindy, 91 Burbach, Roger, 67 Bush, George H. W., 83, 214, 227–28, 234, 239; administration of, 234–36, 237, 242, 245 Butigan, Ken, 88, 89, 116–17, 117, 184, 190, 264n26 Cabestrero, Teófilo, 27 Cagan, Leslie, 210–11 Calderón, Leonel Calero, 242 Calero, Adolfo, 30, 221, 276n5 California, 66, 74, 78, 111, 120, 179, 217–18. See also Los Angeles; San Francisco Callahan, Bill, 111, 112, 163, 164, 200, 202 Cantor, Daniel, 74 Cardenal, Ernesto, 55, 103, 153, 161 Cardenal, Fernando, 13, 55 Cardin, Benjamin, 130 Carolina Interfaith Task Force on Central America (CITCA), 103, 106 Carrión, Luis, 159 Carter, Amy, 209–10 Carter, Jimmy, 222, 230, 231; as president, 18, 34, 60, 70 (see also Carter administration) Carter administration, 12, 18–19, 34, 45,

Index 60–61, 71; and El Salvador, 70, 71; and Nicaragua, 12, 18, 19 Casa Baltimore/San Juan de Limay sister city project, 128–31 Casa Nicaragua (San Francisco), 65 Casey, William, 23–24 Catholic Church, 12, 167; in Nicaragua, 11–12, 16, 27, 157; in U.S., 41, 53, 63, 73, 147 (see also Religious Task Force on Central America). See also Catholic orders Catholic orders, 157. See also Jesuit order; Maryknoll order Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), 45, 148, 228, 233 Center for International Policy, 41, 98, 259n25 Central America Education Project (CAEP), 94 Central America Historical Institute, 37–38, 41, 98, 259n25 Central America Information Weeks, 99–101, 118, 126, 139, 226, 236 Central America Organizing Project (CAOP, Philadelphia), 120 Central America Peace Campaign (CAPC), 39–40, 94, 119, 265n39; limited success of, 94–95, 102, 118–19; and 1984 Democratic convention, 95, 114; revival of, 188 Central America Resource Center (Austin, Tex.), 98, 259n25 Central America Solidarity Roundtable conference (1992), 241 Central America Week, 97, 123–24 Central America Working Group (CAWG), 90–91, 119, 215, 236, 276n12, 286n98; coordination of lobbying by, 90–94, 114, 179; creation of, 64 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 1–2, 10, 20, 23, 178, 210, 223; ”assassination manual” of, 42–43, 106, 177; bombing of Nicaraguan oil depots by, 1–2, 22; congressional restrictions on, 20, 34, 189; demonstrations against, 210, 211, 213; and formation of contras, 1, 20–21; mining of Nicaraguan harbors by, 1–2, 22, 38; and Nicaraguan internal opposition, 26–27

[ 295 ] CEPAD. See Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua Cesar, Alfredo, 221 Chamorro, Carlos Fernando, 17, 158 Chamorro, Claudia, 17 Chamorro, Cristiana, 17 Chamorro, Javier, 158, 161 Chamorro, Pedro Joaquín (father), 11, 12, 158 Chamorro, Pedro Joaquín (son), 17 Chamorro, Violeta Barrios de, 15, 17, 235, 238, 239; government headed by, 242 Channell, Carl R. “Spitz,” 214 Chatfield, Charles, 6 Cheek, James, 62 Chicago Tribune, 107 Chicanos Against Military Intervention in Latin America, 232 Chilcote, Ronald H., 62 Chile: 1973 coup in, 2, 59–60, 61, 132; U.S. activists and, 59–60, 61, 62, 132–33 Chilsen, Liz, 112, 113, 122 Chomsky, Noam, 50 Christianity and Crisis, 55, 99 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency CISPES. See Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador “Citizen Hearings on Nicaragua” (1984), 108 civil disobedience, 196, 198; disagreements about, 39, 124, 139, 194, 211; Pledge of Resistance and, 40, 88, 89, 90, 123, 131, 132, 183–84, 193–94, 223; training for, 90, 131; and Vietnam War, 64, 131; in Washington, DC, 182, 192, 209, 211, 236 Civilian Military Assistance, 22–23 Clark, Margarita, 129, 151, 240 Clark, Sophia, 151, 161–62, 163, 226 Clarke, Maura, 71, 105 Clarridge, Duane R., 20, 21 Clements, Charlie, 144 Clergy and Laity Concerned, 63, 79, 89, 131, 132, 262n80, 265n39 Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP), 63–64, 86, 118, 265n39, 276n12; and emergence of Central America movement, 73–74;

[ 296 ] CNFMP (continued) lobbying role of, 64, 90–91 (see also Central America Working Group); name change of, 215; and national demonstrations, 88, 282n12. See also Healey, Richard; Reed, David Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, 215, 236. See also Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy Coffin, William Sloane, Jr., 82, 84, 87, 131, 182, 213 Cold War ideology, 31, 32–36, 188, 224, 237; efforts to challenge, 49–51, 98 Coleman, Chris, 77–78 Coleman, Makini, 217, 269n22 Collins, Judy, 216 Commission on U.S.–Central American Relations, 98, 191, 259n25, 265n39 Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. See SANE Committee for Health Rights in Central America (CHRICA), 139 Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), 39, 70–72, 74, 137, 236; in antiwar coalitions, 72, 88, 91, 121, 123, 210, 221, 264n26, 265n39, 276n12, 282n12, 286n98; on college campuses, 118, 121; FBI harassment of, 148–49; and FMLN, 71–72, 121, 138; Latinos in, 71, 122 Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples (CNSP), 156–57, 164–66 Common Cause, 37 Communications Workers of America, 123, 212 Communist International, 9 Communist Party USA, 9, 56, 57, 141 Community Action on Latin America (CALA), 59 Concerned U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua (CUSCLIN), 45, 109–10, 182–83, 185, 200, 240 Condon, Gerry, 232 CONFER (Nicaraguan Conference of Religious), 157 Congressional Black Caucus, 73, 121 Contadora initiative, 25, 42, 101, 171, 172, 177 Continental Conference for Peace and

Index Sovereignty in Central America and the Caribbean (1983), 158 Continental Conference of Solidarity with the People of Nicaragua (1978), 154 contra aid; congressional votes on, 4–5, 23, 44, 80, 81, 94, 182, 189, 209, 220–21, 222, 235; as major political issue in U.S., 3, 29, 81, 91; public opinion regarding, 4, 51–52, 145, 209, 216; secret illegal channels for, 23, 38, 94, 163, 214 contras, 1, 20–22, 239; CIA and, 20, 22, 23, 42–43; composition of, 20–21; conflicting characterizations of, in U.S., 2, 31, 51, 138, 178, 179, 187; in Costa Rica, 1, 21–22, 221–22; differences among, 21–22, 221–22; formation of, 1, 16, 20–21; military weakness of, 23; in negotiations (1988), 221–22; regional peace plans and, 24, 25, 216; targeting of civilians by, 22, 42–44, 108, 129–30, 142, 160, 169–71, 177–79, 191, 206, 217, 224, 228, 233, 235; training of some, in U.S., 196–97. See also contra aid Conyers, John, 213 Coolidge administration, 7–8 Cooper, Alice Holmes, 119–20 Cooper, Donna, 120 Cortright, David, 85, 86, 91, 95, 213 COSEP (Superior Council for Private Enterprise), 11, 16 Costa Rica, 17, 154, 242; contras in, 1, 21–22, 221–22; and regional peace initiatives, 25, 216–17 Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua (CEPAD), 54, 146, 157, 230, 240; origins of, 54; and Witness for Peace, 103, 104, 203. See also Parajón, Gustavo Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 98, 259n25 “Countdown ‘87 Campaign to End Contra Aid,” 215–17, 218–22 Cousins, Philip, 166 Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (film), 225–26 Crespi, Leo P., 174–75 Crispin, Mayes, 50 Crites, Betsy, 208

Index Crockett, George, 228 Cruz, Arturo, 18, 28, 253n74 Cuba, 10, 58–59, 96, 224; as bad example in U.S. conservative rhetoric, 71, 196; Sandinistas and, 13, 16, 18, 26, 153, 154, 157 CUSCLIN. See Concerned U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua Daniel, Dan, 51 Darrow, Sheila, 100 “Deadly Connection” educational campaign, 86 DeBenedetti, Charles, 6 DeLauro, Rosa, 215 Delgadillo, Teresa, 227 Dellums, Ron, 218 Demierre, Maurice, 170 Democratic Leadership Council on Central America, 93. See also House Democratic Task Force on Central America Democratic Party convention (1984), 95–96, 114 Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), 56 Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), 56, 88, 210, 282n12 Democratic Union for Liberation (UDEL), 11 D’Escoto, Miguel, 55, 149–51, 155, 162, 242; background of, 149–50; as diplomat, 24, 26, 161; efforts to discredit, 146, 149; fast undertaken by (1985), 166; and liberation theology, 53, 149, 150–51; speeches by, in U.S., 62, 159; and U.S. antiwar activists, 85, 150–51, 164 Detroit, Mich., 66, 67, 68, 166, 193–94 DeWeese-Parkinson, Cathie, 141–42, 143 DeWeese-Parkinson, Lynn, 137, 141–42 Díaz, Adolfo, 7 Dilling, Yvonne, 66, 91, 104–5, 106, 108, 264n26 Directorate of International Relations (DRI), 155, 156 disarmament movement, 86, 117, 263– 64n19. See also SANE Dodd, Christopher, 162, 203, 215 Dominican Republic invasion (1965), 61–62

[ 297 ] Donaldson, Jamie K., 94 Donovan, Jean, 71 Donovan, Nancy, 178 Doughty, Paul, 237 Du Bois, W. E. B., 8 Dukakis, Michael, 83, 195, 219, 234 Durenberger, David, 38–39, 255n31 Dyess, William J., 20 Dyson, David, 74, 209, 210 Earl, Anthony, 202, 238 earthquake of 1972, 11, 54, 151 Eastern Europe, 173–74 Ecumenical Committee of EnglishSpeaking Religious Personnel, 240. See also Concerned U.S. Citizens Living in Nicaragua Ecumenical Program for Interamerican Communication and Action (EPICA), 54, 59, 66, 286n98. See also Wheaton, Philip Edgar, Robert, 18 educational outreach, 71, 72, 96–99, 189–92, 223–28 Edwards, Don, 148 Ehrenreich, Barbara, 56 Eisenhower, Dwight, 112 Eldridge, Joe, 61 elections: in Nicaragua: see Nicaraguan elections; in U.S., 96, 177, 189, 234 Ellsberg, Daniel, 210, 213 El Salvador, 2–3, 8, 25, 71, 155, 240; alleged FSLN aid to guerrillas in, 19, 20, 24, 44, 67, 223; human rights abuses in, 27, 70, 71, 180, 240; refugees from, in U.S., 70, 71, 74–75, 143–44; U.S. activists and, 2–3, 70, 73–75, 133, 137–38, 236, 240 (see also Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) Elvir, Ana Patricia, 156, 165, 166 Emergency Response Campaign (1989), 236 Enders, Thomas, 24 Engel, Kathy, 111 Envio, 54, 55, 98, 166, 171, 200, 238 EPICA. See Ecumenical Program for Interamerican Communication and Action

[ 298 ] Esquipulas accords (1987), 4, 25, 93, 216, 219, 221, 223; Nicaraguan compliance with, 235; U.S. attempts to undermine, 25–26, 216–17, 219, 234 Esquivel, Adolfo Pérez, 2, 61 Europe. See Eastern Europe; Western Europe Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development (CEPAD), 54. See also Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua Executive Order on Intelligence Activities (EO 12333), 38 Fairfax-Condega Sister City Project, 66 Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), 236 Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), 58–59 Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), 70, 72, 121, 138; CISPES and, 71–72, 121, 138; founding of (1980), 70 Farrell, Robert C., 159 FDN. See Nicaraguan Democratic Force Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 148–49 Feldman, Susan, 138–39 Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), 9, 61, 63, 79, 230; and Pledge of Resistance, 89, 139, 264n24 films, 73, 110, 188, 204–5, 225–26 FitzGerald, Garret, 172 Flores, Carlos, 143–44 Florida, 107–8, 125–28, 186, 195–99; Bill Gandall in, 226, 243; Central America Information Week in, 100, 126; Pledge of Resistance in, 89, 126; statewide organizations in, 86, 126–27, 196. See also Ft. Walton Beach; Gainesville; Miami; Tallahassee Florida State University, 72, 121, 128 FMLN. See Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front Fogarty, Tim, 186 Fonseca, Carlos, 10–11, 167 Ford, Ida, 71 Frank, John, 107–8, 126

Index Fraser, Douglas, 74 Freeman, Joseph, 8–9 Freiwirth, Jerry, 227 Fretz, Bob, 108 Fried, Eric, 118 Friedman, Mike, 127 FSLN. See Sandinista National Liberation Front Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., 126, 196–98 Fuentes, Carlos, 151 Funkhauser, David, 66, 97 Gainesville, Fla., 108, 125, 198, 238 Galeano, Eduardo, 56 Gandall, Bill, 1–2, 197, 200, 226, 242–43 García, Antonio Ruíz, 135 Garcia, Robert, 44 García, Zelmina, 135 Garlock, Jon, 133 Gates, Robert, 23 Gejdenson, Samuel, 178 Gelb, Leslie, 81 Germany. See West Germany Giese, Frank, 142 Gilderhus, Mark T., 27 Gille, Kathy, 92–93, 215, 221 Goff, James, 55, 110 Goff, Margaret, 55 Gonzalez, Felipe, 172 Gonzalez, Martin, 144 González, Noel, 68 Good, Bob, 134 Good, Jim, 134 Good Neighbor Policy, 10, 34 Gordon, Jack, 127 Gordon, Kathy, 138–39 Gorostiaga, Xabier, 62 Gosse, Van, 58, 71, 72, 91, 115, 123, 125 Granada, Dorothy, 240 Great Britain, 33, 173, 174, 175, 176 Green, James N., 60 Greene, Bob, 235–36 Greene, Graham, 151 Grenada invasion (1983), 40–41, 45, 86, 87, 109–10, 129, 223 Grosjean, Pierre, 169 Guatemala, 16, 25, 50, 240; human rights

Index abuses in, 27, 70, 105, 199, 240–41; 1954 coup in, 2, 10, 103; refugees from, in U.S., 70, 71, 74; U.S. activists and, 4, 62, 70–71, 133, 199 Guild, Bob, 102, 124 Gumbleton, Thomas, 82, 147, 166, 201, 213, 232 “guns versus butter” theme, 224 Gutierrez de Barreto, María del Socorro, 55 Haas, Sharon, 100, 126 Haase, Edward, 148 Habitat for Humanity, 159, 230, 231, 240 Haig, Alexander, 19 Hancock, Loni, 219 Hannah, Daryl, 151 Hannon, James, 90, 264n31 Harkin, Tom, 80, 162 Harrington, Michael, 56, 73–74 Hart, Gary, 25, 219 Hassan, Moisés, 67, 152 Hatfield, Mark, 140, 143 Healy, Peggy, 67, 83 Hegg, Manuel Ortega, 168 Hellman, Judith Adler, 59 Henley, Don, 216 Hernandez, Diógenes, 221 Hernandez, Sayda, 68 Hernández, Sergio, 142 Hess, Diane, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141 Hickey, James A., 41 Hoffman, Abbie, 210 Honduras, 25; contra bases in, 1, 16, 22, 170; efforts to provoke Nicaraguan “invasion” of, 23, 222–23; U.S. forces in, 40, 98, 172, 194–95, 222–23 Hoover, Herbert, 9–10 Hope, Sam, 239 Hornsby, Jim, 231 Hornsby, Sarah, 231 Horton, Frank J., 134 Horton, Lynn, 24 House Democratic Task Force on Central America, 38, 48, 92, 215, 221. See also Bonior, David Hoyt, Katherine, 116, 240, 286n98 humanitarian aid, 110–12, 199–202; AFSC

[ 299 ] and, 61, 78, 111, 199, 229, 240; MADRE and, 62–63, 110–11, 199, 229, 232; Nicaraguan Network and, 111, 165, 229, 232, 237; Quixote Center and, 111–12, 114, 199, 200–202, 228–29, 232, 236, 240; sister city partnerships and, 136, 141, 199, 229, 240 Humanitarian Assistance for Nicaraguan Democracy (HAND), 111 Hurricane Joan (1988), 136, 229, 233 Hyer, Marjorie, 107 IFCO. See Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization infant mortality, 14, 46 Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), 38, 41, 45, 62, 86, 191, 215 Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA), 146 Institute of John XXIII, 112, 157 Institute on Religion and Democracy, 149 Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica, 15, 54, 157 Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center, 98, 259n25 International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 74, 88, 277n19 International Business Communications (IBC), 30 International Court of Justice, 6, 44, 161, 189, 223; U.S. defiance of, 44–45 international law, 31, 37, 79, 189, 217–18, 223. See also International Court of Justice; United Nations: charter of Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), 99–101, 109; aid caravans organized by, 136, 232, 233–34; and Central America Information Weeks, 99, 100, 118, 126, 139, 226, 236; work of, with local and statewide groups, 100–101, 118, 126, 226 Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America (IRTFCA), 70, 97, 116, 226, 236; in coalitions, 264n24, 265n39, 282n12 Ireland, 172, 175

[ 300 ] Jackson, Jesse, 87, 95, 121, 181, 213, 219 Jacobsen, Chuck, 103–4 Jeffords, James M., 25, 109 Jeffries, Tim, 66 Jerez, César, 213 Jesuit order, 54–55, 240. See also Institute of John XXIII; Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica Johnson, Lyndon, 39, 176 John XXIII, 12 Jordan, June, 213 Journal of Latin American Studies, 47 Joyce, John T., 212 Kagan, Robert, 147 Kansas, 100 Karl, Teri, 62 Kaufman, Chuck, 165, 237, 239 Kazan, George P., 233 Keane, Jim, 132 Keegan, Anne, 107 Kellogg, Frank, 7, 8 Kemp, Jack F., 132 Kemper, Vicki, 219 Kennedy, Edward M., 40 Kennedy, John F., 176 Kennedy, Rosario, 127 Kern, Kathleen, 134 Kerry, John, 162 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 150, 246 Kirkland, Lane, 212 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 30, 83–84, 205 Kissinger, Henry, 31. See also Kissinger Commission Kissinger Commission (National Bipartisan Commission on Central America), 31, 41–42 Knop, Julie, 231 Kovic, Ron, 87 Kowalczyk, Bill, 141 Kullberg, Patsy, 142 Kurz, Karl, 111 LaFalce, John J., 132 LaFeber, Walter, 50 Lamperti, John, 49–50 La Prensa, 11, 17, 26, 27, 102

Index Larcom, Barbara, 130–31 Latin American Perspectives, 47 Latin American Protestant Commission for Christian Education, 54 Latin American Research Review, 47, 191 Latin American Studies Association (LASA), 28, 61–62, 237–38 Latin American Working Group, 236. See also Central America Working Group Lazar, Bill, 126, 196, 197 Leland, Mickey, 232 Lenten Witness to End the War in Nicaragua (1987), 209 LeoGrande, William M., 24, 36, 62, 115; on April 1987 Mobilization, 212, 213–14; on dynamics of Contra War debate, 48–49, 189 Levine, Henrietta, 135, 136 Lewis, Anthony, 45, 99 Lewis, Flora, 172 liberation theology, 12, 50, 53–55, 93, 157; Miguel d’Escoto and, 149, 150–51 Lieberman, Jack, 127–28 Linder, Ben, 142–43, 170–71, 199, 225, 228 Linder, David, 226, 227 Linder, Elisabeth, 226–27 Linder, John, 170, 226, 227, 228 Linder, Miriam, 170, 226, 227 literacy campaign, 13, 14, 59 Lloyd, Art, 59–60, 113 Lloyd, Sue, 113 Long, Clarence, 40 López, Julio, 155 Lopez, Victor, 67 López Portillo, José, 24, 78 Lowery, Joseph, 87, 201, 213 Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women (AMNLAE), 14, 68, 102, 157 MacMichael, David, 20 MADRE, 62–63, 179, 282n12; founding of (1983), 110–11; and humanitarian aid, 62–63, 110–11, 199, 229, 232 Maihold, Günther, 168 Malinowski, Jack, 76, 101, 122, 224–25 Mang, Jim, 131–32

Index Marazul Tours, 102, 124 Marker, Dennis, 116 Martinez, Raul, 220 Martinez, Victoria, 121 Martinez Cuenca, Alejandro, 152 Maryknoll Catholic order, 53, 82–83, 105, 111, 178, 205; and El Salvador, 71; See also Bourgeois, Roy; D’Escoto, Miguel; Healy, Peggy; Orbis Books Masud-Piloto, Félix, 72 Mata, Francisco Tapia, 140–41 Matlack, Jim, 88 Matlin, Arnie, 135–36 Mayorga, Silvio, 10–11 McClain, Don, 100, 126 McCurdy, Dave, 182 McCurdy, Nan, 128–30 McGovern, George, 87 Mears, Mike, 170–71 Medellin conference (1968), 12, 47 Medical Aid to El Salvador, 72, 133 medical supplies, 78, 111–12, 130, 139, 201. See also humanitarian aid Meisenzahl, Anne, 133 Mendoza, Donald, 19 Mexico, 7, 154, 166; and Central American refugees, 70, 74; Nicargua solidarity in, 165, 166; and regional peace initiatives, 24, 25, 78 Mfume, Kweisi, 130 Miami, Fla., 75, 163–64 Mikulski, Barbara, 18, 130 Miller, George, 215 Mills, Andy, 123 Miskitos, 21, 229 missionaries, 47, 53–54, 55, 82–83, 157 Mitchell, Parren J., 130 Mitchell, Philip, 128–30 Mobilization (1987). See April 1987 Mobilization Mobilization for Survival (MFS), 63–64, 86, 97; in coalitions, 211, 262n80, 265n39, 282n12; emphasis of, on nonviolent direct action, 64, 118 Mondale, Walter, 95, 96 Moore, Paul, Jr., 2 Mosley, Don, 229–31

[ 301 ] Mother Jones, 98 Mott, Gail, 141 Mott, Peter, 134, 141 Mulligan, Joseph, 55, 64–65 Murillo, Rosario, 157, 159, 218 Musil, Robert, 85–86 NACLA Report on the Americas, 47, 98 Nation, The, 9, 98 National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (Kissinger Commission), 31, 41–42 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 147 National Conservative Foundation, 216 National Council of Churches, 99, 166, 281n8, 282n12 National Education Association, 212 National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 26 “National Fast Days,” 166 National Guard deployment, 195 National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador (NLC), 74, 179–80, 277n15 National Lawyers Guild, 38 National Opposition Union (UNO), 234, 235, 237, 238 National Peace Vigil (1984), 107 National Security Council, 30 National Student Association, 88 Near, Holly, 213 Nearing, Scott, 8–9 Negroponte, John, 79 Neighbor-to-Neighbor, 188, 215, 219, 286n98 Neilson, Chris, 142 Nepstad, Sharon Erickson, 75, 148 Netherlands, 161, 172, 174, 175 Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), 70–71, 74 Neutrality Act of 1794, 38 New American Movement (NAM), 56, 57, 124 New Jersey, 122–25, 239 Newsweek, 79, 190 New York, N.Y., 38, 65, 71, 160; demonstrations in, 73, 79, 183, 193

[ 302 ] New York Times, 20, 22, 212, 223, 235; advertisements in, 61–62, 87, 98, 148; coverage of anti–Contra War campaign in, 73, 81, 87, 123, 160, 172, 182, 193, 228; editorials in, 42, 45, 60; op-ed pieces in, 45, 84, 161; reports of contra attacks in, 43, 178 Nicaragua Exchange, 109, 199 Nicaragua Hoy, 17 Nicaraguan Commission for Peace, 160, 166 Nicaraguan Committee in Solidarity with the Peoples (CNSP), 156, 164–66 Nicaraguan Conference of Religious (CONFER), 157 Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), 20–21, 22. See also contras Nicaraguan elections, 8, 11, 242; in 1984, 15–16, 27–28, 42, 102, 237, 253n74; in 1990, 24, 234–35, 236–39 Nicaragua Network, 65–69, 74, 179, 225, 227, 235–36; in coalitions, 210, 215, 264n26, 265n39, 282n12; directors of, 50, 91; founding of, 65–66; and FSLN, 68–69, 152, 157, 162, 239; growth of, 75; and humanitarian aid, 68, 111, 165, 229, 232, 237; and lobbying, 91, 221; and national demonstrations, 88, 210, 282n12; place of, in broader anti–Contra War movement, 69, 116, 118, 152; work brigades organized by, 108–9, 148, 199–200, 237 Nicaraguan Information Center (Berkeley, Calif.), 98, 219, 259n25 Nicaraguan Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX), 155–56, 161–62 Nicaraguan Perspectives, 98 Nicaragua Solidarity Organization (Washington, DC), 65 Nicaragua-United States Friendship Office, 151, 240 NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala), 70–71, 74 Nixon administration, 34, 60 Norris, George, 8, 9 North, Oliver, 5, 23, 39, 52, 214, 222 North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), 59, 67, 98. See also NACLA Report on the Americas

Index Novak, Henry J., 132 Nuclear Times, 117, 264n19 Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, 63, 84, 131, 211 Nuñez, Carlos, 15 Nuñez, Leana, 166, 203 Nuñez, René, 153–54, 166–67, 169–70, 242 Nuñez de Escorcia, Vilma, 14–15, 160–61, 202–3 Nuremberg trials, 217–18 Oats for Peace, 165 Obando y Bravo, Miguel, 11, 12, 16, 27 Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD), 29–30, 31, 32, 146–47, 149, 214 Ohio, 100 Olds, Robert, 8 Olson, Peter, 106 O’Neill, Thomas Phillip “Tip,” 38, 82–83, 93, 177 Orbis Books, 53, 150 Oregon, 100, 194–95. See also Portland Central America Solidarity Committee Organization of American States (OAS), 25, 154, 155, 235; charter of, 10, 44, 256n45 Ortega, Daniel, 138, 159, 161, 165, 173, 231; demonization of, 26, 216; in FSLN leadership, 12, 14, 155, 159, 242; meetings of, with U.S. officials, 18, 19; on nature of Sandinista Revolution, 13; in presidential elections, 238, 242; and release of Eugene Hasenfus, 202, 203; speaking tour of U.S. by (1984), 159, 160; trip to Soviet Union by, 4, 182; and U.S. solidarity movement, 170, 218, 233, 239; and visitors to Nicaragua, 18, 85, 151 Ortega, Humberto, 159 Owens, Major, 213 Pacifica Radio, 99, 225 Packwood, Bob, 140 Panama invasion (1989), 45 Parajón, Gustavo, 82, 103, 139, 146, 152 Partridge, Jamie, 137–39

Index Pastora, Edén (“Comandante Cero”), 21–22, 203 Pastors for Peace Convoy, 136, 232–34 Pauling, Linus C., 2 Pax Christi, 121, 173, 262n80; in Florida, 121, 126, 128; and Pledge of Resistance, 126, 264n24. See also Gumbleton, Thomas Peaceworks, 240 Pell, Claiborne, 43 Pelosi, Nancy, 218 Peter, Paul and Mary, 216 Pezzulo, Lawrence A., 17–18, 19, 24, 252n57 Pflaum, Albrecht, 21, 169 Phares, Gail, 89, 103, 105–6, 286n98 Phares, Robert, 105, 106 Philadelphia, Pa., 77, 86, 92, 97, 104, 120; demonstrations in, 79, 184; Pledge of Resistance in, 89, 184 Pinochet, Augusto, 60 Pinter, Harold, 151 Pledge of Resistance (POR), 88–90, 119, 121, 183–85, 223, 241; and civil disobedience, 40, 88, 89, 90, 123, 131, 132, 183–84, 193–94, 223; and contra aid, 90, 139, 183, 185; and El Salvador, 235; extent of, 118, 208; founding of, 40, 88–89, 105–6, 264n24; and National Guard deployment, 195; as outreach tool for local groups, 89–90, 120, 126, 131–32, 133–34, 139–40; racial composition of, 121; tensions in, over religious identity, 89, 116–17, 184–85; and threat of U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, 40, 88, 89–90 Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA), 49, 62, 98, 215, 225 polls, public opinion, 4, 51–52, 209, 216; by USIA in Europe, 174–75 Pomerleau, Dolly, 111 popular church, 11–12, 16, 53–54, 55 Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC), 75, 136–44 Princeton University, 73 Pritchard, Joel, 94–95 Progressive, The, 98 “public diplomacy,” 30, 149, 214. See also Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin

[ 303 ] America and the Caribbean public health campaign, 14 Quainton, Anthony, 22, 78 Quigley, Thomas, 147 Quinn, John R., 41 Quixote Center, 111, 163–64, 227, 237, 282n12; and educational outreach, 112, 236; and humanitarian aid, 111–12, 114, 199, 200–202, 228–29, 232, 236, 240 Radio Catolica, 27 Radio Venceremos, 133 Rainbow Coalition, 121, 124, 210, 271n51, 277n19, 282n12 Raitt, Bonnie, 216 Ramas, 21 Ramírez, Sergio, 19, 50–51, 103, 158–59, 242; speeches by, in U.S., 62, 161, 202 Rampton, Sheldon, 112, 113, 116, 122 Randall, Margaret, 62 Raps, Beth, 126–27 Ratner, Michael, 228 Raymond, Walter, Jr., 147 Reagan, Ronald, 19–20, 26, 36, 39, 156, 172, 222; charactization of contras by 27, 31, 177, 179; characterization of Sandinistas by, 31, 43, 177, 190, 224; constraints placed on, by anti–Contra War campaign, 52, 162–63; on critics of Contra War, 33, 52, 145, 187; direct lobbying with Congress by, 182, 189; on “freedom,” 32; and Iran/Contra scandal, 214; radio addresses by, on Nicaragua, 29, 32, 93, 179; re-election of (1984), 4, 95–96; television addresses by, on Nicaragua, 3, 29, 31, 33, 47, 81; on Vietnam War, 34–35 “Reagan Doctrine,” 35, 211, 213 Reed, David, 115, 120, 210 referenda, 137, 202 Reich, Otto, 29, 146 Religious Task Force on Central America (RTFCA), 70, 97; and broader Central America movement, 72–73, 91, 116, 265n39, 276n12, 282n12, 286n98. See also Swedish, Margaret Resnick, Bill, 142

[ 304 ] Rice, Jim, 88, 116 Rigmey-Barolet, Lynne, 186 Robelo, Alfonso, 15 Robinson, Cleveland, 213 Rochester Committee on Central America (ROCLA), 132–36 Romero, Oscar (Archbishop of San Salvador), 70, 73, 97 Romero Christian Legal Office, 71 Roosevelt, Theodore, 7 Rowe, Tim, 87 Rúder, Michael, 169 Rushdie, Salmon, 151 Rutgers University, 124 Ryan, Joe, 228 Sacasa, Juan Bautista, 7, 10 Salazar, Jorge, 16 Salazar, Leonardo, 51 San Antonio, Tex., 75, 220, 233 Sanbrano, Angela, 122 Sanctuary Movement, 4, 74–75, 121, 148 Sandinismo, 13, 17, 153, 154, 169; waning of, 242 Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), 10–17, 21, 46, 67–68, 159–61; Carter administration and, 17–19; characterization of, by Reagan, 31, 43, 177, 190, 224; before coming to power, 10–11, 12, 150, 153–54; differing views of, within anti–Contra War campaign, 46–48, 54–55, 69, 76, 116, 121, 147, 152; in elections, 24, 27–28, 235, 238–39, 242; and El Salvador, 19–20, 67, 155; and human rights, 16, 21, 27, 180; Nicaragua Network and, 68–69, 152, 157, 162, 239; reforms instituted by, 13–16, 18–19, 46, 47, 62, 69; and regional peace initiatives, 25, 26, 216; and religion, 16, 54–55, 147, 166–67; split in (1995), 242; and women, 14–15, 62–63, 155 Sandino, Augusto César, 1, 8–9, 10, 69, 153, 243 Sandino, Sócrates, 9 SANE (Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), 63, 84–86, 95, 179, 237; in coalitions, 79, 86, 88, 91, 215, 262n80, 264n24,

Index 265n39, 282n12; focus of, on lobbying, 118, 188, 191; local affiliates of, 122–23; and national demonstrations, 88, 210, 211, 282n12; and Vietnam analogy, 39, 191. See also Cortright, David SANE/Freeze, 211. See also SANE San Francisco, 71, 158, 162; AFSC office in, 77–78, 88, 89; demonstrations in, 73, 79, 181, 183, 193, 211, 213, 223; early solidarity groups in, 65, 66; Nicaraguan speakers in, 158, 159, 163; 1984 Democratic convention in, 95–96; Pledge of Resistance in, 88, 89–90, 116–17, 183, 223 Sayre, John Nevin, 9 Schaeffer, Delores, 67 School of the Americas (SOA) Watch, 241–42 Schoultz, Lars, 61 Scipione, Maria, 136 Seattle, Wash., 66, 122, 232; demonstrations in, 79, 181, 184, 193–94, 223; Pledge of Resistance in, 89, 184, 193–94, 223 Semarad, Kate, 145–46 Service for Peace and Justice in Latin America (SERPAJ), 61 Setright, Aynn, 48, 170, 205–7 Shanker, Albert, 212 Sharpe, Kenneth E., 25, 92 Shaull, Richard, 55 Sheen, Martin, 151 Sheinkman, Jack, 74, 188 Shultz, George, 25, 40, 50, 83, 177, 217 sister city partnerships, 66, 112–13, 135–36, 140–41, 152, 167–69; conferences of, in Managua, 115–16, 131; differences among, 116, 122, 125; European cities in, 168; and humanitarian aid, 136, 141, 199, 229, 240; Nicaraguan government and, 156, 160, 168; and 1990 Nicaraguan elections, 238; number of, 3, 167–68; persistence of many, 240. See also Casa Baltimore/San Juan de Limay sister city project Slade, Steven, 208 Slaughter, Louise, 134, 219 S/LPD. See Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean

Index Small, Melvin, 4 Smeal, Eleanor, 213 Smedley Butler Brigade, 232 Smith, Christian, 116, 121 Smith, Peter H., 25 Snyder, Arnold, 107 Socialist International, 56, 173 Socialist Workers Party (SWP), 56, 58, 88, 128, 227 Sojourners, 98–99, 150–51, 219; and origins of Pledge of Resistance, 88, 264nn24,26; and Witness for Peace, 104, 108 Solis, Rafael, 67–68 Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 11, 12 Somoza Garcia, Anastasio, 10. See also Somoza regime Somoza regime, 10, 11–12, 14, 50, 65, 112; economic ruin left by, 13, 18; human rights abuses by, 10, 11, 27; ouster of, 12, 154; U.S. support for, 10, 50, 112 Sonoma County, Calif., 120 South Africa, 181–82, 246; as issue in national demonstrations, 73, 121, 122, 211, 213; linking of, to Central America policies, 73, 122, 181 South Carolina, 100, 226 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 87, 121, 213, 277n19 Soviet Union, 13, 51, 174–75, 176; and Cold War ideology, 31, 32–34, 35; fighter places supposedly sent by, 28; Nicaragua and, 13, 224; Ortega trip to, 4, 182; in Reagan administration rhetoric, 35, 83, 145, 224 Spain, 172–73, 174, 200 Spanish classes, 103, 141 speaking tours, 9, 85, 108, 142, 191, 226–27, 231; by Contra War supporters, 30; by FSLN leaders, 159, 163 Specter, Arlen, 92 Spencer, Bill, 91 Spriggs, Kent, 58–59 Stark, Robert, 62, 225 Stillings, Jamie, 133 Studds, Gerry, 18–19, 74 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 57, 124, 128

[ 305 ] study tours, 3, 76, 102–3, 200 Sumus, 21 Superior Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), 11, 16 Swedish, Margaret, 54, 70, 72, 73, 91, 286n98 Sweet, David, 104 Taft administration, 7 Tallahassee, Fla., 59, 120–21, 125, 198. See also Florida State University Taylor, Phyllis, 104 TecNica, 111, 123, 199, 229, 239–40 television news, 51 Téllez, Dora Maria, 153–54, 161, 163, 242 Thayer, Millie, 138–39, 142 Tikkun, 99 Time magazine, 209, 224 Tinoco, Victor Hugo, 67, 155, 156, 161, 162–63, 242 Tropical Tours, 102–3 Truman, Harry S., 33–34, 36, 176 Tünnermann, Carlos, 2, 13, 55, 129, 161, 164, 226 Tünnermann, Rosa Carlota, 161 Tuite, Marjorie, 166 Tula, Maria Teresa, 213 UDEL (Democratic Union for Liberation), 11 Ulloa, Sixto, 103, 146 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), 14, 59 unions, 74, 179–80, 277n15. See also specific unions Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 225 United Auto Workers (UAW), 63, 74, 212 United Church of Christ, 187, 209, 215, 263n2 United Methodist Church, 82, 187, 263n2 United Nations (UN), 38, 45, 161, 235; charter of, 10, 44, 256n45; and Contra War, 25, 38, 45. See also UNESCO United States v. Lee Levi Laub (1967), 58 U.S. Conference of Mayors, 219, 224 U.S. Customs, 148, 200, 229, 232

[ 306 ] U.S. House of Representatives, 40, 214; and Boland amendments, 80, 94; committee hearings in, 178, 218, 228; Intelligence Committee of, 20, 80; votes by, on contra aid, 51, 81, 182–83, 189, 209, 220–21, 222. See also House Democratic Task Force on Central America U.S. Information Agency (USIA), 45, 174 U.S. Marines, 1, 7–8, 9–10, 197, 243 U.S. Senate, 10, 40; Intelligence Committee of, 38–39, 148–49; votes by, on contra aid, 81, 182, 189, 209, 220, 222 U.S. Supreme Court, 58 UNO (National Opposition Union), 234, 235, 237, 238 Valenzuela, Eduardo López, 21 van den Berg, Dion, 172 Venceremos Brigades, 58 Vermont, 109 Veterans for Peace (VFP), 188, 192, 228, 237; founding of (1985), 180–81; local chapters of, 121, 192, 195, 198 Veterans Peace Action Team, 218, 232 Veterans Peace Convoy (VPC), 232–33, 234 Vietnam analogy, 87, 158, 159, 195, 216; and El Salvador policy, 71, 73; as frequent theme in anti–Contra War campaign, 37, 39, 87, 95, 97–98, 191, 223; political limitations of, 39–41 “Vietnam syndrome,” 34, 223 Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 63, 181, 201 Vietnam War, 34–35, 176, 201–2; anti–interventionist legacy of, 4, 34, 223; antiwar veterans of, 180–81, 188, 192–93, 197, 201, 217–18; invoking of, by Central America activists: see Vietnam analogy; Reagan on, 34–35. See also anti–Vietnam War movement Vigil, María López, 238 Voice of America (VOA), 27 Voldt, Hilda, 67 Waiting for the Invasion: U.S. Citizens in Nicaragua (film), 110 Wald, George, 2

Index Walker, Lucius, 99, 100, 101, 233 Walker, Thomas W., 47–48 “Walk in Peace,” 229–31, 240 Waller, J. Michael, 149 Wallis, Jim, 88, 104, 264n26, 266n60 Walsh, Jean, 220 Walsh, Lawrence E., 214 “War Crimes Tribunal on Central America and the Caribean” (October 1984), 38 War Resisters League, 63, 77, 79, 277n17 Washington, DC, 39, 71, 79, 216, 232; civil disobedience in, 182, 192, 209, 211, 236; conferences in, 73–74, 86, 88–89; early solidarity committees in, 65, 68; national demonstrations in, 39, 79, 87–88, 122, 181–82, 193, 210–14, 232; Nicaraguan speakers in, 71, 163; organizational offices in, 70, 88, 89, 98, 106, 119, 203, 227; Pledge of Resistance in, 106, 184–85 Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), 61, 67, 264n26, 265n39, 276n12, 286n98 Washington Post, 30, 161, 164, 172, 196, 228; coverage of anti–Contra War campaign in, 82, 87, 107, 164, 181, 182, 226; White House viewpoint expressed in, 83–84, 145, 257n69 Washington state, 94–95, 100. See also Seattle Webster, William H., 148 Weiss, Cora, 213 Weiss, Ted, 87 Western Europe, 174–75, 176; opposition in, to Contra War, 24, 25, 41–42, 45, 146, 161, 171–73, 174–75, 176; solidarity organizing in, 168, 169, 173 Western New York Peace Center (WNYPC), 131–32 West Germany, 79, 119–20, 169, 170, 174–75 Wheaton, Philip, 54, 59, 65–66, 67 Wheeler, Burton K., 8 Wheelock, Jaime, 159, 161 White House Outreach Group, 29, 30, 84 Whittlesey, Faith Ryan, 29, 84 Wicker, Tom, 99

Index Williams, Betty, 2 Williams, Harvey, 157, 158, 273n37 Williams, Renee, 198 Wilson, Lionel, 219–20 Winpisinger, William, 74 Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN), 112–13, 114, 116, 240 Witness for Peace (WFP), 42, 106–8, 112, 179, 203–7, 227, 237; in coalitions, 91, 210, 236, 276n12, 282n12, 286n98; and congressional lobbying, 91, 186, 187; danger faced by volunteers of, 169, 203–4, 205, 206–7; as deterrent to contra attacks, 169–70; documenting of contra attacks by, 42, 43, 106, 107–8, 178, 186, 191, 217, 223–24, 225, 235; efforts to discredit, 107, 147, 149, 204; founding of, 42, 84, 103–4; growth of, 118, 191, 203, 208; long-term volunteers in, 48, 106, 204, 205–7; media coverage of, 107, 108, 204; Nicaraguan government and, 104, 129–30, 166, 229; after 1987, 228, 229, 235, 236, 237, 239, 241; place of, in broader anti–Contra War campaign, 116, 185; racial composition of, 121–22, 269n22; and religious

[ 307 ] identity, 104, 204. See also Dilling, Yvonne Wittner, Lawrence, 173 women: in Nicaraguan revolution, 14–15, 153, 153 (see also AMNLAE); in solidarity movement, 62–63, 110–11, 240 Women’s Empowerment Project, 240 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), 63, 79, 123, 211, 227, 262n80 work brigades, 108–9, 143, 148, 164, 199, 200, 237 World Council of Churches, 54 World Court. See International Court of Justice World Federalist Association, 45 World War II, 34, 175 Wright, Jim, 18, 51, 93, 162, 220, 222–23 Wright, Sir Oliver, 176 Wyden, Ron, 137, 140 Young, Andrew, 170–71 Young Socialist Alliance, 58 Zelaya, José Santos, 7

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ROGER PEACE was born during the Korean War, came of age during the Vietnam War, and became a local peace movement organizer during the Reagan years. (Peace is his family name.) He received a B.A. in history from Sonoma State University in 1976 and an M.S. in social science education (1994) and a Ph.D. in the history of American foreign relations (2007) from Florida State University. He has taught U.S. and world history at four collegiate institutions and is currently an adjunct professor at Tallahassee Community College, as well as the communications coordinator for a Florida nonprofit organization. He has contributed scholarly papers to national and international conferences and has published articles in The History Teacher, Peace and Change, and International Journal of Peace Studies. His previous writings include A Just and Lasting Peace: The U.S. Peace Movement from the Cold War to Desert Storm (1991).

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Unlike earlier U.S. interventions in Latin America, the Reagan administration’s attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua during the 1980s was not allowed to proceed quietly. Tens of thousands of American citizens organized and agitated against U.S. aid to the counterrevolutionary guerrillas, known as “contras.” Believing the Contra War to be unnecessary, immoral, and illegal, they challenged the administration’s Cold War stereotypes, warned of “another Vietnam,” and called on the United States to abide by international norms. A Call to Conscience offers the first comprehensive history of the anti–Contra War campaign and its Nicaragua connections. Roger Peace places this eight-year campaign in the context of previous American interventions in Latin America, the Cold War, and other grassroots oppositional movements. Based on interviews with American and Nicaraguan citizens and leaders, archival records of activist organizations, and official government documents, this book reveals activist motivations, analyzes the organizational dynamics of the anti–Contra War campaign, and contrasts perceptions of the campaign in Managua and Washington. Peace shows how a variety of civic groups and networks—religious, leftist, peace, veteran, labor, women’s rights—worked together in a decentralized campaign that involved extensive transnational cooperation.

“A ground-breaking book. If a hundred years from now the anti–Contra War movement is included on the list of significant American protest movements, there is no question this book will be a major reason why. It clarifies our vision of the 1980s, refutes the dominant Reagan triumphalism, and shows contemporary America to be just as fraught with protest as the 1960s.” —Andrew E. Hunt, author of The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War

ROGER PEACE is adjunct professor of history at Tallahassee Community College. A volume in the series Culture, Politics, and the Cold War Cover design by Sally Nichols Cover photo by Rick Reinhard, April 25, 1987 Mobilization, Washington, D.C.

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS Amherst & Boston www.umass.edu/umpress