Ivan's Place
In honor of the greatest moralist who never lived
Copyright © 2004 by Bill Becker

SOMOZAS, SANDINISTAS, CONTRAS, AND US
(the whole story, consisting of grand themes
and unremarkable illustrations)

Copyright © 1990, by Bill Becker
West Hills, CA

This essay arose from a talk given at Fullerton Unitarian Church, Fullerton, California, November 11, 1990. It has been slightly reformatted and revised for this website publication, February 2004.

Citations are embedded in the text, close to the material stated or quoted. They are designated thus: "[*citation here *]".

I provide an ENDNOTE section for a more in-depth discussion of certain topics presented in the essay. They are referenced by a superscripted "n" where "n" is the number of the endonote. E.g.: Endnote number one.¹     I have not provided back-and-forth links between superscripts and endnotes.

SOMOZAS

Let me begin with a very short discussion of Nicaraguan history prior to July 19, 1979. I will omit the details of earlier U.S. interference in Nicaraguan life, except to say that it began about 1850, and extended, with a few brief interruptions, until 1933. Then, after proving unable to defeat a guerrilla movement led by the Nicaraguan nationalist Augusto Sandino—from whom the Sandinistas have taken their name—the U.S. Marines withdrew from Nicaragua, leaving it in the able hands of General Anastasio Somoza Garcia and his National Guard.

The General, with the Guard's help, assassinated Sandino under color of peace negotiations, muscled out the civilian government, and founded the impeccably anti-communist Somoza family dynasty, which enjoyed unstinting U.S. support from all U.S. presidents until Jimmy Carter. By the late-70s the dynasty, then headed by West Point graduate Anastasio Somoza Debayle, had become so corrupt and brutal that everyone, it is said, except his family, his mistress, and the Guard agreed that he had to go. And he finally went, somewhat reluctantly, in the face of a popular insurrection. He left behind a Nicaragua in which, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:

SANDINISTAS

The Sandinistas had opposed Somoza since 1961, with daring military actions and educational programs in the campo. When Somoza fell, they were ideally situated to assume control of the effort to rebuild Nicaragua. Those who followed the situation know that after they took power, the Sandinistas made impressive progress toward reversing the conditions Somoza left behind.

They launched a massive literacy campaign, brought health care to thousands who had never seen the inside of a clinic (eliminating polio in the process), and distributed land to peasants whose only prior privilege had been to work the patron's finca at starvation wages, if they were lucky.

The Sandinistas held fast to a "preferential option for the poor," and to the "logic of the majority." The British-based aid agency OXFAM, which helps third world nations with their development projects, said that the Sandinistas had fulfilled their promises better than any revolutionary government in its experience. According to a confidential memo from the office of the U.S. executive director to the World Bank, "project implementation has been extraordinarily successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere else in the world."
[* Peter Kornbluh, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, Sept. 4-10, 1989, p. 23. *]

It is also undisputed that the Sandinistas released hundreds of captured National Guardsmen for lack of evidence that they had committed crimes against the Nicaraguan people, and that many of those same men later joined President Reagan's "freedom fighters" (commonly called "contras," and led by Guard officers who had escaped to Honduras). After returning to Nicaragua their revenge took the form of just such crimes, or worse, as they had earlier been acquitted of.¹

The record also shows that in the Nicaraguan election of 1984, 91% of those eligible to vote cast a truly secret ballot. And, of those, 67% voted for Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas to continue building a new Nicaragua.    [*THE ELECTORAL PROCESS IN NICARAGUA: DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES, The Report of the Latin American Studies Association Delegation to Observe the Nicaraguan General Election of November 4, 1984, p.17. Two conservative opposition parties, each very critical of the Sandinistas, together won 23 of the National Assembly's 96 seats, the second largest bloc after the Sandinistas' 61 seats. Virgilio Godoy, elected this year as Nicaragua's Vice-president, was himself seated in the National Assembly by virtue of being the presidential candidate of a losing party in the 1984 election (PLI). The two communist parties, also very critical of the Sandinistas, together won 4 seats. *]

The 1984 election was closely monitored by international experts in electoral process, and was deemed by them to be fair and open. Consequently, their views were almost completely ignored in subsequent mainstream reporting on Nicaraguan democracy. Washington pretended the election never took place rather than risk ridicule by attempting to discredit it.

Two days after 61% of Nicaragua's eligible voters returned the Sandinistas to power, 31% of America's eligible voters re-elected Ronald Reagan president.     [* "An American Habit: Shunning the Ballot Box," by Michael Oreskes. New York Times, January 31, 1988. *]   Reagan, of course, saw this 31% as a mandate to continue pursuing his most cherished dream—to eliminate the Sandinistas. The contra war he unleashed in 1981 continued, if anything more intensely so as to punish the Nicaraguan people for not kowtowing to Washington.

CONTRAS

By now, only the most self-centered yuppies, survival-oriented ghetto-dwellers, and, it appears, more than a few editorial writers are unaware of the agony and deprivation suffered by the campesinos and peasants of Nicaragua through Reagan's "Low Intensity Conflict." "Low Intensity Conflict" consists precisely of such tactics as the atrocious murder of civilians, and the destruction of agricultural cooperatives, health clinics, and schools.

Reporter Christopher Dickey relates the unexpected experience of Sister Lisa Fitzgerald of Troy, New York, who was in Nicaragua helping residents of the Jalapa region with their spiritual and practical needs—and responding to victims of contra attacks. "I'd never taken shrapnel out of a woman's back. I'd never seen kids full of shrapnel," she said.   [*"With the Contras," p. 139. Christopher Dickey, Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1987 *]

Reed Brody, former Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York, after a fact-finding mission to Nicaragua, reports the story of the mother who searched for her husband and five children the day after contras led them from their home. She found the children, all dead, about 50 yards from the house. "They were left all cut up," she testified. "Their ears were pulled off, their noses and other parts were cut off." [*"CONTRA TERROR IN NICARAGUA, Report of a Fact Finding Mission: September 1984-January 1985" p. 63. Reed Brody, South End Press, 1985. *]

The children's father, who they also killed, was a Delegate of the Word. As such, he was committed to liberation theology, one of the few exercises of religion so far which has promoted effective empowerment of the poor through education and cooperative effort.

Perhaps the contras felt the children deserved this special fate just because of their father's role. After all, liberation theology had filled the heads of poor campesinos with inflated ideas about their true worth, leading them to make unreasonable demands on those to whom they should be grateful instead—namely the wealthy landowners who provided them with work. What if these children came to see their father as a hero, someone to emulate? Why not kill them now, so they can't cause trouble later? And, doesn't leaving the mother alive to remember the agony of that day add to the satisfaction of a successful skirmish against the communists? The naive norteamericanos, for all their talk about human rights, don't understand these things. Besides, few of those norteamericanos are all that concerned about human rights anyway.

Finally, with a trade embargo added to the "freedom fighters'" tactics, the Nicaraguan economy was reduced to a basket case. Malnutrition and diseases the Sandinistas had wiped out in the early days of the revolution made a comeback, and there was no letup to the misery in sight. [*Reagan's vendetta against the Nicaraguans even extended to attempts to stop, or at least delay, humanitarian assistance from U.S. private aid groups to Nicaraguan victims of Hurricane Joan. "Thanks for Nothing," editorial, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1988 *]

This was Nicaragua as it prepared for the February (1990) election, and this was the background for President Bush's unequivocal message to the Nicaraguan people: VOTE FOR DOÑA VIOLETTA AND THE WAR WILL STOP.

US

Senator Joseph Biden once asked Elliot Abrams (Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs) how long it would take the contras to win in Nicaragua. "We think it will take two to four years," replied Abrams. Almost exactly 3 years later, February 25, 1990, election day in Nicaragua, Abrams' prophesy was fulfilled. [*"U.S. Official Says Contras Can Win in 2 to 4 Years," by Doyle McManus, dateline Washington, Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1987.*]

Two days later, the Los Angeles Times editorialist rhapsodized in response to Doña Violetta's victory at the polls:

What must this writer have thought of the barely fewer than 40% who voted for the Sandinistas in spite of the certainty that continued suffering would follow? Did they show that poor judgment so often attributed to those who stand up for their beliefs against long and dangerous odds? Actually, "good judgment and decisiveness," here intended as a compliment, instead masks a subtle variety of racism—disguised as paternal concern for the victim—that usually sides with the bully.

40% voter support for the Sandinistas, under the circumstances in which the election took place, indicates a very strong likelihood, if not a virtual certainty, that Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas would have been returned to power by a large margin had there been no war and no trade embargo. ²

WOULD ANYTHING HAVE SUFFICED?

Monday-morning quarterbacking of the election by the Sandinistas and everyone else aside, they could have done nothing whatever to change the outcome. The Reagan/Bush obsession with removing them admitted of no possible accessions on their part short of political suicide (physical suicide being too unrealistic a demand even for Reagan's ideologues). As one Sandinista official told our Witness for Peace election delegation, "the game was one in which the White House continually moved the goalpost whenever we were on the verge of scoring." A review of the history of U.S.-Sandinista relations will confirm his point.

THE FOURTH ESTATE

During this 10-year history the mainstream press and its contributors never committed the heresy of giving the Sandinistas their due—the first rule of fair play. Leaving aside the many instances of mainstream reporting on the Sandinistas that would do the CIA propagandist proud, to my knowledge there has never been a single mainstream analysis about what the revolution's course might have been if Washington had decided to accept the Sandinistas, even if reluctantly.

Where has there been an extrapolation of the early achievements of the revolution, based on an assumption that Washington had not blocked development loans from the international lending institutions?

What if U.S. multinationals had been allowed to buy Nicaraguan cotton, tobacco, beef, bananas, coffee, beer, and rum? Everyone in Nicaragua would benefit from the sale of export products, whether they came from a Sandinista cooperative or from one of the far more numerous private producers that the Sandinistas had gone many extra miles to accommodate.

We have never heard the pundits ask what Nicaragua would be like today had Washington accepted the Sandinistas' preferential option for the poor, and offered medical equipment and personnel so as to expand such successful programs as the mass inoculations that wiped out polio and whooping cough.

What if President Reagan had sent down Peace Corps volunteers to help with the literacy campaign? What might Nicaragua's youth be accomplishing today if they had been able to complete their educations instead of having to defend the nation against the contras?

There would still have been mistakes, of course, and doubtless Nicaragua would still be struggling. But, I have no trouble imagining, under those conditions, a Nicaragua with a fairly healthy and literate population, and a brighter future than any other Central American country—with the possible, but by no means certain exception of the "Switzerland of Central America," Costa Rica. Moreover, Nicaragua would have quickly become a solid friend of the United States.

(The Sandinista experiment, with its emphasis on public services and government control of important functions such as banking, has a close Central American parallel in Costa Rica's political economy. President Reagan's readiness to destroy the Costa Rican democracy, by turning Costa Rica into a southern clone of Honduras, indicates the loathing he and his patrons, the American business class, felt for any successful "welfare state" in this hemisphere. Alignment with Moscow had nothing to do with it.)

But, given their habit of following Washington's lead in foreign affairs, such an independent line of inquiry is literally unthinkable by mainstream reporters, columnists and editorialists. In a nation where no journalists are jailed, tortured, or killed for reporting contrary to the government agenda, this failure is a scandal in itself.

DANGEROUS NAIVETÉ?

Now, it may seem here that I must have just fallen off the turnip truck. Am I so naive as to be unaware of the reasons why President Reagan felt he could not allow the Sandinistas to survive? Don't I realize that the Sandinistas were "exporting revolution" to their Central American neighbor states, and that they were stalking horses for a Soviet takeover of this hemisphere?

I will not dwell on the issue of a Sandinista arms pipeline to the Salvadoran guerrillas, except to say that David MacMichael, the veteran analyst chosen by the CIA to prove the existence of the arms flow, was fired when he reported that the small flow that had existed was cut off in 1981. (MacMichael, along with other former CIA officers and covert action specialists, formed the Association of National Security Alumni a few years ago, and are very active in opposition to the foreign policy they once helped to manage.) Nor will I comment on whether oppressed and brutalized peoples need anyone else to inform them of their options. Nor will I dwell on the fact that the Sandinistas had offered several times to meet all legitimate security concerns of the U.S. and their neighbors, and that these offers were completely ignored by the Reagan/Bush administration. Let us look instead at the so-called "Soviet threat."

THE SOVIET TRHEAT

The "Soviet threat" has been an article of faith for Washington and millions of well-meaning Americans since 1917. And, while only such patriots as Senator Jesse Helms have embraced the likes of Salvadoran anti-communist Roberto ("Blowtorch Bob") d'Auboisson, or the Salvadoran military as model democrats and all-around nice guys, most of us have been loath to undercut by word or deed whomever pledges to prevent the tiniest germ of socialist or communist thought from taking root in our "back yard." Were we to do so, we were told, the combines that harvest Iowa's wheat would soon be Russian.

APOSTATES

But, not everyone believed. In 1979, at a conference held at the U.S. Army War College, some 20 non-believers, leading specialists on the Soviet Union, concluded that "The influence of the Soviet Union remains limited. ... U.S. policymakers should not overestimate the Soviet Union's appeal."     [*'"The Soviet Union in the Third World: Success and Failures," Robert H. Donaldson, ed. (Boulder CO, Westview Press, 1981), frontispiece. The conference was held under the auspices of the Strategic Studies Institute.' Cited in "Betraying the National Interest," Lappé, Schurman & Danaher, Grove Press, 1987, p. 147. *]

According to one 1986 study, Soviet influence was then substantial in only 11% of the world's nations, down from a high of 15% in 1950. [*'"Soviet Geopolitical Momentum: Myth or Menace? Trends of Soviet Influence Around the World From 1945 to 1986," The Defense Monitor, vol. 15, no. 5, 1986, p.1.' Ibid. *]

Richard J. Barnet writes: "Soviet influence in the Third World is near an all-time low. The Soviet economic model is neither widely admired nor widely imitated." [*"Why Trust the Soviets?" in WORLD POLICY JOURNAL, p. 476," Lappé, et. al., p. 147 *]

Sovietologist Jerry F. Hough, of Duke University and the Brookings Institution—hardly bastions of left-wing political persuasion—challenges the received truth that third world revolutionary movements that accept help from the Soviet Union automatically become steadfast Soviet allies, and mimic Soviet communism:

In a lecture given at Harvard in 1987, Dublin journalist Conor Cruise O'Brien comments:

O'Brien then goes on to describe how, by supporting professed Marxist Major General Siad Barré in Somalia, "the crafty Russians had secured possession of the geopolitical key to the most critical region in the world." "Then," says O'Brien, "the same Russians, for some even craftier reason, threw that key away." The Soviets then threw their support behind a new Marxist regime in Ethiopia. Speaking as if from the inscrutable Soviet point-of-view, O'Brien notes:

Unlike Elliot Abrams, who was addicted to covert action, his counterpart for African Affairs, Nathaniel Davis, resigned in 1975 after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger rejected his recommendation that the United States forgo a covert military action in Angola in favor of a diplomatic solution to the multi-player revolution against the Portuguese then in progress. Davis recommended against the two revolutionary groups Washington planned to back against the Marxist MPLA, saying "It's the wrong game, and the players we've got are losers." [*"In Search of Enemies," by John Stockwell, first [CIA] Chief of the Angola Task Force. Norton, 1978, p. 53.*]

State Department Consul General in Angola, Tom Killoran, "believed the MPLA was best qualified to run Angola and that its leaders sincerely wanted a peaceful relationship with the United States." [*Ibid. pp. 63-64. *]

Killoran's views were also ignored, and Washington, with South Africa's help, escalated the conflict against the MPLA, resulting in the resumption of Soviet support, and, for the first time, the introduction of Cuban troops to balance the scales. The irony of the Marxist MPLA using Cuban soldiers to protect American oil installations from attacks by U.S.-supported guerrillas was little noted in the mainstream press. [*John Stockwell, talk at a private home in Studio City, CA, October, 1984. *] On the other hand, the administration view that the Cuban presence justified the covert action was always "objectively" reported.

The rationale for the Angola operation would have made Machiavelli blush. By design, it was not to win, but only to prevent a "cheap" MPLA victory. [*Stockwell, p. 53. *] As of late December, 1987, the strategy was working well, with over 60,000 people dead, and an estimated 30,000 amputees, half of them women and children. [*"Angola Villagers Are Victims in Brutal War," by Michael Parks, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer. Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1987. p.1,8. The article quotes from a report by the United Nations Children's Fund, which puts most of the blame on the [U.S.-backed] guerrillas: "More and more attacks are made especially on women and children in order to terrorize the population and to create instability." *]

As for the Soviet "threat" to Western Europe, then Deputy Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies Col. Jonathan Alford wrote in the June 1980 issue of NATO Review:

WHY THE FUSS OVER THE SOVIETS?

On the basis of these unbelievers' views it is quite reasonable to conclude that the Soviet Union has never been quite the threat that Washington would have us believe. [*Stockwell says "in the fall of 1977, the Soviets were expelled from Somalia and began to arm Ethiopia." Op. cit. p. 250n. O'Brien says the Soviets suddenly threw away the key to the most critical region in the world. In either case, Soviet behavior in that region suggests neither sinister world-encompassing goals, nor the competence to achieve them. *] And, there is more to the enormous U.S. arms buildup and seemingly endless third world interventions than enormous profits to the owners of U.S. weapons shops.

One of my favorite cartoonists, Wasserman, gives us a clue. In 4 panels, he shows then Secretary of State Alexander Haig speaking to an unseen Senate committee:

Just this August, my favorite apostate cartoonist, Toles, brought the same theme closer to home. A pollster asks an American if he supports President Bush's sending troops to Saudi Arabia in response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait:

This cartoon suggests, in no uncertain terms, that in spite all of our talk about protecting freedom and democracy around the world, the basic wellspring of our behavior toward other nations is control of their resources and labor.

This is not a new idea, of course, but it still evokes anger or defensiveness from most Americans—even from those who should, and probably do, know better. ^4b The evidence for this theory is overwhelming, however, and its adherents even include a two-time Medal of Honor winner.

After retiring in the early 30s, Marine Corps Major General Smedly D. Butler embarked on a passionate campaign against American involvement in overseas military adventures. He had come to understand, late in a distinguished career, that he had been leading young Americans to their deaths in foreign lands not to protect our security, but to ensure that corporate America could conduct business unfettered anywhere in the world. Butler did not equivocate:

Twelve years later, Butler would be confirmed with chilling clarity by another major player in the geopolitical game. George Kennan was one of President Roosevelt's closest advisors during WWII. As President Truman's Director of Policy Planning Staff for the State Department, he penned the famous "X" article, published anonymously in FOREIGN AFFAIRS magazine in 1947. Therein was born the "containment" doctrine, which drove U.S. foreign policy until the recent reforms in the Soviet Union.

Not nearly as well known is another of Kennan's articles, published in February, 1948. Writing this time in a top secret foreign policy journal, Kennan advised against expecting to have too much "moral" influence in Asia, because of the vast differences in our cultures and histories.

"Furthermore," says Kennan:

TINY, INVISIBLE MORAL FORCES AT WORK

I promised in the title comment that beside grand themes, such as we have seen in the Sandinista experiment and its polar opposite, the Kennan Statement, this story also contains unremarkable illustrations. I had something quite specific in mind.

The great American psychologist William James once remarked that he was for those "tiny invisible moral forces that worked from individual to individual." Give them enough time, he said, and they would "rend the hardest monuments of man's pride." ^6a

In fact, most forces that shape human interaction are moral, as opposed, let's say, to biological, or mechanical. Let me also suggest that, while they can "rend the hardest monuments of man's pride," they are also indispensable to erecting those monuments in the first place. This is to say that the distinction between a "moral" force and an "immoral" force is an illusion.

In the context of the present discussion, for the U.S. to have successfully "maintained the disparity" for so long, literally billions of James's "tiny invisible moral forces" had to work from individual to individual within the American body politic. These forces find their expression in many ways:

Whatever these moral forces may be—and there are many more than I have noted here—those in power whose highest aspirations must be spoken secretly depend on them absolutely.

SUMMARY

Let me sum up what I have presented so far, with a few extra observations thrown in for good measure.

First:      since WWII, the behavior of the Soviet Union strongly suggests that it neither intended, nor was competent, to achieve world domination.

Second:     evidence and credible testimony strongly suggest that the real wellspring of U.S. policy toward third world nations has never been to protect them from Soviet domination, but instead, and without qualm, to maintain control of their labor and resources.

Third:       in spite of the publicly expressed disapproval of the Soviet Union's so-called malevolent intentions, the U.S. has nonetheless done business with it and other communist and socialist regimes around the world when there was a profit to be made by so doing (grain sales to the Soviet Union and China being prime examples). Thus, precedent would have justified accepting the Sandinistas as trading partners instead of attacking the Nicaraguan people.

Fourth:       the so-called "American way" has been consistently heralded by American patriots of all persuasions as being so superior to all other political economies that it will naturally triumph in peaceful competition with them. Therefore, the choice of competition on the battlefield in Nicaragua, instead of competition in the marketplace reveals a profound lack of faith in the "American Way."

Fifth:      evidence and credible testimony strongly suggest that the Sandinista government of Nicaragua made bona fide and reasonably effective efforts to benefit the poor, indicating a revolutionary model that should be encouraged rather than vilified and attacked.

Sixth:      the Sandinistas have continually offered to meet all legitimate concerns of the U.S. and their neighbors regarding hemispheric security, which offers had been cynically ignored by Washington.

Seventh:      it is purely fatuous, or stunningly dishonest, to suggest that if the people of Nicaragua had really supported the Sandinistas, they would never have capitulated to the contras. Indeed, if the people of Nicaragua had been as repressed by the Sandinistas as President Reagan and his advisors alleged, why did the contras, every one of them a so-called "freedom fighter," fail to win the hearts and minds of the large majority of the repressed Nicaraguan people? Why did it take 10 years of atrocious warfare, directed primarily at Nicaragua's poorest civilian population, for the U.S. to finally make them cry "uncle?"

Eighth:      "human nature" includes the qualities of kindness, compassion, patience, and tolerance as well as such negative qualities as greed and the impulse to violence. Thus, "human nature" is a totally unacceptable excuse for the attack on the government and people of Nicaragua.

Even though these considerations do not exhaust the subject, I believe they warrant the following conclusion:

ENDNOTES

1.     Imprisoned Contra field officer Emerson Uriel Navarrete Medrano responded to his interviewers' comment that "many of those [National Guardsmen] who were pardoned [by the Sandinistas in 1979] have again joined the armed struggle:

"They have simply not understood what happened. They did not understand that the Revolution had pardoned them, pardoned the mistakes they had made. Sure, there are some who will not understand why they were pardoned, and will go to fight again. Yes, the world is full of idiots, and if you are narrow-minded, you will stay that way your entire life."
[*"THE CONTRAS, Interviews with Anti-Sandinistas," p. 106. Dieter Eich and Carlos Rincon, Synthesis Publications, 1985. *]

Having been told that he would be tortured and skinned alive if he were captured, Medrano tried to commit suicide when his unit was surrounded by Sandinista soldiers. Instead of killing him, the bullet tore up his jaw and nose. The interviewer remarked that he looked as if he had been to a plastic surgeon. "I cannot really complain," said Medrano. "They did a good job." He also said that so far he had not been tortured.

Medrano was also quite candid about his attitude toward the peasants and farmers he recruited and trained. "You know as well as I do that a peasant has nothing in his head but straw. He doesn't think about things the way somebody who went to school does. Two or three stories well-told, and he will join you." In this case, the well-told story was that rice was so expensive because the Sandinistas send all of it to Cuba and the Soviet Union. [*Ibid. p. 101. *] The contrast between the contempt this erstwhile Somocista felt toward those he sought to "liberate," and the respect and trust shown them by the Sandinistas is obvious.

2.     My conclusion here is by no means shared by many of the analysts who have dissected the February election, including those who are not afraid to give the Sandinistas their due. Even the Sandinistas are engaged in a soul-wrenching analysis of their "errors."

Carlos M. Villas, Argentine social scientist and former advisor to both the Sandinistas and non-government Nicaraguans reckons that "the knee-jerk reaction of the Left that points exclusively to external forces (the U.S. war and financing of the UNO campaign) is as incomplete an explanation [of the election results] as its counterpart on the Right (the people's repudiation of corrupt Sandinista leadership). There were elements of both and more." [*NACLA Report on the Americas, June, 1990, p.9 *]

Brooklyn College professor of sociology George R. Vickers, a frequent visitor to Nicaragua, says that the success of the U.S. strategy "can only be fully explained by taking into account the internal dynamics of the revolution which the United States turned to its favor." [*ibid. p.9 *]

Contrary to Vickers' assertion, a detailed analysis of the "internal dynamics of the revolution" is not necessary to explain the Sandinistas' loss. And, the Left's "knee-jerk reaction" pointing to "external forces" is, contrary to Villas effort to equate it with the rationale of the Right, an adequate explanation. Consider the following facts:

a. The Sandinistas are young, without previous experience in government.

b. They tried to create a political economy that is unique in history, even by revolutionary standards. This political economy, if even moderately successful, would be an example to which other repressed peoples in the hemisphere might aspire.

c. No leftist government in this hemisphere that seriously challenges Washington's economic agenda has survived U.S. hostility, even where the majority of the people support it. (Cuba being the only exception.)

d. The United States, by virtue of its economic power, has almost unlimited influence and resources by which to undercut, or reverse, every achievement made by any group of young revolutionaries, regardless of how talented they are. Such tactics as outright lying, stonewalling on the facts, and obdurate pursuit of the goal—usually through the "fait accompli"—can, and does, effectively neutralize opposition within the United States.

e. Washington's clear commitment to destroy the very fabric of Nicraguan society if the people did not repudiate the Sandinistas. Given Congress's on-again, off-again support for the contras over the years, and its inability to end the trade embargo, the people of Nicaragua had no reason at all to believe that their suffering would not continue.

Intellectual integrity requires the examination of all facets of the Nicaraguan situation. Intellectual integrity also precludes loading the inquiry beforehand, as Villas does with his snide reference to the Left's view of the election. Both he and Vickers set the stage (with perfect "objectivity," of course) for "blaming the victim" even before any Sandinista venalities or mistakes are revealed. This increases the chance that if and when they are reported—which is rarely—the horror of contra atrocities and the hardships of the trade embargo, to say nothing of Sandinista accomplishments, will be ignored.

3.    Another version of Butler's statement in COMMON SENSE: "I have served for thirty years and four months in the most combative unit of the United States Armed forces: the marine infantry. During all of that time, I have had the feeling of acting as a highly qualified bandit in the service of Wall Street, big business and its bankers. In a word, I have been a racketeer in the service of capitalism.

"... In this manner, in 1914, I assured the security of petroleum interests in Mexico, Tampico in particular. I contributed to transforming Cuba into a country where the people of the National City Bank can steal their profits in peace. ... I participated in the cleaning up of Nicaragua, from 1909 to 1912, on behalf of the Brown Brothers international banking firm.

"... In 1916, acting for the great United states sugar industries, I brought "civilization" to the Dominican Republic. I was the one who, in 1923, helped arrange the affairs of Honduras in the interest of the United States fruit companies. In 1927, in China, I guaranteed the security of the interests of Standard Oil.

"... When I cast a glance backwards in this manner, I realize that I could have just as well represented Al Capone; he only managed to carry out his gangster activities in three neighborhoods of one city, while I, as a Marine, have carried out mine on three continents." [*Photocopy of unknown origin, citing "General of the United Marine Corps Infantry Smedly Butler, before the U.S. Congress, 1935." *]

4a.     Governments gain an advantage over their citizens so far as they can portray the world as mysterious and unfathomable.

Former Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater understands this, as he demonstrated in a speech to the Arizona Chamber of Commerce Business Roundtable. He was discussing the possible role of U.S. combat troops in Central America, at the height of the protest movement against U.S. intervention there. After saying that he would not send troops to any other region of the world except Central America "which is just 800 miles south of us," Goldwater comments:

"It's a very mixed up, muddled picture there, and we don't know who wears the white hats or the black hats."
[*"Goldwater Talks of U.S. Troop Role in Latin Region," Los Angeles Times, (AP wire service article). This article appeared in 1984, probably September or October, while the newly-discovered CIA "assassination" manual that had been distributed to the Nicaraguan contras was still being hotly debated in Congress. *]

Goldwater was then Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and one of the nation's pre-eminent hawks. In that capacity, and as one who historically approved all U.S. efforts to destroy leftist regimes in this hemisphere, his implication that he has no opinion as to "who wears the white hats or the black hats" is a transparent attempt to con his audience.

There is no mention of whether any Roundtable member questioned Goldwater's competence as chair of the intelligence committee, but it is a safe bet that no one did. I can easily imagine these willing naïfs looking at each other helplessly, as if to say, "If good ol' Barry can't figure out what's happening down there, how can we?" Thus might they prepare themselves for their own future attempts to mystify the issue for others.

4b.     Not only Republicans contribute to the common misunderstanding of U.S. history and goals in the Third World. Even my own liberal congressman, Anthony Beilenson, did his part earlier this year. Knowing that Beilenson would be interviewed by John Swaney, our local radio talk show host, I sent Swaney a copy of Kennan's statement, along with some other materials about U.S. foreign policy. I was first on the phone to speak with Beilenson. After commenting on U.S. policy in Central America and Iran, I gave a concise account of Kennan's views. Swaney then asked Beilenson if he knew about the Kennan statement.

"Of course I do," said Beilenson, "they throw it at us all the time. I think it's ridiculous. Most members of

Congress have never seen that document." "I agree," Swaney said. "Kennan was clearly talking about Asia."

However, one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that the importance of Kennan's proposal lies in its brutal honesty, and its origin at the very heart of our democracy. His analysis need not have been seen except by a very few of the most trusted members of the foreign policy establishment. Swaney would have flunked out of covert action strategy school for lacking the imagination to extend Kennan's comments to the entire Third World. We can be sure that Iran/Contra figure Oliver North would immediately have recognized a "neat idea" in doing so.

Thus, where Goldwater tries to mystify the world for his constituents, Beilenson labels "ridiculous" the efforts of peace and justice advocates to expand the American consciousness. Neither approach serves the American people very well. [*To his credit, Beilenson has voted against aid to the contras most of the time. Thus his comment is the more puzzling, since he should know better. *]

5.     A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reveals the realpolitiker stripped of all pretense. Ironically, it is about U.S. involvement in Angola.

On October 16th, the House of Representatives voted down an amendment to the House Intelligence Authorization Act. Proposed by Ron Dellums (D-Berkeley), the amendment would have brought covert U.S. support for the UNITA rebels fighting against the MPLA government of Angola "out of the closet," where it could be debated by a wider spectrum of the American people. According to the Times:

About 341,000 people have died or been wounded, Dellums said, including 55,000 children.

"Funding for the rebels is a Cold War anachronism," declared Dellums, who grew angry when he said he saw Republicans smiling at his pleas to "save the children." "This is no laughing matter," he chided. "Putting on my other hat as head of the [Congressional] Black Caucus, let me say that we would not tolerate this" if white children were dying. [*"Plan to Lift Angola Secrecy Veil Rejected," by Robert C. Toth, Los Angeles Times, October 18, 1990, p. A8. *]

Were those smiles intended for Dellums to see? Most likely. As the minority party in Congress, Republicans are always on the defensive, and their mood has not been improved by President Bush's recent acceptance of budget realities, which they see instead as capitulation to the Democrats.

Here, a member of the enemy camp makes an appeal across all dividing lines for a demonstration of compassion for innocents; a demonstration which no longer can be said to weaken our national security.

But, for those who are always "one down," and who feel betrayed by their own President, how better to show disdain for the enemy's whole being than with those familiar, slightly upturned corners of the mouth, perhaps accompanied by a barely perceptible nod toward others in one's own camp. Few moments are more savored than when such knowing smiles are exchanged.

The smiles tell Dellums that he simply does not live in the real world. Where preventing a "cheap" MPLA victory may once have been the goal, it now appears possible that Washington's tin-horn strongman Jonas Savimbi—a former Marxist who agreed to play on our side—might win after all. This would not have happened except for those 341,000 dead and maimed, including 55,000 children, referred to by Dellums. How can such a possibility be thrown away because of concern for a few more poor black children?

And, these realpolitikers know that even though their smiles were intended only for Dellums and for each other, no real harm will come from their revelation in the press. Are not most Americans realists, too? They know that there is no possibility of American children suffering the same fate at the hands of another nation's surrogate army, and Dellums further proves his innocence by even mentioning it. Moreover, won't the American people understand that Dellums, as an Afro-American himself, is clearly "biased" in favor of African children, and therefore not to be taken seriously.

6a.     The full quote from William James. (I do not know where among his writings or letters it can be found):

I am done with great things and big things, with great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.

6b.     Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovakia's preeminent dissident (and now its president), described what must be one of the "tiny, invisible moral forces" James had in mind. Havel says [of dissidents in general] that they hope their actions, "by whatever hidden, complex ways," will have some effect, "that even something as ephemeral-seeming as a truth spoken out loud, an openly expressed concern for the humanity of human beings, bears with it a certain power." [*"Missing Havel's Message," by Jay Rosen, Christian Science World Monitor, November 1990, p. 27. *] Congressman Dellums's challenge to the Republican realpolitikers was certainly motivated by this hope. (See Endnote 5.)

        7. THE MYSTERY OF MORAL DECISION-MAKING

7a.     A recent book review reinforces this point. Los Angeles Attorney Jonathan Kirsch reviewed "Declarations of Independence," a new book by Howard Zinn. Zinn is a political scientist at Boston University, and author of "A People's History of the United States," among other books on politics and history.
[*"A Lion of the Left Roars Again," Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times, 10/17/90. *] Kirsch notes that Zinn is no "ivory tower intellectual," referring to his experience as a WWII bombardier and as a labor and civil rights activist. He quotes Zinn:

"I decided early that I would be biased in the sense of holding fast to certain fundamental values: the equal right of all human beings ... to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Jefferson's ideals.

"... To depend on the simple existence of the First Amendment to guarantee our freedom of expression is a serious mistake, one that can cost us not only our liberties, but, under certain circumstances, our lives."

Kirsch grants that Zinn has written a "spirited, provocative, and intentionally unsettling" book. "Zinn is a clear thinker, a careful writer, and a profoundly compassionate man," who "... draws convincingly from the well springs of our civilization."

Nevertheless, "there is an irony at work here," says Kirsch. "I detect something old-fashioned and even antique about Zinn's 'Declarations,' and I came away from his book with a sense of nostalgia rather than an impulse to join the barricades."

In my reading of Kirsch's review, I evidently missed the man stuck in an "old-fashioned and even antique" time-warp, out of touch with modern political reality. Instead, I found Zinn's statements to be up-to-date, even containing, perhaps, an oblique reference to the potentially disastrous threat to our civil liberties that the Iran/Contra planners devised, and which was completely glossed over in the Congressional hearings. Zinn's comments are certainly relevant to that threat, in any case.

[*Lt. Col. North had devised a plan, to be implemented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) whereby, if the President sent troops into combat in Nicaragua or El Salvador, some 400,000 Hispanic aliens would be rounded up and put in camps such as were used to house the Japanese internees during WWII. During this period, the Constitution would be suspended, and it is easy to imagine that many U.S. citizens with a record of protest against Washington's interventionism in Central America would be interned with them. *]

Kirsch admits "nostalgia" for the days when idealists were fighting the good fight, so he must share Zinn's values even now. Where then, does he detect the "irony at work here ... something old and even antique." I suggest that he found it within himself, and, in classic form, projected it onto Zinn.

Perhaps Kirsch feels burned out from his salad days in the protest movements; perhaps he despairs of "making a difference" as the Reagan legacy begins to realize itself; perhaps he has simply become a yuppy elder. In any case, he knows exactly what Zinn is talking about, and he knows that Zinn wants to move him with "Declarations." Kirsch knows then, that whether he—Jonathan Kirsch—"joins the barricades" or walks away from them depends not at all on Howard Zinn's prose or style, but only his own willingness to act on his principles.

I imagine this future conversation between Kirsch and, let's say, a son who is old enough to understand that we lost our freedoms to fascism only a few years before:

"Why didn't you demonstrate against the government when it began repressing our rights, daddy?" asks Kirsch's son. "Because, son," Kirsch replies, "Howard Zinn didn't write an inspiring enough book." Who knows what it would have taken.

(Note: I sent a copy of this essay to Mr. Kirsch through his Los Angeles law firm. Several months later I received a reply from him, thanking me for it, and "pleading guilty" to having become a yuppy elder. That letter is one of my most prized possessions.)


Probably more effective in changing our behavior is for us to actually see the results of the policy we support. Here the words of Bernard Shaw's chaplain, in Saint Joan, are relevant. After witnessing the burning of the maid for heresy, for which he had argued with fierce righteousness, the chaplain begs his superior to pray for his wretched soul. "I am not a bad man, my lord," says the chaplain. "I meant no harm. I did not know what it would be like."

If those who supported the contras and President Reagan's agenda had been able to watch the killing of the five children, perhaps they might, as did the chaplain, re-think the necessity of the program. On the other hand, they might instead choose to accept a "well-told story" from contra leaders that the killings were an isolated incident, and that such would never happen again. Would this imply that their heads were filled with nothing but straw? Who knows?

WHY DISCUSS "MORAL" ISSUES AT ALL?

8.     According to Albert L. Weeks, emeritus professor of international relations at New York University and a published Sovietologist for 40 years, Sovietologists of both the liberal "revisionist" and the conservative "traditionalist" camps were caught completely unawares by Soviet President Gorbachev's emergence as a true reformer.
[*"The Perils of Russia-Watching," Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 1990, p. 18. *]

"Revisionist" Hough is considered one of the "harmful professors," by "traditionalist" Robert Conquest. Conquest has joined with other traditionalists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski in a series of scathing attacks on Hough and his fellow liberals, because, in the 60s and 70s, they "assaulted" the concept of totalitarianism, and professed to see some hope in the reforms introduced by Soviet leader Brezhnev. Hough, according to Weeks, had "gone to great pains ... to 'prove' that Brezhnev's Russia was not that different from Reagan's America."

Weeks gives Hough credit, though, for recognizing the possibility that "'fathers and sons' (as the Russians call it) generational change was bound sooner or later to lead to Young Turk reformism in the USSR."

While Hough may have been mistaken about the possibility of change in the Soviet Union at any given time, his overall conclusion has been proven valid. My interpretation of Weeks here is that the traditionalists are on the attack just because Hough and his liberal cohorts were right where they, the cold-warriors, were wrong. The argument that Hough is not a credible Soviet scholar because the Soviet system is now being repudiated with a vengeance is specious. The hysteria of the attack on the "harmful professors" indicates traditionalist defensiveness more than valid criticism.

As regards Hough's so-called analogy between Reagan's America and Brezhnev's Russia, there is more to the comparison than Weeks seems to realize. The disdain for the Constitution showed by the Iran/Contra players, and the docility of the mainstream press with its "kid gloves" treatment of President Reagan, are part of a darker side to the American conscience that would, if allowed to attain real power, create a nation not unlike the totalitarian regimes Washington supported for so many years.

Final comment: Today, over two years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the hyper-militant right wing of the Republican Party is ascendant. Many officials in the Bush administration would have no trouble at all administering a fascist government.