IV. U.S. Strategy
Butler, Judy
"My friends have told Carter not to continue on this course if he wants their support on many future questions. This battle is being fought in the U.S. " Somoza, September 5, 1978' "I don't think...
...Far from being unified, the commission had all the inherent divisions of the FAO itself...
...There is a sense of imminent confrontation...
...training of the National Guard gave Nicaragua the highest per capita armed forces training and the third highest ratio of American military advisers in all of Latin America...
...interests...
...guan government was complicit in the three major U.S...
...It is clear that circumstances in Nicaragua make more precipitous action to do away with Somoza a calculated risk...
...and within Congress itself, but also results from the carrot-and-stick tactic Carter and his expediter Warren Christopher have been using to get dictators to clean up their images...
...carried out a diplomatic attack on Somoza's heavyhanded tactics that has not yet been matched during the current crisis...
...hopes for an alternative leader dissolved...
...Within weeks of Solaun's arrival in early September 1977, Somoza lifted the three-year-old martial law and press censorship, in return for which the State Dept...
...quickly signed a $2.5 million arms credit agreement, part of the larger military aid package...
...Steel, and Adela, a transnational based in Luxembourg...
...Dept...
...2. Newsweek, October 23, 1978...
...In fact, troops from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador were reported by the Sandinistas to be in Nicaragua during the September fighting...
...The mediation team requested that Somoza resign and leave the country with his family...
...military incursions in Latin America during the past 25 years...
...Financial 7imes qfLondon, September 20, 1978...
...Costa Rica has broken relations with Nicaragua and Venezuela has announced its intention to suspend oil shipments...
...But beneath the unthinking contradiction lies the essential dilemma for the United States...
...1978 has consistently thrown his weight behind the most reactionary sectors of the Salvadorean, Honduran and Guatemalan militaries, even where the United States might have preferred a more moderate civilian basis for repression.' By far the greatest liability of somocismo is its inability to contain the political and social contradictions of Nicaraguan society, which ultimately has regional implications as well...
...NACLA Report, Vol...
...At the end of October, they assured the FAO that the United States would take care of getting Somoza to leave...
...militarization of Nicaragua, comparisons with Guatemala are instructive...
...Then they revealed the U.S...
...4, 7; and Michael Klare, Supplying Repression (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Policy Studies, 1978), p. 38...
...Additionally, a regime hostile to U.S...
...troops and millions in reconstruction aid...
...capital...
...Institutionalizing his father's watchdog role, Tachito played a key role in the creation of CONDECA (the Central American Defense Council) in 1964...
...While there was no definitive outcome, there was a clear shift in the correlation of forces and an increased polarization of the population...
...of Defense, Congressional Presentation: Security Assistance Program Fiscal Year 1977, p. 240...
...during the same period is only slightly higher ($22 million).' "NON-INTERVENTION"-AN ELEPHANT IN A SITTING ROOM Following theJanuary 1978 assassination of Chamorro, U.S...
...Alan Riding, "Nicaragua," New York Times Magazine, July 30, 1978...
...LAPR, September 22, 1978...
...is principally responsible for the absence of a viable bourgeois alternative...
...6. Business R4eek, February 27, 1978...
...He is burdened with the legacy of intervention in Latin America as well as Southeast Asia...
...The general strike called by business and labor leaders that followed his death demonstrated the lack of bourgeois leadership over the masses...
...8. Latin America Economic Report (LAER), October 29, 1976...
...In 1954, Somoza allowed Nicaragua to be the main staging area for the CIA-sponsored invasion of Guatemala, which overthrew the progressive Arbenz government...
...2 2 Ultimately a team of mediators from the United States, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic was agreed to by both negotiating parties.* Opposing Somoza was a three-man commission selected by the FAO and authorized to speak for "all factions" of the opposition...
...So while the Administration hoped for a lucky break, through the increasingly tense period leading up to September it had no choice but to continue backing Somoza and push for incremental accommodations until the 1981 elections...
...companies dominate some of the most dynamic sectors of the economy: food processing, agrichemicals, lumber and tourism...
...Guatemala 1971-1973...
...and in time to prevent a precipitous expansion of revolutionary influence...
...official in various countries at the "right time": Cuba 1956-1961...
...LendLease Agreement, although the Nicaraguan military never confronted the Axis powers in battle...
...repeated its request...
...As a result, $3.1 million in military aid and $15.1 million in "humanitarian" economic aid to Nicaragua for fiscal year 1978 were volleyed back and forth between the pro-Somoza forces, headed by Rep...
...Los Angeles Times, Nov...
...Since then the remaining participants in the mediation effort have haggled over the details and goals of a proposed plebiscite...
...press has alternately reported the cutoff of economic and military aid, its reinstatement, the suspension of shipments, etc...
...44, November 10, 1978...
...Each had its own project for post-Somoza Nicaragua, none of which satisfied U.S...
...Charles Wilson (DTexas) and John Murphy (R-NY), and the human rights group, at this moment led by Rep...
...As a State Dept...
...When Tacho astutely sensed the impending Cold War pragmatism of the United States in 1948 he offered to make Nicaragua a "stronghold and breakwater against the communists who diligently seek to infiltrate Central America," thus cementing the dynasty's role as regional watchdog.' In this capacity the Nicara29NACLA Report The National Guard: watchdogs for Somoza and U.S...
...X, No...
...Foreign assembly plant operations were set up to take advantage of the expanded and protected market, strong fiscal incentives and cheap labor...
...This short-sighted solution was not unlike U.S...
...WOLA, Special Update Nicaragua (October 1978), p. 2. 16...
...VIII, No...
...He has whipped up Liberal expectations with his human rights rhetoric which now threaten to boomerang (86 members of NACLA Report 34NovlDsc...
...October 28, 1978...
...After getting the International Monetary Fund to postpone a much-needed $20 million standby credit to Somoza, the U.S...
...In any event, the quickness with which the U.S...
...Ramirez' presence on the commission was understood as providing a link with the Terceristas...
...official said recently, "We've been looking everywhere for another Balaguer but we can't seem to locate him...
...might imminently threaten the shaky military dictatorships to the north of Nicaragua...
...1978 States retreated into what it called a "noninterventionist" position...
...Direct foreign investment is modest even by Central American standards-about $130-170 million, three-fourths of which comes from the United States...
...Any bourgeois solution must accomodate mightily to somocismo, and to Somoza as well unless he conveniently suffers a "heart attack" soon...
...4. U.S...
...The subject of these recent remarks was Somoza's powerful lobby in Washington, which has worked hard in the past year to stem the erosion of support for his dictatorship...
...It also halted all military aid and training, demanded the return of all ammunition from the military mission and recalled the American military director...
...lopped off the left/progressive arm of the anti-Somoza forces indicates that the U.S...
...intends to ignore the popular upsurge-it can be contained through military force, or, a la Portugal, by its rapid dissipation once the focus of the immediate militancy, the tyrant Somoza, is gone...
...The United 32 NACLA ReportNovJDec...
...Dominican Republic 1963-1965...
...The maximum that the U.S...
...6 Nonetheless, foreign and particularly U.S...
...Almost all have both Atlantic and Pacific access, and thus could threaten the entire regional security system...
...3, pp...
...1944), VIII, pp...
...government chose once again to defend Somoza's rule-with 600 crack U.S...
...For an evaluation of the effects of this loan denial, see Financial Times of London, 4orld Business Weekly, Vol...
...sphere of influence...
...Though he held Hitler and Mussolini in high esteem and formed his own team of black shirts in 1936, he dutifully declared war on Japan and Germany two days after the U.S...
...Guatemala and El Salvador have particularly repressive regimes already under heavy attack from organized revolutionary movements...
...plan "would leave practically intact the corrupt structures of the Somoza apparatus...
...Military Training in Latin America and W4eapons Acquisitions Patterns: 1959-1969 (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T...
...In 1947 the U.S...
...In a self-perpetuating cycle, the U.S...
...Additionally several of the Western European Social Democratic parties are reportedly providing financial and military assistance to the34 NACLA Report Terceristas...
...THE INVESTMENT PROFILE Nicaragua's strategic importance overshadows the level of U.S...
...requirements...
...and The International Institute fur Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1977-78 (London: 1977...
...cit., p.213...
...Cuban exiles were trained there and launched their attack on the Bay of Pigs from Nicaraguan bases...
...The Carter Administration has been urged to withdraw its ambassador, urge an international boycott of arms shipments to Somoza including private U.S...
...Commerce Department describes investment policy in Nicaragua as more open and receptive than in any other country in Latin America, yet foreign investors often echo the complaints of their domestic counterparts: Somoza is too greedy, and will use ruthless tactics to eliminate competition...
...Edward Koch (D-NY...
...Already trade between Nicaragua and its neighbors was suffering, and the internationalized business sector was very worried about its investments in the region...
...7. Ibid...
...Carter's declarations would be put to a public test...
...military aid had the secondary effect of entrenching somocismo and precluding the evolution of an acceptable alternative...
...29 The underlying imperialist objective is a class dictatorship in Nicaragua, led by the most powerful and U.S.-oriented sectors of the bourgeoisie, including the somocistas...
...By the 1970s, the growth of mass discontent with somocismo had reached unprecedented proportions...
...1400-1...
...1 9 Hoping to use it to pressure for the release of further aid money, Somoza's friends leaked it to the U.S...
...Responding to Somoza's successful ouster of President Arguello, the United States refused diplomatic recognition to his hand-picked replacement and persuaded the rest of Latin America to do the same...
...The early 1960s saw the rise of this twoedged sword throughout Latin America...
...economic involvement...
...over how to mediate the crisis of bourgeois leadership in Nicaragua, but more than at any time since the country became a U.S...
...For a general summary of regional response, see LAPR, Vol...
...El Salvador 1968...
...November 21 has come and gone and FSLN strikes at military garrisons in the countryside are on the increase...
...Believing that the United States, in the face of a growing revolutionary threat, will ultimately prop up his regime once again, he dared the taunt: "If Carter wants me to go, he can come and get me...
...Ibid., p. 226...
...2 0 Although there are various tensions among these governments, Somoza would undoubtedly call on them for support in the event of a major FSLN offensive, using the mutual defense pact of CONDECA as a legalistic pretext...
...Major investors include Exxon, United Brands, U.S...
...During the 1976 presidential campaign, the Fraser Subcommittee Hearings on Human Rights in Nicaragua released reports of massive arrests, disappearances and atrocities committed by the Guard against peasants in retaliation for the FSLN offensive...
...ward in 1909, Nicaraguan destiny is being forged in Nicaragua...
...Tacho Somoza quickly recognized the indispensable role he could play in serving U.S...
...security...
...Thus ensued a month-long test of determination...
...Somoza could not continue to subvert the economy, and the growing popular and revolutionary movements could not be met by a divided bourgeoisie...
...1978 35 Congress signed a letter urging him to unequivocally suspend all aid to Somoza...
...The Carter Administration is in a very difficult spot...
...Not until fiscal year 1979 did the Defense Dept...
...it connected two military garrisons in an area where over 600 peasants had been killed by the Guard since 1975.18 In July, prodded by the Nicaragua lobby, Carter quietly sent a letter to Somoza, praising him for the improved situation of human rights in his country...
...The bourgeois opposition continued to claim that the popular groundswell, if augmented by the withdrawal of U.S...
...provided Nicaragua with almost $20 million in military aid, making it far and away the largest per capita recipient in Central America...
...that would lead the bloody assault on Nicaraguan cities in September 1978.13 MILITARY ASSISTANCE A LA CARTER The Carter human rights rhetoric inserted a new dynamic into Nicaragua's internal situation, inspiring confidence in the opposition that the United States would support its initiatives to oust Somoza...
...geopolitical concerns in the hemisphere have shifted in the past century, Washington because Nicaraguan destiny is Somoza, October 23, 19782 but the "stability" and "friendliness" of the Central American/Caribbean region remains crucial to U.S...
...Created National Guard and of the Somoza Family, p. 199...
...Each effort, however, has been nullified by the need to respond to threats to short-term "stability" in Nicaragua...
...A battle is indeed being fought in the U.S...
...I, No...
...of State, Foreign Relations of the U.S...
...THE VICIOUS CIRCLE Throughout the forties and fifties, the United States pressured the regime to make political and economic concessions to the bourgeoisie...
...Latin American Political Report, Vol...
...They let it be known that U.S...
...Even if we don't move, you can't ignore US.''17 In fact the United States was moving, but much more cautiously than the escalation of events or U.S...
...See Appendix B for listing of U.S.-based firms and banks...
...Moving from the economic plane to the strategic, Somoza governments have often played an interventionist and ironically destabilizing role in the region, contrary to U.S...
...8 THE LIABILITIES OF SOMOCISMO Notwithstanding the family's historical willingness to serve U.S...
...5 Nicaragua's small local market, its lack of mineral resources, and the breadth of Somoza's own control have made it a secondary haven for U.S...
...And he faces a rightwing that has grown since the November Congressional elections (Rep...
...Rafael C6rdova Rivas, populist UDEL leader...
...Given this, the task for the U.S...
...Somoza, September 5, 1978' "I don't think there will be a test of wills in made in Nicaragua...
...REGIONAL PREOCCUPATIONS With a close ally to the north, and vast oceans east and west, the United States has always been most sensitive to its southern vulnerability...
...In all, in the decade 1968-78, the U.S...
...I refuse to leave nor will I be forced out...
...As the summer wore on, Washington hotly debated how to control the outcome of the crisis...
...In turn the Pentagon began to fear that Somoza's remova...
...2 7 The FSLN, training several thousand new recruits and still learning the ways of its new weaponry, agreed to honor the FAO deadline of November 21 st...
...See chart Appendix C...
...Meanwhile Carter appointed Mauricio Solaun, a Cuban-American sociology professor, as the new ambassador to Nicaragua...
...responses to popular offensives throughout Latin America from Brazil to Chile...
...Geoffrey Kemp, Some Relationships Between U.S...
...Guatemala has a population nearly three times as large as Nicaragua and an armed force that is double Nicaragua's, yet its military assistance from the U.S...
...purposes...
...An American official conjured up the historical magnitude of the U.S...
...Penny Lernoux, "Nicaragua's Civil War," The Nation, September 16, 1978, p. 230...
...More recently the Somozas have instituted "duty-free zones" to provide U.S...
...The Economist...
...Although it took a year, Tacho's ingratiating anti-Communist declarations finally brought the hemispheric bloc around...
...this highly unstable situation, the United States realized a misstep might well reverberate beyond the borders of Nicaragua itself...
...of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency, Foreign Military Sales and Military Assistance Facts (December 1977...
...In 1961, Nicaragua again served as an anticommunist outpost...
...objectives in the region and internally as it pursues its own narrower interests...
...As our analysis has already demonstrated, the intransigent General, and somocismo itself, has come into serious conflict with their very reason for existence in imperialist terms-to provide a stable outpost of regional domination...
...2 (Rightwing governments of Latin America were beginning to send weapons to Somoza, and Israel has already sent more than $20 million worth of arms.26) The PSN and one of the trade union confederations soon exited from the FAO as well...
...About the author: Alejandro Bendana, a Nicaraguan, has written extensively about his country under the pseudonym of Nicasio...
...2 8 So far it has done none of these things...
...military aid expanded greatly in this period, including agreements for an Air Force mission, an Army mission, and initial funding through the Military Assistance Program in 1954.10 Motivated in part by the spectre of the Arbenz government in Guatemala, U.S...
...4 The Twelve immediately pulled out of the mediations and out of the FAO itself, charg*Heading the U.S...
...Despite the pressure to resolve 33 Anastasio Somoza: continuing in his father's ways...
...5. Wall Street Journal, February 23, 1978...
...interests in Central America and locate the Nicaraguan family dynasty within that historically...
...policy...
...support, would bring about Somoza's resignation...
...See also article on Guatemala in Update section, this issue...
...As it expanded its hegemony southward, this quickly encompassed protection of potential trans-isthmian crossings...
...But Carter also faces multifaceted resistance at home...
...XII, No...
...Somoza surely realizes this and is driving a hard bargain...
...Losing control of any link in the narrow chain of countries that makes up Central America would be particularly threatening...
...Dept...
...It turned a deaf ear to complaints that aid pouring in from public and private sources was getting funneled to, and not through, Somoza...
...The spillover has also involved the Venezuelan government...
...To avoid touching off this tinderbox with an unnecessary spark, the United States appealed to the OAS to mediate the crisis, an effort to cloak its own intervention in interAmerican respectability...
...But even in the chaotic and utterly corrupt aftermath of the earthquake, the U.S...
...South Africa 1975-1978...
...Caribbean Review, Vol...
...By 1969, U.S...
...Since the 1930s, the Somozas have been fine-tuned to the twists and turns of U.S...
...In appreciation he received substantial shipments of military equipment under the U.S...
...Most of the training was in jungle operations, military intelligence and interrogation...
...Pronunicamiento de los Doce, Managua, Nicaragua, October 25, 1978...
...As we have also discussed, the U.S...
...3, November 13-19, 1978, pp...
...This suspension of "pipeline" aid was announced after the cessation of fighting in September...
...officials who argued that the aid package should be approved, but that its release be at the discretion of the Administration, subject to continuing human rights "improvements" by Somoza...
...And four years later, Nicaraguan troops participated in the U.S...
...The caution was imposed not just by the bleakness of the alternatives inside Nicaragua, but also by pressures within the U.S...
...2 3 The commission, portrayed as a signal of greater consolidation within the opposition, was composed of Alfonso Robelo, the shrewd MDN leader and businessman highly thought of by U.S...
...interests, its ability to do so has often come in contradiction with the dynastic nature of somocismo itself...
...Continued support of Somoza could produce a "Cuba-type solution," in which the weak bourgeois opposition would be dominated in an alliance with the FSLN...
...domination could provide critical ideological and material support to strug- gles in neighboring countries...
...Dept...
...The U.S...
...They have been implicated in attempts to overthrow moderate regimes in good standing with the United States, but hostile to Somoza, such as Figueres in Costa Rica, and Betancourt in Venezuela...
...promise" to remove Somoza from the scene, citing its continued support of somociscmo through arms supplied by countries in the U.S...
...For the first nine months of the new administration, Congress became a battlefield...
...President Perez sent planes to defend Costa Rica's territory against National Guard bombing in September...
...In any case it is the task of the international solidarity movement to support the struggle of the Nicaraguan people, and their vanguard, the FSLN...
...Since the early seventies, Somoza had taken care to deepen his contacts with sympathetic Congresspeople and poured money into what has become a powerful and insidious force in Washington-the Nicaragua lobby...
...companies with a base for production, transport and power facilities...
...in the short run...
...In the ensuing year the U.S...
...OPEN WITH CARE By 1974, the United States was willing to cautiously explore the possibility of new options...
...To the south of Nicaragua, both Costa Rica and Panama have strong legalized radical oppositions which make these regimes vulnerable to developments in Nicaragua as well...
...These reports were corroborated by Amnesty International, religious orders in Nicaragua, and a variety of other groups...
...tactic of cautious maneuvering...
...The foreign debt of $1.1 billion is 55% of gross national product, and about one third of it is loans from U.S...
...Newsweek, October 23, 1978...
...To appreciate the U.S...
...3 To assure that such a dictatorship (or what is euphemistically referred to these days as "controlled democracy") is viable, the escalating revolutionary threat must be eradicated and the mobilized popular sectors deactivated...
...Created, armed and financed by the United States, somocismo has achieved a relative independence, occasionally damaging broader U.S...
...press, a tactic which backfired once the popular uprisings hit the headlines...
...With $3 million in military sales credits, Somoza purchased the very weapons (C-47 transports, utility helicopters, armored cars, etc...
...Among the carrots Carter now can use on Somoza is more than $20 million in military and economic aid approved by Congress and held in suspension, as well as pre-1977 appropriations in various stages of delivery...
...Says one American businessman: "You just don't do business here without offering the General a share in it from the beginning...
...One of Tacho's most frequently employed tactics was "the identification of all opposition, actual or potential, with whatever foreign threat currently preoccupied the United States...
...On the other hand, international intervention to militarily back up the Guard in the event of a widespread revolutionary offensive, could conceivably ignite a Central American war, bringing the contradictions of imperialism to the breaking point...
...2 1 Such participation runs the risk of escalating analogous conflicts in their own home base, and if the revolutionary organizations act in concert could spread the CONDECA troops very thin...
...within the bourgeoisie the growth of independent finance capital gave new impetus to their demands for participation in the structuring of the expanding economic system...
...In the meantime, expediency called for U.S...
...It is impossible to calculate the relative strength of each of the actors in this pivotal period...
...Marine invasion of the Dominican Republic...
...If the United States was no longer in a position to directly intervene in Latin America, it was certainly willing to support any counterrevolutionary offensive that promised to stifle class struggle...
...Not wishing to limit their solidarity to the hemisphere, Tacho and son respectively offered troops to support U.S...
...and Sergio Ramirez, attorney, author and member of the Twelve...
...The September insurrection severely challenged the U.S...
...reduce its request for military assistance to Nicaragua...
...4ashington Post, September 15, 1978...
...involvement in Korea and Viet Nam...
...1 2 This time the threat was the rise of a new revolutionary movementthe FSLN-and the fear of more Cubas to come...
...In order to understand U.S...
...This is in part testimony to contradictions within the State Dept...
...President Ford dispatched James Theberge to Nicaragua with a new ambassadorial mission: end the "old-boy" collaboration with Somoza, cultivate ties with the bourgeois opposition and isolate the more radical elements in the newly-formed UDEL...
...It is a fact that monies appropriated to the Military Assistance Program have been severely reduced in the past two years, but concurrently military sales for cash and credit have been substantially increased, as have approvals for private commercial sales (see Appendix C...
...WOLA, op...
...The specifics of U.S...
...could hope for was the development of UDEL into a coherent organization with a broader base of support by the 1981 3132 NACLA Report elections-six years away...
...STRATEGY 1. Miami Herald, September 5, 1978...
...These parties have apparently pushed this alliance with the expectiation that should Somoza be overthrown and the FSLN participate in a new government, they will follow a reformist course and keep the other tendencies in line...
...This general position ultimately carried...
...But despite its relative unresponsiveness, U.S...
...He is currently a doctoral candidate in history...
...team is William Bowdler, a former member of the National Security Council, and State Dept...
...approval of Somoza's imposition of martial law after the Christmas kidnappings and an almost 100% increase in military arms supplies in 1975 to eradicate the FSLN...
...Somoza has warned that the only viable alternative to his rule would be a military junta, a solution that would be perfectly acceptable to the U.S...
...Newt York Times, November 19, 1978...
...Also in the fray were several State Dept...
...precedents in Latin America would suggest...
...5 Amid the on-again, off-again nature of the military appropriations, certain conclusions can be drawn...
...9. For details of Somoza involvement in Central American internal affairs see "Ante Los Ultimos Sucesos Centroamericanos," estudios Centroamericanos, (San Salvador) 351-2 (January-February, 1978...
...Under Pentagon tutelage, CONDECA's task is to coordinate counterinsurgency efforts among all the Central American armies...
...Prensa Latina Feature Service, October 5, 1978.] ing that the U.S...
...has funded capitalist expansion in an effort to incorporate new bourgeois sectors with one hand, then with the other bolstered the repressive capacity of the Somoza apparatus to put down incipient mass movements or bourgeois challenges...
...Center for International Studies, 1970), pp...
...Tachito 30NovJDec...
...7 Investment in Nicaragua grew markedly with the creation of the U.S.-dominated Central American Common Market (CACM) in 1960...
...XII, No...
...4Washington Post, September 24, 1978...
...27-29...
...The military buildup in Nicaragua was particularly massive...
...regional interests-a role that suited his own expansionist interests as well...
...NACILA interview in Costa Rica...
...In May the International Development Bank approved a $32 million loan to build a road...
...The mediators' next move served simultaneously to co-opt the bourgeois initiative, shift the focus from the FSLN to the United States, and polarize the most progressive elements out of the game...
...mercenary activity there...
...interests...
...Millions of dollars were poured into Alliance for Progress reforms on the one hand, and into costly counterinsurgency on the other...
...2. "Nicaragua" (February 1976...
...silence was tantamount to support for the monster it had created...
...participation in the coming period, we must first examine the nature and extent of U.S...
...3. Richard Millett, Guardians of the Dynasty, A History of the U.S...
...31, p.246...
...But Somoza stood firm: "Ni me voy ni me van...
...sales, withdraw its five-man military advisory group still in Nicaragua, and seriously investigate U.S...
...What is clear is that the rightwing fighting force in Nicaragua remains loyal to Somoza, and is now fighting for its own skin as well...
...The United States has long recognized this liability, and throughout the near half-century of the dynasty has tried to pressure the Somozas to broaden the social base...
...later it would be the Communists...
...We urge our readers to join in that solidarity...
...John Murphy was able even in September to muster 78 signatures on a letter urging support for Somoza...
...In the 1940s, this was the Nazi movement...
...The global capitalist crisis was compelling new approaches...
...They also challenged the U.S...
...presence: "We're like an elephant in a sitting room...
...4ashington Post, November 3, 1978...
...banks...
...Removing him would run the risk that the opposition could not seize the opening-sometimes referred to as a Diem-type "solution...
...Millett, op...
...plan for a provisional government-one that included members of Somoza's own Liberal Party...
...now appears to be to reform somocismo enough to be acceptable to the bourgeois opposition...
Vol. 12 • November 1978 • No. 6
