In Review
With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua by Christopher Dickey. Simon & Schuster, 1985, 327 pp. $18.95 (cloth). The Washington Post reporter who covered Central America from...
...20007...
...The latter half of the book delves into recent history of the death squads and their links to the New Right and Taiwan through WACL...
...Although limited by geography and an almost exclusive focus on only one of the five groups of the FMLN, the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), it is the most up-to-date account of the roots and history of the revolutionary movement now available in English...
...The book is beautifully designed, with photos and sidebar interviews with peasants, good charts and a striking cover...
...free (paper...
...The United States has sought to use arms transfers to deter aggression . . . [b]ut there has been little or no serious intent on the part of the Soviet Union . . to regulate and limit arms transfers...
...social science approach to revolution as a process which is structured solely by economics-either abject poverty or "rising expectations"--rather than situating the causes in a broader political-economic context...
...This is particularly critical, because the results are often used as an excuse to increase U.S...
...Kenneth Adelman, controversial director of the ACDA, uses 100 pages of figures, as well as a few multicolored charts and graphics, to illustrate the Administsration's contention that the USSR and Warsaw Pact lead in the arms race and are a threat to world peace...
...This insight helps the reader understand everything from the fractioning of the FSLN in the mid1970s to the political geography of current contra activities...
...More than just an account of Jenny Pearce's experiences visiting the areas controlled by the FMLN in El Salvador, this is a history of how the revolution grew and flourished in the remote province of Chalatenango...
...Adelman also seeks to shift blame for the runaway arms trade problem from the suppliers to the Third World: "As long as the demand for . . . military equipment remains strong and the international tensions generating that demand remain unabated, arms suppliers alone cannot induce restraint...
...5 (paper...
...First, Vilas bases his argument as to the "popular" nature of the Nicaraguan revolution on an intricate analysis of the development of classes and class sectors in Nicaragua over the past 35 years...
...An especially valuable section explains how the CIA calculates (and exaggerates) Soviet military expenditures...
...Carlos Vilas' newly translated analysis of the Nicaraguan revolution will reward the patient reader with one of the most sophisticated and useful examinations of the revolution and the first few years of Sandinista government...
...United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Washington, D.C...
...The World Anti-Communist League (WACL), a key element of the Reagan-linked contra support network, is the subject of this book...
...Second, he helps to explode a standard U.S...
...For Vilas, any study of revolution in a peripheral capitalist country must grapple with four "questions": class, national sovereignty, development and democracy...
...military spending...
...World Military and Social Expenditures 1985 by Ruth Leger Sivard...
...World Priorities, Inc., P.O...
...WACL is an organization that combines unconventional warfare practitioners from different eras and regions of the world: leaders of the East European Nazi S.S...
...World Priorities, Inc., 1985, 52 pp...
...20451...
...19.95 (cloth...
...Now add John K. Singlaub, the New Right and the Reagan Administration and you have the key coordinating body for the private aid network to the contras...
...The Sandinista Revolution: National Liberation and Social Transformation in Central America by Carlos M. Vilas...
...add the Moonies, set up by WW II Japanese war criminals, plus the Taiwan and South Korean dictatorships and you have most of traditional WACL...
...12.95 (paper...
...While the book provides a successful overview of the revolutionary process, it is most useful in two areas...
...Latin American Bureau, 1986, 324 pp...
...The Washington Post reporter who covered Central America from 1980 to 1983 has written a fast-paced account of how former National Guardsmen who left Nicaragua in 1979 to become freelance mercenaries in Central America were recruited, organized, equipped and trained by the U.S...
...Promised Land: Peasant Rebellion in Chalatenango by Jenny Pearce...
...Box 25140, Washington, D.C...
...The figures dealing with Soviet military spending are notoriously high, but the extensive tables do provide raw data for some comparative analyses...
...12 (paper...
...World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1985 by the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), 1985, 145 pp...
...ACDA, features the same type of information offered in the official ACDA report but with three crucial differences: 1) military costs are compared with social needs, 2) the report is produced from an objective, nonaligned perspective, and 3) the presentation of information through 30 colorful charts and graphs plus ten pages of tables makes this the most readable and useful summary available of military spending and its impact worldwide...
...Nevertheless, by combining welldocumented research with his own personal experiences with the contras, Dickey captures the sordid climate of the "secret" war: the contra leaders who "love to kill," the shady CIA contacts, the Argentinean trainers and the atrocities against civilians and captured soldiers...
...In particular, a lot of attention is paid to arms exports to the Third World...
...Sivard, a former chief of the economics division of the U.S...
...that ran mobile killing units against Poles, Jews and partisans combined with Latin American coup-makers and death squad leaders...
...Dodd Mead and Company, 1986, 322 pp...
...The book is short on analysis and accepts, without inquiry, Administration assumptions about the Sandinistas...
...Monthly Review Press, 1986, 317 pp...
...Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World AntiCommunist League by Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson...
...to attack Nicaragua...
Vol. 20 • July 1986 • No. 4
