Helping the Contras: The Effectiveness of U.S. Support for Foreign Rebels During the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979–1990)

1 Direct U.S. government funding for the Contras in the 1980s amounted to a total of $325 million (calculated from figures cited in this article), which is the equivalent of $760 million in 2018.

2 Daniel K. Inouye and Lee H. Hamilton, “Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair: With Supplemental, Minority, and Additional Views,” ed. United States Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987).

3 Robert Kagan, A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977–1990 (New York: Free Press, 1996), 466.

4 Carla E. Humud, Christopher M. Blanchard, and Mary Beth D. Nikitin, Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018).

5 Ginny Hill, Yemen Endures: Civil War, Saudi Adventurism and the Future of Arabia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Jack Freeman, “The Al Houthi Insurgency in the North of Yemen: An Analysis of the Shabab Al Moumineen,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 32, no. 11 (2009): 1008–1019.

6 Lawrence Freedman, “Ukraine and the Art of Limited War,” Survival 56, no. 6 (2014): 7–38; Vladimir Rauta, “Proxy Agents, Auxiliary Forces, and Sovereign Defection: Assessing the Outcomes of Using Nonstate Actors in Civil Conflicts,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16, no. 1 (2016): 91–111.

7 Idean Salehyan, “The Delegation of War to Rebel Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 54, no. 3 (2010): 493–515; Idean Salehyan, David Siroky, and Reed M. Wood, “External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Wartime Atrocities,” International Organization 68, no. 3 (2014): 633–661; Jeremy M. Berkowitz, “Delegating Terror: Principal–Agent Based Decision Making in State Sponsorship of Terrorism,” International Interactions 44, no. 4 (2018): 709–748.

8 Daniel Byman and Sarah E. Kreps, “Agents of Destruction? Applying Principal-Agent Analysis to State-Sponsored Terrorism,” International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 1 (2010): 13.

9 Despite being three decades after the event, U.S. government officials (particularly CIA personnel) continue to be reluctant to talk about the Contra aid program. This article compensates for this by making extensive use of (auto)biographies from several senior and mid-ranking U.S. government officials involved in the program, including Oliver North, Duane Clarridge, Robert Kagan, and Timothy Brown.

10 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 493.

11 Ibid., 507.

12 Navin A. Bapat, “Understanding State Sponsorship of Militant Groups,” British Journal of Political Science 42, no. 1 (2012): 3.

13 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 502.

14 Bapat, “Understanding,” 10.

15 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 495.

16 Darren G. Hawkins et al., “Delegation under Anarchy: States, International Organizations, and Principal-Agent Theory,” in Delegation and Agency in International Organizations, ed. Darren G. Hawkins et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 8.

17 Byman and Kreps, “Agents of Destruction,” 9.

18 Hawkins et al., “Delegation under Anarchy,” 25.

19 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 502.

20 Ibid., 505.

21 Byman and Kreps, “Agents of Destruction,” 10; see also Hawkins et al., “Delegation under Anarchy,” 26–31.

22 David B. Carter, “A Blessing or a Curse? State Support for Terrorist Groups,” International Organization 66, no. 1 (2012); Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 506.

23 Byman and Kreps, “Agents of Destruction,” 11.

24 Milos Popovic, “Inter-Rebel Alliances in the Shadow of Foreign Sponsors,” International Interactions 44, no. 4 (2018): 756; see also Paul Staniland, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 50.

25 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 506.

26 Henning Tamm, “Rebel Leaders, Internal Rivals, and External Resources: How State Spnsors Affect Insurgent Cohesion,” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2016).

27 The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this nuance.

28 D. Roderick Kiewiet and Matthew McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriation Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 27.

29 Salehyan, “The Delegation of War,” 505.

30 Milos Popovic, “Fragile Proxies: Explaining Rebel Defection against Their State Sponsors,” Terrorism and Political Violence 29, no. 5 (2015).

31 Some works do suggest that state support may not be effective but do so without explicitly referring to P-A theory. See Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 5; Jeremy M. Weinstein, “Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 4 (2005): 599–600; Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 328 n1, 40.

32 Mitchell A. Seligson and Vincent McElhinny, “Low-Intensity Warfare, High-Intensity Death: The Demographic Impact of the Wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 21, no. 42 (1996): 226.

33 Interview with Irene Agudelo (Nicaraguan academic), 17 April 2018, Managua.

34 Bob Woodward, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981–1897 (New York: Pocket Books, 1987), 111, 12.

35 Sam Dillon, Comandos: The CIA and Nicaragua's Contra Rebels (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1991), 63.

36 Author’s interview with Marta Pasos de Sacasa (Contra veteran), 17 April 2018, Managua.

37 Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua: Significant Political Actors and Their Interaction” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1984), 16.

38 Roy Gutman, Banana Diplomay: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua 1981–1987 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 56. A small and separate indigenous force based on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast (called the Atlantic Coast in Nicaragua) joined the FDN several years later.

39 Edgar Chamorro and Jefferson Morley, “Confessions of a 'Contra': How the CIA Masterminds the Nicaraguan Insurgency,” https://newrepublic.com/article/70847/confessions-contra.

40 Author’s interview with Pasos de Sacasa (Contra veteran), 17 April 2018, Managua.

41 In reality, only three to ten percent of the FDN had been member of the National Guard. Central Intelligence Agency, “Somocista Influence in the Nicaraguan Democratic Force” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1983), 3.

42 See Arturo Cruz Jr., Memoirs of a Counterrevolutionary (New York: Doubleday, 1989).

43 See, for instance, Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration's Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Connection (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1987); Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998); Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General, “Allegations of Connections between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States, Volume Ii: The Contra Story” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1998).

44 Duane R. Clarridge, A Spy for All Seasons: My Life in the CIA (New York: Scribner, 1997), 200.

45 Cruz Jr., Memoirs, 126; also Edgar Chamorro, “World Court Affidavit,” in Nicaragua: Unfinished Revolution the New Nicaragua Reader, ed. Peter Rosset and John Vandermeer (New York: Grove Press, 1986), 237.

46 Kagan, A Twilight Struggle, 187; author’s interview with Armando Castillo (Contra veteran), 19 April 2018, Managua.

47 “Political, Paramilitary Steps Included,” Washington Post, 14 February 1982; “U.S. Approves Covert Plan in Nicaragua,” 10 March 1982.

48 Inouye and Hamilton, “Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair,” 3.

49 Kagan, A Twilight Struggle, 205; William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 287. It is also possible that the Reagan administration was divided on what the rebels could and should do.

50 See, for instance, the excellent journalist reports in Christopher Dickey, With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (London: Faber and Faber, 1985); Dillon, Comandos; Glenn Garvin, Everybody Had His Own Gringo: The CIA & the Contras (Washington: Brassey's (US), 1992).

51 Pedro Javier Núňez Caberas in Dieter Eich and Carlos Rincón, The Contras: Interviews with Anti-Sandinistas (San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1985), 50.

52 Chamorro, “Nicaragua,” 242; also Walter S. Calderón, “War Dispatches of a Resistance Commando,” Resistencia 1, no. 3 (1988): 16.

53 Chamorro, “Nicaragua,” 241.

54 Luis Moreno, The Contras War: From Beginning to End, Nicaragua's Civil War and the Last Battle of the Cold War (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 29, 178.

55 Central Intelligence Agency, “The Freedom Fighter's Manual” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1983); “Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1985); “CIA Manual for Guerrillas Denounced by Rep. Boland,” Washington Post, 18 October 1984.

56 Moreno, The Contras War, 177.

57 Enrique Bermúdez, “The Contras' Valley Forge: How I View the Nicaraguan Crisis,” Policy Review 45 (1988): 60.

58 Chamorro and Morley, “Confessions.”

59 Oliver North, Under Fire: An American Story (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), 250.

60 Author’s interview with Marta Pasos de Sacasa (Contra veteran), 17 April 2018, Managua.

61 Moreno, The Contras War, 10.

62 Dianna Melrose, Nicaragua: The Threat of a Good Example? (Oxford: Oxfam, 1985), 27.

63 “Nicaraguan Villagers Report Rebels Killed Noncombatants,” Washington Post, 7 August 1984.

64 “Honduran Report Links Contras, Death Squads,” 15 January 1985; see also “Legislators Ask If Reagan Knew of C.I.A.'S Role,” New York Times, 21 October 1985.

65 “Legislators Ask.”

66 Moreno, The Contras War, 123.

67 See, for instance, Paul Staines, In the Grip of the Sandinistas: Human Rights in Nicaragua, 1979–1989 (London: International Society for Human Rights—British Section, 1989); Central Intelligence Agency, “Atrocities in the Nicaraguan Civil War” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1985). Also, author’s interview with Irene Agudelo (Nicaraguan academic), 17 April 2018, Managua.

68 Dillon, Comandos, 58; Lynn Horton, Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994 (Athens: Center for International Studies, 1998), 112.

69 Pedro Esinoza Sánchez in Eich and Rincón, The Contras, 138–139.

70 Author’s interview with Irene Agudelo (Nicaraguan academic), 17 April 2018, Managua.

71 William I. Robinson and Kent Norsworthy, David and Goliath: The U.S. War against Nicaragua (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987), 129; “Contras Press for Funds,” Washington Post, 18 February 1985.

72 Moreno, The Contras War, 117–118. On the peasants’ fighting prowess, see Horton, Peasants; Timothy C. Brown, The Real Contra War: Highlander Peasant Resistance in Nicaragua (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2001).

73 Garvin, Everybody, 45; Dickey, With the Contras, 133, 42.

74 “Nicaragua Rebels Said to Step up Combat Activity,” New York Times, 26 August 1983.

75 Horton, Peasants, 159–160; Robinson and Norsworthy, David and Goliath, 153–154; Kagan, A Twilight Struggle, 405; Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 155–165. Also author’s interview with Armando Castillo (Contra veteran), 19 April 2018, Managua.

76 Moreno, The Contras War, 75.

77 Brown, The Real Contra War, 115; Chamorro and Morley, “Confessions”; Cruz Jr., Memoirs, 233; Horton, Peasants, 196.

78 Edgar Chamorro, Repackaging the Contras (New York: New York Institute for Media Analaysis, Inc., 1987), 19–20.

79 Chamorro and Morley, “Confessions.”

80 Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua: Accelerating Military Assistance” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1983); “Nicaragua: Soviet Bloc and Radical Support for the Sandinista Regime (SNIE 83.3-3-85)” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1985).

81 “Nicaraguans Vow to Sign Latin Accord,” Washington Post, 23 September 1984.

82 Bruce Michael Bagley, “Contadora: The Failure of Diplomacy,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 28, no. 3 (1986): 8–9.

83 Chamorro, “Nicaragua,” 238.

84 Kagan, A Twilight Struggle, 296.

85 Brown, The Real Contra War, 201.

86 Chamorro, “Nicaragua,” 246.

87 “House Votes a Record Defence Bill,” Washington Post, 9 December 1982.

88 Woodward, Veil, 250–51; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 301.

89 U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense, “Background Paper: Nicaragua's Military Build-up and Support for Central American Subversion” (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense, 1984). “Debt Limit Blocks Adjournment of Congress,” New York Times, 12 October 1984; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 343–345.

90 Inouye and Hamilton, “Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair,” 34–35; “CIA Said to Supply Planes to Nicaraguan Rebels,” Washington Post, 15 September 1984; “CIA Sent Planes to Rebels, Sasser Says Files Show,” 18 September 1984; “Pentagon Admits Shift of 3 Planes,” 19 September 1984.

91 Malcolm Byrne, Iran-Contra: Reagan's Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014).

92 Inouye and Hamilton, “Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair,” 551.

93 Ibid., 45.

94 Garvin, Everybody, 167–170.

95 Cruz Jr., Memoirs, 219.

96 Enrique Bermúdez, “There Has Never Been a Guerrilla Organisation So Politically Flexible as Ours,” Resistencia 1, no. 2 (1987): 13.

97 “Contras Press,” Washington Post.

98 Dillon, Comandos, 162.

99 Robinson and Norsworthy, David and Goliath, 331.

100 Central Intelligence Agency, “Latin America Review” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1986), 4–7.

101 Carr in Cockburn, Out of Control, 45; also Revista Envío, “In from the Cold: An Ex-Contra Speaks,” Envío, no. 76 (1987).

102 “Ex-Officers Accuse Contra Chiefs of Siphoning Off U.S. Aid Money,” New York Times, 21 June 1986.

103 Dillon, Comandos, 127.

104 U.S. Congress, “Iran-Contra Investigation: Joint Hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, One Hundredth Congress, First Session, Testimony of Adolfo P. Calero, John K. Singlaub, Ellen C. Garwood, William B. O’boyle, Joseph Coors, Robert C. Dutton, Felix I. Rodriguez, and Lewis A. Tambs,” ed. U.S. Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), 37.

105 “House Votes to Aid Contras,” Washington Post, 13 June 1985.

106 Garvin, Everybody, 169–70, 205; “CIA Provided Contras $13 Million in Assistance under Reagan 'Finding,'” Washington Post, 14 January 1987.

107 Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Dinner of the Conservative Political Action Conference,” The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38274; The Washington Post, “Reagan Seeks Ouster of Sandinistas Unless Contras Share Power,” 22 February 1985.

108 “Reagan Asks $100 Million for Contras,” New York Times, 26 February 1986.

109 Dillon, Comandos, 177–182; Garvin, Everybody, 201, 06; Plane Supplying Contras Crashes,” New York Times; “11 Believed Killed in Nicaragua,” 25 January 1988. ”Stronger Radio Station Set up by the Contras,“ 19 January 1987.

110 See Dillon, Comandos.

111 Calderón, “War Dispatches,” 16.

112 Dillon, Comandos, 182; Moreno, The Contras War, 191.

113 Walter Calderón, in “El Comandante Toňo: The Story of a Contra,” New York Times, 6 December 1987; also Enrique Bermúdez, “The Nicaraguan Resistance at a Crossroads,” Strategic Review 17, no. 2 (1989): 12.

114 Garvin, Everybody, 218–220.

115 Bermúdez, “The Nicaraguan Resistance,” 11.

116 Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua: Prospects for Sandinista Consolidation (Nie 83.3–87)” (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1987), 21–23.

117 Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (New York: Random House, 1987), 17–18.

118 Bermúdez, “The Nicaraguan Resistance,” 13; also Calderón, “War Dispatches,” 17.

119 U.S. General Accounting Office, “Central America: Humanitarian Assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance” (Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, 1990), 2.

120 Cruz Jr., Memoirs, 243; also Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua: Assessment of Insurgent and Regime Capabilities in First Quarter 1988,” ed. Directorate of Intelligence (Langley, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1988), 2.

121 Cruz Jr., Memoirs, 247.

122 Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua: Assessment of Insurgent and Regime Capabilities in First Quarter 1988,” 1.

123 The Constitutional Government of Nicaragua and the Directorate of the Counterrevolution, “Acuerdo Sapoá” (Sapoá 1988); Bermúdez, “The Nicaraguan Resistance,” 14.

124 “New Installments of U.S. Nonlethal Aid Arrive in Contra Camps,” Washington Post, 21 April 1988.

125 “Democrats' Plan to Assist Contras Voted by Senate,” New York Times, 11 August 1988.

126 United States General Accounting Office, “Central America: Humanitarian Assistance to the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance” (Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, 1989); “Central America: Humanitarian Assistance to the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance” (Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, 1990); “Central America: Humanitarian Assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance.”

127 United States General Accounting Office, “Central America: Humanitarian Assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance,” 3, 4.

128 United Nations Security Council, “Joint Declaration of the Central American Presidents (S/20491)” (New York: United Nations, 1989).

129 “Bush and Congress Sign Policy Accord on Aid to Contras,” New York Times, 25 March 1989; LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard, 555.

130 Author’s interview with Irene Agudelo (Nicaraguan academic), 17 April 2018, Managua.

131 Clifford L. Staten, The History of Nicaragua (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010), 118; “Ortega Concedes Defeat in Nicaraguan Vote, Pledges to Abide by the 'Popular Mandate,'” Washington Post, 27 February 1990.

132 Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, Dreams of the Heart: The Autobiography of President Violeta Barrios De Chamorro of Nicaragua (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 311.

133 United Nations Security Council, “Toncontín Agreement (S/21206)” (New York: United Nations, 1990).

134 Garvin, Everybody, 259—260.

135 United States Department of State, “Groups of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force: Who Are They?” (Washington, DC: United States Department of State, 1985), 1–2.

136 See, for instance, the descriptions in Brown, The Real Contra War; Moreno, The Contras War; Horton, Peasants.

137 An exception is a brief note in Daniel Byman et al., Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), 102.

138 See Clarridge, A Spy, 236.

139 Walter C. Ladwig III, “Influencing Clients in Counterinsurgency: U.S. Involvement in El Salvador’s Civil War, 1979–92,” International Security 41, no. 1 (2016).

140 For this, see also Stephen D. Collins, “Dissuading State Support of Terrorism: Strikes or Sanctions? (an Analysis of Dissuasion Measures Employed against Libya),” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 27, no. 1 (2004).

141 The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for bringing up this point.