Word: sandinista
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Indeed, some of those tremors have already been felt: 1) the five-week-long diplomatic wrangle with Moscow over the presence of a 2,600-man Soviet combat brigade in Cuba; 2) the Cuban-supported Sandinista revolution that overthrew Nicaragua's Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle last summer; 3) the left-wing coup in Grenada last March, which replaced Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy with a socialist regime that established relations with Havana. There is worry in Washington that the Sandinista revolt could spill over into El Salvador and Guatemala, where repressive military regimes are struggling against leftist dissidents. Grenada...
...swept into exile by largely home-grown revolutions. Each had long been taken for granted as the absolute ruler of his country and as a friend of the U.S. Yet in the end, Somoza's national guard, cloned from the U.S. Marine Corps, was as ineffective against the Sandinista guerrillas as the Shah's army and secret police-the best that petro-billions could buy-were against the mostly unarmed followers of a cranky, theocratic graybeard, the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini...
Carter Administration officials vehemently reject Kissinger's complaint that they overthrew Somoza. The Sandinistas did that themselves. All the U.S. did was to administer a diplomatic coup de grâce in order to end the civil war. To preserve the status quo in Iran or Nicaragua-i.e., keep the Shah or Somoza in power-would probably have required direct military intervention, with G.I.s fighting alongside the Shah's imperial troops and Somoza's national guard. Even then, the Islamic and Sandinista revolutions might well have triumphed, leaving American prestige and strategic interests far more badly...
...junta feel secure enough in victory to lift a 7 p.m. curfew than Managua burst into noisy life. Roadblocks at major intersections came down, and the streets filled with honking traffic. Restaurants and theaters showing old American films like Mandingo began to attract crowds. Radio Sandino, voice of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (F.S.L.N.), adjusted to the brand new beat: to its broadcasts of revolutionary anthems it added disco hits by the Bee Gees...
Until elections can be held, at least two years from now, local governments are being literally hailed into office. In Matagalpa, for example, five candidates selected by the F.S.L.N. lined up on the steps of a church. "Do you approve of these men as your representatives?" bellowed a Sandinista commander dressed in combat fatigues to the thousands assembled in the plaza below. "If you give them your vote, raise your hands." After an almost unanimous show of hands, the five were sworn in as the city's Municipal Reconstruction Junta, "in the name of the heroes and martyrs fallen...