A Twilight Struggle

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Kagan contends that the Carter administration's halfhearted intervention in Nicaragua was in response to American feelings of guilt for Washington's longtime support of the Somoza dynasty. The Reagan-era intervention, on the other hand, originated in American anxiety over Soviet encroachment in the Western hemisphere. Kagan recounts how American popular aversion to the employment of U.S. military muscle in Central America led to the administration's covert support of the contras and goes on to explain how the clash between the Reagan White House and Congress over ``freedom fighter'' funding led to the Iran-contra affair in 1987. Although the surprising electoral victory of Violeta Chamorro over the Sandinistas was widely recognized as a success for American policy, the U.S. remains caught in a continuous cycle of intervention and withdrawal in Nicaragua, according to Kagan. As a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, Kagan was a direct participant in many of the events described in this authoritative and definitive account of U.S.-Nicaragua relations from 1977 to 1990. (Feb.)

From Barnes & Noble

Fought as much on the ideological battlegrounds in Washington D.C. as in the Central American jungles, the war in Nicaragua and the controversy over aid to the Contra rebels had a profound effect effect on U.S. domestic policy, creating a flash point between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Reagan White House. This history of the Nicaraguan Revolution and the American responses to it argues that despite the fallout of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Reagan Administration's policy was indeed a long-term success. B&W photos.