Editing Contras (section)

===Political background===
{{See also|Reagan Doctrine|History of Nicaragua (1979–90)}}
The US government viewed the leftist Sandinistas as a threat to economic interests of American corporations in Nicaragua and to national security. US President Ronald Reagan stated in 1983 that "The defense of [the USA's] southern frontier" was at stake.<ref>John A., Thompson, "The Exaggeration of American Vulnerability: An Anatomy of Tradition", ''Diplomatic History'', 16/1, (1992): p 23.</ref> "In spite of the Sandinista victory being declared fair, the United States continued to oppose the left-wing Nicaraguan government."<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_2538000/2538379.stm "1984: Sandinistas claim election victory"] BBC News, 5 November 1984</ref><ref>"President Reagan renewed his commitment to the Nicaraguan insurgents Sunday, though he appeared to shift the focus of his Administration's policy away from the military situation to the need to ''restore democracy'' to the Central American country". Cited in: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-04-mn-4758-story.html "President Shifts Emphasis From Contra Warfare"]. ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', 4 May 1987</ref> and opposed its ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=c6wvAQAAIAAJ&q=+the+United+States%2C+which+is+working+through+the+contras+to+restore+democracy+to+Nicaragua+and+break+the+Sandinistas%27+Cuban+and+Soviet+ties. "The Foreign Connection"]. ''The Washington Post''. 6 January 1987</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/12/world/mudslinging-over-contras.html | title=Mudslinging over Contras | newspaper=The New York Times| date=12 March 1986 | first=R. W. Jr. | last=Apple | access-date=21 September 2017 }}</ref> [[Ronald Reagan]], who had assumed the American presidency in January 1981, accused the Sandinistas of importing Cuban-style socialism and aiding [[FMLN|leftist guerrillas]] in El Salvador.<ref name="Fas.org">{{cite web|url=https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-017.htm |title=NSDD – National Security Decision Directives – Reagan Administration |publisher=Fas.org |date=30 May 2008}}</ref> The Reagan administration continued to view the Sandinistas as undemocratic despite the 1984 Nicaraguan elections being generally declared fair by foreign observers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ni0027) |title=Nicaragua |publisher=Lcweb2.loc.gov |access-date=2014-08-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_2538000/2538379.stm|title=BBC On This Day - 5 - 1984: Sandinistas claim election victory|work=bbc.co.uk|date=1984-11-05}}</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/16/opinion/l-nicaraguan-vote-free-fair-hotly-contested-089345.html "Nicaraguan Vote: 'Free, Fair, Hotly Contested'"] ''The New York Times'', 16 November 1984</ref> Throughout the 1980s the Sandinista government was regarded as "Partly Free" by [[Freedom House]], an organization financed by the U.S. government.<ref name="FH1972">{{cite web | url = http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FIW%20All%20Scores%2C%20Countries%2C%201973-2012%20%28FINAL%29.xls | title = Country ratings and status, FIW 1973-2012 | access-date = 2012-08-22 | author = [[Freedom House]] | year = 2012 | format = XLS}}</ref> 
 
[[File:Bush reagan.jpg|thumb|President [[Ronald Reagan]] and Vice President [[George H. W. Bush|George Bush]] in 1984]]
On 4 January 1982, Reagan signed the [[Classified information|top secret]] National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17),<ref name="Fas.org"/> giving the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] the authority to recruit and support the Contras with $19 million in military aid. The effort to support the Contras was one component of the [[Reagan Doctrine]], which called for providing military support to movements opposing [[Soviet Union|Soviet-supported]], communist [[communist state|governments]].

By December 1981, the United States had already begun to support armed opponents of the Sandinista government. From the beginning, the CIA was in charge.<ref>Lee et al. 1987, p.3</ref> The arming, clothing, feeding and supervision of the Contras<ref name="Lee et al. 1987, p. 3">Lee et al. 1987, p. 3</ref> became the most ambitious paramilitary and political action operation mounted by the agency in nearly a decade.<ref>"In December 1982, ''The New York Times'' reported intelligence officials as saying that Washington's 'covert activities have&nbsp;... become the most ambitious paramilitary and political action operation mounted by the C.I.A. in nearly a decade&nbsp;...'" As seen at: Lee et al. 1987, p. 33</ref>

In the fiscal year 1984, the U.S. Congress approved $24 million in aid to the Contras.<ref name="Lee et al. 1987, p. 3"/> After this, since the Contras failed to win widespread popular support or military victories within Nicaragua,<ref name="Lee et al. 1987, p. 3"/> opinion polls indicated that a majority of the U.S. public was not supportive of the Contras,<ref>"opinion polls indicated that a majority of the public was not supportive." As seen at: Lee et al. 1987, p. 3</ref> the Reagan administration lost much of its support regarding its Contra policy within Congress after disclosure of CIA mining of Nicaraguan ports,<ref>"Following disclosure&nbsp;... that the CIA had a role in connection with the mining of the Nicaraguan harbors&nbsp;..., public criticism mounted and the administration's Contra policy lost much of its support within Congress". As seen at: Lee et al. 1987, p. 3</ref> and a report of the [[Bureau of Intelligence and Research]] commissioned by the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] found Reagan's allegations about Soviet influence in Nicaragua "exaggerated",<ref>[http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MH&s_site=miami&p_multi=MH&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB3607DABC0BCB3&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM "U.S. Delayed Report On Soviets in Nicaragua"] ''The Miami Herald'', 18 September 1984</ref> Congress cut off all funds for the contras in 1985 by the third [[Boland Amendment]].<ref name="Lee et al. 1987, p. 3"/> The Boland Amendment had first been passed by Congress in December 1982. At this time, it only outlawed U.S. assistance to the contras "for the purpose of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government", while allowing assistance for other purposes.<ref name=clr>{{cite journal |last=Riesenfeld|first=Stefan A.|date=January 1987|title=The Powers of Congress and the President in International Relations: Revisited|journal=California Law Review|volume= 75|issue= 1 |pages=405–414|doi=10.2307/3480586|quote=The Boland Amendment was part of the Joint Resolution of December 21, 1982, providing further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 1983 |jstor=3480586 |url=http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1975&context=californialawreview}}</ref> In October 1984, it was amended to forbid action by not only the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency but all U.S. government agencies.

Nevertheless, the case for support of the Contras continued to be made in Washington, D.C., by both the Reagan administration and [[the Heritage Foundation]], which argued that support for the Contras would counter Soviet influence in Nicaragua.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Boyd |first1=Gerald M. |last2=Times |first2=Special To the New York |date=1986-02-19 |title=REAGAN SAYS SUPPORT FOR THE CONTRAS MUST GO BEYOND 'BAND-AIDS' |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/19/world/reagan-says-support-for-the-contras-must-go-beyond-band-aids.html |access-date=2023-01-23 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Conservative Think Tank Funneled Money to North Associates |url=https://apnews.com/article/9022634f7b9fd7ff0d23f1924c5036fa |access-date=2023-01-23 |website=AP NEWS |language=en}}</ref>

On 1 May 1985 President Reagan announced that his administration perceived Nicaragua to be "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States", and declared a "national emergency" and a [[United States embargo against Nicaragua|trade embargo]] against Nicaragua to "deal with that threat".<ref>[https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12513.html  "Executive Order 12513--Prohibiting trade and certain other transactions involving Nicaragua"] National Archives</ref> It "is now a given; it is true", the Washington Post declared in 1986, "the Sandinistas are communists of the Cuban or Soviet school"; that "The Reagan administration is right to take Nicaragua as a serious menace—to civil peace and democracy in Nicaragua and to the stability and security of the region"; that we must "fit Nicaragua back into a Central American mode" and "turn Nicaragua back toward democracy", and with the "Latin American democracies" "demand reasonable conduct by regional standard."<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/03/14/is-there-a-chance-in-nicaragua/d7d4a7ff-058d-45d5-ae3b-996246bf64c0/ "Is There a Chance in Nicaragua?"] Washington Post, 14 March 1986</ref>

Soon after the embargo was established, [[Managua]] re-declared "a policy of nonalignment" and sought the aid of Western Europe, who were opposed to U.S. policy, to escape dependency on the Soviet Union.<ref>[http://www.csmonitor.com/1985/0516/oteg.html "Ortega collects warm words of support on European trip. Yet his visit is unlikely to drum up much concrete aid"] Christian Science Monitor, 16 May 1985</ref> Since 1981 U.S. pressures had curtailed Western credit to and trade with Nicaragua, forcing the government to rely almost totally on the Eastern bloc for credit, other aid, and trade by 1985.<ref name="Booth, Wade, Walker, p. 112">{{cite book|author1=John A. Booth|author2=Christine J. Wade|author3= Thomas W. Walker|title=Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion, and Change|date=2014|publisher=Avalon Publishing|page=112|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcA_BAAAQBAJ|isbn=9780813349589}}</ref> In his 1997 study on U.S. low intensity warfare, Kermit D. Johnson, a former Chief of the U.S. Army Chaplains, contends that U.S. hostility toward the revolutionary government was motivated not by any concern for "national security", but rather by what the world relief organization Oxfam termed "the threat of a good example":

<blockquote>It was alarming that in just a few months after the Sandinista revolution, Nicaragua received international acclaim for its rapid progress in the fields of literacy and health. It was alarming that a socialist-mixed-economy state could do in a few short months what the Somoza dynasty, a U.S. client state, could not do in 45 years! It was truly alarming that the Sandinistas were intent on providing the very services that establish a government's political and moral legitimacy.<ref name="D. Johnson, p. 19">{{cite book|author1=Kermit D. Johnson|title=Ethics and Counterrevolution: American Involvement in Internal Wars|date=1997|publisher=University Press of Americas|page=19|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aPBZXeRev9AC|isbn=9780761809067}}</ref></blockquote>

The government's program included increased wages, subsidized [[food prices]], and expanded health, welfare, and education services. And though it nationalized Somoza's former properties, it preserved a private sector that accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of GDP.<ref name="Booth, Wade, Walker, p. 107">{{cite book|author1=John A. Booth|author2=Christine J. Wade|author3= Thomas W. Walker|title=Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion, and Change|date=2014|publisher=Avalon Publishing|page=107|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcA_BAAAQBAJ|isbn=9780813349589}}</ref>