Reprieve for Nicaragua

Fidel Castro’s month-long Putsch-by-proxy in Nicaragua didn’t quite come off, but he is likely to try again as soon as he has delivered Rhodesia into Communist hands. Nicaragua has never looked better as a candidate to become what the Cuban dictator cynically describes as “the second free territory” in the Western Hemisphere.

From Castro’s viewpoint and that of his Soviet masters, the Nicaraguan attempt was well worth the trouble. It did not achieve its major objectives— to oust General Anastasio Somoza Debayle from the Presidency and to turn control over to the Sandinista National Liberation Front—but it racked up an impressive list of accomplishments. It left hundreds of Nicaraguans dead, thousands wounded, five cities badly damaged, and one—Esteli—in ruins. It shattered the economy, emptied the Treasury, and widened the already yawning gap between the Somacistas and the rest of the country. It damaged, perhaps fatally, the remnants of Somoza’s prestige as a military leader. Not the least of its merits, as Castro sees it, was that it cost the Communists practically nothing. Nicaragua was forced to pay for its own partial destruction.

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Robert S. Strother

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Fidel Castro’s month-long Putsch-by-proxy in Nicaragua didn’t quite come off, but he is likely to try again as soon as he has delivered Rhodesia into Communist hands. Nicaragua has never looked better as a candidate to become what the Cuban dictator cynically describes as “the second free territory” in the Western Hemisphere.

From Castro’s viewpoint and that of his Soviet masters, the Nicaraguan attempt was well worth the trouble. It did not achieve its major objectives— to oust General Anastasio Somoza Debayle from the Presidency and to turn control over to the Sandinista National Liberation Front—but it racked up an impressive list of accomplishments. It left hundreds of Nicaraguans dead, thousands wounded, five cities badly damaged, and one—Esteli—in ruins. It shattered the economy, emptied the Treasury, and widened the already yawning gap between the Somacistas and the rest of the country. It damaged, perhaps fatally, the remnants of Somoza’s prestige as a military leader. Not the least of its merits, as Castro sees it, was that it cost the Communists practically nothing. Nicaragua was forced to pay for its own partial destruction.