CNN Cold War Set 2_06of14_Backyard 1954-1990
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00:00In the late 1950s, Fidel Castro and his small band of Cuban guerrillas started a revolution
00:12that challenged the desire of the United States to control the Western Hemisphere.
00:25We couldn't think about the Cold War at that time, and besides, we were naive.
00:34We really believed there was a certain international order.
00:40We believed in the existence of certain international principles.
00:46We believed that the sovereignty of nations would be respected.
00:53To the United States, Castro's nationalism and left-wing policies were a Trojan horse
00:59for Soviet communism.
01:04Up until that time, we had viewed Latin America as a distant, exotic continent with which
01:09we had virtually no relations.
01:13The Cuban Revolution changed all this.
01:43From its birth in 1776, the United States had grown and grown.
02:02Where its flag did not fly, its troops or agents often intervened.
02:08In the 1950s, the Guatemalans dared to challenge an American business that controlled much
02:13of its economy.
02:20The United Fruit Company of Boston owned half a million acres of land, the railroad, the
02:26port, and telecommunications.
02:30But most Guatemalan peasants found it difficult to survive.
02:37In 1950, Jacobo Arbenz was voted president.
02:42He wasn't a communist, but some of his close allies were.
02:47A former military man, Arbenz sought to modernize Guatemala's backward society.
02:54Washington was alarmed.
02:56We were faced here with the obvious intervention of a foreign power, because these homegrown
03:04parties are not really homegrown.
03:06They're being funded or advised by a foreign power, i.e. the Soviet Union.
03:18The Arbenz government, which had been in power from 1950, didn't enjoy any logistical support
03:23from the Soviet Union.
03:28We didn't even have diplomatic relations.
03:33There was no Soviet mission in Guatemala.
03:41President Arbenz started a land reform program, buying up fallow land to distribute to peasants.
03:49In compensation, he offered the landowners the values they had themselves declared for
03:55taxes.
03:56United Fruit was offered just over a million dollars for its land.
04:00When Arbenz declared nationalization, the company, backed by the United States, claimed
04:0616 million dollars.
04:10He saw that I didn't look very pleased.
04:12He said, aren't you happy about the news?
04:18And I replied, now we're going to have to fight on two fronts.
04:23We're going to have to fight internally against the landowners, and also against the United
04:30States.
04:31My counterpart, the Guatemala city chief of station, was sending in reports, too, about
04:38communist infiltration in the government.
04:41And of course he mentioned José Manuel Fortuny and some of the old-time Stalinist communists
04:49who were gaining favorable positions in the Arbenz regime.
04:55In this impasse, the U.S. named John Purifoy as its new ambassador.
05:00Purifoy had had experience of communist efforts to gain power in Greece.
05:10Purifoy said to Arbenz, Mr. President, we can sort out all this business of the United
05:16Fruit Company, so that you can come to a satisfactory agreement with them.
05:26The United Fruit Company is not the problem.
05:29The problem is the communists that you have in your government.
05:38No less a figure than John Foster Dulles, head of the State Department, was part of
05:43the firm of lawyers acting for the United Fruit Company.
05:47His brother, Alan, was the head of the CIA.
05:51So it didn't take much of an effort on their part to persuade their president, a military
05:56man, Mr. Eisenhower, to give them the green light to overthrow Arbenz's government.
06:04U.S. Secretary of State Dulles takes the rostrum to urge united action by the Americas to outlaw
06:13international communist intervention in the Western Hemisphere.
06:16This conference was shocked by the dastardly attack on members of the United States Congress
06:23by those who professed to be patriots.
06:27They may not themselves have been communists, but they had been subjected to the inflammatory
06:33influence of communism, which avowedly uses extreme nationalism as one of its tools.
06:43Arbenz once again put on his colonel's uniform as Guatemala prepared for war.
06:54In Esquipulas, an important religious shrine in a very Catholic country, the church helped
07:00organize the opposition to Arbenz.
07:06A CIA operation, codenamed PB Success, mobilized disaffected exiles and peasants into action.
07:17What we wanted to do was have a terror campaign to terrify Arbenz particularly, to terrify
07:25his troops, much as the German Stuka bombers terrified the population of Holland, Belgium
07:33and Poland at the onset of World War II and just rendered everybody paralyzed.
07:44The UN met in emergency session. Guatemala City was strafed from the air. Rebels invaded
07:50from Honduras. The CIA spread panic. Washington denied responsibility.
07:57The information available to the United States thus far strongly suggests that the situation
08:03does not involve aggression, but is a revolt of Guatemalans against Guatemalans.
08:08The Soviets were warned.
08:10Stay out of this hemisphere and don't try to start your plans and your conspiracies
08:15over here.
08:18The American PB Success campaign brought the government down and drove Arbenz and his wife
08:23into exile. 9,000 of his supporters were arrested. Many were kept in jail without trial for years.
08:34They even set up anti-communist committees where anyone could go and give the names of
08:43people who had been loyal to the revolution. These people would then be mercilessly kidnapped,
08:52killed and so on.
08:56Among those who fled was a young Argentine doctor, Ernesto Che Guevara, who went to Mexico
09:02and there met Fidel Castro.
09:08I remember my talks with him. He was terribly indignant and embittered by these events,
09:17which had interrupted an endeavor which wasn't even radical.
09:25It was a relatively simple change, land reform, which was very just and necessary.
09:35Five years later, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had triumphed.
09:41Ninety miles from Florida, in what the United States considered its own backyard, Castro
09:46established a regime soon to be allied with the Soviet Union.
09:53All our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion
10:01anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to
10:09remain the master of its own house.
10:14In 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took over the presidency, and with it a CIA scheme to
10:21send in an army of exiles to overthrow Castro, as they had earlier overthrown Arbenz in Guatemala.
10:30So I was yanked back from Montevideo, where I would have been content to spend the rest
10:35of my life, and told that what we're doing is reassembling the PB Success team, that
10:40is the Guatemala operational team, to take care of Castro.
10:48At the Bay of Pigs, Castro's forces routed the CIA-sponsored invasion.
10:58Castro was secure, and he was beloved by millions in Cuba, and so it was a different situation
11:05than Guatemala.
11:18Castro, triumphant, was eager to take armed revolution into Latin America.
11:25Castro, triumphant, was eager to take armed revolution into Latin America.
11:45To combat the Cuban challenge, the U.S. established in its Panama Canal zone a sophisticated school.
11:52Here, counterinsurgency forces from all over the subcontinent were trained.
12:02By the early 1960s, left-wing revolutionary groups were fighting the authorities in Guatemala,
12:08Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and the Dominican Republic.
12:14Marines are ordered into the revolt-torn small island country by President Johnson.
12:19Five hundred Leathernecks are put ashore by helicopter.
12:25In 1965, U.S. Marines went in to crush the Dominicans who were trying to restore their
12:30elected president.
12:32The American nation cannot, must not, and will not, permit the establishment of another
12:40communist government in the Western Hemisphere.
12:53The Soviet Union, especially after Brezhnev came to power in 1964, adhered to the principle
12:59of peaceful coexistence and detente, and the relaxation of international tension, but
13:07the Cubans had a theory which can be described as, let's have a hundred Vietnams.
13:14Che Guevara was behind the call for a hundred Vietnams. In 1965, he went to the Congo, and
13:22later to the heart of South America, to spread the cause of violent revolution.
13:29By late 1967, U.S. instructors were training Bolivian troops in guerrilla warfare. They
13:36set a trap for Che Guevara.
13:40On more than one occasion he said, our last battle is approaching. We have to prepare
13:46for it, and we must be very careful not to be taken prisoner, especially the Cubans.
13:56Che Guevara was captured alive. Hours later, he was shot dead. Five of Guevara's group
14:04escaped to the Bolivian capital, La Paz.
14:10When we arrived in La Paz, we managed to make contact with Salvador Allende in Chile. He
14:17gave us every kind of help. He mobilized his whole party in order to rescue us.
14:25Chile had been calm in the 1960s. Washington's Alliance for Progress program spent millions
14:35of dollars backing Chile's Christian Democrat government.
14:40But in 1970, a coalition of the left and the center sought electoral victory. Unidad Popular
14:47was led by a doctor, Freemason, and Marxist bon vivant, Senator Salvador Allende.
14:57Allende was depicted and identified with the socialist communist parties, the left, in
15:08the midst of the Cold War, and he represented, of course, socialism and Marxism.
15:17Afraid that a Marxist would come to power in legitimate elections, U.S. business made
15:22its move.
15:24I directed that an approach be made to both the State Department and Mr. Kissinger's office
15:29to tell them that we had grave concern over the outlook for ITT's investment, and we were
15:33desirous of discussing our thoughts in Washington, and willing to assist financially in any government
15:38plan to help protect private American investment in Chile.
15:43The CIA was not far behind. General Rene Schneider, the popular army commander who
15:49defended Allende's constitutional rights, had to be removed from his post.
15:57The CIA gave me $250,000 to use for the military account to come and help us meet with Schneider.
16:04That was the key to meet with Schneider. Well, I couldn't put it in my office safe
16:13because everybody used the safe, so I kept my rag boots. The money was done up in sausages,
16:19like in long strips, and I kept the money in my rag boot, and no one used it but me.
16:27The CIA money dispatched to oust General Schneider wasn't needed. Other plotters assassinated
16:35him.
16:38The murder shocked the nation. Moderate politicians rallied to Allende and consolidated his election
16:45victory.
16:50In the shanty towns of Chile, there were high hopes as the newly elected president set out
16:54on reform without, he hoped, outside interference.
17:13Allende's first big step, supported by all Chilean political parties, was the nationalization
17:19of copper, Chile's biggest industry, still under effective U.S. control.
17:29When Salvador Allende nationalized copper, it wasn't an arbitrary measure. He did it
17:37to obtain the resources to alleviate the great poverty in our country.
17:49Allende pressed on with what he called his social revolution. Schoolchildren were given
17:56a daily glass of milk. The middle classes were on edge.
18:05The fear was basically what would happen to the people, to the families, to the property,
18:13to your farms.
18:22In the Chilean countryside, peasants chanting pro-Cuban slogans began seizing the land.
18:31What happened afterwards confirmed the fears because the government, on the one hand, started
18:38to expropriate land, started to expropriate industry.
18:46Chile's economy was increasingly put under state control. This upset foreign financiers
18:52and the World Bank in Washington, which cut off credits.
18:57Chile of course is interested in obtaining loans from international organizations where
19:05we have a vote. And I indicated that wherever we had a vote, where Chile was involved, that
19:12unless there were strong considerations on the other side, that we would vote against
19:16them.
19:18In November 1971, Fidel Castro arrived to support Allende's policy of change through
19:24the ballot box.
19:28We fully supported his policy. We trained people for his personal security. We were
19:36experienced in this because we had had to defend ourselves against those who wanted
19:40to destroy us. We told him about this because we thought he had enemies who might try to
19:47take his life.
19:54The dangers didn't just come from the right. Castro's Cuban policy of armed revolution
19:59found favor with Chile's extreme left, who were hostile to Allende's methods.
20:07But most Chileans ignored the call to armed struggle. As inflation mounted, the right
20:15attacked economically. CIA money helped pay for Chilean truck owners to bring the country
20:22to a standstill. At the UN, Allende accused ITT of trying to provoke a civil war.
20:30It was proposed that the economic stranglehold, the diplomatic sabotage, the social disorder,
20:42create panic in the population so that when the government is outnumbered, the armed forces
20:50are forced to break the democratic regime and impose a dictatorship.
20:59Moscow was the next stop. There, Allende sought the money he needed to stave off bankruptcy.
21:06But the Russians, already spending a fortune to support Cuba, were unimpressed.
21:14We had come to a conclusion that this regime would soon be toppled because they were trying
21:23through very democratic means, without the use of arms, to break the resistance of stronger
21:33opposition forces.
21:39Santiago, Chile's capital, June 1973. With the government's popularity actually increasing,
21:48some frustrated right-wing military officers took to the streets in an attempted coup.
21:59As the world's press recorded the failed takeover, Swedish cameraman Leonardo Hendrickson,
22:05his camera still running, was gunned down and killed.
22:20Allende responded by placing greater reliance on the military. General Augusto Pinochet
22:27was appointed as his loyal chief of the army.
22:33Once again, the truck owners paralyzed the world's longest and thinnest country. Shops
22:40closed for lack of goods. Hunger stalked the streets.
22:50Middle class housewives came out to bang their pots and pans in protest. The violent right
22:58laid their plots.
23:04Certainly the situation was getting more and more ominous, and then we did have the
23:12possibility of learning something about it, not because we were in touch with the coupladers,
23:18we were not.
23:23Just after midday on Tuesday the 11th of September, under orders from General Pinochet, British-made
23:29hunter jets swooped over the Mineta presidential palace, starting fires which were to burn
23:34for weeks.
23:37My wife and our children were at the house, and they had a marvelous view of these planes
23:45winging over and then dipping down and sending their bombs into the Mineta.
23:53That morning from the Mineta, Allende had broadcast to the nation.
24:24Hours later, Allende was dead.
24:31He always said that he wouldn't be taken alive, that he would die defending the Constitution.
24:39He kept his word.
24:44General Pinochet immediately stamped his mark on the country. In the capital, suspects were
24:52rounded up into the national stadium.
24:56Many, like folk singer Victor Jara, were never seen alive again.
25:03I know that he behaved with great moral courage. I know that he was a sort of source for strength
25:09to his fellow prisoners. I know that he sang there. I know that they beat him down. I know
25:17that they broke his hand or his wrists. And I know that after two days, they killed him
25:37off.
25:39The people he got rid of and shot out of the stadium were all bad people. I mean, he was
25:49smart enough to know that if he was going to do it, he had to do it a complete 100 percent.
25:52You just can't go in and do it half-assed, excuse me, and do a little bit here, a little
25:57bit there. He went in with a lot of force and did it, and straightened it out.
26:04When he entered the White House in January 1977, Jimmy Carter promised a new U.S. attitude
26:09to the rest of the world.
26:12I announced that human rights would be a cornerstone or foundation of our entire foreign policy.
26:17So I officially designated every U.S. ambassador on earth to be my personal human rights representative.
26:25In Nicaragua, U.S. ambassadors were used to a different role. In the 1930s, U.S. Marines
26:34had put the tyrant Tacho Somoza in power. More than 40 years later, Nicaragua was still
26:42ruled by a Somoza. A politically moderate newspaper owner, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, dared
26:50to challenge the dictatorship.
26:54So what happened to this person who wanted freedom? Well, they murdered him. Who murdered
26:58him? The Somoza forces.
27:05Chamorro's murder electrified the cowed people of Nicaragua. Somoza declared a state of siege.
27:13The U.S. woke up to popular anger against the super-rich family which had been its ally
27:18for more than four decades.
27:20I have been fighting the East-West ideological war since the inception of Fidel Castro. So
27:28we've been under the attack of that Cuban government for almost 18 years.
27:35From the hills where they had been secretly training for years, guerrillas emerged who
27:39proudly bore the name of the 1930s anti-Yankee rebel, Sandino.
27:49But in the town of Esteli, Somoza's World War II U.S. tanks carried the day.
28:04Two thousand people died in what became a dead city.
28:12The Sandinistas regrouped, pitting their rifles against Somoza's might.
28:21The front now entered the cities and knocked on the door of the capital for the first time
28:27in its history.
28:35The Sandinistas' will to win triumphed. Managua went mad with joy.
28:47Jimmy Carter had left it very late before abandoning the Somozas and accepting the new
28:52Sandinista government.
28:56I said to Carter, the United States had to make good the historical damage they had inflicted
29:00on our country. Our party hymn still includes the words, Yankee, the enemy of humanity.
29:09We said to him that the only way to abolish that line would be for the attitude of the
29:13imperialist powers to change throughout the world.
29:19The U.S. would not be lectured to. The tide of conservatism which was to bring Ronald
29:25Reagan to power was rising.
29:33In Nicaragua, Somoza's land was shared out and the family's business monopolies were
29:37taken over. Education and health care became widely available.
29:45But not everyone was happy with the revolution.
29:50All those who didn't agree with the Sandinista policies were subjected to confiscations and
29:56imprisonment. Their lives were threatened. Many were murdered just for disagreeing with
30:02the Sandinista front. This sort of thing turned many Nicaraguan peasants against the Sandinistas.
30:13In the shadows, opponents of the revolution plotted their revenge.
30:20Inexperienced Sandinista guerrillas struggled to run a war-torn country.
30:35What we asked for was weapons so that we could defend ourselves. That's what we asked of
30:40the Soviet Union, of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, of the Algerians, of the
30:45Vietnamese.
30:50We sent light weapons, helicopters, armoured cars and other military equipment. There wasn't
31:05a large Soviet military presence, but they did have Cuban advisers.
31:12Throughout Central America, protest mounted against right-wing military rule. In El Salvador,
31:20the Catholic Church had become a haven for the oppressed.
31:34On the concrete steps of the cathedral in San Salvador, the military decreed that demonstrators
31:39for human rights should be discouraged. Nothing very new for El Salvador.
31:46In a massacre in 1932, the military had killed up to 40,000 people. In 1979, the cameras
31:54were on hand to record the colour of the blood.
32:01Archbishop Oscar Romero was the cautious leader of Salvadorian Catholics. When he spoke out,
32:09the reaction from the right was immediate.
32:15During the last months, the letterbox at the seminary where he had his office was full
32:19of anonymous letters practically every day, with death squad emblems on them. There was
32:27one death squad called the White Hand. There were many letters written on black paper with
32:33the White Hand saying, we are going to kill you, we are going to tear you apart.
32:56In March 1980, as he was saying mass in a private chapel, the archbishop was murdered
33:01by a single assassin's bullet. At his funeral, the military struck again.
33:15I only remember a bomb exploding and then many shots being fired and people running
33:23in all directions. It was a disaster. People running, knocking each other down, being shot
33:31and hit by bullets. Many, many people were killed.
33:46The fact that they had murdered the Archbishop of San Salvador, who was the highest church
33:50representative, and that they had no qualms about killing him, made us all feel practically
33:55defenseless. We said, either we take the struggle into the open, to the mountains,
34:06or they will kill us all here in the city.
34:14On December 3rd, 1980, three U.S. nuns and a woman lay worker started the long drive
34:20into town from San Salvador's International Airport. On the way, they were raped and killed.
34:29Their corpses were discovered in a shallow grave.
34:44The killings, by El Salvador's National Guard, prompted President Carter to withdraw aid
34:49to the Salvadorian military. But within six weeks, Carter had resumed funding an army
34:56whose atrocities continued.
35:03Everything consisted of beatings, electric shocks and rape, and in keeping me naked.
35:11As soon as I was taken to the headquarters, I was undressed. My hands and legs were handcuffed.
35:21I was blindfolded so that I could not see the faces of my interrogators.
35:33In town, those suspected of being sympathetic to the guerrillas were easy prey for government
35:38forces. At night, bodies were dumped on waste ground or left on city streets.
35:53Like the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua, the Salvadorian guerrillas wouldn't give up.
35:59The war damage was immense.
36:03In the United States, the new Reagan administration blamed Cuba and Moscow.
36:09What we are watching is a four-phased operation. Phase one has been completed, the seizure
36:13of Nicaragua. Next is El Salvador, to be followed by Honduras and Guatemala. It's clear and
36:20explicit.
36:21There is a Caribbean domino theory that's unfolding.
36:24Well, I wouldn't call it necessarily a domino theory. I would call it a priority target
36:29list, a hit list, if you will, for the ultimate takeover of Central America.
36:36Look, if a Soviet-Cuban master plan had actually existed, we would have won the Cold War.
36:48If there had been a master plan.
36:53But unfortunately, there was no such plan. Quite the opposite.
36:58Cuba's actions conflicted with Soviet interests at that time.
37:10In El Salvador, U.S. military advisers were hard at work bolstering the army against the
37:15guerrillas.
37:19The Atlacatla Brigade was the crack unit. In 1981, it went on a search and destroy mission
37:25in the guerrilla-controlled Morazan province.
37:31At about five o'clock in the morning of December 11th, it would go into action near the village
37:37of El Mosote.
37:41Hundreds of civilians were slaughtered.
37:45The U.S. State Department said it could find no evidence of a massacre.
37:51I saw the women clinging to each other, crying and screaming at them not to kill them.
38:01I fought for my children. I didn't want to let them go. I said I would die with them,
38:08but they wrenched them from my arms.
38:13We heard them killing the children. They killed them at night. You could hear the screams
38:17for their mamas and papas.
38:27As the Reagan administration moved to shore up the right in El Salvador and bring down
38:32the left in Nicaragua, neighboring Honduras became a base for all sorts of U.S. activity.
38:40Honduras was the main place where a force was being trained to overthrow the government
38:44of Nicaragua.
38:48That force was the Contras.
38:51Some of them were former members of the National Guard of Nicaragua. A lot of them were just
38:57peasants from the mountainous areas between Honduras and Nicaragua who had been at war
39:02with somebody forever. And in many respects they were like a bunch of cattle rustlers.
39:10The Contras were funded from Washington. This undeclared war upset the U.S. Congress.
39:22An amendment by Representative Boland of Massachusetts curtailed Reagan's funds for arming the Contras.
39:29We are complying with the law, the Boland Amendment, which is the law. We are complying
39:35with that fully.
39:36Does that mean we are not arming or supplying any of the dissidents along the Honduran border?
39:47I am not going to get into it. I could not and would not possibly talk about such things.
39:54Washington was planning another small war. On the Caribbean island of Grenada, where
39:59the British Queen Elizabeth was still head of state, a left-wing government was using
40:04Cuban contractors to build a new tourist airport. The U.S. suspected a strategic motive.
40:15In October 1983, when left-wing Prime Minister Morris Bishop was assassinated by more extreme
40:21Marxists, Washington had an invasion plan ready for Reagan's approval.
40:26At 5.15 this morning, a joint force landed at two spots on Grenada.
40:34There is now firing and combat going on. There have been casualties.
40:39The United States hadn't bothered to consult the British Queen or Prime Minister Margaret
40:44Thatcher. It was all over in a few days.
40:48I basically learned about the invasion of Grenada from the President of Honduras, who
40:54called me up to say, do you know what's going on? And I said, well, I have an idea, but
40:59I don't know for sure. And he said, well, you're invading Grenada. And he said, please
41:06tell the troops that when they're finished there to just keep on coming to Nicaragua.
41:12Many welcomed the Americans. Within six weeks, their work done and President Reagan's image
41:18enhanced, the U.S. troops left.
41:25In Nicaragua, Reagan's crusade against the Sandinistas was stepped up.
41:33Sandinistas desperately needed to get hard currency for their exports to pay off their
41:38bank loans. So this was a time to put the mines into Corinto. They only got one harbor
41:45that counts. And at the same time, make sure we notify Lloyd's of London. The mines have
41:53gone in, so hopefully they put pressure on the shipping companies as well to stay out
41:58of there. Well, it worked.
42:05Nicaragua's precious stock of oil went up in smoke. The economy was reeling. And all
42:10the while, ways had to be found to contain the U.S.-backed contra-invasion. The Sandinistas
42:18asked the Soviets for help.
42:20The Sandinistas in Moscow did not want to provoke the United States into giving more
42:26military aid to the Contras and to the Kondurangam. Therefore, these requests were politely denied
42:35every time the Sandinistas brought it up in Moscow.
42:41The Sandinistas, with help from Cuba, vowed to defend their borders and the revolution.
42:51The success of communism in Central America poses the threat that 100 million people from
43:00Panama to the open border on our south could come under the control of pro-Soviet regimes.
43:09Angry at Reagan's continued support for the Contra War, the U.S. Congress, again led by
43:15Representative Boland, voted in October 1984 to deny them any further assistance.
43:23With the passage of the Boland amendments, which ultimately prohibited assistance to
43:27the Contras, there was nothing more we could do than to bide our time.
43:34To help pay for the continuing bloodshed in Nicaragua, Reagan's men secretly sold arms
43:39to Iran.
43:44The American dollar and the failures of the armed left crushed Latin American revolutionary
43:50dreams.
43:58The United States saw a threat to their interests because they thought it was a communist struggle.
44:06They didn't see us as citizens who wanted a democratic country, where there was social
44:11justice, and which offered opportunities to the majority.
44:20The Cold War cost Latin America the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
44:27In Nicaragua alone, 50,000 died in the Sandinista Revolution, and another 50,000 died in the
44:33Civil War.
44:37It was atrocious.
44:40There were a lot of deaths, a lot of suffering, a lot of refugees, a lot of population movements.
44:45On the other hand, I think an equally if not more compelling case can be made that had
44:51we not done something to stop communist regimes from being established in the other Central
44:57American countries other than Nicaragua, say that they'd been established in El Salvador
45:03and then in Guatemala and possibly even Honduras during the 1980s, if we hadn't taken the steps
45:09that we took, I think the immediate suffering could have even been considerably greater.
45:161990. Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega asks the Nicaraguan people to vote him president.
45:24Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was there to see fair play.
45:33Violeta Chamorro, Ortega's opponent, narrowly won a surprise victory.
45:39Washington spent nearly $10 million backing her campaign.
46:23For more UN videos visit www.un.org