During the Reagan era of the 1980s, America and the Republican Party were still selling the idea that the U.S. was exposed to the dangers of Communism. The president was very effective at spreading the fear across the land, and his acolytes even used the premise to support their election campaigns. Republican Texas Congressman Jim Collins ran TV commercials warning his constituents in Dallas that Nicaragua was just a two-day drive from Texas. Even back then, though, gas prices made it unlikely a Central American country could afford to even reach the Rio Grande.
I was already an adult when much of this history occurred and, with the exception of the Iran-Contra affair which got a lot of press coverage, the history recounted here was not generally visible to ordinary citizens. I have no idea how it is/isn't covered in secondary education but it's a shame if it's not taught. Average voting citizens need an understanding of the history of our hemisphere.
I was an Int'l Studies student at Texas State in the early 80's. Well, Southwest Texas State at the time. I considered myself Republican back then but couldn't vote for Reagan because I followed these stories back then. Hard to swallow.
As a producer/reporter in Central America for 8 years, I know too well of the truth you tell. Stephen Kinzer wrote a book called “Overthrow” but you’ve managed to tell the tale succinctly and in digestible form, although the meal may sicken its readers.
Never heard of Kinzer's book, Mauri, but I've read several others on CA. It remains pathetic to me how ignorant Americans are of our BS down there and how Reagan, who was literally quite evil, is lionized as a great president by the right.
Wow! From your keypad to God's ears. Thank you for taking me deeper than just the Shaw of Irian and the Irian Contra affair. There is so much more to the story. Hopefully you have stoked some interest and folks, like me, will investigate further . Great read.
A worthy insightful international companion perspective to Jane Mayer’s equally eye-opening Dark Money, which has many links here in Dallas. One personal insight is the realization that we’re old enough to have known all this many times over, and the various incidental way’s one’s life interacts with it all. In college, it wasn’t lost on me that Boston was the home of not only NECCO Wafers but also United Fruit, along with so many other marginally related personal memories. In Williamstown I was curious as to how and why Reza Pahlevi and his mom had decided to go into exile there. On the night of Inauguration Day Jan. 20, 1981, I was in the green room at WCVB-TV in Needham, MA scheduled to be one of the guests on a latenight TV show called Five-All Night-Live All Night (which was exactly what the name implied) produced by the great muckraking journalist Danny Schecter (formerly WBCN Radio’s Danny Schechter The News Dissector). The two other guests were Little Anthony (of the musical group Little Anthony and the Imperials) and Steve Goodman , perhaps best known as the composer and original performer of Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson’s “(I’m the Train They Call the) City of New Orleans.” At exactly midnight, Iran started releasing the 52 hostages – one by one by one. By 4am., we all realized we would never make it to air and just went home. But in between I remember the exchange of witticisms with Goodman about all the marketing possibilities the 52 hostages offered, beginning with a calendar with a single hostage designated for each week of the year… the Iran Hostage Deck of Playing Cards, yadda yadda. During the window of the Violeta Chamorro presidency between Sandinista regimes, my sister-in-law, a natural science illustrator somehow received a commission to design Nicaraguan postage stamps featuring the country’s flora and fauna. And speaking of fauna, I have to confess the strongest lasting memory I have or Iran-Contra was an impure thought infatuation with Oliver North’s hot secretary Fawn Hall.
Well, being in the same paragraph with Jane Mayer is more flattery than I've ever encountered, and I'd suggest to you that I am not worthy. However, I do remember Fawn Hall, who, for one brief, shining moment, was America's sweetheart paper shredder.
The basic solution to the immigration problem is found in the countries from which the dispossessed flow. Once again America has to invade, this time with altruistic action instead of self serving greed. Not only is this daunting in scope of cost and effort, such actions will suffer from ingrained suspicions of our intent. I don't know if we have it in us to do more than the pathetic and ineffective efforts currently displayed on the border. All we've done, besides increasing the suffering of a mass of humans, is allow tinpot jingoes who use it as an excuse to increase power while exhibiting our growing global shame.
I think a Marshall Plan for Central America would be a good beginning. We've almost done as much damage there as we did ravaging Japan in WWII, yet we've not felt the same moral obligation to take up repairs.
I forgot to add that many of the Latin/South American governments are the results of our depredations, ie, corrupt. I doubt they'd be welcoming of our largesse without wanting to syphon off a majority for their own use.
I felt it in my gut.
I was already an adult when much of this history occurred and, with the exception of the Iran-Contra affair which got a lot of press coverage, the history recounted here was not generally visible to ordinary citizens. I have no idea how it is/isn't covered in secondary education but it's a shame if it's not taught. Average voting citizens need an understanding of the history of our hemisphere.
I was an Int'l Studies student at Texas State in the early 80's. Well, Southwest Texas State at the time. I considered myself Republican back then but couldn't vote for Reagan because I followed these stories back then. Hard to swallow.
As a producer/reporter in Central America for 8 years, I know too well of the truth you tell. Stephen Kinzer wrote a book called “Overthrow” but you’ve managed to tell the tale succinctly and in digestible form, although the meal may sicken its readers.
Never heard of Kinzer's book, Mauri, but I've read several others on CA. It remains pathetic to me how ignorant Americans are of our BS down there and how Reagan, who was literally quite evil, is lionized as a great president by the right.
Wow! From your keypad to God's ears. Thank you for taking me deeper than just the Shaw of Irian and the Irian Contra affair. There is so much more to the story. Hopefully you have stoked some interest and folks, like me, will investigate further . Great read.
A worthy insightful international companion perspective to Jane Mayer’s equally eye-opening Dark Money, which has many links here in Dallas. One personal insight is the realization that we’re old enough to have known all this many times over, and the various incidental way’s one’s life interacts with it all. In college, it wasn’t lost on me that Boston was the home of not only NECCO Wafers but also United Fruit, along with so many other marginally related personal memories. In Williamstown I was curious as to how and why Reza Pahlevi and his mom had decided to go into exile there. On the night of Inauguration Day Jan. 20, 1981, I was in the green room at WCVB-TV in Needham, MA scheduled to be one of the guests on a latenight TV show called Five-All Night-Live All Night (which was exactly what the name implied) produced by the great muckraking journalist Danny Schecter (formerly WBCN Radio’s Danny Schechter The News Dissector). The two other guests were Little Anthony (of the musical group Little Anthony and the Imperials) and Steve Goodman , perhaps best known as the composer and original performer of Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson’s “(I’m the Train They Call the) City of New Orleans.” At exactly midnight, Iran started releasing the 52 hostages – one by one by one. By 4am., we all realized we would never make it to air and just went home. But in between I remember the exchange of witticisms with Goodman about all the marketing possibilities the 52 hostages offered, beginning with a calendar with a single hostage designated for each week of the year… the Iran Hostage Deck of Playing Cards, yadda yadda. During the window of the Violeta Chamorro presidency between Sandinista regimes, my sister-in-law, a natural science illustrator somehow received a commission to design Nicaraguan postage stamps featuring the country’s flora and fauna. And speaking of fauna, I have to confess the strongest lasting memory I have or Iran-Contra was an impure thought infatuation with Oliver North’s hot secretary Fawn Hall.
Well, being in the same paragraph with Jane Mayer is more flattery than I've ever encountered, and I'd suggest to you that I am not worthy. However, I do remember Fawn Hall, who, for one brief, shining moment, was America's sweetheart paper shredder.
:)
The basic solution to the immigration problem is found in the countries from which the dispossessed flow. Once again America has to invade, this time with altruistic action instead of self serving greed. Not only is this daunting in scope of cost and effort, such actions will suffer from ingrained suspicions of our intent. I don't know if we have it in us to do more than the pathetic and ineffective efforts currently displayed on the border. All we've done, besides increasing the suffering of a mass of humans, is allow tinpot jingoes who use it as an excuse to increase power while exhibiting our growing global shame.
I think a Marshall Plan for Central America would be a good beginning. We've almost done as much damage there as we did ravaging Japan in WWII, yet we've not felt the same moral obligation to take up repairs.
I forgot to add that many of the Latin/South American governments are the results of our depredations, ie, corrupt. I doubt they'd be welcoming of our largesse without wanting to syphon off a majority for their own use.