Word: bunkerism
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Ironically, the civil war erupted just as the country prepared for Independence Day, the annual celebration on Sept. 15 of the break by Nicaragua and other Central American states from Spanish rule in 1821. Somoza, directing the war from a windowless bunker at National Guard headquarters overlooking Managua, marked the day with a champagne reception that U.S. Ambassador Mauricio Solaun declined to attend. The Sandinistas promptly labeled this year's observance Second Independence Day. But neither side could really celebrate a victory in one of the most savage and confusing wars that Central America has ever seen. Each side...
...From his bunker in Managua, Somoza defended the Guard's actions in Matagalpa. The general, a graduate of West Point who speaks English fluently, compared the rebels to "Bronx street gangs-just juvenile delinquents." While admitting that the general strike had grown worse, he insisted he would not resign before his term ends in 1981. To do otherwise, he said, would "betray the aspirations of the people of Nicaragua to live in a free society...
Elsewhere in the building, other commandos rounded up government employees and officials. Among those caught: Interior Minister José Antonio Mora, his chief assistant, and several relatives of Somoza, including Luis Pallais, publisher of Novedades. Somoza had never bothered to occupy the presidential offices, preferring more secure quarters in his bunker on the grounds of the nearby National Guard training center. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo, and the bishops of León and Granada, who earlier in the month had demanded Somoza's resignation, immediately offered their services as mediators. So did the ambassadors of Costa...
People's attitudes and shifting political perceptions, as catalogued in the Gallyp and Harris polls, could even be cranked into a central information system. That of course suggests some Strangelovian scenes such as Hamilton Jordan, Carter's top pol, in a domestic command bunker, farm boots up on the computer console, phone in hand, lights flashing across huge screens: "Get Strauss out to Pittsburgh. The steel areas are angry red ... Tell Califano to shut up on tobacco. North Carolina has dropped off the map ... Can Brown pump some defense contracts into the West Coast? Unemployment is edging...
...Charles Colson have testified they had notified him of events. The tone is set for a revision of contemporary history. He admits being aware of the use of the CIA to halt the FBI inquiry, but makes it seem all his subordinates' doing, with the president as a bunker-isolated entity to be told of the progress of campaigns off somewhere on distant Eastern Fronts. This may have been true, though the tapes dispute it. No rationale for such a complete alienation of the Compleat Politician from his own campaign is given, nor is it admitted...