Word: contra
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...those maneuvers--like the Iran-Contra deal--which looks infallible on paper. The abduction of Sheik Abdul Karem Obeid could have proved a profitable and much needed bargaining chip for the release of Israeli soldiers taken captive by Hezbollah terrorists...
...anything, worse. The red and black anniversary valentines that bedeck roadside billboards aptly reflect what has always been the regime's strong suit: romantic rhetoric, not reality. The sole success of the F.S.L.N. is holding on to power, despite an eight-year war by the U.S. and its contra rent-an-army. Says Alfredo Cesar, a former contra director and now an opposition political leader in Managua: "The Sandinistas are good fighters. But they never made the transition from being guerrillas with guns to a government with laws...
...confirms the country's plight: with an annual per capita income of $300, Nicaragua is possibly the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Unemployment may reach 30% this year. Those who have skills to sell and some place to go get out: more than 10,000 have joined the contra counterrevolution, and at least 250,000 out of the population of 3.5 million have fled, many...
While sources went uncultivated and leaks dried up, the capital's best reporters were caught by other stories, like allegations against former Attorney General Ed Meese and the Iran-contra scandal. HUD remained the gulag of Washington journalism, a backwater with an obscure chief administrator they dubbed "Silent Sam" Pierce. There was a distinct lack of glitz and glamour about the HUD beat. "We were looking elsewhere," explains syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. "We don't have enough eyes to look at HUD. The very name HUD says dullness, dullness, dullness...
...District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell is known as a tough sentencer, but he turned surprisingly lenient last week. Though Gesell could have sent former Lieut. Colonel Oliver North to prison for ten years for his role in the Iran- contra affair, the judge declined to do so. Instead, after listening to North softly declare that he had grieved over his "mistakes," he handed North three suspended sentences, two years' probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours of community service in an antidrug program for inner-city youths. (The Navy promptly suspended North's $23,000-a-year pension...