Word: nicaragua
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...written for American support of their efforts to free Cyprus from British control, saying that Cypriots were civilized people when the British were still "swinging from trees." Costa Ricans actually appealed to the office for military aid from U.S. students in repelling an invasion "supported by the tyrant of Nicaragua." Students in this country, too, ask for information about many subjects--a proposed tour by Soviet editors, or the best ways to integrate foreign students on U.S. campuses...
...attack on Costa Rica was both an invasion and a rebellion: it came from northern neighbor Nicaragua, but the attackers were nearly all insurrectionary Costa Rican expatriates. It failed as an invasion because any invasion becomes international business, and other American nations cooperated to seal off the invaders and send arms-specifically four F51 Mustang fighter planes* to the victim. It failed as a rebellion because the rebels were inept and badly misjudged their own strength...
...Tacho's air force included identical planes. A captured rebel said that he was billeted for pre-invasion training at the Nicaraguan Guard's Fort Coyotepe (another insurgent reported he had been trained at Chiquimula, in Guatemala). But Tacho expertly concealed the hard evidence needed to prove Nicaragua's complicity to the satisfaction of the peace-keeping Organization of American States' field investigators, who announced only that the invaders' arms came over Costa Rica's "northern border." That finding, however, was enough to make Tacho hastily withdraw any further aid. Then another disillusionment dawned...
...Mustangs chased the rest of Picado's warplanes back to Nicaragua, and defeat for the rebels became inevitable. But Picado still had reason to think he had the better army. The 600 rebels were dedicated men, trained for eight months, tidily uniformed in khaki, well armed and equipped with everything from foot powder to field telephones, from halftracks to water-purifying halazone tablets. "Annihilation of the enemy," said Picado defiantly, "is the modern doctrine of war." But after eleven days of fighting, most of his troops, punished by the Mustangs and harassed by the Loyalists, stumbled into the borderline...
...American Affairs chief, Henry Holland, could take satisfaction from an effective first military application of the 1947 Rio treaty, which provides that every American nation must aid any other American that might be attacked. But no permanent peace has been won. Figueres still despises Somoza and wishes that neighbor Nicaragua were an armyless democracy like Costa Rica. Somoza still hates Figueres and wishes that his good friend Calderón Guardia were running Costa Rica. The Calderonistas still think revolution a more promising route to power than taking their chances in elections. Perhaps by way of preparation for the next...