Word: nicaraguans
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...stake was Reagan's determination to resume U.S. aid, both humanitarian and military, to the Nicaraguan contras who are trying to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista regime that has ruled since 1979. Faced with growing opposition in Congress to his plan, which even some Republicans view as unwise, the President went on a personal crusade for $14 million in assistance to the rebel forces. Reagan compared the disparate guerrilla factions, whom he calls freedom fighters, to America's Founding Fathers, and took to picturing their cause in terms little short of apocalyptic. Said Reagan: "We cannot have the U.S. walk away...
...package for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. There is a chance, moreover, that House Democrats will succeed in passing an even more limiting measure, one that would restrict expenditures to purely humanitarian aid like food and medicine for the benefit of noncombatant Nicaraguan refugees living elsewhere in Central America. (Any funds, of course, would be helpful to the contras, since they would free other money for arms.) The final package, however, was certain to lack the Regan had hoped to use as a bargaining chip in dealing with the increasingly hostile and pro-Soviet...
Funding for the 15,000-man contra force was provided more or less covertly through the CIA starting in 1981. It was effectively cut off by Congress last summer, following revelations that the intelligence agency had participated in the mining of Nicaraguan harbors. The U.S. has managed to keep pressure on the Sandinistas in a variety of other ways, including the staging of large-scale "training exercises" with Nicaragua's pro-U.S. neighbor Honduras. Convinced that a resumption of U.S. aid was needed not only to bolster the contras 'morale but also as a gesture of U.S. resolve, Reagan...
This is war. There are angry skirmishers in their tuxedoes riding the banquet circuit every night harassing Ronald Reagan about the planned visit to a German cemetery, aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, tax reform and whopping budget deficits. Embittered and defeated adversaries from old political struggles are gathering around new standards and firing fresh fusillades at the flag bearers of the Reagan revolution...
...When he returned to Washington, he faced the two busiest weeks of his years in office. Almost every minute of his working time, said an aide, has been taken up with public speeches, private meetings and appeals to powerful interests to back him in votes on the budget and Nicaraguan...