Word: somozaism
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...been a bad year for right-wing dictatorships-and for the U.S., which has often supported them. First Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran, then General Anastasio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua were swept into exile by largely home-grown revolutions. Each had long been taken for granted as the absolute ruler of his country and as a friend of the U.S. Yet in the end, Somoza's national guard, cloned from the U.S. Marine Corps, was as ineffective against the Sandinista guerrillas as the Shah's army and secret police-the best that petro-billions could buy-were...
...this quintessential banana-republic strongman did not seem to count for much. His Imperial Majesty the King of Kings became overnight an international outcast with a price on his head, wandering from Egypt to Morocco to the Bahamas to Mexico, discouraged from seeking asylum in the U.S. When Somoza desperately tried to telephone from his bunker to Jimmy Carter for help, the White House switchboard shunted the call to the State Department, where Somoza left a message. Cyrus Vance cabled him back, urging him to quit...
...sudden and ignominious collapse of the Pahlavi and Somoza dynasties came as a shock to Americans and raised troubling questions. How can the U.S. determine which dictatorships are relatively stable and which are unstable or transitory, and how should the U.S. deal with them...
Since the majority of Somoza's ministers fled into exile with the departed dictator, the junta has resorted to unusual tactics to recruit civil servants. "I called every friend in my telephone book until I had a staff," one harried official told TIME Correspondent Roberto Suro. To ensure that the bureaucracy does not fall back into the predatory pattern of the past, the junta enacted a tough anticorruption law that provides hefty fines for malfeasance. Says Ramirez: "A government official today can stick his foot in his mouth, but not his hand in the cookie...
...clung to its program of middle-of-the-road socialism not only to reassure jittery businessmen, but also to assuage potential sources of foreign aid, who are concerned about the new regime's leftist cast. Nicaragua's leaders know that they need help to recover from the Somoza dynasty's 46 years of brutality and neglect. More than 45% of Nicaragua's people are illiterate. At least 500,000 persons driven from their homes by Somoza's fierce counterattack must be resettled. Food is in such short supply that long lines form wherever beans, rice...