ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that although the process emanated from the Nicaraguans, US intervention distorted what might have been an authentically endogenous affair. It shows that the US role in the elections can only be understood in the context of ten years of US war and its consequences. In Robert A. Pastor words, it was "international intervention" in the elections that brought democracy to Nicaragua. In the instance, Pastor expressed that although the United States might have been involved in the Nicaraguan elections, the process was an eminently Nicaraguan affair. A reply to Pastor's comment regarding the Carter administration and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programs in Nicaragua is necessary. Pastor mentions nothing of the CIA programs authorized by Carter before the July 1979 Sandinista triumph to support the conservative anti-Somoza elements, nor does he mention reports that CIA programs authorized by Carter after the Sandinista triumph to support the internal civic opposition.
