ABSTRACT

Political operatives from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) groups skillfully assembled the civic opposition front during the eighteen-month period between the arrival of Ambassador Richard Melton in Managua and the opening of the electoral campaign. In contrast to the youth and women's sectors, where NED organizers had to start from scratch, the United States had a long history of trying to create a pliant trade union movement in Nicaragua and since 1979 had been actively promoting anti-Sandinista trade unions. The NED described the Centro de Formacion Juvenil as a "non-partisan civic youth association" dedicated to promoting "nonviolent efforts to strengthen democratic institutions." The NED funding mechanism was also used to support other Nicaraguan organizations besides La Prensa. The NED selected lawyer Roger Guevara Mena, a National Opposition Union leader, to put together a board of directors for Radio Democracia.