ABSTRACT
A good portion of the electoral intervention project was developed in Washington and executed directly in Managua. But the plan also involved an extensive international apparatus that provided overseas conduits for US political, material, and financial support for the opposition. US strategists took advantage of the vast global network that the Reagan administration had set up in preceding years to sustain the contras. The Center for Democratic Consultation (CAD) purpose was to build up a network of civic forces and political groups in the region that could support US policy. The plan called for the CAD to deliver both clandestine and overt support to reinforce the already existing programs run by Delphi, the International Federation for Electoral Systems, the Free Trade Union Institute, and other National Endowment for Democracy groups. Inside Nicaragua, the role of the CAD was to "increase the effectiveness and support" of the "macro-structure for the 1990 elections" that the United States had brought into being.
