ABSTRACT
The wave of repression it unleashed steeled the determination of many of its victims—among them those who would bring down the dynasty in 1979. The sons of Anastasio Somoza Garcia refined, brutalized, and progressively increased the political repression their father had made a constant tool of power. In the years of Garcia's rule the US position toward the Nicaraguan government twice cycled from a certain distaste and reserve to active support, according to US strategic concerns. Nicaragua's export-dependent economy rode an international price and investment roller coaster, the effects of which differed markedly before and after the 1972 earthquake. Theorists of social conflict have convincingly argued that rapid economic growth tends to destabilize less developed societies and that a widening gap between expectations and achievements can lead to violence and even revolution. By the manipulation, however, they unwittingly spawned more ideologically committed and disciplined reformist and revolutionary forces.
