ABSTRACT
In the US debate over Nicaraguan policy, assumptions supporting the administration position often went unchallenged while the White House worked to keep the debate focused on discrete facts and statements that served its purposes. "Democracy" provided the needed link between the diplomatic settlement popular in Congress and the White House's goal of overthrowing the Sandinistas. To embrace democracy as a foreign policy priority raised questions about administration policy toward Chile, South Korea, and South Africa. Nicaragua conspicuously remained the only country on which the White House was prepared to impose "democracy" by force. Documented "smoking guns" were insufficient to prove the administration's contention that Nicaragua formed part of a "world Communist" plot to subvert all of Central America. An honest treatment of Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Soviet intentions in Central America would have weighed, alongside phrases lifted from speeches, the priorities, resources, and opportunity costs of these governments.
