ABSTRACT
By the time Ronald Reagan assumed office in 1981, the Carter administration had expended $1 million in covert funds to organize and bolster internal opposition groups in Nicaragua. Between 1981 and 1986 the administration's so-called covert war passed through three distinct phases: the creation of a surrogate army; direct central intelligence agency (CIA) attacks on Nicaragua; and a National Security Council-sponsored campaign to maintain the contras despite the ban on official aid. The Reagan administration's strategy depended on the creation of a proxy force of exiles such as the one the CIA had used to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 and in its failed effort to oust Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. The Reagan plan authorized the mining of Nicaragua's harbors. Revelations of CIA responsibility for the mining of Nicaragua's harbors provoked an avalanche of criticism at home and abroad.
