ABSTRACT
The Ronald Reagan administration, allegedly more concerned with controlling the Sandinistas' supposed "export" of their revolution, shifted the US focus to external aggressions. In September 1983, President Reagan signed a secret finding authorizing an expansion of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program against Nicaragua. Covert CIA support for the internal opposition started under Jimmy Carter administration and continued through to George Bush's. Central to the Carter policy was an effort to bolster the conservative political opposition in the hopes of minimizing the Frente Sandi-nista de Liberacion Nacional influence on Nicaraguan political life and thus reroute the revolutionary project onto a mildly reformist path. One was to meet its commitment to the Nicaraguan people to create and institutionalize an authentic democracy in the framework of political pluralism and a mixed economy. Reagan policy toward Nicaragua required an ongoing investment of political capital. The "Nicaraguan issue" became a headache for US representatives wherever they turned in the world.
