ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the collapse in 1978-1979 of the regime of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua and the seizure of power by the Marxist-oriented Sandinista National Liberation Front. The Jimmy Carter administration's agenda itself provided opportunities for Somoza and his North American friends to turn the tables on human rights activists, for complicating and overshadowing decisions about Nicaragua was another policy initiative. In Washington, the National Palace attack, the Broad Opposition Front strike, and the September offensive of the Marxist-oriented Sandinista National Liberation Front coincided with delicate preparations for the Camp David meetings with Egypt and Israel, Carter's major foreign policy effort to bring peace to the Middle East. The human rights campaign made a dramatic change in the setting of Washington's policymaking toward Nicaragua. The desk officer in Washington urged a relatively active role in Nicaragua to find some solution through mediation between Somoza and the opposition.
