ABSTRACT
The Administration assumed that the Sandinistas would inherit Somoza's throne unless the United States (US) could negotiate an alternative. For the reasons, and without internal disagreement, the United States returned to its more traditional role as the arbiter of Nicaraguan politics. Decisions on the future government of Nicaragua were being made in Washington, but they were not being implemented anywhere. On Monday, June 18, 1979, the State Department proposed that the Organization of American States (OAS) reconvene the Meeting of Foreign Ministers to address the Nicaraguan crisis. The decision to use the OAS was a sign that the department had not fully grasped the implications of the Andean Pact statement issued; the Andean countries were moving in the opposite direction from that of the US. On the eve of the OAS session, an event occurred that transformed the Nicaraguan issue from a concern of specialists to one that evoked the deepest and angriest emotions in the American body politic.
