Robinson, William I. A Faustian Bargain: U.S. Intervention in the Nicaraguan
Elections and American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era. Boulder CO:
Westview Press, 1992. 310 pages (includes 50 pages of endnotes and 48 pages
of documents).
With access to sources in both Managua and the U.S., William Robinson
presents the first case study of the 1988-1990 campaign and elections in
Nicaragua. The story began when U.S. intelligence worried that the CIA's
stigma had blunted its capacity to intervene effectively in foreign affairs.
In 1983 Congress gave the wolf a new suit of clothes by funding a "quasi-
governmental institute" with a nice name to channel money to foreign
operations through some of the CIA's old conduits. The "National Endowment
for Democracy" emphasizes democratic participation, but essentially it
purchases access for political parties that parrot U.S. interests. In
Nicaragua, NED channeled millions through an array of cutouts and high-
powered political strategists, for a spending level of about $20 per voter
(George Bush spent less than $4 per voter in his own 1988 campaign). If a
foreign country intervened at the same level in one of our elections, we
might call it an "invasion" but we wouldn't call it "democracy."
William I. Robinson is a former investigative journalist, a research
associate at the Center for International Studies in Managua, and a Ph.D.
candidate in Latin American studies at the University of New Mexico.
ISBN 0-8133-8234-3
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