Dillon, Sam. Comandos: The CIA and Nicaragua's Contra Rebels. New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1991. 393 pages.
This is where Sam Dillon delivers the liberal media establishment's
verdict on U.S. support for the contras in the 1980s. Dillon is well-
connected: he was part of the Miami Herald's team of reporters that won a
Pulitzer for their Iran-contra coverage, his wife Julia Preston covered
Nicaragua for the Washington Post, this book was financed by the Alicia
Patterson Foundation (Patterson published Newsday), and the New York Times
gave it a splendid review (1991-09-29). The verdict is that while the
Sandinistas didn't deserve support, neither did the contras. The contra
commanders were anti-populist and self-serving, they committed or tolerated
the torture of prisoners and abuse of their own troops, and through it all
the CIA was controlling the purse and issuing the orders.
It's the best treatment of the CIA in Honduras that we've seen, but
it could have been better. Unfortunately, either Dillon or the publisher's
lawyers are squeamish about naming some names. He claims, without studying
the law, that "it is illegal to publish the full name" of the Honduran
station chief from 1987 to 1989. So he tells everything else about "Terry,"
including his previous postings. Two minutes with NameBase, and out spits
TERRY R. WARD. There now, establishment liberals, was that so horrible?
Why be such pushovers? Could it be that you and the CIA ... oh, never mind.
ISBN 0-8050-1475-6
Extract the names from this source
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