Adiós Muchachos: A Memoir of the Sandinista Revolution

5. The Age of Malice

5 | The Age of Malice Somoza could never understand why the United States had abandoned one of its own. He was bitter as he received Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo’s visits during his final days in the bunker. His list of complaints grew each time, and he resembled a spiteful lover reading worn-out letters from a lost love out loud: ‘‘I would rather that you speak English, being that I am a Manhattan Latino myself,’’ he said to him on the first of those occasions. He spoke in antiquated English, with expressions that had long fallen out of use. It was Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s phone call on Somoza’s first day in exile at his residence on Miami Beach that threw the last shovelful of dirt on the cadaver of that old love affair. His visa would be cancelled if Urcuyo Maliaños, his successor in the presidency, who was supposed to be temporary, continued refusing to resign. Terrified, he then phoned Urcuyo: ‘‘Chico, I don’t know what to do. I am a prisoner of the State Department. Warren Christopher just called to tell me that if you do not transfer power to the Government Junta, they are going to hand me over to the Sandinista Front.’’ Urcuyo left that very night for Guatemala on a military plane sent by General Romeo Lucas. He took along the presidential sash in his surgical bag. Somoza had obviously misled him. He had asked him to stay, assuring him that the United States would give 66 | CHAPTER 5 him the support they had denied him, and Urcuyo began behaving like a president of a government that did not exist. As late as the morning of July 17, 1979, he read an address to the nation, with nineteenth-century affectation , in which he asked the rebels, who were advancing toward Managua from every direction, to ‘‘lay down their arms before the altar of the Fatherland.’’ Somoza had made a final attempt to change history with a throw of the dice. He thought that if Urcuyo survived, it would facilitate his return from exile, something he always had in mind. In one of his conversations that Somoza taped and transcribed in his book Nicaragua Betrayed, Lawrence Pezzullo suggested to him at one point, in an effort to persuade him to resign, that in time the nation would remember him for the good things. Then he would be able to return, he told him, perhaps within a couple of years. He never forgot that either. The Government Junta was ready to travel to Managua, adhering to the meticulous agreement that I had reached with Ambassador William Bowdler, who represented the United States government in its negotiations for the transition. However, now no one could predict the outcomes or how long they would take, and we decided to leave immediately for León, the second most important city in the country, which was already under the Sandinista forces’ complete control. President Rodrigo Carazo came to bid us farewell in the dark hangar where we boarded two small aircraft that the Costa Rican government had put at our disposal. There was a serious, noncelebratory air. And when I embraced my wife at the door to the plane, I again thought that it could be a final goodbye. I flew with Violeta, Ernesto Cardenal, and Juan Ignacio Gutiérrez (the Government Junta’s doctor) onboard one of the small planes. On the other plane were Alfonso Robelo, Alfredo César (the Government Junta’s secretary), René Núñez (who would become secretary of the fsln’s National Directorate), and José Bárcenas, who was by that time married to Claudia Chamorro, Violeta’s daughter. ‘‘God bless you,’’ President Carazo said as they closed the doors to the aircraft. We took off around ten o’clock at night, and the plane rose above the blanket of fog that often covers San José’s central valley. I sat next to the pilot. The lights were shining below us, and I searched below in vain for my home, where my children were already asleep. Behind us, as we flew in THE AGE OF MALICE | 67 procession toward the Rivas Isthmus, the red lights on the tail of the second plane were blinking in the darkness like a burning cigarette. We traveled in silence. We were aware of the risk of being attacked from below...