Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua 1981-1987 (review)

238 SAIS REVIEW made against it after an assessment of its chances for success and of such risks as the possibility of Cuban military action to defend the Sandinistas. Other factors contributed to the failure of U.S. policy during the Carter administration. Pastor believes that more intelligence information would have helped U.S. officials make effective policy decisions from the beginning. For example, as late as one month before Somoza was overthrown, the United States was unaware of the Sandinistas' power to defeat the Somoza regime. Furthermore , Carter's attention was occupied by the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which consumed much of his energy. Pastor provides thorough recommendations to manage similar problems in the future. He stresses the need for multilateral strategies "to deal with dictatorships in crises of political succession," for an international electionmonitoring organization, and even for the granting of incentives to dictators to leave power, since "few fallen dictators have found a tranquil place to live out their days, and this cannot help but affect the decisions of incumbent dictators ." Pastor rejects Reagan's confrontational policies. The funding of the Contras, Pastor believes, served only to encourage moderate elements within Nicaragua to join the violent opposition. The fruits of the Sandinistas' overtures toward Cuba and the Soviet Union, which Pastor denounces as one of their earliest faux pas, have been insufficient to offset the domestic costs of the war waged by the Reagan administration. U.S. congressional and popular support for aid to the Contras has eroded considerably . Pastor believes that the United States and Nicaragua are not condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past, as long as "both change their attitudes." The imaginative reader will find Pastor's opinions provocative and insightful, especially since the time may be propitious for such a "change in attitude" on both sides. Banana Diplomacy: The Making of American Policy in Nicaragua 1981-1987. By Roy Gutman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. 404 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by Brian T. Pallasch, M.A. candidate, The American University. U.S. policy toward Nicaragua has been one of the most controversial issues in U.S. -Latin American relations during the Reagan administration. Roy Gutman, a correspondent for Newsday, provides a detailed account of how this policy was formulated and incorporates a series of interviews with key decisionmakers. Gutman gives a thorough chronological account of the United States' Nicaragua policy, beginning with the 1980 Republican convention, when the party adopted a platform calling for the overthrow of the Sandinista regime. Gutman reveals how Oliver North was allowed to create a place for himself in the policymaking loop, how top administration officials (including former Secretary of State Alexander Haig) initially opposed covert aid to the Contras, BOOK REVIEWS 239 and how the advice of experts advocating political means to hold the Sandinistas accountable was discarded. Although the stated goal of the administration's policy was to get the Sandinistas to the negotiating table, Gutman demonstrates that when an agreement was within reach, hard-liners, such as UN AmbassadorJeane Kirkpatrick and Constantine Menges, torpedoed any chance of attaining the government's stated goal. Menges did this on at least three occasions, heading off Secretary ofState George Shultz's attempts to open a dialogue with the Sandinista government by calling in both CIA Director William Casey and Ambassador Kirkpatrick to meet with President Reagan, who then told Shultz not to pursue his plans. Furthermore, when a viable peace plan was put on the table inJune 1984, it also fell apart. Because the United States was unwilling to send an observer to, or establish any links with the Contadora meetings, it had no knowledge of the Contadora and its proposals. The policy of negotiation was concomitant with the policy of confrontation. The contradictions inherent in this approach doomed the peace process from the start. The book's greatest asset is its examination of how foreign policy was made and conducted during the Reagan administration. According to Gutman, often contradictory policies and ignorance on the part of high-level administration officials, especially Secretary of State George Shultz, undermined foreign policy efforts and exacerbated problems. The author further states that...