NEWS COVE~AGE S iJfsTA REVOLUTION NEWS COVE~AGE REVOLUTION By Joshua Muravchik With a foreword by Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Editor ofLA PRENSA American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Washington, D.C. Distributed to the Trade by National Book Network, 15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214. To order call toll free 1-800-462-6420 or 1-717-794-3800. For all other inquiries please contact the AEI Press, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 or call 1-800-862-5801. Publication of this volume is made possible by a grant from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. Distributed by arrangement with UPA, Inc. 4720 Boston Way 3 Henrietta Street Lanham, MD 20706 London WC2E 8LU England ISBN 0-8447-3661-9 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-8447-3662-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) AEI Studies 476 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Muravchik, Joshua. News coverage of the Sandinista revolution / Joshua Muravchik. p. cm. - (AEI studies; 476) Includes bibliographies. ISBN 0-8447-3661-9 (alk. paper). ISBN 0-8447-3662-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Foreign news-United States-History. 2. Press and politics­ United States-History. 3. Nicaragua-Politics and government-1937-1979. 4. Nicaragua-History-Revolution, 1979. 5. Public opinion-United States. 6. Nicaragua-History­ Revolution, 1979-Foreign public opinion, American. I. Title. II. Series. PN4888.F69M87 1988 972.85'052-dcI9 88-10553 CIP © 1988 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Re­ search, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publica­ tion may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI. '1<\merican Enterprise Institute" and @ are registered service marks of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Printed in the United States of America ABOUT THE AUTHORS JOSHUA MURAVCHIK is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His articles appear frequently in Commentary, the New Re­ public, the American Spectator, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and he has contributed to Foreign Affairs, the New York Times Magazine, and numerous other magazines and newspapers. His re­ cent book, The Uncertain Crusade, was praised in the New Republic as "certainly one of the most important neoconservative foreign policy statements that have appeared to date." His 1983 article, "Misreport­ ing Lebanon," which appeared in Policy Review, was widely hailed as the definitive critique of press coverage of the 1982 war in Lebanon. Mr. Muravchik received his Ph.D. in international relations from Georgetown University. In 1986, the Wall Street Journal wrote: "Joshua Muravchik may be the most cogent and careful of the neoconservative writers on foreign policy." PABLO ANTONIO CUADRA is widely recognized in Latin America as Nicaragua's greatest living poet. He serves as well as editor of La Prensa. Board of Trustees The American Enterprise Institute Willard C. Butcher, Chairman for Public Policy Research Chm. and CEO Chase Manhattan Bank Founded in 1943, AEI is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, Paul F. Oreffice, Vice-Chm. research and educational organization based in Chairman Washington, D.C. The Institute sponsors research, Dow Chemical Co. c'onducts seminars and conferences, and publishes Robert Anderson books and periodicals. Chm. and CEO AEI's research is carried out under three major Rockwell International Corp. programs: Economic Policy Studies; Foreign Policy and Warren L. Batts National Security Studies; and Social and Political Chm. and CEO Studies. The resident scholars and fellows listed in these Premark International pages are part of a network that also includes ninety Winton M. Blount adjunct scholars at leading universities throughout the Chm. and CEO United States and in several foreign countries. Blount, Inc. The views expressed in AEI publications are those of Edwin L. Cox the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Chairman the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees. AEI itself Cox Oil & Gas, Inc. takes no positions on public policy issues. John J. Creedon Pres. and CEO Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Christopher C. DeMuth Paul A. Miller Officers President Chm. and CEO American Enterprise Institute Pacific Lighting Corp. Christopher C. DeMuth President Charles T. Fisher III Richard M. Morrow Chm. and CEO David B. Gerson Chm. and Pres. Executive Vice President National Bank of Detroit Amoco Corp. David Packard James F. Hicks D. Gale Johnson Chairman Vice President, Finance and Chairman Hewlett-Packard Co. Administration; Treasurer; and AEI Council of Academic Secretary Advisers Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. Chm. and CEO Patrick Ford Richard B. Madden Pfizer, Inc. Vice President, Public Affairs Chm. and CEO Mark Shepherd, Jr. Potlatch Corp. Chairman Robert H. Malott Texas Instruments, Inc. Chm. and CEO Roger B. Smith FMC Corp. Chm. and CEO General Motors Corp. PaulW. McCracken Edmund Ezra Day University Richard D. Wood Professor Emeritus Chairman of the Board University of Michigan Eli Lilly and Co. Randall Meyer Walter B. Wriston Former President Former Chairman Exxon' Co., U. S. A. Citicorp Council of Academic Douglas J. Besharov Chong-Pin Lin Advisers Resident Scholar; Director, Associate Director, Social Responsibility Project China Studies Program D. Gale Johnson, Chairman Robert H. Bork John H. Makin Eliakim Hastings Moore John M. Olin Scholar in Legal Resident Scholar; Director, Distinguished Service Professor Studies Fiscal Policy Studies of Economics University of Chicago Nicholas N. Eberstadt Brian F. Mannix Paul M. Bator Visiting Scholar Resident Fellow; Managing Editor, Re8ulation John P. Wilson Professor of Law Mark Falcoff University of Chicago Resident Scholar Constantine C. Menges Gary S. Becker Gerald R. Ford Resident Scholar University Professor of Economics Distinguished Fellow Joshua Muravchik and Sociology Resident Scholar University of Chicago Murray F. Foss Visiting Scholar Michael Novak Donald C. Hellmann George F. Jewett Scholar; Professor of Political Science and Suzanne Garment Director, Social and Political International Studies Resident Scholar Studies University of Washington Allan Gerson Norman J. Ornstein Gertrude Himmelfarb Resident Scholar Resident Scholar Distinguished Professor of Robert A. Goldwin Richard N. Perle History Resident Scholar; Codirector, Resident Fellow City University of New York Constitution Project Thomas Robinson Nelson W. Polsby Gottfried Haberler Director, China Professor of Political Science Resident Scholar Studies Program University of California at Berkeley William S. Haraf William Schneider J. Edward Lundy Visiting Scholar; Resident Fellow Herbert Stein Director, Financial Markets Peter Skerry A. Willis Robertson Regulation Project Research Fellow Professor of Economics Emeritus Karlyn H. Keene Herbert Stein University of Virginia Resident Fellow; Managing Senior Fellow; Editor, Public Opinion Editor, AEI Economist Murray L. Weidenbaum Mallinckrodt Distinguished Alan L. Keyes Edward Styles University Professor Resident Scholar Director, Publications Washington University Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Sir Alan Walters James Q. Wilson Senior Fellow Senior Fellow James Collins Professor of Counselor to the President for Kazuhito Wantanabe Management Foreign Policy Studies Visiting Fellow University of California at Ben J. Wattenberg Los Angeles Marvin H. Kosters Resident Scholar; Director, Senior Fellow; Economic Policy Studies Coeditor, Public Opinion Irving Kristal Carolyn L. Weaver Resident Scholar; Editor, Senior Fellow Regulation Research Staff Robert Licht *John C. Weicher Claude E. Barfield Visiting Scholar; F.K. Weyerhaeuser Scholar Resident Fellow; Director, Associate Director, Science and Technology Constitution Project Makoto Yokoyama Visiting Fellow Walter Berns S. Robert Lichter Adjunct Scholar DeWitt Wallace Fellow *On leave for government service. Contents FOREWORD Pablo Antonio Cuadra INTRODUCTION 1 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION: THE NATURE OF THE 1 SANDINISTA MOVEMENT 7 Who Are the Sandinistas? 7 Marxism 10 Communism 13 SOURCES OF CONFUSION 24 2 Deception 24 Misunderstanding 30 Disinformation 36 THE VIEWS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT 42 3 Media and Government Differences 42 Differences within the Administration 46 AFTER SOMOZA'S FALL: THE NEW NICARAGUA 50 4 Media Portrayals of the Regime 50 Domestic Issues 65 Foreign Alignments 86 CHANGES IN THE GOVERNMENT'S PERCEPTION OF THE 5 SANDINISTAS 100 6 CONCLUSION 106 Foreword Pablo Antonio Cuadra One of the peculiarities of Central American history resides in the fact that it has fallen to the press to defend the rights of man against those who have held power and sought to expand it at the expense of individual rights. Newspapers have been our only compensation for weak legislative and judicial branches, always confronted by ex­ ecutives perpetually tempted to excess. Nicaragua is a case in point: there, the daily La Prensa has been called "the republic of paper." The Somozas constantly sought to break or stretch the bonds of constitu­ tional limitation and erode liberties searching for greater and greater povrer. In our newspaper the republican conscience was born and survived by stating plainly what either fear or venality inspired