Australian Left Review
Article Title
Washington's Foundering Fathers: The Contras and Contragate
Abstract
There is no issue closer to the heart of the Reagan administration than its crusade against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. President Reagan is completely besotted with the Contras. He has described them as freedom fighters following in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and has likened them to Simon Bolivar, the French Resistance and, most recently and bizarrely, the Abratlam Lincoln Brigade of the Spanish Civil War. When the US Co!!gress finall3 voted, in JuJy 1986, to renew aid ($100 million) to the Contras, Reagan commented "I'm sure it put a smile on the face ofthe Statue ofLiberty".1
This paper has been withdrawn.