In September 2003, a huge crowd gathered in the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile, for a concert marking the thirtieth anniversary of the coup that toppled President Salvador Allende. The concert, called ‘The Dream Exists’, was yet another manifestation of the deification of Allende which has occurred since his death in 1973. Among the artists was Shalil Shankar whose quartet performed a raga called ‘Salvador Allende, Son of God’. The Cuban singer/songwriter Silvio Rodríguez who, six months earlier, had publicly supported his government’s imprisonment of dissidents, delighted the crowd with his stinging rebuke of the ‘tyrannical’ United States. Plans for a commemorative DVD of the concert were dashed when performers failed to agree on royalties.
On one side sits Allende, the first communist leader to reach power by open election. Opposite him sits Augusto Pinochet, coup master, dictator and mass murderer. Careless assumption encourages the conclusion that the adversary of evil must be good. While there is no disputing Pinochet’s venality, the world has been sold a fairy tale about Allende. That fairy tale casts the United States as wicked sorcerer, manipulating a sovereign nation. The real story is much more banal. The coup was very popular and distinctly local – most Chileans wanted rid of their mendacious president.
The US did interfere, but so, too, did the USSR. This was, after all, the Cold War. The striking fact about Chile, however, is that American manipulation was ineffectual. Chileans stubbornly refused to follow the script the CIA wrote. Allende became president in spite of American meddling, and he was toppled by Chileans, not the CIA. Pinochet was not an American creation – intelligence reports warned against using a man like him. The argument that this chapter of Chilean history was written by Nixon and Kissinger implies a decidedly condescending attitude toward the Chilean people, who proved fully capable of messing up their own affairs.
Chile, though a reasonably stable democracy, was burdened by a cumbersome system of proportional representation, which often resulted in no party winning a majority in presidential elections. When this occurred, the result was decided not by a run-off between the two top candidates, but rather by Congress deciding which candidate would be president. In such cases, the presidency usually went to the candidate with the largest share of the vote.
Throughout the 1960s, social tensions festered, due primarily to the maldistribution of income. A mere 3.2 per cent of the population owned around 42 per cent of wealth. Since the rich used their money to buy imported goods, this led to chronic balance of payments deficits and inflation that hovered around 30 per cent. Chile borrowed to make ends meet, her chief creditor being the United States.
In the 1964 election campaign, all parties agreed that something needed to be done about underdevelopment, debt and maldistribution of income. Parties on the left prescribed socialism, while in the middle the Christian Democrats offered social welfare, nationalization and income redistribution. Fearful of a socialist plurality, the Conservative Party threw its weight behind Eduardo Frei, the Christian Democrat, who gained 56 per cent of the vote, against Allende’s 38.9 per cent.
For Allende, that result demonstrated the difficulty of achieving Marxist transformation through the ballot box. At the Congress of Linares in July 1965, his Socialist Party came to the conclusion that ‘Our strategy . . . rejects the electoral route as a way to achieve our goal of seizing power.’ A similar inclination was expressed at the Congress of Chillán in November 1967, when the party resolved that ‘revolutionary violence is inevitable and legitimate . . . Only by destroying the democratic-military apparatus of the bourgeois State can the socialist revolution take root.’ In other words, while Allende’s socialists were not above using the electoral process to gain power, they were not ideologically committed to democracy and did not trust capricious voters to keep them in power. ‘The final phase of political struggle’, Clodomiro Almeyda predicted, ‘will most probably take the form of a revolutionary civil war.’1
In keeping with Sixties fashion, Allende worshipped the Cuban revolution, and in particular Che Guevara. Che’s experiences were automatically assumed to be relevant to Chile. Allende’s friend, the historian Claudio Véliz, felt that Che had ‘a fundamental impact on his plans for Chile. After seeing Cuba, Allende thought that he could take a short cut. But the truth is that he went against Chilean tradition.’ As for the Cubans, they found Allende suspiciously anachronistic. His taste for finery – tailored suits, vintage wines, expensive art, elegant women – may have been de rigueur in bourgeois Chile, but it clashed violently with Cuba’s olive green austerity. Castro’s inner circle thought the Chilean gallant a buffoon.2
By 1970, with a new election looming, Chilean politics was in turmoil. Frei’s social revolution had raised expectations that remained unfulfilled. His willingness to tax the wealthy also shattered his alliance with conservatives. Debt and inflation had worsened due to Frei’s fondness for foreign loans. He nevertheless still commanded significant support, and might have been able to win, if not for an electoral law that prohibited a second term. Lacking a leader, the centrist coalition flew apart. Christian Democrats settled on Radomiro Tomic´, a man too meek to inspire enthusiasm. That calamity played into the hands of Allende. Most Chileans wanted Frei’s reforms to continue, and therefore looked to the socialists to deliver. The obvious deserves emphasis: Chileans wanted a better life, not revolution – social welfare, not Marxism. They certainly did not want democracy dismantled.
The American State Department advised the White House that the chances of an Allende victory were slim. CIA warnings to the contrary did not trouble Nixon, who decided on an approach called Track I, involving subtle manipulation of the Chilean electorate, through entirely legal means. The CIA was denied a role, because the State Department did not want mountains being made from molehills. Around $400,000 of CIA money was spent on influencing the Chilean media, but that was pennies by agency standards. ITT, a US conglomerate with large holdings in the country, offered the CIA $1 million to stop Allende, but the offer was rejected.
The election on 4 September revealed deep fissures in Chilean society. Allende, at the head of a Popular Unity (UP) coalition which included his Socialist Party, the communists, social democrats, radicals and the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (Miristas), won 36.3 per cent. A whisker behind was the former president, Jorge Alessandri, the right’s candidate, while the hapless Tomi´c managed 27.8 per cent. It bears noting that, despite coming first, Allende gained a smaller share of the vote in 1970 than he had in 1964, when he came a distant second.
Shocked by the results, the White House panicked. Since the Chilean Congress would meet to decide the outcome on 24 October, schemers figured they had seven weeks to stop Allende. ‘We will not let Chile go down the drain,’ Kissinger cautioned the CIA chief, Richard Helms, on 12 September. Helms agreed. When Kissinger warned Nixon that the State Department was inclined to ‘let Allende come in and see what we can work out’, Nixon angrily rejected that suggestion. ‘Like against Castro? Like in Czechoslovakia? The same people said the same thing. Don’t let them do it.’ Nixon feared that, with socialist regimes in Cuba and Chile, Latin America would become a ‘red sandwich’.3
Secretary of State William Rogers was uneasy about tampering with the election. ‘We want to make sure the paper record doesn’t look bad,’ he remarked. ‘No matter what we do it will probably end up dismal . . . we ought to encourage a different result . . . but should do so discreetly so that it doesn’t backfire.’ Despite the dithering, he had identified a central dilemma: ‘After all we’ve said about elections, if the first time a Communist wins the US tries to prevent the constitutional process from coming into play we will look very bad.’ Kissinger replied: ‘The President’s view is to do the maximum possible to prevent an Allende takeover, but through Chilean sources and with a low posture.’ That satisfied Rogers.4
According to Kissinger, the administration felt that the US should not ‘let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’. In an effort to correct the Chileans’ misbehaviour, he called together the 40 Committee, which oversaw the conduct of covert actions abroad. They settled on a plan under which the Chilean Congress would be persuaded to name Alessandri the winner. He would then quickly resign, paving the way for a new election. The centre–right coalition would then be reconstructed, to stand against Allende in a two-horse race. The beauty of the plan was that it would allow Frei to run again, since he would not technically be serving consecutive terms. Alessandri had already agreed to the idea, but
Frei found it distasteful.5
On 15 September, Nixon, in a foul mood, called together Kissinger, Attorney General John Mitchell and Helms. The latter’s fractured notes reveal Nixon’s desperation. ‘One in 10 chance, perhaps, but save Chile: Worth Spending Not concerned risks involved No involvement of Embassy $10,000,000 available, more if necessary full-time job – best men we have game plan make the economy scream.’ Despite Helms being pessimistic, Nixon thought that a one-in-ten possibility of saving Chile from Allende was worthy odds. When Helms warned that the CIA ‘lacked the means’ to achieve what the president wanted, Nixon remained adamant. ‘Standing mid-track and shouting at an oncoming locomotive might have been more effective,’ Helms reflected.6
Track II quickly took shape. Under the new plan, on the pretext of a national emergency, the Chilean military would declare the elections void, establish a ruling junta and then, after a short hiatus, restore democracy in conditions which would allow Frei (or someone like him) a favourable run at the presidency. Nixon was not particularly interested in details, as long as Allende could be stopped. The CIA’s director of covert operations, Thomas Karamessines, was appointed to head the project. For reasons of clandestinity, the Departments of State and Defense were excluded, thus leaving the ambassador Edward Korry out of the loop. The remit, issued on 17 September, instructed covert units to begin ‘probing for military possibilities to thwart Allende’. According to Helms, assassinations were not part of the plan – ‘I . . . made that clear to my fellows.’7
The Americans seriously underestimated the probity of the Chilean military. While few commanders supported Allende, they were not willing to undermine democracy in order to stop him. With options limited, the agency reluctantly settled on General Roberto Viaux, an ambitious viper who had recently been dismissed from the army. While his enthusiasm for mischief suited CIA needs, his emotional stability left much to be desired. Korry had already warned against any ‘attempt to rob Allende of his triumph’, in particular any scheme involving Viaux, who was ‘impossible’. Unaware of the existence of Track II, Korry warned that ignorant meddling might result in a disaster rivalling the Bay of Pigs. Since an Allende presidency was ‘assured’, the United States should just learn to adapt. That prompted Kissinger to conclude that Korry had ‘lost his sanity’.8
Standing in the way of CIA plans was the Chilean commander-in-chief, General René Schneider, an annoyingly principled man. During the election, he publicly pledged not to interfere. ‘The politicians are maneuvering to push the army into an adventure,’ he told General Carlos Prats, his second in command. ‘They should understand that we are not so stupid.’ Schneider feared that the situation might be used as a ‘trampoline’ for Viaux. The Americans discovered to their dismay that Schneider would ‘only agree to military intervention if forced to do so’. Revelation led inexorably to implication: Schneider would have to go.9
The CIA, under pressure from the White House, threw their weight behind Viaux. Within a matter of days, he managed to alienate those inclined to see the best in him. Agents on the ground found him ‘too hot to handle’. ‘Viaux has no military support,’ they warned; he ‘presents too great a risk . . . and offers very little in return’. The CIA station in Santiago cautioned that Viaux would ‘split armed forces . . . Carnage would be considerable and prolonged, i.e., civil war.’ Even worse, agents thought, would be if Viaux actually succeeded and it then emerged that the US had helped topple Chilean democracy and put in its place an unstable military dictator.10
That pessimism eventually caused those in Washington to see reason. The 40 Committee concluded that ‘a coup climate does not presently exist’, while Kissinger reluctantly decided that ‘there presently appeared to be little the US can do to influence the Chilean situation’. He phoned Nixon, telling him that the situation ‘looks hopeless. I turned it off. Nothing would be worse than an abortive coup.’ The president replied: ‘Just tell [Karamessines] to do nothing.’11
Viaux, however, was like a leaky tap – he could not be turned off. The Santiago station politely advised: ‘Preserve your assets . . . the time will come when you with all your other friends can do something. You will continue to have our support.’ That was far too subtle for one so stubborn and unstable as Viaux. By this stage, nothing short of a sledgehammer could have stopped him.12
On 18 October, Kissinger advised Nixon that the best course was to formulate ‘a specific strategy to deal with an Allende government’. In truth, however, Kissinger had not finished plotting. He still believed that an Allende government ‘poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere’. Feelers were extended to disgruntled Chilean officers. The difficulty, however, was finding ‘a general with b***s’. Ever hopeful, the CIA thought that General Camilo Valenzuela might satisfy that prerequisite. On the 22nd, a week after plotting had supposedly terminated, an American military attaché secretly passed three sub-machine guns and some tear-gas canisters to Valenzuela.13
Meanwhile, Viaux’s loose cannon was about to fire. Late on the 22nd, his goons ambushed Schneider. Severely wounded, he died three days later. To the great relief of the White House, an investigation was unable to discover a connection to the Americans. A CIA cable immediately after the shooting reinforces the impression the agency did not know of the plot beforehand: ‘Station unaware if assassination was premeditated or whether it constituted bungled abduction attempt . . . cannot prove or disprove that . . . attempt against Schneider was entrusted to elements linked with Viaux.’14
Despite CIA pessimism, a coup of sorts had materialized. Secretly delighted, the agency waited for Allende to be swept aside. First reports were, however, dismal. ‘There has been thus far no indication that the conspirators intend to push on with their plans to overthrow the government,’ agents revealed. Clearly, Chileans were in no mood for a coup. Viaux’s desperados simply evaporated, while Allende urged the people to resist ‘counter-revolutionary’ plots. By his actions, Viaux had succeeded only in solidifying a popular desire for orderly, democratic change. Schneider became a martyr to the constitutional process, and Allende’s accession seemed the most appropriate way to honour him. Congress duly elected Allende president, with 153 votes in favour and a mere 42 opposed or abstaining.15
‘I am not going to do a thing for [Chile],’ a spiteful Nixon shouted on 15 October, promising that Allende would be made to pay. In truth, however, the administration admitted that little could be done. A National Security Council memorandum of 9 November 1970 advised a ‘correct but cool’ approach, aimed at ‘maximiz[ing] pressures on the Allende government to prevent its consolidation and limit its ability to implement policies contrary to U.S. and hemispheric interests’. Another paper outlined the need to ‘give articulate support . . . to democratic elements in Chile opposed to the Allende regime’ and underlined the importance of ‘maintain[ing] effective relations with the Chilean military’. In other words, the US settled into a long game, with the focus on the 1976 election, by which time, it was confidently assumed, the people would have grown tired of Allende. While this still constituted meddling, it was hardly different from American action in scores of countries during the Cold War.16
Soviet meddling was, in contrast, more overt. Having hailed Allende’s victory as ‘a revolutionary blow to the imperialist system in Latin America’, Moscow was determined that he should succeed. Contact was maintained not through legitimate embassy channels, but through Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, a KGB case officer assigned to ‘exert a favourable influence’. Kuznetsov impressed upon Allende ‘the necessity of reorganising Chile’s army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile’s and the USSR’s intelligence services’. Cooperation was paid for with cash. In October 1971 Allende was given $30,000 to ‘solidify . . . trusted relations’. When he asked for two precious Russian icons for his private art collection, these were duly supplied. Bribes were generously offered to key politicians and military commanders. Painfully aware of how unpopular the Marxist transformation might be and the obstacles democracy posed, Moscow urged Allende to curb democratic expression, hobble the media, and impose limits upon the powers of Congress. American attempts to encourage anti-Allende forces were, in other words, easily cancelled out by Russian efforts to neutralize them.17
External pressure upon Allende was, however, minuscule compared to the turbulence caused by his own people. Lacking a majority in Congress, he needed Christian Democrat support to pass his reforms. In most cases, this was easily had, since the party, wedded to redistribution, nationalization and social welfare, saw sense in being ‘good allendistas’. Unfortunately, Allende’s attempts to court the centre annoyed the left. Workers and peasants, impatient for change, reacted by seizing property, action Allende felt obliged to endorse. Miristas pressured Allende to move faster. They complained that Allende was insufficiently violent and too respectful of democracy. A power struggle raged within the UP between communists and Miristas, who acted upon doctrinal differences with beatings and murder.18
‘Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism,’ Allende proclaimed in 1971. ‘As for the bourgeois State at the present moment, we are seeking to overcome it. To overthrow it!’ He sensed that bloodshed might be necessary in order to complete the transformation. ‘We shall meet reactionary violence with revolutionary violence,’ he proclaimed, ‘because we know they are going to break the rules.’ Nor would the law be allowed to stand in his way. ‘The revolution will remain within the law as long as the law does not try to stop the revolution,’ his minister of justice declared.19
Allende’s first year in power was surprisingly successful. By the end of 1971, unemployment had dropped to 3.8 per cent, industrial production was up by 6.3 per cent, agricultural productivity by 5.3 per cent and real wages by 27 per cent. Success, however, brought fresh problems since the right concluded that progress had come at their expense, while the left decided that anything was possible. Statistics also deceive. What seemed like economic growth was actually a one-off windfall from nationalizing foreign assets. Chile was still heavily reliant on foreign loans, and lacked the capacity to repay them – in November 1971 loan payments were suspended. By the end of the year, shortages began appearing in the shops, causing housewives to protest in the ‘March of the Empty Pots’. The financial crisis worsened when Nixon slashed aid, a move mirrored by other foreign powers. While that was undoubtedly politically motivated, it was also predicated by genuine fears of fiscal meltdown. The move was mirrored in the private sector, as foreign banks, wanting nothing to do with a failing socialist experiment, pulled the plug on loans.
In 1972, the economy went into nosedive. By the end of the year, the balance of payments deficit stood at $298 million; inflation had rocketed to 163 per cent; and real wages had dropped 7 per cent. Agricultural imports rose to $400 million, an increase of 84 per cent since the election. Food rationing was actively discussed. Powerless to control inflation, Allende printed money.
The crisis energized Allende’s opponents. Congress blocked legislation in order to limit the damage Allende could do. Meanwhile, out of self-protection, the middle class sent capital out of the country, exacerbating the balance of payments crisis. A wave of strikes, some admittedly funded by the CIA, paralysed the nation. The UP reacted by sending paramilitary thugs onto the streets to punish striking workers. The mounting chaos did not go unnoticed in Moscow. KGB assessments of Allende’s prospects turned increasingly bleak. Moscow was reluctant to bankroll a president who seemed incapable of managing his own economy.
As the crisis deepened, Allende behaved ever more like the dictator he aspired to be. Opposition groups were harassed and journalists threatened. Businesses unsympathetic to the Marxist plan were closed down or nationalized. Lacking political subtlety, Allende failed to take advantage of Christian Democrat goodwill. No longer courting the party, he tried to destroy it by luring away leftists and persecuting the rest. Workers who professed Christian Democrat allegiance were beaten up or dismissed from jobs.
In the 1973 congressional elections, the UP won a surprising 43 per cent of votes, though voter intimidation was rife. Much more impressive, however, was the way Allende had destroyed the middle ground – the country was cleaved into those who supported him and those determined to block him. Chile seemed on the verge of civil war, with extremists on the right and left stockpiling arms. In late June, rightists from the Patria y Libertad movement pushed tanks and armoured cars into the centre of Santiago. The coup proved futile, but it did underline Allende’s vulnerability. Warned in advance, he called upon his people to ‘pour into the centre of the city’. They refused. ‘You know I think that Chilean guy might have some problems,’ a smug Nixon remarked on 4 July. ‘Oh, he has massive problems,’ Kissinger confirmed. ‘He definitely has massive problems.’20
The knives were out. On 26 May, the Supreme Court formally objected to Allende’s ‘open and willful disregard for judicial verdicts’. With typical bluster, he responded that the law could not be allowed to stand in the way of socialist revolution. ‘In a time of revolution, political power has the right to decide . . . whether or not judicial decisions correspond with the higher goals and historical necessities of social transformation.’ Allende’s friend Oscar Waiss responded even more aggressively, advising that, ‘The moment had come to throw away all legalistic fetishism, to sack the military conspirators, to remove the Comptroller General, to intervene in the Supreme Court and the Judiciary, to confiscate the El Mercurio newspaper and the whole pack of counter-revolutionary journalistic hounds. We must hit first, since he who hits first hits twice.’ Moderates like Frei despaired at the impossibility of removing Allende by regular means. ‘Unfortunately, this problem can only be solved with guns,’ he concluded.21
A massive truckers’ strike, backed by the CIA, began on 26 July. Losses after two months were estimated at $100 million. With inflation topping 320 per cent, the Chamber of Deputies in August publicly censured Allende and called upon the military to remove him. The Christian Democrat Claudio Orrego justified the action on the grounds that ‘the country is in a crisis that has no parallel in our national history’. A resolution listed twenty violations of the rule of law, including support of armed groups, illegal arrests, torture, muzzling the press, confiscating private property and usurping power. Action was necessary in order to preserve ‘the constitutional order of our Nation and the essential underpinnings of democratic coexistence’. The Resolution was approved by 81 votes to 47. Allende responded with a familiar refrain: the law could not be allowed to stand in the way of socialism.22
The resolution was a huge gamble in that it called upon the armed forces to sort out a problem – namely the removal of Allende – which the Chamber of Deputies could not resolve. Allende objected that this was the equivalent of ‘ask[ing] for a coup d’état’. That is precisely what the Deputies wanted, but their request was made with the constitutionalist tradition of the army in mind. In other words, Deputies assumed that the army would do what was asked and then quickly restore democracy.23
This time, the military was only too happy to oblige. Officers understood that if they did not act quickly they were very likely to fall victim to a left-wing coup, since leftist paramilitaries were busily preparing for a campaign of assassinations. Officers also understood that, given the deep discontent with Allende, their action was likely to be popular.
On 22 August 1973, General Carlos Prats, the interior minister and commander-in-chief, warned Allende that a coup was inevitable. Torn between his loyalty to Allende and to the constitution, he chose to resign. On hearing of his resignation, Allende asked Prats whether he could count on the loyalty of his replacement, General Pinochet. Prats thought Pinochet was loyal, but warned that support for a coup within the army was now so overwhelming that any officer who tried to resist would be swept aside.
The axe fell at 07.00 on 11 September. Pinochet played a clever game, pretending loyalty to Allende until it was clear that the coup would succeed. By 10.00, all of Chile was effectively under military control, except for the centre of Santiago. Instead of escaping, Allende stayed at the government palace, desperately trying to organize a counter-attack. Despite threats of an airstrike, he refused to surrender. His last words were devoted to making myth. ‘Workers of my country,’ he proclaimed, ‘I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that.’ The crisis was blamed on the usual enemies of socialism: ‘foreign capital [and] imperialism’. As the cordon grew tighter, he concluded: ‘I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country.’ Shortly after those last words were uttered, air force jets bombed the palace. At some point during that attack, Allende stuck the muzzle of an automatic rifle beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.
The coup was a democratic act that led to the death of democracy. At the time, most Chileans assumed that the military had saved the country from socialist dictatorship. Reporting on 14 September, a Guardian journalist found individuals from all walks of life ‘welcoming the patriotic gesture of our armed forces’. Unfortunately, public acclaim blinded Pinochet, causing him to forget his duty to the constitution. In the weeks that followed, he brutally excised all Allendistas. Thousands were murdered, huge numbers were imprisoned without trial, and many simply disappeared. The machinery of dictatorship was efficiently installed. The constitution was torn up, political parties outlawed, Congress disbanded and the press rigidly controlled. Murder, torture and intimidation would remain the hallmarks of Pinochet’s regime for the next sixteen years.24
Allende, like so many heroes of the left, had the good fortune of dying before his perfidy could surface. Starry-eyed romantics have made a hero of him for supposedly trying, against all odds, to establish socialism by democratic means. But that is a fairy tale made no more valid by the frequency of its narration. Pinochet, Kissinger and Nixon inadvertently conspired in Allende’s deification. Their malfeasance allowed the martyr myth to become transcendent. Today, Allende symbolizes sacred Chilean democracy, despite the contempt he held for the democratic process. In the accepted narrative of the Seventies, his goodness is non-negotiable. Likewise, CIA involvement is carelessly assumed to be absolute, up to and including the 1973 coup. Patricia Verdugo, a Chilean historian, blames American manipulation for the tragedy of the Pinochet years. ‘The CIA’s history in preparing the conflict makes the United States responsible for all that followed.’ Given the derision that surrounds Kissinger and Nixon, hers is an easy brief to argue. But the US did not actually create Pinochet. Documentary evidence shows that the Americans wanted democracy preserved. ‘Our hand doesn’t show on this one,’ Nixon remarked to Kissinger after the coup. ‘We didn’t do it,’ Kissinger replied. As much as we might like to believe otherwise, that was true. The Allende story reveals the impressive capacity of the Chileans to control their own affairs, and also to make a mess of them.25
Richard Nixon, despite his famous claims to the contrary, was a crook. That was plainly obvious long before Watergate. The nickname ‘Tricky Dick’ was not, after all, invented because of that scandal. Shady practices were evident as early as 1952 when he campaigned for the vice-presidency and called upon his dog Checkers to run camouflage for his duplicity. More recently, his actions during the 1968 presidential campaign and his conduct of the Vietnam War confirmed a pathological dishonesty. But while Americans were vaguely aware of his crookedness, they accepted him because he was their crook – a man dishonest on America’s behalf. Deceit, it seemed, went hand in hand with toughness, and these were tough times.
What Americans did not realize, however, was the sheer scope of Nixon’s perfidy. That was revealed because of Watergate, to the extent that the affair came to be seen not as a single crime, but as a metaphor of mendacity. That realization plunged the American people into a moral crisis much more serious than the affair itself.
The Democrats, in truth, had no chance of victory in the 1972 presidential election. The party had not remotely recovered from the bitter conflicts of four years earlier – in fact, turmoil had deepened. Edward Kennedy showed brief promise, but that was destroyed at Chappaquiddick in 1969, when poor judgement resulted in tragic death. The remaining contenders were a sorry lot which included Hubert Humphrey, who had yet to accept his lack of appeal; Senator Edmund Muskie, an inept, unlucky and boring campaigner; and George McGovern, a decent liberal out of touch with America. Starved of alternatives, the party settled on McGovern. In other words, Nixon did not need to cheat in order to win.
That said, Nixon’s team did cultivate McGovern’s selection. Donald Segretti, a slimy California lawyer, called the practice ‘rat-fucking’, a term which encompassed bugging offices, spreading vile rumours, stealing secret files, and generally making mayhem in order to destroy stronger candidates. ‘Let’s have a little fun,’ Nixon shouted as he encouraged his aides to ever more imaginative mischief. Muskie endured what he called a ‘systematic campaign of sabotage’, including bogus allegations that he had used a racial slur and forged letters accusing rival candidates of illicit sexual behaviour. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service was used to look for dirt in the tax files of prominent Democrats. ‘Bob, please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats,’ Nixon asked his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman on 13 September 1971. ‘Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers?’ The day after George Wallace was shot while campaigning for the Democratic nomination, Nixon and his aide Charles Colson discussed Wallace’s assassin, Arthur Bremer:
NIXON: ‘Is he a left-winger or a right-winger?’
COLSON: ‘Well, he’s going to be a left-winger by the time we get through, I think.’
NIXON: ‘Good. [chuckles] Keep at that. Keep at that.’
E. Howard Hunt, a freelance spy, was subsequently instructed to plant pro-McGovern literature in Bremer’s apartment. Unfortunately, the FBI got there first and sealed the place. When Nixon learned of this setback, he suggested that FBI Director L. Patrick Gray might be persuaded to help. ‘Use him . . . you know, to sneak out things. I mean, you do anything. I mean, anything!’26
Nixon’s philosophy was simple: ‘Be ready. Lay in the bushes and then whack them.’ He was a small man never satisfied with success. As the satirist Harry Shearer wrote, ‘He never let the fact that he had reached the pinnacle of his aspirations distract him from his mission of vindictive resentment against those who failed . . . to stand in his way.’ Consumed by hate and paranoia, he wanted not just to win, but also to humiliate his opponent. ‘We’re up against an enemy, a conspiracy,’ he told aides nearly a year before the Watergate scandal broke. ‘They’re using any means. We are going to use any means. Is that clear?’ Rejecting ‘high-minded lawyers’, he actively recruited the unscrupulous. ‘I really need a son-of-a-bitch’, he remarked, ‘who will work his butt off and do it dishonorably.’ As early as 1970, he directed his staff ‘to come up with the kind of imaginative dirty tricks that our Democratic opponents used against us . . . in previous campaigns’. Since secrecy and deception allows small men the chance to feel big, Nixon never lacked a ready supply of rogues. An army of yes-men were infected with his warped view of the world. Given that they owed their elevation to him, they willingly did what he asked.27
With the outcome certain, the campaign was a non-event. The country had to endure a summer of McGovern preaching a platform written on Mars. He was probably the most liberal candidate ever to run for president, yet ‘liberal’ had become a dirty word. ‘Every time he opened his mouth,’ one former Democrat reflected, ‘it came out irresponsible . . . So I voted for Nixon with no enthusiasm.’ Because the nation tuned McGovern out, they failed to hear his one relevant message, namely that the Nixon administration was ‘the most corrupt . . . in history’. Proof came on 17 June when five administration lackeys were caught prowling around the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Building. News of the break-in, coming in the middle of a campaign, should have been monumental. In fact, few noticed, and fewer still cared.28
The idea originated within a sordid cabal aptly called CREEP, or the Committee to Re-Elect the President. CREEP collected illegal donations to fund dirty work dreamt up by men like G. Gordon Liddy, a thoroughly malevolent individual with a hooligan approach to politics. A former CIA agent, Liddy had previously been recruited as a ‘plumber’ to plug leaks of secret information from the White House. When CREEP was formed, he was enlisted, since his unscrupulous zealotry seemed just the ticket. In January 1972, Liddy proposed a comprehensive programme of dirty tricks with a price tag topping $1 million. John Dean, the White House counsel, found it ‘the most incredible thing I have ever laid my eyes on: all in codes, and involv[ing] black bag operations, kidnapping, providing prostitutes to weaken the opposition, bugging, mugging teams’. John Mitchell, head of CREEP and formerly the attorney general, rejected the plan, but, ten weeks later, after pressure from Colson and Haldeman, commissioned Liddy to place wiretaps in the Watergate Building. That mission went ahead on 27 May, but was unsuccessful. A second attempt, on 17 June, resulted in the arrest of James McCord and four Cuban exiles.29
According to Colson, Nixon was so angry on hearing of the break-in that he threw an ashtray across the room. He ‘thought it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard of and was just outraged that anyone even remotely connected with the campaign organization would have . . . anything to do with something like Watergate’. That seems doubtful. If Nixon was angry, it was not over the fact that the break-in had occurred, but rather that it had failed so abysmally. He had, after all, encouraged crimes of this nature fully a year before McCord’s arrest. While it is entirely possible that Nixon knew nothing of this specific plan, there is no doubt that he created the climate that allowed its conception.30
Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, was quick to dismiss the break-in as a ‘third-rate burglary’. That was true, but over subsequent months, it evolved into a first-rate scandal. Nixon was entirely to blame, for the simple reason that he decided on cover-up instead of mea culpa. The wisest course would have been to go before the country immediately after the arrests, blame the crime on rogue elements, apologize, fire a few scapegoats and promise a full investigation. Such a course would have allowed the White House, instead of journalists, to control the story. Nixon rejected that course, perhaps because he worried that full disclosure would cause more serious scandals to spread like a metastasizing cancer. Instead he chose cover-up, despite telling his aides, just a month after the break-in: ‘The worst thing a guy can do . . . is to cover up . . . If you cover up, you’re going to get caught.’31
The cover-up was designed to prevent any connection being made between the five burglars and the White House. To this end, hush money was distributed, with the fund for this purpose eventually reaching $500,000. As an extra precaution, just six days after the break-in, Haldeman suggested having Vernon Walters of the CIA tell Gray of the FBI to ‘Stay the hell out of this . . . there’s some business here we don’t want you going any further on.’ Nixon replied: ‘Mm-hmm.’ Both Haldeman and Nixon assumed that the involvement of the CIA would encourage the impression that national security was at stake and thus convince the curious to back off. Regardless of his original involvement, Nixon’s mumbled assent automatically made him a conspirator in the obstruction of justice.32
For a while, the cover-up worked, partly because most journalists refused to get excited about the story at a time when news was dominated by events in Vietnam. Nixon’s reputation for crookedness, however, meant that he could not completely escape attention when crimes were committed so close to the White House. The zeal with which the Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward investigated was inspired by an assumption that a smoking gun would eventually be found on Nixon’s desk. At first, however, their investigation seemed to many a silly vendetta. Feeling confident, the president decided to use the IRS to punish the paper, privately explaining: ‘This . . . is war. They are asking for it and they are going to get it.’33
By November, there was still no indication that tiny sparks of scandal would ignite a conflagration. The lopsided election gave Nixon nearly 61 per cent of the vote and every state except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. At his second inauguration on 20 January 1973, he had reason to feel triumphant. No mention was made in his inaugural address of misdeeds committed on his behalf. Then, a week later, came ceasefire in Vietnam, encouraging his belief in his own invincibility. But that development did not bring the gratitude Nixon anticipated, rather the opposite. With the war over, criticizing the president no longer seemed quite as disloyal as it had when guns were blazing. Worse still, the ceasefire coincided with awkward revelations relating to Watergate.
In January 1973 the five burglars were found guilty, along with two of the ‘plumbers’ – Liddy and Hunt. Mitchell had insisted from the beginning that ‘McCord and the four men arrested . . . were not operating either in our behalf or with our consent’. But John Sirica, the presiding judge, refused to buy that line. Like a bloodhound, he followed the trail of complicity. Up to this point, administration strategy, articulated by Dean, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman (domestic policy coordinator) and supported by Nixon, had been to ‘take a public posture of full cooperation, but privately . . . make it as difficult as possible to get information and witnesses’. Staffers were instructed that, if they were called to testify before the grand jury, they should not cooperate. ‘I don’t give a shit what happens,’ Nixon told his aides. ‘I want you all to stonewall it, . . . plead the Fifth Amendment, cover-up.’34
Keen to cover up the cover-up, Nixon on 12 March asserted that the principle of executive privilege allowed him to prevent all current and past White House aides from testifying. He claimed that issues of national security would inevitably arise, therefore silence was essential. That justification provided a thin shield, however, since those determined to uncover the truth simply concluded that Nixon had much to hide. Nixon then ordered Dean on 16 March to release a statement claiming that his own internal investigation had revealed no complicity on the part of anyone in the White House – essentially it was an order to commit perjury. Dean, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, warned that, ‘We have a cancer . . . close to the presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding. It grows geometrically now, because it compounds itself . . . it basically is because (1) we’re being blackmailed; (2) people are going to start perjuring themselves very quickly . . . and there is no assurance . . .’ ‘That it won’t bust,’ Nixon interjected.35
Fearful that he might be forced take the rap for his bosses, McCord decided on 20 March to cooperate with Sirica. The information he supplied was taken up by Senator Sam Ervin, who headed the Senate committee formed to investigate. Unlike Sirica, Ervin did not have to contend with the slow pace of judicial process. Eager to get to the bottom of the matter, he conducted hearings at breakneck speed, which made them compulsive television drama. Thanks largely to the telegenic Ervin, the nation was now riveted to Watergate. ‘Only Super Bowls, wars and the final episodes of beloved sitcoms’, wrote Shearer, ‘can bring us together . . . in the way that Watergate television did.’36
McCord’s decision started a stampede. On the assumption that those who talked first might enjoy clemency, Jeb Stuart Magruder, Mitchell’s assistant at CREEP, decided to cooperate, as did Dean. On 24 April, Ehrlichman warned Nixon that if Dean talked, the result might be impeachment. Nixon replied: ‘Sometimes it’s well to give them something and then they don’t want the bigger fish.’ To that end, Haldeman and Ehrlichman were forced out, as was Richard Kleindienst, the attorney general, and Dean. On live television, Nixon told the nation on 30 April that Haldeman and Ehrlichman were ‘two of the finest public servants it has been my privilege to know’. His refusal to extend the same praise to Dean was a ploy intentionally designed to encourage the assumption that while Haldeman and Ehrlichman were innocent victims, Dean was the arch-conspirator.37
While scapegoats might have saved Nixon in July 1972, by this stage they were useless. Once the powerful began to talk, the jig was up. Dean and Magruder fully realized they were more likely to gain favour if they supplied rich detail. Revelation inspired revelation in precisely the way Nixon had feared. Before long, attention strayed beyond the break-in. The Ervin committee heard about the plumbers, the dirty tricks played on Democratic candidates, the hush money, the wiretapping, and Nixon’s attempt to use the CIA to block the FBI. In the midst of these revelations, Alexander Butterfield, an aide to Haldeman, shocked his questioners by revealing that Nixon kept tapes of Oval Office conversations. Ervin, Sirica and Archibald Cox, the independent special prosecutor, pounced like a pack of hungry dogs. The tapes proved a watershed. Up to this point, Watergate had seemed a bizarre affair shrouded in legal complexity. The tapes, however, reduced that complexity to a simple matter of evidence. Dean had accused Nixon, and Nixon had trashed Dean. The tapes would determine who was lying. If Nixon proved reluctant to release them, he clearly had something to hide.
Close on the heels of the tape controversy came news that Vice-President Spiro Agnew had received bribes from contractors while Governor of Maryland. In exchange for agreeing to resign, the Justice Department allowed him to plead nolo contendre on a single charge of tax evasion. He walked free with three years’ probation and a minuscule fine, despite having committed crimes that sent lesser men to prison. Then came news that Nixon had used $10 million of federal money to improve two of his private homes and the homes of his daughters. That disclosure was followed, a few months later, by revelations of tax evasion to the tune of $467,000 – more than a lot of Americans made in a lifetime. Nixon, who had used the IRS to attack his opponents, was sliced open by the tax sword’s double edge. ‘You can’t screw around . . . I mean, . . . you [can’t] horse around with the IRS,’ he had earlier warned Dean. The tax scandal demonstrated that Nixon, far from being a clever Machiavellian, was simply a petty thief. ‘I am not a crook,’ he told a news conference, while insisting that he had never benefited financially from public service and had ‘never obstructed justice’. By this stage, however, most Americans were noticing how Nixon’s nose seemed to grow longer with each passing day.38
Nixon tried desperately to block access to the tapes. When Cox proved a nuisance, Nixon decided to fire him, on the assumption that a more pliable prosecutor could be found. Nixon’s aides, however, refused to do his dirty work. On 20 October, the new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, decided to jump ship rather than obey instructions to fire Cox. Richardson’s second in command, William Ruckelshaus, also refused. After what the press called the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’, ordinary citizens jammed White House phone lines with complaints. On the following morning a man in a Nixon mask stood outside the White House and held up a sign reading ‘Honk for Impeachment’. The cacophony of horns provided Nixon with potent indication of the national mood. Time, not usually given to direct attacks upon a sitting president, argued that Nixon had ‘irredeemably lost his moral authority, the confidence of most of the country, and therefore his ability to govern effectively’.39
Acting Attorney General Robert Bork dutifully dismissed Cox, but the new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, proved as dogged as his predecessor. After some tapes were finally surrendered, a new twist appeared on 21 November, with revelations of a mysterious eighteen-minute gap in the recording of a conversation between Nixon and Haldeman three days after the break-in. When Nixon’s secretary Rosemary Woods offered a completely implausible explanation for how the tape was ‘accidentally’ erased, the nation shuddered at the sight of a decent woman who had obviously been bullied into lying for her boss.
‘One year of Watergate is enough,’ Nixon proclaimed during his State of the Union Address on 30 January 1974. While that might have been true, he was beyond controlling the timetable of this unfolding drama. Jaworski, Sirica and the House Judiciary Committee slowly constructed their cases, carefully weighing what kind of charges the evidence might bear. On 1 March 1974, a grand jury issued indictments against seven White House aides, including Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, while naming Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. The House Judiciary Committee was, meanwhile, considering the issue on everyone’s mind, namely impeachment. While these discussions were progressing, Nixon continued to stall over the tapes. He did release 1,300 pages of edited transcripts, but these raised more questions than they answered. Since the cleaned-up version (peppered with ‘expletive deleted’) showed a foul-mouthed, vindictive president addicted to dirty tricks and obstruction, Americans naturally wondered what the unexpurgated tapes might reveal. The Republican congressman John Rhodes, House Minority Leader, judged the transcripts ‘deplorable, shabby, disgusting and immoral’. In the wake of the transcripts, a Harris poll showed that a majority of Americans favoured impeachment.40
On 24 July the Supreme Court finally settled the tape issue, ruling unanimously that Nixon could not hide behind executive privilege. After a brief hesitation, he surrendered the tapes to Sirica. The surrender was by no means complete, however, since new gaps were discovered, and some tapes were mysteriously ‘lost’. His compliance did not, in any case, affect the House Judiciary Committee’s deliberations on impeachment. The general counsel to the committee, John Doar, accused Nixon of ‘a pattern of conduct designed not to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, but to impede their faithful execution, in his political interest and on his behalf’. When formal votes were conducted between 27 and 30 July, on each occasion seven or eight Republicans joined Democrats in supporting impeachment.41
While the Judiciary Committee deliberated, lawyers for the president listened to their client destroy himself on tape. Particularly damning was the recording of the meeting on 23 June 1972 when Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent the FBI from investigating – the smoking gun. That by itself was enough to ensure a conviction on obstruction of justice, yet that was just one of Nixon’s many crimes. His supporters in the House, having decided that their priority was to save their own careers, deserted the president in droves. Senior Republicans urged him to resign, in order to limit the damage to the party. Nixon stubbornly held out, but, on 8 August, finally surrendered. On the following day, he said goodbye to his White House staff in a rambling monologue peppered with cloying self-pity. He admitted making ‘mistakes, yes. But for personal gain, never.’ He insisted he was not a rich man, otherwise he would be able to pay his taxes. ‘Always give your best,’ he closed, ‘never get discouraged, never get petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.’ While that advice was undoubtedly wise, it was nestled in deep delusion.42
Nixon handed the presidency to Gerald Ford, who had earlier replaced Agnew as vice-president. Ford waited a month and then pardoned Nixon for all crimes committed, despite the fact that crimes had not yet been proven in a court of law. The pardon was hugely unpopular, but it was probably necessary in order to hasten closure. Ford understood that the nation would not benefit from a long trial of Richard Nixon. Most critics of the pardon understood that also, but were not about to pass on the advantage of complaint.
After Nixon’s departure, Americans went looking for crumbs of solace. In an article ladled with self-congratulation, Time celebrated how the ‘system’ had worked. It was, the magazine argued, ‘an extraordinary triumph’. A man in Brooklyn remarked: ‘It’s great. I can tell my senator to go to hell, the rights are mine. I’m proud of a country that can throw out a president . . . Democracy was strengthened by Watergate. It proved the Constitution works. The political system passed the test.’ The system had not, however, passed with flying colours. Nixon’s departure owed much to accident, not to mention stupidity. The system had allowed him to get away with a vast range of shady practices for a long time before he was caught and, but for the existence of the tapes, there might never have been grounds to dismiss him. On 18 April 1973, Nixon had told Haldeman to destroy the tapes. Had he carried out that instruction, it is unlikely that Nixon would have had to resign. The dominoes toppling within the White House would have stopped with Haldeman.43
Nor is it necessarily a good thing that an ordinary citizen can tell his senator to go to hell. Granted, Americans had reason to feel jaded. Watergate came in the midst of a long dark night during which they grew increasingly disdainful of those who governed them and increasingly doubtful of politics as a force for good. Healthy scepticism is a useful weapon against the duplicity of politicians, but contempt is the forage on which the populist feeds. In order for the system to work well, the people have to believe in it.
When Nixon followed his landslide victory in November 1972 with the notorious Christmas bombing of North Vietnam, a bumper sticker appeared on cars across America. It read: ‘Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern’. When peace came in the spring of 1973, most people scraped the sticker off. Some, however, did not, either out of laziness or anger. The stickers that remained, faded and peeling at the edges, assumed ironic relevance in the summer of 1973, when the sordid Watergate revelations emerged. While that new relevance encouraged some citizens to feel smug, for most people the bumper sticker was a painful reminder of how bankrupt were the choices back in 1972. A crook had run against a decent but deluded liberal. The crook had eventually given way to Gerald Ford, the first nonelected president in history and a man stuck in a holding pattern. What was the future for America? ‘Sometimes you get the feeling nothing has gone right since John Kennedy died,’ one woman remarked. ‘Before then you were used to America winning everything, but now you sometimes think our day might be over.’ That assessment might not have been accurate, but it was widely expressed – and therein lay a problem.44
The 1960s were the graveyard of revolution. In almost all cases, revolts by the left were brutally crushed by an organized and powerful right. One exception was Greece, where a vile seven-year military regime eventually fell victim to popular will. That said, Greece’s Sixties revolution actually occurred in the 1970s – in 1974 to be precise.
The Sixties came late to Greece because the government was determined to hold back time. A clique of ultra-conservative colonels came to power in 1967 with the aim of placing Greece in a ‘plaster cast’ in order to ‘set the bones’ of the ‘Hellas of Christian Hellenes’. The authoritarian regime led by Colonel George Papadopoulos, Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos and Colonel Nikolaos Makarezos was backed by a police force imaginative in brutality. The junta’s ‘revolution’ banned most manifestations of the heavenly decade, including mini-skirts, long hair, rock music and student protest. It was neither popular nor competent, but was briefly tolerated because it seemed an improvement upon the chaos that preceded it and because, for a while, the economy cooperated.45
The colonels’ desire to hold back time might have been comic if not for its viciousness. Papadopoulos, the strongman of the triumvirate, justified severity by arguing that Greece was in need of major surgery and, ‘if the patient is not strapped to the table, the surgeon cannot perform a successful operation’. Parliament was abolished, the press rigidly controlled, ‘dangerous’ books banned, and nonconformity punished. ‘Those . . . were dark days,’ recalled Nick Michaelian, a Reuters correspondent.
Plainclothes policemen from the dreaded ESA (Greek Military Police) arbitrarily arrested and beat up young people on street corners and threw them in cells and tortured them when they thought they belonged to some resistance group. Any left-leaning person was anathema. One day, two girls showed up at the Reuters office and . . . lifted their skirts to show us their thighs and genitals badly swollen from torture and broomstick insertions.
‘Traitors’ were sent to desolate prisons on remote islands. ‘The brutal oppression which is now stifling my country has taught me a great deal, among other things the value of refusing to submit,’ wrote Professor George Mangakis from prison.46
As I sit in my cell thinking about these things, I am filled with a strange power . . . It is not expressed in a loud, insolent voice. It is the power of endurance – the power that is born of a sense of being right . . . I begin my day by uttering the word ‘freedom’. This usually happens at daybreak. I emerge from sleep, always feeling bitterly surprised to find myself in prison, as on the first day. Then I utter my beloved word, before the sense of being in prison has time to overpower me.
The regime has commonly been called fascist, but that label is carelessly applied. In fact, the colonels were far too politically obtuse to espouse an ideology. They were simply opportunistic authoritarians who tried to bend an entire nation to their will.47
For a while the system worked, mainly because the rise of the colonels coincided with a period of prosperity. Greece, like Spain, benefited enormously from the emergence of the package tour industry, which injected much-needed foreign capital into the economy. But the junta’s saving grace was also its nemesis. Tourists could not be told to cover up their bikinis or cut their long hair. Nor could the colonels do much about hippies, for whom the Greek islands provided a popular waystation on the pilgrimage from Marrakech to Kathmandu. Hippies brought with them the paraphernalia of cultural revolt, namely sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. So, too, did the sailors from the American Sixth Fleet, who the colonels, keen to keep Washington happy, officially welcomed. Tourists, hippies and sailors foiled the junta’s efforts to quarantine Greece.
Lacking a unifying ideology, the junta was riven with divisions and distrust. Members pursued selfish interests while Greece drifted. Utter ruthlessness allowed Papadopoulos to rise to the fore. He maintained power through a devil’s pact with Colonel Dimitrios Ioannidis, the iceman who could call upon the loyalty of army units stationed around Athens. Papadopoulos mistakenly interpreted Ioannidis’s aloofness from the nitty-gritty of government as evidence that he lacked political ambition. Feeling secure, he consolidated power, appointing himself prime minister, foreign minister, defence minister, minister of government policy and eventually regent and acting head of state. Greeks called him ‘poly-Papadopoulos’, a one-man Cabinet meeting.
The regime was always doomed because, in striking contrast to Spain, it failed to convince civilian politicians of its legitimacy. Most either left the country or went into self-imposed purdah, their silence the best expression of rejection. Politicians who broke ranks and cooperated with the junta were shunned. The most effective resistance to the regime came from its exiles – politicians like Andreas Papandreou and Constantine Caramanlis, the newpaper proprietor Eleni Vlachou, the actress Melina Mercouri and the banned composer Mikis Theodorakis. Their protests helped mobilize foreign opinion. Europe discovered unusual harmony in its hatred of the junta, but America’s determination to hold on to its naval base meant that it ignored the regime’s excesses. ‘How can I fight the junta which has behind it the whole power of the United States, how can I hide anything from the omnipotence of the CIA?’ a dissident complained.48
Politics was the favourite topic of conversation, even though talking about it was dangerous. An air of unreality prevailed, in the sense that most Greeks concurred that the regime had no future. Discussions therefore centred on when the end would come, and who would deliver the coup de grâce. This precarious state did not escape the notice of Papadopoulos, who repeatedly insisted that his was a revolution, not a regime – in other words that civilian government would soon evolve. Unfortunately, few believed him. In any case, every discussion of democracy revealed the limits of his power, since Ioannidis made clear his disapproval.
By 1970, the junta’s honeymoon was over. Production could not keep pace with demand, leading to an increase in imports, crippling inflation and a rising balance of payments deficit. At the same time, tolerance for the colonels’ puritanism wore thin, though displeasure was expressed in ad hoc defiance rather than organized dissent. Papadopoulos, aware that the junta had to change or perish, was by the end of 1972 meeting regularly with an ‘inner cabinet’ tasked with finding a smooth path to non-military rule. ‘We must definitely leave office this year and surrender power to civilians!’ he told colleagues in early 1973. His problem, however, had not changed: it was difficult to build a civilian government without the cooperation of civilians.49
Rumbling unrest underlined the urgency of change. In February, students at the law school in Athens staged a sit-in, the first indication that a protest movement was coalescing. Then, on 23 May, the crew of RNS Velos refused to return home after a NATO exercise. The commander, Nicholaos Pappas, hoped the mutiny would mobilize international opinion against the junta. Papadopoulos made light of the incident, though he knew full well how tenuous was the military support on which he depended. Addressing the nation on 1 June 1973, he announced his intention to establish a republic, with elections promised by the end of 1974. Keen to demonstrate his sincerity, he granted amnesty to ‘enemies of the state’, released some 300 political prisoners, relaxed censorship and lifted martial law. Ioannidis meanwhile fumed.
A plebiscite on 29 July approved the programme of change. The political elites, however, still remained aloof. The only prominent politician to cooperate was Spyros Markezinis, founder of the Progressive Party. Papadopoulos, who had named himself president, appointed Markezinis prime minister, with a mandate to oversee metapolitefsi, or regime change. The European Common Market countries welcomed the development and urged all Greek political parties to cooperate. Deaf to that call, politicians dismissed Markezinis as a quisling.
The Greek situation differs markedly from that of Spain, where political parties eagerly joined the ‘transition’ after Franco’s death. The difference, of course, was that Papadopoulos was still alive and still ambitious. His presence rendered any new government automatically suspicious. ‘The planned elections have a single purpose,’ the centrist Georgios Mavros contended, ‘[namely] to legitimise the dictatorship covering it by a castrated Parliament which will not have the power to debate, let alone decide, any of the nation’s vital matters.’ Expressing rejection through ridicule, John Zigdis of the Centre Union Party argued that, ‘Politics in Greece have for the moment lost their grimness represented by police tortures, and have taken on an atmosphere of vaudeville, with the arrival of the smiling juggler Markezinis.’50
Markezinis insisted that ‘if I do not agree with the President, I shall resign . . . there is no other solution’. Interviewed by Time, he confessed his exasperation with those like Mavros, Zigdis and Papandreou. ‘I don’t fully understand [their] reaction. The worst political act is abstention. We must be realistic and reality is not always what we want it to be.’ He claimed that he was motivated by ‘the three Fs: forget, forgive and free elections’. His efforts were not, however, helped by Papadopoulos’s repeated need to assert his dominance. ‘Until the election of a Parliament,’ he declared, ‘the President is . . . the only source of power. The Premier-designate is accountable and responsible only to the President who makes the final decisions.’ That statement encouraged doubters to continue doubting.51
Markezinis, though clearly sincere, was unfortunately tied to a president with a worse image problem than Attila the Hun. He nevertheless ploughed doggedly on. ‘The top priority will be free elections,’ he proclaimed. ‘I will do my best to bring them as fast as possible. Greece needs to be governed by the will of its people.’ He stressed that he was not motivated by ambition, since the voters would undoubtedly reject him. ‘I . . . do not have any illusions. I will get 15 per cent. I hoped, however, that finally the old parties would participate and we could come to terms on forming a government.’ The consequences of failure, he warned, were dire. ‘If I fail power will pass into the hands of a Greek Gaddafi!’52
Meanwhile, the liberalization Papadopoulos had introduced removed the lid from a can of worms. The effect was especially evident at the Polytechnic in Athens, where disgruntled students decided it was now safe to agitate. Repressive policing had, until then, kept Sixties-style student unrest in check. Following the example of Berkeley, Paris and Berlin, Greek students focused first on campus issues – the size and nature of classes, the rigid control of personal lives, the poor quality of facilities, the lack of job prospects after graduation. By 14 November, however, discontent had widened to the general state of politics in Greece, expressed through the slogan ‘Bread, Education and Liberty’. Since that slogan tapped into the unease felt by the quiet multitude outside the campus, an alliance of sorts evolved. Quite suddenly, the people believed in their ability to destroy the junta.
Uncertain of the limits of government tolerance, students at first trod carefully. The government was likewise on unfamiliar ground: accustomed to the rigid maintenance of order, it too was unsure about the limits of tolerance. By the time Markezinis and Papadopoulos realized the seriousness of the situation, it was already out of control. With unrest spreading, Markezinis did his credibility as a reformer no favours by asking Papadopoulos to restore martial law.
On the 16th, thousands of Athenians crowded onto the streets to show solidarity with the students. Broadcasts from the campus radio station kept spirits high. ‘This is the Polytechnic!’ went the message. ‘People of Greece, the Polytechnic bears the standard of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against dictatorship and for democracy!’ Euphoria turned to apprehension in a flash. Panic boiled as the acrid smell of tear gas passed through the crowd. Pivoting on a dime, the march of righteousness became a stampede of fear.53
At midnight, around twenty-five tanks lumbered up to the Polytechnic gates. Students begged soldiers not to use force. ‘You cannot do this,’ they yelled, ‘we are your brothers.’ From the lead tank an officer emerged waving his pistol and ordered the students to disperse. The army, he shouted, would not negotiate with anarchists. Out in the streets, those citizens still brave enough to remain outside knelt in prayer, pleading that a massacre might be averted. The students were given fifteen minutes to leave. Before ten minutes had passed, the first tank broke through the gate and opened fire. As bodies fell and blood drenched the pavement, protesters used bullhorns to call for help. Ambulances arrived quickly, but these contained not medical personnel, but gun-wielding police officers, some disguised in white coats. Not surprisingly, estimates of the dead vary widely, but it is safe to say that at least twenty, and probably twice that number,
were killed.54
Brutality of this sort came as no surprise – the junta was nothing if not vicious. There was, however, something else at work in Athens; it was not just the students who came under attack. On the 17th, Markezinis was due to give a press conference at which plans for free elections were to be announced. It was cancelled because of the bloodshed at the Polytechnic. Those so inclined could smell a rat. Markezinis believes that Ioannidis used the unrest to justify a show of force so profound that it would stop democratization dead in its tracks. The students, by bravely testing the waters of reform, had unwittingly abetted tyranny.
A week later, tanks returned to the streets in order to complete the demolition of metapolitefsi. Since Papadopoulos had clearly gone soft, Ioannidis threw him out like a rotten piece of fruit. On the morning of the 25th, the streets crowded with military hardware, Papadopoulos received a note from the ‘Revolutionary Committee’. ‘On the demand of the Armed Forces,’ it read, ‘you, the vice-president and the Markezinis government have resigned. You will be informed of the developments from television.’ A short time later came an announcement that the overthrow of the government had the support of the army, navy and air force – in other words, it was futile to resist. The communiqué promised a ‘continuation of the revolution of 1967’ and explained that Papadopoulos had been ousted because he had ‘stray[ed] from the ideals of the 1967 revolution’ and had ‘push[ed] the country towards parliamentary rule too quickly’.55
The Dutch ambassador Carl Barkman concluded that ‘it was [Papadopoulos’s] misfortune . . . that the treachery of his own most trusted follower deprived him of the opportunity to undo the harm he had done to Greece’. That judgement depends, of course, on an assumption that Papadopoulos was sincere about democracy. He might simply have been planning cosmetic changes to the political system which would have allowed him to continue in power. The issue of sincerity will never be solved, but what can be said for certain is that the refusal of politicians like Caramanlis and Papandreou to cooperate with Markezinis made it easy for Ioannidis to shove Papadopoulos aside.56
Uncertain precisely what had occurred on the 25th, most Greeks welcomed the demise of Papadopoulos. ‘I don’t think anyone was so bitterly hated,’ the exiled publisher Eleni Vlachos told the BBC. ‘He humiliated the Greek people.’ Most people assumed that whatever transpired, it could not be worse than Papadopoulos. The next eight months demonstrated how foolish that assumption was. Ioannidis was the ‘Greek Gaddafi’ Markezinis had warned of. Lieutenant General Phaedon Gizikis, the puppet president, became the mouthpiece for a sinister plan to subvert the public will. He claimed that he held no ambition for high office, but was simply doing his duty as a soldier. ‘My only ambition is . . . the consolidation of tranquillity and unity among the Greek people.’ If that was indeed his aim, he failed miserably.57
The ‘junta nova’ lasted a mere eight months. Ioannidis’s most significant achievement came in the way he inspired nostalgia for Papadopoulos. He was the ‘invisible dictator’, a master puppeteer determined to set the clock back to 1967. While Papadopoulos had always claimed that the junta was a temporary measure, Ioannidis boldly asserted his faith in authoritarianism. ‘We are not playing,’ he confessed. ‘We shall have a dictatorship, send all our opponents to exile on the islands and stay in power for thirty years!’ The prison camps, so briefly closed, were immediately reopened, and instruments of torture taken out of storage.58
Ioannidis’s big mistake was to embark upon a foreign adventure for which his people were neither prepared nor enthusiastic. On 15 July 1974, he launched a military coup in Cyprus, ousting the president, Archbishop Makarios. His aim was to annex the island, a goal that seemed in keeping with the greater glory of the nation. Most Greeks, however, thought the idea insane. Matters worsened when, five days later, Turkey invaded Cyprus on the pretext of protecting the Turkish Cypriot community. Full-scale war suddenly loomed.
While Ioannidis welcomed a war with Turkey, most sensible people considered it suicidal. The junta’s announcement of full mobilization plunged the country into deep dismay. Chaos reigned as frightened citizens raided grocery stores in anticipation of economic collapse. A slide into anarchy seemed likely as turmoil deepened. On 23 July, however, Greece witnessed the strange spectacle of a government acting sensibly. Gizikis summoned military leaders to discuss how to escape the crisis Ioannidis had wrought. The iceman was not invited. The group decided to step down ‘in view of the position in which the country finds itself ’. While Greeks talked of rats and sinking ships, most realized that a sensible decision had been made.59
The last act of the junta was to invite the exiled Caramanlis to form a government of national unity. This time, he did not hesitate to take up his political duty. Ordinary citizens, on hearing that Caramanlis was on his way, crowded the streets to celebrate Metapolitefsi Mark II. ‘Blue and white Greek flags and white banners suddenly sprouted from windows,’ a journalist reported. ‘“Hellas! Hellas!” shouted the crowd every time another flag appeared. Groups of students locked arms, chanting, “The people have won!” “The junta is dead!” “Democracy! Democracy! Amnesty! Amnesty!”’ ‘It was a night unlike any other night,’ recalled the journalist Mario Modiano. He rushed to the airport to witness the return of Caramanlis. Along the route were ‘hundreds of thousands of jubilant Athenians . . . [there] to welcome their own Cincinnatus. Most of them held lit tapers as on Resurrection night.’60
Caramanlis arrived at 02.30 on 24 July. Emerging from the plane, he told the crowd: ‘I have come to contribute to the best of my ability to the restoration of normal conditions and democracy. In the lives of nations there are crises which can be turned into a starting point for national regeneration and a better future. I am optimistic about the future.’ He then made his way to Constitution Square, cheered all the way by countrymen who threw flowers in his path. From the balcony of the Parliament, he proclaimed, ‘I am with you. Democracy is with you.’61
The power of the military was still formidable, but the soldiers had run out of ideas. They had simply to stand aside while civilians cleaned up the mess they had made. Change was immediately apparent. Political prisoners were released, exiles returned. Radios played musicians previously banned, instead of endless martial compositions. In a single moment, Greece leapt years ahead. It was suddenly the 1970s.
Well before his aborted experiment with reform, Markezinis wrote of the junta that ‘this revolution will be judged by the way it ends’. Since it ended in utter failure, judgement seems easy. But the timing encourages equivocation. The regime of the colonels ended eight months later than it need have done. There was nothing inevitable about the reign of Ioannidis or the dreadful fiasco in Cyprus. With a little more imagination, selflessness and cooperation on the part of politicians in November, the tragedy at the Polytechnic, and the calamity that followed it, might have been averted.62
Vietnam: The Ho Chi Minh Offensive
The Paris Agreements of January 1973 were presented as a peaceful, political end to the Vietnam War. On the strength of that charade, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On the ground in Vietnam, however, peace was war in new packaging. ‘There is no cease fire at all,’ the South Vietnamese leader Nguyen van Thieu complained, while at the same time boasting that, during the six weeks that the guns were supposed to be silent, his forces had killed 5,218 enemy soldiers. ‘Both the Communists and the government’, the CIA analyst Frank Snepp recorded on 13 July 1973, ‘are interpreting the new cease-fire agreement selectively, emphasizing . . . those parts of it which favor their respective interests and ignoring those that do not.’ Each side manoeuvred for military advantage, all the while accusing the other of treaty violations. Neither Hanoi nor Saigon had faith in paper agreements. Both expected, and wanted, a decision on the battlefield.63
At the time the agreements were signed, Nixon had promised that the US would ‘respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam’. For some strange reason, Thieu believed Nixon, and, on the strength of that assurance, decided to go on the offensive, rather than using his troops to protect what he had. Realizing that Hanoi would continue its strategy of protracted war, Thieu went for broke, hoping to deal the communists a knockout blow that would settle the issue once and for all.64
At first, the strategy seemed to work. Within a year, Saigon had extended its authority over an additional 770 hamlets, seriously disrupting communist plans for the gradual political infiltration of the South. The Nixon administration was astonished – they had expected South Vietnamese forces to collapse once the American prop was removed. The success was, however, costly. Losses during the first year of ‘peace’ exceeded 26,000 for the ARVN and 39,000 for communist forces. Probably 15,000 civilians were killed.65
With the Americans gone, Thieu no longer felt any need to pay lip service to the laws of war. As had always been the case, military strategy was intertwined with personal vendetta. Now, however, the victims were not just communists, but also neutralists who refused obeisance. Club-wielding ARVN soldiers were brought in to beat up neutralist members of the National Assembly. Communists, of course, fared worse. If a suspect failed to produce a valid identity card, police were officially instructed to ‘blow [their] brains out on the spot’. Those with suspicious papers were thrown in prison and left to rot – perhaps 80,000 were jailed that first year. Meanwhile, hamlets providing sanctuary to communists were starved into submission. Famine gripped the central provinces, with peasants forced to eat bark, cacti and banana roots.66
While progress was apparent, ARVN strength was spread desperately thin. Before long, half of the army was employed in holding on to territory already subdued. Thieu’s ‘no surrender’ strategy meant that his soldiers were forced to defend the indefensible. All this meant that communist forces in secure sanctuaries could prepare for their offensive without fear of harassment. Thieu was able to hold on to territory conquered, but lacked the strength to push the communists back into North Vietnam.
Thieu possessed one of the largest militaries in the world, with some 450,000 regulars, 550,000 local militia, 51,000 air force personnel and around 45,000 in the navy. Those figures, however, easily deceive. In its development, the ARVN mirrored its American mentor, with bloated support services and less that half of the soldiers assigned to combat. In addition, desertion steadily drained strength – around 20,000 disappeared every month. Some 100,000 ‘flower soldiers’ never reported for duty, bribing their commanders while remaining in civilian employment. ‘Gold soldiers’ paid others to fight, and ‘phantom soldiers’ were actually dead, their pay collected by larcenous commanders.
Just prior to the Paris Agreement, Nixon flooded the South with around $1 billion worth of military hardware. Feast then quickly turned to famine. Thieu, who had an insatiable appetite for weaponry, lacked the fortitude to diet. His troops, having been trained to fight like Americans (with the emphasis upon firepower), found it difficult to adapt to more parsimonious times. Consequently, by late 1974, stockpiles of artillery ammunition stood at 20 per cent of 1972 levels and eleven air force squadrons had to be disbanded for lack of fuel. At the front, ambulances were joined together in a train, pulled by a single truck.
Within the army, corruption remained high and morale low. Wounded soldiers often had to pay bribes in order to be rescued. Snepp watched as a ‘chopper hovered for nearly an hour . . . as the pilot bickered with a hamlet chief by radio over the price of lifting out a bleeding militiaman. They finally settled on six ducks from the hamlet pond.’67 Desertion was understandable given that pay often disappeared into the pockets of commanders. The problem worsened when soldiers were suddenly required to buy their own food. Before long, sturdy American boots gave way to flimsy sandals. As ammunition dwindled, insecurity increased and fear corroded loyalty. ‘The morale of the ARVN soldier was adversely affected by so many factors’, a Rand analyst reflected, ‘that it is remarkable that he was able to fight at all.’68
The RVN economy was a delicate flower ill-equipped to survive outside the hothouse the United States had created. Some 250,000 South Vietnamese had been officially employed by the American war machine, with perhaps twice that number indirectly dependent. These workers were left high and dry when the Americans departed. While unemployment skyrocketed, so too did inflation, reaching 65 per cent. South Vietnam, an agrarian country, could no longer feed itself because so many peasants had fled to urban areas to escape the war. Once one of the largest rice producers in the world, Vietnam had become a net rice importer by 1972.
These problems had never been properly addressed because the US had always fixed them with dollars. After 1973, however, most Americans no longer wanted to spend money on Vietnam. Nixon, mired in the Watergate scandal, could no longer depend upon a friendly Congress to bankroll his plans for Vietnam. On 31 July 1973, Congress voted to cut off funds for American military action anywhere in Indochina. That meant that bombing of communist sanctuaries in Cambodia, which had continued unabated since the peace agreement, abruptly stopped. When Gerald Ford took over the presidency he warned that cuts would ‘seriously weaken South Vietnamese forces during a critical period when Communist forces . . . are growing stronger and more aggressive’. In truth, however, few cared.69
When the flow of American money turned to a trickle, chaos descended in South Vietnam. Huge demonstrations of the hungry and jobless choked major cities. Corruption, reluctantly tolerated during times of plenty, now became a serious point of contention between people and government. The turbulence of the early 1960s returned. Even without the communist pressure, Saigon was ripe for revolution.
Hanoi, meanwhile, prepared for the final push. The Christmas bombing of 1972 had severely damaged the North’s economy, rendering a full-scale offensive difficult. The alternative was a slow process of political infiltration, but the network of cadres essential to that strategy had been decimated by pacification. At the 21st Plenum of the Vietnamese Communist Party in October 1973, disagreement raged over the best course to take. The party eventually settled upon a cautious military offensive, designed to deliver victory sometime in 1976. This involved a gradual escalation of violence, simultaneous to political infiltration. When the time seemed right, a general offensive would be launched.
Immense energy went into the preparations. The Ho Chi Minh trail was widened and, in most areas, paved. Some 12,000 miles of new roads were built, a fuel pipeline was extended deep into the South, and a modern radio network was established. In addition, thirteen new airfields were constructed in South Vietnam, each with sophisticated anti-aircraft defences. While the construction proceeded, a propaganda offensive bombarded the American people with evidence of Thieu’s brutality, in an effort to deepen American alienation with their former ally. Since this campaign occurred at the same time that President Nixon was being exposed as a liar, the administration’s counter-claims about Hanoi’s misdeeds fell on deaf ears.
The offensive began in early 1974, with small raids designed to test ARVN resolve and establish logistical corridors. While these raids met firm resistance, they were more successful than Hanoi appreciated at the time. The fighting sharpened the effectiveness of communist troops at the same time that they eroded ARVN morale. ARVN casualties and loss of weaponry were doubly significant since supplies were finite. By the autumn, the balance of power had clearly shifted.
Politburo opinion nevertheless remained divided on the best way forward. While one faction still insisted on caution, General Tran Van Tra argued vehemently that the ARVN stood on the brink of collapse. His plan for a bold offensive was initially rejected by the General Staff but then approved, in a somewhat modified form, after Tra protested to Le Duan, the North Vietnamese leader since Ho’s death in 1969. Keen to prove his point, Tran Van Tra attacked Don Luan with incredible ferocity on 22 December 1974. Though few realized it at the time, the end was near.
Don Luan fell within four days, whereupon a triumphant PAVN pushed relentlessly southward. The next important objective was Phuoc Long Province, where some bedraggled ARVN units were thrown in Tra’s path, with predictable consequences. Air cover was pathetic since many South Vietnamese pilots simply refused to fly. Phuoc Long, situated just 75 miles from Saigon, fell on 6 January 1975. Hanoi took note of the fact that the Americans did nothing to prevent the catastrophe.
Impressed by the Phuoc Long result, on 8 January the politburo gave cautious approval to a general offensive. A plan to bisect South Vietnam through the Central Region was launched, with favourable results. Between the 4th and 8th of March, PAVN units cut transport routes, isolating Ban Me Thuot. The city fell on 12 March, prompting Thieu to order a counteroffensive. General Pham Van Phu left the task to his junior commanders, while he escaped to safety. The result was complete chaos, with units colliding on the roads to Ban Me Thuot. Over $250 million worth of equipment and munitions was left for the enemy to collect because no one thought to destroy it. The counter-attack soon dissolved into headlong retreat. Fear being contagious, civilians followed frightened troops, inevitably choking highways. ‘No organization of any kind was set for the mass evacuation,’ one refugee later complained. As the last plane left Pleiku, ‘people grabbed for the tail, falling off as [it] . . . taxied’. That scene would become painfully common in subsequent weeks.70
The retreating mass of humanity was halted at Cheo Reo when engineers failed to bridge the Ea Pa River. PAVN troops discovered what it was like to shoot fish in a barrel. They made no attempt to distinguish between soldiers and civilians. The catastrophe was made worse by the fact that ARVN pilots, flying high in order to avoid flak, fired indiscriminately. Friendly fire tore through the ARVN
ranks and killed hundreds of refugees. When the exodus finally came to a halt only one-third of the 60,000 troops survived, while one-quarter of the 400,000 refugees made it to safety. A South Vietnamese general called it ‘one of the worst-planned and worst-executed withdrawal operations in the annals of military history’.71
On 19 March, PAVN struck again, this time capturing nearly the whole of Quang Tri Province in one day. This left Hué, the former capital, desperately vulnerable. Thieu reassured residents that the ARVN would protect them, but did nothing to act upon that promise. As the noose tightened, an attempt was made to evacuate by sea. PAVN troops responded by shelling the beaches. Refugees were cut to shreds, while others drowned in the red surf. On 25 March, Hué fell. Despite the obvious dangers of evacuation, many residents chose that option rather than staying put. The tide of exiles was living proof that Hanoi had failed to inspire popular revolution. While the evacuees were hardly enamoured of Saigon rule, they were frightened to death of Hanoi’s grim authority.
By 29 March, Da Nang was surrounded. The city fell on the 30th, ten years and three weeks after American Marines first landed. President Ford meanwhile tried to rally Thieu by promising that the US would ‘stand firmly [behind] the RVN at this critical hour’. He was considering ‘actions which the situation may require and the law permit’. That was a roundabout way of saying that nothing could be done. Now confident of victory, the politburo gave orders to liberate Saigon before the monsoon arrived in June. The operation would be called the ‘Ho Chi Minh Campaign’.72
While Saigon awaited execution, Ford tried to put together a rescue package. After an inspection tour of South Vietnam, General Frederick Weyand submitted a request for $722 million in military aid, a sum he admitted would only delay defeat. Ford added $250 million and shot the request over to Congress, with the message that it ‘would at least allow the orderly evacuation of Americans and endangered Vietnamese’. ‘We cannot . . . abandon our friends,’ he pleaded. Legislators, however, were more impressed by the postbags full of letters from ordinary voters insisting that not another dime be wasted on Vietnam. Echoing popular opinion, the Senate Armed Services Committee killed the request. ‘Those bastards!’ the normally even-tempered Ford shouted. His CIA director, William Colby, concluded that ‘South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon’.73
On 20 April ARVN forces were driven back to Long Binh and Bien Hoa air bases, 12 miles from Saigon. The city was now surrounded by around fifteen communist divisions, supported by engineers, tanks, artillery and anti-aircraft units. In contrast, the ARVN managed to scrape together just four divisions plus some bedraggled forces evacuated from recent battles. A defensive plan was hastily improvised, but the real question was whether troops and commanders retained the will to fight. With supplies desperately short, and morale at rock bottom, the urge to surrender, or desert, was often irresistible.
Saigon was in a state of hysteria. At the American Embassy, the pool was rendered unusable because the water was choked with the ashes of documents hastily burnt. Few residents of the city failed to notice how the remaining Americans and their Vietnamese friends were leaving in a hurry. Diem Do, a schoolboy at the time, watched the trickle turn into a flood: ‘One day a couple of guys would be gone, and then a couple more, and then the teacher wouldn’t show up. Everybody was scared. They sensed that something tragic was about to happen.’ Evacuation had begun in late March, with businessmen, politicians and orphans of mixed race airlifted from Tan Son Nhut. On 4 April, a C-5A Galaxy transport, with 243 orphans on board, crashed shortly after take-off. At the hospital where casualties were taken, a witness watched ‘nurses . . . pass the children under the shower, saying, “This one’s alive, this one’s dead.” . . . None of the babies had name tags, simply wristbands saying “New York”, “New Jersey”, and so on, the addresses of their new foster homes.’ Over 200 children and 44 adults were killed.74
As communist troops rushed toward Saigon, Thieu somehow managed to find time for waterskiing and tennis. His belief in an eleventh-hour rescue did not waver, at least not until shells started falling on the city. Aware that the communists would never negotiate with him, he resigned on 21 April, in the vain hope that a new leader might be able to strike a bargain. ‘The Americans abandoned us,’ he complained. ‘They sold us out. A great ally failed a small ally.’ Thieu escaped to Taipei, taking 3½ tons of gold with him. In came General Duong Van Minh, who had tried to do a deal with the communists during his brief premiership in 1963–4. ‘Accepting the responsibility of leading the country in such a moment is really not pleasurable,’ he told his people. Two days later, Ford told students at Tulane University that the war ‘is finished as far as America is concerned’. Robert Hartmann, Ford’s speechwriter, noticed that, ‘As soon as the students heard the word “finished” they almost literally raised the roof with whoops and hollers. They jumped up and down on the bleacher seats, hugging whoever popped up next.’75
Nam Pham was a college student living in Saigon. Every night he would climb onto his roof and watch the flashes of artillery fire draw closer, like a protracted sentence of death. ‘It gave me kind of a weird feeling, watching something you love so much lost a little bit every day.’ When Tan Son Nhut was attacked on the 29th, Ford implemented Operation Frequent Wind, the final evacuation. Helicopters from a task force in the South China Sea ferried refugees from rooftops. At the Embassy, an observer noted, ‘the hordes of Vietnamese . . . were a collage of wasted hopes. Many were carrying all they owned in small brown paper bags. Some had dogs and cats underarm. The children stared in bewilderment at the chaos around them, and as the Embassy’s air-conditioning system broke down, the stench and heat in the corridors became unbearable.’ In order to gain permission to be evacuated, some Vietnamese women were married to their American sponsors while waiting in the queue. ‘It was a quick thing,’ an Embassy official recalled. ‘“Do you?” “I do.” Then out.’ The operation eventually evacuated 1,373 Americans, 5,595 South Vietnamese, 85 other nationals, and the American ambassador’s poodle. The last helicopter, carrying the Marines who had supervised the evacuation, flew out on the 30th.76
That same day, PAVN tanks appeared on the streets of Saigon. ARVN soldiers quickly changed into civilian clothes and melted into the cheering crowds. Nam Pham recalls seeing some sheepish young men wearing only boxer shorts. Shortly after the last American Marine left, PAVN tank number 843 crashed through the gates of the presidential palace. Colonel Bui Tin raced inside and demanded Minh’s surrender. ‘I have been waiting since early this morning to transfer power to you,’ an obsequious Minh told Tin. ‘You cannot give up what you do not have,’ Tin replied. W.D. Ehrhart, who had served in Vietnam eight years earlier, when Americans still believed in a noble mission, was overcome by a feeling of emptiness. ‘The fall of South Vietnam’, he later wrote, ‘was reported on the six o’clock news with hardly more impact than the story of a bad fire in Cleveland. The lives of Americans were not altered in any way. Kids continued to play ball in the park, mothers and fathers went to work.’77
In 1959, the number of foreigners visiting Spain was just over 4 million. They came mainly for things old – the Prado and the Alhambra. By 1973, tourist numbers had risen to nearly 35 million. They came for things new – beachfront hotels and jugs of sangria. In fourteen years, income from tourism increased from $125 million to $3.1 billion, sparking an economic miracle. The growth rate was 7.1 per cent, second only to Japan, while national income rose by 156 per cent. Earnings from tourism allowed Spaniards to avoid the balance of payments problem that often brings modernization to a halt. Spain, in other words, was liberated by the bikini.
For Generalissimo Francisco Franco, those tiny pieces of cloth represented a huge dilemma. On the one hand, they seemed an offence to Christian decency, potent symbols of moral decay. In 1959, Pedro Zaragoza Orts, mayor of Benidorm, was slapped with an excommunication order by the local archbishop after he signed a municipal order authorizing the wearing of bikinis on local beaches. In the end, however, money shouted louder than morality. Franco despised the permissiveness that the bikini symbolized, but could not ignore the gold mines discovered on Spain’s coast.
Franco eventually came to discover that the real problem on the beaches was not loose morals but loose change. A wealthy Spain proved difficult to control. Franco’s ideologues had once assumed that prosperity would prove an acceptable substitute for liberalism – that the corporate state would be tolerated simply because it worked. But those ideologues did not understand progress. Prosperity rendered Spaniards more difficult to govern, not easier. They aspired to be like the Dutch, Germans and British who visited in droves. Bikini money bought televisions, cars and fashion, all very liberating possessions. In 1960, just 1 per cent of Spaniards had access to a television. By 1970, that figure had risen to 90 per cent. The economic miracle rendered Spain a modern country, yet one still saddled with a government that prided itself on being old-fashioned. Franco was an ailing dinosaur hopelessly fighting extinction.
Spain, like every country in the West, had its version of the 1960s. The young rebelled through long hair, outlandish clothing, sex, drugs and music – gestures which appalled the rigidly moralistic regime. The rebellion often had legitimate reason; when the young complained about authoritarianism they knew what the word meant. As Cardinal Angel Herrera warned in 1965, ‘The one thing that has not developed is social justice.’ Students, unlike their comrades in Berkeley, objected not to the flaws of liberalism, but to its absence. The government considered this rebellion threatening for the simple reason that – unlike in other Western countries – student unrest could not be dismissed as the selfish posturing of pampered middle-class youths. To make matters worse, student unrest coincided with agitation within the banned trade union movement and strident nationalist dissent in the Catalan and Basque regions. Still stuck in the 1930s, Franco argued that the unrest was ‘all part of a Masonic leftist conspiracy of the political class in collusion with Communist-terrorist subversion in the social sphere’. His government reacted in the only way it knew: through unrestrained brutality, often carried out by right-wing vigilantes acting on Franco’s behest.78
The government was Franco. Because he was an anachronism, it was difficult for him to engineer a transference of power that would ensure the survival of his system past his death. Perhaps realizing this, he decided to govern to the bitter end. In the 1960s, Spain found herself in weird limbo as she waited for Franco to die. The future seemed bright, but also precarious – no one quite knew what would follow the Caudillo’s departure.
Prosperity had created a potentially powerful group of citizens who craved liberalization but feared radicalism. Their influence was rock-hard, built into the breeze-block towers that lined the beaches of the Costa del Sol. Having invested so much in Spain’s future, they feared that prosperity might be jeopardized by a resumption of the political battles of the past. The Civil War of 1936–9 had essentially been a struggle between conservatism and modernity. Franco’s victory settled the question, but did so in a way that rendered the nation a joke at best, a pariah at worst. In essence, his victory postponed the contest over modernity until his death. Pessimists feared that when he died that struggle would be renewed with the same hatred and violence that had marred the 1930s. The prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, counted himself among those pessimists who insisted that progress was antithetical to stability. To offer change to a Spaniard, he argued, was like offering a drink to an alcoholic.79
Though most people thought the Falange system doomed, Franco was determined that it should survive. To this end, he groomed Prince Juan Carlos for the succession, hoping that, if Falangism could be grafted onto the monarchy, it might have a better chance of survival. This was not technically a restoration, since Franco was not a monarchist, but rather a pragmatic attempt to create a legitimacy sufficient to ensure the continuance of Franquismo by other means.
In truth, the heir apparent was not Juan Carlos, but his father, Don Juan. Exiled in Switzerland, he remained committed to restoration, preferably in his person. His Lausanne Declaration, issued in 1945, asserted that, ‘The regime set up by General Franco modelled on the totalitarian systems of the Axis Powers contradicts . . . the character and tradition of a people like our own . . . Only the traditional monarch is in a position to restore peace and harmony to the Spaniards.’ Franco ignored that declaration, but eventually came to accept that a link to the royal line was advantageous, since otherwise Falangism would for ever be associated with the anachronistic regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. This explains his Law of Succession, promulgated in 1947, which proclaimed that ‘Spain, as a political entity, is a Catholic, social and representative state which, in keeping with its tradition, is declared to be constituted as a monarchy’. The wording is significant, particularly ‘declared’ and ‘constituted’. By these words, Franco emphasized that he was responsible for making Spain a monarchy. In order to reinforce that impression, he needed to make the monarch beholden to him. This could only be done by skipping a generation, since putting Don Juan on the throne implied a bona fide restoration – a briefly interrupted, but still continuous, line of succession from the Bourbon kings of the past. When a plebiscite resulted in 93 per cent of Spaniards backing his Law of Succession, Franco had the legitimacy he needed. Don Juan, outmanoeuvred, was forced to temper his opposition and seek accommodation with Franco, if only to ensure that his son might be favoured with the Caudillo’s grace.80
Don Juan reluctantly agreed that Franco should supervise his son’s education. Franco earnestly took to this task, hoping to create a worthy successor. Despite being pleased with the result, he was nevertheless reluctant to announce Juan Carlos as his heir apparent, since he did not want a competing focus for the people’s loyalty. Spaniards were therefore kept waiting, while Franco repeatedly emphasized that ‘God and Providence’ had made him leader for life. Powerful supporters, however, urged him to name a successor. He finally relented on 22 July 1969, confirming that Juan Carlos would succeed him.
On the following day, Juan Carlos took an oath of loyalty to ‘His Excellency, the chief of state, and to the basic principles of the National Movement as well as to the other fundamental laws of the state’. In other words, the oath reiterated that the monarchy answered to the state, not the other way around. Those hoping for change were bitterly disappointed when Juan Carlos asserted that, ‘The work of setting [Spain] on the right road and showing clearly the direction it must go has been carried out by that exceptional man whom Spain has been immensely fortunate to have . . . as the guide of our policy.’81
A new term was invented to describe this strange hybrid: the monarchy had been ‘reinstaured’, not restored. ‘The monarchy cannot be “restored” because of certain constitutional limitations and a traditional liberalism which would ensue,’ the exiled academic Salvador de Madariaga remarked. ‘It is “instaured”, i.e. crafted by Franco so that his wishes are followed.’ Pessimistic about the future, Madariaga added that ‘Don Juan might have tried with some hope of success to restore a liberal monarchy. Juan Carlos cannot.’ At the time, that seemed a sensible assessment. Most Spaniards saw Juan Carlos as a puppet whose strings would be pulled by Franco from beyond the grave. Santiago Carrillo, the communist leader, dubbed him ‘Juan Carlos the Brief’, a common appraisal of his likely fate. Most expected him to provide a turbulent interlude between Franquismo and democracy. Few took him seriously.82
Popular expectations were reinforced when, after Franco died on 20 November 1975, Juan Carlos dutifully reiterated his ‘loyalty to the National Movement’. As it turned out, however, the new king proved more loyal to the monarchy than to Franquismo. He realized that if the monarchy was too closely associated with Franco, it would be rudely cast aside in the transformation that would inevitably follow the Caudillo’s death. He also believed that change was more likely to proceed smoothly if it could be managed by the monarch. As he saw it, the monarchy was the one institution representing all of Spain, a focus of loyalty able to provide a moderating influence during a precarious period. In other words, Juan Carlos assumed a function few expected of him. He gave a hint of his intentions to Newsweek a few weeks before Franco’s death:
Juan Carlos . . . is determined to stand above party politics, to be king for everybody . . . The restoration of genuine democracy is one of the goals, but Spain should spare no effort to avoid disorder and chaos . . . He believes more in reform than repression, more in democratic evolution than revolution. He intends to form a modern government which will ensure the future of Spain, which does not want to hold on to the past.
In his first ‘Crown Message’, delivered on 22 November, he appealed for support:
Today begins a new stage in Spanish history . . . The monarchy will be the loyal guardian of . . . [our] heritage and try at all times to retain the closest contact with the people . . . The institutions which I embody bind all Spaniards together, and today in this important hour I call on you, since it is the responsibility of all to serve Spain. Let us all in the spirit of magnanimity and dignity understand that our future is based on real national unity.
They were ambitious words, but most people saw them as mere rhetoric, not unlike what Franco had once uttered.83
Juan Carlos realized that if he did not deliver democracy, the monarchy would be destroyed. At the same time, he also understood that the transición had to be carefully managed since drastic, ill-conceived change would imperil both democracy and the monarchy. He therefore moved slowly, while realizing that gradualism would be interpreted as reluctance. Suspicions were raised further by the continued presence of the Francoist Carlos Arias Navarro in the office of prime minister. He wanted improvements to Franquismo, not its wholesale replacement. The tired rhetoric of the Franco era had worn a groove in his mind – tradition, he insisted, was the best defence against the communist conspiracy threatening the nation. Franco was the ‘provident legislator’ whose legacy needed to be preserved. What few realized was that Arias Navarro presented both problem and opportunity. He clearly stood in the way of change, but he also offered Juan Carlos the chance to demonstrate his reformist credentials. When the king let slip to Newsweek that Arias Navarro was an ‘unmitigated disaster’ who blocked reform and polarized Spanish politics, the implication was clear: the prime minister would be removed at the earliest possible opportunity.84
That came in June when Arias Navarro bungled legislation recognizing political parties. He offered his resignation, which Juan Carlos gladly accepted. Reformists demanded the appointment of José María Areilza, a prominent liberal. Fearing, however, that an outspoken liberal would polarize opinion, the king chose instead Adolfo Suárez y González, previously general secretary of the National Movement and, prior to that, director general of the state television network. While his close links to Francoism at first provoked widespread scorn, it soon transpired that the choice was astute. Suárez, though undoubtedly a conservative, was also a pragmatist who realized that progress could at best be managed – not stopped. His other advantage was his age – at forty-three, he was the youngest prime minister in Spanish history. This made him roughly the same age as Juan Carlos, which meant that the two together represented a clean break from the past. Some prominent liberals nevertheless remained suspicious, refusing to serve in the Cabinet. This, too, proved an opportunity, since it allowed Suárez to recruit a number of young men unconnected with past arguments. Suárez’s conservative credentials also won him the trust of the military, which was essential to the success of reform.
The fact remained that Juan Carlos had so far done little to persuade reformists that he could satisfy them. His first significant overture came in a general amnesty of political prisoners – members of opposition groups who had not actually engaged in violent acts were pardoned. This was, one socialist admitted, ‘the fruit of a desire to bury the sad, past history’. Another politician reflected that the amnesty was ‘simply a forgetting . . . an amnesty for everyone, a forgetting by everyone for everyone’. With the past put neatly away, the task of building the future could begin.85
While the amnesty was enormously important, equally significant was the king’s charismatic style. He often appeared in public with his fashionable wife, the two together giving the impression of modernity. He also acted upon the promise in his Crown Message that he wanted to ‘be the king of all and at the same time of every individual in his own culture, history and tradition’. In other words, he would respect regional differences. To this end, he toured Catalonia in February 1976 and spoke Catalan. The gesture was hugely significant given the contempt toward cultural and linguistic autonomy Franco had shown. As a result of attitude as much as policy, Juan Carlos encouraged the impression that he could be trusted. A discernible shift of opinion became evident, with scepticism giving way to cautious support. Suddenly, the legitimacy of the king rested not in the Bourbon dynastic line, nor in his supposed allegiance to the Francoist past, but in the trust he engendered among his people and their desire for him to succeed.86
Good feelings were not, however, by themselves enough. The government also had to reassure the people that it could deliver a meaningful transition to democracy. In mid-September, Suárez announced a comprehensive programme of reform, which included a bicameral legislature elected on a system of proportional representation. While the proposals were generally welcomed, militant rightists objected that they went too far and democratic purists complained that they did not go far enough. A national referendum on 15 December 1976, however, showed overwhelming approval. With nearly 80 per cent of the electorate participating, 94.2 per cent voted in favour. The referendum demonstrated that government and people were now working in harmony toward the same goal.
The next step was the legalization of political parties banned during the Franco era. While this seemed to most a fait accompli, the stumbling block was the status of the Communist Party. Logic suggested that blanket approval should be extended, but legalization of the communists was bitterly opposed by the army. By this stage, however, Juan Carlos and Suárez felt sufficiently emboldened to ignore that obstacle. Legalization of all parties occurred on 9 April 1977. The army officially noted its discomfort but did not otherwise resist.
Though the transición had so far proceeded more smoothly than anyone had expected, political violence remained a problem. Between Franco’s death and the elections in June 1977, sixty-seven people were killed in terrorist attacks, most of them in the Basque country, but also in actions fomented by the extreme right and left. While the killings suggested a continuance of the dark days of Franco, in fact they were indicative of how much things had changed. Terrorist attacks during this period are best seen as an indication of the frustration felt by those who preferred revolution to reform. In addition, it bears emphasizing that the violence did not provoke the aggressive reaction on which the terrorist depends. The government made it clear that it would not be derailed from its mission to deliver democracy.
The people’s determination to maintain a steady course can be measured by the overwhelmingly moderate election campaign. While some 200 parties existed by the end of 1975 and around 156 put up candidates, politicians willingly grouped themselves into broad coalitions in order to ensure stable government. Conservative forces coalesced around Suárez’s Centre Democratic Union, while the left mobilized behind the charismatic Felipe González and his Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The proof of the pudding, however, came in the rhetoric employed during the campaign. The socialists’ official platform was Marxist, but their behaviour remained steadfastly moderate, in line with European social democracy. The CDU, likewise, was a picture of restraint, pointedly ignoring the Francoist past and instead emphasizing a fresh start. Even the communists seemed determined not to offend. Shortly after their legal recognition, the party formally announced acceptance of the monarchy and, by implication, a willingness to work within the system. Spaniards were treated to the unusual spectacle of watching communists extol the virtues of liberalism – they campaigned under the slogan ‘A vote for Communism is a vote for Democracy’. Much less in tune with the political mood was Manuel Fraga Iribarne’s Popular Alliance, which sought to mobilize nostalgia for Franco.87
On 15 June, Spaniards went to the polls in an atmosphere of impressive calm. The election was notable for what did not happen: no intimidation of voters, very little violence, and no serious allegations of corruption. Despite their lack of experience, Spanish voters behaved like mature and enthusiastic democrats. Despite the plethora of choices, they chose options most likely to result in stable government. The CDU secured 34.7 per cent of the vote, the socialists 29.2, and the communists 9.2. The Popular Alliance proved the biggest losers, with just 8.4 per cent. The remaining votes were claimed mainly by regional parties in Catalonia and the Basque region.
Regardless of how each party fared, the result was essentially an expression of approval for what Suárez had achieved and what Juan Carlos represented. Suárez went on to form a government, but proved less adroit in running the country than he had been in managing the transición. Unrest in the Basque country and economic difficulties eventually got the better of him. What is important, however, is that his shortcomings did not inspire discontent with the new democracy. When their patience with Suárez ran out, the Spanish simply acted like mature democrats and voted in a new government. Indeed, the nature of that government indicates how far Spain had come. The victory of the socialists in 1982 did not lead to serious turmoil. In any case, while the new government called itself socialist, it was acutely aware that its supporters wanted moderate social democracy, not Marxist adventurism.
With breathtaking speed, Franco went from Generalissimo to f-word – something distasteful but seldom mentioned. The national anthem was retained, but the lyrics, written during the Franco era, were expunged, thus making Spain one of the few countries to have an anthem devoid of words. By agreeing not to talk about the Caudillo, Spaniards managed to avoid the recrimination that might otherwise have followed such a divisive regime. They were keen to forget not only the man, but also their own behaviour during his regime. An unofficial pacto del olvido – pact of forgetting – was followed. ‘There was not sufficient strength to demand either justice or, even, any explanation for the past,’ a somewhat regretful González reflected. The victims, writes Gregorio Morán, one of the few critics of the transición, were ‘forced to forget as a condition for taking part in the new game’. The policy was disingenuous, but it worked.88
The transición provides a model to those nations seeking to rid themselves of authoritarian rule. In the space of a few years, Spain became a genuinely modern nation – not just stable, but dynamic. Her experience is especially fascinating since it contrasts sharply with the direction other Western nations were travelling in. In Germany, France and the United States, left-wing adventurism during the 1960s resulted in strident attacks upon the liberal heritage. This provoked an extreme reaction from the right, exactly what the rebels wanted. When the dust settled, however, radicalism was vanquished and liberalism lay mortally wounded. All three countries moved profoundly to the right.
In Spain, however, something very different happened. Because the people had grown tired of radicalism, they were determined to stay on the moderate road. They wanted nothing to do with political adventures, and were able to put aside selfish fantasies for clear, pragmatic goals. An indication of this pragmatism was the Pactos de Montcloa, essentially a social contract, signed in 1977 between the government, employers’ organizations and trade unions to cooperate in order to consolidate democracy and to address economic problems. In other words, while other Western countries moved away from liberalism, Spain consolidated practical liberal goals. One of the most astonishing features of the transición is the breathtaking pace at which it was carried out. By the end of the 1970s, old-fashioned, authoritarian Spain had become one of the most stable, progressive and dynamic nations in Europe.
Nicaragua: The Sandinista Revolution
Between 1965 and 1975, the GNP of Nicaragua doubled. So, too, did the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Nicaragua was undoubtedly a poor country, but its main problem was the maldistribution of wealth, income and land. Between 1950 and 1977, the growth rate hovered at 6 per cent, but all that new wealth disappeared into the pockets of the rich. The wealthiest 5 per cent of the population shared 30 per cent of income, while the lower half divided up just 15 per cent. Voracious landowners gobbled up small farms, turning former owners into itinerant labourers or, worse, urban beggars. Nearly half of those dependent upon agriculture had no land at all. As a result of crippling poverty, half the population was illiterate, and life expectancy was just fifty-three years. In contrast, in neighbouring Costa Rica, by no means a wealthy country, the average adult lived seventeen years longer.
Nicaragua was a machine for exploiting the poor. Manning the levers was the Somoza family, a clan bred for tyranny that had ruled since 1932. The person in charge changed over time, but the name – Somoza – remained the same, a synonym for despotism. While the Somozas were essentially dictators, Nicaragua was technically a democracy. The family sometimes held the presidency, but sometimes did not. However, the person residing in the presidential palace was essentially a cipher, since power rested in the man who controlled the National Guard, and he was always a Somoza. Though elections were held, the Somozas made sure they were meaningless. ‘I would like nothing better than to give . . . Nicaraguans the same kind of freedom as that of the United States,’ Anastasio Somoza Debayle once remarked. ‘[But,] It is like what you do with a baby. First you give it milk by drops, then more and more, then a little piece of pig, and finally it can eat everything . . . You have to teach them to use freedom, not to abuse it.’89
Tyranny proved lucrative. By 1972, the family controlled at least one-quarter of GNP. When Anastasio Somoza García, a man of humble origins, died in 1956, he left his sons a fortune in excess of $100 million. Henry Kissinger, who showed great tolerance for corrupt right-wing dictators, once said that the Somozas ‘gave new meaning to the term kleptocracy, that is, government as theft’. No wonder, then, that the family needed a private army. The National Guard, well-paid and heavily armed, kept protest at bay – an important asset since the people had much over which to complain. Political opponents were tortured, murdered or simply made to disappear.90
Brutality and fear closed the usual avenues of revolt. There seemed no point in protesting to a cloth-eared government that never hesitated to use force. For most people, therefore, apathy became a form of self-defence. The few rebels that did exist skipped the traditional first steps of non-violent resistance and moved straight to military insurgency. They were concentrated in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, or FSLN), which took its name from the nationalist hero Augusto César Sandino. He had managed to humiliate US Marines and the Nicaraguan National Guard during a six-year insurgency that ended in 1933. Sandino was hero and martyr; his value as a revolutionary saint was enhanced because he was assassinated, on the order of Somoza García, at his moment of triumph. To impoverished Nicaraguans, his example continued to resonate, since he had challenged the Somozas, the National Guard and the Americans – the very same triumvirate that blocked social justice in the 1970s.
The FSLN, founded in 1961, drew support mainly from student activists for whom nationalism went hand in hand with egalitarianism. They despised the brutal Somoza regime but felt that the real enemy was the United States which controlled Nicaraguan affairs through its proxies. ‘They call [our] forces bandits,’ Sandino had said. ‘The real . . . bandits are in the caves of the White House in Washington, from which they direct the plunder and assassination of our Spanish America.’ Given the nature of the movement, and the identity of its nemesis, it’s no surprise that Sandinistas embraced Marxism and worshipped Che. ‘Marxism . . . was a complete revelation – the discovery of a new world,’ recalled Victor Tirado, a founding member. ‘Through Marxism, we came to know Sandino, our history, and our roots.’91
Despite their deep commitment, the FSLN was no match for the Somozas’ Guard, reinforced with American weaponry. For that reason, the lifespan of the average rebel was desperately short, and political cadres made little headway in their attempts to radicalize the workers and peasantry. As in other countries in the throes of revolution, ordinary people preferred to sit on the fence until the outcome of the contest became clear. The Sixties therefore proved lean years for Sandinistas, who failed to build a peasant base. Through torture, assassination and brute military force, the Somoza government very nearly rid itself of the FSLN menace by the end of the decade.
The situation changed dramatically when a massive earthquake devastated Managua on 23 December 1972. The quake, followed by a catastrophic fire, killed perhaps 10,000 people outright and left 80 per cent of buildings damaged beyond repair. The United Nations judged ‘the magnitude of the disaster . . . almost without precedent in recent world history’. The vast majority of the city’s 400,000 residents were rendered homeless, while destruction of the economic infrastructure meant that most were also without jobs. ‘Managua is a dying city,’ the journalist Jay Mallin concluded. ‘It can no longer support its population. It has neither water nor food nor electricity . . . one-third of its population . . . has already left and steady streams of people continue to pour out of the city.’92
The earthquake demolished the headquarters of the National Guard, causing a complete collapse in discipline. Guardsmen deserted their posts in order to join looters. For a short period, Somoza Debayle was deprived of the military might he depended upon to control the country. But authority was quickly re-established thanks to the help of his good friend Turner Shelton, the US ambassador, who arranged the despatch of 500 American paratroopers. President Nixon was only too happy to help, since he feared that the suffering might otherwise spark a communist uprising.
Once he regained his composure, Somoza discovered that the quake offered new opportunities for plunder. Over $32 million in disaster relief was donated by the United States, but half that amount was siphoned off by Somoza and his cronies. Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the publisher of the daily newspaper La Prensa, described ‘thousands and thousands of hands extended toward emptiness, asking for food, which was kept . . . under custody of the government tanks. They didn’t give out the food.’ Blood donated to quake victims was sold back to American hospitals, at huge profit. Somoza was so taken with this new line of business that he began exporting blood purchased at a pittance from Nicaraguans rendered destitute by the quake. He also decided that Managua needed to be relocated to safer ground. A new site was found, on land he happened to own but graciously sold back to the state.93
While the quake proved a financial boon for Somoza, it shook the foundations of his regime. Aftershocks would be felt for the rest of the decade. Rising unemployment, rampant inflation and unaffordable fuel exacerbated popular discontent. The anger of previously apathetic workers rendered them much more susceptible to FSLN agitation. The people’s fear of the Guard was no longer enough, by itself, to keep protests and strikes at a manageable level. Nor was it just the workers who complained. Middle-class businessmen objected bitterly to the government’s failure to rebuild the economy. The Church also became a stern critic, with clerics shining a bright light on government perfidy. On the first anniversary of the quake, a mass in memory of the victims turned into a huge protest against the regime.
As time passed, quake-related complaints coalesced into general discontent. It was not, however, the FSLN that rode the tide of dissatisfaction. Rather, middle-class organizations helped turn diffuse dismay into focused opposition. The Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP), a union of business interests, became one of the fiercest critics of the government. Then, in 1974, the formation of UDEL (Democratic Liberation Union) brought together a diverse group of discontented people, including labour activists, entrepreneurs, professionals, academics and even conservative politicians. The front man was Chamorro, whose patriotic credentials were impeccable.
The FSLN, by comparison, remained a rather emaciated force, still nursing the wounds of the 1960s. As time passed, however, it was able to use the discontent to build a base among peasants, radical workers and students. By 1974, activists were sufficiently reinvigorated to launch a bold strike. On 27 December, thirteen commandos raided a party at the home of José María Castillo, a prominent Somoza supporter, taking the guests hostage. Among the captives were friends and relatives of Somoza. Since the Sandinistas were perfectly willing to die, they had the government in an armlock. After a few days of negotiation, they agreed to free their hostages in exchange for the release of twelve Sandinistas from prison, $1 million ransom and safe passage to Cuba. Under the agreement, the government was also obliged to broadcast Sandinista propaganda through various media. A huge crowd gathered at Managua airport to bid farewell to the Sandinistas on their departure for Cuba, thus underlining the government’s humiliation.
Despite the setback, Somoza remained contemptuous of the FSLN. ‘What is the political significance of this guerrilla organisation?’ he spat. ‘None whatsoever! This is a small group of youngsters who have been indoctrinated . . . But I know that they will die! There is no more than crust to this little pie!’ In a fit of pique, he declared martial law, unleashing repression of a severity heretofore unseen even in his brutal country. FSLN militants were hunted down, murdered and often mutilated for good measure. Those who harboured them were sadistically tortured in order to send a message to would-be supporters. Around 2,000 people were slaughtered, with little attempt made to establish a direct connection to the rebellion. On one occasion, Guardsmen descended upon the village of Varilla, a suspected Sandinista enclave, and killed all the residents, including twenty-nine children. The conquerors then divided the land among themselves.94
While the Somoza regime thought the atrocities could easily be hidden in the remote mountains, a bush telegraph of Catholic clerics relayed news to the outside world. A letter from the Nicaraguan bishopric, detailing ‘inhuman’ abuse ‘ranging from torture and rape to summary execution’, was read out from pulpits around the country. While Somoza’s backlash succeeded in cutting a swathe through the ranks of the Sandinistas, it turned otherwise apathetic peasants into enthusiastic supporters of the FSLN. It also alienated the US. The new ambassador, James Theberge, feared that Somoza’s behaviour might affect the security of American interests in the area. ‘We have reason to believe that some of the allegations of human rights violations are accurate,’ he told reporters, ‘and our concern has been made clear to the Nicaraguan government.’ In early 1977, the Nicaraguan opposition pressured the new American president, Jimmy Carter, to act. He had promised ‘a foreign policy that is democratic, that is based on fundamental values, and that uses power and influence . . . for humane purposes’. Somoza tested that promise. ‘Nicaragua is a case where Carter can show that his advocacy of human rights is not just words,’ one FSLN activist told Time. Carter, who had painted himself into a corner, responded by cutting military and financial aid. That, however, proved the limit of his commitment, since to go further implied support for an avowedly Marxist movement. ‘We do not now contemplate asking Somoza to step down,’ Secretary of State Cyrus Vance stated. Desperately trying to back-peddle, Carter argued that it was improper for the United States ‘to intervene in the affairs of a sovereign country’.95
While fighting their bitter war with the Somoza regime, the Sandinistas somehow found time to argue among themselves over Marxist theory. The Prolonged Popular War faction, or GPP, were devotees of Che who advocated a protracted guerrilla campaign designed to politicize the peasantry. In 1975, that orthodoxy was challenged by Jaime Wheelock, who, while studying abroad, had become convinced that mainstream Marxist notions of a proletariat were perfectly applicable. A third group, formally known as the Insurrectionals, but popularly called Terceristas (or Third Way), was led by Daniel and Humberto Ortega, essentially Marxist-Leninists but with a distinctive pragmatic streak. They thought that Sandinistas should capitalize on widespread alienation by offering themselves as an alternative to, or adjunct of, UDEL. This implied temporarily toning down Marxist rhetoric in order to appeal to the bourgeoisie.
While the GPP and Wheelock’s Proletarios argued, the Terceristas got on with the revolution. Somoza’s reign of terror proved a boon to them, since its principal victims were the GPP cadres doggedly pursuing peasant revolution in the hills. In May 1977, the Terceristas released a new manifesto which proclaimed that ‘the working class, represented and led by the Sandinista vanguard, the FSLN, will lead the revolution’. While policy documents did not skimp on Marxist rhetoric, Terceristas concentrated on broadening their appeal. A measure of their success came later in the year with the launch of the ‘Group of Twelve’, a committee of business, religious and cultural bigwigs who called for Somoza’s immediate resignation and the inclusion of the FSLN in a provisional government. Terceristas meanwhile continued the armed struggle, launching lightning raids on National Guard posts around the country.96
Bad governments inevitably make bad decisions, often with peculiar aplomb. As the net tightened around the Somoza regime, someone – either the dictator himself, or one of his henchmen – decided it would be a good idea to assassinate Chamorro. His murder on 10 January 1978 provided further stimulus to anti-government feeling, with his funeral sparking mass protest. Angry mobs attacked businesses linked to the Somoza family or to America. UDEL then capitalized on the uproar by calling a general strike and demanding Somoza’s resignation. The strike was widely supported, but had little effect upon the stubborn dictator who responded, as in the past, by unleashing the Guard. That force again demonstrated an impressive capacity for outrage – on one occasion Guardsmen sprayed mourners at a memorial service for Chamorro with tear gas.
With Nicaragua descending into chaos, the Terceristas decided to reprise the Castillo script, on a bigger scale. On 22 August 1978, forty commandos, disguised as Guardists, took control of the National Palace, taking hundreds of congressmen captive, including a cousin of Somoza. After another round of mediation, the result was essentially the same, except the ransom rose to $12 million. Again, Sandinista prisoners were released and given safe passage out of the country along with the commandos. This time, an even bigger crowd bade them farewell at the airport. The supposed invincibility of the Somoza regime had once again been seriously dented. More importantly, Nicaraguans were beginning to laugh at their dictator. A regime built on fear cannot long survive ridicule.
As a result of the Tercerista success, a movement sprang into being that was beyond Ortega’s capacity to control. He was faced with a common revolutionary dilemma, summarized by the lament: ‘There go my people, I must catch them, for I am their leader.’ The FAO, or Broad Opposition Front, which had replaced UDEL, pressured him to organize a series of rolling strikes. These in turn inspired freelance demonstrations and random acts of violence. In an effort to take control, the Terceristas, reluctantly joined by the GPP and the Proletarios, launched simultaneous attacks on Guard posts in five cities during September 1978. The offensive was all the more impressive for the fact that it was suicidal: Sandinistas were able to mobilize hardly more than 150 armed insurgents. They enjoyed brief success, but were eventually swept aside by Somoza’s forces. The Guards then went on the rampage, killing, raping, torching homes and even attacking schools, hospitals and Red Cross clinics. No distinction was made between rebel and innocent bystander. Boys in working-class areas were particularly vulnerable to summary execution, since it was assumed that any young man not in a Guard uniform must belong to the FSLN. ‘[Somoza] was born in power and he is wedded to it,’ a bewildered Archbishop Miguel Obando remarked. ‘Political tactics count for nothing, only pride, vanity. He is like a child with a toy. The majority of us underestimated the capacity for horror and destruction of this man and his National Guard. We never thought he was capable of levelling entire cities, as he has done . . . We never thought that the beast was so beastly.’97
Despite the annihilation, the desperate gamble brought dividends. The FSLN had demonstrated that it was the only opposition group willing to fight the Guard. While Sandinista ranks were depleted, the action mobilized the discontented of Nicaragua. Thousands of recruits rushed forward to take part in what was hoped would be a final offensive. With new strength came new unity, as the three factions formally set aside their differences. For the first time, rebels were also able to enjoy a steady supply of weaponry, thanks to donations from Venezuela, Cuba and other outside supporters.
What had been an insurrection became a full-scale war. In April 1979, a Sandinista force attacked in the north, capturing the city of Estelí with help from local insurgents. Somoza responded with extreme force, pummelling the city with bombs and shells prior to a massive ground attack. Estelí was virtually destroyed, with 1,000 dead, the vast majority civilians. The Sandinistas did not, however, back down. A steady flow of volunteers enabled losses to be overcome. Everywhere the insurgents went they found locals eager to lend support. While Sandinistas carried on the struggle militarily, the FAO intensified the pressure with a general strike, paralysing the economy. Progress came at huge cost, but there was no doubting its validity. Somoza was clearly doomed, the only uncertainty being when he might recognize that fact.
Acceptance came on 17 July 1979, when Somoza, his son and half-brother boarded a plane for Miami, leaving behind a caretaker administration. Tainted by its association with Somoza, that administration lasted two days, whereupon a government of national unity took over. It consisted of representatives of business and industry and, of course, the FSLN. For the Sandinistas, that arrangement provided the perfect platform for a gradual consolidation of power, made easier by the fact that they now possessed the only credible military force. While FSLN representatives slowly tightened their grip on central government, out in the countryside cadres implemented a programme of socialist indoctrination through a network of mass organizations.
Nicaraguans enthusiastically celebrated the fall of Somoza, but their nightmare was far from over. At first, all seemed well, with Sandinistas demonstrating their immense capacity for good. Land was redistributed, health care extended, diseases like polio eliminated, and illiteracy virtually eradicated. But then came the usual complaints of radical socialists everywhere: business interests were not cooperating, the bourgeoisie was bleeding the poor, the capitalist press was not sufficiently respectful, democracy stood in the way of progress. The solution was more power. ‘The objectives of the Revolution are none other than to fight until it guarantees the well-being of all workers,’ a party document proclaimed in 1980. That conviction validated a lorry-load of sins.98
The big mistake of the Sandinistas was to confuse victory with popularity and gratitude with support. They assumed that because they had bravely confronted Somoza, they had the right to shape the new Nicaragua. The bourgeoisie, in contrast, could be ignored because it was tainted with the evils of the previous fifty years. ‘Our country’s bourgeoisie – which liquidated and castrated itself as a progressive political force when it totally surrendered to the interests of Yankee imperialism and allied itself with the most reactionary Nicaraguan forces on 4 May 1927 – will not be a vanguard in the struggle against tyranny or in the revolutionary process,’ a manifesto proclaimed. That was a prescription for a one party state. Within months of Somoza’s fall, a new autocracy was taking shape. Elections, which were supposed to be held in early 1980, were delayed until 1983 and then delayed again until 1985. ‘Nicaragua already has real democracy, brought about through social improvement, through our anti-illiteracy campaign,’ a party leader explained. ‘We do not reject the idea of going through the motions of formal democracy, but it is of course inconceivable that the Sandinistas would not win the elections.’99
The Sandinistas are not solely to blame for the terrible suffering of the Contra War of the 1980s. The Contras themselves, built from the dregs of the Guardists, were undoubtedly culpable. So, too, was Ronald Reagan, who insisted on turning Nicaragua into yet another Cold War struggle, instead of accepting that what the people really wanted was food, healthcare, education and peace. But, without indulging in counterfactuals, it seems clear that Nicaragua’s suffering in the 1980s was avoidable. If the Sandinistas had accepted that Somoza had been brought down by a consensus, they might have turned that consensus into a formidable political movement. Instead, they insisted on radical socialist transformation, implemented through autocracy. Before long, Sandinistas and Contras were competing in the cruelty stakes. In 1987, the New York Times reporter James LeMoyne found a strange phenomenon in the mountains of Nicaragua. Peasants were supporting the Contras, their former oppressors, rather than the Sandinistas, their liberators. The Sandinistas were given a new nickname, ‘piricuaco’, which means rabid dog. ‘The Government has thrown the army at us,’ peasants complained. That, at least, seemed familiar.100