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“Nicaragua Betrayed” Summary— Chapter 5: Heart and Other Trouble

by Edward Ulrich
News of Interest.TV

February 12, 2011




This chapter describes Anastasio Somoza recovering from a major heart attack and preparing for Nicaragua to host an important “Army Chiefs of Staff of the Americas” meeting that was then boycotted by certain countries such as Venezuela at the covert urging of the U.S.; also described is a conversation with the then-president of Costa Rica Daniel Oduber who was also Somoza’s friend, where Oduber told him that he had a meeting with the U.S. White House National Security Advisor Robert Pastor who approached him and potentially other Presidents about overthrowing Nicaragua.


Following are key points from the chapter:

— Somoza had a major heart attack on July 28, 1977, and he speaks about how collateral circulation developed through fifteen years of daily exercise saved his life despite being overweight and under constant stress and strain.  A decision was made to fly Somoza to Miami for open heart surgery, and the U.S. balked at sending an Air Force plane to transport him, but eventually they did with Somoza having to pay $30,000 for the flight.  Somoza was given an angiogram and was restricted to a tight and guarded routine for many months in the hospital, and eventually he was transfered to his beach home in Nicaragua to resume his duties as President and finish his rehabilitation.

— While Somoza was recovering at his beach home he felt the first overt hostility from the Venezuelan government.  Nicaragua was to serve as the host nation for an important yearly four day meeting called the “Army Chiefs of Staff of the Americas,” where every nation in Latin America as well as the U.S. would participate.  That year, Venezuela’s Carlos Andres Perez, a childhood nemesis of Somoza, announced that they would not participate or send any representatives to the meeting, and they pressured other countries to not be involved as well, despite a previous meeting where Perez gave the impression of being willing to be cooperative.  Somoza comments about the importance of the meeting as in the past it offered person-to-person contact where he met and came to know the future presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Somoza recalls an Army Chiefs of Staff of the Americas meeting in Venezuela in 1973, where elements of the group were attempting to shift the direction of the conference to allow Communism within its scope, and Somoza was determined for this not to happen; so Somoza, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and the chief of staff for Brazil maneuvered the conference to exclude the Leftist proposal, which allowed the conference to still be able to achieve anti-Communist results without having to capitulate to countries such as Cuba.  Doing this created enemies for Somoza within the group.

Somoza says, “I challenge Carter and Cyrus Vance to examine the record and see if there is any president anywhere who supported the policies of the United States more devoutly than I did.  The record will show that no such loyalty existed anywhere.  This is not to say that I was trying to get something for nothing.  I merely wanted Nicaragua to have progress and to have good interdependent relations with other countries.  ...  It must be understood that Nicaragua identified with the United States.  Nicaragua is a small country but the anti-Communist attitude of our people is well known.  Philosophically, our country could relate to all those precepts which had made the U.S. the great country she was and is.  It was natural, too, that the side of the United States was our side.  ...”

— Somoza had a meeting at his beach home with the U.S. assistant Army Chief of Staff Kerwin, the President of the Inter-American Defense board, and the son of a Journalist Jules Dubois who always opposed the Somozas.  They all mentioned how they are amazed by the freedom that they discovered existed in Nicaragua, and they were amazed by the tranquility of the people.  “The international press had told them one thing, but what they found was something totally different.  They found that propaganda had twisted reality into some ethereal dream of the Left.”

— Somoza says the Army Chiefs of Staff of the Americas meeting was a success despite the efforts of Venezuela and others to sabotage it.  Somoza had a party at his beach home and all of the Presidents of Central America came to see him with their wives.  They did not all come at one time, which allowed Somoza to spend more individual time with each.

— President Daniel Oduber of Costa Rica was a friend of Somoza and visited him shortly after he returned from the Miami hospital.  Following is text from pages 79-80 describing what Oduber told him during his visit:

The conversation I am about to relate has never been told before.  While Daniel was still President of Costa Rica I could not, out of fairness to him, publicly release the contents of our personal conversation.  This revelation could have caused problems for Daniel with the Carter Administration.  And, as I can affirm, our small countries don’t need additional problems with Mr. Carter.

Mrs. Carter, the President’s wife, had just been to Costa Rica on what was billed as a “good will tour.”  During this tour she also visited other countries.  Accompanying Mrs. Carter was Mr. Robert Pastor, a White House National Security Advisor.  [Oduber] told me that he had several lengthy discussions with Mr. Pastor.  The contents of those discussions shocked me to my very roots.  For openers, Daniel quoted Mr. Robert Pastor as saying to him: “When are we going to get that son of a bitch up to the north out of the presidency?”  He was, of course, referring to me.  Daniel said he spent more than an hour trying to explain to Pastor the good things that were happening in Nicaragua.  During this period, he said he strongly advised Pastor of the evolution Nicaragua had experienced economically, politically, and socially.  Daniel then said to me: “I have come to tell you this because you are my friend and I wouldn’t want your country to be harassed by the United States.  So you had best get yourself prepared.”

I surmised that Mr. Pastor, utilizing Mrs. Carter’s trip as an excuse, talked to all the countries which were visited on that same theme, and that theme was to get Somoza.  This was in September of 1977 and that was a long time before my government fell to Communist forces on July 17, 1979.

In this instance, and it’s shocking to realize, Mr. Pastor was representing the White House.  He was speaking for the Executive branch of the government in the United States of America.  More specifically, he was speaking for James Earl Carter.  If that information had been revealed at that time, it could easily have meant a Congressional investigation.  The President of the U.S. was directly interfering in the internal affairs of another republic.  More importantly, this republic was a long-time friend, ally, and supporter of U.S. policy.  The U.S. Congress and the American people are entitled to know why Mr. Carter was supporting Castro and the Communists in their bid to destroy an anti-Communist nation in the Western Hemisphere.  As I have pointed out, Mr. Carter and the State Department had concrete evidence as to the Communist effort in Nicaragua.

[Note: Robert Pastor is more recently referred to in Alex Jones’ documentary film “Endgame” for his activities attempting to set up a North American Union, including his trying to push the idea of a “continent-wide security border.”  See the video Endgame Segment - How the Bilderberg Group is Secretly Merging the North American Continent.]

The next visit to me was General Carlos Humberto Romero, President of El Salvador.  He told me that his people had recently captured a Communist labor leader and that the man had some interesting things to say about Nicaragua.  The Communist told his captors that no one could imagine what was going to happen in Nicaragua.  The man was quoted as saying, “Very shortly, all hell is going to break loose there.”  Again, President Romero came to me as a friend.  He felt that I should be warned that the Communists were planning something “big” for Nicaragua.

With all this information coming to me in a time of recuperation, I should have been back in the hospital.  However, my heart stood the test.




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