All language subtitles for Cold War - S01E18 - Backyard (1954–1990) (480p x265 EDGE2020).eng

NARRATION:
In the late 1950s,

Fidel Castro and his small
band of Cuban guerrillas

started a revolution that
challenged the desire

of the United States to
control the Western hemisphere.

[ explosion ]

[ Speaking Spanish ]

We couldn't think
about the Cold War at that time,

and besides we were naive.

We really believed there was a
certain international order.

We believed in
the existence of

certain international
principles.

We believed that the sovereignty
of nations would be respected.

NARRATION:
To the United States,

Castro's nationalism and
left-wing policies

were a Trojan Horse
for Soviet Communism.

[speaking Russian ]

Up until that time,

we had viewed Latin America as a
distant, exotic continent

with which we had
virtually ho relations.

The Cuban Revolution
changed all this.

The United States
had grown and grown.

Where its flag did not fly,

its troops or agents
often intervened.

In the 1950s, the Guatemalans
dared to challenge an American

business that controlled
much of its economy.

The United Fruit Company of
Boston owned half a million

acres of land, the railroad,
the port and telecommunications.

But most Guatemalan peasants
found it difficult to survive.

In 1950, Jacobo Arbenz
was voted President -

he wasn't a communist but
some of his close allies were.

A former military man,

Arbenz sought to modernize
Guatemalafs backward society.

Washington was alarmed.

What we faced here was
the obvious intervention of

a foreign power.

Because these home-grown parties
are not really home-grown,

they're being funded or, er,

advised by a foreign power-
i.e. the Soviet Union.

[speaking Russian ]

The Arbenz Government,

which had been in
power from 1950,

didn't enjoy any logistical
support from the Soviet Union.

We didn't even have
diplomatic relations.

There was no
Soviet mission in Guatemala.

NARRATION: President Arbenz
started a land reform program,

buying up fallow land to
distribute to peasants.

In compensation, he offered
the landowners the values

they had themselves
declared for taxes.

United Fruit was offered
just over a million dollars

for its land.

When Arbenz declared
nationalization, the company,

backed by the United States,
claimed 16 million dollars.

[ Speaking
American Spanish ]

He saw that I didn't
look very pleased.

He said, "Aren't you
happy about the news?"

And I replied, "Now we're going
to have to fight on two fronts:

we're going to have
to fight internally

against the landowners,

and also against
the United States."

My, er, counterpart in
Guatemala, chief

Guatemala City chief
of station was sending

in reports too about communist
infiltration in the Government,

and of course he mentioned
Jose Manuel Fortuny

and some of the old-time
Stalinist communists who were

gaining favorable positions
in the Arbenz regime.

NARRATION: In this impasse
the US named John Peurifoy

as its new ambassador.

Peurifoy had had
experience of communist

efforts to gain
power in Greece.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Peurifoy said to Arbenz,

"Mr. President, we can sort
out all this business

of the
United Fruit Company

so that you can come to a
satisfactory agreement.

The United Fruit Company
is not the problem:

the problem is
the communists that

you have in
your Government.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

No less a figure than
John Foster Dulles,

head of the State Department,
was part of the firm of lawyers

acting for the
United Fruit Company.

His brother Allen was
the head of the CIA.

So it didn't take much of
an effort on their part

to persuade their President, a
military man, Mr. Eisenhower,

to give them the
green light to

overthrow
Arbenz's Government.

ARCHIVE NARRATION:
US Secretary of State Dulles

takes the rostrum to urge
united action by the Americas

to outlaw international
Communist intervention

in the Western hemisphere.

This conference was shocked
by the dastardly attack

on members of the
United States Congress

by those who professed
to be patriots.

They may not themselves
have been communists.

But they had been subjected
to the inflammatory influence

of communism which
avowedly uses

extreme nationalism
as one of its tools.

NARRATION: Arbenz once again
put on his colonePs uniform as

Guatemala prepared for war.

In Esquipulas,

an important religious shrine
in a very catholic country,

the church helped organize
the opposition to Arbehz.

A CIA operation,
code-named PB Success,

mobilized disaffected exiles
and peasants into action.

What we wanted to do was have
a terror campaign to terrify

Arbenz particularly,
terrify his

his troops, much as
the German Stuka bombers

terrified the population
of Holland,

Belgium and Poland at
the onset of World War ll

and just rendered
everybody paralyzed.

NARRATION:
The UN met in emergency session.

Guatemala City was
strafed from the air.

Rebels invaded
from Honduras.

The CIA spread panic.

Washington denied
responsibility.

The information
available to

the United States
thus far strongly suggests

that the situation
does not involve aggression,

but is a revolt of Guatemalans
against Guatemalans.

NARRATION:
The Soviets were warned.

Stay out of
this hemisphere.

And don't try to
start your plans

and your
conspiracies over here.

NARRATION: The American PB Success
Campaign brought the government down,

and drove Arbenz and
his wife into exile.

Nine thousand of his
supporters were arrested.

Many were kept in jail,
without trial, for years.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

INTERPRETER: They even set
up anti-communist committees,

where anyone could go and
give the names of people

who had been loyal
to the revolution.

These people would then
be mercilessly kidnapped,

killed and so on.

NARRATION: Among those who
fled was a young Argentine doctor,

Ernesto Che Guevara,

who went to Mexico and
there met Fidel Castro.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

I remember my
talks with him.

He was terribly indignant
and embittered by these events

which had interrupted
ah endeavor

which wasn't even radical.

It was a relatively
simple change, land reform,

which was very just
and necessary.

NARRATION: Five years later, Fidel
Castro and Che Guevara had triumphed.

Ninety miles from Florida,

in what the United States
considered its own backyard,

Castro established
a regime soon to be allied

with the Soviet Union.

Let all our neighbors know
that we shall join with them

to oppose
aggression or

subversion anywhere
in the Americas.

And let every other power
know that this hemisphere

intends to remain the
master of its own house.

NARRATION: In 1961, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy took over the Presidency

and with it a CIA scheme to
send in an army of exiles

to overthrow Castro,

as they had earlier
overthrown Arbenz in Guatemala.

So I was yanked back
from Montevideo,

where I would have been content to
spend the rest of my life,

and told: "What we're
doing is reassembling

the PB Success team,

that is the Guatemala
Operational team,

to take care of Castro."

NARRATION:
At the Bay of Pigs, Castro's forces routed

the CIA-sponsored invasion.

HOWARD HUNT: Castro was secure,
and he was beloved by millions in Cuba

and so it was a different
situation than Guatemala.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

[ Applause ]

NARRATION:
Castro, triumphant, was eager to take

armed revolution
into Latin America.

To combat the Cuban
challenge the US established

in its Panama Canal Zone
a sophisticated school.

Here, counter insurgency
forces from all over

the sub continent
were trained.

[gunfire]

NARRATION: By the early
1960s left-wing revolutionary groups

were fighting the authorities
in Guatemala, Venezuela,

Colombia, Peru and
the Dominican Republic.

ARCHIVE - NARRATION: Marines are
ordered into the revolt-torn small island

country by
President Johnson.

Five hundred leathernecks
are put ashore by helicopter.

NARRATION: In 1965, US marines
went in to crush the Dominicans,

who were trying to restore
their elected President.

The American nation,
cannot, must not,

and will not permit the
establishment of another

communist government in
the Western hemisphere.

[speaking Russian ]

The Soviet Union,
especially after Brezhnev

came to power in 1964,

adhered to the principle
of peaceful co-existence

and détente,

and the relaxation of
international tension.

But the Cubans
had a theory

which can be described as
"let's have a 100 Vietnams".

NARRATION: Che Guevara was
behind the call for 100 Vietnams.

In 1965, he went to the Congo
and later to the heart of

South America to spread the
cause of violent revolution.

By late 1967 US instructors
were training

Bolivian troops in
guerrilla warfare.

They set a trap
for Che Guevara.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

On more than one
occasion he said,

"Our last battle
is approaching.

We have to prepare for it,
and we must be very careful

not to be taken prisoner -
especially the Cubans."

NARRATION:
Che Guevara was captured alive.

Hours later,
he was shot dead.

NARRATION: Five of Guevarafs group
escaped to the Bolivian capital, La Paz.

DARIEL ALARCON:
[speaking Spanish]

When we arrived in La Paz
we managed to make contact

with Salvador Allende
in Chile.

He gave us every
kind of help.

He mobilized his whole party
in order to rescue us.

NARRATION:
Chile had been calm in the 1960s.

Washington's Alliance for
Progress program

spent millions of dollars
backing Chile's

Christian Democrat Government.

But in 1970 a
coalition of the left

and the centre
sought electoral victory.

Unidad Popular was
led by a doctor,

freemason and
Marxist bon vivant,

Senator Salvador Allende.

Allende was, er, depicted
and.Hand.Hand

identified with the
socialist-communist parties,

the Left, er, in the
midst of the Cold War,

and he represented of course
socialism and Marxism.

NARRATION: Worried that a
Marxist would come to power in

legitimate elections,
US business made its move.

I directed that
an approach be made

to both the State Department
and Mr. Kissingefls office

to tell them that
we have grave concern

over the outlook
for |TT's investment,

and we were desirous of
discussing our thoughts

in Washington

and willing to assist financially
in any Government plan

to help protect private
American investment in Chile.

NARRATION:
The CIA was not far behind.

General Rene Schneider,

the popular army
commander who defended

Allende's
constitutional rights,

had to be removed
from his post.

[speaking English]

NARRATION: The CIA money
dispatched to oust General Schneider

wasn't needed -

other plotters
assassinated him.

The murder
shocked the nation.

Moderate politicians
rallied to Allende,

and consolidated
his election victory.

In the shanty towns of Chile
there were high hopes as the

newly elected President
set out on reform -

without, he hoped,
outside interference.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

NARRATION: Allende's first
big step, supported by all Chilean

political parties,

was the nationalization
of copper,

Chile's biggest industry,

still under effective
US control.

HORTENSIA ALLENDE:
[speaking Spanish]

When Salvador Allende
nationalized copper,

it wasn't an
arbitrary measure.

He did it to obtain the
resources to alleviate

the great poverty
in our country.

NARRATION:
Allende pressed on with what he called his

"Social Revolution".

School children were given
a daily glass of milk.

The middle classes
were on edge.

The fear was basically what
would happen to people,

to the families, er,
to the property to your farms.

[ Chanting ]

NARRATION:
In the Chilean countryside, peasants,

chanting pro-Cuban slogans,
began seizing the land.

ARTURO ALESSANDRI: What
happened afterwards confirmed the fears,

because the Government,
on the one hand,

started to expropriate land,
started to expropriate industry.

NARRATION:
Chile's economy was increasingly put

under state control.

This upset foreign financiers

and the World Bank
in Washington,

which out off credits.

Chile of course is
interested in obtaining

loans from
international organizations

where we have a vote

and I indicated that
wherever we had a vote-

where Chile
was involved-

that unless there
were strong considerations

on the other side that
we would vote against them.

NARRATION:
In November 1971 ,

Fidel Castro arrived to support
Allende's policy of change,

through the ballot box.

FIDEL CASTRO:
[speaking Spanish]

We fully supported
his policy.

We trained people for
his personal security.

We were
experienced in this

because we had had to defend
ourselves against those

who had wanted
to destroy us.

We told him about this because
we thought he had enemies,

who might try
to take his life.

NARRATION:
The dangers didn't just come from the Right.

Castro's Cuban policy of armed
revolution found favor

with Chile's extreme Left,

who were hostile
to Allende's methods.

But most Chileans ignored
the call to armed struggle.

As inflation mounted,
the Right attacked economically.

CIA money helped
pay for Chilean

truck owners to bring the
country to a standstill.

At the UN, Allende accused ITT

of trying to provoke
a civil war.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

NARRATION:
Moscow was the next stop.

There Allende sought
the money he needed

to stave off bankruptcy.

But the Russians,
already spending a fortune

to support Cuba, were
unimpressed.

NIKOLAI LEONOV:
[speaking Russian ]

We had come
to a conclusion.

This regime would
soon be toppled,

because they were trying
through very democratic means -

without the use of arms,

to break the resistance of
stronger opposition forces.

NARRATION:
Santiago, Chile's capital.

June 1973.

With the Government's
popularity actually increasing,

some frustrated right-wing
military officers

took to the streets
in an attempted coup.

As the world's press
recorded the failed takeover,

Swedish cameraman
Leonardo Hendricksen,

his camera still running,
was gunned down and killed.

[ Projector sound abruptly stops ]

Allende responded by
placing greater reliance

on the military.

General Augusto Pinochet
was appointed

as his loyal
chief of the army.

Once again the truck owners
paralyzed the world's longest

and thinnest country.

Shops closed for
lack of goods.

Hunger stalked
the streets.

[pots & pans being hit]

Middle-class housewives
came out to bang their

pots and pans in protest.

The violent Right
laid their plots.

Certainly the situation was getting
more and more ominous

and then we did have
the possibility

of learning
something about it.

Not because we were in touch
with the plotters -

we were not.

[ Manes ]

NARRATION: Just after midday
on Tuesday 11th September,

under orders from
General Pinochet,

British-made Hunter
jets swooped over the Moneda

presidential palace
starting fires which

were to burn for weeks.

NATHANIEL DAVIS: My wife
and our children were at the house

and they had a
marvelous view of the,

er, of these planes, er,
winging over and then dipping

down and sending their
bombs in to the Moneda.

[explosions]

NARRATION:
That morning from the Moneda,

Allende had broadcast
to the nation.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

NARRATION:
Hours later, Allende was dead.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

He always said that
he wouldn't be taken alive -

that he would die
defending the Constitution.

He kept his word.

NARRATION:
General Pinochet,

immediately stamped his
mark on the country.

In the capital,

suspects were rounded up
into the National Stadium.

Many, like folk
singer Victor Jara,

were never seen
alive again.

I know that he behaved
with great moral courage.

I know that he was a
sort of a source of strength

to his fellow
prisoners.

I know that
he sang there.

I know that
they beat him down.

I know that they broke
his hands and his wrists.

And I know that after two
days, they killed him off.

[speaking English]

NARRATION: When he entered
the White House in January 1977,

Jimmy Carter promised
a new US attitude

to the rest
of the world.

I announced that human
rights would be a cornerstone

or foundation of
our entire foreign policy.

So I officially designated
every US ambassador

on earth to be my personal
human rights representative.

NARRATION: In Nicaragua, US
ambassadors were used to a different role.

In the 1930s,
US marines had put the tyrant

Tacho Somoza in power.

More than
forty years later,

Nicaragua was still
ruled by a Somoza.

NARRATION:
A politically moderate newspaper owner,

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro,

dared to challenge
the dictatorship.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

So what happened to
this person who wanted freedom?

Well,
they murdered him.

Who murdered him?

The Somoza forces.

[ Sirens ]

NARRATION: Chamorrds murder
electrified the cowed people of Nicaragua.

[ Shouts ]

NARRATION:
Somoza declared a state of siege.

The US woke up to popular
anger against the super-rich

family which had been its ally
for more than four decades.

I have been fighting
the east west ideological war

since the inception
of Fidel Castro

so we've been under
the attack of

that Cuban Government
for almost eighteen years.

NARRATION:
From the hills where they had been

secretly training for years,
guerrillas emerged

who proudly bore
the name of the 1930s

anti-Yankee rebel,
'Sandind.

[ Gunfire/aircraft ]

NARRATION: But in the town
of Esteli, Somoza's World War ll

US tanks carried the day.

Two thousand people died,
in what became a dead city.

The Sandinistas regrouped,
pitting their rifles

against Somoza's might.

DANIEL ORTEGA:
[speaking Spanish]

The front now
entered the cities

and knocked on the
door of the capital

for the first
time in its history.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

NARRATION:
The Sandinistas' will to win triumphed;

Managua went
mad with joy.

Jimmy Carter had left
it very late before

abandoning the Somozas

and accepting the new
Sandinista Government.

DANIEL ORTEGA:
[speaking Spanish]

I said to Carter the United
States had to make good

the historical damage they
had inflicted on our country.

Our party hymn still
includes the words, "Yankee -

the enemy of humanity".

We said to him that
the only way to

abolish that line would
be for the attitude

of the imperialist powers to
change throughout the world.

NARRATION:
The US would not be lectured to.

The tide of conservatism,

which was to bring
Ronald Reagan to power,

was rising.

In Nicaragua,
Somoza's land was shared out

and the family's business
monopolies were taken over.

Education and health care
became widely available.

But not everyone was
happy with the revolution.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

All those
who didn't agree

with the
Sandinista policies

were subjected to
confiscations and imprisonment.

Their lives
were threatened.

Many were murdered just
for disagreeing with the

Sandinista Front.

This sort of thing
turned many Nicaraguan

peasants against
the Sandinistas.

NARRATION:
In the shadows, opponents of the revolution

plotted their revenge.

In experienced Sandinista
guerrillas struggled

to run a war-torn country.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

What we asked
for was weapons

so that we could
defend ourselves-

that's what we asked
of the Soviet Union,

of the socialist countries
of Eastern Europe,

of the Algerians,
of the Vietnamese.

[speaking Russian ]

We sent light
weapons, helicopters,

armored cars

and other
military equipment.

There wasn't a large
Soviet military presence

but they did
have Cuban advisers.

NARRATION: Throughout Central
America protest mounted against

right-wing military rule.

In El Salvador the
Catholic Church had become

a haven for
the oppressed.

[gunfire]

NARRATION: On the concrete
steps of the cathedral in San Salvador

the military decreed
that demonstrators

for human rights
should be discouraged -

nothing very new
for El Salvador.

In a massacre in 1932,

the military had killed
up to 40,000 people.

In 1979, the cameras were

on hand to record
the color of the blood.

Archbishop Oscar Romero
was the cautious leader

of Salvadorian Catholics.

When he spoke out, the reaction
from the Right was immediate.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

During the last months,
the letterbox at the seminary

where he had his office
was full of anonymous letters

practically every day,

with death squad
emblems oh them.

There was one death squad
called The White Hand.

There were many
letters written on

black paper with
a white hand saying:

"We're going to kill you.
We're going to tear you apart".

[ Speaking Spanish ]

NARRATION: In March 1980, as
he was saying mass in private chapel,

the Archbishop was murdered
by a single assassirfs bullet.

At his funeral the
military struck again.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

I only remember
a bomb exploding,

and then many
shots being fired,

and people running
in all directions.

It was a disaster:

people running,
knocking each other down,

being hit by bullets.

Many, many
people were killed.

[ Shouts ]

[ Speaking Spanish ]

The fact that
they had murdered

the Archbishop
of San Salvador,

who was the highest
Church representative,

and that they had no
qualms about killing him,

made us all feel
practically defenseless.

We said "Either we
take the struggle into the

open to the mountains,

or they will kill us
all here in the city."

NARRATION: On December 3rd 1980,
three US nuns and a woman lay-worker

started the long
drive into town from

San Salvador's
international airport.

On the way they were
raped and killed.

Their corpses were
discovered in a shallow grave.

The killings, by El Salvadofls
National Guard,

prompted President Carter
to withdraw aid to the

Salvadorian military.

But within six weeks
Carter had resumed

funding an army whose
atrocities continued.

[ Speaking American
Spanish ]

Everything consisted
of beatings, electric shocks

and rape,
and in keeping me naked.

As soon as I was taken to the
headquarters I was undressed.

My hands and legs were
handcuffed.

I was blindfolded so that I
could not see the

faces of my interrogators.

NARRATION: In town, those
suspected of being sympathetic to the

guerrillas were easy prey
for government forces.

At night, bodies were
dumped on waste ground

or left on city streets.

Like the Sandinistas in
neighboring Nicaragua,

the Salvadorian
guerrillas wouldn't give up.

The war damage
was immense.

In the United States,
the new Reagan administration

blamed Cuba and Moscow.

GENERAL ALEXANDER HAIG: What
we're watching is a four-phased operation.

Phase one has been completed -
the seizure of Nicaragua.

Next is El Salvador,

to be followed by
Honduras and Guatemala -

it's clear and explicit.

OTHER: "There is a Caribbean
domino theory that's unfolding?"

Of course.

I wouldn't call it
necessarily a domino theory.

I would call it
a priority target list -

a hit list if you will -

for the ultimate takeover
of Central America.

[ Speaking Spanish ]

Look, if a Soviet-Cuban
master plan actually existed

we would have
won the Cold War.

[ Laughs 1

If there had
been a master plan.

But unfortunately there was no
such plan, quite the opposite.

Cuba's actions conflicted with
Soviet interests at that time.

[military orders]

NARRATION: in El Salvador, US
military advisers were hard at work

bolstering the army
against the guerrillas.

The Atlacatl Brigade
was the crack unit.

In 1981, it went on a
search and destroy mission

in the guerrilla-controlled
Morazan Province.

At about 5 o'clock in the
morning of December 11th,

it would go into action near
the village of El Mozote.

Hundreds of civilians
were slaughtered.

The US State Department said
it could find no evidence

of a massacre.

RUFINA AMAYA:
[speaking Spanish]

I saw the women
clinging to each other,

crying and screaming at
them not to kill them.

I fought for my
children.

I didn't want
to let them go.

I said I would die with them but
they wrenched them from my arms.

We heard them killing the children -

they killed them at night-

you could hear the screams
for their mamas and papas.

[ Helicopters]

NARRATION: As the Reagan
administration moved to shore up the Right

in El Salvador and bring
down the Left in Nicaragua,

neighboring Honduras
became a base

for all sorts
of US activity.

Honduras was the main place
where a force was being

trained to over throw the
Government of Nicaragua.

[ Whistle ]

NARRATION:
That force was the Contras.

DUANE CLARRIDGE:
Some of them were former members of

the National Guard
of Nicaragua.

A lot of them were just,
you know,

peasants from the
mountainous areas between

Honduras and Nicaragua,

who'd been at war
with somebody forever,

and in many respects they were
like a bunch of cattle rustlers.

NARRATION:
The Contras were funded from Washington.

This undeclared war
upset the US Congress.

An Amendment by Representative
Boland of Massachusetts

curtailed Reagan's funds
for arming the Contras.

We are complying
with the law -

the Boland Amendment,
which is the law.

We are complying with
that fully and

WOMAN REPORTER:
Does that mean we are not arming

or supplying any of the
dissidents along the border

the Honduran border?

I am not going to get in
I could not and would not

possibly talk about
such things

NARRATION:
Washington was planning another small war.

On the Caribbean
island of Grenada,

where the British Queen
Elizabeth was still

Head of State, a left-wing
Government was using Cuban

contractors to build
a new tourist airport.

The US suspected
a strategic motive.

NARRATION: in October 1983, when
left-wing Prime Minister Maurice Bishop

was assassinated by
more extreme Marxists,

Washington had an invasion plan
ready for Reagan's approval.

ARCHIVE - PRESIDENT REAGAN:
At 5:15, this morning the joint

force landed at two
spots on Grenada.

There is now firing
and combat going on.

There have been casualties.

NARRATION: The United States
hadn't bothered to consult the

British Queen, or Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher.

It was all over
in a few days.

JOHN NEGROPONTE: I basically
learned about the invasion of Grenada

from the President of Honduras,
who called me up to say,

"Do you know
what's going on? "

And I said, "Well I have an
idea but I don't know for sure".

And he said, "Well
you're invading Grenada",

and he said, "Please tell
the troops that when they're

finished there to just keep
on coming to Nicaragua."

[ Laughs 1

NARRATION:
Many welcomed the Americans.

Within six weeks,
their work done

and President
Reagan's image enhanced,

the US troops left.

In Nicaragua,
Reagan's crusade against

the Sandinistas
was stepped up.

The Sandinistas desperately
needed to get hard currency for

their exports to pay
off their bank loans.

So this was a time to
put the mines into Corinto-

they've only got
one harbor that counts

and at the same time make sure
we notified Lioyds of London

the mines have gone in,
so hopefully they put pressure

on the shipping companies
well to stay out of there.

Well it worked.

NARRATION: Nicaraguafs
precious stock of oil went up in smoke;

the economy was reeling.

And, all the while, ways had
to be found to contain the US -

backed Contra invasion.

The Sandinistas asked
the Soviets for help.

The leaders in Moscow
did not want to provoke the

United States into
giving more military aid

to the Contras and to
the Honduran Government.

Therefore these requests were
politely denied every time

the Sandinistas brought
it up in Moscow.

NARRATION:
The Sandinistas, with help from Cuba,

vowed to defend their
borders and the Revolution.

The success of communism
in Central America poses the threat

that a hundred million people
from Panama to the open border

on our south,
could come under the control

of pro-Soviet regimes.

NARRATION: Angry at Reagan's
continued support for the Contra War,

the US Congress, again
led by Representative Boland,

voted in October 1984 to deny
them any further assistance.

JOHN NEGROPONTE: With the passage
of the Bolahd Amendments which ultimately

prohibited assistance
to the Contras,

there was nothing more we
could do than to bide our time.

NARRATION: To help pay for the
continuing bloodshed in Nicaragua,

Reagan's men secretly
sold arms to Iran.

The American dollar,

and the failures
of the armed Left,

crushed Latin American
revolutionary dreams.

[ Speaking
American Spanish ]

The United States saw a
threat to their interests,

because they thought it
was a communist struggle.

They didn't see us as citizens
who wanted a democratic country

where there was
social justice

and which offered
opportunities to the majority.

[speaking Russian ]

The Cold War cost
Latin America the lives

of hundreds of
thousands of people.

In Nicaragua alone,

50,000 died in
the Sandinista Revolution

and another 50,000 died
in the civil war.

It was atrocious.

There were a lot of
deaths, a lot of suffering,

a lot of refugees, a
lot of population movements.

On the other hand, I think an
equally if not more compelling

case can be made than had
we not done something to

stop communist regimes
from being established

in the other central
American countries,

other than Nicaragua,

say that they had been
established in El Salvador

and then in Guatemala

and possibly even
Honduras during the 1980s,

if we hadn't taken
the steps that we took,

I think the
immediate suffering

could have even been
considerably greater.

[ Roar of crowds ]

NARRATIONI
1990.

Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega
asks the Nicaraguan people

to vote him President.

Former US President Jimmy Carter
was there to see fair play.

Violet a Chamorro,
Ortegafs opponent,

narrowly won a
surprise victory.

Washington spent nearly
ten million dollars

backing her campaign.