Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Many foreign policy analysts in the United States expected a shift in US policy towards Latin America when George Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan as president. Though Bush had been a loyal supporter of Reagan's policies throughout the preceding eight years, Bush nevertheless seemed more pragmatic than his mentor. Whereas Reagan was the leader of the Republican Party's right wing, Bush was a scion of the East Coast Republican establishment, stronghold of the party's moderate centre.
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4 ‘U.S. Support for. Democracy and Peace in Central America’, Selected Documents, no. 36 (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1989)Google Scholar includes the text of the bipartisan accord and remarks by President Bush and Secretary Baker at the press conference announcing it.
5 Devroy, Ann, ‘Bipartisan Accord Reached on Contras’, Washington Post, 25 03 1989.Google Scholar
6 See, for example, McManus, Doyle, ‘Baker Urges Western Europe to Pressure Nicaragua’, Los Angeles Times, 14 02 1989.Google Scholar
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22 Pear, Robert, ‘Bush Aides Say CIA Will Avoid Secret Role in Nicaragua Election’, New York Times, 4 10 1989.Google Scholar Press reports indicated, however, that the CIA had already provided $5 million to the opposition in 1989 before the agreement was reached. Marquis, Christopher, ‘Nicaraguans Ask: Who Fills the Campaign Chests?’, Miami Herald, 10 10 1989.Google Scholar
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34 On 12 January, as if in response to the detention of soldiers for the killing of the Jesuits, a rightist death squad in Guatemala kidnapped and murdered Hector Oqueli, the number two official of the Salvadorean social democratic National Revolutionary Movement (MNR). Oqueli was one of the MNR's most effective spokesmen and a respected official of the Socialist International. His murder attracted little attention in the United States, where he was not well known, but it was just as destructive to the prospects for peace as the killing of the Jesuits.
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