cover image With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua

With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua

Christopher Dickey. Simon & Schuster, $18.45 (327pp) ISBN 978-0-671-53298-7

In this stimulating report on the Nicaraguan conflict, Dickey, Washington Post correspondent for Central America, focuses on a peril-filled year he spent with a CIA-supported Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary patrol. With admirable clarity, he identifies the many groups and individuals that make up the contra forces, among them former Somoza supporters, veteran commandos from earlier CIA operations, and ex-Sandinistas disillusioned by the regime's Marxist complexion. The Reagan administration's controversial ""secret war'' not only goes far beyond its avowed purpose of preventing arms shipments to Salvadoran Communists, charges Dickey, but is a disastrously ill-conceived, incompetently executed operation no longer covert, rife with scandal and atrocities on both sides. This war, the author concludes, has scarred the CIA, has been costly in money and livesof guerrillas, peasants and Americansand has further jeopardized the U.S.'s international reputation. January 31