From the LA Times:

Gates pushed for bombing of Sandinistas

“WASHINGTON — Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, advocated a bombing campaign against Nicaragua in 1984 in order to “bring down” the leftist government, according to a declassified memo released by a nonprofit research group.

The memo from Gates to his then-boss, CIA Director William J. Casey, was among a selection of declassified documents from the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal posted Friday on the website of the National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ .

In the memo, Gates, who was deputy director of the CIA, argued that the Soviet Union was turning Nicaragua into an armed camp and that the country could become a second Cuba. The rise of the communist-leaning Sandinista government threatened the stability of Central America, Gates asserted.

Gates’ memo echoed the view of many foreign policy hard-liners at the time; however, the feared communist takeover of the region never materialized.”

Image of Gates comes from his NNDB profile.

Posted by Vixen in News