Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E–10, Documents on American Republics, 1969–1972

512. Memorandum of Conversation¹ ²

Puerto Somoza, January 24, 1972

SUBJECT:

• Somoza’s Views On:
  • (1) His Role in the Transitional Government;
  • (2) The Possibility of a Conservative Government in 1980;
  • (3) Current Weakness of the Conservative Party;
  • (4) The Cotton Boom and Potential Bust.

PARTICIPANTS:

• President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, President of Nicaragua
• Ambassador Turner B. Shelton, American Ambassador
• Richard Hines, Nicaragua Desk Officer

This memorandum records the substance of remarks President Somoza made during an informal two-hour meeting on the veranda of the manager’s house at Puerto Somoza.³ The conversation was in English. Somoza’s remarks on the Nicaraguan/Honduran trade negotiations and on the British Honduras/Guatemala situation have been reported and distributed in separate memorandums.

Somoza Will Stay on as President—of the PLN

I introduced the subject of Somoza’s role during the “transitional” government by commenting that clearly one of the advantages to Somoza of his pact with Aguero was that, in stepping down from the presidency, Somoza reduced the amount of hostility directed at him personally. I remarked that on the basis of my week’s conversations with politicians in the opposition, this goal was already partially achieved. I wondered, though, whether he expected to play an active political role during the next two and a half years, or whether he hoped to be able to stay in the background. Somoza’s answer surprised me for its positiveness.

Somoza explained that, because the pact called for the country to have three co-equal presidents, the Liberal Party statutes had to be changed. They had read that the President of the Republic was automatically president of the party. That identity had been ended, and Somoza had been elected president of the party under the new rules. He would continue in that position during the interim government.

All government officials, he continued, elected under the banner of the PLN will be expected to be loyal to the policies adopted by the party. That rule applied to the members of the Constituent Assembly and to the two PLN presidents. He concluded, “When something comes up for decision, they’ll check and I’ll tell them what the party wants.”

I pointed to the fact that much of the work of governing is done during the daily routine and that presumably decisions will have to be reached during joint meetings of the three presidents. This approach did not lead him to modify his earlier view. He only acknowledged that the Conservative president would have worthwhile ideas from time to time.

This thought led him to conclude, “I understand that they picked Dr. Aguero to be a president because he and I can talk to each other. Of course, I expect to continue to talk to him.”

The Conservatives Can Govern Again If and When...

Later in the conversation I returned to the basic question of how much the political situation is going to change. I repeated that Conservative and other opposition politicians were not so antagonistic towards him as a person as they had been during my visit a year ago. The freedom of the electoral process was still an issue, but a lesser one. What really bothered them all, and about which they seemed to despair, was “the system,” that is to say, the close ties binding the government, the Liberal Party, and business.

From my point of view, I continued, a country could work that way: That was the system in Mexico, but in Mexico there was no significant opposition party. What Somoza wanted in Nicaragua was an Opposition that honestly represented a significant portion of the population, a real two-party system. Looking at the experience in countries with a two-party system, it seemed to require that the Opposition be able to expect to win an election and become the Government, not immediately but at least in the foreseeable future.

I asked Somoza whether he thought that this was a problem. Did he, for example, contemplate some separation of the close ties between the party and the government?

Somoza answered this question about the future by looking backward. “You have to remember,” he began,“what it was like when we were out and they were in. Then they used the U.S. Marines as protection while they shot and killed us Liberals. There are a lot of people in my party who remember those days, and I have had to work at convincing them that we have to try to work things out with the Conservatives.”

He went on to refer to “what they’re saying in their speeches: they say they’re going to hang us.” Somoza repeated the phrase“they say they’re going to hang us” several times in describing the Conservatives’ attitude towards the Liberals. “So we’re fighting for our homes, our bread. As long as they keep talking like that, we’re all—and I mean all—going to stick together.” (Although there is nothing explicit in his remarks to support my supposition, I took Somoza’s emphasis on the second “all” to refer to the Guardia Nacional.)

Somoza summed up his position in a sentence: “I have to be sure that when I’m out, they will treat me as well then as I’m treating them now.”

“So that’s what we’re going to see now,” he concluded. The experiment under the terms of the pact would provide time and an opportunity to let the historic political passions die and to build confidence.

Reasons for PCT Weakness

I told Somoza that the PCT rally in Rivas the day before had been surprisingly small. Somoza replied that the problem with the PCT was that they had gone for 17 years without contesting an election (i.e., from 1950 to 1967). When they finally did choose to campaign, they foolishly thought they could re-create a Dominican Republic kind of crisis. As a result, nobody knows what political strength they have. Somoza said that during his negotiations with Aguero it was clear that there was no objective basis for selecting which of Nicaragua’s 17 departments the Conservatives could “have.” He was reduced to picking the same six as the PCT had been “given” under the terms of the Somoza-Chamorro Pact of 1950.

Somoza reminisced about the early 1960’s. He said that after Castro came to power in Cuba, “we found we were in a bad situation” in the face of Castro’s attacks. He and his brother decided to rebuild the PCT as a non-Communist opposition. They approached the “moneyed people” of the PCT with their idea. The PCT came back to them with a list of four possibilities for president of the party. In the ensueing conversation three of the four names were eliminated for one reason or another.⁴ After it was agreed that the fourth man—Fernando Aguero—would be it, Somoza asked why they had included Aguero in the list. The answer was “Because he’s married to a Chamorro, so we can control him.” Somoza related that Aguero worked for two years building his support, with Somoza help. The PCT refused to participate in the 1963 elections, but if they had, Somoza says now, Aguero would have led Schick a close race.

Somoza concluded that now Aguero and the PCT leaders were going to have to work to build up the party. I told Somoza that the PCT workers complained that they could not compete with the PLN in attracting supporters because the PLN could offer its adherents government jobs—especially to young people just becoming politically active. Somoza replied that the greater PCT participation in the government would be partly responsive to this. For example, each member of the Constituent Assembly would have the right to award two scholarships at various levels of schooling.

He also rebutted the Conservative assertion that only Liberals can have government jobs by pointing to “many” Conservative doctors working for the Social Security Institute and equally many engineers and technicians with the Public Works Ministry. He then acknowledged that there were ministries Conservatives could not be appointed to (“ministries” is the word I remember him saying; perhaps he was thinking of the Guardia and the Ministry of Defense, or the financial institutions). He offered in justification that any government has government jobs it gives only on the basis of party loyalty.

Little Danger of a Cotton Bust

Central Bank President Roberto Incer had remarked to me earlier that he was concerned that Somoza would not support a policy of restraining credit to the cotton sector. Turning the conversation to the economy, I told Somoza that I had heard the most optimistic reports about the cotton crop, both for 1972 and 1973. This brought to mind, I said, the cotton boom of the mid-1960’s, but at the same time raised the specter of a subsequent depression such as affected the first years of his present administration. Looking at the timing of the current boom, I asked him if he was concerned that the new government that would take office in December 1974 would once again be saddled by an economy depressed by cotton.

Somoza did not express the slightest concern for such an eventuality. Rather he said that the cotton situation offered the opportunity for earning a lot of money that could be used, for example, for diversification which would pick up the slack when cotton dropped.

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 15–1 NIC. Confidential. Drafted by Hines. Copies were sent to ARA/CEN, INR/RAR, CIA/OCI, CIA/BR, and the Embassy in Managua.
2. During an informal two-hour meeting with Ambassador Shelton, President Somoza discussed his plans for governing jointly with Conservative Party leader Fernando Agüero and the future of two-party politics in Nicaragua.
3. Somoza jokingly said that Frank Kelly—who is the manager of this as well as other Somoza enterprises—is rarely there.
4. Somoza told me this same part of the story last year and at that time gave more detail. One of the names was rejected because it was a Chamorro (Humberto, I believe) and it was felt that one family dynasty was enough. A second name belonged to a Conservative who had served in a high position in Somoza Garcia’s government; he was out because he could be accused of being a front man for the Somozas. I do not recall why the third name was eliminated.