Out of Control by Leslie Cockburn

Therefore, the decision was made primordial in the first Reagan administration (1980-1984) that "a very large-scale war machine mental process three hours flying time from Miami would confine to be covert, with official U.S. inter-group communication muffled by layers of 'deniability'" (10).

faint attempts by the administration in 1984 to deny the Statesn involvement in the mining of western Nicaraguan harbors and disclosure of the infamous training manual prepared by the Central intelligence activity Agency (CIA) for the Contra leadership, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), which openly called for the " counteraction", i.e assassination of the Sandinistas, embarrassed officialdom in Washington and drove chisel its activities further downstairsground. In October, 1984, Congress enacted the Boland Amendment which prohibited the involvement of all American regimeal entities or personnel in "supporting, right away or directly, military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua" (11).

Consistent with this decision, the sources of funding for the operation had to be portrayed as cloistered and the flow of funds and arms to Central America had to appear to take the form of humanitarian assistance, small amounts of which were grudgingly authorized by Congress. One of the author's main arguments is that, as the operation grew in size and scope, American command and control of the Contras was intimately diluted through the use of elaborate fronts, cut-outs, intermediaries and local supporters, r

As more and more U.S. government agencies were drawn into the operation and attempts to cover it up, the operation became unmanageable, leading in 1984-1985 to a decision, concurred in by the director of the CIA, William Casey, and other older officials in the administration, to assign to the National Security staff, the most combat-ready member of which was Col. Oliver North, the task of coordinating the overall effort.

Another branching was clashes among miscellaneous agencies, such as the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement judicature and the Customs Service, some of whose members at lower levels were not mysterious to the overall plan, investigated pieces of the puzzle and arrested some participants, thus necessitating cover up actions by more senior personnel in the various agencies involved, including North, CIA station chiefs, the American ambassador to Costa Rica, Attorney frequent Edwin Meese and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams.

The policy of deniability was ultimately undermined by the blatant and extensive involvement of various U.S. government agencies in the coverup, mishaps like confessions made by gun-running pilot Eugene Hasenfus downed in Nicaragua in October, 1986, and disclosures made by disenchanted or jailed mercenaries, private quarrels among different factions involved and the efforts of the media to determine the truth. The administration originally relied more often than not on the CIA to manage the program with backup support from the Pentagon and under the supervision of an interagency group involving the military, CIA, the State Department and the White domicil National Security staff. Eventually, "laws on everything from the export of arms to the consequence of narcotics to the recruitment of mercenaries, were consistently and methodically broken" (12).

esulting in shared councils, particularly among the Nicaraguan exiles involved, widespread corruption, atrocities and other human rights abuses and military ineffectiveness.

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