For South Eastern Latin Americanist (submitted 2 January 2000)

Michael D. Gambone. Eisenhower, Somoza, and the Cold War in Nicaragua, 1953-1961. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997. ISBN 0-275-95943-0. xiv+247 pp. $65.00

Michael Gambone , an assistant professor of history at Alvernia College, has extensively researched United States-Nicaraguan relations in the 1950s. His detailed examination of the Dwight Eisenhower administrations offers us a closer view of the Somoza years in Nicaragua and the special relationship between the governments of Nicaragua and the United States than do earlier works. In focusing on the Eisenhower years Gambone has to deal also with the transition from the regime of Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza García to that of his elder son, Luis Somoza Debayle and his younger son Anastasio ("Tachito") Somoza Debayle. The latter did not become President of Nicaragua until 1963, but, as Gambone makes clear, he played a major role from 1956 forward as commander of Nicaragua's powerful National Guard. Not only in the book's title, but also in the tone of the book itself, the author appears to regard the three individuals of the Somoza dynasty as a single entity. Indeed, he makes a greater distinction between the first and second Eisenhower administrations than he does between the administrations of the elder and younger Somozas.

Such a distinction is not surprising nor is it altogether unwarranted, for Gambone's principal argument in this work is that the Somoza governments succeeded in manipulating U.S. policy to serve Nicaraguan (or more precisely, Somozan) interests and that the United States, although its policy was often complex, tended to neglect Central America in favor of more pressing Cold War considerations. Within the context of the Cold War, then, the work pursues United States policy in Latin America in general and Nicaragua specifically, especially along the lines of economic and military assistance programs. Gambone concludes that such programs could result in "policy quite opposed to its original intent, one that contemplated greater costs with little or no corresponding increase in American influence" (p. 155).

Gambone's detailed and persuasive narrative of relations between the Eisenhower administrations and the Somozas expands significantly the available information on that period of Central American history. Much of what he has to say for the pre-1956 period reiterates material found in Knut Walter's excellent The Regime of Anastasio Somoza, 1936-1956 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). Gambone consulted Walter's Ph.D. dissertation, but appeared to be unaware of its subsequent publication. Particularly after 1956, the Nicaraguan government found itself confronted with declining sympathy in Washington, a fact which Gambone argues was responsible for Luis Somoza's efforts to appear more democratic and reformist than either his father or his brother. But he also argues that while Luis' reforms led to greater economic prosperity for Nicaragua, they also caused rising expectations that ultimately would contribute to serious opposition to the continued Somoza dictatorship.

Because the focus of this work is on United States Cold War policy, Gambone often strays away from Nicaragua into the inner workings of policy formulation in Washington. He has researched this thoroughly, and the book's greatest strength is found in its explanation of how decisions were made in Washington. But in addition to a close look at the Eisenhower administration, in examining the formulation of Nicaraguan policy toward the United States he tells us much about the Somoza dynasty. He particularly provides an interesting analysis of the Luis Somoza administration, explaining how as President of Nicaragua he balanced his policy between an effort to respond to United States demands for less dictatorial government on the one hand and the pressures of his brother and the National Guard for maintaining their domination of the country on the other.

Gambone's work contributes to filling the need for a better explanation of the client-state relationship between the United States and Nicaragua in the important years leading up to the Sandinista Revolution. The threat of Fidel Castro's Cuba became a major theme at the end of the Eisenhower administration, but the work contains surprisingly little attention to the Nicaraguan role in the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954 or the recurrent border clashes between Nicaraguan and Costa Rican forces during the period. What Gambone does do very well is to show how the Somozas manipulated U.S. policy toward their own ends, working effectively within the framework of North American institutions and practices. Nicaragua's geographical position close to the Panama Canal was a consideration of some importance to the Eisenhower administration, for example, which the Somozas made the most of. Throughout the decade they were remarkably successful thus in subverting United States power, prestige, and policy in Central America. In the process, Nicaragua gained a role in the policy-making process of the United States rather larger than its size or location would normally dictate.

Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr.

Texas Christian University