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Tomas Castillo
Joseph F. Fernandez (born c. 1937) was a Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Costa Rica (operating under the pseudonym Tomás Castillo) and a figure in the Iran-Contra Affair. Joe Fernandez, a Cuban-American, was a protégé of Duane Clarridge in the early years of the Contra operation. When Clarridge was replaced by Alan Fiers as the CIA's Central American point man, Fernandez allied himself with the National Security Council's Oliver North rather than Fiers. North and Fernandez sought to revive the anti-Sandinista cause in the south, blaming Edén Pastora's erratic leadership for the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance's moribund state. In early 1986, Fernandez convinced Pastora's field commanders to join Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro, who had allied with the northern-based Nicaraguan Democratic Force. However, his efforts with North to build a strong Contra Southern Front, including aerial resupply of rebel forces in the south by Richard Secord's "Enterprise," enmeshed him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of Human intelligence (intelligence gathering), human intelligence (HUMINT) and performing covert actions. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President of the United States, President and Cabinet of the United States. President Harry S. Truman had created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, and this group was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency by implementation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democratic Revolutionary Alliance
The Democratic Revolutionary Alliance ( es, Alianza Revolucionaria Democrática, links=no or ''ARDE'') were the Southern Front guerrillas in Nicaragua that fought against the Marxist elements of the original Sandinista Revolution in 1979. Despite being one of the Contra forces, they maintained an ideological distance from the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Contras). Formation Formed by Edén Pastora Gómez in 1982, it united his Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) with such groups as the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN), MISURASATA and FARN. A.R.D.E. quickly gained momentum in the southeast of Nicaragua. The San Juan River was "liberated" by ARDE, and five strategic bases were formed, including Sarapiquí and La Penca. Pastora's leadership can charitably be described as mercurial. Planes, helicopters, weapons and food supplies meant for combatants risking their lives frequently were sold to third parties. Organizational chaos reigned, as Pastora feared that institu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran–Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration. Between 1981 and 1986, senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, a right-wing rebel group, in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress. The official justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an operation to free seven American hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist paramilitary group with Iranian ties connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The idea to exchange arms for hostages was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
People Of The Central Intelligence Agency
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form "people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard L
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong in rule'. Nicknames include " Richie", "Dick", " Dickon", " Dickie", " Rich", " Rick", " Rico", " Ricky", and more. Richard is a common English, German and French male name. It's also used in many more languages, particularly Germanic, such as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Dutch, as well as other languages including Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Finnish. Richard is cognate with variants of the name in other European languages, such as the Swedish "Rickard", the Catalan "Ricard" and the Italian "Riccardo", among others (see comprehensive variant list below). People named Richard Multiple people with the same name * Richard Andersen (other) * Richard Anderson (other) * Richard Cartwright (disambiguat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Secord
Major General Richard Vernon Secord, Retired (born July 6, 1932), is a United States Air Force officer with a notable career in covert operations. Early in his military service, he was a member of the first U.S. aviation detachment sent to the Vietnam War in August 1961, Operation Farm Gate. Secord left Vietnam in 1965 to attend Air Command and Staff College. Afterward, he returned to Southeast Asia, being detailed to the Central Intelligence Agency for duty in the Secret War in Laos. While in Laos, he was responsible for several notable military actions. One was the Battle of Lima Site 85. Another was the only successful prisoner of war rescue of the Vietnam War. Both of these came about because of his responsibilities for overseeing the operations of the Royal Lao Air Force, Air America, and Raven FACs. After his Southeast Asian service, Secord commanded the 603rd Special Operations Squadron and underwent further advanced military education at the Naval War College. He th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicaraguan Democratic Force
The Nicaraguan Democratic Force (', or FDN) was one of the earliest Contra groups, formed on August 11, 1981 in Guatemala City. It was formed to oppose Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinista government following the 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. It merged the 15th of September Legion, which comprised mostly former members of Somoza's National Guard, with the Nicaraguan Democratic Union, an organization of émigrés from the business and professional classes. The new FDN also began assimilating the MILPAS movement, bands led by disenchanted former MAP-ML guerrillas. The FDN military was under the command of former National Guard colonel Enrique Bermúdez. The FDN was heavily backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Reagan administration. Famous commanders These are some of the FDN's better-known ''comandantes'': *Suicida – ''Pedro Pablo Ortiz Centeno''. Former Guard sergeant, operated in the Jalapa area. Legendary for his eagerness for battle, but never f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro
Fernando Chamorro Rappaccioli (1933 – September 6, 1994), known as "El Negro" ("Blackie") for his dark complexion, was a longtime Nicaraguan rebel fighting both the Somoza and Sandinista regimes. Efforts to build a Contra Southern Front around him played a part in the Iran-Contra Affair. Somoza opponent Chamorro, a descendant of Nicaragua's pre-eminent Conservative Party family, inherited a tradition of opposition to Somoza's Liberal-based regime. Beginning in the 1950s, he and his brother Edmundo waged sporadic actions against Somoza. Fernando participated in the April Rebellion of 1954 and the Olama y Mollejones invasion of 1959. The highlight of these early battles came with the seizure of the Diriamba and Jinotepe barracks on November 11, 1960. In 1977, after his friend Edén Pastora rejoined the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), Chamorro met with Sandinista strategist Humberto Ortega and agreed to cooperate in the fight against Somoza. On July 20, 1978, Chamor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edén Pastora
Edén Atanacio Pastora Gómez (November 15, 1936 or January 22, 1937 – June 16, 2020) was a Nicaraguan politician and guerrilla who ran for president as the candidate of the Alternative for Change (AC) party in the 2006 general elections. In the years prior to the fall of the Somoza regime, Pastora was the leader of the Southern Front, the largest militia in southern Nicaragua, second only to the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) in the north. Pastora was nicknamed ''Comandante Cero'' ("Commander Zero"). His group was the first to call itself "Sandinistas", and was also the first to accept an alliance with the FSLN, the group that was to become more popularly identified by the name. At the end of 1982, a few years after the revolutionary victory, Pastora became disillusioned with the government of the FSLN, and formed the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) with the object of confronting the "pseudo-Sandinistas" politically and militarily. As of 2010, he w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of . An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, Costa Rica, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area. The sovereign state is a Unitary state, unitary Presidential system, presidential Constitution of Costa Rica, constitutional republic. It has a long-standing and stable democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. It involved the illegal sale of weapons to the Khomeini regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran to encourage the release of American hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, sales which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment. North was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before Congress about the scheme. He was initially convicted on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated and reversed and all charges against him dismissed in 1991. North u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States National Security Council
The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and composed of senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials. Since its inception in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, the function of the Council has been to advise and assist the President on national security and foreign policies. It also serves as the President's principal arm for coordinating these policies among various government agencies. The Council has subsequently played a key role in most major events in U.S. foreign policy, from the Korean War to the War on Terror. The NSC has counterparts in the national security councils of many other nations. History The immediate predecessor to the National Security Council was the National Intelligence Authority (NIA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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