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Tomás Castillo (actor)
Joseph F. Fernandez (1937 – December 3, 2020) was an American intelligence official who was the Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Costa Rica (operating under the pseudonym Tomás Castillo) and a figure in the Iran-Contra Affair. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting covert operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, and is sometimes metonymously called "Langley". A major member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA has reported to the director of national intelligence since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the president and the Cabinet. The CIA is headed by a director and is divided into various directorates, including a Directorate of Analysis and Directorate of Operations. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the CIA has no law enforcement function and focuses on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. The CIA is responsibl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democratic Revolutionary Alliance
The Democratic Revolutionary Alliance ( or ''ARDE'') were the Southern Front guerrillas in Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ... that fought against the Marxist–Leninist elements of the original Sandinista that took part in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2020 Deaths
This is a list of lists of deaths of notable people, organized by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked below. 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 Earlier years ''Deaths in years earlier than this can usually be found in the main articles of the years.'' See also * Lists of deaths by day * Deaths by year (category) {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1937 Births
Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into February, leaving 1 million people homeless and 385 people dead. * January 15 – Spanish Civil War: The Second Battle of the Corunna Road ends inconclusively. * January 23 – Moscow Trials: Trial of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center – In the Soviet Union 17 leading Communists go on trial, accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime, and assassinate its leaders. * January 30 – The Moscow Trial initiated on January 23 is concluded. Thirteen of the defendants are Capital punishment, sentenced to death (including Georgy Pyatakov, Nikolay Muralov and Leonid Serebryakov), while the rest, including Karl Radek and Grigory Sokolnikov are sent to Gulag, labor camps and later murdered. They were i ... [...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 language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong in rule'. Nicknames include "Richie", "Dick (nickname), Dick", "Dickon", "Dickie (name), Dickie", "Rich (given name), Rich", "Rick (given name), Rick", "Rico (name), Rico", "Ricky (given name), Ricky", and more. Richard is a common English (the name was introduced into England by the Normans), 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 Portuguese and Spanish "Ricardo" and the Italian "Riccardo" (see comprehensive variant list belo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Secord
Major general (United States), Major General Richard Vernon Secord (July 6, 1932 – October 15, 2024) was a United States Air Force officer who worked 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, Farm Gate (military operation), 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 Laotian Civil War, 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 (airline), Air America, and Raven FACs. After his Southeast Asian service, Secord commanded the Air Operations Cen ... [...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. The FDN was also alleged to be engaged in drug trafficking in order to finance its war against the Sandinista government. Commanders Some of the FDN's most notable commanders include: *Suicida – ''Pedro Pablo Ortiz Centen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fernando "El Negro" Chamorro
Fernando Chamorro Rappaccioli (1933 – 6 September 1994), known as "El Negro" ("Blackie") for his dark complexion, was a 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 11 November 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 20 July 1978, Chamorro fired ... [...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, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime boundary, maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of nearly . An estimated 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 Presidential system, presidential republic. It has a long-standing and stable Constitution of Costa Rica, constitutional 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 diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceut ... [...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, official funding for 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 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States National Security Council
The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the national security council used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and Foreign relations of the United States, 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 United States Cabinet, 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 Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy, from the Korean War to the War on terror, war on terror. The NSC has counterparts in the national security councils of many other na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
