72
PARTISAN REVIEW
modeled on the one in Havana." That elite, paz forthrightly told the
Mexican left , "is transforming itself day by day , before our very
eyes, into a Communist dictatorship." Thus Paz saw fit to condemn
as "simplistic nonsense" the very kind of logic accepted by Har–
rington.
Harrington prefers to explain the pro-Soviet positions of the
Sandinistas as based on an "understandable hostility toward Wash–
ington ," as if that hostility explains Sandinista policy. And nowhere
does he give us any examples that would show how he tried to give
support to those unnamed anti-Leninist pragmatists among the San–
dinista leadership. Indeed, Harrington himself stood on the sidelines
during negotiations that might have prevented war, in 1984 at the
Socialist Internat:onal Rio meeting between then opposition leader
Arturo Cruz and ;,andinista party chieftain Bayardo Arce. Meeting
under the auspices of Socialist International leader and former
Venezuelan President Carlos Andreas Perez , the negotiations led
nowhere as a tentative agreement collapsed .
Harrington writes that the failure to reach an agreement oc–
curred because the Reagan administration did not desire a "Cruz
'ticket' in the Nicaraguan elections," since the Sandinistas would win
and "their prestige and legitimacy would be greatly enhanced."
Hence , he writes, "the influential presence of the C.I.A. among
[Cruz's] colleagues meant he would not be allowed to agree to any
formula for fair elections , because Washington did not want fair
elections." Harrington then writes that in an interview years later,
Cruz "confirmed my guess and regretted his failure to make the deal
offered in Rio."
Harrington's observations are disingenuous and based on a
selective reading of the record . It is true that in retrospect Cruz
thinks he should have run in the scheduled elections , whatever the
limitations imposed by the Sandinistas . But Cruz does not accept
blame for the failure to reach an agreement at Rio , nor does the
evidence establish that case. The reason why a deal was not struck
was quite simple : the Sandinistas reneged precisely when they saw
that Cruz was willing to accept the terms laid out. Harrington
argues that the Reagan administration sought a military solution;
that is, arming of
contras
to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
But the agreement Cruz
had
accepted would have included an end to
the
contra
war, in exchange for a guarantee of meaningful elections in
which the opposition could freely campaign.
If
Harrington is so sure
