After Marxist-inspired Sandinista revolutionaries overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979, the American political left fell in love with the movement's guerrilla leader, Daniel Ortega. Even as the U.S. government funded the Contras to overturn the new regime as part of Cold War machinations, progressives flocked to the Central American nation to see the wonders of the fledgling socialist paradise.
"By now American liberals have created a virtual industry of delegations to Nicaragua," the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1984. "Last year, more than 2,500 Americans took part in such missions." Some pilgrims spent weeks working on plantations. Whatever one's thoughts of the U.S. proxy war, the spectacle was revolting. Ortega modeled his revolution on Cuba, which by then had clearly become a totalitarian basket case.
