Enrique Bermúdez Varela papers, 1977-1990

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Summary

Creators:
Bermúdez Varela, Enrique, 1932-1991
Abstract:
Reports, memoranda, clippings, and other printed matter relating to political conditions and civil war in Nicaragua.
Extent:
4 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box (2.0 Linear Feet)
Language:
Multiple languages
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Enrique Bermúdez Varela papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Background

Scope and content:

Reports, memoranda, clippings, and other printed matter relating to political conditions and civil war in Nicaragua.

Biographical / historical:

Enrique Bermúdez Varela was the founder, and for ten years the top official military commander, of the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense (FDN-Northern Front), also known as the contras. In that capacity, he and more overtly political leaders, (including Alfonso Robelo, Adolfo Calero, and Arturo Cruz,) met with United States president Ronald Reagan and other top officials. The contras' opposed the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), or Sandinista, government.

Bermúdez graduated from the US Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and from the Inter-American Defense College in Washington. He served as chief of the Nicaraguan Delegation at the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington, DC in 1976 and as military attaché of the Nicaraguan Armed Forces at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington during the Nicaragua civil war. The civil war formally ended in 1987 with the Esquipulas II Peace Agreement, brokered by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias. In 1991 Bermúdez was lured back to Managua, where he was shot in a hotel parking lot with a small-caliber East German assassination pistol, one of several that had been delivered to Sandinista defense minister Humberto Ortega some years earlier.

Acquisition information:
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library Archives in 2011.
Physical location:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.

Terms of access:

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Enrique Bermúdez Varela papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

Location of this collection:
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003, US
Contact:
(650) 723-3563
hooverarchives@stanford.edu
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