As liberation fighters of the victorious Sandinista National Liberation Front marched into Managua July 19, they released hundreds of political prisoners, while disarming and arresting units of Somoza’s hated National Guard.

The first actions of the new government were to authorize legal action seeking Somoza’s extradition, to wipe his name from public buildings, and to expropriate all property of Somoza and those who fled the country with him.

Top U.S. officials are openly fearful of the possibility that Nicaragua will continue along the path charted by Fidel Castro and his July 26 Movement. Washington, which was responsible for the Somoza dictatorship in the first place, has made it clear that it will tie any economic aid to the politics followed by the government.  
 
August 4, 1953
The ending of the fighting in Korea has been greeted with little jubilation by the folks at home and the troops at the front. Some newspaper commentators have attributed the lack of popular celebrations to “indifference.” That is false and a slander.

If there is no great mass display of joy and elation it is because there is little confidence in the truce. The people and the GI’s themselves know that there can be no possibility for a lasting peace in the Far East until the U.S. troops are withdrawn from Korea and brought home.

Everyone knows that so long as a giant U.S. armed force remains in Korea poised as an ever-ready threat to the Chinese border, the American troops can be plunged into war on a moment’s notice. So long as U.S. forces are kept in Korea…there can be no peace.

When the shooting was stopped on July 27, the Associated Press reported:

“There was no celebration on the eastern front. Soldiers accepted the armistice calmly and asked: ‘Do I go home now?’ ”  
 
 
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