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Title: Enrique Bermúdez Varela papers
Date (inclusive): 1977-1990
Collection Number: 2011C43
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Multiple languages
Physical Description:
4 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box
(2.0 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Reports, memoranda, clippings, and other printed matter relating to political conditions and civil war in Nicaragua.
Creator:
Bermúdez Varela, Enrique, 1932-1991
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
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.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2011.
[Identification of item], Enrique Bermúdez Varela papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
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.
Scope and Content of Collection
Reports, memoranda, clippings, and other printed matter relating to political conditions and civil war in Nicaragua.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Nicaragua -- History -- 1979-1990
Guerrillas -- Nicaragua
Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense