Costa Rica, once an exemplary Latin American democracy, was a melancholy land last week. Martial law ruled in San Jose, where government riflemen, many of them Communists, tramped grimly in the half-empty streets. Trade had died. Jammed in jail were 500 political prisoners, caught in the political strife that had brought civil war to Costa Rica (TIME, March 15).
The war was also international. Despite U.S. diplomatic pressure, Nicaraguans, Dominicans and Hondurans fought for the leftist government. Guatemalan and Panamanian soldiers of fortune were backing Otilio Ulate, who had apparently won last month's presidential election which Costa Rica's Congress annulled...
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