High-Altitude Handbooks

Ever since its existence became known last October, the CIA'S how-to book for Nicaraguan rebels, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War, has been high profile. When it was being distributed in Nicaragua, however, it seems the manual was also highflying. Congressional investigators revealed last week that packets of the controversial booklets were attached to about 100 specially designed balloons and floated from neighboring Honduras to Nicaragua last March to scare the leftist Sandinista government by creating the impression that the Washington-backed rebel effort was more widespread than it was. The airborne handbooks, coated in plastic to make them water-resistant, were among...

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