At a meeting in the White House Oval Office, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz sealed a surprising accord with House Speaker Jim Wright and other congressional leaders. Three days later, in a grand reception room at the National Palace in Guatemala City, five Central American Presidents, including Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega Saavedra, proclaimed they had reached their own "historic compromise." And so, after six years of undeclared war between the U.S.-backed contras and the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the battle last week suddenly became one between two rival peace plans for the region.
The only group left out of the flurry was...