Just before he angrily resigned as Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze went out of his way to help his friend James Baker with a problem in Central America. The Secretary of State suspected that leftist guerrillas in El Salvador had acquired sophisticated Soviet SA-7 and SA-14 shoulder-held antiaircraft missiles to use against the U.S.-backed government. Baker gave his counterpart a photo of a seized launching tube, and Shevardnadze promised to investigate. In their last meeting in Houston, Shevardnadze informed Baker that the missiles were part of a shipment sent to Nicaragua in 1986. Armed with that information, Bush Administration officials demanded...
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