The physical damage wrought so far by the mines that contra guerrillas took responsibility for sowing inside the harbors of Marxist Nicaragua would hardly be noticed in a declared war. The highest reported tally: six Nicaraguan vessels and six ships of five other nations damaged but none confirmed sunk; ten sailors seriously injured but no one killed.
The political damage caused by the mining and by subsequent revelations that the American CIA had directed and supervised it from a mother ship off Nicaragua's Pacific coast is on another order of magnitude altogether. A troublesome rift has opened in the nation's...