Activities During Nicaraguan Civil War
During the Sandinista Revolution, Chamorro sympathized with the rebels, at one point hiding Sergio Ramírez from the National Guard. But as the civil war's climax brought fierce fighting to the capital itself, fears for his family's safety led him to leave for Miami, Florida on June 17, 1979. Somoza fell a month later, but after visiting Nicaragua in September, Chamorro decided to remain in Miami.
By late 1979, Chamorro had become involved in the anti-Sandinista activities of the Miami exile community. He joined the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), formed the next year by José Francisco Cardenal, which merged into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) in August 1981. He served on the FDN's political executive committee, which decided to replace Cardenal with a new political directorate. Chamorro was tapped to be a member of the directorate, unveiled at a December 8, 1982 press conference. With his public relations experience, he took on a spokesman role for the FDN, and based himself in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to liaison with journalists covering the war.
Chamorro was miffed when the FDN directorate, at the CIA's prompting, appointed Adolfo Calero as its president in October 1983. His not-so-private grumblings that his Chamorro lineage was more illustrious than Calero's did not help their deteriorating relations. Chamorro was forced out in November 1984, in the fallout from the furor over the CIA's Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, labeled by the press a "murder manual." He turned against the rebel movement, even submitting an affidavit for the Sandinista government before the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua v. United States.
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