This powerful narrative describing the fall of Nicaragua's dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle is told from the unique perspective of the top U.S. official on the front lines of diplomatic activity during the final weeks of the Somoza regime.

Lawrence Pezzullo was dispatched to Nicaragua in June 1979, at the climax of a brutal war that finally ended a forty-year dynasty. To negotiate Somoza's abdication from power, Ambassador Pezzullo had to battle both a stubborn despot and the jitters in Washington. Working in tandem with a colleague who was meeting with the Sandinista junta in exile in Panama and Costa Rica, Pezzullo helped to negotiate their installation as Nicaragua's legitimate government.

At the Fall of Somoza draws on many Spanish-language sources otherwise not known in this country. It is also an eyewitness account of events, evoking the vivid colors, sounds, and smells of a volatile Managua, torn by violence and fear. Added to the ambassador's story are narratives by many other participants: Sandinistas, National Guardsmen, the archbishop of Managua, city people and peasants, even those who chronicled their experience in poetry.

Ambassador Pezzullo concludes by asking: Why was a great superpower so deeply involved in a poor, tiny country of two and a half million people? Why - given that involvement - was the United States so ineffectual in gaining a peaceful settlement to Nicaragua's brutal civil war? Lawrence and Ralph Pezzullo provide a rare glimpse into the push-and-pull of U.S. foreign policy making in a cold war atmosphere.

Their perspective on Nicaragua in 1979 will be essential reading for students, scholars, and foreign policy experts alike.