Foreign Policy as Fantasy: Reagan never called Daniel Ortega
Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is criticizing president Biden and vicepresident Kamala Harris for acting "weak" in relation to Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and "sending the wrong signal to the world". As a remedy, the chairwoman of the Committee on hemispheric Affairs is suggesting a policy that was- according to her- very effective in the past: a magic phone call. Mr. Biden should call Maduro with the same message with which Ronald Reagan called Daniel Ortega in 1989. "You need to respect your commitments with the United States". According to Salazar, Ortega accepted Reagan's ultimatum and a very succesful policy happened. It is time for Biden and Harris to emulate Ronald Reagan. the only problem with this story is that the phone call never happened. Not only it is not in any archive, memoir or any participant's recolection. The phone call could not happened because the elections in Nicaragua, that were allegedly the subject of the call never happened until 1990.