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mental atmosphere of the Great War. The very people who for 20 years sniggered over their own superiority to war hysteria were the ones who rushed straight back into the mental slum of I9I5.” 13
    By supporting “revolutionary” movements in El Salvador or Nicaragua these social critics found a balm for their alienation. They were able to revel in the intoxication of force and still express an antagonism towards American policy. These groups, like fellow travelers before them in the Soviet Union or Cuba, swallowed whole the utopian vision of opposition or revolutionary movements, ignoring the messier realities of internal repression and war crimes. It was not unusual to find political pilgrims who had toured Nicaragua or Gaza overwhelmed with emotion. They poured superlatives on the oppressed people they championed, although once the conflicts ended the lionized peoples of Bosnia, Nicaragua, or El Salvador were usually forgotten.
    During the height of the war in Nicaragua these groupsdescended frequently on the country. They were nicknamed “the sandalistas” by critics because of their penchant for dressing in ratty attire and sandals. I spent a day with one group that, the first day they arrived, headed straight to the U.S. Embassy for a protest rally.
    â€œFor me,” said one of the participants, “a demonstration at the embassy will be my liturgy for the morning.”
    â€œAmen,” said one of her fifteen companions.
    The group was part of a religious organization from Dayton, Ohio, known as Pledge of Resistance. They would return to Ohio to speak in church basements and at small gatherings about their experiences in Nicaragua. The trip, organized by a group known as Witness for Peace, took the members to a model prison farm, arranged interviews with Sandinista supporters, and threw in several moderate critics.
    Alvaro José Baldizón, the former chief investigator of the Special Investigations Commission of the Ministry of Interior, told me after he had fled to the United States that before one of the solidarity groups arrived in a town, critics were warned by police to stay away from the foreigners. He said that government employees often posed as local residents or relatives of local residents and spoke about atrocities carried out by the Contras as well as the benefits of the Sandinista revolution. The two-week visits saw most groups live for a few days in a village. They held prayer vigils, did work projects, and collected testimony from alleged victims of the war.
    I went with the group to a model prison farm. It had pleasant gardens and spotless sleeping quarters. The farm housed forty-two inmates. The group was told that there were only two unarmed guards on the farm, prisoners were given a one-week vacation, and no one had ever tried to escape.
    A prisoner, Hernán Lozano, who said he was once a bodyguard for the former dictator Anastasio Somoza, spoke to the delegation. I would hear a version of this talk from dozens of other prisoners. The stocky Lozano grinned lavishly and heaped praise on the Sandinistas.
    â€œYou appear happy to be here,” said one of the Americans. “Are you truly happy or is this an appearance?”
    Lozano assured the delegation he was happy on the prison farm. He told them he was telling the truth because “the revolution has brought the loss of fear, especially the fear of telling the truth.”
    The Potemkin quality of the farm seemed hard to miss even for the delegates.
    â€œEven if this is a showpiece, the cream of the crop, it is here,” another participant told me. “It does seem to be more than good intentions. In reality it is a lot better than in our own country.”
    The group, often praised by Sandinista officials for their courage and dedication, became openly moved at the end of the day. There was an electric current of self-satisfaction and moral outrage that ran concurrently through the