Attack that Failed

The attack on Costa Rica was both an invasion and a rebellion: it came from northern neighbor Nicaragua, but the attackers were nearly all insurrectionary Costa Rican expatriates. It failed as an invasion because any invasion becomes international business, and other American nations cooperated to seal off the invaders and send arms--specifically four F51 Mustang fighter planes* to the victim. It failed as a rebellion because the rebels were inept and badly misjudged their own strength.

The attack was launched by vengeful followers of Costa Rica's onetime (1940-44) President Rafael Calderon Guardia, who was blocked from seizing power in 1048 by present President Jose ("Pepe") Figueres. The military commander was Captain Teodoro Picado Jr., a Costa Rican exile and 1951 West Point graduate.

Ditche'd & Disillusioned. Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio ("Tacho") Somoza nurtured the rebellion without taking a military part. His Guardia Nacional harbored Picado as a captain; Picado's father (another Costa Rican ex-President) has long been Tacho's secretary; Tacho and Calderon Guardia admire each other. For warplanes the rebels started out with two T-6 trainers, one F47 fighter and one DC-3 transport; Tacho's air force included identical planes. A captured rebel said that he was billeted for pre-invasion training at the Nicaraguan Guard's Fort Coyotepe (another insurgent reported he had been trained at Chiquimula, in Guatemala). But Tacho expertly concealed the hard evidence needed to prove Nicaragua's complicity to the satisfaction of the peace-keeping Organization of American States' field investigators, who announced only that the invaders' arms came over Costa Rica's "northern border." That finding, however, was enough to make Tacho hastily withdraw any further aid. Then another disillusionment dawned on Calderon Guardia. In seven years of thirst for revenge, he had convinced himself that a discontented Costa Rica would rise and hail him as its liberator. Instead, the people formed a citizen's army to defend the Figueres government.

War & Victory. The defending army was a pickup militia dressed unimpressively in blue jeans or old clothes, many of them toting their own hunting rifles.

They fought in high spirits, but it was the Loyalists' two-man air force that really turned the tide. When the Mustangs reached Costa Rica early last week, not a single available Costa Rican pilot had ever checked out in what was World War II's hottest U.S. fighter. But two commercial pilots with the appropriate names of Victory and Guerra (War) had run up thousands of hours in tamer planes. U.S. instructors hastily briefed them on the Mustang. Less than 24 hours later they buzzed San Jose, back from their first mission.

The Mustangs chased the rest of Picado's warplanes back to Nicaragua, and defeat for the rebels became inevitable. But Picado still had reason to think he had the better army. The 600 rebels were dedicated men, trained for eight months, tidily uniformed in khaki, well armed and equipped with everything from foot powder to field telephones, from halftracks to water-purifying halazone tablets. "Annihilation of the enemy," said Picado defiantly, "is the modern doctrine of war." But after eleven days of fighting, most of his troops, punished by the Mustangs and harassed by the Loyalists, stumbled into the borderline buffer zone created by the Organization of American States. Back in San Jose, President Figueres, referring to West Pointer Picado's tactics, chortled: "You can send them to school, but you can't give them brains."

Peace & Problems. O.A.S. leaders and notably the U.S.'s untiring Latin American Affairs chief, Henry Holland, could take satisfaction from an effective first military application of the 1947 Rio treaty, which provides that every American nation must aid any other American that might be attacked. But no permanent peace has been won. Figueres still despises Somoza and wishes that neighbor Nicaragua were an armyless democracy like Costa Rica. Somoza still hates Figueres and wishes that his good friend Calderon Guardia were running Costa Rica. The Calderonistas still think revolution a more promising route to power than taking their chances in elections. Perhaps by way of preparation for the next round of shooting, Tacho Somoza last week began uncrating 25 war-surplus Mustangs that had just arrived from Sweden.

* Sold by the U.S. not for the reported $1 a plane but for $5,500 apiece--still a bargain for planes that cost $75,000 each to build.

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