For more than a decade, from the late 1970s to the Nicaraguan election of 1990, Central American policy was the subject of endless debate in Washington. In this clearly written and balanced study, based on extensive interviews with policymakers as well as context analysis of their public statements, Moreno argues that the underlying division structuring the debate had little to do with Central America itself. Rather it was a more fundamental division, reflecting basic worldviews, between "liberal internationalists," who focused on poverty and equity, and "Cold Warriors," who concentrated on East-West concerns.