Larry Simmons

Somoza's Gold Larry Simmons

In 1979, Americans were stunned when the Sandinistas seized power in Nicaragua with assistance from paramilitary advisors from Cuba and covert military aid from the Soviet Union. Communism crept one step closer to our backdoor when Anastasio Somoza Debayle, a nemesis of Fidel Castro for providing support to the US during the Bay of Pigs invasion, fled to Miami along with the exhumed coffins of his parents. President Carter denied him sanctuary so he sought refuge in Paraguay where he was assassinated in 1980 by a Sandinista hit team in a mission they called "Operation Reptile." The most intriguing tale of the Sandinista revolution is what happened to the gold bullion in the Nicaraguan treasury. "So where is the gold?" Mike asked. "Your guess is as good as mine," Cole replied. He looked at Somoza's plane as it banked out over Lake Managua and shook his finger at it. "Looks like Somoza outsmarted Perez and all the other tin-pot wanna be Castros."