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Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Just a warning, this podcast includes adult language and situations,

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Speaker 1: references to drug use, violence, and some things that will

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Speaker 1: be very hard to listen to.

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Speaker 2: They bring us all together and they take us outside

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Speaker 2: into a courtyard and stand us up against the wall.

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Speaker 2: This is a firing squad.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Journalista Podcast. I'm Steve StEB your host.

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Speaker 1: This is a memoir about the dangerous and improbable life

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Speaker 1: of Cookie. Hood party girl, mus mother, journalist warrior. Cookie

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Speaker 1: is a classic broad right out of a Bogart movie.

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Speaker 1: She looks like she's been through some shit, with a deep,

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Speaker 1: coarse voice and a street tough demeanor. She's not famous,

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Speaker 1: but she did break the biggest story of the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 1: You've probably heard of, the Iran Contra scandal. It was

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Speaker 1: like Watergate nine to eleven, Trump Russia January sixth, all

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Speaker 1: rolled into one big clusterfuck now. To be clear, and

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Speaker 1: Cookie will tell you this. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: journalists who claim a piece of the Iran Contra story.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of threads to unwind. Let me

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Speaker 1: give you a quick overview of that story. Wait on

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Speaker 1: second thought, I think I'll let Fox's American dad do it.

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Speaker 3: In the eighties there was Cold War trauma. We bought

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Speaker 3: the commis inside picker our friends with a contrus. Freedom

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Speaker 3: was then Prussolas sent them lots of money for guns

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Speaker 3: and land muns. Congress to the Contra money floor just

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Speaker 3: because they moved a teeny bit of floor. But then

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Speaker 3: a hero claims fort His name was Oliver North.

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Speaker 1: Ian Reagan went.

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Speaker 4: Around the sissy Congress.

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Speaker 3: North North, you see, Nor secretly sold mistress to a

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Speaker 3: harmless country called Iran that would always be a grateful ally.

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Speaker 3: Then he gave the prophets to the conference genius.

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Speaker 1: It all blew up in their faces. You've probably seen

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Speaker 1: the iconic image of Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North in his

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Speaker 1: snappy uniform with his hand in the air, standing before

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Speaker 1: a joint session of Congress investigating the Iran Contra scandal.

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Speaker 5: Do you solemn this way that in the testimony you're

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Speaker 5: about to give will be the tooth, the whole tooth,

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Speaker 5: and nothing but the truth.

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Speaker 1: So help you God, I do, please me shill. Some

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Speaker 1: of you might know him from his short tenure as

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Speaker 1: the head of the NRA or frequent appearances on Fox News.

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Speaker 1: You might remember President Reagan saying this on your television

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Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 6: First, let me say I take full responsibility from my

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Speaker 6: own actions and for those of my administration. As angry

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Speaker 6: as I may be about that activities undertaken without my knowledge,

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Speaker 6: I am still accountable for those activities.

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Speaker 3: But the sales were uncovered by the press. Step Reagan,

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Speaker 3: the North whale began to stress because what they did

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Speaker 3: was technically high thereason.

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Speaker 1: In the end, several dozen Reagan administration officials were indicted

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Speaker 1: with eleven convictions, including the Secretary of Defense, two national

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Speaker 1: security advisors, the Assistant Secretary of State, chief of the

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Speaker 1: CIA's Central American Task Force, chief of Covert Ops CIA,

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Speaker 1: former Air Force Major General Richard Seacourt, and of course

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Speaker 1: Oliver North. Sounds like justice will not exactly the next

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Speaker 1: president and former CIA director under Nixon, George H. W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: pardon all of them. The president's cronies walked sound familiar.

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Speaker 4: Oh North, he's a soldier and a hero and the lost,

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Speaker 4: and now he's on Fox news News.

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Speaker 1: I fucking love that. We already know the end of

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Speaker 1: the story. But that's not the good part. It's the journey.

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Speaker 1: Cookie's journey always at the crossroads of history, one way

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Speaker 1: or another. So how does a half American, half Nicaraguin

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Speaker 1: party girl from New Orleans with absolutely no journalism experience

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Speaker 1: break the biggest story of the eighties. That's what journalista

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Speaker 1: is all about. I'm here right now to introduce my

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Speaker 1: very very good friend. She's like my family member, Cookie Hood.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning's stay, Good morning Cookie. I want to talk

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Speaker 1: for a minute about how this started between us. I

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Speaker 1: got a call from a friend who said that they

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Speaker 1: had a friend who had a crazy story that would

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Speaker 1: be a great movie. I looked you up. I put

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Speaker 1: Cookie Hood in Google and it went nowhere.

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Speaker 2: For me, which led you to believe Eve, I thought

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Speaker 2: you were.

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Speaker 1: Full of shit. I get a box in the mail.

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Speaker 1: It's from Cookie Hood, and I'm like, hmm, what could

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Speaker 1: this be. I opened this.

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Speaker 2: Box and it was a treasure troth it was. It

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Speaker 2: was filled with photographs, press passes, newspaper clipping.

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Speaker 1: Letters from famous people, singing your prayers words.

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Speaker 2: I sent you the receipts.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and you had a picture of like laying on

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Speaker 1: a couch next to Ed Bradley, and you know, all

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Speaker 1: kinds of Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter Carter. Yeah, it's a

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Speaker 1: fun story to tell, and I'm just really glad we're

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Speaker 1: doing this together. Are you excited.

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Speaker 2: I'm stoked, stoked, I'm stoked. Mike Wallace once said to me, Cookie,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you the best piece of advice. Always

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Speaker 2: cover the story, never be the story, and as you'll

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Speaker 2: be able to tell in this podcast, I was the

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Speaker 2: story a lot of times, so I was breaking Mike's

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Speaker 2: number one rule. But he said to me a few times,

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Speaker 2: you know what, it's you. It's okay that you're the story.

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Speaker 1: You should be the story. All right, Well, let's get

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Speaker 1: into this before Cookie changes the world. She has to

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Speaker 1: go through some serious bullshit. Let me take you back

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Speaker 1: to December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy four. Cookie is just

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Speaker 1: sixteen years old.

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Speaker 2: One of my friends. We went to his mountain retreat

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Speaker 2: where his family lived. He decided to bring back a

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Speaker 2: pound of weed to take back to Monagua for New Years.

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Speaker 2: And I'm going to be getting dropped off in my neighborhood,

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Speaker 2: which is a very wealthy, cloistered neighborhood. We're driving in.

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Speaker 2: It's after dark as we're passing in front of the house.

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Speaker 2: Coming in the other direction are two taxis, poor people taxis.

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Speaker 2: They stop in front of the house and we're side

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Speaker 2: to side with them. All the doors fly open. Masked

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Speaker 2: gunman jump out, They shoot the chauffeur's bodyguard. We're all

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Speaker 2: looking at each other like, what the fuck is going up?

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Speaker 1: This is how the New York Times described it.

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Speaker 2: The next day, leptist gorillas invaded a Christmas party for

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Speaker 2: the United States ambassador and seized about twenty prominent Nicaraguans

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Speaker 2: as hostages to be exchange for political prisoners.

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Speaker 1: For a little context, I turned to Justin Woolf, PhD,

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Speaker 1: professor of Latin American history at Tulane University right here

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans. His first book was The Everyday Nation, State,

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Speaker 1: Community and Ethnicity in nineteenth century Nicaragua. That's a mouthful.

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Speaker 1: He knows his shit, but he looks a lot like

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Speaker 1: the bass player from zz Top.

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Speaker 7: It was a Christmas party in honor of the US

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Speaker 7: Ambassador to Nicaragua, Shelton Turner, and so the lot of

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Speaker 7: diplomatic big wigs, a lot of members of the Somosa

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Speaker 7: family and government were all there. It was a big

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Speaker 7: celebration in the midst of kind of tragedy and misery

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Speaker 7: all around. I've got the earthquake in nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 7: and so the party is a let them eat cake

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Speaker 7: kind of moment. Here's an event that will highlight for

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Speaker 7: the Santinistas kind of terribleness of the regime. It allows

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Speaker 7: them to make a splash. It allows them to convince

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Speaker 7: the regime that they can strike a blow. Now, as

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Speaker 7: it turned out, the US ambassador who had been there

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Speaker 7: had left the party early.

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Speaker 1: And for Cookie, it wasn't just a bunch of big

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Speaker 1: wigs and politicians. It was personal.

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Speaker 2: I had family, aunts, uncles, neighbors in that party. So

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Speaker 2: Moses starts sending all the guardia, all the soldiers there

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Speaker 2: to surround that house. And there was some shooting going

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Speaker 2: back and forth, and we're like, man, this is some

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Speaker 2: serious shit.

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Speaker 1: The soldiers gun's drawn, pull them out of their car

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Speaker 1: at gunpoint, throw them to the ground, and begin searching

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Speaker 1: it for weapons. The friend who brought the weed, he's

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Speaker 1: shitting his pants about Now.

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Speaker 2: My cousin says, don't say anything. I'm going to do

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Speaker 2: the talking. Don't speak Spanish. We want them to think

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Speaker 2: that you're just an American. And we see this guy

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Speaker 2: pull out, I mean, the biggest bag of weed.

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Speaker 1: The Samosa garsmen think these kids were sent there to

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Speaker 1: be a distraction from the Sandinista commandos attacking the party.

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Speaker 2: My other friend and my other cousin, who were underground Sandinistas,

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Speaker 2: they knew they were fucked. They took the four of us,

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Speaker 2: pushed us into a military vehicle, took the weed, and

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Speaker 2: just whisked us away.

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Speaker 1: The soldiers take them to the same prison where the

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Speaker 1: guy who brought the weeds brother was murdered by the

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Speaker 1: Guardia a few years earlier.

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Speaker 2: And he starts crying in the vehicle, saying, we're never

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Speaker 2: going to get out of this alive.

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Speaker 1: Samosa declares martial law and no one can give any

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Speaker 1: orders except the dictator himself.

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Speaker 2: Being arrested was a shock in and of itself, because

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Speaker 2: I was always in a family and in a bubble

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Speaker 2: that nothing could ever.

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Speaker 6: Happen to me.

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Speaker 2: All you have to do is make a call, you're

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Speaker 2: out of trouble. But here I am being thrown into

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Speaker 2: a prison. I had only heard at that time that

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Speaker 2: you know, women were raped, and you know whatever.

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Speaker 1: This prison is a very dangerous place. Cookie and her

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Speaker 1: friends are interrogated through the night. The Guardia trying to

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Speaker 1: get these teenagers to spill the beans on the Sandinista attackers.

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Speaker 1: Then some fucking crazy shit happens.

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Speaker 8: There's been a big kidnapping on the West Coast. The

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Speaker 8: victim is Patricia Hurst, the daughter of newspaper executive Randolph

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Speaker 8: Hurst and a granddaughter of the legendary William Randolph Hearst.

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Speaker 9: Patricia Hurst is nineteen at a sophomore at Berkeley. She

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Speaker 9: and her fiancee were in her apartment near the campus

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Speaker 9: last night when a woman and two armed men burst in,

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Speaker 9: beat and bound her fiancee and a neighbor dragged Patricia

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Speaker 9: down the stairs, threw her into the trunk of a car,

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Speaker 9: and drove off.

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Speaker 10: The Hurst newspaper heiress has been missing for nineteen months.

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Speaker 10: First she was kidnapped, then she announced that she had

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Speaker 10: joined ranks with her kidnapper, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

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Speaker 10: She was later indicted in connection with the San Francisco

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Speaker 10: bank hold up and labeled a fugitive.

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Speaker 2: The Samosa guardsmen were not the brightest people, and this

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Speaker 2: commandante just got in his head that I was Patricia

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Speaker 2: Hurst because she was a wall at the time. I'm

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Speaker 2: a white American. He just thinks he's hit the lottery.

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Speaker 1: It was a story that dominated the news for a

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Speaker 1: couple of years. Pretty girl, daughter of a famous newspaper tycoon,

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Speaker 1: kidnapped and turned into a domestic terrorist. And to be honest,

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Speaker 1: she did look a lot like Cookie.

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Speaker 2: Once that commandante started saying, it's Spanish. Yes, she's Patricia Hurst.

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Speaker 2: The Spanish just came out of me. I'm like, no,

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Speaker 2: you idiot, I'm not Patricia Hurst. And then he says,

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Speaker 2: this bitch speaks better Spanish than you and I she

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Speaker 2: speaks like a local. After being interrogated all night, then

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Speaker 2: we're thrown into cells. We are now realizing that our

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Speaker 2: name and our status means shit. No name throwing I

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Speaker 2: know him, you know, we're friends of Samosa, We're related

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Speaker 2: to some didn't mean shit, so we knew we were

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Speaker 2: in trouble. They bring us all together and they take

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Speaker 2: us outside into a courtyard and stand us up against

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Speaker 2: the wall. And I'm just looking at this and I'm like,

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Speaker 2: this doesn't look good. This is a firing squad. And

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Speaker 2: then that one guy, the one that brought the weed,

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Speaker 2: just still crying. We're never going to get out of

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Speaker 2: this is the lie. My brother was killed here and

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Speaker 2: I was like, can you just shut the fuck up, dude.

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Speaker 1: The soldiers raise their weapons ready to fire. Commandante gives

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Speaker 1: the teenagers the one more chance to confess what they

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Speaker 1: know about the Sandinistas. And remember, these kids don't know anything.

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Speaker 2: My friends and family they know I'm wild and crazy,

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Speaker 2: but no one, absolutely no one is going to believe

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Speaker 2: that I was killed by a firing squad.

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Speaker 1: Wow, We'll be right back. Welcome back, terrorist attacks, hostages, murder,

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Speaker 1: firing squads. Before we find out what happened to cookie,

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Speaker 1: a little background. The United States had occupied Nicaragua for

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Speaker 1: years and left in nineteen twenty five after putting the

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Speaker 1: first Samosa dictator in power, Augusto Sandino, the opposition leader,

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Speaker 1: says no way, and all hell breaks loose. The US

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Speaker 1: Marines come back. Sandino wages a gorilla war and is

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Speaker 1: successful and pushes the Marines out of Nicaragua. I have

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Speaker 1: a question for Justin Wolf, what the hell happened after.

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Speaker 7: The US Marines leave and there's this kind of effort

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Speaker 7: to negotiate a peace and for the Sandinistas. Under Sandino

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Speaker 7: to put down their arms and kind of come into

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Speaker 7: the government. There's this key meeting with the new government

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Speaker 7: to kind of negotiate and to the Saninistas in a sense.

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Speaker 7: But at the end of that event, as Sandino and

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Speaker 7: his key lieutenants are leaving this kind of negotiation party, is.

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Speaker 1: There an agreement made?

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Speaker 7: There there's an agreement, but Somosa doesn't believe that the

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Speaker 7: agreement will hold. Somosa orders his men to detain Sandino,

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Speaker 7: his brother, as well as a couple of his other

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Speaker 7: key lieutenants. They take them out to today where the

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Speaker 7: international airport in Monagua is and they execute them.

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Speaker 1: Sandino's murder creates the Sandinista movement as we know it today,

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Speaker 1: but it's his defiance and courage standing up against the

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Speaker 1: US occupiers and wealthy elites that makes him a hero

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Speaker 1: to the poor in the working class.

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Speaker 7: The Santainistas of the sixties and seventies. They are going

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Speaker 7: to kind of recuperate the legend of Sandino and the

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Speaker 7: vision of the Somosas as the kind of implacable enemy

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Speaker 7: the people.

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Speaker 1: Back to the firing squad. No Cookie and her friends

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Speaker 1: didn't die. The story doesn't end in front of a

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Speaker 1: firing squad. They shoot over their heads, scaring the crap

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Speaker 1: out of them.

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Speaker 2: My family in Generals were trying to get through to

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Speaker 2: Samosa to tell them let the kids out. We want

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Speaker 2: to go pick them up and bring them home. We

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Speaker 2: don't know that that's happening. That comen Dante, who at

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Speaker 2: that point knew that we were going to be released,

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Speaker 2: that we really were who we were friends of. Samosa

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Speaker 2: just said, I'm gonna fuck with these kids, you know,

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Speaker 2: scare the fuck out of them so that they don't

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Speaker 2: fuck with us anymore.

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Speaker 1: How did it feel when they were pointing guns at

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Speaker 1: you like they were going to shoot you?

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Speaker 2: I just kept saying, this can't be happening. It's like

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Speaker 2: those movies where somebody who's innocent is being accused of

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Speaker 2: being guilty, but he's not, and he spends the whole

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Speaker 2: movie trying to convince the people that he's not guilty.

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Speaker 2: That went on for a few hours. Of course, I'm

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Speaker 2: thinking I'm talking the soldiers out of shooting us.

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Speaker 1: Was that the first time you ever had a gun

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Speaker 1: pointed at you?

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Speaker 2: Hmmm? Maybe, maybe not, who knows. It was definitely a shocker.

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Speaker 1: The next day The New York Times reported on the

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Speaker 1: results of the negotiations.

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Speaker 11: The Nicaraguan government agreed today to release twenty six political

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Speaker 11: prisoners and fly them to Cuba in exchange for the

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Speaker 11: lives of a group of prominent politicians and business leaders

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Speaker 11: seized by leftist gorillas at a Christmas party here Friday night.

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Speaker 11: A government spokesman said that the eight gorillas and the

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Speaker 11: freed political prisoners are all believed to be members of

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Speaker 11: the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The gorillas had also demanded

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Speaker 11: a five million dollar ransom.

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Speaker 2: Somosa, as ruthless as he was, he had one weakness,

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Speaker 2: and his weakness were his friends and his family. So

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Speaker 2: he was not gonna lie wow his friends or family

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Speaker 2: that were in that house to be harmed. A smart

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Speaker 2: dictator would have killed everyone in that house, Sandinista's, the

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Speaker 2: hostages would have been killed. Everybody would have been killed.

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Speaker 2: So he created the future of his own demise.

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Speaker 1: Something tells me Cookie would have been a good dictator.

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Speaker 1: So her family finally gets through to Samosa, and Cookie

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Speaker 1: and her friends are released. She's driven home, back to

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood where the whole thing started. She gets there

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Speaker 1: just as the bus arrives to pick up the commandos.

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Speaker 1: It's filled with the recently released Sandinista political prisoners and

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Speaker 1: the million dollars they got from Somosa.

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Speaker 2: So again my vehicle crosses with this vehicle and I

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Speaker 2: could see these political prisoners, and a couple of them,

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Speaker 2: actually quite a few of them later became very famous

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Speaker 2: and very important to our story.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to name one of them?

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Speaker 2: Danielle Ortego.

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Speaker 1: Ortego goes on to become the leader of the Sandinistas

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Speaker 1: and head of the new government after the revolution, and

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Speaker 1: of course public enemy number one to the Reagan administration.

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Speaker 1: Professor Wolf tells us why this is so important.

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Speaker 7: The last major Saninista offensive is in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 7: and it's a disaster. Almost every Saninista member who's engaged

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Speaker 7: in that event dies. It's like really bad. So you

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Speaker 7: have this very successfully planned action. You have the success

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Speaker 7: of getting leaders from within the Saninistas who'd been captured out.

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Speaker 7: You get money, which is key if you're buying arms

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Speaker 7: and all of that kind of stuff. Plus they've gotten

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Speaker 7: their message out in public. Censorship is one of the

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Speaker 7: key tools right of the dictatorship. There might be things

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Speaker 7: going on there may be opposition groups, there may be

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Speaker 7: plans to change the country, but if nobody knows about

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Speaker 7: it because of censorship, you're kind of stuck.

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Speaker 2: Now that underground revolution that was going on has now

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Speaker 2: come to light. And funny story, one of the hooded

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Speaker 2: guys that was in that house, My aunt, who I

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Speaker 2: was staying with at the time, was one of the hostages.

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Speaker 2: She asked this hooded terrorist, can I go to the bathroom?

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Speaker 2: And he answers her, of course, Donia Telma, of course,

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Speaker 2: missus Thelma. He knew her, he knew who she was,

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Speaker 2: and she recognized the voice. Didn't know who the voice was,

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Speaker 2: but knew that voice. That's when it started to become

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Speaker 2: obvious that there were some rich kids involved in this revolution,

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Speaker 2: all of them friends of mine. A lot were killed,

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Speaker 2: and so it's becoming obvious not just to me, but

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Speaker 2: to everyone that there's something brewing here. It isn't just poor,

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Speaker 2: humble people that are in the mountains fighting the revolutions

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Speaker 2: now in the city.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the crazy childhood you had.

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Speaker 2: Well, my father was an American, my mother was from Nicaragua.

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Speaker 2: My dad was an executive with the airlines.

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Speaker 1: Tucker airlines.

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Speaker 2: It was an El Salvador airlines that flew throughout Central America.

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Speaker 2: The journalists used to call it take a chance airlines

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Speaker 2: because you never knew. And my mother stay at home,

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Speaker 2: but she came from a very, very wealthy family in Nicaragua.

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Speaker 2: So I was raised in both countries, and the summer

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Speaker 2: vacation times were different in each country. Here in Nicaragua,

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Speaker 2: so I was literally in school all year long here

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Speaker 2: and there. I guess the biggest difference was when I

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Speaker 2: would be living here. Even though we lived well, you know,

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Speaker 2: do your chores.

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Speaker 5: You have to do this.

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Speaker 2: You have to be able to know how to work.

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Speaker 2: Whereas on my mother's side of the family and living

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Speaker 2: in Central America, it was all maids and chauffeurs and

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Speaker 2: nannies and cooks. But I managed somehow to always find

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Speaker 2: the party.

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Speaker 1: And your family was close to the dictator Simosa.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely I played with his kids. I played with the

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Speaker 2: children of generals. And obviously my family and friends were

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Speaker 2: all from that one percent that owned and had everything.

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Speaker 2: Ninety nine percent had nothing, but I didn't see it.

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Speaker 2: We lived in a bubble, and the bubble was parties

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Speaker 2: on the weekends. If you were dating someone. You couldn't

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Speaker 2: go out unless you had a chaperone, sort of antebellum

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Speaker 2: thing before the Civil War. It was wonderful because I

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Speaker 2: was living and catching the tail end of that era,

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Speaker 2: because things were going to change.

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Speaker 8: When the earthquake hit, Nicaraguan officials in Miami today issued

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Speaker 8: an urgent appeal for blood donors. They said there's an

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Speaker 8: immediate need for twenty to twenty five thousand pints of

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Speaker 8: whole blood for the victims of Saturday's earthquake in Monogua.

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Speaker 8: The United States sending three million dollars in food, medicine, tents,

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Speaker 8: purification equipment another aid. Looting continue today and what's left

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Speaker 8: for the Nicaraguan capital with troops doing little or nothing

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Speaker 8: to stop it.

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Speaker 12: Ninety percent of the city has been utterly destroyed. Even

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Speaker 12: the few tall buildings which do remain will soon be

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Speaker 12: brought down by dynamiting. There is not a single building

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Speaker 12: in the downtown section safe for occupancy. The city will

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Speaker 12: be leveled, as explained by Nicaragua's former president and now

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Speaker 12: Commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Anastasio Somosa.

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Speaker 7: So the capital as you now know it will cease

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Speaker 7: to exist.

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Speaker 4: That is right.

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Speaker 5: We are going to live in tents until we make

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Speaker 5: an appreciation of the situation and decide.

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Speaker 8: The government will have to decide.

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Speaker 1: What they're going to do.

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Speaker 7: Even though it's a disaster, it's really important for the Sanonistas. Now,

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Speaker 7: what we have is the Sananistas who have really shown themselves,

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Speaker 7: I think and beyond anyone else, is actually caring about

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Speaker 7: the kind of post earthquake disaster, helping people setting up

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Speaker 7: soup kitchens, but also organizing people right, trying to say like, look,

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Speaker 7: we are never going to get to a better place

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Speaker 7: until Somosa is gone.

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Speaker 2: The US started sending supplies, you know, for instance, peanut butter.

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Speaker 2: I mean, nobody knew what peanut butter was. The poor people.

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Speaker 2: They started sending morphine. A lot of people in the

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Speaker 2: wealthy families got hooked on morphine. Drugs just blew up

400
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Speaker 2: with the rich kids. But I was already doing drugs

401
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Speaker 2: here in New Orleans. But when I'd go to Nicaragua

402
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Speaker 2: before the earthquake, I was still being the good girl.

403
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Speaker 1: Everything was broken, including the bubble that protected Cookies family

404
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Speaker 1: and the oligarchs that had flourished under the Samosa regime,

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Speaker 1: but they were still holding on trying to pretend like

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Speaker 1: everything was the same, like the earthquake never really happened,

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Speaker 1: business as usual.

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Speaker 2: The second change came about every August. First was a

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Speaker 2: holidayy in Nicaragua. It was a religious holiday where rich

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Speaker 2: and poor didn't work, rich and poor drank.

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Speaker 1: To excess grades and that's the.

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Speaker 2: Grades horseback riding. But of course only the rich people

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Speaker 2: were allowed to be on the horses and on the floats,

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Speaker 2: and the poor people, who were allowed to drink would

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Speaker 2: be on the periphery watching. They were partying, but they

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Speaker 2: were watching us partying to an excess and to a

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Speaker 2: degree that they would never have been able to.

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Speaker 1: These prades like their own, like little marti gras type

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Speaker 1: of things, like.

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Speaker 2: A morna guard thing. But you're on these carts, you know,

421
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Speaker 2: that were decorated, and you're just going through the city

422
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Speaker 2: and it's surrounded by poor people.

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Speaker 1: The Associated Press describes it like this.

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Speaker 13: The ten days of festivities have their roots in the

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Speaker 13: eighteen eight vy five discovery of the three inch tall

426
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Speaker 13: statue of Santo Domingo de Guzman, also known as Saint

427
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Speaker 13: dominicue Guzman, the founder of the Dominican Religious Order. A

428
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Speaker 13: peasant was cutting down a tree in what was then

429
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Speaker 13: the outskirts of Manawa when he found the tiny rendering

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Speaker 13: of the saint with a tonsure and beard, clad in

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Speaker 13: white ropes and a black cape. The statue of faith Will,

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Speaker 13: referred to as Papito, is protected by a glass bell

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Speaker 13: and carried through throngs of people on the street during

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Speaker 13: the celebration all of us Canador Papito, says Carlos Membreno,

435
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 13: a robust, gray haired transportation worker who sports tattoos on

436
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 13: both arms. It doesn't matter what do you do for

437
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 13: a living. He doesn't care about your money, education, or work.

438
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 13: He only cares about your promise.

439
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 2: And I think it was that day that I started

440
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: to see the faces of poor people, actually see them

441
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:48,919
Speaker 2: so literally.

442
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: You're on a float in a parade that was all

443
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: rich people.

444
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 2: Partying and several floats, like you said, like a parade, and.

445
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: The audience for that are the poor people.

446
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 2: It's always been that way, but that particular year, because

447
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 2: there had been some shootings and some revolutionary movement in

448
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 2: the mountains, Samosa was starting to do a crackdown and decided,

449
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 2: of course, our rich people and friends and family can't

450
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 2: be involved. It has to be the poor people who

451
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 2: really had more to gain by a revolution. So that

452
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 2: particular year, Samosa prohibited the sale of liquor to poor people. So, yes,

453
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 2: they were all from work, and yes they were lining

454
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 2: the streets, but they couldn't drink. And here we are,

455
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 2: the rich kids, privileged kids, drinking. We're on these carts,

456
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 2: we're driving through the city and all of a sudden,

457
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 2: something looks very out of place for me. And I

458
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:54,239
Speaker 2: asked someone, Christiana Chamorro, who you'll find out later who

459
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: she is. I said, what's wrong. Why aren't people on

460
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 2: the street drinking? She goes, oh, you did, And here

461
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 2: alcohol sales were prohibited for the poor. I had already

462
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 2: been seeing their faces and the anger or the unfairness

463
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 2: that they were feeling. I said, stop this cart. I'm

464
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 2: getting off, and they were like, what are you talking about? Here,

465
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 2: I have another drink. It's going to let me off

466
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 2: this cart.

467
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: Now, change is coming. A respected journalist is murdered, and

468
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: Nicaragua will never be the same. We'll be right back.

469
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: Welcome back. We've talked about Cookie's younger life and the

470
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: origins of the dark divisions that created the Nicaragua we

471
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 1: know today. But this segment is about a crime, a

472
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 1: heinous act that changed the course of history and cleared

473
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 1: the path that Cookie never saw coming.

474
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 8: Romero Romes King Las noticiace in lacion Al La s

475
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 8: Sinato and doctor Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardinali.

476
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 1: That was Monagua evening news. Pedro Chimorro had been murdered.

477
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 1: This is what The New York Times said when it happened.

478
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 11: Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, an editor known for his outspoken opposition

479
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 11: to the dictatorship of General Anastasio Simosa de Baile, was

480
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 11: shot to death today in downtown Monagua. The fifty three

481
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 11: year old editor and publisher of La Prinsa of Monagua,

482
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 11: the country's only opposition paper, was shot eighteen times by

483
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 11: three men in a car who forced his auto to

484
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 11: the curb. Mister Chimorro died on the way to a hospital.

485
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: It's a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Who

486
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: killed Pedro Joaquin Chamorro. Before we get into that, who

487
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: was he and why does he matter?

488
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 2: Somosa had a mortal enemy. He was a newspaper man.

489
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 2: His name was Pedro Juaking Chamorro. He was married also

490
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 2: to a well known society lady Violetta Barrios.

491
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: The Chamorrow's were close family friends, and Violetta became Cookie's

492
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: aunt by marriage just a few years later. Justin Wolf

493
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: gives us a little background.

494
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 7: The head of the oldest kind of most traditional elite

495
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 7: family in Nicaragua and really a revered business, intellectual and

496
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 7: social figure in Nicaragua. The Chamoto family had really been

497
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 7: important since the eighteenth century in Nicaragua. Chamorro's are presidents

498
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 7: twice in the nineteenth century again in the twentieth century.

499
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 7: It's one of those long kind of political dynas families,

500
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 7: right if we think about the U assets like the

501
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 7: Kennedys or the Bush family.

502
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 14: Members of the Congress. It is my great privilege, and

503
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 14: I deem it a high honor and personal pleasure to

504
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 14: present to you her Excellency, Yoletta Chamorrow, President of the

505
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 14: Republic of Nicaragua.

506
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen ninety one, Violetta Chamorrow, the first

507
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: woman president of Nicaragua, speaking to a joint session of

508
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: the US Congress. If you recall, we met Chamorro's daughter

509
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: Christiana on the parade float with Cookie a few minutes ago.

510
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: They were childhood friends. She was running for president last

511
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: year in Nicaragua and in a fair election the likely

512
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: winner then Daniel Ortega, went full dictator.

513
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 15: High profile opposition leaders arrested one by one in just

514
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 15: the last few days, months before a crucial election in

515
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 15: which strongman President Daniel Ortega is trying to cling to

516
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 15: his fourteen years of power. As fears grow, this is

517
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 15: only going to get worse.

518
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 16: Earlier this week, the pro government prosecutor had charged tomorrow,

519
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 16: Nicaragua's most competitive presidential candidate with alleged money laundering and

520
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 16: what it termed as ideological deviations.

521
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: Her crime running for president against Danielle Ortega. She was

522
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: under house arrest until a few weeks ago. That's some

523
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: serious fascist bullshit.

524
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 7: By the mid to late seventies, Chamorro is not only

525
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 7: an opponent of Somosa, but he is looking around and

526
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 7: he is looking, for example, at the Sandinistas, who some

527
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 7: of his children are members of, and seeing them. Eventually,

528
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 7: by nineteen seventy seven is probably the only viable path

529
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 7: forward out of a Somosa run Nicaragua. That's a huge

530
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 7: shift right the patriarch ar of traditional conservative politics in

531
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 7: Nicaragua sees the Santinistas not only as viable as a

532
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 7: meaningful and real opposition, but as actually the only one

533
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 7: that is organized enough and has a clear enough plan

534
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 7: to actually defeat Samosa.

535
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: Okay, so who killed Pedro Chimorro. There were a lot

536
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: of suspects, in fact, just about everybody. Let's start with

537
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: the obvious choice, the brutal dictator, anastasi of Simosa. He

538
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: clearly had no problem killing his own people, and like

539
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: any good strong man, he made a lot of people disappear.

540
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: But why would he murder a high profile journalist from

541
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent and beloved families of Nicaragua.

542
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: Chimorrow decided to go after Simosa in his newspaper Loprenza,

543
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: on television and his speeches. And remember, this is a

544
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: clash of two dynasties, one that dates back to the

545
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds with enormous historical and political clout, and one

546
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: with a history of oppression, violence, torture and murder. Something

547
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: had to give.

548
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,719
Speaker 2: So what happened to this person who wanted freedom?

549
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 5: Well, they murdered him. Who murdered him?

550
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:18,959
Speaker 2: Forces?

551
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: That was the voice of Pedro Chimorro's wife, violetta future

552
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: president of Nicaragua. Was she right? Somosa clearly had motive.

553
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: Chamorrow had the power and the voice. He was a

554
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: threat to the regime. But Cookie, who grew up knowing

555
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: them both, who as a child actually played with their children,

556
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: has a different perspective.

557
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 2: I don't think better working ever thought that Samosa would

558
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: kill him. They spoke to each other, they saw each

559
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 2: other at social affairs. They needed each other. Tomorrow needed

560
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 2: Simosa to be the bad guy. Simosa needed Chamur to

561
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 2: be the opposition. As long as it looked like a

562
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 2: dictator allowed opposition voices to be heard through newspaper and

563
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 2: some radio stations, it made him look less iron fisted dictator.

564
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 2: So neither one of them feared their lives from the other.

565
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: Not exactly sculpatory evidence, but if it wasn't Samosa, who

566
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: else had a motive to murder Tomorrow?

567
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 7: He is being vocal in the press and in his

568
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 7: own speeches about Samosa, but also families that are in

569
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:38,439
Speaker 7: the larger circle of the samosas his word, critiquing those

570
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 7: families and pointing out the crimes or the errors, or

571
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 7: the violence or the corruption of those families is viewed

572
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 7: as a personal attack for Tomoto. It was like identifying

573
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 7: the cancer that needed to be removed. And so of

574
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 7: course the Samosa's overall, the whole family, the in laws,

575
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 7: and then the key kind of acted families that were

576
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 7: part of the larger Samosa circle. They all despised Tomoto.

577
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 7: They despise being pointed out and lifted up as the

578
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 7: bane of Nicaragua.

579
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 2: We owned everything car dealerships, banks, restaurants, shops. Poor people

580
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 2: didn't own anything.

581
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 5: You know.

582
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 2: There's a funny story of Tomosa driving in the countryside

583
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,320
Speaker 2: and he says to his driver, Oh, that's really a

584
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 2: pretty ranch. Who owns that? And the driver turns around

585
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 2: he says, your excellency, you own it.

586
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 14: Dan.

587
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: Rather doing a piece for sixty minutes, ask Someamosa about

588
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: as many holdings general.

589
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 5: I've been told that your wealth is in the neighborhood

590
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 5: of five hundred million dollars and the list is very

591
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 5: long of Sosa interested you and your family owned You

592
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 5: own the National Airline? No, we're a shareholders of it.

593
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 5: You're a major shareholder in the airline. Yes, you own

594
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 5: the National shipping line. Yes, I founded that, including your

595
00:35:56,200 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 5: own port Port Tomoso. Also, we founded that the leading

596
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 5: television station, Yes, radio station. You own a newspaper. Yes,

597
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 5: you own the biggest hotel in Managua. No, we're shareholders

598
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 5: of it. You're a major shareholder, no minority. You own

599
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 5: hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Yes, you owned cattle. Yes,

600
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 5: you own huge financial interests in banks and insurance companies.

601
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 8: And you still we could go on and on.

602
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 2: He owned everything, and he made sure that all his

603
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:28,399
Speaker 2: friends were taken care of too.

604
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: The wealthy elite had a lot to lose if Samosa

605
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 1: lost power, and Cookie's family was a part of that.

606
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,399
Speaker 1: Could the motive just be money? I guess it's always money,

607
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 1: But what about big business? Nicaragua exported sugar, beef, bananas,

608
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,760
Speaker 1: but most of that was owned by Someimosa and his friends.

609
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: The Nicaraguaan government did arrest for suspects, saying they were

610
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,439
Speaker 1: hired by an American whose plasma exporting business was under

611
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: fire by Chamorro's newspaper Loprenza. Of course Simosa had a

612
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,479
Speaker 1: piece of that plasma business as well. It always leads

613
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: back to Somemosa. But what about the United States. We've

614
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:09,719
Speaker 1: had a stake in Nicaragua since we helped get the

615
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: first Smosa in power back in the nineteen twenties, and

616
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: of course we've assassinated people in the past.

617
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: There's a famous line from Franklin Roosevelt about the first Tomosa,

618
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 2: the President Samosa's father, FDR referring to Samosa, he's the

619
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:28,439
Speaker 2: son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.

620
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: All the Somosas were bound to the US. President Simosa

621
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,760
Speaker 2: went to West Point, all of them US educated. Obviously

622
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 2: investments in this country. At this point, the US is

623
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 2: still backing the Nicaragua dictatorship.

624
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 1: Like we backed to O Salvador and Honduras.

625
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 2: And well, correct fighting communism.

626
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: In the presence of Cuba, right there.

627
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 2: Maybe were communists.

628
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, who makes that Domino theory viable? Viable?

629
00:37:59,040 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 7: Yes?

630
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 2: And I think you got the Allende and Chile and

631
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 2: you know, all these different movements that were put down

632
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 2: ruthlessly and viciously.

633
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: At this point, we haven't discounted any of our suspects.

634
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,919
Speaker 1: They all have motive, they all have opportunity. They all

635
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: wanted him dead. Is this like Julius Caesar where they

636
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,239
Speaker 1: all put a knife in his back? Are they all

637
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: fucking guilty? Wait a second, I forgot about someone.

638
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 2: The second generation. Simosa had a son, and he was

639
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 2: next in line to become president one day. He was

640
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: this flashy military kid. He might have gone to West

641
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 2: Point as well. He was hanging around with mercenaries. There

642
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,919
Speaker 2: were famous American mercenaries that were coming to Nicaragua. Mike

643
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 2: the Mercenary, Bob the Mercenary. These were bad people. They

644
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 2: would wear the bullets across here like Pancho Villa. And

645
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:01,360
Speaker 2: by this time the mercenaries are drying in tanks in

646
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,320
Speaker 2: the streets. Of course I was friends with them too.

647
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: That's right, Cookie parties with mercenaries. Where were they from?

648
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 2: US? Just anywhere mercenary needed a job, he could come.

649
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:16,720
Speaker 1: The US mercenaries killed Pedro.

650
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Speaker 2: We don't know who exactly did. We suspect that it

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00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 2: was Mike the Mercenary, but it was on the orders

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00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: of Samosa the third He had Pedro Woking Chamorrow assassinated.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if Cookie's right about this, but it

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00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: sure makes a better story.

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00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 2: Of course, we later found out his father was furious

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00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 2: with him. Why did you do this because that kind

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00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,919
Speaker 2: of stuff just didn't happen to rich people in Nicaragua.

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00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: Sure it happened behind the scenes to poor people and

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00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 2: revolutionaries and criminals, but that kind of stuff didn't.

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00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 7: Happen in the end. I actually don't think who or

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00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 7: it ends up being the important question. The result of

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00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 7: it is what's really important, which is there's this massive

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00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 7: reporting in the US about this beloved hero of press,

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Speaker 7: freedom and democracy, ped jaquin Chimoto being assassinated in this

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00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 7: country led by a violent military dictator. So that's the

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00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:26,839
Speaker 7: way the coverage is being presented. And then four every

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00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 7: day Nicaraguans, even those who were not really political. It

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00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 7: is both the murder of this very popular figure, but

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00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 7: also this idea that if he can be murdered, what

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00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 7: won't they do.

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Speaker 11: This is how the Washington Post summed it up. At

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Speaker 11: a crucial moment. The Chamorro murder has dramatized for foreigners

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00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 11: the lawlessness and political tension long known to Nicaraguan's The

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00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 11: Samosa family has tried to run the politics and economy

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00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 11: of the country as its personal preserve, cleverly co opting

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00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 11: support and brutally destroying opponents. Whether the transition to the

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00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 11: post Simosa arrow will be violent or peaceful cannot be told.

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00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 11: What can be said is that, regardless of who killed him,

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Speaker 11: Pedro Chimorro died of Patriot's death.

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Speaker 1: The assassination of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro changed everything. It lit

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00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 1: a flame under the long simmering revolution. The Santa de

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00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: Nisas were back in business in a big way. That

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00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: people who came out in the streets united in opposition

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00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,320
Speaker 1: to Simosa. It was the beginning of the end of

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Speaker 1: a dictator. It made headlines around the world. Cookie didn't

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00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 1: know it yet, but her life was about to change.

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Speaker 2: Next time on Journalista, Pablo gave me half a pound

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00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 2: of cocaine for the wedding, so I brought my girlfriend

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00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 2: from New Orleans, flew her in and we spent the

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00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: whole day before and the whole day of grinding it up.

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00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 2: We started off with one graand bottles and realized quickly

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00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 2: that's likely to be enough, So we went and got

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00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 2: two gram bottles, filled up one hundred of them. When

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00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 2: the people arrived at the door, that's what they were

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00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 2: given with a bow on it. You know, this is

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00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 2: your party.

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Speaker 1: Favor The Journalist of podcast features the stories and voice

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Speaker 1: of Cookie Hood narrated by Steven Step. Produced by Sean J. Donnelly.

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Speaker 1: Executive producers Jason Waggensback, Roy Laughlin, and Ellen k. iHeart

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00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:41,439
Speaker 1: Executive producer Tyler Klang. Written and edited by Steven Step.

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00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: Music by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Steven Tanti.

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00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 1: Sound mixing by Jesse soln Snyder. Featuring the voices of

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Speaker 1: radio personality Ellen K. Lloyd, Shirt, Loyola University Professor Pablo Sabalis,

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00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: special guest Tulaine History Professor Justin Wolf Special Thanks to

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00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 1: Esplanade Studios, The Ranch Studios, Jason Gerwitz, Kyle Frederick, Zach Slack.

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Speaker 1: This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio