11.28.06 6:00 AM CST
• Here at Playboy
• Jamie Malanowski
A couple of weeks ago, a familiar name reappeared in the news when Daniel Ortega, the one-time leftist president of Nicaragua, was reelected to that post. Playboy was privileged to have interviewed Ortega in its November 1987, and our crack intern Cherise Watts mined these nuggets from our conversation:Playboy: Isn’t it probable, Mr. President that you are one of the few chiefs of state who actually know how to use a machine gun?
Ortega: Yes. I know how to use it.
Playboy: What kind is it?
Ortega: AK-47. Russian.
Playboy: We seem to remember President Reagan’s saying that he thought Nicaraguans had picked up their interest in baseball from the Cubans and that this was yet another example of Castro’s influence on you.
Ortega: No, no! We got it from you! I grew up a New York Yankees fan. After three U.S. interventions by the Marines in Nicaragua, it was a legacy we got from the Americans — the only good one.
Playboy: That reminds us of what President Reagan said of you, that you were a “dictator in designer glasses.” What did you think when you heard that?
Ortega: I laughed I didn’t think I was so important to President Reagan that he would worry so much about me. It seems such a waste of time for a President of such a powerful country to be so obsessed with this small country.
Playboy: Comandante Borge mentioned Reagan’s visceral feelings toward you. Why do you think they’re so personal?
Ortega: There has been talk ever since this Iran/Contra scandal broke about Reagan’s not being in charge. But I know for certain that there’s one thing he’s really on top of, the only thing he’s really interested in Nicaragua. He’s taken us as his thing, like a little kid with his toys making a little war.
Playboy: You know, of course, that many American politicians say that you use the invasion threat as a way of consolidating domestic support and drawing attention away from your own government’s deficiencies.
Ortega: People say that we’re like the boy who cried wolf. The problem is that Nicaragua is a country that already has been invaded on several occasions by the United States. Unlike the boy in the fable, Nicaragua has already had the wolf come.
Playboy: Do you like being president?
Ortega: I don’t think so.
Playboy: Why not?
Ortega: It’s a quite complicated task. One is subjected to many pressures. The state of our economy is something that puts enormous pressure on me: inflation, the war, the standard of living. I feel a tremendous weight on my shoulders, when we discuss economic problems. We’ve struggled to improve the standard of living for people, and the people have sacrificed themselves for this. So it is a moral obligation on our part.
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