Leslie Cockburn. Out of Control. London, Bloomsbury, 1988.

In the fall and winter of 1986 the American people learned that their government had secretly financed and directed a war in Central America at a time when it was barred from doing so. The official investigations have concentrated on the authority for and the ity of this activity. But equally important are questions of who was actually fighting this war and what they were actually doing. Out of Control supplies the answer. Leslie burn has been following the trail of Lieut. Col. Oliver North and his secret army since 1984 as a producer for CBS News. In the course of innumerable trips to Central America and elsewhere, she found the foot soldiers of this secret army and the men who controlled them. They told of an arms pipeline running directly from the United States to the front lines of the contra war. They told of a contra leader more interested in their own personal welfare than in fighting the war. They told of plots to provoke direct United States military intervention in Nicaragua. They told of secret meetings to plan inations.