The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | april 2013 41 Looking back on an experience in San José, an FSO gains insight into the hubris of men in power and the “perverse, unpredictable logic” of war. By Stephen J . De l Rosso S an José, Costa Rica, in the mid-1980s resembled what Casablanca must have been like in the early 1940s. All sorts of characters of diverse political stripes and reputations mingled in cafés and nightspots as the Contra-Sandinista war raged on in neighboring Nicaragua and, occasionally, spilled over the border. As a young diplomat in the political section of the embassy, one of my tasks was to report on the Nicaraguan opposition. This required meetings with a colorful assortment of its representatives, many of whom had noms de guerre like “El Diablo” and “El Loco.” On Dec. 30, 1985, I was sum- moned to the ambassador’s office and, in the presence of the CIA station chief, instructed to go to the coastal Caribbean town of Limón to “find out what Russell Means is up to there.” I took that to mean I was supposed to casually check up on the activities of Means, an American Indian Movement activist who was once on the FBI’s most-wanted list. Del Rosso at Poas Volcano National Park, Costa Rica, in 1985. Inset: Russell Means. Photo courtesy of Stephen J. Del Rosso; Inset: Ernie Leyba/Denver Post/Getty Images My Breakfast with Russell Means