Death of Ben Linder (Book Review)

“The Death of Ben Linder - The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua”, #1888363967, c1999, by Joan Kruckewitt. [Info/Buy]

Truth be told, this book almost never made it across the desk - for review, or any other reason. Mention was made of it in countless places, often handled by one-liner assessments of the most extreme form, from both sides of the political spectrum. Paraphrasing comments heard/read in graduate school: “…one can learn more from this biography than any historical work on the country…”. Of course, there was the other side, too: “…400 pages of propaganda for a dead cause, in relentless support of a dead guy, who was in the wrong place, at the wrong time - by choice…”. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The question was whether or not the whole story would be found in this volume; though good, I am still unsure if it is. Partly, it was the use of “death” as the focus of the title which steered me away from the book years ago. Did I really need to read 400 pages to know why some guy from Oregon ended up dead in Nicaragua, courtesy of the Contras? Perhaps…

After reading the book I cannot help but think the book would have been better titled “The Life and Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American Sandinista in Nicaragua”, as opposed to “The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua”. Granted, it is a fairly fine distinction. It would not in any regard render Linder‘s life any less noteworthy, and I find it hard to believe any man who suffered through what he had, and was clad in fatigues, and was with an AK-47 in hand, would seriously have disputed the distinction or the difference. One can only assume that the book is partly a labor of love, for it is not an interest in history alone which prompts someone to write such a book; it is simply too long and too detailed to be of general interest, and the financial rewards so small as to probably be hard to measure accurately - and they might not cover basic travel expenses.

The book nicely covers Linder‘s earlier years and how he came to be in Nicaragua, and the man he was when he found himself working on the electrical project in Nicaragua - which now bears his name. There are no holes in the biographical account, nor mysteries as to his personality, intelligence, commitment, nor his political concerns. In fact, it is hard to believe the chronology is any less informal than would have been an autobiographical essay, had Linder lived to write it. If someone merely wanted to Canonize Linder, the first thing to do would have been to avoid his flirtatious fumblings, amorous failures, and his sometimes lack of genius in some fields of engineering for which he had limited education or training. Linder’s early political naiveté involving bureaucracy in developing countries, his shyness, and inexperience in relationships romantic and otherwise, are all highlighted, and doing this lends a certain credibility to the whole story Kruckewitt tells.

At times, the book is unnecessarily political, and for that it suffers slightly, though many readers would perhaps not even see such faults (for example, early on claims are made regarding claymore mines which, if true, make impossible some of the limited damage leveled in cases of roadside transit mentioned later in the book). However, points like this is are few and far between, and total only a few cases in the nearly 400 pages. A politically unsympathetic editor would have simply rephrased some such claims. It is debatable if the book would benefit from an editor, ruthless or otherwise ( a common claim by online bookstore “reviewers”). While the author would probably prefer otherwise, in the end such books are often written for the faithful (not exclusively; after all, I read it, as did numerous friends - none of whom share the exact politics of Linder or his biographer).

The ultimate goal would be justice - in some broad sense. U.S. policy critics would have liked to force a kind of investigation which was perhaps merited, namely having the FBI investigate his death (for example, as they did religious lay workers in El Salvador), knowing full well that, ultimately, they would be investigating the actions of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, and more specifically, the CIA. The problem is that Linder was, in many ways, a far less-than-perfect test-case for the grey areas highlighted by American citizens living and working abroad in areas of internal or international conflict. Once one dons fatigues, picks up a loaded AK-47, and travels in high-risk areas in a war-torn country, it is hard to seriously maintain one’s non-combatant status - regardless of the moral permissibility of the forces one is resisting, or who is funding them.

Ultimately, it is the select journalistic questions of who & why (what, where, when, and for the most part, how, were rarely up for debate), regarding the killing of Linder, which matter most. There are countless followers who maintain that Linder was singled out by the CIA and/or Contra leadership - for reasons they can never seem to single out with the same believability. While this makes for great (conspiratorial?) history, and often for fascinating reading, it has little, or at least not enough, to do with documented fact. In some ways, it is reminiscent of the murder of famed journalist Pedro Chamorro. While it is not true that the CIA needed Linder alive as much as Somoza needed Chamorro alive, doubtless the Contras had immeasurably more to lose than gain by killing him - or any U.S. citizen for that matter. While it is tempting to assume the opponents of the deceased obviously played a role in his death, the truth requires far more than this assumption, and if the book is going to live up to the claims made on the dust-jacket, a lot more evidence is needed than had previously been seen in print.

It is worth examining these claims in some detail. From the dust-jacket: “The Death of Ben Linder incorporates formerly classified CIA documents that reveal who killed Ben Linder and why. In 1993, Joan Kruckewitt traveled to the Nicaraguan mountains to investigate Ben Linder’s death. In July 1995, she finally located and interviewed one of the men who killed Ben Linder, a story that became the basis for a New Yorker [Magazine] feature on Linder’s death”. This summary is on the dust jacket, and as of yesterday was on the publisher’s website (www.sevenstories.com). It is a bold claim, under any interpretation. Answering why he was killed would require quite a bit of specific evidence, of a particular type, which is usually the hardest to come by. Even though she was not alone, and was in the company of another better-known reporter, the blurb indicates that “she” traveled the mountains, and “she” located and interviewed one of the killers. Noteworthy.

A computerized search on Linder and Kruckewitt via New Yorker magazine is revealing. According to EBSCO MegaFile database, she never wrote a Linder-related story for The New Yorker. There is one well-known account there though, by Paul Berman who is, along with countless others, credited in her “Acknowledgements” section; Berman is credited for accompanying her on two of the more harrowing trips into the Nicaraguan mountains. It is not a joint effort, and she is not credited in authorship for Berman‘s article. The truly peculiar thing is that Kruckewitt and Berman posit very different views of what happened to Linder and why, and under which orders, and under what circumstances. How can two people finally end up with the same illusive Contra, and come away with such drastically different accounts (see New Yorker magazine, “In Search of Ben Linder‘s Killer“, pp.58-80, Sept. 23 1996, by Paul Berman, with illustrations by Josh Gosfield; this lengthy and excellent article is reprinted in the anthology, “Travelers' Tales Central America : Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama - True Stories”, #1885211740, c2002)?

Not sure why the actual New Yorker article and Berman are absent from the blurb on the Linder book, nor why Berman is not mentioned in the text, nor listed in the index, nor how the article which apparently merits mention on the Kruckewitt dust-jacket is mysteriously absent from the incredibly detailed bibliography therein. It all seems suspect on some important level; in an historical work, this makes little if any sense. It is not clear how Kruckewitt could write this book, stating and implying what she does, and agree with the New Yorker piece by Paul Berman - which is apparently mentioned right on the dust-jacket (it is worth noting that the lawyers of Linder’s family fired off countless letters protesting Berman’s New Yorker article, which in the magazine, The Nation (11/11/96), they referred to as “an outrageous piece”, and that Aleman would later be indebted to the “…OllieNorth-Paul Berman coalition”. If they disagree, given the prominence of Berman’s piece, that should be covered in Kruckewitt’s book, or at the very least, in a lengthy explanatory footnote. It is not.

Perhaps there was further or outside debate between Berman and Kruckewitt, but if there is it has not received the same attention as their respective solo works on Linder’s death. Berman’s article, even if incorrect in some narrow specifics or his generalized conclusions, paints a detailed picture of rural Contra-Sandinista conflict that rarely sees print, especially in mainstream U.S. forums. It is worth reading the two accounts back-to-back. While Berman has taken much flack for his piece, and apparently lost or almost lost his left-wing credentials (he covered the Nicaraguan revolution for The Village Voice, and other outlets), he says nothing disparaging about Linder. Berman came under fire for what he said about the “who” and “why” of the killing of Linder, not for anything regarding the life and legacy of Linder, and it is worth emphasizing this. Sadly, there is no obvious, clear-cut answer to the “who” and “why” regarding the murder of Ben Linder. Kruckewitt is, allegedly, detailing why Linder was perceived to be such a threat to the Contras and/or the Reagan Administration, but she never really does this to any satisfactory degree, and the access to newly released CIA documents may or may not have played any great role in the story told (she never highlights their relevance within the text).

What she does offer is an incredibly sympathetic portrait of Linder’s life and work - and in some ways that is more important. There was an excellent an unexpected summary of Linder’s contribution, from newsman Dan Rather who, within a lengthy summary, claimed that “The bitter irony of Benjamin Linder's death is that he went to Nicaragua to build-up what his own country's dollars paid to destroy — and ended up a victim of the destruction.” Kruckewitt does a fine job explaining what led him to be there, and what he accomplished there, and who was responsible for the trying circumstances all around him; she simply cannot, or as of yet has not, satisfactorily answered the “who” and “why” questions regarding the ambush that day in El Cua’ - and unfortunately that is what is claimed in the promotional materials for the work. Well worth reading, even with said limitations.