Luis Moreno, AKA Commander Mike Lima, was a highly respected Contra officer who fought a guerilla war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua for most of the 1980s, even after losing his right arm.
Just weeks after commissioning as a Lieutenant at age 20, he and his fellow soldiers in the Guardia Nacional fought in the last days of the 1979 revolution when the Sandinistas deposed the Somoza regime and took power in Nicaragua.
Moreno was shot in the back in heavy fighting but recovered and escaped to Costa Rica, then later to Honduras where he joined up with other Guardia Nacional soldiers to form the core of the Contra resistance. More than 80% of the original fighters would die in combat in the ensuing years.
In 1982 Moreno was interviewed by Duane Clarridge, one of the chief architects of the CIA’s Contra strategy. He soon became one of the most reliable and competent commanders and rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the Chief of Staff and head of counterintelligence. Moreno altered the entire strategy of the conflict on his very first long-range patrol back into Nicaragua, when he returned with three times as many fighters as he left with, proving his ability as a recruiter among the rural farmers who had already turned against the Sandinistas.
After a mortar explosion in 1983 cost him his right arm, Luis was back on the firing range just six weeks later, learning to operate a rifle with his non-dominant hand. He continued to fight for six more years and was wounded five times in total.
Moreno spent more than 2,800 days fighting the guerilla war, leading more than 50 long-range patrols from Honduras into Nicaragua where he and his men ambushed Sandinista garrisons and patrols, recruited locals to their cause, and lived off the land and the support of the locals as they stayed one step ahead of the overwhelming government forces pursuing them.
For episode 34 of the Spycraft 101 podcast, I talked to Luis about his experiences fighting in a brutal guerilla war which was one of the only successful campaigns ever supported by the Central Intelligence Agency.
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