---
title: Nicaraguan National Guard
aliases:
  - Nicaraguan National Guard
  - National Guard
  - Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
category: "Paramilitary"
tags:
  - Organization
  - Military
  - Nicaragua
  - 1930s
  - 1970s
  - ContraWar
  - DarkAllianceInvestigation
summary: "Somoza's military force that served as army, police, and intelligence service, trained at U.S. military schools, whose dispersed officers formed the founding cadre of the Contras."
start: 1925-01-01
end: 1979-07-17
location: "Managua, Nicaragua"
---
Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua (National Guard) was the military, police, and intelligence service of [[Nicaragua]] under the [[Anastasio Somoza|Somoza]] dynasty.[^2] Created by the [[United States|U.S.]] in the 1930s, the Guard served as the power base of the Somoza family's forty-six-year rule. Its officers formed the leadership core of the [[Contras]] after the [[Sandinistas|Sandinista]] revolution.[^1]

### Creation and U.S. Training

The U.S. created the National Guard in the 1930s and spent millions of dollars a year supplying weapons and training its officers in anticommunist counterinsurgency.[^1] Training took place at [[Fort Gulick]], [[Fort Benning]], and [[Fort Leavenworth|Leavenworth]]. Anastasio Somoza told U.S. ambassador [[Lawrence Pezzullo]] in 1979 that of approximately nine hundred Guard officers, "eight hundred or so belong to your schools."

The Guard also encompassed the [[OSN|Oficina Seguridad Nacional (OSN)]], Somoza's secret police unit that monitored political dissidents. It managed the national police, state security and intelligence services, the postal service, and customs agency.

### Collapse

When Somoza fled Nicaragua on July 17, 1979, the vaunted National Guard collapsed within hours.[^1] Officers who could escape poured across the borders into [[El Salvador]], [[Honduras]], and [[Costa Rica]], or sought refuge in the Colombian embassy in [[Managua]]. Those who could not escape were imprisoned or faced firing squads.

### Reconstitution as the Contras

The [[Central Intelligence Agency]] began reassembling the scattered National Guard brigades in 1980 under [[Enrique Bermudez|Enrique Bermúdez]], a former military attaché in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] who had been hired by the agency specifically for this purpose.[^1] The Legion of September 15, an early Contra group made up primarily of ex-National Guardsmen, was based in [[Guatemala]] and commanded by [[Ricardo Lau]] and Bermúdez. This group later became the core of the [[FDN]], the largest and most powerful Contra faction.[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 1: "A Pretty secret kind of thing"
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Glossary of Organizations and Locations