with the bylines of Contra leaders; arranged an extensive media tour for a Contra leader "through a cut-out" (to hide the S/LPD's role); and prepared to leak a State Department cable that would embarrass the Sandinistas: "Do not be surprised if this cable somehow hits the evening news." The memo said that the Wall Street Journal column, "Nicaragua is Armed for Trouble", was written by an S/LPD "consultant", but cautioned that "officially, this office had no role in its preparation." Weeks later, after the Journal published a news report on Nicaragua that Reich disliked, the S/LPD chief wrote an angry letter-to-the editor touting the "Armed for Trouble" column and complaining that the news report was "an echo of Sandinista propaganda." It was an audacious charge since Reich himself was "echoing" propaganda his office had covertly boasted to have assisted in. Besides media manipulation through planted stories and leaks, the S/LPD was also accused of cajoling and bullying. Reich visited CBS in April 1984 to complain at length about its Central America coverage. In a memo to President Reagan, Secretary of State George P. Shultz described the meeting as an example of "what the Office of Public Diplomacy has been doing to help improve the quality of information the American people are receiving. It has been repeated dozens of times over the past few months." Six months later, Reich met with a dozen National Public Radio reporters and editors about their allegedly biased Nicaragua coverage. According to NPR Foreign Affairs correspondent Bill Buzenberg, "Reich bragged that he had made similar visits to other unnamed newspapers and major television networks... Reich said he had gotten others to change some of their reporters in the field." Buzenberg told me in a 1987 interview that he viewed the S/LPD chief's comments as a "calculated attempt to intimidate." In the summer of 1985, it helped circulate a specious story suggesting that US reporters received sexual favors from Sandinista-provided prostitutes in return for favorable coverage. "It isn't only women", Reich told New York magazine; for gay journalists, they would procure men. The S/LPD was declared illegal after an investigation by the Comptroller General, who wrote in an October 30, 1987 report that the S/LPD engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities, beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities". The S/LPD also violated "a restriction on the State Department's annual appropriations prohibiting the use of federal