the US Army, from 1967 to 1969, as an officer in the 3rd Civil Affairs Detachment stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. He received an Master's degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University in 1973. Career After receiving his master's degree, Reich began working as an international representative for the Florida Department of Commerce, the first position he held in government. He also worked as a staff assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a Community Development Coordinator for the City of Miami, and later as a Director of the Council of the Americas. Reich was Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development in charge of US economic assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean between 1981 and 1983. This position was the first he held under the administration of Ronald Reagan. Office of Public Diplomacy From 1983 to 1986, Reich established and managed the inter-agency Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD), which sought to promote the Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. Reich managed a staff including officials from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and The Pentagon, some of whom were personnel trained in psychological warfare. Reich reported to Oliver North, who then worked at the National Security Council, although the office itself was under the State Department. The OPD sent false information to the US media, such as a claim that the Nicaraguan government was involved with drug trafficking. It also wrote opinion pieces in mainstream US newspapers, attributed to fictitious Nicaraguan rebel leaders, attacking opponents of Reagan's foreign policy. While heading this office, Reich also once demanded a meeting with staff of the National Public Radio (NPR), after NPR reported on a massacre of civilians carried out by the Contras, and warned the staff that their reports were being monitored. Reich also confronted journalists at CBS News in April 1984 after the network aired a documentary about El Salvador that, according to Reich's superior George Shultz, favored the country's guerrillas over the US and Salvadoran governments. Reich's position drew him into the Iran-Contra affair. A House Foreign Affairs Committee report characterized the OPD as a "domestic political and propaganda operation", while the Comptroller General of the United States described the office as having engaged in "engaged in prohibited, covert propaganda activities." A 1987 Congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair stated that the OPD had encouraged "′white propaganda′: pro-Contra newspaper articles