and Central America." Many come from the UCA or the Center for Economic and Agrarian Reform Research (CIERA).

The Centro Interamericano de Investigaciones is based in Cuernavaca, Mexico and with the Inter-American Research Center in Los Angeles has coordinated a series of public opinion surveys on US foreign policy in several Central American countries.

About objectivity

Those who conducted the poll went to great lengths to ensure demonstrable objectivity. As Bill Bollinger, one of the authors, said, "Realizing that any such poll in a country like Nicaragua would be viewed with skepticism abroad and by some groups in Nicaragua, the project directors bent over backwards to ensure that the survey was not biased in favor of the Sandinista government."

The random selection process was outlined in advance for an attorney and notarypublic who notarized the process and the selection of the neighborhoods.

The first draft of the questions was reviewed by Nicaraguan and foreign scholars, and several drafts were pre-tested in Managua, simplifying and changing questions as a result. Last year's Central American surveys by the Inter-American Research Center and Centro Interamericano de Investigaciones also helped; wording which had caused problems in those surveys or which US polling specialists had criticized as possibly biased was dropped from the Managua survey.

The term ”contras” was taken out of an early Managua draft, to be replaced by "Nicaraguan Resistance." And in the view of one of the project's directors, "At least one question may have been stacked against the Sandinista government." Bill Bollinger explained that, in discussions among the poll sponsors, it was