text:
Contras

The Contras (from la contrarrevolución) were the various U.S.-backed-and-funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which had come to power in 1979 following the Nicaraguan Revolution. Among the separate contra groups, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) emerged as the largest by far. In 1987, virtually all Contra organizations were united, at least nominally, into the Nicaraguan Resistance.

During their war against the Nicaraguan government, there were numerous examples of Contras committing human rights violations and using terrorist tactics. Many of these actions were reported to be carried out systematically as a part of the strategy of the Contras. Organisations that support the Contras such as the Reagan administration argue that the contras never condoned human rights abuses. The CIA argues that when the Contras discovered that human rights abuses were committed in their ranks, the Contras detained, exiled or executed the assailants. The Global Terrorism Database reports that Contras carried out more than 1,300 terrorist attacks.

From an early stage, the rebels received financial and military support from the United States government, and their military significance decisively depended on it. After U.S. support was banned by Congress, the Reagan administration covertly continued it. These illegal activities culminated in the Iran–Contra affair.

Origins
The Contras were not a monolithic group, but a combination of three distinct elements of Nicaraguan society:

 * Ex-guardsmen of the Nicaraguan National Guard and other right-wing figures who had fought for Nicaragua's ex-dictator Somoza —these later were especially found in the military wing of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN). Remnants of the Guard later formed groups such as the Fifteenth of September Legion, the Anti-Sandinista Guerrilla Special Forces, and the National Army of Liberation. Initially however, these groups were small and conducted little active raiding into Nicaragua.
 * Anti-Somozistas who had supported the revolution but felt betrayed by the Sandinista government – e.g. Édgar Chamorro, prominent member of the political directorate of the FDN, or José Francisco Cardenal, who had briefly served in the Council of State before leaving Nicaragua out of disagreement with the Sandinista government's policies and founding the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN), an opposition group of Nicaraguan exiles in Miami. Another example are the MILPAS (Milicias Populares Anti-Sandinistas), peasant militias led by disillusioned Sandinista veterans from the northern mountains. Founded by Pedro Joaquín González (known as "Dimas"), the Milpistas were also known as chilotes (green corn). Even after his death, other MILPAS bands sprouted during 1980–1981. The Milpistas were composed largely of campesino (peasant) highlanders and rural workers.
 * Nicaraguans who had avoided direct involvement in the revolution but opposed the Sandinistas.

Main groups
The CIA and Argentine intelligence, seeking to unify the anti-Sandinista cause before initiating large-scale aid, persuaded 15 September Legion, the UDN and several former smaller groups to merge in September 1981 as the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense, FDN). Although the FDN had its roots in two groups made up of former National Guardsmen (of the Somoza regime), its joint political directorate was led by businessman and former anti-Somoza activist Adolfo Calero Portocarrero. Édgar Chamorro later stated that there was strong opposition within the UDN against working with the Guardsmen and that the merging only took place because of insistence by the CIA.

Based in Honduras, Nicaragua's northern neighbor, under the command of former National Guard Colonel Enrique Bermúdez, the new FDN commenced to draw in other smaller insurgent forces in the north. Largely financed, trained, equipped, armed and organized by the U.S., it emerged as the largest and most active contra group.

In April 1982, Edén Pastora (Comandante Cero), one of the heroes in the fight against Somoza, organized the Sandinista Revolutionary Front (FRS) – embedded in the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) – and declared war on the Sandinista government. Himself a former Sandinista who had held several high posts in the government, he had resigned abruptly in 1981 and defected, believing that the newly found power had corrupted the Sandinista's original ideas. A popular and charismatic leader, Pastora initially saw his group develop quickly. He confined himself to operate in the southern part of Nicaragua; after a press conference he was holding on 30 May 1984 was bombed, he "voluntarily withdrew" from the contra struggle.

A third force, Misurasata, appeared among the Miskito, Sumo and Rama Amerindian peoples of Nicaragua's Atlantic coast, who in December 1981 found themselves in conflict with the authorities following the government's efforts to nationalize Indian land. In the course of this conflict, forced removal of at least 10,000 Indians to relocation centers in the interior of the country and subsequent burning of some villages took place. The Misurasata movement split in 1983, with the breakaway Misura group of Stedman Fagoth Muller allying itself more closely with the FDN, and the rest accommodating themselves with the Sandinistas: On 8 December 1984 a ceasefire agreement known as the Bogota Accord was signed by Misurasata and the Nicaraguan government. A subsequent autonomy statute in September 1987 largely defused Miskito resistance.

Unity efforts
U.S. officials were active in attempting to unite the Contra groups. In June 1985 most of the groups reorganized as the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), under the leadership of Adolfo Calero, Arturo Cruz and Alfonso Robelo, all originally supporters of the anti-Somoza revolution. After UNO's dissolution early in 1987, the Nicaraguan Resistance (RN) was organized along similar lines in May.

U.S. military and financial assistance
In front of the International Court of Justice, Nicaragua claimed that the contras were altogether a creation of the U.S. This claim was rejected. However, the evidence of a very close relationship between the contras and the United States was considered overwhelming and incontrovertible. The U.S. played a very large role in financing, training, arming, and advising the contras over a long period, and it is unlikely that the contras would have been capable of carrying out significant military operations without this support, given the large amount of training and weapons shipments that the Sandinistas had received from Havana and Moscow.

Political background
The US government viewed the leftist Sandinistas as a threat to economic interests of American corporations in Nicaragua and to national security. US President Ronald Reagan stated in 1983 that "The defense of [the USA's] southern frontier" was at stake. "In spite of the Sandinista victory being declared fair, the United States continued to oppose the left-wing Nicaraguan government." and opposed its ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan, who had assumed the American presidency in January 1981, accused the Sandinistas of importing Cuban-style socialism and aiding leftist guerrillas in El Salvador. The Reagan administration continued to view the Sandinistas as undemocratic despite the 1984 Nicaraguan elections being generally declared fair by foreign observers. Throughout the 1980s the Sandinista government was regarded as "Partly Free" by Freedom House, an organization financed by the U.S. government. On 4 January 1982, Reagan signed the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the CIA the authority to recruit and support the contras with $19 million in military aid. The effort to support the contras was one component of the Reagan Doctrine, which called for providing military support to movements opposing Soviet-supported, communist governments.

By December 1981, however, the United States had already begun to support armed opponents of the Sandinista government. From the beginning, the CIA was in charge. The arming, clothing, feeding and supervision of the contras became the most ambitious paramilitary and political action operation mounted by the agency in nearly a decade.

In the fiscal year 1984, the U.S. Congress approved $24 million in contra aid. However, since the contras failed to win widespread popular support or military victories within Nicaragua, opinion polls indicated that a majority of the U.S. public was not supportive of the contras, the Reagan administration lost much of its support regarding its contra policy within Congress after disclosure of CIA mining of Nicaraguan ports, and a report of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research commissioned by the State Department found Reagan's allegations about Soviet influence in Nicaragua "exaggerated", Congress cut off all funds for the contras in 1985 by the third Boland Amendment. The Boland Amendment had first been passed by Congress in December 1982. At this time, it only outlawed U.S. assistance to the contras "for the purpose of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government", while allowing assistance for other purposes. In October 1984, it was amended to forbid action by not only the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency but all U.S. government agencies.

Nevertheless, the case for support of the contras continued to be made in Washington, D.C., by both the Reagan administration and the Heritage Foundation, which argued that support for the contras would counter Soviet influence in Nicaragua.

On 1 May 1985 President Reagan announced that his administration perceived Nicaragua to be "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States", and declared a "national emergency" and a trade embargo against Nicaragua to "deal with that threat". It "is now a given; it is true", the Washington Post declared in 1986, "the Sandinistas are communists of the Cuban or Soviet school"; that "The Reagan administration is right to take Nicaragua as a serious menace—to civil peace and democracy in Nicaragua and to the stability and security of the region"; that we must "fit Nicaragua back into a Central American mode" and "turn Nicaragua back toward democracy", and with the "Latin American democracies" "demand reasonable conduct by regional standard."

Soon after the embargo was established, Managua re-declared "a policy of nonalignment" and sought the aid of Western Europe, who were opposed to U.S. policy, to escape dependency on the Soviet Union. Since 1981 U.S. pressures had curtailed Western credit to and trade with Nicaragua, forcing the government to rely almost totally on the Eastern bloc for credit, other aid, and trade by 1985. In his 1997 study on U.S. low intensity warfare, Kermit D. Johnson, a former Chief of the U.S. Army Chaplains, contends that U.S. hostility toward the revolutionary government was motivated not by any concern for "national security", but rather by what the world relief organization Oxfam termed "the threat of a good example":

"It was alarming that in just a few months after the Sandinista revolution, Nicaragua received international acclaim for its rapid progress in the fields of literacy and health. It was alarming that a socialist-mixed-economy state could do in a few short months what the Somoza dynasty, a U.S. client state, could not do in 45 years! It was truly alarming that the Sandinistas were intent on providing the very services that establish a government's political and moral legitimacy."

The government's program included increased wages, subsidized food prices, and expanded health, welfare, and education services. And though it nationalized Somoza's former properties, it preserved a private sector that accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of GDP.

Atrocities
The United States began to support Contra activities against the Sandinista government by December 1981, with the CIA at the forefront of operations. The CIA supplied the funds and the equipment, coordinated training programs, and provided intelligence and target lists. While the Contras had little military successes, they did prove adept at carrying out CIA guerrilla warfare strategies from training manuals which advised them to incite mob violence, "neutralize" civilian leaders and government officials and attack "soft targets" — including schools, health clinics and cooperatives. The agency added to the Contras' sabotage efforts by blowing up refineries and pipelines, and mining ports. Finally, according to former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, CIA trainers also gave Contra soldiers large knives. "A commando knife [was given], and our people, everybody wanted to have a knife like that, to kill people, to cut their throats". In 1985 Newsweek published a series of photos taken by Frank Wohl, a conservative student admirer traveling with the Contras, entitled "Execution in the Jungle":

"The victim dug his own grave, scooping the dirt out with his hands ... He crossed himself. Then a contra executioner knelt and rammed a k-bar knife into his throat. A second enforcer stabbed at his jugular, then his abdomen. When the corpse was finally still, the contras threw dirt over the shallow grave — and walked away."

The CIA officer in charge of the covert war, Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, admitted to the House Intelligence Committee staff in a secret briefing in 1984 that the Contras were routinely murdering "civilians and Sandinista officials in the provinces, as well as heads of cooperatives, nurses, doctors and judges". But he claimed that this did not violate President Reagan's executive order prohibiting assassinations because the agency defined it as just 'killing'. "After all, this is war—a paramilitary operation", Clarridge said in conclusion. Edgar Chamorro explained the rationale behind this to a U.S. reporter. "Sometimes terror is very productive. This is the policy, to keep putting pressure until the people cry 'uncle'". The CIA manual for the Contras, Tayacan, states that the Contras should gather the local population for a public tribunal to "shame, ridicule and humiliate" Sandinista officials to "reduce their influence". It also recommends gathering the local population to witness and take part in public executions. These types of activities continued throughout the war. After the signing of the Central American Peace Accord in August 1987, the year war related deaths and economic destruction reached its peak, the Contras eventually entered negotiations with the Sandinista government (1988), and the war began to deescalate.

By 1989 the US backed Contra war and economic isolation had inflicted severe economic suffering on Nicaraguans. The US government knew that the Nicaraguans had been exhausted from the war, which had cost 30,865 lives, and that voters usually vote the incumbents out during economic decline. By the late 1980s Nicaragua's internal conditions had changed so radically that the US approach to the 1990 elections differed greatly from 1984. A united opposition of fourteen political parties organized into the National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Oppositora, UNO) with the support of the United States National Endowment for Democracy. UNO presidential nominee Violeta Chamorro was received by President Bush at the White House.

The Contra war escalated over the year before the election. The US promised to end the economic embargo should Chamorro win.

The UNO scored a decisive victory on 25 February 1990. Chamorro won with 55 percent of the presidential vote as compared to Ortega's 41 percent. Of 92 seats in the National Assembly, UNO gained 51, and the FSLN won 39. On 25 April 1990, Chamorro assumed presidency from Daniel Ortega.

Illegal covert operations
With Congress blocking further aid to the Contras, the Reagan administration sought to arrange funding and military supplies by means of third countries and private sources. Between 1984 and 1986, $34 million from third countries and $2.7 million from private sources were raised this way. The secret contra assistance was run by the National Security Council, with officer Lt. Col. Oliver North in charge. With the third-party funds, North created an organization called The Enterprise, which served as the secret arm of the NSC staff and had its own airplanes, pilots, airfield, ship, operatives, and secret Swiss bank accounts. It also received assistance from personnel from other government agencies, especially from CIA personnel in Central America. This operation functioned, however, without any of the accountability required of U.S. government activities. The Enterprise's efforts culminated in the Iran–Contra Affair of 1986–1987, which facilitated contra funding through the proceeds of arms sales to Iran.

According to the London Spectator, U.S. journalists in Central America had long known that the CIA was flying in supplies to the Contras inside Nicaragua before the scandal broke. No journalist paid it any attention until the alleged CIA supply man, Eugene Hasenfus, was shot down and captured by the Nicaraguan army. Similarly, reporters neglected to investigate many leads indicating that Oliver North was running the Contra operation from his office in the National Security Council.

According to the National Security Archive, Oliver North had been in contact with Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama later convicted on drug charges, whom he personally met. The issue of drug money and its importance in funding the Nicaraguan conflict was the subject of various reports and publications. The contras were funded by drug trafficking, of which the United States was aware. Senator John Kerry's 1988 Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra drug links concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems".

The Reagan administration's support for the Contras continued to stir controversy well into the 1990s. In August 1996, San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb published a series titled Dark Alliance, alleging that the contras contributed to the rise of crack cocaine in California.

Gary Webb's career as a journalist was subsequently discredited by the leading U.S. papers, The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. An internal CIA report, entitled, "Managing a Nightmare", shows the agency used "a ground base of already productive relations with journalists" to help counter what it called "a genuine public relations crisis." In the 1980s, Douglas Farah worked as a journalist, covering the civil wars in Central America for the Washington Post. According to Farah, while it was common knowledge that the Contras were involved in cocaine trafficking, the editors of the Washington Post refused to take it seriously:

"If you're talking about our intelligence community tolerating — if not promoting — drugs to pay for black ops, it's rather an uncomfortable thing to do when you're an establishment paper like the Post. If you were going to be directly rubbing up against the government, they wanted it more solid than it could probably ever be done."

An investigation by the United States Department of Justice also stated that their "review did not substantiate the main allegations stated and implied in the Mercury News articles." Regarding the specific charges towards the CIA, the DOJ wrote "the implication that the drug trafficking by the individuals discussed in the Mercury News articles was connected to the CIA was also not supported by the facts." The CIA also investigated and rejected the allegations.

Propaganda
During the time the US Congress blocked funding for the contras, the Reagan government engaged in a campaign to alter public opinion and change the vote in Congress on contra aid. For this purpose, the NSC established an interagency working group, which in turn coordinated the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (managed by Otto Reich), which conducted the campaign. The S/LPD produced and widely disseminated a variety of pro-contra publications, arranged speeches and press conferences. It also disseminated "white propaganda"—pro-contra newspaper articles by paid consultants who did not disclose their connection to the Reagan administration.

On top of that, Oliver North helped Carl Channell's tax-exempt organization, the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, to raise $10 million, by arranging numerous briefings for groups of potential contributors at the premises of the White House and by facilitating private visits and photo sessions with President Reagan for major contributors. Channell in turn, used part of that money to run a series of television advertisements directed at home districts of Congressmen considered swing votes on contra aid. Out of the $10 million raised, more than $1 million was spent on pro-contra publicity.

International Court of Justice ruling
In 1984 the Sandinista government filed a suit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against the United States (Nicaragua v. United States), which resulted in a 1986 judgment against the United States. The ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. Regarding the alleged human rights violations by the contras, however, the ICJ took the view that the United States could be held accountable for them only if it would have been proven that the U.S. had effective control of the contra operations resulting in these alleged violations. Nevertheless, the ICJ found that the U.S. encouraged acts contrary to general principles of humanitarian law by producing the manual Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (Operaciones sicológicas en guerra de guerrillas) and disseminating it to the contras. The manual, amongst other things, advised on how to rationalize killings of civilians and recommended to hire professional killers for specific selective tasks.

The United States, which did not participate in the merits phase of the proceedings, maintained that the ICJ's power did not supersede the Constitution of the United States and argued that the court did not seriously consider the Nicaraguan role in El Salvador, while it accused Nicaragua of actively supporting armed groups there, specifically in the form of supply of arms. The ICJ had found that evidence of a responsibility of the Nicaraguan government in this matter was insufficient. The U.S. argument was affirmed, however, by the dissenting opinion of ICJ member U.S. Judge Schwebel, who concluded that in supporting the contras, the United States acted lawfully in collective self-defence in El Salvador's support. The U.S. blocked enforcement of the ICJ judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any actual compensation. The Nicaraguan government finally withdrew the complaint from the court in September 1992 (under the later, post-FSLN, government of Violeta Chamorro), following a repeal of the law requiring the country to seek compensation.

Human rights violations
Americas Watch, which subsequently became part of Human Rights Watch, accused the Contras of:
 * targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination
 * kidnapping civilians
 * torturing civilians
 * executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat
 * raping women
 * indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses
 * seizing civilian property
 * burning civilian houses in captured towns.

Human Rights Watch released a report on the situation in 1989, which stated: "[The] contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners."

In his affidavit to the World Court, former contra Edgar Chamorro testified that "The CIA did not discourage such tactics. To the contrary, the Agency severely criticized me when I admitted to the press that the FDN had regularly kidnapped and executed agrarian reform workers and civilians. We were told that the only way to defeat the Sandinistas was to ...kill, kidnap, rob and torture".

Contra leader Adolfo Calero denied that his forces deliberately targeted civilians: "What they call a cooperative is also a troop concentration full of armed people. We are not killing civilians. We are fighting armed people and returning fire when fire is directed at us."

Controversy
Several articles were published by U.S. press, including by The Wall Street Journal and The New Republic, accusing Americas Watch and other bodies of ideological bias and unreliable reporting. The articles alleged that Americas Watch gave too much credence to alleged Contra abuses and systematically tried to discredit Nicaraguan human rights groups such as the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, which blamed the most human rights abuses on the Sandinistas.

In 1985, The Wall Street Journal reported: "Three weeks ago, Americas Watch issued a report on human rights abuses in Nicaragua. One member of the Permanent Commission for Human Rights commented on the Americas Watch report and its chief investigator Juan Mendez: 'The Sandinistas are laying the groundwork for a totalitarian society here and yet all Mendez wanted to hear about were abuses by the contras. How can we get people in the U.S. to see what's happening here when so many of the groups who come down are pro-Sandinista?'"

Human Rights Watch, the umbrella organization of Americas Watch, replied to these allegations: "Almost invariably, U.S. pronouncements on human rights exaggerated and distorted the real human rights violations of the Sandinista regime, and exculpated those of the U.S.-supported insurgents, known as the contras ... The Bush administration is responsible for these abuses, not only because the contras are, for all practical purposes, a U.S. force, but also because the Bush administration has continued to minimize and deny these violations, and has refused to investigate them seriously."

Military successes and election of Violeta Chamorro
By 1986 the contras were besieged by charges of corruption, human-rights abuses, and military ineptitude. A much-vaunted early 1986 offensive never materialized, and Contra forces were largely reduced to isolated acts of terrorism. In October 1987, however, the contras staged a successful attack in southern Nicaragua. Then on 21 December 1987, the FDN launched attacks at Bonanza, Siuna, and Rosita in Zelaya province, resulting in heavy fighting. ARDE Frente Sur attacked at El Almendro and along the Rama road. These large-scale raids mainly became possible as the contras were able to use U.S.-provided Redeye missiles against Sandinista Mi-24 helicopter gunships, which had been supplied by the Soviets. Nevertheless, the Contras remained tenuously encamped within Honduras and were not able to hold Nicaraguan territory.

There were isolated protests among the population against the draft implemented by the Sandinista government, which even resulted in full-blown street clashes in Masaya in 1988. However, a June 1988 survey in Managua showed the Sandinista government still enjoyed strong support but that support had declined since 1984. Three times as many people identified with the Sandinistas (28%) than with all the opposition parties put together (9%); 59% did not identify with any political party. Of those polled, 85% opposed any further US aid to the Contras; 40% believed the Sandinista government to be democratic, while 48% believed it to be not democratic. People identified the war as the largest problem but were less likely to blame it for economic problems compared to a December 1986 poll; 19% blamed the war and US blockade as the main cause of economic problems while 10% blamed the government. Political opposition groups were splintered and the Contras began to experience defections, although United States aid maintained them as a viable military force.

After a cutoff in U.S. military support, and with both sides facing international pressure to bring an end to the conflict, the contras agreed to negotiations with the FSLN. With the help of five Central American Presidents, including Ortega, the sides agreed that a voluntary demobilization of the contras should start in early December 1989. They chose this date to facilitate free and fair elections in Nicaragua in February 1990 (even though the Reagan administration had pushed for a delay of contra disbandment).

In the resulting February 1990 elections, Violeta Chamorro and her party the UNO won an upset victory of 55% to 41% over Daniel Ortega. Opinion polls leading up to the elections divided along partisan lines, with 10 of 17 polls analyzed in a contemporary study predicting an UNO victory while seven predicted the Sandinistas would retain power.

Possible explanations include that the Nicaraguan people were disenchanted with the Ortega government as well as the fact that already in November 1989, the White House had announced that the economic embargo against Nicaragua would continue unless Violeta Chamorro won. Also, there had been reports of intimidation from the side of the contras, with a Canadian observer mission claiming that 42 people were killed by the contras in "election violence" in October 1989. Sandinistas were also accused of intimidation and abuses during the election campaign. According to the Puebla Institute, by mid-December 1989, seven opposition leaders had been murdered, 12 had disappeared, 20 had been arrested, and 30 others assaulted. In late January 1990, the OAS observer team reported that "a convoy of troops attacked four truckloads of UNO sympathizers with bayonets and rifle butts, threatening to kill them." This led many commentators to conclude that Nicaraguans voted against the Sandinistas out of fear of a continuation of the contra war and economic deprivation.

In popular culture

 * In The Last Thing He Wanted, a journalist for the fictitious Atlanta Post stops her coverage of the 1984 U.S. Presidential election to care for her dying father. In the process, she inherits his position as an arms dealer for Central America, and learns of the Iran–Contra affair.
 * American Dad references the Contras in the episode "Stanny Slickers 2: The Legend of Ollie's Gold"
 * The Americans, the TV series features an episode on KGB agents infiltrating a Contra camp.
 * American Made, a film loosely based on Barry Seal's life.
 * In Season 3 of the Amazon Prime TV series The Boys, the American superhero team Payback is clandestinely deployed to Nicaragua in 1984 to assist Contra units supported by the CIA.
 * Carla's Song, a fictional film by Ken Loach set in part against the backdrop of the conflict in Nicaragua.
 * Contra – While it is unclear whether the game was deliberately named after the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, the ending theme of the original game was titled "Sandinista" (サンディニスタ), after the adversaries of the real-life Contras.
 * Contra, the second studio album by the American indie rock band Vampire Weekend, released in January 2010 on XL Recordings. It debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. The album title is intended as a thematic allegory and a complex reference to the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries. The song "I Think Ur a Contra" is from this album.
 * Sandinista!, an album by The Clash, features songs about The Contras in Nicaragua. It was released in 1980. The song "Washington Bullets" is from this album.
 * City Hunter, a manga, the main protagonist, Ryo Saeba, was raised as a contra guerilla fighter in Central America.
 * Student Visas, a song by Corb Lund from the album "Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!", is about US Clandestine soldiers (such as SFOD-D and CIA Paramilitary) interacting with Contras in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
 * Fragile The song is a tribute to Ben Linder, an American civil engineer who was killed by the Contras in 1987 while working on a hydroelectric project in Nicaragua.
 * Narcos: Mexico features an episode where Felix has to deliver guns to Nicaragua with Amado and a CIA operative for Salvador Nava and Mexico's Minister of Defense
 * The Mighty Quinn involves a CIA operative and a Latino right-wing assassin trying to recover large sums of untraceable US dollars which were to fund anti-communist counter-revolution on the mainland (Nicaragua is not mentioned).
 * Snowfall a TV series following several characters, including an undercover CIA officer facilitating cocaine smuggling into the US on the behalf of the Nicaraguan Contras and his connection to a 20-year-old drug dealer in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, the early days of the crack cocaine epidemic.
 * The Last Narc, a 2020 documentary about the kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena by Mexican drug cartels, ends up covering parts of the Iran-Contra scandal.

title: Contras


text:
Craig Venter

John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. Venter founded Celera Genomics, the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). He was the co-founder of Human Longevity Inc. and Synthetic Genomics. He was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Craig Venter at 14th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010". In 2012, Venter was honored with Dan David Prize for his contribution to genome research. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2013. He is a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's advisory board.

Early life and education
Venter was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Elisabeth and John Venter. In his youth, he did not take his education seriously, preferring to spend his time on the water in boats or surfing. According to his biography, A Life Decoded, he was said never to be a terribly engaged student, having Cs and Ds on his eighth-grade report cards. Venter considered that his behavior in his adolescence was indicative of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and later found ADHD-linked genetic variants in his own DNA. He graduated from Mills High School in Millbrae, California. His father died suddenly at age 59 from cardiac arrest, giving him a lifelong awareness of his own mortality. He quotes a saying: "If you want immortality, do something meaningful with your life."

Although he opposed the Vietnam War, Venter was drafted and enlisted in the United States Navy where he worked as a hospital corpsman in the intensive-care ward of a field hospital. He served from 1967 to 1968 at the Naval Support Activity Danang in Vietnam. While in Vietnam, he attempted suicide by swimming out to sea, but changed his mind more than a mile out. Being confronted with severely injured and dying marines on a daily basis instilled in him a desire to study medicine, although he later switched to biomedical research.

Venter began his college education in 1969 at a community college, College of San Mateo in California, and later transferred to the University of California, San Diego, where he studied under biochemist Nathan O. Kaplan. He received a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry in 1972 and a Doctor of Philosophy in physiology and pharmacology in 1975 from UCSD.

Career
After working as an associate professor, and later as full professor, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he joined the National Institutes of Health in 1984.

EST controversy
While an employee of the NIH, Venter learned how to identify mRNA and began to learn more about those expressed in the human brain. The short cDNA sequence fragments he was interested in are called expressed sequence tags, or ESTs. The NIH Office of Technology Transfer and Venter decided to take the ESTs discovered by others in an attempt to patent the genes identified based on studies of mRNA expression in the human brain. When Venter disclosed this strategy during a Congressional hearing, a firestorm of controversy erupted. The NIH later stopped the effort and abandoned the patent applications it had filed, following public outcry.

Human Genome Project
Venter was passionate about the power of genomics to transform healthcare radically. Venter believed that shotgun sequencing was the fastest and most effective way to get useful human genome data. The method was rejected by the Human Genome Project however, since some geneticists felt it would not be accurate enough for a genome as complicated as that of humans, that it would be logistically more difficult, and that it would cost significantly more.

Venter viewed the slow pace of progress in the Human Genome project as an opportunity to continue his interest in patenting genes, so he sought funding from the private sector to start Celera Genomics. The company planned to profit from their work by creating genomic data to which users could subscribe for a fee. The goal consequently put pressure on the public genome program and spurred several groups to redouble their efforts to produce the full sequence. Venter's effort won him renown as he and his team at Celera Corporation shared credit for sequencing the first draft human genome with the publicly funded Human Genome Project.

In 2000, Venter and Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Public Genome Project jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome, a full three years ahead of the expected end of the Public Genome Program. The announcement was made along with U.S. President Bill Clinton, and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Venter and Collins thus shared an award for "Biography of the Year" from A&E Network. On February 15, 2001, the Human Genome Project consortium published the first Human Genome in the journal Nature, followed one day later by a Celera publication in Science. Despite some claims that shotgun sequencing was in some ways less accurate than the clone-by-clone method chosen by the Human Genome Project, the technique became widely accepted by the scientific community.

Venter was fired by Celera in early 2002. According to his biography, Venter was fired because of a conflict with the main investor, Tony White, specifically barring him from attending the White House ceremony celebrating the achievement of sequencing the human genome.

Global Ocean Sampling Expedition
The Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS) is an ocean exploration genome project with the goal of assessing the genetic diversity in marine microbial communities and to understand their role in nature's fundamental processes. Begun as a Sargasso Sea pilot sampling project in August 2003, the full Expedition was announced by Venter on March 4, 2004. The project, which used Venter's personal yacht, Sorcerer II, started in Halifax, Canada, circumnavigated the globe and returned to the U.S. in January 2006.

Synthetic Genomics
In June 2005, Venter co-founded Synthetic Genomics, a firm dedicated to using modified microorganisms to produce clean fuels and biochemicals. In July 2009, ExxonMobil announced a $600 million collaboration with Synthetic Genomics to research and develop next-generation biofuels. Venter continues to work on the creation of engineered diatomic microalgae for the production of biofuels.

Venter is seeking to patent the first partially synthetic species possibly to be named Mycoplasma laboratorium. There is speculation that this line of research could lead to producing bacteria that have been engineered to perform specific reactions, for example, produce fuels, make medicines, combat global warming, and so on.

In May 2010, a team of scientists led by Venter became the first to create successfully what was described as "synthetic life". This was done by synthesizing a very long DNA molecule containing an entire bacterium genome, and introducing this into another cell, analogous to the accomplishment of Eckard Wimmer's group, who synthesized and ligated an RNA virus genome and "booted" it in cell lysate. The single-celled organism contains four "watermarks" written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and to help trace its descendants. The watermarks include
 * 1) Code table for entire alphabet with punctuations
 * 2) Names of 46 contributing scientists
 * 3) Three quotations
 * 4) The secret email address for the cell.

On March 25, 2016, Venter reported the creation of Syn 3.0, a synthetic genome having the fewest genes of any freely living organism (473 genes). Their aim was to strip away all nonessential genes, leaving only the minimal set necessary to support life. This stripped-down, fast reproducing cell is expected to be a valuable tool for researchers in the field.

In August 2018, Venter retired as chairman of the board, saying he wanted to focus on his work at the J. Craig Venter Institute. He will remain as a scientific advisor to the board.

J. Craig Venter Institute
In 2006 Venter founded the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a nonprofit which conducts research in synthetic biology. It has facilities in La Jolla and in Rockville, Maryland and employs over 200 people.

In April 2022 Venter sold the La Jolla JCVI facility to the University of California, San Diego for $25 million. The university, which already has a very strong genomics program, hopes to absorb most of the Institute's faculty and its current research grants. Venter will continue to lead a separate nonprofit research group, also known as the J. Craig Venter Institute, and stressed that he is not retiring.

Individual human genome
On September 4, 2007, a team led by Sam Levy published one of the first genomes of an individual human—Venter's own DNA sequence. Some of the sequences in Venter's genome are associated with wet earwax, increased risk of antisocial behavior, Alzheimer's and cardiovascular diseases. This publication was especially interesting because it attempted to separate the two haplotypes (the two copies of each chromosome), although it only accomplished this in a limited way. The genome as published only had 3 billion bases, rather than the full 6 billion that would compose a fully diploid sequence. Another 10 years passed before the first haplotype-resolved human genomes began to appear.

The Human Reference Genome Browser is a web application for the navigation and analysis of Venter's recently published genome. The HuRef database consists of approximately 32 million DNA reads sequenced using microfluidic Sanger sequencing, assembled into 4,528 scaffolds and 4.1 million DNA variations identified by genome analysis. These variants include single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), block substitutions, short and large indels, and structural variations like insertions, deletions, inversions and copy number changes.

The browser enables scientists to navigate the HuRef genome assembly and sequence variations, and to compare it with the NCBI human build 36 assembly in the context of the NCBI and Ensembl annotations. The browser provides a comparative view between NCBI and HuRef consensus sequences, the sequence multi-alignment of the HuRef assembly, Ensembl and dbSNP annotations, HuRef variants, and the underlying variant evidence and functional analysis. The interface also represents the haplotype blocks from which diploid genome sequence can be inferred and the relation of variants to gene annotations. The display of variants and gene annotations are linked to external public resources including dbSNP, Ensembl, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and Gene Ontology (GO).

Users can search the HuRef genome using HUGO gene names, Ensembl and dbSNP identifiers, HuRef contig or scaffold locations, or NCBI chromosome locations. Users can then easily and quickly browse any genomic region via the simple and intuitive pan and zoom controls; furthermore, data relevant to specific loci can be exported for further analysis.

Human Longevity, Inc.
On March 4, 2014, Venter and co-founders Peter Diamandis and Robert Hariri announced the formation of Human Longevity, Inc., a company focused on extending the healthy, "high performance" human lifespan. At the time of the announcement the company had already raised $70 million in venture financing, which was expected to last 18 months. Venter served as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) until May 2018, when he retired. The company said that it plans to sequence 40,000 genomes per year, with an initial focus on cancer genomes and the genomes of cancer patients.

Human Longevity filed a lawsuit in 2018 against Venter, accusing him of stealing trade secrets. Allegations were made stating that Venter had departed with his company computer that contained valuable information that could be used to start a competing business. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by a California judge on the basis that Human Longevity were unable to present a case that met the legal threshold required for a company, or individual, to sue when its trade secrets have been stolen.

Human Longevity's mission is to extend healthy human lifespan by the use of high-resolution big data diagnostics from genomics, metabolomics, microbiomics, and proteomics, and the use of stem cell therapy.

Published books
Venter is the author of three books, the first of which is an autobiography titled A Life Decoded. In Venter's second book, Life at the Speed of Light, he announced his theory that this is the generation in which there appears to be a dovetailing of the two previously diverse fields of science represented by computer programming and the genetic programming of life by DNA sequencing. He was applauded for his position on this by futurist Ray Kurzweil. Venter's most recent book, co-authored by David Ewing Duncan, The Voyage of Sorcerer II: The Expedition that Unlocked the Secrets of the Ocean’s Microbiome, details the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, spanning a 15-year period during which microbes from the world’s oceans were collected and their DNA sequenced.

Personal life
After a brief marriage to Barbara Rae-Venter, with whom he had a son, Christopher, he married Claire M. Fraser remaining married to her until 2005. In late 2008 he married Heather Kowalski. They live in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, CA. Venter is an atheist.

Venter was 75 when he sold his main research facility, the J. Craig Venter Institute, to UCSD in 2022. He said he has no intention of retiring and would continue to lead a separate nonprofit research group, but he was recovering from a difficult bout with COVID-19 and was tired of management responsibilities. He has a home in La Jolla and a ranch in Borrego Springs, California, as well as homes in two small towns in Maine. He indulges in two passions: sailing and flying small planes, which he calls "the ultimate freedom".

In popular culture
Venter has been the subject of articles in several magazines, including Wired, The Economist, Australian science magazine Cosmos, and The Atlantic.

Venter appears in the two-hour 2001 NOVA special, "Cracking the code of life".

On May 16, 2004, Venter gave the commencement speech at Boston University.

On December 4, 2007, Venter gave the Dimbleby lecture for the BBC in London.

Venter gave the Distinguished Public Lecture during the 2007 Michaelmas Term at the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University. Its title was "Genomics – From humans to the environment".

Venter delivered the 2008 convocation speech for Faculty of Science honours and specialization students at the University of Alberta.

In February 2008, he gave a speech about his current work at the TED conference.

Venter was featured in Time magazine's "The Top 10 Everything of 2008" article. Number three in 2008's Top 10 Scientific Discoveries was a piece outlining his work stitching together the 582,000 base pairs necessary to invent the genetic information for a whole new bacterium.

On May 20, 2010, Venter announced the creation of first self-replicating semi-synthetic bacterial cell.

In the June 2011 issue of Men's Journal, Venter was featured as the "Survival Skills" celebrity of the month. He shared various anecdotes and advice, including stories of his time in Vietnam, as well as mentioning a bout with melanoma on his back, which subsequently resulted in his "giving a pound of flesh" to surgery.

In May 2011, Venter was the commencement speaker at the 157th commencement of Syracuse University.

In May 2017, Venter was the guest of honor and keynote speaker at the inauguration ceremony of the Center for Systems Biology Dresden.

Awards and nominations

 * 1996: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
 * 1999: Newcomb Cleveland Prize
 * 2000: Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine
 * 2001: Biotechnology Heritage Award with Francis Collins, from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Chemical Heritage Foundation
 * 2002: Association for Molecular Pathology Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics
 * 2007: On May 10, 2007, Venter was awarded an honorary doctorate from Arizona State University, and on October 24 of the same year, he received an honorary doctorate from Imperial College London.
 * 2008: Double Helix Medal from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
 * 2008: Kistler Prize from Foundation For the Future for genome research
 * 2008: ENI award for Research & Environment
 * 2008: National Medal of Science from President Obama
 * 2010: On May 8, 2010, Venter received an honorary doctor of science degree from Clarkson University for his work on the human genome.
 * 2011: On April 21, 2011, Venter received the 2011 Benjamin Rush Medal from William & Mary School of Law.
 * 2011: Dickson Prize in Medicine
 * 2020: Edogawa NICHE Prize for his contribution to research and development pertaining to the Human genome

Works
Venter has authored over 200 publications in scientific journals.

 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield
 * editor Roger Highfield

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Craig Venter


text:
Chemical evolution

Chemical evolution may refer to:
 * Abiogenesis, the transition from nonliving elements to living systems
 * Astrochemistry, the study of the abundance and reactions of molecules in the universe, and their interaction with radiation
 * Cosmochemistry, the study of the chemical compositions in the universe and the processes that led to them
 * Evolution of metal ions in biological systems, incorporation of metallic ions into living organisms and how it has changed over time
 * Gas evolution reaction, the process of a gas bubbling out from a solution
 * Molecular evolution, evolution at the scale of molecules
 * Oxygen evolution, the process of generating molecular oxygen through chemical reaction
 * Stellar nucleosynthesis, the creation of chemical elements by stellar thermonuclear fusion or supernovae

title: Chemical evolution


text:
Carl Rogers

Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist who was one of the founders of humanistic psychology and was known especially for his person-centered psychotherapy. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honored for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1956.

The person-centered approach, Rogers's approach to understanding personality and human relationships, found wide application in various domains, such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy), education (student-centered learning), organizations, and other group settings. For his professional work he received the Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Psychology from the APA in 1972. In a study by Steven J. Haggbloom and colleagues using six criteria such as citations and recognition, Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud. Based on a 1982 survey of 422 respondents of U.S. and Canadian psychologists, he was considered the most influential psychotherapist in history (Freud ranked third).

Biography
Rogers was born on January 8, 1902, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His father, Walter A. Rogers, was a civil engineer, a Congregationalist by denomination. His mother, Julia M. Cushing, was a homemaker and devout Baptist. Carl was the fourth of their six children.

Rogers was intelligent and could read well before kindergarten. Following an education in a strict religious and ethical environment as an altar boy at the vicarage of Jimpley, he became rather isolated, independent and disciplined, and acquired knowledge and an appreciation for the scientific method in a practical world. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was a member of the fraternity Alpha Kappa Lambda, his first career choice was agriculture, followed by history and then religion.

At age 20, following his 1922 trip to Beijing, China, for an international Christian conference, Rogers started to doubt his religious convictions. To help him clarify his career choice, he attended a seminar titled "Why Am I Entering the Ministry?" after which he decided to change careers. In 1924, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, married Helen Elliott (a fellow Wisconsin student whom he had known from Oak Park), and enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Some time later he reportedly became an atheist. Although referred to as an atheist early in his career, Rogers eventually came to be described as agnostic. However, in his later years it is reported he spoke about spirituality. Thorne, who knew Rogers and worked with him on a number of occasions during his final ten years, writes that "in his later years his openness to experience compelled him to acknowledge the existence of a dimension to which he attached such adjectives as mystical, spiritual, and transcendental". Rogers concluded that there is a realm "beyond" scientific psychology, a realm he came to prize as "the indescribable, the spiritual."

After two years, Rogers left the seminary to attend Teachers College, Columbia University, obtaining an M.A. in 1927 and a Ph.D. in 1931. While completing his doctoral work, he engaged in child study. He studied with Alfred Adler in 1927 to 1928 when Rogers was an intern at the now defunct Institute for Child Guidance in New York City. Later in life, Rogers recalled: "Accustomed as I was to the rather rigid Freudian approach of the Institute—seventy-five-page case histories, and exhaustive batteries of tests before even thinking of 'treating' a child—I was shocked by Dr. Adler's very direct and deceptively simple manner of immediately relating to the child and the parent. It took me some time to realize how much I had learned from him." In 1930, Rogers served as director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Rochester, New York. From 1935 to 1940 he lectured at the University of Rochester and wrote The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child (1939), based on his experience in working with troubled children. He was strongly influenced in constructing his client-centered approach by the post-Freudian psychotherapeutic practice of Otto Rank, especially as embodied in the work of Rank's disciple, noted clinician and social work educator Jessie Taft. In 1940 Rogers became professor of clinical psychology at the Ohio State University, where he wrote his second book, Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942). In it, Rogers suggests that by establishing a relationship with an understanding, accepting therapist, a client can resolve difficulties and gain the insight necessary to restructure their life.

In 1945, Rogers was invited to set up a counseling center at the University of Chicago. In 1947, he was elected president of the American Psychological Association. While a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago (1945–57), Rogers helped establish a counseling center connected with the university and there conducted studies to determine his methods' effectiveness. His findings and theories appeared in Client-Centered Therapy (1951) and Psychotherapy and Personality Change (1954). One of his graduate students at the University of Chicago, Thomas Gordon, established the Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) movement. Another student, Eugene T. Gendlin, who was getting his Ph.D. in philosophy, developed the practice of Focusing based on Rogerian listening. In 1956, Rogers became the first president of the American Academy of Psychotherapists. He taught psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1957–63), during which time he wrote one of his best-known books, On Becoming a Person (1961). A student of his there, Marshall Rosenberg, went on to develop Nonviolent Communication. Rogers and Abraham Maslow (1908–70) pioneered a movement called humanistic psychology, which reached its peak in the 1960s. In 1961, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rogers was also one of the people who questioned the rise of McCarthyism in the 1950s. In articles, he criticized society for its backward-looking affinities.

Rogers continued teaching at the University of Wisconsin until 1963, when he became a resident at the new Western Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, California. Rogers left the WBSI to help found the Center for Studies of the Person in 1968. His later books include Carl Rogers on Personal Power (1977) and Freedom to Learn for the '80s (1983). He remained a La Jolla resident for the rest of his life, doing therapy, giving speeches and writing.

Rogers's last years were devoted to applying his theories in situations of political oppression and national social conflict, traveling worldwide to do so. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, he brought together influential Protestants and Catholics; in South Africa, blacks and whites; in Brazil, people emerging from dictatorship to democracy; in the United States, consumers and providers in the health field. His last trip, at age 85, was to the Soviet Union, where he lectured and facilitated intensive experiential workshops fostering communication and creativity. He was astonished at how many Russians knew of his work.

Between 1974 and 1984, Rogers, his daughter Natalie Rogers, and psychologists Maria Bowen, Maureen O'Hara, and John K. Wood convened a series of residential programs in the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Japan, the Person-Centered Approach Workshops, which focused on cross-cultural communications, personal growth, self-empowerment, and learning for social change.

In 1987, Rogers suffered a fall that resulted in a fractured pelvis: he had life alert and was able to contact paramedics. He had a successful operation, but his pancreas failed the next night and he died a few days later after a heart attack.

One of Rogers's most famous lines is: "Death is final, and accepting that is the most difficult thing to undertake. That loved one is not coming back and nothing can change that. Nothing compares to them. Life is precious and vulnerable, so be wise with how you choose to spend it, because once death arrives there is no turning back."

Theory
Rogers's theory of the self is considered humanistic, existential, and phenomenological. It is based directly on the "phenomenal field" personality theory of Combs and Snygg (1949). Rogers's elaboration of his theory is extensive. He wrote 16 books and many more journal articles about it. Prochaska and Norcross (2003) states Rogers "consistently stood for an empirical evaluation of psychotherapy. He and his followers have demonstrated a humanistic approach to conducting therapy and a scientific approach to evaluating therapy need not be incompatible."

Nineteen propositions
Rogers's theory (as of 1951) was based on 19 propositions:
 * 1) All individuals (organisms) exist in a continually changing world of experience (phenomenal field) of which they are the center.
 * 2) The organism reacts to the field as it is experienced and perceived. This perceptual field is "reality" for the individual.
 * 3) The organism reacts as an organized whole to this phenomenal field.
 * 4) A portion of the total perceptual field gradually becomes differentiated as the self.
 * 5) As a result of interaction with the environment, and particularly as a result of evaluative interaction with others, the structure of the self is formed—an organized, fluid but consistent conceptual pattern of perceptions of characteristics and relationships of the "I" or the "me", together with values attached to these concepts.
 * 6) The organism has one basic tendency and striving—to actualize, maintain and enhance the experiencing organism.
 * 7) The best vantage point for understanding behavior is from the internal frame of reference of the individual.
 * 8) Behavior is basically the goal-directed attempt of the organism to satisfy its needs as experienced, in the field as perceived.
 * 9) Emotion accompanies, and in general facilitates, such goal directed behavior, the kind of emotion being related to the perceived significance of the behavior for the maintenance and enhancement of the organism.
 * 10) The values attached to experiences, and the values that are a part of the self-structure, in some instances, are values experienced directly by the organism, and in some instances are values introjected or taken over from others, but perceived in distorted fashion, as if they had been experienced directly.
 * 11) As experiences occur in the life of the individual, they are either (a) symbolized, perceived and organized into some relation to the self, (b) ignored because there is no perceived relationship to the self structure, or (c) denied symbolization or given distorted symbolization because the experience is inconsistent with the structure of the self.
 * 12) Most of the ways of behaving that the organism adopts are those that are consistent with the concept of self.
 * 13) In some instances, behavior may be brought about by organic experiences and needs that have not been symbolized. Such behavior may be inconsistent with the structure of the self, but in such instances the individual does not "own" the behavior.
 * 14) Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of the self is such that all the sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of self.
 * 15) Psychological maladjustment exists when the organism denies awareness of significant sensory and visceral experiences, which consequently are not symbolized and organized into the gestalt of the self structure. When this situation exists, there is a basic or potential psychological tension.
 * 16) Any experience that is inconsistent with the organization of the structure of the self may be perceived as a threat, and the more of these perceptions there are, the more rigidly the self structure is organized to maintain itself.
 * 17) Under certain conditions, involving primarily complete absence of threat to the self structure, experiences inconsistent with it may be perceived and examined, and the structure of self revised to assimilate and include such experiences.
 * 18) When the individual perceives and accepts into one consistent and integrated system all his sensory and visceral experiences, he is necessarily more understanding of others and more accepting of others as separate individuals.
 * 19) As the individual perceives and accepts into his self structure more of his organic experiences, he finds that he is replacing his present value system—based extensively on introjections which have been distortedly symbolized—with a continuing organismic valuing process.

In relation to No. 17, Rogers is known for practicing "unconditional positive regard", which is defined as accepting a person "without negative judgment of .... [a person's] basic worth".

Development of the personality
With regard to development, Rogers described principles rather than stages. The main issue is the development of a self-concept and the progress from an undifferentiated self to being fully differentiated.

"Self Concept ... the organized consistent conceptual gestalt composed of perceptions of the characteristics of 'I' or 'me' and the perceptions of the relationships of the 'I' or 'me' to others and to various aspects of life, together with the values attached to these perceptions. It is a gestalt which is available to awareness though not necessarily in awareness. It is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, but at any given moment it is a specific entity. (Rogers, 1959)"

In the development of the self-concept, he saw conditional and unconditional positive regard as key. Those raised in an environment of unconditional positive regard have the opportunity to fully actualize themselves. Those raised in an environment of conditional positive regard feel worthy only if they match conditions (what Rogers describes as conditions of worth) that others have laid down for them.

Fully functioning person
Optimal development, as referred to in proposition 14, results in a certain process rather than static state. Rogers calls this the good life, where the organism continually aims to fulfill its potential. He listed the characteristics of a fully functioning person (Rogers 1961):
 * 1) A growing openness to experience: they move away from defensiveness and have no need for subception (a perceptual defense that involves unconsciously applying strategies to prevent a troubling stimulus from entering consciousness).
 * 2) An increasingly existential lifestyle: living each moment fully, not distorting the moment to fit personality or self-concept but allowing personality and self-concept to emanate from the experience. This results in excitement, daring, adaptability, tolerance, spontaneity, and lack of rigidity, and suggests a foundation of trust. "To open one's spirit to what is going on now, and discover in that present process whatever structure it appears to have" (Rogers 1961).
 * 3) Increasing organismic trust: they trust their own judgment and ability to choose behavior appropriate for each moment. They do not rely on existing codes and social norms but trust that as they are open to experiences they will be able to trust their own sense of right and wrong.
 * 4) Freedom of choice: not being shackled by the restrictions that influence an incongruent individual, they are able to make a wider range of choices more fluently. They believe they play a role in determining their own behavior and so feel responsible for it.
 * 5) Creativity: it follows that they will feel freer to be creative. They will also be more creative in the way they adapt to their circumstances without feeling a need to conform.
 * 6) Reliability and constructiveness: they can be trusted to act constructively. An individual who is open to all their needs will be able to maintain a balance between them. Even aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in congruent individuals.
 * 7) A rich full life: Rogers describes the life of the fully functioning individual as rich, full and exciting, and suggests that they experience joy and pain, love and heartbreak, fear and courage more intensely. His description of the good life:"This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. (Rogers 1961)"

Incongruity
Rogers identified the "real self" as the aspect of a person that is founded in the actualizing tendency, follows organismic values and needs, and receives positive regard from others and self. On the other hand, to the extent that society is out of sync with the actualizing tendency and people are forced to live with conditions of worth that are out of step with organismic valuing, receiving only conditional positive regard and self-regard, Rogers said that people develop instead an "ideal self". By ideal, he was suggesting something not real, something always out of reach, a standard people cannot meet. This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the "I am" and the "I should", Rogers called incongruity.

Psychopathology
Rogers described the concepts of congruence and incongruence as important in his theory. In proposition #6, he refers to the actualizing tendency. At the same time, he recognized the need for positive regard. In a fully congruent person, realizing their potential is not at the expense of experiencing positive regard. They are able to lead authentic and genuine lives. Incongruent individuals, in their pursuit of positive regard, lead lives that include falsity and do not realize their potential. Conditions put on them by those around them make it necessary for them to forgo their genuine, authentic lives to meet with others' approval. They live lives that are not true to themselves.

Rogers suggested that the incongruent individual, who is always on the defensive and cannot be open to all experiences, is not functioning ideally and may even be malfunctioning. They work hard at maintaining and protecting their self-concept. Because their lives are not authentic, this is difficult, and they are under constant threat. They deploy defense mechanisms to achieve this. He describes two mechanisms: distortion and denial. Distortion occurs when the individual perceives a threat to their self-concept. They distort the perception until it fits their self-concept. This defensive behavior reduces the consciousness of the threat but not the threat itself. And so, as the threats mount, the work of protecting the self-concept becomes more difficult and the individual becomes more defensive and rigid in their self-structure. If the incongruity is immoderate this process may lead the individual to a state that would typically be described as neurotic. Their functioning becomes precarious and psychologically vulnerable. If the situation worsens it is possible that the defenses cease to function altogether and the individual becomes aware of the incongruity of their situation. Their personality becomes disorganised and bizarre; irrational behavior, associated with earlier denied aspects of self, may erupt uncontrollably.

Person-centered therapy
Rogers originally developed his theory as the foundation for a system of therapy. He initially called it "non-directive therapy" but later replaced the term "non-directive" with "client-centered", and still later "person-centered". Even before the publication of Client-Centered Therapy in 1951, Rogers believed the principles he was describing could be applied in a variety of contexts, not just in therapy. As a result, he started to use the term person-centered approach to describe his overall theory. Person-centered therapy is the application of the person-centered approach to therapy. Other applications include a theory of personality, interpersonal relations, education, nursing, cross-cultural relations and other "helping" professions and situations. In 1946 Rogers co-authored "Counseling with Returned Servicemen" with John L. Wallen (the creator of the behavioral model known as The Interpersonal Gap), documenting the application of person-centered approach to counseling military personnel returning from World War II.

The first empirical evidence of the client-centered approach's effectiveness was published in 1941 at the Ohio State University by Elias Porter, using the recordings of therapeutic sessions between Rogers and his clients. Porter used Rogers's transcripts to devise a system to measure the degree of directiveness or non-directiveness a counselor employed. The counselor's attitude and orientation were shown to be instrumental in the decisions the client made.

Learner-centered teaching
The application to education has a large robust research tradition similar to that of therapy, with studies having begun in the late 1930s and continuing today (Cornelius-White, 2007). Rogers described the approach to education in Client-Centered Therapy and wrote Freedom to Learn devoted exclusively to the subject in 1969. Freedom to Learn was revised twice. The new Learner-Centered Model is similar in many regards to this classical person-centered approach to education. Before Rogers's death, he and Harold Lyon began a book, On Becoming an Effective Teacher—Person-centered Teaching, Psychology, Philosophy, and Dialogues with Carl R. Rogers and Harold Lyon, that Lyon and Reinhard Tausch completed and published in 2013. It contains Rogers's last unpublished writings on person-centered teaching. Rogers had the following five hypotheses regarding learner-centered education:
 * 1) "A person cannot teach another person directly; a person can only facilitate another's learning" (Rogers, 1951). This is a result of his personality theory, which states that everyone exists in a constantly changing world of experience in which they are the center. Each person reacts and responds based on perception and experience. The belief is that what the student does is more important than what the teacher does. The focus is on the student (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, the background and experiences of the learner are essential to how and what is learned. Each student will process what they learn differently depending on what they bring to the classroom.
 * 2) "A person learns significantly only those things that are perceived as being involved in the maintenance of or enhancement of the structure of self" (Rogers, 1951). Therefore, relevancy to the student is essential for learning. The students' experiences become the core of the course.
 * 3) "Experience which, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of self, tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolism" (Rogers, 1951). If the content or presentation of a course is inconsistent with preconceived information, the student will learn if they are open to varying concepts. Being open to concepts that vary from one's own is vital to learning. Therefore, gently encouraging open-mindedness is helpful in engaging the student in learning. Also, it is important, for this reason, that new information be relevant and related to existing experience.
 * 4) "The structure and organization of self appears to become more rigid under threats and to relax its boundaries when completely free from threat" (Rogers, 1951). If students believe that concepts are being forced upon them, they might become uncomfortable and fearful. A barrier is created by a tone of threat in the classroom. Therefore, an open, friendly environment in which trust is developed is essential in the classroom. Fear of retribution for not agreeing with a concept should be eliminated. A supportive classroom tone helps to alleviate fears and encourages students to have the courage to explore concepts and beliefs that vary from those they bring to the classroom. Also, new information might threaten the student's concept of themself; therefore, the less vulnerable the student feels, the more likely they will be able to open up to the learning process.
 * 5) "The educational situation which most effectively promotes significant learning is one in which (a) threat to the self of the learner is reduced to a minimum and (b) differentiated perception of the field is facilitated" (Rogers, 1951). The instructor should be open to learning from the students and working to connect the students to the subject matter. Frequent interaction with the students will help achieve this goal. The instructor's acceptance of being a mentor who guides rather than the expert who tells is instrumental to student-centered, nonthreatening, and unforced learning.

Rogerian rhetorical approach
In 1970, Richard Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth Pike published Rhetoric: Discovery and Change, a widely influential college writing textbook that used a Rogerian approach to communication to revise the traditional Aristotelian framework for rhetoric. The Rogerian method of argument involves each side restating the other's position to the satisfaction of the other, among other principles. In a paper, it can be expressed by carefully acknowledging and understanding the opposition, rather than dismissing them.

Cross-cultural relations
The application to cross-cultural relations has involved workshops in highly stressful situations and global locations, including conflicts and challenges in South Africa, Central America, and Ireland. Rogers, Alberto Zucconi, and Charles Devonshire co-founded the Istituto dell'Approccio Centrato sulla Persona (Person-Centered Approach Institute) in Rome, Italy.

Rogers's international work for peace culminated in the Rust Peace Workshop, which took place in November 1985 in Rust, Austria. Leaders from 17 nations convened to discuss the topic "The Central America Challenge". The meeting was notable for several reasons: it brought national figures together as people (not as their positions), it was a private event, and was an overwhelming positive experience where members heard one another and established real personal ties, as opposed to stiffly formal and regulated diplomatic meetings.

Person-centered, dialogic politics
Some scholars believe there is a politics implicit in Rogers's approach to psychotherapy. Toward the end of his life, Rogers came to that view himself. The central tenet of Rogerian, person-centered politics is that public life need not consist of an endless series of winner-take-all battles among sworn opponents; rather, it can and should consist of an ongoing dialogue among all parties. Such dialogue is characterized by respect among the parties, authentic speaking by each, and—ultimately—empathic understanding among all parties. Out of such understanding, mutually acceptable solutions will (or at least can) flow.

During his last decade, Rogers facilitated or participated in a wide variety of dialogic activities among politicians, activists, and other social leaders, often outside the U.S. He also lent his support to several non-traditional U.S. political initiatives, including the "12-Hour Political Party" of the Association for Humanistic Psychology and the founding of a "transformational" political organization, the New World Alliance. By the 21st century, interest in dialogic approaches to political engagement and change had become widespread, especially among academics and activists. Theorists of a specifically Rogerian, person-centered approach to politics as dialogue have made substantial contributions to that project.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
From the late 1950s into the '60s, Rogers served on the board of the Human Ecology Fund, a CIA-funded organization that provided grants to researchers looking into personality. In addition, he and other people in the field of personality and psychotherapy were given a lot of information about Khrushchev. "We were asked to figure out what we thought of him and what would be the best way of dealing with him. And that seemed to be an entirely principled and legitimate aspect. I don't think we contributed very much, but, anyway, we tried."

Selected works by Carl Rogers

 * Rogers, Carl, and Carmichael, Leonard (1939). The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
 * Rogers, Carl. (1942). Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
 * Rogers, Carl. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory. London: Constable. ISBN 1-84119-840-4.
 * Rogers, C.R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 21: 95-103.
 * Rogers, Carl. (1959). A Theory of Therapy, Personality and Interpersonal Relationships as Developed in the Client-centered Framework. In (ed.) S. Koch, Psychology: A Study of a Science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the Person and the Social Context. New York: McGraw Hill.
 * Rogers, Carl. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. London: Constable. ISBN 1-84529-057-7.Excerpts
 * Rogers, Carl. (1969). Freedom to Learn: A View of What Education Might Become. (1st ed.) Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merill. Excerpts
 * Rogers, Carl. (1970). On Encounter Groups. New York: Harrow Books, Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-087045-1
 * Rogers, Carl. (1977). On Personal Power: Inner Strength and Its Revolutionary Impact.
 * Rogers, Carl. (nd, @1978). A personal message from Carl Rogers. In: N. J. Raskin. (2004). Contributions to Client-Centered Therapy and the Person-Centered Approach. (pp. v-vi). Herefordshire, United Kingdom: PCCS Books, Ross-on-the-Wye. ISBN 1-898059-57-8
 * Rogers, Carl. (1980). A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
 * Rogers, Carl. and Stevens, B. (1967). Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human. Lafayette, CA: Real People Press.
 * Rogers, Carl, Lyon, Harold C., & Tausch, Reinhard (2013) On Becoming an Effective Teacher—Person-centered Teaching, Psychology, Philosophy, and Dialogues with Carl R. Rogers and Harold Lyon. London: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-81698-4
 * Rogers, C.R., Raskin, N.J., et al. (1949). A coordinated research in psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 13, 149–200. Cited in: N.J. Raskin, The first 50 years and the next 10. Person-Centered Review, 5(4), November 1990, 364–372.

Research on the work of Carl Rogers
Howard Kirschenbaum has conducted extensive research on the work of Carl Rogers and the person-centered/client centered approach. Kirschenbaum published the first thorough book in English on Rogers’ life and work, titled, On Becoming Carl Rogers in 1979, followed by the biography, The Life and Work of Carl Rogers in 2007.

title: Carl Rogers