When Ronald Reagan, a strong anti-communist, took office as president in 1981, he was determined to assert America’s power and put a stop to any Soviet influence around the world. This was the centerpiece of his foreign policy and impacted everything from U.S. military build up, to funding and covert military support for countries in Central America.

In El Salvador, the military-led junta government was fighting a civil war against the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition of leftist groups that included guerillas, unions, peasants, and political activists.

FMLN was seeking social and political reforms in a country long known for chronic poverty, repression, and economic inequality: 10 percent of the landowners held 78 percent of the arable land.

The struggle for reform was supported by the Catholic clergy and lay workers, who were seeking social justice and the protection of human rights, especially in rural communities.

To quell the popular uprising, the government relied on the army, national police, and military-backed death squads to carry out a campaign of terror.

This posed a dilemma for the Reagan Administration, as Congressional approval of aid to El Salvador in the early 1980s depended on the government improving its disastrous record on human rights. And then four American churchwomen who were working in the country were killed.