[5][4] In 1997, The San Francisco Chronicle published an excerpt from the then-upcoming book, describing a Contra ambush near the town of El Cuá.
[6] Reviewing The Death of Ben Linder in The Texas Observer, UT Austin professor Milton Jamail, who visited Nicaragua in the 1980s, described it as "compelling and well-written" and felt it accurately captured the negative effects of U.S. policy in Latin America.
"[9] Noam Chomsky described the book as "a poignant and gripping tale," The Seattle Times called it "compelling" and "painstakingly detailed" and Nicaragua Monitor, a publication of the left-wing Alliance for Global Justice, praised Kruckewitt for "beautifully and honestly" telling Linder's story.
She discussed the manner in which the Reagan administration altered traditional Honduran policy by enlisting the country in their campaign against Nicaragua and building an alliance between Honduras and El Salvador.
[16] Oberlin College professor Steven Volk described this article as a particularly valuable description of the U.S. government's training of Latin American allies to torture and assassinate opponents.