Throughout the Nicaraguan Civil War, the Reagan government conducted a campaign to shift public opinion to favor support for the Contras, and to change the vote in Congress to favor of that support. For this purpose, the National Security Council authorized the production and distribution of publications that looked favorably at the Contras, also known as "white propaganda," written by paid consultants who did not disclose their connection to the administration. It also arranged for speeches and press conferences conveying the same message. The U.S. government continually discussed the Contras in highly favorable terms; Reagan called them the "moral equivalent of the founding fathers." Another common theme the administration played on was the idea of returning Nicaragua to democracy, which analysts characterized as "curious," because Nicaragua had been a U.S.-supported dictatorship prior to the Sandinista revolution, and had never had a democratic government before the Sandinistas. There were also continued efforts to label the Sandinistas as undemocratic although the 1984 Nicaraguan elections were generally declared fair by historians.