Managua, Nicaragua ? Daniel Ortega returns to Nicaragua’s presidency a shadow of the fiery revolutionary who in Cold War times vowed an endless fight against a U.S. government determined to overthrow him.

Balding, weakened by heart trouble and often appearing almost docile, he now preaches reconciliation and stability, and promises to maintain close ties with the U.S. and the veterans of the Contra army it trained and armed against him.

He has traded his wartime military fatigues for a white shirt and jeans. His guide, he says, is God, not Karl Marx.

The United States and his rivals worry the Sandinista revolutionary in him will resurface, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro welcome him into a club of leftist leaders fighting American dominance in the region.

But Ortega, who was president in 1985-90, the height of the Contra insurgency, says he has traded war for peace, love and consensus.

In his third failed run for president, in 2001, when reconciliation was the watchword, he actually waved a U.S. flag on stage. Yet celebrating May Day 2005 in Cuba, he referred to Americans in a speech as “the enemies of humanity.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos says cooperation with Ortega and his government will be “based on their action in support of Nicaragua’s democratic future.”