Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

“It goes without saying,” I assured him. For an instant, my heart seemed to stop beating. An old feeling returned, similar to ones I had experienced around Howard Parker in Indonesia, while driving through Panama City beside Fidel, and while sitting in a Colombian coffee shop with Paula. I was selling out—again. This was not a bribe in the legal sense—it was perfectly aboveboard and legitimate for this company to pay to include my name on their roster, to call upon me for advice or to show up at a meeting from time to time, but I understood the real reason I was being hired.

He offered me an annual retainer that was equivalent to an executive’s salary.

Later that afternoon I sat in an airport, stunned, waiting for my flight back to Florida. I felt like a prostitute. Worse than that, I felt I had betrayed my daughter, my family, and my country. And yet, I told myself, I had little choice. I knew that if I had not accepted this bribe, the threats would have followed.

CHAPTER 30. The United States Invades Panama

Torrijos was dead, but Panama continued to hold a special place in my heart. Living in South Florida, I had access to many sources of information about current events in Central America. Torrijos’s legacy lived on, even if it was filtered through people who were not graced with his compassionate personality and strength of character. Attempts to settle differences throughout the hemisphere continued after his death, as did Panama’s determination to force the United States to live up to the terms of the Canal Treaty.

Torrijos’s successor, Manuel Noriega, at first appeared committed to following in his mentor’s footsteps. I never met Noriega personally, but by all accounts, he initially endeavored to further the cause of Latin America’s poor and oppressed. One of his most important projects was the continued exploration of prospects for building a new canal, to be financed and constructed by the Japanese. Predictably, he encountered a great deal of resistance from Washington and from private U.S. companies. As Noriega himself writes:

Secretary of State George Shultz was a former executive of the multinational construction company Bechtel; Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger had been a Bechtel vice president. Bechtel would have liked nothing better than to earn the billions of dollars in revenue that canal construction would generate… The Reagan and Bush administrations feared the possibility that Japan might dominate an eventual canal construction project; not only was there a misplaced concern about security, there was also the question of commercial rivalry. U.S. construction firms stood to lose billions of dollars.¹

But Noriega was no Torrijos. He did not have his former boss’s charisma or integrity. Over time, he developed an unsavory reputation for corruption and drug dealing, and was even suspected of arranging the assassination of a political rival, Hugo Spadafora.

Noriega built his reputation as a colonel heading up the Panamanian Defense Forces’ G-2 unit, the military intelligence command that was the national liaison with the CIA. In this capacity, he developed a close relationship with CIA Director William J. Casey. The CIA used this connection to further its agenda throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. For example, when the Reagan administration wanted to give Castro advance warning of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, Casey turned to Noriega, asking him to serve as messenger. The colonel also helped the CIA infiltrate Colombian and other drug cartels.

By 1984, Noriega had been promoted to general and commander in chief of the Panamanian Defense Forces. It is reported that when Casey arrived in Panama City that year and was met at the airport by the local CIA chief, he asked, “Where’s my boy? Where’s Noriega?” When the general visited Washington, the two men met privately at Casey’s house. Many years later, Noriega would admit that his close bond with Casey made him feel invincible. He believed that the CIA, like G-2, was the strongest branch of its country’s government. He was convinced that Casey would protect him, despite Noriega’s stance on the Panama Canal Treaty and U.S. Canal Zone military bases.²