home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- GRAPEVINE, Page 23And Take a Memo: More Birdseed
-
-
- By PAUL GRAY/Reported by David E. Thigpen
-
-
- Washington is souring on the government it helped install
- in Panama 11 months ago. The chief source of unhappiness is the
- refusal of President Guillermo Endara's administration to sign
- a treaty that would, among other things, allow American
- investigators to look into secret bank accounts. Without such
- scrutiny, U.S. officials maintain, Panama will remain what it
- was under Manuel Noriega: a prime money-laundering center for
- drug cartels. And President Endara's problems extend well beyond
- the disapproval of his American benefactors. Some of his own
- colleagues complain about the influence exerted on Endara, 54,
- by his bride of five months, Ana Mae Diaz Chen, 23. Aides say
- the President's wife walks into Cabinet meetings uninvited to
- deliver messages to her husband, then hangs around to offer
- opinions, unfailingly seconded by Endara. "He lives in a cage,"
- says one Panamanian official, "a very shapely 23-year-old cage."
-
-
-