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- <text id=89TT0497>
- <title>
- Feb. 20, 1989: Grapevine
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 20, 1989 Betrayal:Marine Spy Scandal
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 48
- Grapevine
- </hdr><body>
- <p> BACK ON THE PAYROLL? Students of the Iran-contra scandal
- will remember that former CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, code
- name Max Gomez, played a crucial role in supplying arms to the
- contras from El Salvador's Ilopango air base, where he worked
- undercover as an adviser to the Salvadoran military. Within the
- past few months, Rodriguez quietly returned to his adviser's
- job, but not necessarily to the CIA's payroll. Five weeks ago,
- he went to Washington with the Salvadoran air force chief, who
- was lobbying for continued U.S. aid. Said a State Department
- official of Rodriguez: "As far as we know in this building,
- we're not paying him."
- </p>
- <p> PLATE LICENSE. Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is once
- again playing diplomatic chicken with the U.S. -- this time on
- Panama's highways. As part of its ongoing protest against
- Noriega, Washington has ordered its employees in Panama not to
- pay the country's payroll taxes. But certification of payment is
- necessary to obtain license plates. As a result, many of the
- embassy's 104 staffers and some 12,000 American and Panamanian
- workers are driving their cars without valid plates. So far,
- Panamanian police have not seized the unlicensed vehicles, but
- U.S. officials are organizing a fleet of minibuses just in case.
- </p>
- <p> FLYING SOUTH. In the face of stiffening West German
- opposition to low-altitude military aircraft flights, NATO
- planners have begun talks with Morocco. The North African
- desert would be ideal for instrument-controlled night flying and
- other dangerous training missions. Two locations being
- discussed: the former U.S. bases at Kenitra and Sidi Slimane,
- the latter the site of a Strategic Air Command base that was
- closed in 1978.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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