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- <text id=90TT2799>
- <title>
- Oct. 22, 1990: I'll Hold Your Coat . . . Manny?
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Oct. 22, 1990 The New Jazz Age
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- GRAPEVINE, Page 23
- I'll Hold Your Coat...Manny?
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>By PAUL GRAY/Reported by David Ellis
- </p>
- <p> More than a year before the U.S. invasion of Panama, Fidel
- Castro tried to booby-trap the operation he anticipated. Major
- Felipe Camargo, a former henchman of Manuel Noriega's, has told
- U.S. investigators that he met with Castro in February 1988 to
- plan resistance to any attack. Fidel suggested arming and
- training thousands of Panamanians into "dignity battalions,"
- which were formed prior to the attack. Castro did not envision
- an outright victory over U.S. forces but a stalemate that would
- embarrass the superpower and last long enough to allow for a
- U.N.-mediated cease-fire, presumably with Noriega still in
- power. As good as his word, Castro dispatched a sizable arsenal
- to Panama, including an estimated 100,000 assault rifles. What
- the Cuban leader did not foresee is that Noriega would have so
- little stomach for a prolonged fight.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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