TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/010190/01019003.003

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 4KB | 73 lines

NATION, Page 31

Did Noriega Slip Over the Edge?


    When he was told by an American journalist in 1988 that he was
"the most hated man in the United States," Manuel Antonio Noriega
preened with pleasure. "Do they really hate me even more than
Gaddafi?" he asked. Yes, he was assured, even more than Gaddafi.
Noriega laughed.

    It was just that cocksure quality, combined with cunning and
ruthlessness, that enabled Panama's leader to face down repeated
U.S. challenges over the past 2 1/2 years. But in the days leading
up to the U.S. invasion, Noriega seemed to slide into recklessness,
as if he were deliberately trying to provoke his own doom. First
his handpicked assembly declared that a "state of war" existed with
the U.S. and installed Noriega as Panama's "Maximum Leader." Then
he sat back while his troops shot a U.S. Marine and abducted and
abused a Navy lieutenant and his wife. Noriega could not have
handed his American adversaries a better pretext for invasion.

    Noriega's increasingly bombastic language and his trigger-happy
troops may have been indications that events were spinning out of
control in Panama, forcing him to extremes. But other evidence
suggested that the dictator was losing control of himself: U.S.
troops searching his various hideouts found, along with pictures
of Adolf Hitler, collections of pornography and sophisticated
weapons and more than 50 kilos of cocaine. In one Noriega
guesthouse, searchers found a bucket of blood and entrails, which
they said may have been used for occult rites to protect him. Was
the accused drug trafficker deteriorating into a megalomaniac drug
user?

    Evidence of his erratic behavior first emerged after an aborted
coup attempt against him in March 1988. Reports circulated that
Noriega had taken to the bottle and occasionally drank himself into
a stupor. In the months after he violently halted last May's
presidential election, Noriega -- perhaps prudently -- saw himself
as a marked man. He refused to sleep in the same place on
consecutive nights and, as a precaution against being poisoned, ate
only food prepared by his girlfriend's mother.

    Following the second failed coup attempt last October, Noriega
rounded up dozens of officers for imprisonment or execution,
deepening tensions in the barracks. In public, he sometimes
appeared drunk and showed the telltale signs of cocaine abuse.
Noriega supporters say that in December, in the wake of reports
that Bush had authorized a new covert plan to oust him, the general
sank into a deep depression. Under mounting pressure, trusting no
one, he was fatalistic about his chances of surviving his
confrontation with the U.S.

    Many American officials feel that a fitting coda to Noriega's
infamous career would be his capture and extradition to the U.S.
to stand trial on the 15 drug-related and money-laundering charges
handed down by federal grand juries in Tampa and Miami in February
1988. But to convict Noriega, prosecutors would have to rely
largely on the testimony of two convicted felons who traded their
stories for plea bargains. Moreover, Noriega's long association
with the CIA could block any successful prosecution. His lawyers
are certain to demand access to classified material that the
Government will be reluctant to release, a tactic that has proved
successful in the Iran-contra trials. Warns Richard Gregorie, a
former assistant U.S. attorney in Miami: "(Noriega) would be
entitled to say that he was getting his money from the CIA, and
would request documents to prove it."

    First, however, Noriega must be found. At week's end a State
Department official said Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Michael Kozak had traveled to Panama to advise the Endara
government and try to negotiate Noriega's surrender. One of the
general's American lawyers, Raymond Takiff, predicts that will
never happen. "I feel unhappily secure in my belief that he will
be killed," Takiff says. "He will not be captured."