PANAMA'S BAD NEWS GENERAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790011-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 21, 2013
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: July 7, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

14 -) Declassified and Approved For Release 2013/02/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790011-6
C/ ARTICLE APPE ED , NEWSWEEK
ON PAG 7 July 1986
Panama's Bad
News General
More Noriega charges
panama's strongman, Gen. Manuel
Antonio Noriega, is now up to his
epaulets in bad news. Last week Sen.
Jesse Helms said, "There's no question
about Mr. Noriega being the. . . head of the
biggest drug-trafficking operation in the
Western Hemisphere." Interviewed on
NBC's "Meet the Press," Helms even inti-
mated that Noriega might have had a hand
in the air crash that killed Panama's popu-
lar dictator, Gen. Omar Torrijos. Other
charges continued to leach out from U.S.
sources about activities ranging from dope
dealing to murder.
Noriega's spokesman, Maj. Edgard? L?-
pez Grimaldo, accused U.S. critics of con-
cocting the charges in a plot to keep the
canal and dismissed Helms as "a racist and
a member of the Ku Klux Klan." Such
ripostes are unlikely to plug the leaks in
Washington One U S intelligence official
likened the Panamanian strongman to a
mob chieftain, except his "family" includes
Panama's 15,000-strong National Defense
Force "It's really a Mafia group running a
country," he said. Allegations from U.S.
intelligence sources ran to uniformed ca-
pos who beat up and even bump off political
uponents. deal in guns and drugs,smuggle
illpel aliens and launder hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars in narcotics profits.
U.S. officials gathered some of their evi-
dence against Noriega through wiretap-
ping and electronic eavesdropping, intelb-
gence sources told NEWSWEEK. Because of
that, they believe that Noriega ordered the
grisly murder of opposition leader ? Dr.
Hugo Spadafora, whose decapitated body
was discovered last fall dumped in Costa
Rica, stuffed into a U.S. mailbag. Denying
the charge, Noriega claimed he had the
most to lose from the death, since it would
be blamed on him, and his spokesman la-
beled Spadafora "a professional guerrilla."
Noriega "didn't cut off his head," said one
knowledgeable source, "but he directed the
entire operation." "We had testimony of
planeloads of drugs taking off from mili-
tary airfields," said a Helms staffer present
at secret hearings on Panama. Said Nor-
man Bailey, a former national-security-af-
fairs adviser to the president: "The ingredi-
ents are there for Panama to become the
first country to institutionalize the drug
traffic."
Others contended that Noriega has
played both sides of the isthmus, peddling
arms to left-wing guerrillas in El Salvador
and offering to do so for right-wing contras.
U.S. officials told NEWSWEEK that he has
let the free port in Colon circumvent the
U.S. blockade of Cuba and export high tech-
nology to the Fast bloc.
Concerted policy: The scandal is more than
an embarrassment. The U.S. Southern
Command is headquartered in Panama.
U.S. troops guard the canal, monitor ship-
ping and communications and provide sup-
port for Honduras, El Salvador and the
contras. In the short term, the administra-
tion can ill afford to lose Panama's coopera-
tion, especially with its anti-Sandinista
campaign in high gear. Supporting Norie-
ga too strongly could tarnish America's
credibility and contribute to an upheaval
in Panama that could jeopardize U.S. inter-
ests. Many Panamanians saw the charges
against Noriega as part of a concerted U.S.
government policy. Even opposition leader
Ricardo Arias Calderon was suspicious. "I
don't think this has as much to do with a
true concern for democracy as it does with
real concern for the Panama Canal and
U.S. security in the region."
Asked how the administration planned
to handle Noriega, one senior White House
official said, "I haven't the foggiest idea."
"What are we supposed to do, shut down
the canal?" said another high administra-
tion official. So the State Department ex-
pressed cautious concern about the charges
and the Drug Enforcement Administra-
tion continued to praise Noriega for regu-
larly turning in dope dealers. The affair
recalls the ambivalence of the Reagan ad-
ministration in the final months of Ferdi-
nand Marcos. Once again the United States
is in the awkward position of trying to dis-
tance itself from an ally whom, at least for
the moment, it cannot afford to alienate.
ROD NORDLA k
ND witRIH
,CARD SANDZA iT77
Washington and LIZ BALMASED-A?I/IParfaina-Cav,
3- -1
anri Annroved For Release 2013/02/21 CIA-RDP90-00965R000605790011-6