The Devil They Knew

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

As early as 1972, a U.S. antinarcotics official had a suggestion for cutting down the shipment of drugs through Panama into the U.S.: assassinate Manuel Antonio Noriega. Not only was that proposal rejected; some time later Noriega, then head of his country's intelligence service, went on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Among his bosses: George Bush, director of the CIA in 1976. As late as 1983, Vice President Bush used Noriega to pass a message to Fidel Castro. And as late as 1987, the Reagan Administration was arguing that Noriega had been "fully cooperative" with U.S. antidrug efforts.

Less than a year later, federal prosecutors in Florida won indictments accusing Noriega of helping Colombian drug lords smuggle tons of cocaine into the U.S. Soon Washington began painting Noriega as one of the villains of the century: not only a drug kingpin but also an arms smuggler and a murderous tyrant. How come? Why did the U.S. so long support Noriega despite the gathering evidence of his unsavory activities? And why did it then do an abrupt about-face?

Noriega's relations with Washington were always ambivalent: he seemed to be a triple or quadruple agent. There appeared to be good grounds for the CIA to hire him: he was a shrewd intelligence operative, and Panama is an excellent listening post for developments throughout Central America and the Caribbean. But from early on, Noriega seemed to play Uncle Sam for a prize sucker. U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab once remarked that "occasionally, they ((Noriega & Co.)) swing some poor slob out, in effect give him away to make us feel they're cooperating." And once in a while Noriega would assist in the seizure of large amounts of narcotics -- cynics suggest as a way to punish traffickers who did not pay him off. But if charges filed against him are proved, those efforts were far outweighed by the assistance he gave the drug lords of Colombia's Medellin cartel.

Noriega won Washington's gratitude by allowing the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan contra rebels to train on Coiba Island, off Panama. In 1985 he made an offer to Marine Lieut. Colonel Oliver North, then on the National Security Council staff, to assassinate Nicaraguan Sandinista leaders and carry out sabotage inside the country. All the time, though, Noriega was allegedly running arms to the Sandinistas and to leftist rebels in Colombia and El Salvador, supplying CIA information to Cuba and helping Cubans smuggle U.S. high- technology equipment through Panama to the Soviet bloc. Said Jose Blandon, a former intimate of Noriega's: "Contras, Sandinistas, Cubans, the CIA, he deals with them all to make money."

His relations with Bush are a minor mystery. According to Blandon, Bush phoned Noriega three hours before the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. He asked Noriega to warn Fidel Castro that if Cuba tried to stop the invasion or to retaliate, it would get the same -- or worse. Noriega made the call, and shortly afterward Bush visited him. Blandon says Bush lectured Noriega on the need for democracy in Panama, but also thanked him for helping contain communism.

Supporting Noriega became steadily more difficult as he rigged elections, was accused of ordering the murder of opponents, and was subjected to journalistic exposes of his drug running and arms smuggling. But the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration stood by him, even as the DEA developed the evidence leading to his indictments. The State Department was split between a get-Noriega faction and diplomats who were nervous about the potential loss of intelligence assets in Panama. By the time of the indictments, though, it was obvious that Noriega had gone out of U.S. control. Investigators assert that the millions he was by then receiving from the Medellin drug cartel dwarfed his CIA payoffs.

Drugs became a hot issue in the 1988 presidential campaign, and candidate Bush vehemently proclaimed that if he won he would never negotiate with drug lords. At the same time, the Reagan Administration was dickering unsuccessfully for a deal under which the indictments would be dropped if Noriega went into exile. A year later, a close friend of the dictator's speculated on the likelihood of U.S. troops invading Panama. "Send them in," he said. "By the time they get to Panama City, there'll be news releases detailing everything that Noriega knows about Bush. And what he knows is enough to sink Bush's presidency." Whether Noriega can actually embarrass % Bush and other high Washington figures, and how much, only his trial will tell.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira and Elaine Shannon/ Washington