Noriega's Ties With The CIA
Manuel Noriega, Panama's deposed military strongman now in custody in South Florida on drug charges, had a long and close working relationship with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency but apparently never was on its payroll as a paid agent, several U.S. intelligence and legal sources said Thursday.
The CIA did, however, long view Noriega as a valuable asset, mostly because of the information he was able to provide on the Cubans - even though they knew he was providing the Cubans with information on the Americans as well.
It is not yet clear what, if any, embarrassing information Noriega might be able to reveal on U.S. intelligence operations or on President Bush, who served as CIA director in 1976 and met privately at least twice with Noriega, once as CIA chief and once as vice president.
Marlin Fitzwater, the White House press spokesman, responded to such suggestions last week by saying that Noriega could talk about the CIA ``until he's blue in the face'' without embarrassing Bush or the United States.
For the CIA, according to one source with firsthand knowledge of the relationship, ``what those guys were most interested in was spooking the Cubans, seeking Noriega's help or acquiescence in being able to conduct those operations'' directed against the Cubans.
The source said the agency ``considered the Cuban Embassy in Panama a major intelligence operation,'' adding that he ``never got the impression that he (Noriega) put any obstacles in the way'' of CIA activities directed at the Cubans.
The agency also was well aware of Noriega's dealing with the Cubans.
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, in a 1986 New York Times series on Noriega's illegal activities, quoted one former U.S. ambassador as saying that ``the station chiefs loved him. As far as they were concerned, the stuff that they were getting was more interesting than what the Cubans were getting from Noriega on us.''
Another former diplomat who once served in Panama said it was his impression that Noriega not only played the Cuban, U.S. and other intelligence services off against each other, but also played one interest off against the other among the U.S. agencies such as the CIA, DEA and military.
Noriega also apparently provided logistical, and perhaps even training, assistance for the U.S.-directed Nicaraguan contra movement in its earlier years until the rupture with Washington occurred. That came after the 1985 murder, apparently by the Panama Defense Forces, of Hugo Spadafora, a Noriega foe, and Noriega's subsequent ouster of Nicolas Ardito Barletta as president.
Adm. John Poindexter, then President Reagan's national security adviser, went to Panama in December 1985 and reportedly asked Noriega to resign. Noriega then flew to Washington, apparently to enlist the support of the late CIA Director William Casey.
Casey was said to have considered Noriega too valuable an asset for intelligence-gathering in Panama to risk disrupting the relationship - effectively neutralizing the Poindexter mission.
Noriega is said to have celebrated with a bottle of champagne when Poindexter resigned because of the Iran-contra scandal.
Despite Noriega's longstanding links with the CIA, which date back at least to 1970, when he became chief of Panamanian military intelligence, and perhaps even earlier, several sources said he was never a paid CIA agent.
At least until the Reagan administration, according to one intelligence source, Noriega was not listed on a registry of agents - which means they were on the payroll - maintained by the CIA to ensure that one intelligence agency does not recruit a person already working for another agency of the U.S. government.
Another source who confirmed the list said, however, that the DEA was sometimes negligent in registering its agents.
The same source labeled as ``ludicrous'' reports that the CIA had been paying Noriega up to $200,000 annually over a period of years.
Even if he were a paid agent, said the source, $2,000 to $3,000 monthly would have been the more likely figure.
``Never in my career did I hear such a salary for anyone,'' said another intelligence source with long experience in Latin America, including Panama. ``This paying intelligence informants is a low-cost industry.''
The more likely source of the $200,000 figure, according to one of the sources, is that it was the amount the CIA was disbursing to the Panamanian Defense Forces for various intelligence training and operations.
The money would have gone to Noriega as head of the PDF's G-2, or intelligence unit, until 1982, and he still would have controlled it as PDF commander until the relationship soured in 1985.
Another source, who was in the U.S. attorney's office in Miami at the time Noriega was indicted on drug-trafficking charges in 1988, also said the office had never received any information indicating that Noriega was on the CIA's payroll.
Ambler Moss, U.S. ambassador to Panama from 1978 to 1982 who now heads the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami, said he ``had no knowledge that Noriega was ever being paid by the agency.''
Moss said Noriega, as head of Panamanian intelligence, was the designated liaison with the CIA station chiefs in Panama as well as with the DEA, military intelligence and other federal agencies that happened to come in to Panama from time to time.
``As for my sense of how useful he was, I never got the impression he was a terribly important asset,'' said Moss.
``There is never any way in the world that anybody could consider that man an asset,'' said a former intelligence officer with knowledge of both Noriega and Panama. ``He worked with anyone.''