Transcripts For CSPAN3 Booknotes 20141228

Relationship without thinking what the consequences were. We never knew long term what we wanted from noriega when we started the relationship in 1960. He was in the military academy. Castro had taken over in cuba. What we wanted were small pieces of information about the instructors and fellow students that had the tendencies. Noriega want add career he wanted prestige with being americas man. He wanted the counterintelligence training demolition training, all of the various training we gave him without which hed never be able to rise through the ranks as successfully as he did. Thats what im trying to say. To large extent the United States created the problem. I had to correct through an invasion of 25,000 men. Have you met general noriega . I met him in the base in october where stealth bombers would base. I introduced myself to him. It was interesting. The only thing that shows he was a leader, a penetrating stare, an intelligence stare. I shook his hand. A damp and limp hand shake. And i told him i was doing a book. And he promised to give me several interviews on the book which he never delivered on. That said he made a lot of it available to me. That was quite helpful because through them i got into noriegas circle. That sets the book apart. Not only do i have the opposition and history, but i got inside noriegas circle and found out what made him tick. Theres a note back in the back and you have each chapter delineated and special notes that are explained behind the chapter. Gathering the details of the early life present one of the difficult projects for this book involving interviews with family members and childhood friends. He spoke anonymously because of fear of repry bugs who endeavored to keep the information about the early life secret. Those willing to speak on the record are quoted. Those details have been made public. Right. Right. Noriega is not proud of the childhood. He was proud of his humble upbringing and proud his parents were schoolteachers in a small town in panama. Noriegas mother i was told she died when he was 5. She was a domestic servant for his father who never accepted him until noriega was 11 or 12. He didnt grow up as the poorest person in panama. But he was poor. He was adopted by a god mother. The god mother was a kind god mother. So he had a mean streak in upbringing but a god mother who groomed him, dressed him well. I met one of his School Friends who was his best friend when noriega was age 7. You see these are the types of stories that really i thought enriched my understanding to noriega to talk to someone who but his best friend at age 7. I said so what threw you together . A shared introversion. Neither one of us liked to talk much. We could sit silently in the back of the room. I said did you play games . What did you do . Was he athletic . He said no even then he was a serious man and liked to watch other people. At age 7 you could see shades of the intelligence agent who would come. I think of him more in being in terms of an intelligence agent than a dictator. He didnt have an ideology. Most dictators have an ideology. When is the first time you went to panama . 1985 1986 to do stories in the sandanistas. Thats when i got interested. At that time you had a stolen election that the u. S. Endorsed even though it was stolen. The president elected at that time a good and honest man, barrera. But going to the inauguration, the cable that outlined how the election was stolen. And i went at that time became intrigued already with the country. Work on the book started in the fall of 1988. You speak some spanish . I speak some to get by here and there. In panama curiously enough its not the same must that it is in other latin american countries. The history of panama is so tied into the United States that its only country in that entire region that one could do a good job of reporting without a full knowledge of spanish. And you thank the wall street journal for the report and you say im thankful for him to humor my curious passion. When did you get a curious passion for panama . Some people say its a perverse obsession. When i first got by the Diplomatic Correspondent of the wall street journal. As Diplomatic Correspondent, you look to see how it was made or not made. To me i was attracted to the panama book for two reasons. First, i thought it was an excellent model through which one could study how bureaucracies work and dont work. And how American Foreign policy is made. The fact that there are many forces at work and its not national will but bureaucratic momentum, its individual ambition its compromise. I thought the panama story was a good model to show that. You have a fascinating character of noriega. I thought it was a good way of telling a serious Foreign Policy story but in a novelistic way to bring in a general reader that normally wouldnt read a Foreign Policy book. When was the book written and when was it supposed to be published . I fishnished the book in december. We were going go through the long period of editing gallies and this business and the book would have come out in june. I heard word from a source of mine. I had a source of mine call me and ask better end your ski holiday and get yourself to panama. This was a very good source. So i prepared to move myself to panama. And again this was i actually arrived in panama two days after the invasion coming up the road from costa rica driving up from costa rica in a school bus. We rented a school bus. Because we figured it was less likely the school bus would be fired upon going to the city. I and another journalist. And i use that opportunity to write an extra two chapters. The first chapter and the last chaptere of the book. So everything in december. We added a first and last chapter. I was very lucky because one of my better friends in this period of reporting was valencio. I spent a good time talking to him. And it was a bit of a god send for my own book because i was able to get a very good feel for what life was like for noriega. Theres a chapter in there about that. What is enuncio. Sorry, the papal nuncio is the vatican ambassadors to panama. When noriega went on the run, he was on the run four five days after the invasion, it turned out that would be where he sought refuge in the end. I have in overall sales, perhaps im hurt. Did you know why youre writing your book john dinges was doing his . Yes i did. You cross paths . We crossed paths here and there. But john worked very much from the public record. And also the history that i have in my book he goes into as well. But in the last two years, he hasnt been much in panama. So i did not run across in there. He does not he does not go so much in the Current Events of the last two years as i do. One of the criticisms that you read in the reviews is that your book one of the things we talk about briefly is that they may have tried to put it out too fast because of the invasion and youre saying that wasnt the case. They moved the press runup . No that isnt the case. That isnt the case at all. In fact, im quite happy that the last two chapters which should have been tastefully written chapters chapters that didnt tell you much more than what were in the newspapers, i was able to get ahold of some intelligence cables. One of which is a debriefing of a man who travelled with noriega in his last four days but gave new detail as to where noriega went, how he got there the fact he was in a white south korean sub compact running from one cronys house to another. He stayed in the locker room of a lavish health club in a millionaires home. This is not a dictator. This was not in the jungle fighting a guerrilla battle. This was a man running a Large Corporation called the Panamanian Defense forces that controlled so many different aspects of panamanian society. In the end, he really didnt have the stuff to leave the fight for his position. He was more interested in saving his own skin. So i think these chances are some of the strongest chances in the book. Because i was able to come up with the intelligence material. What do you say to the critics who say you focus too much on the oddity of noriega, his bisexuality and his penchant for prostitutes and the interest in all that . Theres a lot in the book. If you come out with a great deal of new information, people who dont have that information are going to criticize you. That being said i think anybody who reads the book closely will see ive been careful about what i put in the book. I was about to write a chapter called rumors because i have piles of paper and notes of things that i couldnt put in the book because i couldnt corroborate it. For instance one of the sources that i spent a great deal of time with, jose manndone. Righthand man of noriega. He spent no other time with the book author. He spent hours and hours with him. Hes the source that one has to treat gingerly. Hes a very, very clever man. But he has a political agenda. So you corroborate everything you get from a man like that. For instance he said to george bush instructed noriega to call fidel castro to warn him in advance of the grenada invasion. That fact isnt in my book because he couldnt corroborate it. He testified before a grand jury that he participated in the mediation of a dispute between the drug cartel and noriega. Noriega had raided a Drug Laboratory that the cartel set up in panama in 1984. Against an agreement they struck with the cartel they paid a great deal of money for protection of that laboratory. Landon said he mediated the dispute. I have that story in some length and some detail in the book because i was able to corroborate it. So a book like this i think the hardest job isnt the mediation, its the corroboration. Hours were spent trying to make sure i didnt overstep the bounds. When i write the man was bisexual, believe me i talked to people intimately involved with noriega in one way or the other and i was able to confirm that to my satisfaction. How did his personal habits affect the way he lived . He liked control. Thats what motivated him. He wasnt motivated by ideology. He wasnt motivated by power to a certain extent. Control is the key. One sees that in everything that he did. His sexual relationships. A matter of control. The way he ran the Panamanian Defense forces as the way he ran it much like under omar. And then the panamanian forces took over control in law 20 of the constitution. Immigration, customs, they controlled things ranging from horse racing the lottery, the airport. He really turned the pdf the military, into a diversified corporation over which he was the chairman of the board. How many times did you go to panama . Four or five separate occasions, probably spent a total of six or seven months in panama. One more thing i wanted to ask you about. In panama more danger than she wanted. If youre acknowledging people. What do you mean . Who is she . She was a researcher who worked for me and an interpreter who worked for me as well in panama. She was very, very plugged in to some very interesting circles in panama. The trip i was referring to i couldnt say it at that time. I think we can now, went to the charity province and met with guerrillas who had been tortured or locked up by noriega in the past. We had to meet secretly with them in the mountains at preset locations. Sometimes they would show up. Sometimes they wouldnt show up. One of them was strength of memory blg as he talked to me. He spent more time pleading with me not to use his name. Then at the end of the meeting he pleaded with me not to use the information. To see these guerrillas locked up by noriega more than 20 years ago were still nervous of the man taught me a lot about the man. And i think without the help of queeny, i would not have gotten to a lot of the individuals. The loser that saved me from embarrassment. Because im not a lifelong panama expert i relied on experts to read my manuscript to make sure im not doing anything historically or factually inaccurate. Eva lozier is not responsible for whats in the book shes an expert on panama in International Studies in washington and she spent many long evenings reading every page of my manuscript making sure or to the best of her ability making sure that i didnt make any historical or factual mistakes that jumped out at her. Two reporters involving powerful assistant, james dorsey, m. Scott malone. When ever you write a book i probably should have listed 20 or 30 reporters there. But these two spent the most time with me working on it. Scott malone is i think one of the better investigative reporters in the city. Hes done excellent work for frontline pbs. James dorsey whos worked in the past with Christian Science monitor and for upi is now working for the Washington Times knows the region very well and is very very well plugged in to military, other circles down there. And at times in a crisis situation, it pays off for a journalist to work with other reporters because you share information, you share insights. And also theres safety in numbers. And its much better to go to a dangerous situation with two people james dorsey and i, for instance rented that school bus together and he came across the costa rican border and drove up from costa rica to panama three days before the invasion. You have any problem that your friends and other reporters know what you know and they have to not publish it in their own publication. How do you deal with information that you come on together . I was quite liberal with printing information i would find out along the way for in the wall street journal. Obviously theres so much information in the book that you dont get it all in the newspaper. But by in large, i didnt find that was a problem, even if you had a news break in a newspaper, you cant flush it out in the detail. You cant tell the story in the way that you can in the book. Very often i would do reporting together with one or the other reporter. I didnt find a conflict of interest at all. The other names we argue recognized that the nation doesnt touch the instincts. David ignasius is an old friend of mine. The correspondent for the wall street journal in london when i was the european correspondent. And it helps to have a very very trained eye. Hes the editor of the outlook section of the washington post. A trained eye to look over your manuscript. Every writer needs a good editor. David is one of the best. The other one i list there, alan murray, was equally helpful and also has an incredibly keen eye for whats missing or what ought to be in there. Again, i turn to these people because in doing a book of this size, you really need the help that you can get from the cleverest and smartest editors that you can have. They often will point you in a direction or suggest a means of telling a story that you might not have fallen upon yourself. Go to chapter 17. It seemed to be a good place to talk about the way to the middle of the book and theres so much that were not going to cover here. It seemed to be a good place to talk about our own government and what happens inside. First i want to ask you, the name comes up who michael herrari is. Michael herrari is a very interesting character. He was head of i think special operations in the mossad. In israel . Yes an Israeli Mossad agent. And was on the way up to the top of the organization. And then he led the teams after the after the massacre at the munich olympics not massacre but the killing of israeli athletes at the munich olympicings. He led the team that was to hunt down the palestinian terrorists. In norway he killed a moroccan waiter instead of a palestinian in paris. It was a great embarrassment to the mossad and the israeli government. He was able to get away with that. It harmed his career. He was sent off to mexico to be station chief to the mossad. Somewhere in this period he got to know the dictator omar parillos. His wife was jewish. At one point, miking herrari intervened because his father was not happy with the fact that she was married to this panamanian dictator who was not jewish. Michael did some brokering. He was very touched that apparently started a close relationship. This relationship, again, this is one of the things in the book that i dont write nearly as much as i was told because i couldnt corroborate a lot of it. But one does know that herrari was very close to noriega. That noriega trusted few panamanians and he trusted herrari. He trusted him to missions carrying messages to politicians and he trusted him in Matters Regarding arms trade. Although i wasnt able to confirm this with documents. The panamanian government is said to provide end user certificate to israelis where they want to provide it so they can get the end user certificate. If you want to buy weapons from the government, there are certain governments that arent allowed to buy weapons in the embargo. For instance iran in the war with iraq was not allowed to buy weapons with many Different Countries in the world. So panama would provide an end user certificate. Panama would buy the weapons. They wouldnt go to panama they would go to iran. Didnt i read they went to the soviet union to iran through panama. The weapons themselves would never go to panama. But the end user certificate would go to panama. You had an israeli working for a panamanian brokering arms from the soviets to go to iran through panama. Exactly. It didnt stop there. The embassy, panamas embassy in vienna was a passport factory that wanted to operate in Eastern Europe. It was a problem. You didnt get to parts of Eastern Europe with that sort of passport or the soviet union. But a panamanian passport was accepted everywhere. So the jewish panamanian ambassador in vienna was a useful conduit to passports for israeli agents according to intelligence sources noriega got rid of him and he went to the underground. March of 1998, the state Department Official flew him secretly to israel to meet with hassan and said we want you to help us. We want you to fly to washington on a secret mission and help us get rid of noriega. Hassan said he would do so thinking if this man is coming all the way out to israel to recruit me to this mission, then the entire u. S. Administration must be behind it. But he was wrong. The pentagon was fighting what the state department was trying to plan some sort of exile probability that would lead it to a coup. By the time he was in washington, the plan he was supposed to be the central figure in was defeated in an interagency battle. So he becomes the first victim of American Foreign policy because he was left out to dry. The ambassador from the United States to israel who approached he made the initial contact to see if he if the colonel would be willing to meet with the visiting state Department Official. How do you keep track with this . Lots of papers documents, interviews, lots of double checking with the sources. I had this whole story. For instance in this story, i had this story from a series of sources. I took it to herrera hassan. I asked him to tell me the story without telling him the details of my story. He matched my story detail by detail. If you get two different sources corroborating the same story without them knowing what you knew from the other, youre close to accurate. You wrote that the colonel the ambassador from panama to israel approached from a u. S. State department man, walker. Asked him to come to washington. By the time he gets here, theres a line that says we dont want him anymore. Who is that that said they didnt want him anymore. It wasnt so much they didnt want him anymore. This man was being used by the state department as part of their game to push through something in the bureaucracy. We werent only at war with noriega, the state department was at war with the department. They were the hawks in this episode. They wanted to militarily take action. They wanted to suggest some sort of commando raid that would bring noriegas kidnap and bring him to justice in the United States. These events began a bureaucratic war between a pass fist pentagon and militaristic state department. Exactly. We want you to name names so we know this is 1998 the last year of the Reagan Administration. Who is the mill tarrist on the state department and who are the pass fists in the pentagon. The mill tarrist of the state department would have been Elliott Abrams. People misunderstand. They think Elliott Abrams shaped this entire policy. He wouldnt have been able to do this unless secretary of state George Schultz said yes, i approve of what youre doing. Abrams believed that reagan had said we have to get rid of noriega. He was frustrated that the goal had been set for the pentagon was blocking all resources or policies that would lead to the fulfillment of the goal. Admiral you, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, led the charge on the other side. You also see the difference in weight. Joint chiefs of staff against a secretary of state that was not as talented. Part of the problem was George Schultz was travelling a lot in this time. So after the interagency meetings, he didnt have the strong voice of the secretary of state behind him. Admiral you thought this was a fools mission. He said in one meeting he said to the president , do you want to risk the lives of american soldiers from peoria illinois from the dictator when the panamanian people themselves arent willing to risk their lives to get rid of him. Thats a strong argument. How did you know that he in a private meeting said you dont want to risk people from peoria, illinois to get this dictator out of there. I was able to get notes from some of the meetings. In other cases i had sources tell me what was said. Then i would take that account of the meeting to the other side. In other words to get to admiral crows people or people close enough to admiral crow or people in the pentagon involved in one way or the other and i would check the account yes, thats true no its not true. Thats the way it would play out. Are you suggesting he said peoria illinois because Ronald Reagan was from a small town near there . I then say he knew how to speak reagans language and i point out that reagan was from tampico, illinois. In the dixon, illinois area. Not sure if crow picked the city for that reason. He picked the way of saying this because he knew it was the way to appeal to the president. The interesting point is for the president of the United States to take military action. Its a difficult thing to do. Because he trusts his military advisors. Why. Because they are the ones who know the costs. They are the ones to know whats logistically possible. So to have secretary schultz and Elliott Abrams say these people arent telling you the truth . Well or these people are exaggerating the cost and the danger because the pentagon was saying if we take this action were going have hostage taking 40,000 to 50,000 americans living in panama you would have massive hostage taking, they argued. Hostage taking situation scares the president more than anything else. You see the problem we still have with hostage taking. I think the real change obviously the many changes in the Reagan Administration and the Bush Administration the real change in 1989 when the invasion took place was the National Security advisor colin powell. He said to the president , you asked if i would go along with the plan. They have a workable plan wed carry out would do the trick. He became george bush. Exactly. When colin powell took over for admiral crow as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. This gets complicated. Lets go back to 1988 its an exercise for internally. President reagan looking for suggestions from the state department. Right. Admiral crow a phd. From stanford. Right. Dont use military force to go in and get this dictator. Elliott abrams is looking for military force to get him from that country. And his harvard law degree. And you have this battle of intellect. Difference in age . Crow had led commands. He was much more of a downtoearth speaker. He would hide his intellect behind this awe shucks exterior that was effective in the agency battle. The interagency meetings wubt crow himself. It was vice admiral jonathan crow. Again, a very effective insider because he had been in the Political Bureau of the state department. You describe him as calculating and arrogant. Is there a meet ing . I have met him. And what you saw when you met him . Yes. Hes a very impressive character. He knew how to go around the bureaucracy. He knew how the state department worked, the white house worked, and how the pentagon worked. The interagency battles. In retrospect was Elliott Abrams right . Would he have saved 25 men and 1 million or whatever it costs for the invasion if they went in. I wouldnt make the point for whos right or wrong. I wanted to leave it to the story and leave it to the reader. I will make one judgment. That is Ronald Reagan didnt intervene to settle this battle. He didnt come down to say okay you both have the imposing views. Lets have a policy thats measured and well thought out. The policy was not of most effect but least resistance. The policy was economic sanctions. Economic sanctions was imposed not because anybody thought it was the most effective policy. But the sanctions were decided upon because they were the only that was the only policy everyone could agree upon. Read the line about admiral crow before we leave. He was now expressing his own opinion. This is the result of the 1986 law that was passed. Barry goldwater and others were behind the chain of power in the pentagon. Crow had become the most powerful peacetime military officer in American History . Right. What is there anything else you can say about the upshot of that law and is that law a good thing . The law was designed to give the chairman of the joint chiefs more power to express his opinion and more power to speak his own mind in the interagency battles that took place. Therefore, bringing them up closer to the power of other cabinet members in these sorts of in these decisions. I think the real difference theres an imposition where he could speak his own mind. But the admiral crow himself was an effective man in that position and was hand picked by Ronald Reagan to take that job in the Reagan Administration. So very often we know james bakers power in this administration comes from his close relationship to george bush, not because hes secretary of state. Hes more powerful as secretary of state because of his close relationship. I think that Ronald Reagan trusted admiral crow enough not to distrust him when he said that military action would be too dangerous and therefore i dont think we should understood take it. Undertake it. What other lessons did you learn from watching and going back to getting both sides of the story and were both sides anxious to tell you what happened . Became more anxious once they discovered how much information breeds information. And once you have information from a meeting, its easier to go to a participant of that meeting who wouldnt talk to you before. Hed say no you have this wrong, this right. Lets talk about it in more detail. So one of the things one learns from writing a book like this is that you revisit sources and you go back to them time and again, the best year of your sources. I think what i learned from this whole episode is what drives American Foreign policy is a complex mixture of things. Its not a neat conference you can draw on a chalk board but its a combination of bureaucratic momentums, what the state department wants. Individual ambition. Elliott abrams wants, what admiral crow wants. And also whats on the table that day. In may of 1989 there was an election that was annulled. Billy ford appeared on Time Magazine with a blooddrenched shirt. Suddenly panama was on everybodys mind. But a week later, there was a massacre in tiananmen square. It disappears from the Television Screens and also disappears from the president s agenda. Not disappears entirely. But a lower priority. Davis is a political ambassador with the first try and diplomacy came in pare gay after president reagans 1980 election. He came to panama in 1986 after his wife die in a plane crash and panamas crisis cut his time of mourning short, thrusting him in the on the the unforgiving space. Whos davis . Arthur davis is the ambassador to panama during this crisis. A very kindhearted man. A man who cared a great deal about human rights and the man who is very emotional in his support for the opposition in panama and in his and in his opposition to general noriega. This is in the same chapter as we talked about in chapter 17 . The Embassy Section wants to keep the ambassador out of the public limelight, inarticulate shoot from the hip approach for diplomatic matters. I took some strain to get my interviews with ambassador davis, simply because the press section of the embassy. Ambassador davis is not a trained diplomat. Hes not a person who talks in diplomatic niceties. He was a supermarket developer from colorado whose main claim to the Reagan Administration was the fact that he was the friend of joseph and coors in colorado. And he was very effective at times as an ambassador but beca i think that i i think i i already had it in Junior High School and high school. I just so much enjoyed writing about things that i saw. Where did you grow up . I grew up in utah. Noriega asked, the mormons, they have many intelligence agents. Where did you go to school. University of graduates and then in columbia. And you wrote some for newsweek . Yes, i wrote for two years for newsweek out of the bureau covering Eastern Europe. You thank tim aid elman in the acknowledgments, how come . Hes a savvy political analyst. His institute the institute for contemporary studies made available to me an office to work out of in the beginning months of the book and the secretary to use to help me with phone calls, etc. We havent had much time. George bush. The missed opportunity. What was that . The missed opportunity, i think, was the negotiations of may of 1988. Reagan was making a deal to trade noriegas resignation for the dropping. Reagan thought it was a good deal. It was almost completely done. George bush chose to oppose reagan on this deal the first time george bush stood out pubically against Ronald Reagan on a major Foreign Policy question. The book goes into detail about how it pushed bush to opposition to reagan and how the pressures from the Bush Campaign and other politicians closed the space on this deal and forced the u. S. To give noriega an ultimatum, 24 hour ultimatum to sign the deal or everything would be off of the table. We cant go to all of the detail now. But the bottom line is that these negotiations were cut off before anyone knew if he would go through with it or not. Noriega was begging him to sign the documents. He wants some time to talk it over with his military officers and get the backing domestically. One doesnt know if he would have been able to do that. One doesnt know if he would be able to pull the rug out from under him in the end, well never know because we pulled the rug out from under the negotiations and it was more domestic policy consideration the interest for the bush for President Campaign than it was for the national consideration. What do you say about the conspiracy theorists about the difficulty that might come out of a trial. As for george bush himself, i was unable to find a smoking gun. I very much doubt that it exists. George bush went after noriega in a methodical and forceful a manner to think that noriega has a lot on george bush. That being said i think ronald i think noriega worked long enough with the cia and other intelligence agencies at the u. S. Government to have a great deal of information that could be embarrassing to the u. S. I dont know if it needs to come out in trial because it will not pay for the charges against him. Was he paid 200,000 a year . In the 19 0s he was paid 110,000 a year. It was paid to the g2, quote unquote for the cost of the liaison relationship. Noriega had control of the money. In the 1980s, he was paid starting at 185,000 here. I understand it went up and this is not payment from one organization that came up. Chances you get panama for surviving under a new government as a democracy. The real trick is under his leadership which is a white oligarghic leadership to pay it off to panama. One of the biggest things the leadership made thus far is trying to do away with the memory of dictator omar carillo. He may have disagreed but hes popular with the people. I think that shows not the best political judgment. Have you enjoyed the book tour part of this thing. Do you find that americans are interested in this subject . Americans are fascinated with this subject. He said whats the moral of this story. He said the moral is that your institutions arent as good as your people. When the people found out what noriega was, they wouldnt allow the politicians to maintain the relationship they were maintaining. When you go around the people you see that. The people are shocked with the relationship we had with this man, the details of how long it had gone on and embarrassed they didnt know about it earlier. Anybody upset of what you wrote about in the book in a you heard from . So far so good. I dont think there are people who are happy. And there hasnt been anybody who called me and said that ive been unfair. Our guest for the next hour has been fred kemp. The book is called voicing the dictator put out by putnam for 24. 95. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. Today, 6 30 p. M. Eastern time, project runway cohost tim gun hosts a discussion of holiday decorations and descriptions at the white house. Panelists include Lyndon Johnson rob, and former white house chief usher gary walters. Thats today at 6 30 p. M. Eastern time here on cspan 3s American History tv. Each week American History tvs reel america brings you archival films that helps tell the story of the 20th century. You think about the geography of cuba, you might keep in mind two im