The U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama

Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management

June 1987–December 1989

I I I
SOUTH ATLANTIC

OCEAN

SOUTH PACIFIC

OCEAN

NORTH ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Caribbean Sea

Gulf of Mexico

105° 90° 75° 60° 45° 30°

EQUATOR

15°

30°

15°

30°

45°

COSTA RICA

EL SALVADOR

GUATEMALA NICARAGUA

PANAMA

SURINAME

FRENCH GUIANA

HAITI

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

URUGUAY

GUYANA

MEXICO

BELIZE

CUBA

HONDURAS

VENEZUELA

COLOMBIA

ECUADOR

PERU

BOLIVIA

C H I L E

BRAZIL

ARGENTINA

PARAGUAY

UNITED STATES

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

1989
Contingency Operations Series

The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama

Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management

June 1987–December 1989

by

Lawrence A. Yates

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

UNITED STATES ARMY

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yates, Lawrence A., 1945–

 The U.S. military intervention in Panama : origins, planning, and crisis management, June 

1987–December 1989 / by Lawrence A. Yates.

 p. cm. — (Contingency operations series)

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 1. Panama—History—American Invasion, 1989—Causes. 2. Military planning—United 

States. 3. Panama—Military relations—United States. 4. United States—Military 

relations—Panama. I. Title. 

 F1567.4.Y38 2008

 972.8705’3—dc22

 2008026930

First Printing

CMH Pub 55–1–1
v

Contingency Operations Series

Richard W. Stewart, General Editor

Advisory Committee

(As of October 2007)

Theodore A. Wilson

University of Kansas

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Jeffrey J. Clarke, Chief of Military History

Chief Historian Richard W. Stewart

Chief, Histories Division Joel D. Meyerson

Chief, Publishing Division Keith R. Tidman

Joyce E. Morrow

Administrative Assistant to the

Secretary of the Army

Brig. Gen. Mark E. O’Neill

U.S. Army Command and

General Staff College

Mark P. Parillo 

Kansas State University

Reina Pennington

Norwich University

Ronald H. Spector

George Washington University

Col. Thomas Torrance

 U.S. Army War College

Stephen F. Vogel

Washington Post

William T. Allison

Weber State University

 James J. Carafano 

Heritage Foundation

Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan 

U.S. Military Academy

John F. Guilmartin

Ohio State University

Brian M. Linn

Texas A&M University 

Howard Lowell

National Archives and Records

Administration

Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz

U.S. Army Training and

Doctrine Command

vii

Contents

Page

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

The Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

 Chapter

1. The Making of a Crisis, June 1987–February 1988 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

 The United States and Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

 Noriega . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 

 Crisis in Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

 The Southern Command and the Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

2. Operation Orders and Security Enhancement, 

 February–April 1988 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

 Contingency Planning: Elaborate Maze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

 Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

 Phase V, Joint Special Operations Task Force, and U.S. 

 Army, South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

 Security Enhancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

 Showdown in Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

 Joint Task Force-Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

3. Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book, April–May 1988 . . . . . . . 63

 Noriega Perseveres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

 First Blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

 Déjà Vu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

 The Prayer Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

 Fissures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

4. Settling In, May 1988–January 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

 Woerner’s Critique and Policy Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

 Joint Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

 The “Stage” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

 Rules of Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

 The Redeployment Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

 Enter the XVIII Airborne Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

5. Toward a Tougher Posture, February–April 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

 Woerner’s Woes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

 “Terror” in Panama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

 A Tougher Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

I I I
viii

 Chapter Page

6. Operation Nimrod Dancer, May 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

 The Muse Affair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

 Preelection Preparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

 The Election . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

 Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

 Adjusting and Adapting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

 Harbinger: The “Invasion” of Fort Espinar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

7. Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights, May–June 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

 Triad and Fissures II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

 Reasserting Treaty Rights: Convoys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

 “Sliding into Something” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

8. Ratcheting Up, June–September 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

 Blade Jewel and the Prayer Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

 Woerner’s “Retirement” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

 Ratcheting Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

 Alice, Beatrice, and the Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

9. From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon, October–December 1989 . . . . 241

 General Max Thurman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

 “Black Tuesday”: The 3 October Coup Attempt . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

	 	 Ramifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

 Operation Order 1–90 and Operation Plan 90–2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

 The Road to Just Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

10. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

 The Twilight Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

 Joint Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

 Personalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Abbreviations and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Table

Buildup of U.S. Forces in Panama, 1988–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Charts

 No.

 1. Command Relationships: U.S. Southern Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

 2. U.S. Southern Command Joint Staff Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

 3. Command Relationships: Joint Task Force-Panama (as of May 1988) . . 83
ix

 No. Page

 4. Initial Blue Spoon Command Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

 5. Joint Task Force-Panama Organization for Nimrod Dancer . . . . . . . . . . 193

 6. Blue Spoon on the Eve of Operation Just Cause: Operation Plan 90–2

Command and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Maps

Central and South America, 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

 1. Panama, 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

 2. Panama Canal Area, 1987–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

 3. Canal Area, Pacific Ocean Side, 1987–1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Illustrations

President Theodore Roosevelt in Panama During the Construction of 

 the Canal, 1906 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Locks of the Panama Canal Under Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

General Omar Torrijos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

President Jimmy Carter and General Torrijos Sign the 

 Panama Canal Treaty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

General Frederick F. Woerner Jr. in Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

The Panama Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke Briefing the Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Admiral William Crowe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

President Ronald W. Reagan Talking with Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of 

 Defense During the First Months of the Panama Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

A Panama Defense Forces Antiriot Unit Using Water Cannon to Put Down a 

 Demonstration Against the Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

A Marine Patrol on the Arraiján Tank Farm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

The Guard House at the Entrance to Quarry Heights, the Location of the 

 U.S. Southern Command Headquarters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Paramilitary Dignity Battalion Members in Red T-shirts in the Streets 

 Ready to Fight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Fort Clayton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Rodman Naval Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

President George H. W. Bush Speaks at an Armed Forces Review and 

 Awards Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Demonstrators Bang Pots in Protest Against the Noriega Regime . . . . . . . . . . 158

Opposition Candidates Guillermo Endara and Ricardo Arias Calderón and 

 Marchers Face the Panama Defense Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

A Dignity Battalion Member Attacking Guillermo “Billy” Ford . . . . . . . . . . . 169

U.S. Army Troops Arriving for Operation Nimrod Dancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Albrook Air Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Howard Air Force Base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

AC–130 Spectre Gunship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
x

 Page

Maj. Gen. Marc A. Cisneros and General Maxwell R. Thurman at the 

 Former’s Promotion Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Marines in Their Light Armored Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

General Woerner Talks at the Change of Command Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

General Thurman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Noriega Waves His Fist to Supporters After the Failed October 1989 Coup . . 259

Soldiers in an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier Guard an Entrance to 

 Gorgas Army Hospital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: p. 2, Theodore Roosevelt 

Collection, Harvard College Library; p. 6, Office of History, U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers; p. 7, http://www.country-data.com; pp. 10, 54, 106, 158, 169 (top/

bottom), 259, Corbis; p. 40, Department of the Army; p. 69, http://www2.bc.edu; 

p. 79, http://william_h_ormsbee.tripod.com; p. 110, http://www.globalsecurity.

org; p. 136, http://www.pubdef.net; p. 216, U.S. Air Force; and p. 246, XVIII 

Airborne Corps Historian. Cover and all other illustrations from Department of 

Defense files.
xi

Foreword

Prior to Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 U.S. intervention in 

Panama, American leaders had struggled for over two years with the increasingly 

difficult regime of General Manuel Antonio Noriega. At the time, the Panama 

Canal was still under U.S. administration, with the U.S. Southern Command based 

at Quarry Heights charged with its security. Led by General Frederick F. Woerner 

Jr. and supported by Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke, the command’s Army component 

commander, American military leaders weathered a series of low-grade crises 

during 1988–1989, slowly culminating in a growing military confrontation with 

Noriega’s military, paramilitary, and police forces. Detailed in Larry Yates’ study are 

the contingency plans, rules of engagement, a host of varied operations—security 

patrols, guard duty, training exercises, shows of force, and police actions—and 

even the occasional firefight, all of which characterized this trying period.

But this history is much more than a precursor to Just Cause. The book’s true 

value lies in a careful examination of the complex relationships between a U.S. 

combatant command, one of the four American global military headquarters, and 

its Washington, D.C., superiors, to include Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral William 

Crowe, Army Chief of Staff General Carl Vuono, Defense Secretary Richard 

Cheney, and Presidents Ronald W. Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Indeed, the 

able Woerner and his staff often found themselves walking a tightrope between a 

variety of ill-defined administration policies whose long-range goals were difficult 

to fathom and the exigencies of a steadily worsening local situation. The conflicting 

demands ultimately led to Woerner’s untimely replacement by General Maxwell 

R. Thurman, an officer more comfortable with the Bush administration’s approach 

to the crisis. Highlighted also are the roles played by the local joint and special 

operations headquarters, those U.S.-based commands charged with providing 

military reinforcements to the region, and those government officials responsible 

for regional diplomatic, intelligence, and economic affairs. The result is a rich mix 

of timeless experiences and insights especially attuned to the contingency fare so 

common in the post–Cold War era and an excellent primer for officers assuming 

duties in the joint defense commands and staffs that play a key role in today’s 

defense establishment. The volume also marks another significant addition to the 

Center’s expanding Contingency Operations Series.

Washington, D.C. JEFFREY J. CLARKE

25 July 2008 Chief of Military History

I I I
xii

The Author

Lawrence A. Yates is a native of Kansas City, Missouri. He received his Ph.D. 

in history from the University of Kansas in 1981, after which he joined the Combat 

Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During his twenty-four years with 

the institute, he taught and wrote about U.S. military interventions, contingency and 

stability operations, and unconventional warfare. In 1989, he was in Panama during 

Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of that country. Among his publications, 

he is the author of Leavenworth Paper 15, Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the 

Dominican Republic, 1965–1966, and The US Military’s Experience in Stability 

Operations, 1789–2005; coauthor of My Clan Against the World: U.S. and 

Coalition Forces in Somalia, 1992–1994; and coeditor of—and a contributor to—

Block by Block: The Challenges of Urban Operations. In September 2005, Yates 

retired from government service. He is currently working on an official history of 

Operation Just Cause, the companion piece to this volume. 

I I I
xiii

Preface 

On 20 December 1989, the United States invaded the Republic of Panama to 

overthrow the dictatorship of General Manuel Antonio Noriega. By capturing the 

general, defeating the military forces he commanded, and installing a democratic 

government in the country, Operation Just Cause, the code name for the U.S. 

invasion, brought to an end in a matter of days a crisis in American-Panamanian 

relations that had defied resolution for over two years. 

The swiftness and completeness of the U.S. victory immediately certified Just

Cause as an exemplary case study to be analyzed in military service schools and 

assimilated by doctrine writers, trainers, staff officers, commanders, organizational 

experts, strategists, and tacticians. The invasion offered lessons in joint and 

urban operations; unity of command; the rapid, decisive, yet restrained use of 

overwhelming force; the integration of conventional and special operations forces; 

and the applicability of the principles of war across the spectrum of conflict. For 

nearly a year after its conclusion, it also served as a force-projection model for 

what U.S. military operations in the post–Cold War world might resemble. Then, 

almost as quickly as it had attained this preeminent status, the Panama operation 

receded from view as an object of institutional study and emulation, a consequence 

of the American military’s sudden shift of attention and resources to the Persian 

Gulf in response to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. By early 1991, Just Cause had 

been eclipsed by Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. So, too, had the 

broader context in which the invasion of Panama had taken place. 

Today, nearly twenty years after the fact, the vast majority of U.S. officers 

can readily link Just Cause with Panama and Noriega, but that association 

generally reflects the limits of what they remember about their own profession’s 

involvement in the crisis. In the forefront of the military’s collective memory, 

little has been retained regarding the role U.S. forces played in the stability and 

nation-building operations that began during the invasion and continued well after 

its official conclusion—this despite the continued availability of relevant studies 

by John T. Fishel and Richard Shultz Jr. Worse, on the subject of U.S. military 

activities in Panama during the 21⁄2 years of tension leading up to the invasion, 

there is something approaching institutional amnesia. Of the several books about 

Operation Just Cause (see Bibliography), most cover the pre-invasion crisis in 

an introductory chapter or two, with discussion confined to a handful of military 

milestones that, selected with the advantage of hindsight, suggest an inexorable 

movement to open hostilities. 

My goal in this volume is to examine the Panama crisis from June 1987 to 

December 1989 not simply as a prelude to Operation Just Cause but as a case 

study in its own right—as an extended series of interrelated actions and issues 

that U.S. military personnel had to confront on a daily basis in a process that 

imparted no sense of inevitability as to the outcome. If I am successful, the reader 

should easily realize that this example of crisis management offers numerous 

insights for today’s officers, especially those operating under conditions in which 

conventional warfare is either a subsidiary endeavor or absent all together. In the 

I I I
xiv

Panama crisis, this limbo between peace and war was labeled the Twilight Zone 

by some, a doctrinal wasteland in which officers, noncommissioned officers, and 

enlisted men who were trained almost exclusively in the straightforward art of 

traditional warfare had to adapt, in the furtherance of their country’s policies, to 

an unfamiliar, complex, unorthodox, and highly ambiguous environment. This 

type of conflict placed a heavy emphasis on restraint in the face of provocation, 

and actions from the strategic level down through the tactical were driven more 

by political considerations and signals than by military necessity. In the process, 

warriors often found themselves acting as cops, peacemakers, and diplomats, and 

occasionally as victims. 

The study is based largely on primary sources, many of which I collected 

during several trips to Panama while the crisis was still in progress. On these visits, 

I enjoyed access to file cabinets full of documents generated by Joint Task Force 

(JTF)-Panama, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the Pentagon, and the 

XVIII Airborne Corps. I also conducted over two hundred interviews with civilians 

and military officers who were involved in the crisis. Equally important, I observed 

these people—commanders, staff officers, civilian employees, and troops in the 

field—as they worked long hours responding to dozens of simultaneous, often 

competing challenges affecting their wide range of regional responsibilities, of 

which the Noriega problem was only one. Of necessity, I have had to condense the 

detail and complexity of their experience into what I hope is a coherent narrative 

that provides some analytical insights while minimizing as much as possible 

the imposition of an artificial sense of order on a process that too often seemed 

disjointed and chaotic to those caught up in it. 

Having stated in general terms what I have tried to accomplish, it is important 

to indicate what this study does not attempt to do. To begin with, this is not a 

history of the crisis from the perspective afforded the highest levels of government 

in Washington. The text will make only occasional excursions into the White 

House, State Department, Pentagon, and Central Intelligence Agency. Rather, 

attention is centered on the U.S. military as it dealt with the crisis at the strategic 

(SOUTHCOM) and operational (JTF-Panama) levels, with an incursion now and 

then into the tactical level that was largely the province of JTF-Panama’s service 

components. Nor does this study make any pretense of being an in-depth look at 

the Panamanian side of the hill, either in terms of Noriega and the Panama Defense 

Forces, or in terms of the regime’s political opposition. The focus, again, is on 

the role and activities of the U.S. military. Finally, this is an analytical narrative 

of a historical case study, not a political science model for crisis management, 

although I hope that those who deal in such schema will find useful data from the 

information contained herein.

Spanish-speaking readers of this book deserve a brief explanation on a 

convention I employed with respect to Spanish words in the text. Normally, when 

a Spanish word requiring an accent mark is used, the accent mark is included, thus 

informing the reader as to what syllable of the word should be emphasized. I have 

made an exception where a Spanish word is used frequently in English without an 

accent. For example, the word “río” (river) in Spanish is spelled “rio” in this text, 

as in Rio Hato.

I started researching this book in 1989, just two months before Panamanians 

voted in their presidential election in May. I finished writing the first draft of 
xv

the manuscript on New Year’s Day of 2001. During the years in between and 

since, I have become indebted to more people than I can possibly list here, and 

to all of them I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. Certain individuals and institutions do require special mention, however, and if I do not include 

everyone that I should, I apologize in advance. To begin with, I am tremendously 

grateful to then-Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke and Col. John A. “Jay” Cope Jr. at 

U.S. Army, South (USARSO), for selecting me for the project, and to then-Maj. 

Gen. Marc A. Cisneros for continuing my involvement after Loeffke and Cope 

had left Panama for new assignments. The USARSO historians, especially Janet Len-Rios, offered invaluable assistance in expediting my trips to Panama, 

providing me office space, facilitating my access to documents, and handling a 

variety of administrative details. Once the Southern Command acquired an 

official historian, John Pitts, I was able to explore his file cabinets as well for 

pertinent documents. 

Officers on the JTF-Panama and SOUTHCOM staffs were extremely generous 

with their time, as were numerous commanders in the field operating under one 

or both of these headquarters. Four such men were then-Col. Arnold T. “Arnie” 

Rossi, Col. Norman W. Higginbotham, Lt. Col. John T. Fishel, and Maj. Fred Polk. 

Back at Fort Leavenworth, of the student officers and faculty who rotated in and 

out of the Army’s Command and General Staff College in the 1990s, dozens had 

participated in the Panama crisis and proved eager to relate their experiences to 

me. This included a number of my colleagues in the Combat Studies Institute, 

especially Lt. Col. John R. Finch and Maj. John Diviney. For one year of the 

project, Maj. Kelvin Crow was assigned as a research assistant who, besides 

visiting several archives in this country and abroad, also organized the mass of 

documents that became a discrete collection on the Panama crisis housed in the 

fort’s Combined Arms Research Library (CARL). Over the years, the directors and 

staff at CARL have gone out of their way to ensure the integrity of that collection 

and to accommodate my work with it. Similar accolades can be directed at library 

personnel, archivists, and historians who assisted me at the Army War College, 

the U.S. Army Military History Institute, U.S. Forces Command, the Joint History 

Office, the U.S. Marine Corps History Division, and the U.S. Army Center of 

Military History (CMH). In the last organization, I am very grateful to the former 

chief of the Historical Resources Branch, Robert K. Wright Jr., who as an Army 

reservist conducted exhaustive research on Operation Just Cause. Finally, the 

archives at the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) were opened to me, 

thanks to the efforts of John Partin, the SOCOM historian, and the assistance of 

Gaea Levy, the history office archivist. 

U.S. Army, South, funded my research trips to Panama and elsewhere from 

1989 through 1993. By the latter date, CMH was also involved in the project, 

funding additional research and reviewing completed drafts of each chapter. For 

authorizing this arrangement, I would like to thank Roger J. Spiller and Col. 

Richard Swain, both directors of the Combat Studies Institute, who, along with 

their successors, also sought to find me the time to complete the manuscript. At 

CMH, I would like to thank Jeffrey J. Clarke and Richard W. Stewart for their 

help and support throughout the project. I would also like to single out Brig. Gens. 

Harold W. Nelson and John S. Brown, both chiefs of military history at the Center, 

for their support. 
xvi

In 2004, Jay Cope, John Fishel, Gabriel Marcella of the Strategic Studies 

Institute, Keith R. Tidman and Donald A. Carter of CMH, and Jeffrey Clarke 

participated in the Center’s review panel of the manuscript. Their comments and 

criticisms were invaluable. So, too, has been the collaboration I have had with 

Diane Sedore Arms, a CMH editor, who has given me indispensable advice on 

improving the readability of this text. Like many authors, I preferred to think that 

in my draft manuscript “every word was carefully chosen, every sentence carefully 

crafted,” to quote an acquaintance. Diane did a superb job of pointing out to me 

the fallacy of this thinking, and I am enormously indebted to her. S. L. Dowdy, the 

CMH cartographer, also did magnificent work on the maps for the book. Michael 

R. Gill collected the photographs and designed the handsome cover and layout 

as well as the charts. Contractor Anne Venzon created the detailed index for this 

volume. The author alone is responsible for all interpretations and conclusions, as 

well as for any factual errors that may have crept into the text. 

 

Leavenworth, Kansas LAWRENCE A. YATES

25 July 2008
The U.S. Military 

Intervention in Panama

Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management

June 1987–December 1989

I I I

1

The Making of a Crisis

June 1987–February 1988

I I I

When one nation uses force to resolve a conflict with another, questions 

generally arise as to whether hostilities were inevitable or could have been 

avoided. An answer requires, among other things, an analysis of the immediate, 

short‐term, and long‐term influences that broadened or narrowed the choices 

available to decision makers or, at least, the choices they perceived as being 

available to them.

The immediate reason for President George H. W. Bush’s decision to execute 

Operation Just Cause, the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989, seems 

clear enough. On Saturday night, 16 December, a car carrying four American 

servicemen ran a roadblock near the headquarters of the Panama Defense Forces 

(PDF) in Panama City. Guards manning the checkpoint opened fire on the car, 

wounding the driver and killing a passenger, a Marine lieutenant. Two witnesses 

to the shooting, a U.S. Navy lieutenant and his wife, were taken into police 

custody. Before being released, the lieutenant was severely beaten and his wife 

fondled and threatened with sexual abuse. News of these incidents, together with 

indications that other American citizens and U.S. service personnel in Panama 

were increasingly at risk, convinced Bush that the most appropriate and effective 

response available to him was to employ U.S. military force to topple the 

country’s dictatorial regime, destroy its armed forces, and install a democratic 

government in its place.

The killing of an American citizen in a foreign country and the brutal mistreatment 

of two innocent American bystanders do not automatically constitute a casus belli. 

After monitoring the violent events of the sixteenth, several U.S. officers sitting in 

the operations center at Fort Clayton, Panama, expressed regret over the marine’s 

death but, after referring to “an exceptionally bad Saturday night” in the capital city, 

voiced no desire for revenge.1

 President Bush, however, had to place the incident 

within the broader context of U.S.-Panamanian relations, which at the time were 

in a state of acute crisis. Since late 1987, both countries had been on a collision 

1 The author spent several hours in the U.S. Army, South, operations center at Fort Clayton 

late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, 16 and 17 December 1989, and noted the response 

to the shooting by several officers present. Subsequent conversations with other persons monitoring 

the Panama crisis confirmed the impressions of that night. The death of Marine Lt. Robert Paz was 

regarded as tragic but not necessarily a cause for going to war.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

2

course, during which, on at least 

two occasions, Washington had 

augmented the number of troops 

normally based in Panama. 

Although neither side sought war, 

by late 1989 a combination of U.S. 

frustration and the increasingly shrill 

anti-American rhetoric and erratic 

behavior of Panama’s strongman, 

General Manuel Antonio Noriega 

Moreno, had created the impression 

among key U.S. officials that events 

in the crisis were slipping out of 

control. The incident at the PDF 

checkpoint confirmed these fears, 

and Bush responded by ordering 

military intervention.

The United States and 

Panama

If the shooting of the Marine 

lieutenant has to be considered 

in the context of an on-going 

crisis between the United States 

and Panama, understanding the 

nature of the crisis itself requires 

a look at the broader course of 

U.S.-Panamanian relations in the 

twentieth century.2

 The usual starting date for such a survey is 1903, at which time 

Panama was a part of greater Colombia, a status it had acquired in 1739, when 

Spain still controlled the area (called New Grenada), and which was reaffirmed after 

Spanish rule ended in 1821. Nearly a century later, the colonial legacy remained 

clearly visible across the Panamanian landscape. The population consisted of three 

principal groups: Spanish-speaking mestizos (mixed white and Indian blood), 

English-speaking Antillean blacks (descendants of African slaves brought to the 

New World beginning in 1517), and various Indian groups (descendants of the 

original inhabitants of the region). Roman Catholicism was the predominant 

religion, a further testimony to the Spanish era, as was a political system dominated 

by the light-skinned oligarchy and based primarily on personalismo, the loyalty to 

prominent individuals, rather than on ideological affinity or party affiliation.

In the decades following Spanish rule, various Panamanian leaders and 

groups intermittently sought to separate Panama from Colombia, but prospects 

for achieving independence had remained bleak until the new century, when the 

United States took an interest in Panama as the potential site of a transisthmian 

2 Unless otherwise noted, the brief survey that follows of U.S.-Panamanian relations up to the 

fall of 1983 is taken from Sandra W. Meditz and Dennis M. Hanratty, eds., Panama: A Country Study

(Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1989). See especially the chapter on the 

historical setting by Jan Knippers Black and Elmundo Flores.

President Theodore Roosevelt (center) in 

Panama during the construction of the 

canal, 1906
The Making of a Crisis

3

canal. American business interests eager to cut costs and shipping time had been 

perennial advocates of a waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The U.S. 

military pursued the same goal for strategic reasons, especially after the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 demonstrated the need for America’s growing navy to be 

able to sail from one ocean to the other without having to navigate Cape Horn. 

Supportive of both positions, the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt 

negotiated a treaty with Colombia giving the United States the right to build and 

control a canal through Panama. When, to Roosevelt’s surprise, the Colombian 

senate refused to approve the agreement for ratification, an angry president threw 

his support to the cause of Panamanian independence. That support assumed a 

tangible form in November 1903, when advocates of independence engineered an 

uprising in Panama. To discourage any Colombian foray to put down the rebellion, 

Roosevelt ordered U.S. warships to take up positions off the Panamanian coast. 

A few Colombian troops did manage to land at Colón but could not suppress the 

nearly bloodless revolt. Within days, Roosevelt recognized a quickly organized 

junta as the government of an independent Panama (Map 1).

The price for America’s support of Panamanian independence was the Hay–

Bunau-Varilla Treaty that gave the United States the right to build, use, and defend 

a canal across Panama. In addition, the newly independent country also granted the 

United States a strip of land ten miles wide along the length of the canal route (and 

three nautical miles into the sea on each end) that would serve as an operating area 

within which the U.S. government would exercise, in perpetuity, “all the rights, 

power, and authority . . . which the United States would possess and exercise if it 

were the sovereign of the territory.”3

 In effect, the United States would occupy and 

control a large swath of territory—the Canal Zone—that bisected Panama. These 

concessions, together with provisions in the Panamanian constitution of 1904 that 

gave the United States the right to intervene in Panama to guarantee that country’s 

sovereignty and, when deemed necessary, to restore order, formally relegated 

Panama to the status of a U.S. protectorate. 

The Panama Canal, an engineering marvel even by today’s standards, opened in 

1914. Its operation and defense immediately became an integral part of America’s 

strategic interests in the hemisphere. As for Panama, the waterway proved a mixed 

blessing. Many in the country benefited economically, as the canal’s operations 

filled the pockets of the oligarchy and spurred the emergence of a Panamanian 

middle class of professionals and civil servants. The presence of the Canal Zone, 

however, together with the U.S. troops and thousands of American citizens living 

there exempt from Panamanian jurisdiction, aggravated nationalist sentiments 

and fueled resentment. The rise of the Arias family in Panamanian politics during 

the 1930s symbolized this discontent. Speaking for middle class mestizos and 

Panamanian nationalists, Harmodio Arias Madrid and his brother, Arnulfo, leveled 

verbal assaults at the country’s white oligarchy and its acceptance of U.S. hegemony 

over Panamanian territory and the canal. Harmodio’s election as president in 1932 

paved the way for the 1936 Hull-Alfaro Treaty with the United States that, among 

its provisions, ended Panama’s protectorate status. Brother Arnulfo’s election 

3 Michael L. Conniff, Panama and the United States: The Forced Alliance (Athens, Ga.: 

University of Georgia Press, 1992), p. 69.
Caribbean Sea

PACIF

82°

83° 82°

81° 8

81° 8

8°

7°

Chiriquí

Veraguas

Herrera

Los Santos

Coclé

Colón

B o c a s d e l

T o r o

I n t e r- A m e ri c a n Hi g h w a y

Bocas del Toro

David

Santiago

Las Tablas

Rio Hato

C

Chitré

Penonomé

C O S T A R I C A

1989

PANAMA

0

0

75 Miles

75 Kilometers

Map 1
IC OCEAN

Gulf of Panama

Bay of Panama

80° 79° 78°

80° 79° 78°

77°

9°

Panamá

Colón

Darién

I n t e r-A m e ri c a n Hi g h w a y

La Chorrera

Colón

Balboa

PANAMA CITY

Tocumen Gamboa

El Porvenir

La Palma

COLOMBIA
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

6

three times to the presidency beginning in 1940 provided further testimony to the 

nationalistic appeal of his popular panameñismo movement. 

Panamanian nationalism also manifested itself in periodic street demonstrations 

against America’s presence and prerogatives in the Canal Zone. One of the worst 

outbreaks of violence occurred in 1964, when a dispute over flying the Panamanian 

flag at an American high school in the zone led to three days of rioting, the death of 

two dozen people, and injuries to several hundred Panamanians. The Panamanian 

government skillfully used the riots to gain international support for a new canal 

treaty, the negotiations for which the United States entered only reluctantly. When 

the initial draft of a new agreement failed to appease Panamanian nationalists, their 

opposition was vocal enough to necessitate further negotiations. Another accord 

would be a decade in the making.

The 1964 riots also exacerbated divisions in Panama between the urban and 

rural population and between students and the oligarchy. Arnulfo Arias’ ability 

to play on this internal discontent led to his election as president in 1968. This 

was the third time he had been elected to the office, but he had yet to finish a 

full term. This time would be no exception. When early in his presidency he 

tried to remove two senior officers of the Panama National Guard, the guard 

removed him from power instead. Five months later, the guard’s commander, 

Col. Omar Torrijos Herrera, took effective control of the government and the 

country. In doing so, he broke the white, urban-based oligarchy’s near monopoly 

of political power. The oligarchs shared an abiding distrust of the guard’s largely 

mestizo membership, but once Torrijos emerged as the country’s strongman, 

they had no recourse but to acquiesce in the military’s ascendancy and, when 

possible, reach an accommodation with the new rulers. Over time, the imperfect 

democracy Panama had known to that point became little more than a façade for 

a military-dominated authoritarian regime.

In 1972, a constitutional assembly dutifully named Torrijos, now a brigadier 

general, chief of state—he also answered to the title “Maximum Leader of the 

Panamanian Revolution”—and adopted a new constitution that gave the dictator 

Locks of the Panama Canal under construction
The Making of a Crisis

7

vast civil and military powers. To create a popular foundation for this political 

authority, the general forged a coalition that included such disparate groups as 

guardsmen and students, campesinos, urban workers, and the middle class, all 

of whom, for one reason or another, harbored grievances against the oligarchy. 

Critics denounced Torrijos as lazy and disorganized, a drunk and a charlatan, a 

Socialist if not a Communist, but their voices were drowned out by the accolades 

of his supporters. Even though he had no combat record of which to boast (his 

most significant use of force had been against his own people during the 1964 

riots), the new military strongman in Panama quickly became a national hero 

by virtue of his charisma, his flamboyant demeanor, his populist program of 

social reform and civic action (which also served to increase the guard’s political 

and economic influence throughout the country), and his vocal commitment to 

Panamanian nationalism.

Partly to validate his credentials as a populist and a nationalist, Torrijos made 

completion of a new canal treaty one of his top priorities. Progress toward this goal 

occurred in 1974, when Panamanian and U.S. diplomats reached agreement on the 

principles that would guide further negotiations. Three years later, the negotiators’ 

hard work achieved the breakthrough they sought, and, on 7 September 1977, the 

general and President Jimmy Carter signed two documents that, if ratified, would 

restructure U.S.-Panamanian relations. 

The first document, the Panama Canal Treaty, abrogated the Hay–BunauVarilla Treaty of 1903 and all other bilateral agreements pertaining to the canal. 

Under the terms of the new treaty, Panama would assume immediate jurisdiction 

over territory in the Canal Zone, which would cease to exist as a formal entity, but 

would allow the United States to operate, maintain, and manage the canal until 

noon, 31 December 1999, at which time the treaty would be terminated and Panama 

would assume full control of the waterway. The interim organization for running 

the canal would be the Panama Canal Commission (PCC), a U.S. government 

agency to be established under the terms of the treaty. Initially, the administrator of 

the commission would be an American; on 1 January 1990, a Panamanian would 

General Torrijos (right)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

8

move into the position. The treaty also mandated that both countries participate in 

the protection and defense of the canal. The vehicle for doing so, the Combined 

Board, would consist of an equal number of U.S. and Panamanian officers, an 

arrangement that further strengthened the political role of the military in Panama 

by making the national guard instead of the civilian government the direct link 

with the United States for specific foreign policy and national security issues 

concerning the canal. Finally, the treaty stated that the U.S. military presence in 

Panama would end on or before the termination date of the treaty. 

The second treaty signed by Carter and Torrijos committed the United States 

and Panama to guarantee the neutrality of the canal. Unlike the first document, the 

neutrality treaty had no termination date. The two leaders also signed a series of 

executive agreements, including two that defined what areas in the former Canal 

Zone the United States alone would hold until 2000 in order to operate and defend 

the canal, what areas would be open for use by the armed forces of both countries 

until that date, what areas would be turned over to Panama upon ratification of the 

treaties, and what areas would be turned over before 2000.

Troubling questions surrounding the treaties, particularly queries concerning 

whether the United States could intervene unilaterally to maintain the operation 

and neutrality of the canal, generated emotional debate in both countries. A 

Panamanian plebiscite revealed only lukewarm acceptance of the treaties largely 

because they did not formally prohibit U.S. intervention in the future. In the United 

States, where the canal was a symbol of American power and technology, a vocal 

opposition excoriated the Carter administration for giving away U.S. territory 

and a militarily strategic asset. (In his quest for the Republican Party presidential 

nomination in 1976, Ronald W. Reagan had excited crowds by declaring of the 

canal, “We built it, we paid for it, it’s ours and we are going to keep it.”) The 

acrimony the canal treaties generated throughout much of the country was mirrored 

on Capitol Hill, where, after the longest debate in Senate history, the upper house 

President Carter and General Torrijos sign the Panama Canal Treaty.
The Making of a Crisis

9

approved the documents for ratification by only one vote. On 1 October 1979, the 

treaties entered into force. At that time, the Canal Zone was formally abolished, 

Panama took control of 64 percent of the territory that had been contained therein, 

while another 18 percent became the “canal operating area,” controlled by the 

new canal commission. What was left remained under U.S. military control, with 

the process of turning it over gradually to Panama to be completed by the turn of 

the century.4

Many American opponents of ratification worried that the security of the canal 

could not be entrusted to a “tin-horn” dictator, meaning Torrijos. That the general 

actively supported Communist-led Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua was, in the 

critics’ minds, just one proof of his capacity for willfully disregarding U.S. national 

security interests. Bedeviled by these allegations, Torrijos also found himself 

under pressure from the Carter administration to democratize his government, 

while at home he was plagued by growing disillusionment over the treaties and 

his regime’s faltering economic and social programs. To ease the criticism, the 

general took steps to amend the constitution of 1972 and to make a small gesture 

toward more popular participation in Panamanian politics. In October 1978, he also 

stepped down as chief executive but continued to command the national guard, 

which still ran the country. The Panamanian legislative election in 1980, stacked 

in favor of Torrijos’ own creation, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (Partido 

Revolucionario Democrático, or PRD), represented, according to one historian, “a 

small step toward restoring democratic political processes” in Panama. But it also 

“demonstrated that Panama’s political party system was too fragmented to form a 

viable united front against the government.”5

How far Torrijos would have taken the democratization process remains a 

matter of conjecture. On 31 July 1981, the “maximum leader” was killed in a 

plane crash in western Panama. In the political turmoil that followed, one condition 

remained constant: the national guard continued to dominate Panamanian politics. 

In August 1983, Manuel Noriega took over as the guard’s new commander. 

Noriega

The illegitimate son of a Panamanian civil servant and the family maid, 

Manuel Noriega emerged from childhood with a distrust of the ruling oligarchy 

and a resentment toward the privileged classes.6

 A self-conscious introvert whose 

pockmarked face garnered him the sobriquet “La Piña” (“the pineapple”), Noriega 

did not betray signs of assertive behavior until he entered high school in 1947. 

There, he encountered a half-brother, Luis Carlos Noriega Hurtado, he did not 

know he had. Under Luis Carlos’ tutelage, Noriega became deeply involved in the 

4 For texts of the two treaties, see Meditz and Hanratty, eds., Panama, pp. 273–93. Reagan’s 

quote is from Washington Times, 11 Jun 2004. Regarding the one-vote margin in the Senate, a handful of senators were reported to be preparing to shift their negative votes into the positive column if 

such action was needed to permit ratification. 5 Meditz and Hanratty, eds., Panama, p. 59. 6 The brief biographical sketch that traces Noriega’s career up to the murder of Hugo Spadafora 

is taken primarily from Frederick Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with 

Noriega (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990), pp. 38–71. I have also incorporated observations 

made by Gabriel Marcella and General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), The Road to War: 

The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 1987–1989, draft article, 6 May 91.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

10

nationalistic, anti-oligarchic politics 

in vogue at the school, with his 

participation in the leftist-oriented 

Panamanian Student Federation 

serving more as an outlet for his 

personal resentments and frustrations 

than as a basis for any formal 

ideological commitment.

After graduation, Noriega 

worked as a hospital laboratory 

assistant, after which, again as a 

result of his half-brother’s influence, 

he entered the Chorrillos Military 

Academy in Lima, Peru. Wearing a 

uniform imparted to Noriega a sense 

of self-esteem, while the hardships 

of cadet life taught him lessons about 

the efficacy of brutality as a means 

of control. In 1962, a meeting with 

Torrijos, then a commander in the 

province of Colón, so impressed 

Noriega that he joined the Panama 

National Guard. Torrijos, for his part, 

took a liking to the young officer, 

often assigning him important, even 

sensitive, duties and covering for him when episodes of sexual brutality, rape, 

drunkenness, and other aberrant behavior threatened his military career. 

As Noriega rose through the ranks, he acquired greater responsibilities, together 

with many of the more sinister talents that would later so disgust, infuriate, and 

confound his enemies. In the mid-1960s, when the U.S. military intelligence unit 

located in Panama helped the national guard put together an intelligence-gathering 

capability, Torrijos, by then commander in Chiriquí Province, put Noriega, chief 

of the province’s traffic police, or tránsitos, in charge of the local effort. Noriega 

further honed his intelligence skills in courses taught by the U.S. military in the 

Canal Zone and at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. While attending these and other 

classes, he developed a fascination for psychological operations that later motivated 

him to write a manual on the subject. As time passed, he turned the modest military 

intelligence assets initially available to him into a sophisticated espionage network 

with agents planted inside numerous Panamanian organizations. The information 

he collected and his willingness to use it for blackmail and intimidation made 

him an increasingly dangerous man to cross. According to some sources, his files 

included one full of damaging information on Torrijos, which helped Noriega keep 

his patron tractable.

Together with Torrijos and other officers, Noriega participated in the 1968 coup 

against Arnulfo Arias. As a major in command of an infantry company, Noriega 

hunted, fought, and occasionally tortured guerrillas operating in Chiriquí Province 

in support of the ousted president. A year later Noriega’s timely assistance saved 

Torrijos himself from a coup attempt plotted by rival officers in the guard. Torrijos 

General Noriega
The Making of a Crisis

11

rewarded Noriega by making him chief of military intelligence in Panama and 

promoting him to lieutenant colonel. From that vantage point, La Piña was able to 

expand his collection efforts and to establish contacts and share information with 

other intelligence services throughout the world. 

After Torrijos’ death, Noriega skillfully outmaneuvered his fellow officers 

within the guard’s inner circle to emerge in August 1983 as Panama’s new 

strongman. Soon thereafter, he secured passage of Law 20 that created the 

Panama Defense Forces. The national guard retained its identity but only as 

one among several organizations—to include ground, air, and naval forces and 

the police—constituting the PDF. While the president of Panama ostensibly 

exercised control over the armed forces, the law in fact rendered that role 

largely symbolic. According to one account, the new organization “enjoyed 

administrative autonomy that in effect allowed it to determine its own internal 

procedures in regard to personnel policies, disciplinary sanctions against [PDF] 

members, organizations created to further the social welfare of the members, and 

recommendations for the defense budget.” As commander in chief of the new 

organization with the rank of general de fuerzas, Noriega expanded the PDF’s 

roster, intensified its training, and purchased more equipment. In the process, the 

Panama Defense Forces became a much more militarized organization than its 

institutional predecessor. Moreover, as commander in chief, Noriega acquired 

under Law 20 the responsibility for implementing “measures needed to guarantee 

the security of inhabitants and their property and the preservation of public order 

and social peace,” while keeping the country’s president informed of national 

security developments.7

In the political arena, Noriega made little pretense of following through on 

Torrijos’ tentative measures to reduce the military’s role in Panamanian politics. 

To the contrary, the new commander quickly ousted another of Panama’s civilian 

presidents and, less than a year later, helped engineer the fraudulent election that 

placed the PDF-backed candidate, Nicolás Ardito Barletta, in the presidential 

palace. (There is general agreement that the actual winner in the 1984 election 

was Arnulfo Arias, who was thereby denied, thanks to Noriega, the opportunity 

to begin—much less finish for the first time—yet another term as president.) 

As with Torrijos, Noriega used the Partido Revolucionario Democrático as the 

military’s official political party. In coalition with the smaller Partido Laborista 

Agrario, in which Noriega’s brother-in-law would serve as secretary general, the 

PRD controlled the legislative branch of government.

Noriega also deepened the military’s role in the economic life of the country. 

Prudence had always dictated that Panamanian businessmen not ignore the 

military. An officer with a position on a firm’s board of directors could offer 

valuable services in advancing the company’s fortunes. Law 20 expanded the role 

of the military in the economy by placing elements of the Panama Defense Forces 

in control of Panama’s ports, airports, immigration, and other revenue-generating 

enterprises. Many officers also moved up from their symbolic positions as board 

members to become owners of lucrative enterprises. Torrijos had challenged the 

political power of the oligarchy; now, the PDF under Noriega began to encroach—

7 The quotes are from Meditz and Hanratty, eds., Panama, p. 225.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

12

through formal and informal means and legal and illegal enterprises—upon the 

elite’s economic livelihood.

Noriega’s actions generated opposition, but his growing reputation as a 

ruthless, even sadistic, man silenced most critics. One notable exception was Dr. 

Hugo Spadafora, a physician, revolutionary, and former government official. In 

response to the 1968 coup against Arias, Spadafora had vowed to depose Torrijos, 

but, strangely enough, after the general had the doctor arrested, the two men 

ended up becoming good friends. During the period when Torrijos supported 

the Sandinistas’ war against Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, 

Spadafora was given a “brigade” of a few hundred Panamanian volunteers with 

which to join the fight. After the Sandinista victory, disillusionment with the 

new Marxist-Leninist government in Managua compelled Spadafora to support 

the CIA-sponsored Contra insurgency against his erstwhile comrades. 

Spadafora’s exploits as a guerrilla warrior, his good looks, his machismo, 

and his charisma stood in stark contrast to Noriega’s appearance, experience, 

and demeanor. Even before Torrijos’ death, Spadafora had privately charged 

Noriega with corruption, war profiteering, and drug trafficking. After Noriega 

took control of the country, the doctor continued his verbal assaults, which 

precipitated a highly publicized test of wills. Given Spadafora’s popularity and 

the apparent validity of his charges, Noriega decided to make an example of his 

nemesis. On 13 September 1985, Spadafora crossed into Panama from Costa 

Rica, where he was living in exile. Three days later, the doctor’s decapitated, 

mutilated body was found in a U.S. mail sack back across the Costa Rican 

border. Although Noriega was in Paris at the time, few doubted that the 

systematic torture and barbarous murder of such a prominent opposition figure 

could have been carried out without the general’s authorization.8

The death of Spadafora spread fear and uncertainty among Noriega’s 

detractors, further intimidating them into keeping their silence. Next to the 

murder itself, what was most disturbing was that, despite his reputation for 

brutality, Noriega generally had not been perceived as sanctioning political 

killings. The Spadafora episode changed that perception and shed a little 

more light on what was becoming Noriega’s modus operandi for dealing 

with opposition to his power. There would be no “dirty war” in Panama, no 

death squads roaming the country, no lists of missing persons numbering in 

the thousands. Rather, opponents of the regime would be targeted selectively, 

individually, or in small groups; harassed and intimidated, incarcerated if need 

be, in many cases tortured and sexually abused; but killed only in the most 

extreme cases, such as that of Spadafora. Word of these activities would spread, 

invariably embellished by the hyperbole of rumor and gossip. The resulting 

terror was always more psychological than physical. The important thing was 

the effect: acquiescence. You did not have to kill your opponents, or even harm 

them physically, to silence them. 

In the short-term, the grisly details of Spadafora’s death had the desired 

effect. Allegations leveled against the general by the doctor’s family fell on 

sympathetic ears, but, given the climate of fear, professions of indignation did 

8 Accounts of the Spadafora murder can be found in Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 126–

41; Kevin Buckley, Panama: The Whole Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), pp. 21–31.
The Making of a Crisis

13

not translate into any serious challenge to Noriega’s power. President Barletta 

attempted to investigate the murder, only to find himself forced to resign in favor 

of Vice President Eric Arturo Delvalle. Barletta considered fighting his dismissal, 

but a threat to the safety of his family, delivered personally by a PDF officer, 

convinced him otherwise. If there were any lingering doubts as to who ran the 

government, Spadafora’s murder and Barletta’s resignation removed them.

Having silenced all but a handful of his domestic critics, Noriega felt 

secure in his position of power. The United States occasionally expressed 

its preference for a more democratic Panama, but the general believed that 

his ties to the Reagan administration were strong enough that Washington 

would overlook his indiscretions at home or, at worst, give him a perfunctory 

slap on the wrist. After all, had not U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz 

attended Barletta’s inauguration in 1984, despite charges that the presidential 

election had been fraudulent.9

 Similarly, in the aftermath of the Spadafora 

episode and Barletta’s removal, Noriega had attended two amicable meetings 

with U.S. officials ostensibly sent to reprimand him. His continuing relations 

with various American agencies and organizations, including the U.S. military 

command in Panama, bolstered his feeling of confidence. The general thus 

received an unpleasant surprise when, in the spring of 1986, he became the 

target of two investigations by the U.S. Senate. Surprise turned to shock when, 

during a visit to the United States in June, he was treated to a front-page story 

in the New York Times detailing his alleged involvement in drug trafficking, 

money laundering, arms shipments to Communist guerrillas, and the selling of 

restricted U.S. technology to Cuba. Written by investigative reporter Seymour 

M. Hersh, the exposé also linked Noriega directly to the Spadafora murder and 

claimed that the general provided intelligence information to both the United 

States and Cuba.10

Quoting anonymous U.S. government officials, past and present, and 

relying on classified documents leaked to him, Hersh revealed how several 

departments and agencies responsible for America’s national security benefited 

from “the Panama connection.” Noriega allowed the U.S. military command 

based in Panama “extensive leeway” in its activities, and, over the years, he had 

provided useful intelligence to the United States on Latin American insurgencies 

and on Cuban activities in the region. Also, according to Hersh’s sources, the 

general permitted various U.S. organizations to maintain intelligence-gathering 

facilities in Panama. What the Hersh exposé did not say was that Noriega 

had been recruited by U.S. military intelligence as early as 1952, that he was 

currently supporting U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration efforts in Panama 

(some say by turning in his competitors or insignificant underlings), and that, 

9 Barletta had been a student of Shultz’s at some point in the 1960s when Shultz had been head 

of the business school at the University of Chicago. 10 New York Times, 12 Jun 86. On the Spadafora affair, Hersh cited sources who claimed that 

the United States had intelligence linking Noriega directly to the murder. The existence of this evidence was confirmed to me in an interview with a military intelligence officer who had served in 

Panama at the time of the murder. Interv, author with Col Paul F. Morgan, U.S. Army, 7 Jul 89, U.S. 

Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. Colonel Morgan was the deputy chief 

of staff for intelligence (DCSINT) at U.S. Army, South (USARSO), a U.S. Southern Command 

(USSOUTHCOM) component, from 1985 to 1989.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

14

at the request of the Reagan administration, he was assisting the Contras in 

their war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

The Hersh article and subsequent revelations showed that many U.S. government 

officials had important ties to Noriega and believed that his value to America’s 

strategic interests in the region warranted their downplaying his friendly relations with 

Cuba and his various illicit activities. As one source told Hersh regarding Noriega’s 

selling of U.S. intelligence to Cuba, “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.”11 This forgiving assessment seemed to 

reflect a broader sentiment among State Department, Pentagon, Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA), Drug Enforcement Administration, and National Security Council 

officials in mid-1986 that the devil you know is better than one you do not. Whatever 

Noriega’s faults, the Reagan administration would continue to overlook them.

Hersh’s exposé did not address what administration officials might do if 

the machinations of the Panamanian dictator turned into a serious threat to U.S. 

national security interests. Would an anti-Noriega consensus emerge to counter the 

danger, or would there be a breaking of ranks, with some U.S. officials arguing for 

cutting the general loose and others defending the current arrangements? Already, 

there had been some divergence from the status quo. The new U.S. ambassador to 

Panama, Arthur Davis, had on his arrival in the country called for the restoration of 

Panamanian democracy and an investigation into the Spadafora murder. There were 

also indications that Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state for inter-American 

affairs, harbored serious doubts about Noriega’s continued usefulness to U.S. 

agencies. Still, when the administration held a policy review on Panama, Abrams 

supported the decision to shelve official concerns about Noriega until the conflict 

with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua was resolved.12

Crisis in Panama

Once Hersh’s revelations ceased to stir public comment, the Reagan 

administration enjoyed a year’s grace period during which no compelling reason 

arose for further reevaluating the relationship with Noriega. Then, on 1 June 

1987, the general cashiered an ambitious rival within the Panama Defense 

Forces, Col. Roberto Díaz Herrera, the organization’s chief of staff. Three days 

later, Noriega announced that he himself would remain the PDF commander for 

another five years. Díaz Herrera swiftly retaliated, publicly accusing the general 

of fraud, corruption, and drug trafficking. He also told reporters that Noriega 

was responsible for the murder of Spadafora and, even more damning, the plane 

crash that killed Torrijos. Coming from such a high-ranking member of the PDF 

leadership, the allegations rocked the country. Angry Panamanians in the capital 

gathered at Díaz Herrera’s home in support of the colonel, and, when Noriega sent 

his special antiriot unit, the Dobermans, to disperse the assemblage, the troops 

had to employ bird shot and tear gas. In the days that followed, spontaneous 

demonstrations erupted throughout Panama City and in Colón at the northern 

end of the canal, with men and women waving white handkerchiefs and banging 

pots, two gestures of defiance that almost overnight became symbols of the 

11 New York Times, 12 Jun 86. 12 Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 169–80; Buckley, Panama, pp. 41–52.
The Making of a Crisis

15

opposition to Noriega. That opposition acquired an organizational framework 

when leading Panamanian businessmen—some motivated by principle, others 

resentful of PDF encroachments on their economic turf—formed the National 

Civic Crusade (NCC) on 10 June. Such diverse groups as students, teachers, 

workers, medical organizations, and religious leaders proclaimed their support. 

When the NCC began organizing mass demonstrations, a national strike, and car 

caravans through the capital as part of its protest, and as the regime responded 

with the Dobermans and counterdemonstrations, Panama suddenly found itself 

in a serious political crisis.

The firing of Díaz Herrera and the public protests that days later followed 

his allegations against Noriega bracketed a significant event for the U.S. 

military in Panama, a change in the top position at the U.S. Southern Command 

(SOUTHCOM). Located at Quarry Heights, the name given two manmade terraces near the summit of Ancon Hill overlooking Panama City, the 

headquarters had been established in the Canal Zone in 1963 as a successor 

to the U.S. Caribbean Command and as the latest affirmation of the American 

military presence in Panama. As a unified command, SOUTHCOM included 

components and staff officers from each service as well as Special Operations 

Forces (Chart 1). Its mission, in general terms, was to oversee U.S. military 

programs and activities in Central and South America, including the defense of 

the Panama Canal.

On 6 June, General Frederick F. Woerner Jr. became commander in chief of 

the Southern Command (CINCSO)(Chart 2). Woerner was a West Point graduate, 

a battalion commander in Vietnam, and a soldier‐scholar, fluent in Spanish and 

the recipient of a master’s degree in Latin American history. Of his several assignments in the region, his most recent had been as commander of 

the 193d Infantry Brigade, stationed in Panama, and, simultaneously, as commander of the 

U.S. Army Assistance Agency 

for Latin America. Given his 

experience in the theater, he 

took the reins at Quarry Heights 

with definite ideas on the course 

his new command should chart 

He was concerned that Washington’s preoccupation with 

Central America since the early 

1980s, specifically with the wars 

in Nicaragua and El Salvador, 

had slighted other countries in 

the region, especially the principal nations of South America. 

As CINCSO, he hoped to place 

more emphasis on theater-wide 

issues. He also sought to promote the spread of democracy in General Woerner in conversation
GENERAL

Commander in Chief,

U.S. Southern Command

(Unified Command)

National Command Authority

Secretary of Defense

President

Chairman,

Joint Chiefs of Staff

MAJOR GENERAL

U.S. Navy, South

(Service Component)

MAJOR GENERAL

U.S. Army, South

(Service Component)

LIEUTENANT GENERAL

U.S. Air Force, South

(Service Component)

COLONEL

U.S. Special Operations 

Command, South

(Subunified Command)

Chart 1—Command Relationships: U.S. Southern Command
Commander in Chief

Deputy Commander in Chief

Chief of Staff

J–3

Operations

J–1

Manpower, Personnel,

and Administration

J–5

Policy, Strategy,

and Programs

J–6

Communications-Electronics

and Automated Systems

J–2

Intelligence

J–4

Logistics

Chart 2—U.S. Southern Command Joint Staff Organization
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

18

the region, a traditional goal of U.S. foreign policy, in part by encouraging closer 

civil-military ties in various countries in such a way that “the military . . . would 

become increasingly subordinated to civilian command authority.”13

Woerner incorporated this concept of military professionalism into his 

change of command address. Although Noriega, whom he knew from his 

previous tour of duty in Panama, was one among several Latin American 

officers he had in mind when he personally drafted the speech, he refrained 

from mentioning the general by name. “I would not be making a speech that 

was deliberately insulting to the commander of the military forces of the host 

country,” Woerner later insisted.14 Nevertheless, Noriega, who was present at 

the ceremony, considered the speech a personal affront and refused to attend the 

reception afterwards. Although neither man had time to dwell on the episode, 

the speech marked an inauspicious renewal of a strained working relationship 

between the two commanders that would, within the months to come, become 

much worse. Within two days of the ceremony, the political crisis in Panama 

precipitated by Díaz Herrera’s allegations was under way. For Noriega, it 

marked the first popular challenge to his position of power. For Woerner, it 

portended a refocusing of the Southern Command’s time and resources, not 

on South America or the theater in general, as he had contemplated, but more 

narrowly on Panama. It also meant a telephone call from his superior, Navy 

Admiral William Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), asking 

with mock solemnity how the new commander in chief could have screwed 

things up so badly in Panama after only forty-eight hours on the job.15

On 10 June, the day the National Civic Crusade was formed and one day 

after PDF antiriot troops had used force to disperse protesters in the capital, 

President Delvalle declared a state of emergency.16 The ensuing crackdown 

temporarily quelled the demonstrations, but, beginning in early July, NCC 

leaders again mobilized public opposition to the regime, this time for a 

more sustained effort. As organized protests spread throughout the country, 

Noriega adopted a hard-line policy in response. In subsequent confrontations 

between demonstrators and the Panama Defense Forces, only a handful 

of protesters were actually killed, the first fatality occurring on 26 July, but 

scores were wounded and hundreds arrested. A select few were tortured to 

serve as an object lesson to the others and to stoke rumors that beatings and samesex rape by AIDS-infected PDF were just two of the abominations awaiting any 

of Noriega’s critics who ended up behind bars. The government also exiled some 

opposition leaders and seized the property of others. The PDF, which owned three 

newspapers, a television station, and several radio stations, used these assets to 

discredit its detractors, while censoring or closing pro-opposition media.

13 Woerner discusses his career, his views about the Southern Command in the 1980s, and his 

philosophy on the democratic potential of Latin American militaries in Interv, General Frederick F. 

Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), U.S. Army Military History Institute (MHI), Carlisle Barracks, Pa. 14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 A chronology of the demonstrations that rocked Panama in the summer and fall of 1988, together with a chronology of U.S. government and U.S. Southern Command reactions, is included in 

USSOUTHCOM, Historical Report 1988. I have also incorporated observations from Marcella and 

Woerner, The Road to War, 6 May 91.
The Making of a Crisis

19

Against this impressive array of government power, Panamanians who took 

to the streets soon discovered that white handkerchiefs were no match for tear 

gas, truncheons, water cannon, and bird shot. The lesson was driven home on 

22 October when Noriega unleashed not the Dobermans, but Battalion 2000, 

a full‐fledged military unit with helicopters, to break up an antigovernment 

demonstration. The unit’s antiriot tactics so disrupted the rally that the National 

Civic Crusade did not schedule another until 13 November. The opposition 

harbored few zealots or willing martyrs; thus, fighting back against well-armed 

troops and police was not a practical option. Yet, so long as critics of the regime 

continued to agitate in any way, Noriega felt compelled to respond. Each 

response, in turn, generated more adverse publicity at home and abroad. How the 

United States would react was of particular concern to the PDF commander, who 

orchestrated his campaign against the opposition with one eye on the internal 

crisis and the other on Washington.

What he saw in Washington was not reassuring, particularly when he 

looked to Capitol Hill. On 26 June, the U.S. Senate by a vote of 84-2 passed 

a resolution that called for the government of Panama to restore constitutional 

rights suspended under the state of emergency, ensure free elections, remove 

the Panama Defense Forces from nonmilitary activities and organizations, and 

investigate the Spadafora murder. Delvalle denounced the resolution, although 

he did declare an end to the state of emergency.

In the wake of the Senate’s action, Noriega intensified the campaign to shore 

up his political support in Panama, combining populist appeals to Panamanian 

nationalism and torrijismo with a strong dose of anti-American rhetoric. This last 

tack was nothing new in Panamanian politics, and, during past occurrences, U.S. 

officials had generally accepted it for what it was, a calculated ploy designed 

primarily for domestic consumption. But this time Noriega overplayed his hand. 

Four days after the Senate passed its resolution, progovernment demonstrators 

gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Panama City. As the PDF looked on, the 

mob threw rocks and paint-filled balloons at the building, broke windows, and 

damaged cars in the area. An outraged Ambassador Davis angrily denounced the 

attack, demanded compensation (which was later paid), and recommended the 

suspension of economic and military assistance to Panama.

Noriega presumably reckoned that his close ties with various U.S. agencies 

and departments within the executive branch would allow him to tweak the 

Senate and even insult the State Department without causing severe damage to 

the bureaucratic consensus that had tolerated his illicit activities in the past. He 

soon discovered, however, that the consensus was much shakier than he thought. 

The demonstrations, the anti-American rhetoric, the attack on the embassy, and, 

most of all, the drug trafficking in which he was allegedly involved had finally 

turned him into a public embarrassment for the Reagan administration. The State 

Department, prodded by Elliott Abrams, had been on the verge of disavowing 

him for over a year. Now, buoyed by the administration’s putative successes 

in promoting democracy in the Philippines and Haiti (where the United States 

had facilitated the removal of Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Jean-Claude 

Duvalier, respectively), the department called for a campaign of economic 

pressure aimed at ridding Panama of an unsavory dictator and the United States 

of a troublesome “friend.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

20

The CIA and the Pentagon, while conceding Noriega’s transgressions, were less 

eager to take action against the general (although the CIA agreed to remove him 

from its payroll in the wake of the embassy demonstration). The director of central 

intelligence, William Casey, and others for whom support of the Contra insurgency 

in Nicaragua had become a near obsession continued to value Noriega as a source 

of information and assistance in the administration’s battle against the Sandinista

government. At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and 

Admiral Crowe did not regard Noriega as an indispensable asset but argued against 

any precipitate action that might undermine what still constituted a productive 

working relationship between the U.S. military and the Panamanian armed forces, 

despite the friction generated by the general’s anti-American bombast.

Woerner agreed. In a message to Crowe in early September, the general 

made the case for a “prudent” and “balanced” strategy for dealing with the crisis. 

He stated that the Southern Command wanted to see democracy established in 

Panama, basic civil rights protected, and freedom of the press reestablished. The 

Panama Defense Forces, he argued, would be an important player in the attainment 

of these objectives. To think otherwise would be to ignore the country’s traditions 

and culture. Even if Noriega were to step down, “the significant involvement of 

the PDF in Panamanian politics would continue. A completely apolitical PDF 

is a fantasy.” Woerner reiterated his personal goal of helping Panama’s military 

“support a genuine transition to democracy and evolve into a professional 

organization friendly to US interests and capable of defending the Canal.” This 

objective, though, could not be pursued if Congress cut off security assistance to 

Panama. “Neither long-term nor short-term US interests in Panama are furthered 

by severing completely our professional military-to-military contacts with the 

PDF,” however “strained and deteriorating” they might be at the moment. Crowe 

apparently agreed. A note on Woerner’s copy of the message indicated it “won 

raves from the JCS.”17

The message’s contents would have received less enthusiastic reviews from 

Congress and the State Department, which for the remainder of the year advocated 

economic warfare against the Delvalle regime. President Reagan lent his support 

to this approach on 22 December when he signed a bill restricting U.S. assistance 

to Panama until that country’s government could provide evidence of a meaningful 

transition to democracy. The sanctions hurt the Noriega dictatorship but also had 

an adverse effect both on the businessmen who formed the core of the opposition 

movement and on the Panamanian people as a whole.

Economic sanctions and appeals for Panamanian democracy fell short of a 

coherent, interagency approach by the Reagan administration to the situation in 

Panama. Critical questions remained unanswered. Was Noriega’s removal from 

power a prerequisite for democracy? The State Department seemed to accept this 

condition, and Woerner and Crowe made no strong remonstrations. But various 

elements in the CIA and the Pentagon continued to balk at discarding a man whom 

they still considered an important asset. Another question, raised in Woerner’s 

message to Crowe, was how the Southern Command should deal with the PDF 

and its commander on a day-to-day basis. As Reagan’s national security team 

deliberated over these and related issues, no consensus materialized on what to do. 

17 Msg, USSOUTHCOM to Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 031830Z Sep 87.
The Making of a Crisis

21

With other, more pressing matters demanding attention elsewhere in the region and 

the world, the administration procrastinated on devising a comprehensive approach 

for handling its predicament with Noriega. In late 1987, more assertive action 

probably would have been premature anyway. As Woerner often observed, the 

crisis in Panama was primarily an internal affair that should be resolved internally, 

if at all possible, by means of a Panamanian solution to a Panamanian problem. 

The situation, in his opinion, should not be allowed to degenerate into a full-scale 

U.S.-Panamanian confrontation, Noriega’s rhetoric and Washington’s economic 

sanctions notwithstanding.

The Southern Command and the Crisis

During his first months as SOUTHCOM’s commander, Woerner did what he 

could to prevent an open break between the Southern Command and the Panama 

Defense Forces, despite the increasing strains the crisis in Panama placed on 

the relationship. Personally, he felt nothing but contempt for Noriega, a man he 

regarded as a scoundrel, a thug, and an obstacle to the PDF becoming a more 

professional organization. Still, Noriega was the PDF’s commander, so Woerner 

was occasionally compelled to meet with him. The SOUTHCOM commander 

insisted, though, that the meetings be conducted on an “unofficial” basis. This 

meant following a routine in which Woerner would agree to a request by Noriega 

for a face-to-face conversation, drive to Noriega’s office at Fort Amador and 

enter through the back door, and talk with the general one-on-one, with no media 

coverage. These “discreet” meetings, to use Woerner’s description, allowed both 

men to discuss issues and problems of mutual concern, without providing Noriega a 

“photo opportunity” to use in his propaganda war against the domestic opposition. 

Noriega accepted these conditions and, according to Woerner, never violated the 

confidentiality of the meetings.18 On an official level, contacts with PDF officers 

continued through such mechanisms as the Combined Board and military-police 

liaisons. SOUTHCOM also continued to plan for routine exercises the headquarters 

had customarily conducted with the PDF and its national guard predecessor. In late 

1987, however, President Delvalle had placed that kind of activity in limbo when, 

in response to additional economic sanctions passed against Panama by the U.S. 

Congress, he announced that the Panama Defense Forces would not participate 

in Kindle Liberty, the annual combined exercise for the defense of the Panama 

Canal, scheduled for early 1988. In January 1988, the U.S. Congress raised the 

ante by passing a resolution prohibiting all military training and exercises with the 

Panamanian military. As Woerner looked on, the SOUTHCOM-PDF relationship 

he valued was increasingly becoming a casualty of the worsening crisis.

Salvaging a professional relationship that would allow U.S. forces to exert a 

salutary influence on the Panama Defense Forces was only one of Woerner’s crisisrelated concerns. He also had the responsibility to do what he could to insulate the 

people under his command from the violence in the streets. This was no simple 

task. Among the more than 50,000 U.S. citizens living on Panamanian territory, 

especially in and around the capital, there were several thousand U.S. service 

personnel and their dependents. From their homes and apartments—sometimes as 

the residences filled with smoke or tear gas—many could observe at close range 

18 For Woerner’s account of his approach to meeting with Noriega, see Woerner MHI Interv.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

22

the clashes between Panamanian forces and opposition demonstrators. In one 

case, an American dependent watching a demonstration from her balcony received 

superficial wounds from stray shotgun pellets. There was also the risk that military 

personnel driving to and from any of the several U.S. installations that remained 

in the former Canal Zone might inadvertently land in the middle of an angry mob 

or find themselves surrounded by overturned cars and burning tires. To minimize 

these risks, Woerner and his component commanders did the best they could to 

keep Americans in Panama informed about day-to-day developments in the crisis.

To monitor the turmoil, the Southern Command set up crisis action teams 

whenever the situation warranted. Generally, these teams operated out of “the 

Tunnel,” SOUTHCOM’s secure command post dug into the side of Ancon Hill, 

and included SOUTHCOM staff officers and liaison officers from the service 

components. Once activated, a team’s primary function was to collect and collate 

information on the crisis, relying heavily on U.S. military intelligence assets in 

Panama to provide the data. 

The process was not necessarily an easy one. Even before the crisis, 

SOUTHCOM’s intelligence shop; the intelligence officers of the service 

components, especially U.S. Army, South’s (USARSO) deputy chief of staff for 

intelligence; and the Army’s Panama-based 470th Military Intelligence Brigade, 

the principal “collector” of military intelligence in Panama, all worked under 

significant handicaps while trying to fulfill the requirements placed on them for 

timely information. To begin with, the intelligence database for Panama was 

smaller than it could have been because, officially, the country was a friendly 

nation hosting American armed forces. Because of this status, legal and political 

considerations prevented Panama from becoming a target of extensive U.S. 

clandestine intelligence operations. Helping to compensate for these shortfalls, 

at least during the precrisis years, was the fact that a good deal of useful 

information could be obtained from open sources and overt methods: covering 

the Panamanian media, traveling through the country, and exploiting contacts 

American servicemen cultivated with Panamanian civilians and the Panama 

Defense Forces. U.S. intelligence officers, for example, enjoyed daily liaison 

with their Panamanian counterparts and had ready access to PDF bases and 

posts, as well as to the posted orders of the day. Panamanian forces also “tacitly 

cooperated” with American efforts to collect intelligence on other countries in 

the region, especially El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cuba. In sum, despite legal 

and other barriers, U.S. intelligence activities aimed at and involving Panama 

prior to the crisis were accomplished without excessive constraints and risks.19

When the crisis began to erode the cooperative relationship between U.S. 

intelligence personnel and the Panama Defense Forces, open sources remained 

available and valuable but other avenues of collection began to close down. The 

Southern Command tried to adapt to the deteriorating situation, but, according to 

one midcrisis assessment, “the entire US intelligence complex was ill-prepared to 

19 This description of U.S. military intelligence assets in Panama during the early stages of 

the crisis is based on Intervs, author with Brig Gen John Stewart Jr., U.S. Army, 14 Jun 89, Quarry 

Heights, Panama; Col M. J. Flynn, U.S. Army, Mar 89, Corozal, Panama; Morgan, 7 Jul 89; Maj 

Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 31 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Col John A. Cope, U.S. Army, 

29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Lt Col Michael Mallory, U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, 

Panama; and Ed McConnell, 19 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
The Making of a Crisis

23

initiate intensive collection operations against Panama.” Nor did doctrine provide 

any practicable guidelines for action since it did not cover what the 470th defined 

as “diplomatic/economic war” against a hostile host country “under conditions 

characterized as ‘neither peace nor war, nor classic low intensity conflict.’” The 

process of adjustment thus took time and improvisation, at the beginning of which 

military intelligence units simply did not have enough people or resources to 

cover the numerous targets offered by the PDF and by anti- and pro-government 

activists. As one example of the recurring frustration experienced in obtaining 

timely information, intelligence officers often acquired and processed crisis-related 

material only to find they had been scooped by the news media, particularly CNN 

(Cable News Network).20

Together with the small number of clandestine operations that remained active, 

the overt sources and contacts that continued in play during the early months of the 

crisis provided the 470th and U.S. Army, South, with the information required to 

publish periodically a classified order of battle that depicted the PDF’s organization, 

if not its tactical capabilities. USARSO’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence 

also issued routine intelligence summaries that, for the most part, reported broad 

political and economic trends in the country. When available, information on the 

times and places of opposition demonstrations was disseminated to the American 

community via such media as SOUTHCOM’s newspaper, the Southern Command 

News; the command’s television station, SCN (Southern Command Network); U.S. 

Embassy announcements; and various other official channels. On a more personal 

level, Woerner and his component commanders met with military families in 

an attempt to elucidate events, calm fears, and solicit cooperation in what was 

becoming a trying experience for many dependents. The Southern Command also 

implemented a four-tiered system of personnel movement limitations (PMLs) 

designed to restrict off-base military travel during periods of heightened tension. 

When PML Alpha, the least restrictive of the four, was in effect, Americans in 

Panama were advised to “exercise caution” and to “avoid crowds, meetings and 

demonstrations.” Should the situation necessitate enacting the highest PML, Delta, 

American citizens would be told not to travel unless it would be onto a U.S. defense 

site or a treaty-designated Military Area of Coordination.21

To reduce the possibility of an unwarranted or unintended provocation, SCN 

and the Southern Command News frequently reminded their audience that, under 

the terms of the canal treaties, Americans were prohibited from interfering in the 

internal affairs of Panama. To this end, the SOUTHCOM Public Affairs Office 

adopted measures to keep it from being perceived as a vehicle for anti-Noriega 

propaganda. For example, when it ran wire service stories on the crisis—stories often 

critical of the Panamanian regime—it did so with the disclaimer that the contents 

and opinions expressed in the stories were not those of the U.S. government. In 

another step to avoid the appearance of meddling in Panama’s internal troubles, 

the Southern Command and the U.S. Embassy began monitoring training exercises 

and other routine U.S. military activities in the canal area much more closely. For at 

least one operations officer in USARSO’s 193d Infantry Brigade, the more intense 

scrutiny meant frequently having to brief the U.S. ambassador or a SOUTHCOM 

20 The source for this assessment and the quotes is Msg, 470th Military Intelligence (MI) Bde to 

U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), 232235Z Feb 89. 21 USSOUTHCOM, Personnel Movement Limitations (PML) Handout, n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

24

general to reassure the individual that some pending military undertaking would 

not provoke an adverse reaction from the Panamanian government or the Panama 

Defense Forces.22

The warnings, advisories, and other precautions did not prevent isolated 

episodes in which Americans inadvertently became embroiled in street protests and 

demonstrations, and thus subject to mistreatment by Panamanian forces. Initially, 

the Southern Command News indicated that these incidents could have been 

avoided had the Americans involved only heeded SOUTHCOM’s PML levels.23 As 

the crisis continued, however, the PDF appeared to launch a deliberate campaign 

of harassing U.S. military personnel. The evidence was not conclusive at first, 

since low‐level harassment, such as soliciting bribes for alleged traffic violations, 

had gone on for years before the crisis began. But as incidents of U.S. servicemen 

being illegally detained and, in some cases, physically abused increased in the 

last quarter of 1987, Woerner faced a dilemma. To take too strong a stand could 

risk a SOUTHCOM-PDF confrontation, even hostilities, over PDF transgressions 

that were deplorable but hardly cause for a war that neither the SOUTHCOM 

commander nor the Reagan administration desired. But to limit SOUTHCOM’s 

response to written protestations that contained no serious threats of punitive 

measures risked encouraging further harassment and a concomitant decline in the 

morale of U.S. forces stationed in Panama.

The dilemma for Woerner was real, as demonstrated in a telling episode in late 

1987. Official letters protesting PDF infringements on the rights of U.S. forces in 

Panama emanated from SOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty Affairs. At one point, 

the treaty affairs office drafted a letter from Woerner to Noriega, in which the 

SOUTHCOM commander expressed his “deepening concern” over the incidents 

of harassment, the “growing polarization” between U.S. forces and the PDF, and 

the potentially “debilitating impact” future incidents would have on the combined 

mission to defend the canal. If Woerner signed the strongly worded missive, which 

had attached to it an annotated chronology of illegal PDF activity against U.S. 

service personnel, the process of engaging in formal protests would have been 

elevated to the commanders’ level. After weighing the possible consequences of the 

recommended action, Woerner decided not to sign the letter, preferring instead that 

its contents be conveyed to the PDF by Brig. Gen. Marc Cisneros, the command’s 

director of operations, in an informal meeting with Panamanian colonels. (The 

verbal remonstration, not surprisingly, had only a transitory impact.) Disinclined 

to employ force at this point and barred by Washington from even threatening 

its use as a counter or a deterrent to PDF improprieties, Woerner possessed little 

leverage with which to compel Noriega’s regime to stop the harassment and treaty 

violations. The offenses, in fact, would continue, their intensity oscillating according 

to the dynamics of the crisis. As predicted, the morale of U.S. service personnel 

in Panama began to suffer, and in time, many started to question the degree of 

SOUTHCOM’s concern for their safety and security. Given the broader issues at 

22 Various issues of the Southern Command News throughout the summer and fall of 1987. As 

for the monitoring of U.S. exercises in Panama, see Interv, author with Maj Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. 

Army, 28 Apr 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 23 For example, the Southern Command News, 24 Jul 87, carried an article citing three incidents 

involving U.S. military personnel that took place during a major opposition rally on 10 July. Each of 

the incidents, the article flatly stated, could have been avoided by the Americans in question.
The Making of a Crisis

25

stake and the cautious guidance Woerner received from above, these doubts about 

the SOUTHCOM commander and his staff may have been misplaced, but they 

nevertheless stigmatized the command well into the crisis.24

Another issue troubling Woerner also involved the safety of U.S. service 

personnel. What would happen if a pro-Noriega mob attacked U.S. military facilities 

the way demonstrators had attacked the U.S. Embassy in June? In contemplating 

this scenario, U.S. Army, South, SOUTHCOM’s largest service component, 

headquartered at Fort Clayton, about ten minutes from Ancon Hill, reviewed both 

its role as a reaction force and its capabilities for handling civil disturbances. On 

9 January 1988, those capabilities were put to a test when about two hundred 

progovernment demonstrators gathered at the back entrance of Quarry Heights. The 

occasion was Martyrs’ Day, the annual holiday commemorating the Panamanians 

who died during the 1964 anti-American riots. In a display of “political theater,” 

the mob carried placards and spewed forth verbal abuse, actions that prompted Col. 

Gar E. Thiry, SOUTHCOM’s vice director of operations, to request that military 

policemen standing by at Fort Clayton be dispatched to the scene. Neither USARSO’s 

chief of staff, Col. Arnold T. Rossi, nor the military police (MP) commander on the 

scene, Maj. Al Mansfield, was convinced the situation warranted such a deployment, 

but Thiry insisted, and the MPs arrived at Quarry Heights about an hour after the first 

summons. The demonstrators eventually dispersed, having inflicted no damage on 

the SOUTHCOM headquarters.25

In the wake of the demonstration, an argument ensued as to whether the 

Southern Command had overreacted in ordering the military police to the scene. 

On one point, however, there was consensus: the Martyrs’ Day protests marked a 

small turning point in the crisis in that, for the first time, Noriega had targeted a 

U.S. military installation. The vulnerability of other U.S. military facilities would 

have to be assessed, as the issue of USARSO’s ability to handle civil disturbances 

acquired a new sense of urgency (Map 2). 

Following Martyrs’ Day, the remainder of January seemed fairly calm. Neither 

side in Panama’s internal crisis seemed eager to confront the other during the 

holiday season. On the nineteenth, the government even allowed the opposition 

press to reopen. The lull in the crisis encouraged the USARSO commander, Maj. 

Gen. Bernard Loeffke, to send a memorandum to Woerner suggesting ways to 

improve relations with the Panama Defense Forces. Although military-to-military 

relations had become increasingly strained over the last months of 1987, neither 

Woerner nor Loeffke considered the downward slide to be irreversible. Loeffke 

noted that, although U.S. Army, South, had minimized its contacts with the 

Panamanian military, the cooperation between American military police officers 

and the PDF major who met biweekly with the provost marshal was improving. 

Based on these encouraging signals and on indirect overtures he had received from 

Noriega, Loeffke recommended the inclusion of Panamanian forces in various 

USARSO activities “in a low visibility environment.” SOUTHCOM agreed and 

24 Southern Command’s Center for Treaty Affairs (SCTA) draft Ltr, Woerner to Noriega, n.d., 

and Encls. 25 Material on the Martyrs’ Day incident is contained in Telephone Interv, author with former USSOUTHCOM staff officer, 25 Oct 90; Memo, Lt Col Shaun Darragh for U.S. Army, South 

(USARSO), Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (DCSOPS), 8 Jan 88; Memorandum for the Record 

(MFR), Col Gar Thiry, 11 Jan 88; Cope Interv, 29 Mar 89.
J J

FORT

SHERMAN

ARMY

BASE

COCO SOLO

NAVAL

STATION

FORT DAVIS

ARMY BASE

A

T

FORT ESPINAR

C A R I B B E A N

S E A

Gatun Locks

EL RENACER P

PEDRO 

LO

Colón

Gatun

Gamboa

La Chorrera

CANAL

ZON 

PANAMA

ZONE

CANAL

P A N A M A

FORMER

FORMER

to RIO HATO

42 Miles

Map 2
JJ

J

J

J

J

ALBROOK

AIR STATION

HOWARD

AIR FORCE

BASE

ARRAIJÁN

TANK FARM

FORT CLAYTON

ARMY BASE

FORT

KOBBE

FORT CIMARRÓN

FORT

 AMADOR

B A Y O F

P A N A M A

Madden

Lake

CERRO TIGRE

PRISON

MIRAFLORES 

LOCKS

O MIGUEL

OCKS

TINAJITAS TORRIJOS

PACORA RIVER 

BRIDGE

TOCUMEN

MADDEN DAM

Panama City

Balboa

ON E

PANAMA CANAL AREA

1987–1989

0

0

10 Miles

10 Kilometers
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

28

authorized Loeffke to initiate such activities, albeit with specific restrictions.26

Before Loeffke could act, however, the crisis took a dramatic turn for the worse.

Throughout the fall of 1987, two federal grand juries in Florida, one in Tampa, 

the other in Miami, had been hearing testimony from several of Noriega’s former 

associates about the general’s involvement in the illegal drug trade. As a result 

of that testimony, both grand juries indicted Noriega on several counts of drug 

trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. The indictments were made 

public on 5 February 1988, to the consternation of officials within the Reagan 

administration, including Noriega’s detractors, who privately expressed dismay over 

the introduction of yet another element of uncertainty into an already unpredictable 

situation. The administration could not dismiss or ignore the charges without 

appearing to condone drug dealing. Thus, in a realization of Woerner’s fears, the 

indictments had the effect of transforming the crisis from a largely internal affair 

between the Panamanian regime and the National Civic Crusade, with some external 

pressure from Washington, into a full-blown political confrontation between the 

governments of Panama and the United States. In short, two prosecutors in Florida, 

operating without the blessing of the U.S. attorney general, had placed the Reagan 

administration in a position of making the normalization of U.S.-Panamanian 

relations contingent upon Noriega’s removal from power and, at least in theory, 

his prosecution in the United States.27

Noriega reacted to the indictments by clamping down once again on his 

domestic opposition and by showing the U.S. government he had the leverage to 

cause it untold problems if Washington did not back off. In the week following the 

news out of Florida, the Panama Defense Forces closed three radio stations and an 

opposition newspaper. Meanwhile, the tenor of Combined Board meetings became 

acrimonious, as the PDF co-chief accused American forces in Panama of being 

“aggressors” in a campaign engineered by Washington to destabilize the Delvalle 

regime. On 11 February, three days after a group of PDF officers petitioned 

President Delvalle to expel the Southern Command from Panama, Noriega used 

the occasion of his birthday celebration to declare that many, if not most, of the 

activities conducted by the U.S. command were not permitted under the canal 

treaties. As the Panamanian foreign minister later explained, the treaties allowed 

U.S. troops to be stationed in his country solely for the purpose of defending the 

waterway, not for conducting missions throughout the region. In response to this 

propaganda gambit, the Pentagon defended SOUTHCOM’s missions as being 

consonant with the treaties, while a host of U.S. officers endorsed the logic that 

virtually all of the command’s activities in Central and South America directly or 

indirectly affected the security of the canal.28

Amid the furor and verbal sparring that followed the indictments, U.S. 

commanders in Panama were careful to avoid alarmist statements that might 

26 Memos, Loeffke for Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command (CINCSO), 22 Jan 88, 

25 Jan 88. 27 The story behind the indictments against Noriega can be found in Buckley, Panama, pp. 114–

25; Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 236–57; John Dinges, Our Man in Panama: How General 

Noriega Used the U.S.—and Made Millions in Drugs and Arms (New York: Random House, 1990), 

pp. 275–98. 28 Quote from Tropic Times, 12 Feb 87. USSOUTHCOM, Historical Report 1988, pp. 116–17; 

MFR, 470th MI Bde, 12 Feb 88; Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89.
The Making of a Crisis

29

exacerbate the crisis. Woerner informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Noriega 

would likely not seek a direct confrontation with the United States but would 

try to establish the “moral high ground” by reiterating nationalistic themes. At 

U.S. Army, South, Loeffke, in one of his periodic updates to General Carl Vuono, 

the chief of staff of the Army, echoed SOUTHCOM’s public position that the 

“situation in Panama is not as bad as the newspapers might describe it,” and that, 

while “minor isolated incidents” had occurred, the “overall situation is not directed 

to the American soldier.” Yet, he conceded, Panama was tense, and U.S. troops 

were expressing concern about what course of action the Reagan administration 

intended to pursue in the days and weeks ahead.29

The thousands of American citizens living in and outside the former Canal 

Zone shared that concern. They could easily become the targeted victims of any 

regime-sponsored retaliatory measures against U.S. policy; they could even be 

potential hostages in the event of a U.S.-Panamanian military showdown. Among 

these citizens were the military dependents living on U.S. bases, often in direct 

contact with PDF units as the result of certain treaty provisions. For example, 

at Fort Amador, family housing for American military personnel was located 

directly across a recreation field from the PDF 5th Infantry Company barracks. 

(A similar arrangement existed on the Atlantic side of the canal at Fort Espinar.) 

Crimes against property on the bases continued to rise as the Panamanian economy 

worsened and the crisis intensified. And while harassment of Americans by the 

Panama Defense Forces could still be categorized as low-keyed, the mounting 

possibility of a more intense campaign of intimidation exacted a psychological toll 

upon the potential prey.

Responding to these concerns, the Southern Command sought to reassure U.S. 

servicemen, their dependents, and other civilians that the harsh rhetoric, increased 

tension, and general sense of instability in Panama following the indictments did 

not pose a greater threat to the American community. In mid-February, only a week 

after news of the indictments was made public, the Tropic Times, the successor of 

the Southern Command News, noted a decline in incidents of PDF harassment of 

U.S. personnel, praised the cooperative attitude of the PDF in helping to resolve a 

variety of problems, and declared SOUTHCOM’s conviction that the government 

of Panama would continue to ensure the safety and security of American citizens. 

As Loeffke informed Vuono, Army officers were talking to as many soldiers as 

possible in an attempt to “appease their fears.” But he also added that U.S. Army, 

South, was taking “precautions,” to include a review of “our response packages 

and our evacuation plan,” even though “we have not visibly practiced them for fear 

of aggravating the political situation.”30

Loeffke’s report to Vuono in mid-February illustrated the predicament of 

military commanders in Panama from Woerner on down. They still viewed the 

crisis as a political problem with adverse ramifications for the military. Yet, even 

though they regretted the increased tension between Americans and Panamanians, 

they could not ignore the possibility of a confrontation with Panamanian forces 

or anti-American demonstrators. Thus, while the Tropic Times and military 

29 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 112300Z Feb 88, and CDR, USARSO, to Chief of Staff, Army (CSA), 

122140Z Feb 88. 30 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 112300Z Feb 88; Tropic Times, 12 Feb 88. Quotes from Msg, CDR, 

USARSO, to CSA, 122140Z Feb 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

30

spokespersons were issuing statements to allay public concerns, the Southern 

Command and its components were prudently addressing various military 

contingencies that might arise. As Colonel Thiry emphasized in a message from 

the SOUTHCOM Operations Directorate, the headquarters could not be perceived 

as having failed to prepare for hostile actions by the PDF against U.S. targets. He 

cautioned against any provocative action by U.S. forces but called for an immediate 

planning effort to update the command’s security posture.31

U.S. Army, South, concurred and once again assessed its capability for handling 

civil disturbances, this time requesting the Department of the Army’s help in 

acquiring more antiriot gear, on-call combat service support, and armored vehicles. 

(The Army granted the first two requests but denied the armored vehicles.) As for 

the evacuation plans Loeffke mentioned, they had been under routine review since 

October. Geared exclusively to a “permissive or benign” environment, they contained 

no provision for a “noncombatant evacuation operation” in a “nonpermissive,” or 

hostile, environment, including one in which combat operations might be under way. 

The plans, in short, would have to be updated.32

As the Southern Command and its components undertook a variety of 

precautionary measures, the crisis again showed signs of worsening. On 21 February, 

Noriega’s daughter and son-in-law were stopped for speeding on Albrook Air 

Station, a facility divided into U.S. and Panamanian sectors. When the son-in-law 

became belligerent, he was handcuffed. PDF retaliation was swift. Over the next 

two days, Noriega’s men detained thirty-three American soldiers, charging most 

of them with wearing their uniforms while riding motorcycles to their bases. The 

United States protested the detainments, which for most soldiers were not that 

long, while Loeffke confided to his diary the serious nature of the provocation. 

The incidents marked a significant escalation in the pattern of PDF harassment 

and, in his opinion, represented “the start of our problem with Noriega.” Cisneros 

met with senior PDF officers on the matter and, after making a forceful protest, 

received assurances that Panamanian forces would not tolerate threats aimed at 

U.S. servicemen, dependents, or facilities.33

The Albrook episode and the regime’s response were quickly eclipsed by another 

major development related to the U.S. indictments against Noriega. Throughout 

the crisis, President Delvalle had come under increasing pressure from friends 

and associates to salvage his personal honor by stripping the general of his power. 

Delvalle had made several trips to the United States beginning in 1987, ostensibly 

for medical reasons but also to meet secretly and discuss possible courses of action 

31 Msg, CINCSO to CDR, USARSO, et al., 11 Feb 88. While Thiry’s message called for enhanced security, with U.S. forces being alerted for emergency situations, the colonel, in an attempt 

to reduce tension, also endorsed providing the Panama Defense Forces unclassified information 

concerning U.S. training in the country. U.S. Army, South, disagreed with both positions. Security 

alerts might be seen as provocative, while the sharing of information with the PDF might be interpreted as a sign of being “soft.” Draft msg, n.d., in USARSO DCSOPS files. 32 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to Department of the Army (DA), 191350Z Feb 88; Note, Chief of 

Staff, USARSO, to Commanding General (CG), USARSO, 26 Jan 88; Memos, William D. Clark for 

Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, 11 Jan 88, and Clark for SecArmy, 11 Jan 88. 33 Quote from Diary, Bernard Loeffke, 21 Feb 88. Tropic Times, 26 Feb 88; Fact Sheet, SCTA-J, 

22 Apr 88; Ortiz chronology; Interv, author with Brig Gen Marc Cisneros, U.S. Army, 1 May 89, 

Quarry Heights, Panama.
The Making of a Crisis

31

with top U.S. foreign policy officials. On 25 February, the beleaguered president 

acted. In a pretaped address to the nation, he dismissed Noriega as commander 

of the Panama Defense Forces. The general’s retaliation was immediate. That 

evening, the pro-Noriega National Assembly ousted Delvalle and his vice 

president and, at 0400 the next morning, swore in education minister Solis Palma 

as minister-in-charge of the presidency. When the Reagan administration declared 

it would continue to recognize Delvalle as the legitimate president of Panama, 

the die was cast. Neither Reagan nor Noriega would be able to retreat from the 

position he had staked out without losing face.34

As one consequence of President Reagan’s decision, General Woerner received 

orders that he was to have no further contact with Noriega on the legal grounds 

that the dictator commanded the armed forces of a government the United States 

now considered illegitimate. From the onset of the crisis, Woerner had maintained 

that a professional working relationship between the Southern Command and the 

Panama Defense Forces would strengthen the security of U.S. interests in Panama. 

But the federal indictments brought against Noriega in early February 1988 and the 

Reagan administration’s backing of Delvalle rendered a return to normal militaryto-military relations untenable. According to one military intelligence summary 

of events, U.S. policy had transformed American forces and their dependents 

“from neutral observers in a CCN-PDF struggle to active participants in a US-PDF 

politico-military struggle.”35

What the U.S. military role in that struggle would be was by no means clear 

in late February. Woerner was opposed to hostilities against the PDF, except as 

a last resort, and with Crowe’s support, he would continue his efforts to avoid 

provocative actions on the part of his command. Even so, he could not dismiss 

the possibility of a war or any other military contingency. Staff officers at the 

Southern Command and its components thus began reviewing the existing plans 

for the defense of American interests in Panama. Not surprisingly, the scenarios 

they encountered, written well before the crisis, were found wanting. What was 

needed were new contingency plans that addressed the current troubles. 

Informal planning began in early 1988. To ensure that the Southern Command 

had the resources and cooperation it needed from military headquarters outside its 

jurisdiction, Woerner requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorize the initiative. 

On 28 February, he received orders from the Joint Chiefs directing SOUTHCOM 

to begin formal planning in a “crisis action mode” for possible military operations 

against the Panama Defense Forces. The message also notified several other 

commands and agencies of their requirement to support the effort.36 A few days 

34 USSOUTHCOM, Historical Report 1988. 35 Woerner MHI Interv; Msg, 470th MI Bde to INSCOM, 232235Z Feb 89. CCN is the Spanish 

acronym for the National Civic Crusade (NCC). 36 Msg, JCS to CINCSO, 281944Z Feb 88. In “Planning for Post-Conflict Panama: What It Tells 

Us About Phase IV Operations,” John Fishel recounts that, soon after Noriega was indicted by the 

two U.S. grand juries, General Woerner directed the appropriate SOUTHCOM staff to prepare contingency plans for the defense of the canal and U.S. bases. In these plans, the Panama Defense Forces 

would be considered a hostile force. “At the same time,” according to Fishel, “he requested the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to direct him to develop plans for conflict with the PDF.” Fishel’s 

article can be found in Turning Victory into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, Brian 

M. De Toy, ed. (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005), p. 169. (The book 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

32

later, on 4 March 1988, Woerner’s director of operations produced the first draft 

of a new contingency plan geared particularly to the crisis. It was submitted for 

review just as the crisis was entering a new phase, one which would include a 

buildup, or “security enhancement,” of U.S. forces in Panama.

contains papers and presentations made at the second annual military symposium sponsored by the 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and hosted by the Combat Studies Institute at Fort 

Leavenworth.)
2

Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

February–April 1988

I I I

Since the end of World War II, American presidents had confronted a 

succession of local crises around the world within the larger framework 

of the Cold War, the ideological and geopolitical conflict that pitted the United 

States and its allies, clients, and friends against the Soviet Union, the People’s 

Republic of China (after 1949), and their respective allies, clients, and friends. 

Over the course of four decades, as the struggle went through several distinct 

phases, the U.S. response to such scattered and diverse conflicts as the Greek 

Civil War, the Huk insurrection in the Philippines, the travails of a divided 

Korea, political turmoil in Lebanon and the Dominican Republic, and hostilities 

in Vietnam often stemmed more from the perceived need to contain the spread 

of communism than from any inherent or vital American interest in the afflicted 

countries themselves. 

The Noriega problem, erupting as it did in what turned out to be the Cold 

War’s final years, in many respects fit this pattern. To be sure, the strategic importance of the Panama Canal and the need to minimize foreign influence in the 

Caribbean area had been long-held tenets of U.S. foreign policy. But without 

the Cold War dynamic, the American posture vis-à-vis Noriega in 1987–1988 

might have assumed a very different form. At that time, however, few observers 

imagined the impending collapse of the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration therefore viewed the dictator’s growing ties to Soviet-supported governments in Cuba and Nicaragua, his procurement of Communist-bloc arms, and 

the presence of Cuban military advisers and trainers in his country as worrisome developments that had to be countered in the name of anticommunism 

and in the interest of U.S. security in both the region and, by extrapolation, 

the world. 

The Cold War also influenced the way the Pentagon addressed the crisis in 

Panama. Beginning in the 1970s, developments within the U.S. armed forces 

moved along lines that in the 1980s would parallel the Reagan administration’s 

fixation on the central Cold War theme of Soviet-American confrontation. In 

the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Army in particular had been revamping 

its doctrine, force structure, weapon systems, training, and education in an 

effort to refocus its attention away from the myriad of local and regional hot 

spots around the world and onto the perceived Soviet military threat in central 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

34

Europe. As an institution, the Army benefited from this overhaul, but the 

ramifications were not necessarily helpful for military officers still trying to 

cope with local crises. In the case of Panama, for example, SOUTHCOM staff 

officers preparing to write the contingency plan called for in the Joint Chiefs’ 

message of 28 February found themselves working in what was virtually a 

doctrinal wasteland.1

The Army constituted the largest service component under the U.S. Southern 

Command, and the centerpiece of Army doctrine in the 1980s was AirLand 

Battle, the authorized concept for how U.S. soldiers would fight an all-out war 

against Warsaw Pact troops in Germany’s Fulda Gap. The tenets of AirLand Battle 

postulated large conventional units engaged in a mobile, highly technological, 

large-scale multinational fight for survival, a scenario that had little to do with the 

situation in Panama. Nor did the Panama crisis fit neatly into any of the categories 

that U.S. military doctrine provided for operations below the level of total war. 

Some Army officers spoke of low intensity conflict (LIC) in Panama, but others 

argued that the current LIC field manual, FM 100–20, did not cover any scenario 

similar to that into which the Southern Command was being drawn. Although the 

manual was in the process of being revised, an Army lieutenant colonel involved in 

the update, when asked if the situation in Panama qualified as low intensity conflict, 

1 My assessment of the perceived relationship of the Panama crisis to military doctrine in this 

section is based on several conversations with military personnel in Panama and the United States. 

Both General Woerner and Colonel Rossi used the terms attributed to them in conversations with me, 

and I was present at the briefing during which the lieutenant colonel expressed his opinion that the 

crisis in Panama could not be described as a low intensity conflict.

The Panama Canal
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

35

thought for a minute and responded that it did not. Conditions there simply did 

not fit any of the four subcategories of LIC—counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, 

peacetime contingency operations, and peacekeeping—slated for incorporation 

into the revised edition. General Woerner personally described the crisis as “lowprobability conflict,” while Col. Arnie Rossi, the USARSO chief of staff, employed 

a more familiar reference, “The Twilight Zone.” Rossi’s term, while evocative 

of Trotsky’s well-known dictum, “neither war nor peace,” more readily conjured 

up memories of a once-popular science fiction television program known for its 

ambiguous and sometimes surrealistic plot lines. What the term lacked, of course, 

was doctrinal status or prescriptive advice.

In the months to come, the Panama crisis would continue to evolve in a 

doctrinal void. With the corpus of U.S. military doctrine and international law 

geared to war or peace, there was little to cover the limbo in between. Since the 

United States was not at war in Panama, it had to be at peace, technically speaking. 

As a result, military personnel caught up in the crisis would continue to plan 

and operate according to peacetime codes and rules, “making it up” when those 

guidelines proved inappropriate or irrelevant to the pressing issues at hand. If, in 

the meantime, there was a need for additional ground troops to bolster security or 

to play some other role, the units most likely to be committed were U.S. marines 

and elements from Army “light” infantry divisions. The problem here was that, 

although touted as being LIC-oriented, these units, too, had been immersed in 

AirLand Battle doctrine. Consequently, they were trained primarily for small-scale 

conventional combat operations. Conversely, they rarely learned how to perform 

the political, economic, police, humanitarian, and various other functions inherent 

in the kinds of military operations that require daily interaction with large numbers 

of civilians and nonmilitary officials while pursuing objectives that generally range 

well beyond strictly military concerns.

Contingency Planning: Elaborate Maze

In contrast to the dearth of U.S. military doctrine applicable to the Panama crisis, 

standardized procedures did exist to assist a joint, or multiservice, headquarters 

in the task of contingency planning. In early 1988, staff officers at the Southern 

Command; U.S. Army, South; and elsewhere referred to these guidelines as they 

drafted the new set of crisis-related operation orders (OPORDs) authorized by the 

Joint Chiefs. 

When the crisis began in June 1987, the principal on-the-shelf operation plan 

(OPLAN) pertaining to Panama was CINCSO OPLAN 6000–86 for the defense 

of the canal. Few officers on the SOUTHCOM and component staffs knew the 

contents of the plan, but those who did recognized that its execution was predicated 

on two scenarios, both of which were considered improbable. The first pictured a 

war between the Soviet Union and the United States in which Moscow’s surrogates 

would carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage against canal facilities. The second 

scenario envisaged a threat from leftist groups in Panama. In 1987, the prospects 

for war with the Soviets seemed remote, while left-wing organizations in Panama 

were kept under strict control by the Panama Defense Forces.2

2 Intervs, author with Maj Dan Augustine, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Col 

John A. Cope Jr., U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; and Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. 

Army, 21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

36

Under the Deliberate Planning Process dictated by the Joint Operations Planning 

System, CINCSO OPLAN 6000–86 was due for a biennial review. The process 

began in late 1987, when relations between American and Panamanian troops had 

deteriorated to a point where U.S. staff officers tasked with conducting a mission 

analysis of the plan could not ignore the possibility, however remote it seemed at 

that early stage of the crisis, of hostilities between the two forces. OPLAN 6000–

86 provided for no such confrontation. It assumed, instead, that the defense of the 

canal would be conducted either in partnership with the Panamanian military or, in 

the worst case, against hostile Panamanians encouraged by an officially “neutral” 

PDF. Although General Woerner and his staff discussed ways to overcome the 

plan’s irrelevance with respect to the existing crisis, until they received a directive 

from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to write a new plan, OPLAN 6000–86’s scenarios 

and assumptions remained unchanged, at least on paper.3

There was one provision of OPLAN 6000–86 to which U.S. Army, South, 

paid particular attention during the review process. In the event the plan had 

to be executed, the SOUTHCOM commander was to activate a joint task force 

(JTF) to conduct military operations. The commanding general, USARSO, would 

become the commander, Joint Task Force-Panama, with most of that multiservice 

organization’s key staff positions being filled by USARSO personnel. As for 

the more than two hundred remaining staff slots, those would be filled from 

SOUTHCOM’s components, according to a manning document attached to the 

operation plan. To acquire some sense of how this arrangement might actually 

function, a command post exercise took place in February 1988. Code-named 

Black Toucan, the exercise encountered several problems, especially in getting 

the service components to “think purple,” meaning in joint terms. Black Toucan

also reaffirmed the preference of Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke, the prospective 

JTF-Panama commander, for a smaller, more manageable organization pared to 

just over eighty staff positions. A more questionable conclusion concerned the 

Panama Defense Forces. Although Black Toucan was conducted in the wake of 

the U.S. indictments against Noriega, the after action review maintained that, 

should the execution of OPLAN 6000–86 prove necessary, “close cooperation 

with PDF to coordinate convoy movements within AO’s [areas of operations]” 

would be required.4

 Yet, even as this observation was being disseminated, doubts 

were multiplying as to its practicability. 

Soon after Black Toucan, SOUTHCOM staff officers prepared a “talking 

paper” listing a number of issues General Woerner would have to address should 

the Panamanian military deliberately commit a belligerent act. To the key questions, 

“At what threshold or point should the PDF be designated as hostile?” and “When 

should USCINCSO recommend armed intervention?” the paper avoided a direct 

answer but provided instead a refresher course on peacetime rules of engagement 

3 Intervs, author with Augustine, 13 Jun 89; Cope, 29 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; and Capt 

Carlos Puentes, U.S. Army, 28 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 4 Intervs, author with Augustine, 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama, and Cope, 29 May 89; 

Telephone Interv, author with John A. Cope, 7 Nov 91; Memo, Col John A. Cope Jr., USARSO 

DCSOPS, for CDR, Special Operations Command, South (COMSOCSO or COMSOCSOUTH), et 

al., 14 Feb 88; Milestone chart, JTF OPLAN 6000, n.d. Quote from Briefing slides, JTF‐Panama, 

CPX Black Toucan.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

37

(ROE).5 Even so, the questions themselves reflected what many staff officers by 

this point had accepted as inevitable: a new operation plan geared to the crisis 

at hand would have to be written. The Joint Chiefs’ February message, issued at 

Woerner’s request, formally cleared a path for the SOUTHCOM commander to do 

just that. 

In light of the volatile situation in Panama, drafting the new CINCSO 

contingency plans followed the procedures for crisis action planning set forth in the 

Pentagon’s Joint Operations Planning System. This meant that chief responsibility 

for the initiative rested with Woerner’s director of operations, General Cisneros, and 

that the published product would be an operation order, as opposed to an operation 

plan. In providing Cisneros guidance for writing the order, Woerner incorporated 

elements of 6000–86, his own strategic thinking, comments from the chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs, and a concern for the safety of the more than 50,000 Americans 

living in Panama. The new OPORD was to contain a “phased” plan that covered 

such contingencies as a gradual buildup of U.S. forces, defensive and offensive 

operations, and a noncombatant evacuation operation. Woerner also wanted the 

plan written so that the SOUTHCOM commander could execute any one phase at 

any given time, independently of the other phases, or, if need be, simultaneously 

or in sequence with any or all of them.

Operations security prevented Woerner from disseminating the strategic 

thinking behind his guidance. Simply put, he hoped that, should the National 

Command Authority order him to take military action, the prerequisite buildup 

of U.S. troops in Panama would in and of itself be the “catalytic event” that 

would compel the Panama Defense Forces to remove Noriega, thus providing the 

“Panamanian solution to a Panamanian problem” that he advocated. As Woerner 

confided to his innermost circle of advisers, once a buildup of U.S. troops began, 

he intended to contact top-ranking PDF officers privately, beginning with the PDF 

5 Draft Talking Paper, SCJ–5-DPJ, 18 Feb 88; Msg, JCS to CINCSO, 281944Z Feb 88.

General Loeffke briefing the troops
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

38

chief of staff, Col. Marco Justines. Woerner would explain to Justines that the troop 

buildup was real, that U.S. forces would soon take action to remove Noriega, and 

that, if Justines did not engineer Noriega’s ouster before these troops were forced to 

act, the chief of staff would find himself sharing his boss’ fate. Woerner would not 

be bluffing. If Justines rejected the SOUTHCOM commander’s advice, his name 

would, in fact, be added to the list of PDF officers to be deposed. Woerner would 

then move down to the next officer in the PDF chain of command and convey the 

same message to him. At some point, Woerner judged, an officer inclined to save 

himself and Panama’s military institutions would orchestrate an effort to overthrow 

the dictator.6

Most of the officers in the small group drafting the new contingency plan were 

ignorant of this strategic vision as they began to develop a concept of operations 

and to select appropriate courses of action. Working under the immediate direction 

of Lt. Col. John McCutchon, chief of the Plans Division, Operations Directorate, 

members of the group had only a few days, not weeks or months, to generate 

an acceptable product. Furthermore, despite having Woerner’s input, they had to 

achieve their goal without the advantage of clear and coordinated political guidance 

from Washington with respect to essential missions and objectives. From OPLAN 

6000–86, the group salvaged part of the U.S. order of battle, the list of critical 

facilities to be defended, and certain command and control relationships. The 

officers refined each of these elements, aware that much of what they were writing 

could already be considered compromised because many of the details appeared in 

a U.S.-PDF version of the existing plan for defending the canal.7

Despite these and other obstacles, CINCSO OPORD 2–88, code-named 

Elaborate Maze, was ready by 4 March for transmission to the Joint Chiefs.8

 As 

appropriate for a CINCSO-level plan, the document discussed in only general 

terms the nature of the threat and possible U.S. responses. A Panamanian order 

of battle updated by military intelligence estimated the current strength of the 

Panama Defense Forces, which was defined in the plan as a hostile force, at 

14,000. Of that total, 4,000 were combat forces constituting seven infantry 

companies and six platoons, a small air force, and a coast guard. The majority 

of PDF combat and police personnel belonged to units headquartered near or in 

Panama City and Colón, the country’s two largest cities located, respectively, 

at the southern and northern ends of the canal. The infantry units, furnished 

mainly with small arms and a limited number of heavier weapons, were judged 

“a well-trained and disciplined force at the small unit tactical level,” but a 

force that suffered from a reliance on overly centralized command and control 

arrangements, a paucity of professional leadership, and a lack of standardized 

weapons, communications, and equipment.

6 Interv, author with General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. 7 Intervs, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89, and Puentes, 28 Mar 89.

8 The discussion of CINCSO OPORD 2–88 that follows, including all quoted material, is based 

on the text contained in Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 042255Z Mar 88. The plan, as noted in the text, was 

labeled an operation order (OPORD) instead of an operation plan because it was written in the crisis 

action planning mode. The content of the message, however, is characteristic of an OPLAN, not an 

OPORD.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

39

According to the operation order, the Panama Defense Forces had become 

increasingly estranged from the Panamanian people and was attempting to 

retain control of the country through intimidation, press censorship, political 

manipulation, and, in league with pro-Noriega political parties, a highly nationalistic, 

anti-American propaganda campaign. The harassment of Americans in Panama 

had to date been more reactive than calculated, the planners suggested, but, should 

the crisis intensify and should Noriega and the PDF believe that their survival 

was in jeopardy, the intimidation of U.S. personnel and the threats to American 

interests could increase dramatically. Although the Panamanian military would 

not likely seek an all-out armed confrontation with the United States, Noriega 

had other options available to him, ranging from the disruption of normal activity 

on U.S. bases, to the use of limited military operations to seize vulnerable U.S. 

facilities. These options could be implemented over a period of weeks and months, 

or they might occur during a sudden escalation of the crisis. In either case, once 

hostile actions by the regime warranted a U.S. military response, the SOUTHCOM 

commander under Elaborate Maze had the mission to conduct “joint operations to 

protect U.S. lives, property and interests in Panama and to assure the full exercise 

of rights accorded by international law and the U.S.-Panama treaties.” He also had 

to be prepared to conduct a noncombatant evacuation operation in a permissive or 

nonpermissive environment.

Prior to execution of the plan, in what became known as Phase 0, certain 

preliminary measures were required, including the activation of JTF-Panama and a 

joint special operations task force (JSOTF). Then, military operations could proceed 

selectively in accordance with Elaborate Maze’s menu of four operational phases, 

any of which could be conducted independently, in sequence, or concurrently 

with any of the others, as Woerner had directed. The first three phases defined 

the circumstances under which the United States would augment its forces in 

Panama for the purpose—depending on the threat—of defending critical facilities, 

executing an evacuation of civilians, and ensuring the continued operation of the 

canal. Phase IV involved offensive operations against the Panamanian military. 

In this eventuality, the commander, JTF-Panama, would neutralize the Panama 

Defense Forces within his area of operations and conduct on-order operations to 

secure other critical areas. Simultaneously or soon thereafter, the commander, 

joint special operations task force, would launch surgical strikes against “key PDF 

leadership, command and control facilities, military and civilian airfields, and 

other critical nodes within the Republic of Panama.” The operation order listed 

the troops that would be available to each joint task force commander, discussed 

in general terms the rules of engagement that would be sufficient to protect U.S. 

forces while limiting “the scope and intensity of the conflict,” and instructed that 

“offensive operations will be conducted in a manner to reduce collateral damage 

and loss of life.”

Elaborate Maze briefly addressed civil affairs and civil‐military operations 

(CMO), but principally as follow-on measures to the combat operations covered 

in the operation order’s fourth phase. At one point, the planners noted that U.S. 

“objectives following Phase IV operations must be defined for continued CMO 

planning.” This requirement appeared later in the text as a “Command Concern” 

asserting that “clear national policy objectives must be available delineating what 

[U.S. government] goals are for the period following hostilities with the PDF. Such 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

40

objectives and goals are essential for making operational decisions when planning 

and executing military actions.”

Sanctions

While the SOUTHCOM staff was writing Elaborate Maze, Woerner was 

becoming increasingly curious about the Reagan administration’s future policy 

initiatives toward Panama. He generally regarded Washington’s recently imposed 

economic sanctions against the country as ineffective and counterproductive, 

yet he feared that worse could follow. On 8 March, during a meeting with staff 

and component representatives, he informed those present about a telephone 

conversation he had just had with Admiral Crowe, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff. According to Crowe, the State Department, prompted by Assistant Secretary 

of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, “smells blood” and wanted 

to pile additional economic 

sanctions on Panama in hopes 

of forcing Noriega’s immediate 

removal from power. Crowe 

and Secretary of Defense Frank 

Carlucci opposed this course 

of action, arguing that Abrams’ 

recommendations were rash 

and based on a short-term and 

short-sighted assessment of 

U.S. interests in Latin America. 

Better, they counseled, to 

move incrementally, gradually 

building up the pressure on the 

Noriega regime. In Crowe’s 

opinion, as relayed by Woerner 

to his subordinates, discussions 

in Washington lacked any 

appreciation for Panamanian 

realities.9

As reflected in the general’s 

telephone conversation with 

the admiral, Abrams’ campaign 

for additional U.S. economic sanctions against Panama had been picking up 

momentum since the dismissal of Panamanian President Eric Delvalle in late 

February. From Washington’s perspective, Woerner later observed, “Panama 

seemed particularly vulnerable to economic pressure: a small service-oriented 

economy, where the United States had unusual leverage. There was a large presence 

of American citizens and businesses, and the currency was the dollar.” The Reagan 

administration’s position that Delvalle was still the legitimate president of Panama 

permitted the ousted leader, together with Panamanian opposition figures in the 

United States, their legal and political advisers, and the State Department, to obtain 

a court decision to freeze over $35 million in Panamanian assets in four American 

9 MFR, Col John A. Cope, 9 Mar 88.

Admiral Crowe
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

41

banks. On 29 February, Delvalle issued a proclamation from his hiding place in 

Panama to the effect that money owed his government should be paid into an 

escrow account in the United States. The impact of these measures was immediate 

and, combined with an opposition strike, “provoked a profound economic crisis 

within Panama,” according to Woerner, in which the “entire Panamanian economy 

has reverted to a cash-only basis.” Banks closed, pensioners demonstrated, and 

the Noriega-controlled Solis Palma regime pondered how to meet upcoming 

government payrolls.10

With some in the Reagan administration looking for more economic 

screws to turn, Crowe prepared for another round of bureaucratic infighting by 

consulting his allies in the confrontation, including Woerner. Responding in 

a personal message to the chairman, the SOUTHCOM commander conceded 

that further “economic sanctions are the next logical step.” Yet, the general 

considered “of the utmost importance” an administration approach that avoided 

“a broad, unfocused, economic embargo. Such a measure would be premature 

and would almost certainly impact overwhelmingly on both U.S. interests and 

on those Panamanians whom we are seeking to help.” Woerner declared his 

support for “surgical economic measures designed to impact the [government 

of Panama] at minimal cost to the private sector and the poor.” In this vein, he 

addressed his comments to two of five sanctions that an interagency Panama 

Review Group, formed in Washington soon after the crisis began, was putting 

forward for consideration. (The group’s other three proposals, he indicated, were 

“throwaways” that did not affect U.S. military interests.) The first of the two 

sanctions, one that called for placing into escrow the revenue owed from an oil 

pipeline passing into Panama, Woerner endorsed as a measured response that 

would “live up to our commitment to the Panamanian people and . . . preempt 

the U.S. Congress from once again taking the foreign policy lead and imposing 

a scale of sanctions contrary to our interests.” He opposed, however, a similar 

proposal to put the Panama Canal Commission’s annuity and tonnage payments in 

escrow. That move, he argued, would politicize the administration and operation 

of the canal, thus setting a “dangerous precedent.”11

Crowe took Woerner’s advice to heart. In the telephone conversation of 8 May, 

he told the SOUTHCOM commander that he would oppose both the pipeline and 

canal sanctions and work instead for a policy that was less extreme and more in 

line with long-term U.S. interests. He also asked Woerner to advise him on how 

Noriega might respond to the enactment of sanctions. Woerner, in tasking his staff 

to prepare a response, directed that they “not consider” as a possibility the extreme 

case of the Panama Defense Forces invading the canal area.12

Woerner’s message to Crowe late that night suggested that “long-term damage 

between our two militaries may be the . . . result of additional pressure against 

Panama.” In reiterating this theme, the general recalled that, in the past, the 

10 First quote from Gabriel Marcella and General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 

The Road to War: The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 1987–1989, draft article, 6 May 91, p. 33. Second 

quote from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 090327Z Mar 88, sub: Possible Responses to USG [U.S. government] Sanctions. John Dinges, Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel 

Noriega, rev. ed. (New York: Times Books, 1991), pp. 297–98. 11 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 070730Z Mar 88, sub: USCINCSO Views on Panama Sanctions.

12 MFR, Cope, 9 Mar 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

42

Panamanian military had reacted to U.S. pressure with measures that included 

bureaucratic foot-dragging in dealing with American citizens, the arrest and 

physical assault of U.S. service personnel, and a “systematic internal indoctrination 

campaign” against the United States. A “hostile, aggressive PDF,” he elaborated, 

would have an adverse impact on Southern Command’s regional missions, as 

“even Canal defense would be a job of significant proportions.” Furthermore,

regional intelligence gathering missions could be exposed and air space control bureaucratically 

constrained; deliberate actions by the PDF could severely limit USSOUTHCOM’s ability to continue 

support to U.S. embassies and security assistance organizations throughout both Central and South 

America. Support for anti-drug operations out of Panama could be hindered. Direct communications 

access to MILGRPs [military groups] and embassies could be hampered. Training of foreign nationals 

in Panama could be denied or severely curtailed. Refusal to allow refueling of U.S. helicopters at PDF 

bases would preclude or restrict flights to Honduras, Costa Rica, and other countries in the region.

Local SOUTHCOM missions, the “quality of life” on U.S. bases, and the “anxiety 

levels” of service personnel would also be affected adversely by continued PDF 

harassment and by any regime initiative to disrupt electricity, water and sewage 

service, unsecured communications, garbage collection, logistical support, and the 

Panamanian work force.13

In short, as Woerner perceived the situation, “possible retaliatory measures are 

virtually limitless,” although some could be discounted as lacking credibility. He 

doubted, for example, whether the Panama Defense Forces would take “direct actions 

against USSOUTHCOM assets or the Canal.” Rather, Noriega would probably 

pursue a “restrained approach,” with demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy and verbal 

attacks on embassy officials. He would also continue his propaganda campaign, 

playing on the theme of Panama as a small and hapless victim of U.S. aggression, 

while denouncing as a prelude to invasion the Total Warrior exercises then in 

progress between U.S. Army, South, and two successive Army National Guard units 

rotating in from the United States. (Almost as an aside, Woerner indicated that “a 

healthy respect by Noriega for our military capability to reinforce USSOUTHCOM 

provided by these exercises is beneficial to the [U.S.] government position.”) The 

PDF was also likely to increase the sporadic harassment of American citizens and to 

irritate U.S. officials with administrative slowdowns.14

In subsequent messages, Woerner continued to advise Crowe on the military 

implications of economic sanctions that had been proposed or enacted for their 

political impact. At one point, the general warned about the “questionable legal 

ground” the United States might be on in responding to a démarche from Delvalle 

that, under Panama’s constitution, required legislative approval.15 In offering this 

kind of wide-ranging counsel, Woerner, like his predecessors and contemporaries, 

demonstrated why many considered taking the helm of a unified command to be as 

much a diplomatic as a military assignment.

On 11 March, President Reagan announced that Panama Canal Commission 

monies legally owed to the government of Panama would be placed in an escrow 

account. He also called upon U.S. government agencies to identify additional sources 

13 The discussion and all quotes are from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 090327Z Mar 88, sub: Possible 

Responses to USG [U.S. government] Sanctions. 14 Ibid.

15 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 070730Z Mar 88, sub: USCINCSO Views on Panama Sanctions.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

43

of funds due or payable to the government of Panama. In response to the presidential 

statement, Woerner activated a crisis action team to monitor Noriega’s reactions and 

again advised Crowe about the negative impact of stringent economic sanctions.16

By that point, however, the admiral was fully engaged in staving off another State 

Department initiative: the call for decisive U.S. military action in Panama.

Phase V, Joint Special Operations Task Force, 

and U.S. Army, South

While administration officials debated the efficacy of economic penalties 

against the Noriega regime, officers working for Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the 

director of operations for the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, studied the CINCSO 

version of Elaborate Maze and provided detailed feedback to the planners at 

Quarry Heights. On 11 March, the Joint Chiefs weighed in, formally approving 

continued planning on the four-phase operation order. One of the changes they 

directed added the mission “to stabilize the situation and restore law and order 

16 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 121830Z Mar 88, sub: SCJ3 Sitrep No. 3, and CINCSO to Secy of 

Defense/JCS, 212155Z Mar 88, sub: Payments to Government of Panama. In a draft article dated 

6 May 1991, General Woerner and Gabriel Marcella, SOUTHCOM’s international affairs adviser 

when Woerner was SOUTHCOM commander, reassess the impact of economic sanctions on Panama 

during the crisis. Citing several studies, together with their own observations, they conclude that the 

sanctions were a failure for a variety of reasons. They quote one analyst as saying, “Sanctions alone 

were no more likely to remove Noriega from power than sanctions against Chicago would have removed Al Capone.” Woerner and Marcella, themselves, state that the “sanctions caused great inconvenience and hurt more the lower and middle classes, but did not achieve decisive political results.” 

The reasons they offer for the failure include conflicting U.S. policy goals, a policy of incrementalism 

that allowed the regime time to adjust to any one initiative, a reluctance to impose sanctions that 

really hurt the government, the tenacity of Noriega, and the inability of Washington policymakers, 

most lacking expertise in Latin American affairs, to devise a coordinated and multifaceted strategy 

for confronting Noriega. Marcella and Woerner, The Road to War, 6 May 91, pp. 33–39.

President Reagan talking with Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense during the first 

months of the Panama crisis
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

44

until a legally constituted government is installed.” This requirement authorized 

the Southern Command to develop “a Phase V to impose U.S. military control 

over those areas with significant concentrations of U.S. citizens and those facilities 

critical to the functioning of government.” With respect to the American citizens, 

the Joint Chiefs perused the Elaborate Maze annex devoted to the evacuation 

of noncombatants and concluded that the arrangements might best be written as 

a separate operation order, given the magnitude of the planning effort required. 

Finally, the SOUTHCOM commander was also directed to work out arrangements 

for the operational control of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group called for 

in Phase IV of the plan.17

The Joint Chiefs directive to add a fifth phase to Elaborate Maze was, like the 

February message to Woerner, the Pentagon’s go-ahead for an initiative already 

under way at Quarry Heights. Right after Cisneros’ staff finished the first draft of 

the operation order, two civil affairs officers at SOUTHCOM reviewed the plan and 

were surprised to find that it contained no phase for civil-military operations. The 

deputy director of the command’s Policy, Strategy, and Programs Directorate (SCJ–

5) told the two to prepare a briefing for General Woerner delineating a plan “for 

the restoration of Panama in the wake of U.S. combat operations against the PDF.” 

Such a plan, the three decided, “should follow the post–World War II formula for 

military government.” At the briefing later that day, Woerner approved the overall 

approach and provided additional guidance. According to one account, he directed 

the planners to assume that the “CINC would be in charge of the government 

of Panama for a period not in excess of 30 days. Military government would be 

transitional and would last only as long as necessary. If it were not necessary to 

institute military government, then some other alternative would be exercised. 

General Woerner assumed that he would be in charge after a military operation.” 

As incorporated into Elaborate Maze, Phase V made no direct reference to the 

thirty-day assumption but stated that once circumstances permitted, “USCINCSO 

direction and control of selected governmental functions will be transferred to 

the US Country Team and/or the [government of Panama].” With this and other 

revisions, Woerner resubmitted Elaborate Maze to the Pentagon.18

In their 11 March message, the Joint Chiefs had also authorized the writing of 

supporting plans to the CINCSO operation order. At the echelon immediately below 

SOUTHCOM, this translated into two operation orders, one for a joint special 

operations task force, the other for JTF-Panama. The JTF-Panama supporting plan 

17 Msg, JCS to U.S. Commander in Chief, Europe (USCINCEUR), et al., 120056Z Mar 88, sub: 

OPORD—Elaborate Maze. 18 First quote from John T. Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration 

of Panama (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), pp. 7–8, and see also pp. 9–15. 

Second quote from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 181945Z Mar 88, sub: USCINCSO/001/Elaborate

Maze/OPORD 2–88. The full CINCSO version of Krystal Ball/Blind Logic was drafted in 

SOUTHCOM’s Policy, Strategy, and Programs Directorate by teams from the 361st Civil Affairs 

Brigade, SOUTHCOM’s CAPSTONE reserve unit, coming to Panama on 31-day temporary tours of 

active duty. (CAPSTONE refers to the formal relationship between an Army Reserve unit and its active component headquarters.) Besides drafting the CINCSO OPORD, the teams also worked on the 

civil-military operations task force supporting plan. Full versions of both operation orders, complete 

with a series of functional annexes, were ready by August 1988. One factor that would come into play 

later: the Krystal Ball/Blind Logic planners in Policy, Strategy, and Programs Directorate did not 

have contact with Blue Spoon planners in the Operations Directorate.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

45

would cover conventional operations in all five phases of Elaborate Maze; the 

JSOTF supporting plan would confine itself to combat operations in Phase IV, the 

phase that called for offensive action against the Panama Defense Forces.

Initially, nearly all involved in the planning process assumed that the Special 

Operations Command, South (SOCSOUTH), a subunified command under 

SOUTHCOM with its headquarters at Albrook Air Station in Panama, would 

form the nucleus of the joint special operations task force. Indeed, following the 

Joint Chiefs’ 28 February message, Col. Chuck Fry, the SOCSOUTH commander, 

had sent a few of his officers to Quarry Heights to assist in planning the special 

operations segments of Elaborate Maze. But Fry’s headquarters was overextended, 

with many of his people in other Latin American countries working on theater 

missions. When the time neared to write the JSOTF supporting plan for the 

CINCSO operation order, he did not have the resources to do it. He had previously 

discussed this problem with Woerner and with General James J. Lindsay, the 

commander in chief, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), headquartered 

at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. Woerner, in turn, had informed the Joint Chiefs 

that SOUTHCOM could not put together a joint special operations task force. 

When the Joint Chiefs’ message of 11 March arrived, it recommended that the 

U.S. Special Operations Command provide assistance to the Special Operations 

Command, South, for planning purposes.19

Fortuitously, the Army’s 1st Special Operations Command, headquartered at 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was at Hurlburt Air Force Base, Florida, conducting 

an exercise, Casino Gambit, as part of the Army Training and Evaluation Program 

for a battalion of the 7th Special Forces Group. Since other Special Operations 

Forces were stationed at the base, a joint special operations task force had been 

activated for the exercise under 1st SOCOM’s deputy commander, Col. Joseph 

S. Stringham. Aware of the work on Elaborate Maze then under way in Panama, 

Stringham had assembled a small group that met nightly to discuss planning for 

the worsening crisis. Once SOUTHCOM received its tasking to proceed with 

writing the JSOTF supporting plan to Elaborate Maze, the colonel volunteered 

his group’s services, received General Lindsay’s approval, reported to MacDill 

to obtain Lindsay’s specific guidance, took charge of a nine‐man planning 

team composed mostly of majors, and set off for Panama, arriving the evening of 

13 March.20

Fry briefed the team upon its arrival at his headquarters at Albrook. After the 

briefing, Stringham asked to meet personally with Woerner the next morning. The 

colonel had three questions he wanted to ask the general, the first of which concerned 

Noriega. Stringham had been told that, in the event the United States executed 

Phase IV operations against the Panama Defense Forces, Noriega was to be “taken 

out.” At the meeting, the colonel asked Woerner if that meant killing or abducting 

the dictator, “because if you want to either kill him or snatch him,” Stringham 

later recalled saying, “that is beyond my authority and I will have to connect you 

19 Interv, author with Col Chuck Fry, U.S. Army, 1 May 89, Albrook Air Station, Panama; Msgs, 

COMSOCSOUTH to CINCSO, 302342Z Mar 88, sub: Commander’s Sitrep No. 001, and JCS to 

USCINCEUR et al., 120056Z Mar 88. 20 Intervs, author with Maj Dan Priban, 14 May 92, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and John Partin 

with Brig Gen Joseph S. Stringham, 29 Aug 89, Fort Bragg, N.C.; Msg, COMSOCSOUTH to 

CINCSO, 302342Z Mar 88, sub: Commander’s Sitrep No. 001.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

46

with the people who do that.” Woerner responded that he had no instructions to 

approve either course of action against Noriega and that he would have to receive 

permission from Crowe if the need surfaced to target the dictator personally. The 

second issue Stringham raised had to do with the degree of damage Woerner wanted 

the joint special operations task force to inflict on Panama’s telephone exchanges 

and television and radio stations. The SOUTHCOM commander indicated that, 

should U.S. forces execute Phase IV, he only wanted such facilities temporarily 

disabled, so that they would be available when needed to assist in the task of 

restoring local order. Finally, Stringham wanted Woerner’s guidance on what to 

do about “taking down” the Comandancia, the PDF headquarters compound in 

southeast Panama City, down the hill from Quarry Heights. Woerner expressed 

his fear that all-out combat at the compound might start fires that would spread 

throughout the city. He therefore told Stringham to try to “isolate” the position 

and persuade the Panamanian military to surrender. In fact, Woerner added, that 

should be the approach taken at any of the Special Operations Forces’ targets. If 

U.S. troops could separate the PDF rank-and-file from their leadership, he went on 

to say, the former would likely surrender. What Woerner wanted, in Stringham’s 

assessment of the meeting, was “neutralization of the [command and control] of 

the PDF. That was all he was after us to do.”21

Over the next three days, Stringham’s planning team at Albrook worked 

to translate Woerner’s guidance into a supporting plan for Phase IV special 

operations.22 Stringham directed the group, working closely with General Cisneros’ 

staff at Quarry Heights and keeping USARSO’s General Loeffke updated daily. 

In the colonel’s opinion, the concept of operations developed by the Southern 

Command was “very loose,” and the selection of targets had been “chaotic” and not 

“economical.” There were, he related later, “some 30 targets all over the country, 

and they didn’t know how they were going to focus the effort.” 

In trying to provide that focus, Stringham relied in part on a “template plan” 

he had written before the crisis. The document contained an overview of military 

activities special operators could conduct in most countries in the Caribbean 

area. It also included a list of the Special Operations Forces available for such 

operations, the airlift needed to get them to their objectives, and the capabilities 

they possessed to perform their missions. Combining this information with the 

guidance he received from Woerner and the CINCSO version of Elaborate

Maze, the colonel steered his team toward two objectives: the capture of Noriega, 

if authorized, and the neutralization of the Panama Defense Forces. With a map 

before them, the planners identified airfields that would have to be secured to keep 

Noriega from flying out of Panama. They then looked at PDF garrisons that could 

reinforce the airfields. Finally, they targeted PDF command and control centers, the 

most important being the Comandancia. In the process, they reduced the number of 

targets from thirty to twenty-four.

Even this lower figure left one major problem unresolved. The forces available 

for special operations in Panama included the 75th Ranger Regiment(-), the 7th 

Special Forces Group, the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, 

the Air Force’s 1st Special Operations Wing, and one or two Navy Sea-Air-Land 

21 Stringham Interv, 29 Aug 89.

22 The account of the planning process at Albrook is based on ibid., and on the author’s interview 

with one of the planning team headed by Colonel Stringham.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

47

(SEAL) platoons. In the process of assigning targets to these units, the planners 

soon realized they did not have enough troops and equipment to ensure the timely 

success of the mission. They consequently cast a wider net to include other forces on 

hand, such as the Navy’s Special Boat Unit 26, which belonged to SOUTHCOM’s 

Navy component; whatever battalion-size unit was currently in Panama for a 

rotation through the Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) on the Atlantic 

side of the canal area; and a Marine expeditionary unit then in transit through the 

Panama Canal aboard the USS Okinawa.

By 17 March, Stringham’s team had a draft COMJSOTF (commander, joint 

special operations task force), OPORD 2–88, Elaborate Maze, to brief to Woerner 

and Cisneros. The plan’s concept of operations, which Woerner approved, called 

for the isolation, immobilization, and neutralization of designated enemy targets.23

To accomplish this, three special operations task forces would conduct surprise 

surgical strikes against the objectives. Task Force Red, consisting primarily of two 

battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment, would deploy from the United States and, 

in simultaneous air assaults, seize and secure both the Torrijos-Tocumen military 

and international airport complex outside Panama City and the PDF garrison at Fort 

Amador across the Bay of Panama from Quarry Heights. The Rangers would also 

isolate the Comandancia and PDF facilities nearby and, from a base of operations 

in Panama City, fan out to Tinajitas and Fort Cimarrón to compel the surrender 

of hostile units at each location. Task Force Black, consisting mainly of the 7th 

Special Forces Group, would seize various communications sites, neutralize the 

Panama Defense Forces at Fort Espinar on the Atlantic side of the canal, and 

maintain surveillance on PDF facilities and activities at Panama Viejo, Rio Hato, 

the Pacora River bridge, Cerro Gordo, and the airfield and PDF garrison in David 

near the Costa Rican border. The third task force, Task Force White, consisted 

mainly of Navy special operations assets. Its assignment was to isolate the PDF’s 

own special operations unit, known by its Spanish acronym UESAT, on Flamenco 

Island and to deny enemy personnel the use of Paitilla airfield in Panama City. In 

carrying out their missions, the three task forces could each count on fire support 

from U.S. Air Force AC–130 Spectre gunships.

Once the special operations task forces had achieved their objectives, 

Stringham’s plan called for an immediate handoff to conventional forces under 

JTF-Panama. Most of the special operations units would be redeployed within 

twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Those that remained would be placed under the 

commander, Special Operations Command, South, for use in Phase V stability 

operations as directed by the SOUTHCOM commander. Stringham’s operation 

order made no mention of Noriega. The planning to prevent his escape from 

Panama in the event of hostilities was “compartmentalized” (meaning that it was 

developed separately and in secrecy from other aspects of the plan) and would 

remain so until September 1989.

23 Quotes from Stringham Interv, 29 Aug 89.The account of the joint special operations task 

force concept of operations and missions is based on COMJSOTF OPORD 2–88, Elaborate Maze, 

17 Mar 88. A preamble to the table of contents stated that the operation order “was produced within 

48 hours from receipt of CINCSOUTH guidance and therefore does not necessarily follow JOPS 

[Joint Operation Planning System] format and will need further refinement by force listed unit planners.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

48

After Woerner blessed the operation order, Stringham’s team returned to the 

United States, where the planners briefed General Lindsay at the U.S. Special 

Operations Command. Stringham then returned to Hurlburt, where Casino Gambit

was winding down. The imminent end of the exercise raised an important issue with 

respect to Elaborate Maze command and control arrangements. On 24 March, as 

a part of Phase 0 of Elaborate Maze, Woerner had activated Stringham’s joint 

special operations task force, originally set up in support of Casino Gambit, as 

the headquarters responsible for conducting Phase IV special operations should 

the just-completed operation order for Panama be executed. Stringham discussed 

this decision with Lindsay, who suggested that the proposed JSOTF mission 

under Elaborate Maze might be more efficiently handled by a special operations 

organization that controlled greater assets than Stringham’s makeshift headquarters. 

On 31 March, as a result of this conversation, 1st Special Operations Command 

handed over its Panama mission to the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort 

Bragg, North Carolina.

The COMJSOTF operation order that went with the mission contained 

several references to JTF-Panama. In the event of hostilities, that conventional 

headquarters would be tasked with providing essential support to the special 

operators before, during, and after their combat missions. There was just one 

problem. Whereas Woerner had activated the joint special operations task force 

called for in Phase IV of Elaborate Maze, JTF-Panama existed only on paper 

during the first month or so of contingency planning in early 1988. This meant 

that at U.S. Army, South, General Loeffke, the officer slated to become the joint 

task force commander once JTF-Panama was activated, did not have a joint 

staff to participate in the planning effort. He had to rely instead on a small ad 

hoc planning cell, or “study group,” set up in USARSO headquarters at Fort 

Clayton, to write both the supporting JTF-Panama and the component Army 

Forces plans to CINCSO OPORD 2–88. U.S. Army, South, seemed barely up to 

the task. Authorized only 239 personnel slots, its threefold role as a major Army 

command, a theater Army, and a SOUTHCOM component stretched to the limit 

a staff composed of several captains, a few majors, “pitifully few” lieutenant 

colonels, and a handful of colonels. The degree to which Loeffke’s staff was 

overtaxed became apparent after contingency planning got under way at Quarry 

Heights. USARSO’s representative at the initial sessions in the Tunnel was a 

junior officer, Capt. Carlos Puentes.24

Puentes’ early involvement in the SOUTHCOM planning process enabled 

him to play a leading role in the USARSO study group, in which he initially 

served as the conceptual consultant to one other captain, Mike Dearborn. 

Then, in early March, Col. John A. “Jay” Cope Jr., the USARSO deputy chief 

of staff, operations, put Maj. Dan Augustine in charge of the cell. Augustine 

took responsibility for structuring the overall planning process, leaving Puentes 

to operate the complicated and complex computer program for the phased 

deployment of any U.S. forces that would have to be brought into Panama in the 

event of hostilities. Majs. Chuck Herrick and Bruce Sneddon also joined the group 

in March, Herrick to write a new evacuation plan premised on a nonpermissive 

24 The account of USARSO planning efforts is based on Intervs, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89 

(source of quote) and 29 May 91; Augustine, 7 Jun 89, 13 Jun 89, and 11 May 90, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Maj Chuck Herrick, 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama; and Puentes, 28 Mar 89.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

49

environment, Sneddon to deal with compartmentalized planning. The irony was 

that these three majors and two captains were all U.S. Army officers; yet they 

found themselves writing the initial drafts of contingency plans for joint U.S. 

conventional operations in Panama.

The group received its guidance from several sources. Although the press of 

USARSO’s numerous missions kept Cope and Rossi from giving their undivided 

attention to contingency planning, both colonels met nightly with Augustine and 

the others to provide advice, direction, and feedback. In keeping with the concept 

of operations passed down from SOUTHCOM’s director of operations, Cope 

instructed his planners to concentrate on key PDF nodes in and around Panama 

City and on “isolating the battlefield,” which meant blocking any hostile forces that 

could reach the capital. As additional U.S. forces arrived in Panama, JTF-Panama 

would extend its operations from critical PDF nodes to the entire city.

Although Cope usually served as the conduit for conveying SOUTHCOM 

guidance to the USARSO study group, there were occasions when the contingency 

planners at both headquarters communicated directly. In general, coordination 

between Cisneros’ staff and Augustine’s group never reached the level of 

effectiveness desired by the latter. Conversely, Washington’s urgent requests for 

information often obliged the USARSO cell to disregard its chain of command and 

communicate directly with the Joint Chiefs and the Department of the Army, to the 

consternation of staff officers at Quarry Heights. Augustine and his group also dealt 

directly with SOUTHCOM’s components and several U.S.-based headquarters 

responsible for providing the units included on the evolving troop list. In the midst 

of all this frenetic activity, Loeffke requested that small groups of U.S. officers be 

sent to Panama on ninety-day rotations to augment USARSO’s planning effort. 

Toward the end of March, the first such group consisting of five majors arrived at 

Fort Clayton.

The work of the USARSO study group bore fruit on 21 March, when it 

forwarded its supporting plan, COMJTF-Panama OPORD 1–88, Elaborate Maze, 

to SOUTHCOM.25 The mission statement and five‐phase concept of operations 

were taken almost word for word from the CINCSO version of the plan. Should a 

buildup of U.S. forces in Panama take place during one of the pre-hostility phases 

of the plan, JTF-Panama would conduct an evacuation of noncombatants to remove 

American civilians from harm’s way. Should hostilities occur, Phase IV of the plan 

called for JTF-Panama to conduct operations against command and control facilities, 

civilian communications sites, and selected airfields; to support JSOTF operations; 

and to be prepared to seize and secure PDF facilities at Rio Hato. The emphasis was 

on isolating and disarming PDF and paramilitary units in Panama City and Colón 

although the plan did not rule out operations throughout the country. To protect 

noncombatants and Panamanian property in the process, the rules of engagement in 

effect during Phase IV sought to limit the application of U.S. firepower to no more 

than was deemed necessary to accomplish the mission. In Phase V, JTF-Panama 

would provide military policemen, civil affairs and medical personnel, and other 

assets to help a U.S. military government and the State Department restore law and 

order and stability in the country. Among the forces available to JTF-Panama for 

25 The following account of the plan developed at U.S. Army, South, is based on Msg, CDR, 

Joint Task Force-Panama (COMJTFPM or COMJTF-Panama), to CINCSO, 220030Z Mar 88, sub: 

OPREP–1/COMJTFPM/001/Elaborate Maze/OPORD 1–88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

50

the operations described in the plan were in-country units, such as the 193d Infantry 

Brigade and 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, and augmentation units from outside 

Panama, to include the 7th Infantry Division (Light), a mechanized battalion, a 

military police brigade, a psychological operations battalion, a Marine expeditionary 

brigade, and an aircraft carrier battle group.

Most of the staff officers who drafted the JTF‐Panama and JSOTF supporting 

plans assumed that Phase IV offensive operations—tantamount to a U.S. invasion 

of Panama—would be executed in the near future, probably in March or early April. 

The two generals for whom they labored, however, took pains to disabuse them 

of that notion. At one briefing, Loeffke told the USARSO contingency planners, 

“You know this is a pipe dream.” To his diary he confided that “Many Americans 

believe the military can do magic. Most are civilians who have never tasted war. 

They give more capabilities to the military than the military has.” In assessing the 

short‐term and long‐term ramifications of open hostilities with the Panamanian 

military, Loeffke wrote, “Strongly oppose military action in Panama City. The 

animosity created would be too large.”26

Woerner also judged military intervention in Panama as improbable, a point he 

emphasized during an impromptu visit to Stringham’s team of special operations 

planners at Albrook. He also continued to recommend against the military 

option in his communications with Crowe, who was just as adamantly opposed 

to intervention as he. Crowe, too, had powerful allies. In Loeffke’s diary, a flag 

officer note dated 2 April read, “We will prevail in this situation but hopefully 

we will do it in a way that is peaceful and without unnecessary suffering by the 

Panamanian people.” The note was signed by Colin Powell, the national security 

adviser to President Reagan.27

Security Enhancement

While the initial JSOTF and JTF-Panama operation orders were still being 

drafted, the Southern Command was determining how it might increase the 

protection it could afford American citizens, property, and interests in Panama. Two 

separate approaches to this end emerged: one sought to bring U.S. security forces 

in Panama up to full strength, while the other looked to bring in additional units, 

particularly some of those already listed on the Elaborate Maze troop list.28

In recommending a buildup of U.S. forces for security reasons, Woerner was 

concerned about the continued violence in the streets of Panama City. He also 

worried that, once the sanctions announced by President Reagan on 11 March began 

to be felt, Panama’s economy could deteriorate to the point where Noriega might 

retaliate against some vulnerable American facility in an attempt to embarrass 

the United States. There was another reason for the SOUTHCOM commander to 

be uneasy as well. As PDF harassment continued and the level of burglaries and 

other economic crimes rose dramatically in housing areas on U.S. bases, morale 

among service personnel and their dependents declined. The degree of the dip was 

problematic, but as one countermeasure, Woerner and his immediate subordinates 

continued to hold meetings with the families affected by the turbulent events in 

26 Diary, Bernard Loeffke, n.d.

27 Intervs, Woerner, 30 Apr 91; Priban, 14 May 92; Diary, Loeffke, Powell note.

28 Augustine Interv, 11 May 90; Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 121930Z Mar 88, sub: Panama Security 

Enhancement.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

51

Panama. At these “town hall” sessions, the commanders imparted information 

about developments in the crisis and received questions and comments from 

their audiences. In a report to General Vuono, Loeffke indicated that few of the 

families he talked to felt threatened or wanted to leave. A few days later, however, 

a specialist fourth class living in Panama City told the USARSO commander 

that “Enlisted men won’t always tell you everything. They know you’ll tell the 

chain of command. The chain in turn will chew them out.”29 In the context of this 

sentiment, a buildup of U.S. security forces in Panama could possibly reinforce 

other command initiatives to reassure apprehensive Americans.

Woerner asked for the additional troops as a “prudent” but not demonstrative 

measure. The augmentation was not to be a show of force but conducted in such 

a way as to cause as little alarm as possible within the Panamanian military. The 

general suggested that one way to avoid undue publicity was for the units designated 

for security enhancement to be sent to Panama in conjunction with the Florida 

National Guardsmen then en route for the annual training event, Total Warrior. 

The deployment would thus have some semblance of being routine, although the 

security enhancement units would play no part in the exercise.30

Secretary of Defense Carlucci approved the buildup and Woerner’s “low-key” 

approach to it. On 12 March, he authorized the Joint Chiefs to direct the commander 

in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command to deploy a Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorist 

Security Team (FAST); the commander in chief, U.S. Forces Command, to deploy 

an Army military police battalion from Fort Bragg, an Army Arrival/Departure 

Airfield Control Group, and an Army Movement Control Team; the chief of staff 

of the Air Force to deploy an Airbase Ground Defense Flight and an Air Force 

Dog Flight; General Vuono to deploy a counterintelligence detachment (Spanish 

language qualified); and General Lindsay to deploy an Army signal battalion(‐). 

The Military Airlift Command would provide the necessary transportation, and the 

Strategic Air Command would refuel those aircraft en route.31

The Joint Chiefs’ order stated explicitly that the immediate threat to Americans 

was “one of rhetoric and minor harassment. Although there is currently no direct 

threat to US citizens, the situation could rapidly deteriorate and US lives and 

property could be at risk.” The troop movement was to be conducted in such a way 

as to “give the impression of relatively normal operations at Howard AFB so as not 

to alarm the PDF.” To drive home the point, the message stated emphatically that 

the deployment “does not constitute authority to execute Elaborate Maze.” On 

the subject of command and control arrangements, the order indicated that, upon 

their arrival in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility, the deploying forces would 

come under the SOUTHCOM commander’s operational command. 

Other issues addressed in the Joint Chiefs’ message included psychological 

operations and the themes that needed to be reinforced, avoided, or counteracted 

when explaining the troop movements. For example, one point to be emphasized 

was that, despite allegations leveled by the Noriega regime, the newly arrived 

29 Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91; Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 092300Z Mar 88. The specialist’s 

observation is from Diary, Loeffke, 12 Mar 88. 30 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 121930Z Mar 88, sub: Panama Security Enhancement.

31 Msgs, Commander in Chief, U.S. Forces Command (CINCFOR), to CDR, XVIII Abn Corps, 

121755Z Mar 88, sub: Warning Order, and JCS to U.S. Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Command 

(USCINCLANT), et al., 122000Z Mar 88, sub: Deployment Order for Security Forces to Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

52

American units were there only to augment “existing US military security forces,” 

not “to invade Panama and set up a puppet government.” Serving as a reminder to 

the units themselves on that score, the message directed that they would operate 

under peacetime rules of engagement, which allowed U.S. troops to respond to 

threats only with actions that “are appropriate to the provocation, are designed to 

limit the scope and intensity of the conflict, will discourage escalation, and will 

achieve political and military objectives.”32

Of the first units to deploy, both the Marine FAST platoon and the Air Force 

Airbase Ground Defense Flight arrived in Panama the afternoon of 14 March 

without incident. The SOUTHCOM Public Affairs Office experienced some frantic 

moments, however, when ABC News broadcast word of the deployment, thereby 

compelling the command to issue a press release on the security enhancement 

buildup sooner than it had anticipated. The statement stressed that the dispatch 

of the troops under President Reagan’s orders was not in response to any specific 

incident but merely a prudent measure in light of the unrest and tension in Panama. 

Inadvertently, the regime itself helped reinforce this characterization by not 

doing more to challenge it. As the National Guard unit for Total Warrior and 

the remaining security enhancement troops began flowing into the country, the 

anti-American demonstrations the Southern Command had anticipated failed to 

materialize. One U.S. assessment of this missed opportunity suggested that, while 

the PDF hierarchy was aware of the force deployments, the buildup was small and 

dispersed enough to prevent Noriega and his inner circle from appreciating its full 

impact.33

Soon after the Pentagon issued the security enhancement order, the Southern 

Command began making a series of adjustments to the scheduled deployments. As 

a result, all Army units affected by the order remained in the United States for the 

time being. Meanwhile, Woerner reported to the Joint Chiefs on 15 March that the 

augmentation forces that had deployed were beginning to perform their security 

missions. Twenty-six members of the Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team, for 

example, were already patrolling the Arraiján Tank Farm, an aboveground Navy 

fuel depot just north of Howard Air Force Base. The facility’s vulnerability had 

caused Loeffke and others to voice their concerns. In the same message, Woerner 

described the situation in Panama as volatile, a sentiment shared by Loeffke. In an 

update to Vuono, the USARSO commander warned of possible trouble over the 

next three to four days because of the worsening economic conditions. “Our basic 

concern,” he emphasized, “is that the situation can quickly escalate.”34

32 Msg, JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 122000Z Mar 88, sub: Deployment Order for Security 

Forces to Panama. As a part of Noriega’s propaganda war against Total Warrior, the Panamanian 

Foreign Ministry delivered a note to the U.S. Embassy, charging in “hysterical” tones that a U.S. invasion of Panama was imminent. The note was returned to the ministry “unopened.” Msg, AmEmb, 

Panama, to SecState, 252155Z Mar 88, sub: Panama Protests U.S. Military Activities. 33 USSOUTHCOM, Historical Report 1988, p. 134; Tropic Times, 16 Mar 88; Fact Sheet, 

USARSO DCSOPS, 24 Mar 88. 34 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 130500Z Mar 88, sub: SCJ3 Sitrep 035; CINCFOR to CDR, III Corps, 

130630Z Mar 88, sub: Deployment Order (Corrected Copy); CINCSO to JCS, 131506Z Mar 88, sub: 

SCJ3 Sitrep 036; JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 131858Z Mar 88, sub: Change One—Deployment 

Order for Security Forces to Panama; CINCFOR to CDR, III Corps, 132215Z Mar 88, sub: Change 

One—Deployment Order for Security Forces to Panama; and CINCSO to JCS, 160650Z Mar 88, 
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

53

On 16 March, two days after Loeffke’s warning, Col. Leonidas Macías, chief 

of Panama’s police forces, and Maj. Fernando Quezada led a small group of midlevel PDF officers in an attempt to topple Noriega. The motives of the conspirators 

were mixed: all had been passed over for promotion; some feared a U.S. invasion 

and the destruction of the Panama Defense Forces as an institution if Noriega 

remained in command; some were uneasy over Noriega’s growing ties with Cuba, 

Nicaragua, and Libya; some had recently returned from studying at military 

colleges in the United States; and some merely wanted to preempt higher-ranking 

officers from launching their own coup. What direction the crisis would have taken 

had the plotters succeeded is a matter of speculation. But the coup attempt, which 

Noriega possibly knew about beforehand, failed miserably, and its participants 

were arrested and, in some cases, imprisoned and tortured.35

Pro-Noriega spokespersons accused the United States of fomenting the revolt 

and of waging an “undeclared war” against Panama. The Reagan administration 

denied the allegations, although it certainly had not discouraged any such effort to 

oust Noriega. To the contrary, Secretary of State Shultz had made what one observer 

has called “a thinly disguised appeal to the officers of the Panama Defense Forces 

to rise up against Noriega, calling the PDF ‘a strong and honorable force that has 

a significant and proper role to play’ in a post‐Noriega Panama.” According to 

the same author, the secretary of state “secretly ordered U.S. embassies in several 

Latin American countries to ‘inform Panamanian military attachés of U.S. desire 

to work with PDF, but inability to do so while Noriega remains. Message includes 

support for PDF’s important role in Panama as a professional military subordinate 

to civilian authority and expresses desire to resume close cooperation once PDF 

puts its house in order.’”36

Noriega appeared in public immediately after the coup attempt, passing off 

the few shots fired that morning as nothing but “kisses.” In the ensuing days, he 

used the incident as a rationale for purging the Panama Defense Forces and the 

government of several individuals whose loyalty he questioned and for tightening 

his “Mafia‐like” network of “informal control” over the PDF by creating the 

Strategic Military Council composed of trusted subordinates. In Panama City, his 

opponents again took to the streets with the support of the National Civic Crusade, 

and workers already on strike cut off electrical power to the capital, prompting 

sub: SCJ3 Sitrep 041. Quote from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 142330Z Mar 88. Diary, Loeffke, 

15 Mar 88. 35 Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 273–79. The coup attempt occurred while Colonel 

Stringham’s team was working on the JSOTF supporting plan in Panama. Consequently, Stringham 

saw firsthand how the Panama Defense Forces dealt with the opposition. He was not impressed, dismissing the Panamanian military as a group of “thugs.” He also observed the behavior of the civilian 

population, which just sought “to get out of the way.” That convinced him that, should there be fighting between U.S. and Panamanian forces in Panama City, the civilian population would not interfere 

or get in the way. Stringham Interv, 29 Aug 89. 36 Dinges, Our Man in Panama, rev. ed., pp. 298–99. A SOUTHCOM message covering events 

the day before the coup attempt referred to “recent actions taken by the U.S. government to encourage the separation of . . . Noriega from the . . . [Panama Defense Forces].” Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 

160650Z Mar 88, sub: SCJ3 Sitrep 041. In light of subsequent recommendations, Woerner appears 

not to have objected to the concept of driving a wedge between Noriega and the PDF, but rather to the 

sanguine hopes voiced by the State Department as to the professional role the Panamanian military 

would assume as soon as its leader was gone.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

54

the Panamanian military to retaliate by seizing the power plants and other public 

utilities. On 18 March, the government declared a state of emergency, during which 

it again suspended various constitutional rights. In defiance, the opposition called 

a general strike for the twenty-first. At the same time, Civic Crusade leaders made 

known their feelings that getting rid of Noriega was now the responsibility of the 

United States. As this latest round of threats and violence intensified, it seemed to 

herald the kind of significant escalation in the crisis that Woerner, Loeffke, and 

others feared.

Behind the scenes, there existed a brief hope that the coup attempt might 

have actually shaken Noriega, perhaps to the point where, if offered the proper 

incentives, he would voluntarily step down from his dictatorial position. Publicly, 

the Panamanian strongman proclaimed that his “virility was proved” by his ability 

to hold onto power. Privately, he seemed to be looking for a deal through which 

he could leave the PDF but still retain much of that power. As one Panamanian 

observed, “The general is willing to go, but he’s not going to be dragged out like 

a dog.” When Noriega requested a meeting with State Department officials right 

after the coup attempt, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Walker and 

legal adviser Michael Kozak arrived with a proposal in which the United States 

would agree not to extradite Noriega for prosecution on drug trafficking charges 

if the general agreed to asylum in a third country. Walker and Kozak met with 

Noriega and a few of his close associates twice on 18 March. As if from a scene in 

the Godfather, there was much talk of “friendship” and “respect,” but in the end, 

Noriega rejected the U.S. proposal.37

When news of the negotiations was made public, Panamanian opposition 

leaders strongly objected to not being informed in advance. Loeffke, too, expressed 

reservations, confiding to his diary that the State Department was the wrong agency 37 On the Walker-Kozak mission, see Margaret E. Scranton, The Noriega Years: U.S.-Panamanian 

Relations, 1981–1990 (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991), pp. 147–48.

A Panama Defense Forces (PDF) antiriot unit using a water cannon to put down a demonstration against the regime.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

55

to be dealing with Noriega, since the PDF commander did not respond well to 

ultimatums. “We as soldiers could do a better job in negotiating with him,” Loeffke 

concluded.38 Back in the United States, Secretary Shultz and General Powell 

appeared on Sunday interview programs to indicate that time was running out for 

Noriega to go into voluntary exile. What the United States planned to do if the 

general ignored the warning remained unclear, especially after President Reagan, 

to the chagrin of several of his advisers, declared in the wake of the coup attempt 

that the United States would not use military force to remove the dictator.

Woerner’s reaction to the failed coup was to recommend the continued 

deployment of security enhancement forces to Panama. Events, he informed the 

Joint Chiefs, had become “fluid, volatile, and unpredictable.” He further warned 

that “clearly the situation is tending towards violence.” Under those circumstances, 

he thought deploying more of the troops SOUTHCOM had requested, including 

the Army units that had initially been held back, was “prudent.” The Joint Chiefs 

approved the recommendation.39

Among the units to deploy was the 503d Military Police Battalion with three 

MP companies from Fort Bragg. The battalion’s arrival was well received by most 

staff officers at U.S. Army, South, which had been lobbying for more military 

policemen. The Military Police Command in Panama consisted of a headquarters 

company and two combat support companies. These units were responsible, 

among their other missions, for the security of about twenty U.S. installations and 

several U.S.-PDF military areas of coordination. As the crisis escalated in early 

1988 and as evidence of hostile intrusions and criminal activities on U.S. facilities 

began to mount, security requirements exceeded the Military Police Command’s 

ability to respond effectively. As an interim measure, USARSO directed infantry 

units from the 193d Infantry Brigade to join military policemen on patrols and 

overwatch programs, an approach that proved productive but at the expense of the 

193d’s primary missions. The newly arrived military policemen, together with the 

radio-equipped high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) they 

brought with them, increased manpower and mobility, thus allowing USARSO 

to provide police protection to a much broader area. At the same time, infantry 

units released from MP duties were free to launch patrols aimed at detecting PDF 

surveillance on U.S. facilities.40

Some staff officers at Fort Clayton questioned the decision to send an MP 

battalion to Panama at this point in the crisis. Better, they argued, had combat 

forces listed in the Elaborate Maze operation orders been flown in as a show of 

determination. This, however, was exactly the signal Carlucci, the Joint Chiefs, 

Woerner, Loeffke, Rossi, and Cope wanted to avoid. To them, the deployment of 

military police into a confrontational environment in which neither side wanted war 

was the appropriate gesture to make. The MPs were, after all, cops trained to “power 

38 Diary, Loeffke, 20 Mar 88.

39 Quotes from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 161815Z Mar 88, sub: Panama Security Enhancement. 

Msg, JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 170038Z Mar 88, sub: Deployment Order for Security Forces to 

Panama. 40 Intervs, author with Lt Col Mike Michaelis, U.S. Army, 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Capt 

Gary Holt, U.S. Army, 26 Sep 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 

27 Mar 88, 31 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Cope, 29 Mar 89; and Col Arnie Rossi, U.S. Army, 24 

May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

56

down” dangerous situations and restore order. They could take abuse without losing 

their discipline. They were perceived as being less likely than infantry to respond 

to violence with violence. As U.S. Army, South, tried to walk the fine line between 

protecting American lives and property without demonstrating a belligerent intent, 

the MPs were a “politically acceptable” symbol of law enforcement and restraint. 

Even the PDF could recognize that they were not there to start a war. As events in 

Panama evolved, the military police became a critical presence, the “major combat 

working unit” in the crisis. They were the “guys on the streets.”41

So crucial was the role of the military police in the crisis that Loeffke asked 

Woerner for a second MP battalion from the United States. Cope worked up a fact 

sheet recommending the deployment of the 519th Military Police Battalion with 

two companies, together with a Headquarters and Headquarters Company from 

the 16th Military Police Brigade. In Cope’s assessment, the second MP battalion 

would give U.S. Army, South, greater flexibility in several areas as the “threat to 

U.S. installations slowly grows and becomes more apparent.” More military police 

would increase the available number of quick reaction forces (units on alert to 

respond to a dangerous situation within fifteen to thirty minutes), provide additional 

area security, protect unsecured facilities such as the USARSO headquarters 

building at Fort Clayton, assume all or part of the daily installation interior guard, 

and enhance the military’s capability to react to any sudden outbreak of hostilities, 

dubbed by contingency planners as Bolt Out of the Blue (a play on words invoking 

the name of the 193d Infantry Brigade’s commander, Col. William J. Bolt). Citing 

the political as well as the military logic contained in the earlier request for the 

503d, Cope noted that “This type unit does not stigmatize the Reagan admin as 

wanting to take offensive action.” In a similar vein, a second MP battalion coming 

into Panama was in keeping with Loeffke’s comment, “Our biggest challenge is to 

be firm but not provocative.”42

As additional military policemen arrived in Panama, some problems arose. 

Many of the MPs had little idea of why they were there. Having not been briefed 

by Forces Command prior to their departure, they anticipated entering a warlike 

environment for the purpose of conducting an evacuation of noncombatants. Some 

MPs were visibly distressed when they were met upon their arrival at Howard Air 

Force Base and told to doff their red berets so as not to appear in a “combat mode.” 

Once in Panama, they regarded the information imparted to them as inadequate. 

Nor were they pleased with many of their security enhancement assignments. While 

some took part in mobile patrols, others received less satisfactory static missions 

of guarding gates and installations. Another source of displeasure was the negative 

reaction they received from the very people they had come to protect. Indeed, to 

some U.S. service personnel stationed in Panama, the newly arrived MPs seemed 

to have little to do besides issue parking tickets, check IDs, and make getting into 

the post exchange an inconvenience. Still, by 24 March, Loeffke could speak of 

41 Intervs, author with Augustine, 7 Jun 89, 13 Jun 89, and Rossi, 24 May 89. First quote from 

Interv, author with Michaelis, 7 Jun 89. Intervs, author with Holt, 26 Sep 90, and Loeffke, 31 May 

89. Third and fourth quotes from Interv, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89. Second quote from Telephone 

Interv, author with Capt Anthony Schilling, U.S. Army, 30 Nov 90. 42 First quote from Fact Sheet, USARSO DCSOPS, 24 Mar 88. Second quote from Msg, CDR, 

USARSO, to HQDA, 24 Mar 88, sub: USARSO Sitrep No. 10. Last quote from Msg, CDR, USARSO, 

to HQDA, 312200Z Mar 88, sub: USARSO Sitrep No. 17.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

57

the “atmosphere of tranquility” created by the MP buildup and increased patrols in 

housing areas. By the end of the month, he was boasting of statistics that showed a 

decline in the break-ins on U.S. bases after the arrival of the military police.43

Showdown in Washington

On the evening of 28 March, Lt. Col. Robert Pantier was running the Panama 

crisis action team in the Tunnel at Quarry Heights when Rear Adm. Richard C. 

Ustick, the SOUTHCOM chief of staff, telephoned to inquire about what was going 

on at the Marriott Hotel in Panama City. Pantier had received no information on 

any unusual activity at the hotel, but Ustick said CNN was reporting that, following 

an anti-Noriega march, the Panama Defense Forces had entered the premises and 

had apprehended opposition members and media personnel. The network was 

also running live footage of the PDF herding people into waiting vans. About 

fifteen minutes after the call from Ustick, Pantier began to receive reports of the 

incident.44 The next day, the “storming” of the Marriott was the lead story on most 

morning news programs in the United States. Among the journalists arrested and 

roughed up by the PDF there had been five Americans. Plainclothes officers had 

also ransacked the offices of NBC, CBS, and ABC News located in the hotel.

In the furor created by the Marriott incident, the Joint Chiefs summoned Woerner 

to Washington to discuss the situation. En route, the SOUTHCOM commander 

and his staff examined the options policymakers were likely to consider. Despite 

President Reagan’s public disavowal of any intention to use U.S. military force as 

a solution to the crisis, Secretary of State Shultz was still arguing for a “snatch” 

operation to apprehend Noriega. To this, Elliott Abrams added an even grander 

scheme. It called for sending 6,000 additional U.S. troops to Panama. Then, 

under the protection of these forces, Eric Delvalle, the ousted but U.S.-recognized 

president of Panama, and Col. Eduardo Herrera Hassán, Panama’s ambassador to 

Israel, would restate the former’s claim to being the country’s legitimate president. 

In support of the claim, the opposition would take to the streets. These actions, 

combined with the abduction of Noriega, would end the crisis.

Crowe and Woerner considered the plan brash and impractical. In discussions 

among their staffs, it was referred to as “loony tunes” and “the Rambo option,” 

the product of an imaginative civilian mind uninformed by personal military 

experience. The scheme presented other problems as well. Opposition leaders 

in Panama, remembering Delvalle’s acts of repression under Noriega, had only 

reluctantly endorsed his claim to the presidency. Their support for Abrams’ plan 

could therefore not be assumed. There was also the more pressing matter of 

Americans living in Panama. A rapid buildup of U.S. forces (as opposed to the 

43 Intervs, Augustine, 13 Jun 89; Michaelis, 7 Jun 89; Holt, 26 Sep 90; Telephone Interv with 

Capt Schilling, 30 Nov 90. Quotes from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to HQDA, 24 Mar 88, sub: USARSO 

Sitrep No. 10. Msg, CDR, USARSO, to HQDA, 312200Z Mar 88, sub: USARSO Sitrep No. 17. 44 Pantier Interv, 21 May 91. There were several times during the crisis that officers manning 

operations centers at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton would rely on CNN for up-to-the-minute news 

of an incident taking place. During normal days, for example, the emergency operations center at Fort 

Clayton would be lightly manned, with the television often turned to soap operas. Once an incident 

occurred, the channel would be changed immediately, and CNN monitored thereafter. In other offices 

in Panama (and in Washington), televisions were tuned to the news network during the course of a 

business day.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

58

gradual buildup covered under Elaborate Maze) might trigger hostage-taking 

by the Panamanian military. Or the Americans could get caught in the crossfire 

if the PDF decided to fight the U.S. forces or the demonstrators. Woerner had 

initiated a reduction of off-post personnel earlier in March, but the process of 

bringing military dependents onto U.S. bases was slow and did not even affect the 

many thousands of private American citizens living in and around Panama City 

and Colón. Abrams could protest that presidential prestige was on the line, since 

Reagan had publicly demanded Noriega’s resignation, but his argument carried 

little weight with U.S. officers who blamed the State Department, and Abrams in 

particular, for manufacturing much of the U.S.‐Panama crisis in the first place and 

for dragging the president into it. There was also the vivid memory of the State 

Department’s role in sending U.S. marines into Lebanon in the early 1980s and 

the tragic consequences of that commitment. Presidential prestige or no, the Joint 

Chiefs and most of the Pentagon were simply not amenable to having U.S. troops 

die in Panama for anything less than vital U.S. interests, none of which seemed 

immediately threatened. Finally, as Crowe explained personally to Reagan, “Why 

should good ol’ boys from Peoria, Illinois, go down and die for people in Panama 

driving in Mercedeses?”45

A full review of U.S. options in the Panama crisis took place at the White House 

on 29 March. In terms of bureaucratic warfare, it was a bloody session in which the 

clash of issues and personalities that had been festering since the onset of the crisis 

came to a head. PDF provocations, the efficacy of current U.S. economic sanctions, 

Noriega’s recent creation of paramilitary organizations known as Dignity Battalions, 

the prospect of hostage‐taking and guerrilla warfare, and the influx into Panama 

of Cuban, Nicaraguan, Colombian, and Libyan weapons and advisers all received 

careful, if at times contentious, consideration. Crowe attacked the Abrams plan as 

too risky. Not only would Americans in Panama be placed in jeopardy, but military 

action there would cause other, strategically located countries in which the United 

States had base rights to reconsider whether a tangible U.S. military presence was 

a blessing or a potential threat. The admiral also estimated that the military force 

needed to execute Abram’s scheme—a carrier battle group, commando units, and 

an amphibious assault team—was more than the Pentagon had available to send. 

Shultz angrily contested Crowe’s force estimates as deliberate exaggerations. 

The secretary of state again proposed a snatch operation and again encountered 

Crowe’s objections. The group considered other courses of action but reached no 

consensus. The president finally ruled out a military operation and decided instead 

to announce further economic sanctions and to send 1,300 additional troops to 

Panama for the purpose of security enhancement.46

The day after the White House meeting, Woerner met with the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, who directed him to “plan for the deployment and employment of sufficient 

forces to protect US citizens, the Canal, and US installations.” He indicated that he 

did not need more troops but understood the political rationale for sending them. 

After further discussion, the Joint Chiefs decided that the additional forces needed 

45 Crowe’s quote from Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, p. 297. On the military options advanced 

by Shultz and Abrams and the response by Crowe and other military officers, see ibid., pp. 289–97; 

Kevin Buckley, Panama, pp. 137–39; Interv, author with Maj Fred Polk, U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort 

Clayton, Panama; New York Times, 2 Apr 88, 3 Apr 88. 46 Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 302–04; New York Times, 2 Apr 88.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

59

to satisfy the continuing security enhancement mission could be found among those 

units listed under Phases I, II, and III of Elaborate Maze. On a related matter, they 

also instructed Woerner to continue planning for a nonpermissive evacuation of 

noncombatants and to refine Elaborate Maze planning.47

Joint Task Force-Panama

If Woerner did not readily embrace the second round of security enhancement 

augmentation, Loeffke did. The PDF’s repressive raid at the Marriott, according to 

the USARSO commander, “appears to be one more sign that Noriega is determined 

to take any action he deems necessary to demonstrate his hold on Panama.” 

Because “our intelligence is still unable to provide us with General Noriega’s 

military intentions,” constant vigilance would be essential. The troops currently in 

Panama, in Loeffke’s estimate, were adequate to respond to contingencies for two 

more weeks, although they could only defend U.S. bases and not “go on offensive 

operations or defend Canal installations.” On the principle that “more is better,” 

he wanted the second MP battalion that he had requested from Woerner, as well 

as a UH–60 and an assault helicopter company. “If the situation is aggravated,” he 

wrote in a message to Vuono, “then we believe it will be necessary to start phasing 

in other combat forces.”48

On 1 April, the Defense Department announced the second troop augmentation. 

The units that deployed to Panama over the course of the following week included 

the 519th Military Police Battalion that Loeffke and Cope had requested, the 

16th Military Police Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company, an Army 

reconnaissance troop, three Air Force ground defense units, two Air Force canine 

squads, a Marine infantry company, and a combat aviation company from the 7th 

Infantry Division (Light), consisting of four OH–58 Kiowas, fifteen UH–60 Black 

Hawks, and seven AH–1 Cobras.

The 1,300 military personnel that were deployed, when added to the first 

augmentation round of 670, raised the number of U.S. forces in Panama to 12,000. 

The Pentagon again tried to quiet speculation that an invasion was imminent by 

insisting the relatively small buildup was in response to the “instability of the 

current situation in Panama, the heavy-handed tactics of Noriega in dealing with 

the situation and the potential for increased threats to U.S. citizens and interests 

in Panama.” In classified message traffic, the Joint Chiefs again emphasized that, 

although the units listed in the 1 April announcement were also on the Elaborate

Maze troop list, the deployment was not an authorization to execute the operation 

order. The State Department took a more belligerent line, though, with the 

suggestion that the augmentation was a warning to Noriega and his supporters 

that “it would not be advisable for them to take any actions against Americans.” 

Pentagon officials conceded that some of the units being deployed, such as the 

Marine rifle company, were combat units but offered assurances that these units 

would not serve in a combat capacity. They would only bolster security forces 

already present.49

47 Quote from Msg, JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 082317Z Apr 88. Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91.

48 First, second, and third quotes from Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 29 Mar 88. Fourth quote 

from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to HQDA, 29 Mar 88, sub: Sitrep No. 15. 49 Quotes from New York Times, 2 Apr 88. Tropic Times, 4 Apr 88, 8 Apr 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

60

Most of the units entering Panama were placed under the operational control 

of their SOUTHCOM service component (for example, the Air Force units went 

under the command’s Air Force component). This meant that a unified command 

was essentially running tactical operations as it engaged in crisis management 

on a day-to-day basis. The task was nearly impossible, given the Southern 

Command’s long list of other missions, commitments, and activities in the theater. 

This predicament had become especially acute during the last half of March, 

when, during the first wave of security enhancement deployments to Panama, the 

United States also mounted Operation Golden Pheasant in Honduras, sending 

light infantry units into that country to deter a possible invasion by the Sandinista 

government in Nicaragua. Since Honduras fell within the Southern Command’s 

area of responsibility, staff officers at Quarry Heights suddenly found themselves 

stretched to the limit trying to monitor two simultaneous crises. Meanwhile, the 

USARSO cell Colonel Cope had set up under Major Augustine, while performing 

several joint task force planning functions, lacked formal authorization and the 

assets required of a joint organization. In short, the time had come, many thought, 

to establish JTF-Panama for the purpose of providing centralized control over the 

U.S. forces involved in security enhancement missions in Panama. The headquarters 

would also manage the tactical aspects of the crisis on a daily basis. 

The activation of JTF-Panama was supposed to take place in Phase 0 of 

Elaborate Maze, before any troop deployments to Panama. Although that 

operation order had not been formally executed, many of the troops listed in it 

were arriving daily. Woerner had previously indicated he would place these forces 

under the operational control of JTF-Panama, yet, in late March and early April, 

he seemed hesitant to activate the joint task force. His reluctance stemmed from 

two considerations. The small size of his Army component and the fact that it had 

theater‐wide missions caused some staff officers at Quarry Heights to question 

USARSO’s ability to function effectively as the core of JTF-Panama. In lengthy 

discussions on this point, some senior officers at SOUTHCOM even expressed 

doubts about whether their counterparts at U.S. Army, South, were personally up 

to the challenge. There was also the more sensitive issue of the PDF’s reaction. 

Having had access to plans for the combined defense of the canal, the Panama 

Defense Forces knew that activation of JTF-Panama could indicate imminent 

hostilities. There were some U.S. officers in Panama who argued that sending 

Noriega this signal would not hurt, but Woerner was not among them.50

Loeffke and Rossi supported Woerner’s cautious approach to the crisis, 

but still needed the SOUTHCOM commander to activate the joint task force. 

Without the authority to call on the other services for assistance and support, U.S. 

Army, South, could not hope to respond effectively to the joint responsibilities 

that were already being thrust upon it by contingency planning and the security 

enhancement buildup. Fortunately for USARSO, it had two high-ranking friends 

in court at Quarry Heights, SOUTHCOM’s deputy commander and chief of staff. 

50 Msg, CINCSO to CINCFOR, 0220017Z Apr 88; Intervs, author with Polk, 29 Mar 89; 

Col Gar Thiry, U.S. Army, and Col Tom Braaten, U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), 12 Dec 89, Maxwell 

Air Force Base (AFB), Ala. During his visit in March for the purpose of planning special operations, 

Colonel Stringham had made the point to SOUTHCOM officials that he did not believe U.S. 

Army, South, had sufficient combat assets to serve as the core around which JTF-Panama could be 

constructed. Stringham Interv, 29 Aug 89.
Operation Orders and Security Enhancement

61

Both officers began to press the issue with Woerner, while U.S. Army, South, 

launched its own campaign. On 4 April, Loeffke informed his superior that a 

secure JTF-Panama communications net had been established. In another message 

to Woerner, he restated his position that he did not require a full JTF staff, but 

one of just over eighty billets, 85 percent of which would be filled by personnel 

from U.S. Army, South. The next day, Cope directed the writing of an operation 

order for conventional Phase 0 preparations under Elaborate Maze. USARSO 

also activated a separate operational staff for JTF-Panama planning. Colonel Rossi 

even went so far as to draft the order activating JTF-Panama, his “ultimatum,” as 

he called it. In just a few days, these efforts bore fruit. On 6 April, a kidney stone 

compelled Woerner to enter the hospital, where, while convalescing, he agreed to 

the entreaties of his deputy and chief of staff. On 8 April, the Southern Command 

issued the order for the activation of JTF-Panama at noon the next day.51

The order called for a joint task force staffed at “a modified manning level 

using in-theater assets for the purpose of enhancing the readiness and command 

and control of on site security enhancement forces.” As stated in the SOUTHCOM 

contingency plans, the commanding general, USARSO, was designated 

commander, JTF-Panama, and would receive operational control of Navy Forces 

(NAVFOR), Marine Forces (MARFOR), Air Force Forces (AFFOR), and Army 

Forces (ARFOR). “The activation of JTF-PM is a most sensitive issue,” Loeffke 

was reminded, “and is to be handled in a low key and prudent manner. Take 

reasonable precaution in achieving the needed posture of readiness so as not to 

precipitate a confrontation.”52

On the day before he formally became the JTF commander, Loeffke sent a 

personal message to Vuono updating the Army chief on the situation in Panama. 

Loeffke noted that a nervous PDF was taking measures, on the one hand, to 

reassure Americans that their lives and property were safe and, on the other, to 

prepare for possible hostilities with the United States. In terms of how the Reagan 

administration should respond to the crisis, Loeffke stood with Crowe and Woerner 

in preferring a “phased force build up” over military intervention or a snatch 

operation. “If we nab Noriega and his supporters nab several American hostages,” 

Loeffke commented, “what do we do next?” As for the “attack now” option, he 

expressed concerns over the high costs of an invasion in lives, property, and chaos. 

“The collateral damage to the civilian population (both Panamanian and ours) will 

not be small. . . . The situation may turn into widespread looting. If we strike and 

destroy the effectiveness of the PDF there will be almost no Panamanian security 

forces. Without Panamanian police and [with] the presence of the 1000 or so bad 

elements who are eager to fight the U.S. the situation may become difficult to 

control in the city. At the present our families are hostages.” Should the United 

States intervene, he cautioned, “we will need to be prepared to re-establish law 

51 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CINCSO, 042330Z Apr 88; Memos, Loeffke for CINCSO, 4 Apr 88, 

and USARSO DCSOPS to Crisis Action Team (CAT) Team Chief, 5 Apr 88; Msg, CDR, USARSO, 

to CINCSO, 052330Z Apr 88. Quote from Interv, author with Rossi, 24 May 89. Intervs, author 

with Cope, 29 Mar 89, 29 May 89; Draft Activation Order, CINCSO to CDR, USARSO, n.d.; Msg, 

CINCSO to CDR, USARSO, 082210Z Apr 88. 52 Msg, CINCSO to CDR, USARSO, 082210Z Apr 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

62

and order in Panama. Establishing services to a large city and reconstituting the 

Panamanian Defense Forces will be major endeavors.”53

Opinions continued to differ as to when or if President Reagan would order 

an invasion of Panama. Some Americans and Panamanians predicted U.S. military 

action at some point in the future, despite the president’s decision on 29 March not 

to resort to armed intervention. Others shared Woerner’s belief that military force 

would not have to be used to resolve the crisis. In prescient words, Loeffke wrote 

on 9 April, the day JTF-Panama was activated, “It has become apparent that this 

crisis will not be quickly resolved.”54

53 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to Department of the Army, 082126Z Apr 88. An earlier draft of the 

message, “sent by mistake,” included a paragraph that read, “History. The future will evaluate us as 

whether or not we were men of judgment. At the present time common sense dictates we increase the 

force presence, and give the diplomats and others an opportunity to offer options to Noriega.” Msg, 

CDR, USARSO, to DA, 081609Z Apr 88. 54 Sitrep 26, USARSO, 9 Apr 88.
I I I

3

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

April–may 1988

President Reagan’s rejection of military intervention to oust Noriega and 

the failure of William Walker and Michael Kozak to negotiate a settlement 

did not preclude the use of force or diplomacy to resolve the crisis in Panama 

at some future date. Meanwhile, contingency planning under SOUTHCOM’s 

auspices continued, as did the flow of U.S. security enhancement forces into 

the country. As Woerner watched the troop buildup, he warned close advisers 

of a self‐fulfilling prophecy in which the deployment itself could increase the 

chances for a military showdown. His prediction seemed to gain credence 

when, on 12 April, the marines sent to Panama for “political” reasons engaged 

in a two‐hour firefight against armed intruders on a U.S. fuel facility. Yet the 

incident, which could have provoked wider hostilities, instead marked the high 

point of tension in early 1988. Despite subsequent intrusions and shootings, all 

of a lesser magnitude, Woerner’s fears of events racing out of control were not 

realized. Indeed, the Reagan administration maintained some hope that Noriega 

might still be persuaded to resign and leave the country. To that end, direct talks 

between Kozak and Noriega resumed just days after the firefight. One month 

later, the United States found itself well removed from the brink of war, although 

no closer to its policy goal of deposing Noriega.

Noriega Perseveres

As part of the campaign to pressure the general into retirement, the Reagan 

administration on 8 April announced new economic sanctions. Invoking the 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, the president signed an 

executive order prohibiting American citizens and companies operating in Panama 

from paying any taxes or fees owed the Panamanian government. The initiative, 

portrayed to the news media as a tough measure, only antagonized those American 

businessmen who, in dealing with Panama, were more concerned about profits 

and a friendly working environment than the administration’s problems with 

Noriega. Also the Treasury Department, convinced that Noriega would survive 

the sanctions but that an already depressed Panamanian economy might not, 

demonstrated its opposition to the move by erecting bureaucratic obstacles to the 

order’s implementation. As one U.S. official observed, “We have ruined a healthy 

economy, weakened the pro-American middle class, and created conditions for 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

64

growing Communist influence. You’ve got to give yourself credit: That’s a hell of 

an achievement for diplomacy!”1

Many of Panama’s opposition leaders, particularly middle- and upper-class 

professionals and businessmen who were often the unintended victims of the 

sanctions, voiced a similar sentiment as they surveyed the economic desolation 

around them. Panama’s banks, which had closed in early March, would not begin 

reopening until mid-April, and then only for limited services. In the meantime, 

the unemployment rate moved toward 40 percent as numerous industries folded. 

Pensioners continued to be hard hit by the cash shortage, as were government 

workers, who quickly found themselves resorting to the expedient of using 

their paychecks as currency. The National Civic Crusade continued its efforts to 

turn economic hardship into organized dissent, but the Panama Defense Forces 

became increasingly adept at disrupting antigovernment rallies and marches. One 

opposition leader conceded that widespread fear prevented large turnouts at the 

NCC’s well-publicized demonstrations. But, he noted, somewhat unconvincingly, 

just the news of a scheduled protest forced the PDF into the streets on a daily basis. 

The opposition’s new strategy: “We plan to wear them out.”2

The flaw in the strategy was that Noriega and the Panama Defense Forces 

showed no signs of weakening. To the contrary, the general had recovered 

quickly from the 16 March coup attempt and had strengthened his control over 

Panama’s armed forces and the government. As for the economic crisis, porous 

U.S. sanctions, outside assistance, competent advice, and inventive measures kept 

the economy afloat just enough to avoid political chaos. By the end of March, 

soon after Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams 

assured the world that Noriega was “hanging on by his fingernails,” the general, in 

fact, appeared to have a firm grip on the reins of power.3

The PDF’s brutal actions at the Marriott Hotel on 28 March served to drive home 

this point. So did the fact that Noriega was still capable of staging progovernment 

rallies in which thousands of Panamanians loyal or indebted to him, or threatened 

with the consequences of nonattendance, filled the streets of the capital, chanting 

nationalistic slogans and hoisting placards warning that Panama would become 

another Vietnam for U.S. troops. Noriega himself often referred or alluded to the 

Vietnam analogy, as, for example, when he somberly told a visiting journalist that, 

should the United States intervene in Panama, “American mothers are going to see 

their sons fighting in a nation without necessity.” Anti‐U.S. propaganda permeated 

the cities. Regularly, the Ministry of Health reported that U.S. troops entering the 

country were drug fiends infected with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome 

(AIDS). The PDF-controlled media also gave an anti-American twist to longstanding 

social and political divisions within Panama. One broadcast, for example, had 

black Panamanians of West Indian descent denouncing the United States for trying 

to reestablish a racist, class-oriented regime in the country. Noriega also suggested 

that, if necessary, he would go public with information that would cause the Reagan 

administration great embarrassment. The thinly veiled threat encouraged a flurry 

1 Quote from Buckley, Panama, p. 136, and see also pp. 133, 135. 2 Ibid., pp. 128, 134; Tropic Times, 20 Apr 88; Msgs, CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 122230Z 

Apr 88, sub: Panama INTSUM [Intelligence Summary] 56–88, and 132230Z Apr 88, sub: Panama 

INTSUM 57–88. 3 Buckley, Panama, pp. 133–35.
65

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

of speculative editorials and cocktail party gossip in Washington, not to mention 

unrecorded moments of introspection by top government officials who, at some 

point in their careers, had crossed paths with “our man in Panama.”4

On a daily basis, the anti-American propaganda, which served as a political 

barometer in the crisis, was not nearly so troublesome as the regime’s continued 

harassment of U.S. service personnel and their dependents. The torments inflicted 

by Panamanian bureaucrats, police, and armed forces acting in concert ranged 

from the petty annoyances of identity card checks, interrupted travel, traffic bribes, 

confiscated equipment, night court, and detainment or questioning, to the indignities 

of sexual insinuations and verbal abuse, physical intimidation and humiliation, 

intense and threatening interrogations, the occasional strip search, and arrests at 

gunpoint. Noriega, American military intelligence reported, had personally ordered 

an intensification of the harassment campaign. The Panama Defense Forces, 

according to one source, was supposed to detain U.S. servicemen “wandering 

around the downtown area” and, if need be, “work them over.” Noriega reportedly 

had also created a contingency planning group and directed it to prepare for guerrilla 

warfare against U.S. forces in Panama. The most publicized and threatening move 

of the regime’s anti-American campaign came in early April, when the general 

formed the Dignity Battalions, fourteen paramilitary units composed of “patriotic” 

Panamanians who, according to one intelligence source, were supposed to carry 

out provocative acts against the forces of “American imperialism” in the country. 

The so-called battalions, portrayed as a popular militia, had an estimated 2,000 

members recruited largely from hoodlum elements, the poor, the Panama Defense 

Forces, Noriega loyalists, and workers who owed their jobs to the government. 

How well armed and trained they were was not immediately clear to American 

military intelligence officers.5

More easily detectible were the Soviet-made weapons, mainly AK47s and 

RPG7s, that began appearing in PDF hands, the result of an arms deal between 

Noriega and Cuba’s Fidel Castro in early March, according to the revelations of 

a PDF officer who had defected after the failed 16 March coup. There was also 

sufficient evidence to indicate that the weapons had not arrived unaccompanied. 

Intelligence sources agreed that the number of Cuban functionaries in Panama had 

taken a sudden jump, although no one seemed to know for certain just why they 

4 The Vietnam-related quote is from ibid., p. 141, and see also p. 132. Msgs, 242330Z Mar 88; 

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Chiva Chiva to AIG 4677, 051437Z Apr 88; CDR, 

JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 122230Z Apr 88, sub: Panama INTSUM 56–88. 5 A fact sheet written by SOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty Affairs, dated 22 April 1988, listed 

eighty-three cases in which the Panama Defense Forces harassed U.S. service personnel and their 

dependents between 21 February and 19 April 1988. The list included everything from minor inconveniences to a firefight at the Arraiján Tank Farm on 12 April (see this chapter, pp. 69–71). A typical 

entry told of a military policeman who “was detained, threatened with being shot and humiliated (i.e., 

he was directed to drop his pants, jump in the air and shake his underwear).” See also Msgs, Air Force 

Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), Howard Air Force Base Base, to HQ, AFOSI, 242030Z 

Mar 88; Naval Investigative Service Agency (NAVINVSERVRA) to JCS, 042147Z Apr 88, sub: 

IIR; ibid., 052240Z Apr 88, sub: IIR; ibid., 081900Z Apr 88; CDR, 470th MI Bde, to U.S. Defense 

Attaché Office (USDAO), 102355Z Apr 88, sub: Current Attitudes and Future Actions and Intentions 

of the FDP; ibid., 152316Z Apr 88, sub: SOCSOUTH Sitrep #18; CDR, SOCSOUTH, 061820Z 

Apr 88, sub: Sitrep No. 6; and CDR, 470th MI Bde, to USDAO, 102350Z Apr 88, sub: Panamanian 

Military Adopts New Measures in the Face of the Continuing Crisis.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

66

were there. Maj. Gen. Bernard Loeffke recorded in his diary that the Cubans had 

come to assist in the propaganda war against the United States. Other, unconfirmed 

reports placed them with PDF units. One source indicated that at least thirteen 

Cuban “academic instructors” were living on the military base at Rio Hato, 

allegedly teaching the natural sciences to PDF personnel stationed there.6

In late March, three Cubans were apprehended while videotaping the main 

flight line at Howard Air Force Base. The episode linked the men directly to another 

concern of U.S. officials in Panama: the increased level of PDF surveillance of 

American housing areas, bases, and facilities. The surveillance served as an 

unambiguous reminder of the acute vulnerability of the American community in 

Panama. Although the Southern Command postulated that the Panamanian military 

might only be trying to obtain advance warning of any impending evacuation of 

American civilians, a sure signal of imminent hostilities, that explanation, even if 

accurate in some cases, did not explain why the PDF was continuing its surveillance 

of uninhabited facilities such as the Arraiján Tank Farm north of Howard.7

There was another unanswered question regarding the surveillance: was it 

linked to the increased number of Panamanian intrusions onto U.S. bases and 

facilities? Many of those installations were surrounded by thick, double-canopied 

jungle and had always been regarded by burglars, hunters, and poachers as violable 

territory. As the country’s economy declined, more and more of these people risked 

capture or worse in order to eke out a living. But some intruders that were sighted 

and occasionally apprehended by U.S. patrols wore camouflage suits and paint, 

thus raising concerns about surveillance and possible sabotage. The Southern 

Command and its components had identified many “soft” targets where a small 

hostile force could inflict enough physical damage to have a significant political 

impact. Part of the mission of the incoming security enhancement forces would be 

to prevent this from happening.

First Blood

Military police arriving in Panama generally assumed responsibility for the 

security of U.S. Army facilities, while augmented Air Force security police patrolled 

Howard Air Force Base. But guarding U.S. Navy facilities, such as the Rodman 

Naval Station, the Farfan antenna site, and the Arraiján Tank Farm, required more 

manpower than the Marine security force company billeted in barracks on Rodman 

had to spare, even after it had been augmented by the Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorist 

6 Msg, CDR, 470th MI Bde, to USDAO, 102355Z Apr 88, sub: Current Attitudes and Future 

Actions and Intentions of the FDP; Buckley, Panama, p. 130; Tropic Times, 23 Mar 88; Diary, Bernard 

Loeffke, 13 Apr 88; Msgs, NAVINVSERVRA to JCS, 052240Z Apr 88, sub: IIR, and CDR, JTFPanama, to AIG 9029, 122230Z Apr 88, sub: INTSUM 56–88; Interv, author with Lt Col Michael 

Mallory, U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Col. Paul Morgan, the USARSO deputy chief 

of staff for intelligence at the time, noted later that, while the Cubans and Nicaraguans gave Noriega 

some advice and assistance, neither country wanted to become too close to the general for fear of 

tarnishing their image throughout the rest of Latin America, where Noriega was generally despised 

or ridiculed. Interv, author with Col Paul Morgan, U.S. Army, 7 Jul 89, U.S. Special Operations 

Command, MacDill AFB, Fla. 7 Msgs, 221710Z Mar 88; NAVINVSERVRA to JCS, 042147Z Apr 88, sub: FDP Continues 

Surveillance of US Military Installations; CDR, 470th MI Bde, to USDAO, 102350Z Apr 88, sub: 

IIR; ibid., 081900Z Apr 88; CINCSO to JCS, 120600Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Sitrep 012 April; and CDR, 

JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 132230Z Apr 88, sub: INTSUM 57–88.
67

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

Security Team platoon. Once the Joint Chiefs informed Woerner that a reinforced 

Marine rifle company would be sent to Panama in the wake of the Marriott incident, 

the decision was made to have small detachments from the unit bolster security at 

Rodman and the Farfan site, next to Howard. These dispositions would leave the 

bulk of the company to move onto the Arraiján Tank Farm.

Before Company I, 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, left the United States, its 

commander, Capt. Joseph P. Valore, received photographs of the three Navy sites 

and learned of his assignment to guard them. Even so, the marines were not entirely 

clear as to the extent of their mission in Panama. Would they engage strictly in 

security enhancement, or would they also be the advance element for a brigadesize combat force? The question arose because Elaborate Maze listed a Marine 

expeditionary brigade on its time-phased force deployment list, and all indications 

were that such a unit would be deployed within ten days. Consequently, on 1 April, 

a three-man advance element from the 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade stationed 

at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, arrived in Panama to discuss prospective troop 

movements with officers from U.S. Army, South, and U.S. Navy, South (NAVSO), 

SOUTHCOM’s naval component. The group was followed on 6 April by Col. 

William J. Conley, the brigade’s chief of staff, who flew into Howard on the same 

day as Company I. Conley believed that his primary mission was to prepare the way 

for the deployment of up to two of the brigade’s infantry battalions together with 

Marine aviation assets. For this reason, he initially regarded Valore’s rifle company 

not just as a security enhancement element, but as the core around which a much 

larger combat force would soon be built. As the senior marine present, Conley 

assumed command of the Marine reinforcements arriving in Panama. His Marine 

Forces headquarters, in turn, was placed under NAVSO’s operational control.8

On 7 April, Valore toured the Arraiján Tank Farm, then returned to Rodman 

Naval Station, where Company I had “planted its flag,” to meet with members 

of the Marine FAST platoon. Since its arrival in March, the platoon had been 

conducting mobile patrols on the tank farm in response to an increasing number 

of unauthorized intrusions, about which Valore was briefed in detail. The next 

day, the captain deployed his men in accordance with guidance received from 

Conley. A squad(+) moved to the Farfan antenna site, while a platoon(-) remained 

at Rodman to bolster perimeter security. The rest of Company I moved into the 

fuel depot. The facility, according to the Marine Corps’ official history of the 

Panama crisis, “covered approximately two square kilometers of rolling grassland, 

apparently designed to resemble a golf course from the air, but was surrounded 

by dense jungle, which provided excellent avenues of approach both to the [37] 

storage tanks and to Howard Air Force Base to the south. In the jungle, visibility 

was limited to a few feet, even by day, and movement was slow and exhausting. 

. . . But for the most part the tank farm was not fenced as it bordered the PanAmerican, or Thatcher, Highway, the best high-speed avenue of approach in the 

country.” Valore’s Marine element on the depot included two infantry platoons, an 

81-mm. mortar section (two mortars), a DRAGON and a TOW (antitank weapons) 

8 Intervs, Benis Frank with Maj Joseph P. Valore, USMC, 29 Mar 90, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; Col 

Donald F. Anderson, USMC, 30 Mar 90, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; and Janet Len-Rios with Col William 

J. Conley, USMC, 2 Sep 88, Rodman Naval Station, Panama. U.S. Marine Corps, USMC Command 

Chronology and Supporting Documents, 6 April 1988–31 May 1990, History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

68

section, an artillery forward observer team, a heavy machine gun squad, and a 

detachment of engineers. The previous year, the unit had received jungle training 

on Okinawa.9

Valore divided the grounds of the tank farm into two zones, each of which 

became a tactical area of responsibility (TAOR) for an infantry platoon. The 

captain’s original intention was to use a system of shifting patrol bases as a means of 

securing the facility, but he soon decided to conduct patrols out of “one set of good 

positions” instead. One reason for the change in tactics was his realization that the 

frequent relocation of bases would “waste time and effort moving command posts 

and communications equipment.” Another reason was the constant surveillance 

his marines were coming under. Once on the tank farm, the Leathernecks noticed 

an increasing number of disabled Panamanian vehicles near the northern perimeter 

and the main entrance. A report noted that the “drivers appeared to be taking an 

inordinate amount of time to repair their cars.”10

Valore established his operations center and ordered his men to set up 

observation and listening posts and to begin aggressive patrolling. Additional 

sensors were also positioned around the perimeter of the tank farm and along the 

jungle-covered trails into the facility. These measures produced quick results, as 

the sensors indicated significant movement in the vicinity. On 9 April, Company I 

had its first glimpse of intruders when a Marine patrol sighted two men dressed in 

camouflage suits and paint.11

On their fourth night on the tank farm, the marines spotted a group of about 

nine intruders. When a patrol began to pursue them, the unidentified men split up 

into two or three smaller groups. Whenever the marines came close to capturing 

one group, the other intruders would maneuver to envelop the patrol. The patrol 

itself finally split into two teams in an effort to outmaneuver the targets. Suddenly, 

a trip flare went off, followed by bursts of gunfire. When the shooting stopped, 

Marine Cpl. Ricardo M. Villahermosa lay wounded. He was evacuated to Gorgas 

Army Hospital on Ancon Hill, where he died an hour after midnight, the first 

American military fatality connected with the Panama crisis. It was suspected and 

quickly confirmed that the mortal wound had been inflicted by friendly fire.12

The death of Villahermosa “got everyone upset,” according to Valore. Maj. 

Eddie Keith, the commanding officer of the security company at the Marine 

barracks at Rodman, told the captain that his men should not have been on patrol 

with rounds in the chambers of their weapons. To go out “locked and loaded,” 

Keith elaborated, violated standing procedures for security duty on the tank farm. 

In response, Valore explained that Colonel Conley, an officer who remembered well 

how a restrictive weapons policy had contributed to the deaths of 241 marines in 

the 1983 Beirut bombing, had authorized placing magazines in the M16 rifles and 

rounds in the chambers. Furthermore, Valore made clear with Conley’s backing, 

9 Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90; USMC Command Chronology and Supporting Documents, 6 April 

1988–31 May 1990. The description of the Arraiján Tank Farm is from Lt. Col. Nicholas E. Reynolds, 

Just Cause: Marine Operations in Panama, 1988–1990 (Washington, D.C.: History and Museums 

Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1996), pp. 3–4. 10 Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90. First and second quotes from Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 6. Third 

quote from USMC Command Chronology and Supporting Documents, 6 April 1988–31 May 1990. 11 USMC Command Chronology and Supporting Documents, 6 April 1988–31 May 1990.

12 Ibid.; Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90; Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 7.
69

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

he intended to continue this less restrictive policy.13 The next day the marines 

dealt with the death of their comrade as they went about their routine activities 

and prepared for another night of guard duty and patrolling. They had no way 

of knowing that, on the heels of the previous night’s tragedy, they were about to 

participate in the most violent and the most controversial incident of the two-year 

crisis in Panama preceding Operation Just Cause.

14

The first indication of what was to come occurred at dusk on 12 April, when 

the platoon responsible for the west side of the tank farm reported probing activity 

by up to ten armed people. An hour or so later, reports began coming into Company 

I’s operations center concerning another, larger body of intruders, possibly forty 

to fifty, moving about Arraiján. At that time, Valore had a surveillance and target 

acquisition (STA) team of 

thirteen marines and a corpsman 

in the western extreme of the 

tank farm, about 700 meters 

from friendly lines. In addition, 

an element from the 3d Platoon 

was out on patrol, while another 

from the 1st Platoon was about 

to begin patrolling. The reports 

prompted Valore to move with 

his first sergeant to a better 

vantage point where they could 

confirm the sightings firsthand 

and assess the situation. Once 

at their new location, the two 

men observed at least a dozen 

intruders between the tanks and 

the Inter-American Highway.

As the Marine company’s 

1st Platoon consolidated near 

Valore’s location, shots were 

13 Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90; Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 6–8. 14 The following account of the 12 April 1988 tank farm incident is based on the following 

sources: Intervs, author with Maj Tom King, U.S. Army, and Maj Clyde Vaughn, U.S. Army, 18 May 

89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Maj Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. Army, 28 Apr 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Maj William Graves, U.S. Army, 20 Aug 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; and Maj John Mulholland, 

U.S. Army, 30 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Frank with Valore, 29 Mar 90; and Len-Rios with 

Conley, 2 Sep 88. Log, JTF‐Panama Duty Officer, 12 Apr 88; Note, Anderson to SOUTHCOM Dir 

of Opns (SCJ–3), 130600R Apr 88. Msgs, CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 131600Z Apr 88, sub: 

INTSUM 1–88; CDR, Marine Forces-Panama (COMMARFORPM) to CDR, JTF-Panama, 131700Z 

Apr 88, sub: Arraiján Tank Farm Incident Report #1; CDR, USARSO, to CDR, JTF-Panama, and 

CINCSO, 132000Z Apr 88, sub: USARSO Sitrep No. 30; SecDef to CINCSO, 132027Z Apr 88, sub: 

Public Affairs Guidance-Arraiján Tank Farm Incident; CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 132200Z 

Apr 88, sub: COMJTF-PM Sitrep No. 2; CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 140022Z Apr 88, sub: 

Special Sitrep-Firing at the Arraiján Tank Farm; CINCSO to JCS, 141830Z Apr 88, sub: Arraiján 

Tank Farm Incident No. 2; and USSOUTHCOM to Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), 142025Z 

Apr 88, sub: Arraiján: CINCSO Assessment. Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 14 Apr 88, sub: Update 

#54; Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 8–10.

A Marine patrol on the Arraiján Tank Farm, 

with jungle in the background
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

70

fired from a ravine located to the front, between the captain’s position and 

the highway. As the marines returned fire, Valore received an urgent report 

from the STA team, which moments earlier had reported probing in its area. 

Trip flares were going off, he was told, and ten to fifteen armed intruders were 

maneuvering against the small group. The platoon sergeant with the STA team 

requested illumination rounds from the company’s 81-mm. mortars, but Valore 

initially denied the request. He relented after receiving reports that convinced 

him the intruders were moving with hostile intent against another platoon in the 

southwest sector of the tank farm. As the volume of small arms and illumination 

fire increased, the STA team reported intruders still moving to encircle it and 

implored Valore to authorize the use of high explosive rounds. “Sir, I need some 

f––––g mortars,” the captain heard the team sergeant whisper urgently over the 

radio. Although the surveillance team had yet to come under direct fire, Valore 

approved the request on the grounds that other units were taking fire and firing 

back. He was not going to risk letting the intruders maneuver to within grenade 

range of the STA team.

Within minutes, “all hell broke loose” in the vicinity of the surveillance team. 

Then the 1st Platoon took more fire from the front. “At that time,” Valore recalls, 

“all bets were off, and we opened up with the machine gun and the Mark19 

that was available.”15 The first sergeant directed the fire into a ravine in front 

of the platoon. The effect of the Mark19 chain gun, which could fire over three 

hundred 40-mm. antipersonnel rounds per minute, was “devastating,” causing 

marines who moments before had perceived themselves in immediate jeopardy to 

cheer loudly.

Word of the firefight spread rapidly. Valore maintained continuous 

communications with Conley and the Marine barracks. These reports were relayed 

up the chain of command to the JTF-Panama operations center at Fort Clayton 

and to Colonel Rossi, the joint task force’s chief of staff. From his office and, 

later, from the operations center, Rossi, joined by Cols. Jay Cope and Paul F. 

Morgan, JTF-Panama’s ranking operations and intelligence officers, respectively, 

began the process of crisis management at the tactical level. One of his first actions 

was to place the 193d Infantry Brigade, the 16th Military Police Brigade, and 

the 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, on full alert. The 193d’s mortar platoon began 

setting up its weapons on the athletic field at Fort Kobbe, preparing to fire them 

over Howard Air Force Base into the Arraiján Tank Farm. An infantry platoon 

at Kobbe was ordered to move to Howard’s flight line, adjacent to the fort, for 

possible employment. Meanwhile, at the air base, security forces closed off the 

installation and shut down the main access road curving through it. A total of ten 

helicopters were placed on strip alert: 3 UH–60 Black Hawks, 3 UH–1 Hueys, 2 

AH–1 Cobras, and 2 OH–58 Kiowas. Of these, only an OH–58 actually deployed 

over the tank farm, providing aerial lighting for the marines. An AC–130 Spectre 

gunship on hand at Howard was also launched to track the intruders with its 

infrared camera. At one point in the evening, the Marine command post at Rodman 

informed the operations center at Fort Clayton that PDF buses were speeding with 

their headlights turned off from the vicinity of the Bridge of the Americas toward 

the tank farm, perhaps to reinforce the intruders. The marines at Rodman asked 

15 Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90.
71

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

permission to block the road. Rossi and Cope discussed the request, then ordered 

the Inter-American Highway blocked as a prudent defensive measure. 

While Rossi, Cope, and Morgan issued orders on behalf of JTF-Panama, the 

SOUTHCOM Center for Treaty Affairs was contacting key PDF leaders, including 

the director of operations, Col. Elías Castillo. Castillo denied PDF involvement in 

the firefight but agreed to send a senior officer to the tank farm in an attempt to 

arrange a cease-fire and disengage the forces. Another Panamanian officer, Capt. 

Moisés Cortizo, commander of the 5th Infantry Company at Fort Amador, agreed 

to provide PDF elements to assist in controlling the massive traffic snarl on the 

blocked Inter-American Highway. Cortizo himself went to the Arraiján Tank Farm, 

where he met with Conley.

Around 2200, General Loeffke arrived. The general had decided to go 

personally to the tank farm after he learned that Valore was requesting fire support 

from Cobra attack helicopters. The problem was that Cobras could not be launched 

except by order of the JTF-Panama commander, and Loeffke wanted to have a 

firsthand look at the situation before making any such decision. When he arrived at 

the Marine operations center dressed in civilian clothes, the company’s exasperated 

executive officer asked him who the hell he was. The answer sufficed to have 

Loeffke promptly escorted to the front of the tank farm, where he received an 

account of the night’s activities directly from Valore.

By that time the shooting, which had gone on intermittently for over two hours, 

had tapered off. Loeffke ordered a cease-fire and, accompanied by Cortizo and 

others, rode with lights on and horns blaring into the area separating the marines 

and the intruders. With the end of the firefight, Valore recalled the surveillance and 

target acquisition team and his men still on patrol. The marines, once assembled, 

reported no casualties. The captain then asked permission to police the battlefield 

to determine the extent of any damage inflicted on the intruders. Loeffke, to 

Valore’s surprise, denied the request. The general also refused to let a Special 

Forces (SF) team do an immediate patrol outside the tank farm. A sweep of the 

area, Loeffke had decided, would not take place until dawn, several hours away. In 

the meantime, Valore was told to report with a good portion of his company to the 

Marine barracks for a debriefing.

Rossi and Conley presided over the “hot wash” with the marines that commenced 

around 0100. During the session, Valore and his men answered questions, and 

JTF-Panama component commanders discussed the lessons to be derived from the 

just-concluded incident. While the hot wash was in progress, marines remaining on 

the tank farm watched through night-vision devices “as a number of the intruders 

apparently received first aid” and as others “either wounded or dead” were dragged 

away and evacuated. From various other sources came reports of blacked-out 

ambulances and PDF buses speeding from the Arraiján Tank Farm toward Panama 

City.16 There was thus every reason to believe that the intruders had suffered 

serious casualties. At issue was whether there would be any remaining evidence to 

substantiate this assumption by the time the sweep scheduled for 0700 commenced.

Conley was in charge of the sweep. Rossi, at SOUTHCOM’s direction, was 

present “to ensure that a USARSO team is on hand to observe the sweep and make 

sure it is well done,” a hint of doubt concerning the marines’ ability to do the job. 

16 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 8.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

72

Rossi later reported to Cisneros that, as of noon on 13 April, no evidence had been 

found to suggest the marines had been fired on or had inflicted casualties. That 

afternoon, in accordance with a decision Loeffke had made during the incident, 

a battalion from the 193d relieved Company I on the tank farm. Valore’s men 

were being “stood down” for forty-eight hours of “rest and recreation.” In the 

meantime, officers at the Southern Command and JTF‐Panama tried to reconstruct 

what exactly had happened to the marines the night of 12 April.17

The initial findings passed up the chain of command tried to superimpose order 

over a chaotic event. Predictably, the reports contained inaccurate, even some 

contradictory information, but by and large they supported, with a few qualifications, 

the marines’ version of the firefight. USARSO military intelligence assets available 

to JTF‐Panama reported that at least five sensors had been activated on the tank 

farm, “indicating the likelihood of an intrusion of a relatively large group.” For his 

part, Loeffke informed Woerner, “I am convinced that hostile activity led to both 

firefights [11 and 12 April].” Cisneros, with Woerner’s authorization, reported to 

the Joint Chiefs that, although no evidence of the opposing force or its whereabouts 

had been found, movement sensors at the Arraiján Tank Farm had detected at least 

ten to twelve intruders. Other intelligence sources spoke of ambulances arriving 

at the site and estimated up to twenty-three casualties among the intruders. On 14 

April, Woerner made his own assessment in a message to Crowe. The SOUTHCOM 

commander admitted to the limited evidence available, but cited sensor activations 

and Marine sightings as indication that perhaps ten to fifteen intruders had entered 

the tank farm. The physical evidence of a firefight was less conclusive, he added, 

but, in his judgment, a PDF element had gone onto the tank farm, fired a few 

rounds, and initiated other hostile actions as part of Noriega’s efforts to disparage 

and to sow confusion among the newly arrived security forces.18

In the days that followed, the regime’s psychological warfare, which according 

to JTF-Panama demonstrated “a high degree of sophistication in propaganda and 

disinformation,” made the most of Villahermosa’s death and the firefight a night 

later. A communiqué from the Panamanian Ministry of Government and Justice 

expressed sympathy over the death of the marine, denied PDF involvement in the 

incident, and taunted that “not even the most naive could believe that a foreign 

patrol could infiltrate the largest US military air base . . . in Latin America without 

having a single one of its members captured, injured or killed by the most powerful 

army in the world.” As for the 12 April incident, Cortizo was quoted as calling it a 

17 Quotes from ibid. See also Note, Anderson to SCJ–3, 130600R Apr 88. Using the analogy that 

getting right back on a horse after a fall was the best remedy, the commander, 1st Battalion, 508th 

Infantry, urged that the Marine company be allowed to stay on the tank farm but was told by Colonel 

Conley and the Navy officer commanding at Rodman that the decision to pull the marines out was final. That Captain Valore had approved mortar fire on his own authority was a cause of great concern, 

even with the battalion commander. Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Barefield, U.S. Army, 7 Nov 

90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 18 Interv, Benis Frank with Col Thomas W. Roberts, USMC, 30 Mar 90, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 

Quotes from Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 132200Z Apr 88. Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 

141830Z Apr 88; and USSOUTHCOM to CJCS, 142025Z Apr 88. One potential source of evidence 

as to the number of intruders was the videotapes from the AC–130 that had flown over the tank farm. 

The tapes showed thirty to forty people, but the poor quality of the images made determining if the 

individuals were marines or intruders impossible. Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 182200Z 

Apr 88, sub: INTREP No. 5–88.
73

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

“provocation, an illegal action in Panamanian territory.” “If there was shooting,” 

the PDF captain added, “it was among the US soldiers who are killing themselves.” 

In what would become a recurrent theme, regime-controlled media depicted the 

marines as hysterical, doped‐up hotheads firing their weapons at themselves and 

at jungle foliage. The whole incident showed that “they are even afraid of palm 

trees,” Noriega quipped.19

The “Night of the Swaying Palm Trees” became a contentious issue, but not, 

as one might have expected, between the marines and the Panamanian military. 

Company I’s 1st Sgt. Alexander Nevgloski dismissed Noriega’s gibes by saying, 

“We don’t shoot at palm trees unless they’re shooting at us.” What puzzled and 

then embittered the marines were insinuations emanating from JTF-Panama and 

the Southern Command that the PDF propaganda might be true. The problem 

began with the debriefing at the Marine barracks, which in one form or another 

was repeated over the course of several days. While Valore recalled several of the 

colonels present saying positive things to him, others privy to the interrogation 

likened it to the Spanish Inquisition. The questioning seemed excessively critical 

at times and intended to cast doubt on the veracity of Company I’s account of the 

incident. This was also the impression being passed to the commander of the 1st 

Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne), elements of which were about to relieve the 

marines at the tank farm: in some way, not specified, the Leathernecks were said 

to have “screwed up.” The matter came to a head at a press conference held by 

SOUTHCOM’s Public Affairs Office. Sergeant Nevgloski had no more finished 

depicting the intruders as “highly professional,” when “an informed U.S. source” 

told reporters that “anomalies” existed in the marines’ account of events of 11–12 

April, that there was a lack of evidence to indicate an intrusion took place on 

the twelfth, and that the marines were inexperienced, did not know the terrain, 

and were nervous about being “put into what they felt was a combat situation 

early after their arrival in Panama.” The company(-) had been taken off the tank 

farm after the shootings, the spokesperson added, presumably to compose itself. 

In the meantime, they had been replaced by “more seasoned troops of the 193rd 

Light Infantry Brigade.” When pressed for further information, including whether 

the marines had been “shooting at shadows,” a SOUTHCOM information officer 

replied, “At this point in time, we don’t categorically rule anything out.”20

Confronted with an apparent lack of official support, Valore, with Conley’s 

support, refused to alter his account of the firefight. Loeffke, for his part, did not 

question Valore’s insistence that hostile forces had fired on the marines. But a 

rumor began circulating that the general, together with key members of his staff 

and their counterparts at the Southern Command, regarded the marines’ conduct 

on the twelfth as overreactive—“undisciplined” and “trigger happy.” The marines, 

with their professionalism and competency being called into question, began to 

19 All quotes except Noriega’s from Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 132230Z Apr 88. 

Translation of La Crítica editorial, “Marines Make Fools of Themselves,” 14 Apr 88. Noriega quote 

from Buckley, Panama, p. 140. 20 All quotes except the second, eighth, and last from Tropic Times, 18 Apr 88. Interv, author 

with Roberts, 30 Mar 90. Second quote from Interv, author with Graves, 20 Aug 91. Washington Post, 

16 Apr 88. Eighth quote from New York Times, 14 Apr 88. Last quote from Buckley, Panama, p. 140. 

Valore Interv, 29 Mar 90; Maj Robert B. Neller, USMC, Marines in Panama: 1988–1990 (Paper, 

USMC Staff College, Quantico, Va., 1991); Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 9.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

74

speak out critically on what they considered the “garrison attitude” of the U.S. 

forces stationed in Panama. Company I had been sent to Panama on an “operational 

mission,” only to find “a business as usual as much as possible mentality” on the 

part of the in-country forces. “We were down there to take care of a mission,” 

one Marine officer declared. “We weren’t going home at night.” Several marines 

voiced their opinion that Woerner would feel more comfortable in a pinstriped 

suit. At the root of the charges and countercharges was a difference of perception, 

in which the viewpoints of high‐ranking officers based in Panama, for whom the 

crisis was a politico‐military minefield and who had been told not to exacerbate 

the situation or start a war, clashed with those of the newly arrived marines, who 

had been given an assignment that placed them squarely in the line of hostile fire. 

This perceptual gap would widen as the crisis continued. At the outset, however, 

what seemed painfully obvious to the marines was that they could not count on the 

support of JTF-Panama and the Southern Command in any incident that carried 

with it the danger of drawing the United States into a military confrontation with 

the Panama Defense Forces.21

Behind the scenes, in a two-track response to the events of 12 April, the 

Southern Command took steps to prevent a further escalation of the crisis, while 

making the gravity of the situation clear to the Panamanian military. To begin 

with, the command approved Loeffke’s request to postpone a company-size 

airmobile exercise at Madden Dam that JTF-Panama had planned as a joint 

training event and show of force. Citing increased tension in the crisis, Cisneros 

went even further in declaring that SOUTHCOM’s Operations Directorate 

would require at least seventy-two hours’ notice to consider all future exercises. 

At the same time, he conveyed a message to the Panama Defense Forces that 

was anything but conciliatory. Woerner, in keeping with orders he had received 

from Washington following Delvalle’s ouster, had discontinued his meetings 

with Noriega. Cisneros, however, continued to consult with PDF colonels on 

treaty matters. After the firefight, he met with Colonel Castillo and delivered a 

virtual ultimatum. Not only would the Panamanian military be held responsible 

for armed intrusions on U.S. facilities, but the death of any U.S. serviceman 

by hostile fire would assuredly produce a military response. When the colonel 

swore that Panama’s armed forces were not involved in any provocations, 

Cisneros countered that Noriega was using the intrusions in hopes of creating 

a Panamanian martyr. The PDF colonel charged that Cisneros was calling him 

a liar. Cisneros replied that the colonel was, in fact, either a liar or a dupe. The 

confrontation ended on this note of mutual recrimination, casting doubts over 

how productive any future meetings might be.22

21 The quotes concerning the marines’ perception of the in-country forces come from Intervs, 

author with Valore, 29 Mar 90; Conley, 2 Sep 88; and Anderson, 30 Mar 90. The first two quotes 

expressing the joint task force’s perceptions of the marines come from several informal conversations between the author and JTF-Panama officers and enlisted men. The Marine Corps later awarded 

Valore and Sergeant Nevgloski the Bronze Star for their actions on the tank farm. 22 Msg, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 150006Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 4; 

Interv, author with Brig Gen Marc Cisneros, U.S. Army, 1 May 89, Quarry Heights, Panama. Msg, 

CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 092154Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 1, had directed 

JTF-Panama to develop a major training event to be used as a show of force.
75

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

From the perspective of Fort Clayton, the “initiation by fire” on 11–12 April 

validated the need for JTF-Panama as an operational headquarters in the crisis, 

but highlighted several deficiencies in the organization just three days after its 

activation. As Loeffke informed Vuono, the firefight was “in a way beneficial: it 

forced our JTF to operate and get our procedures smoothed out.” Within a few 

days of the tank farm incident, the JTF-Panama operations center, which had been 

the near-exclusive preserve of Army “green suiters,” tended more to a “purple” 

hue, as the other service components began sending representatives, some on a 

daily basis, others at least during periods of rising tension. The command also 

moved to improve joint communications links. The hot wash conducted by Rossi 

after the firefight had revealed communication problems between military police at 

Fort Amador and Navy security police at the Rodman Naval Station, and between 

U.S. ground elements and the AC–130 conducting aerial reconnaissance of the 

Arraiján Tank Farm that night. To improve joint tactical communications, U.S. 

Army, South, on behalf of JTF-Panama, provided secure FM radios to the Air 

Force and Navy.23

The firefight also raised command and control issues that demanded immediate 

attention. After 9 April, Loeffke had assumed that, as the JTF-Panama commander, 

he exercised operational control over Company I through Colonel Conley, whom 

he understood to be his Marine Forces-Panama, or MARFOR, component 

commander. Yet, when Loeffke arrived at the tank farm in the last stages of the 

firefight, he found the Navy officer in command at Rodman wanting “to run the 

battle” on the conviction that Company I still fell under the Navy’s control. “We 

stayed out of it until the marines started shooting HE mortar rounds and asking for 

Army air,” Loeffke reported later to Vuono. “We then took over and asked [the] 

Navy captain to monitor only.”24

The confusion surrounding who was in charge the night of the firefight 

apparently stemmed from the ambiguity surrounding command and control 

arrangements discussed shortly after Valore’s rifle company and Colonel Conley 

had arrived in Panama. In talks between the colonel and the NAVSO commander, 

Rear Adm. Jerry G. Gneckow, the admiral informed Conley that Company I came 

under NAVSO’s operational control and would provide direct support to the Marine 

security force company at Rodman for the purpose of securing naval installations 

in Panama. In the event that the SOUTHCOM commander activated JTF-Panama, 

Gneckow went on to say, then that joint headquarters, not NAVSO, would exercise 

operational control of the marines in Panama, with Conley assuming the role of 

the joint task force’s MARFOR component commander. On 9 April, immediately 

after Woerner did activate JTF-Panama, Conley sent an officer to Fort Clayton to 

provide liaison with the new headquarters. At Rodman, he also continued to work 

on his original mission of planning for a follow-on flow of forces from the 6th 

Marine Expeditionary Brigade. 

All of this seemed straight forward enough, except for the fact that the 

chain of command of the Navy captain at Rodman did not run directly through 

23 Intervs, author with Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89; Majs Clyde Vaughan and Angel Rivera, U.S. 

Army, 16 Mar 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; and Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 27 Mar 89, 

Fort Clayton, Panama. Quote from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to DA, 152330Z Apr 88, sub: Update No. 

9. Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 140022Z Apr 88. 24 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to DA, 152330Z Apr 88, sub: Update No. 9.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

76

SOUTHCOM’s Navy component, but rather back through a different chain to 

the U.S. Atlantic Command (LANTCOM), a unified headquarters in Norfolk, 

Virginia, commanded by a full admiral. From the Navy captain’s perspective, 

therefore, Valore’s company was not a SOUTHCOM or a NAVSO asset but a unit 

assigned by headquarters under LANTCOM in support of the Marine security force 

company at Rodman. To complicate matters further, the tank farm was a facility 

that fell under the naval station’s direct responsibility. Thus, when the firefight 

erupted, the Navy captain arrived on the scene to direct the marines he believed to 

be under his control. His encounter with Loeffke, who also claimed control over 

the marines, revealed an urgent need to reach an understanding on command and 

control arrangements now that JTF-Panama was a functioning headquarters.25

The matter took almost two weeks to sort out. The Navy, according to Cisneros, 

balked at placing the marines under the operational control of an Army general. But 

the Southern Command asserted its right to determine the assignment of combat 

forces in the theater, and on 25 April Conley formally became the commander 

of all Marine forces in Panama, to include Company I, the Marine security force 

company at Rodman, and the Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team platoon. Under 

JTF-Panama, these marines remained responsible for the security of the naval 

station, the tank farm, Galeta Island, and the Farfan antenna site. In summarizing 

the causes of the command and control snarl, Loeffke stated simply, “We didn’t 

know one another.” Rossi, after trying to explain the problem, remarked, “Now 

you know why we’re all confused most of the time.”26

As the issue of who controlled Company I was being worked out, Conley 

and the Air Force component commander for JTF-Panama requested more troops 

to perform the separate set of security enhancement missions assigned to each 

of them. The Air Force cited the vulnerability of Howard Air Force Base as the 

principal reason for wanting more security police. As for the marines, the 12 April 

firefight had only confirmed their predeployment belief that a company(‐) was 

too small a unit to secure the tank farm properly. At minimum, a battalion was 

needed since it contained the personnel and the support assets that would enable 

the marines to perform their security enhancement mission more efficiently, while 

having the capability to sustain themselves from within their own organization. 

In that the Joint Chiefs had originally thought about sending a Marine brigade to 

Panama, Conley believed his request for a battalion reasonable and completely 

justified. (Valore noted later that, when JTF-Panama decided to pull his marines 

off the tank farm for 48 hours, elements from an Army battalion had taken their 

place.)27

Loeffke recommended to Woerner that the Southern Command approve the 

Air Force’s request for a hundred additional security police for Howard, but he 

took a different tack on Conley’s appeal. Instead of bringing in more marines, he 

suggested that MARFOR troop levels be increased by rotating USARSO units, 

25 Intervs, Frank with Valore, 29 Mar 90; author with Anderson, 30 Mar 90; and Conley, 2 

Sep 88. USMC Command Chronology and Supporting Documents, 6 April 1988–31 May 1990; 

Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 5–6. 26 Msg, CDR, U.S. Navy, South (COMUSNAVSO), to CINCSO, 291846Z Apr 88; Neller, 

Marines in Panama; Intervs, author with Anderson, 30 Mar 90; Loeffke, 27 Mar 89; and Rossi, 24 

May 89. The quotes are from the Loeffke and Rossi interviews, respectively. 27 Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 19 Apr 88, sub: Update #55; Anderson Interv, 30 Mar 90.
77

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

namely military police and elements from the 193d, under Conley’s operational 

control. The proposal stemmed in part from doubts Loeffke and his staff still 

harbored about the suitability of what they perceived as the marines’ “warrior 

mentality” for security enhancement duties. There was also the issue of sending 

too warlike a signal to Noriega and the Panamanian military should more U.S. 

combat power be brought in from outside Panama. The deployment of Conley’s 

headquarters and Company I to Panama had served the purpose of “priming the 

pump.” Should a Marine expeditionary unit or a Marine expeditionary brigade be 

needed, the foundations had been set for its deployment. But there was no reason 

at the moment, Loeffke believed, to increase the Marine presence in Panama. 

Woerner agreed and approved Loeffke’s recommendation to use USARSO forces 

to bolster the marines. The initial Army units to come under Marine Forces-Panama 

on a temporary basis included elements of the 519th Military Police Battalion and 

Company B, 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry.28

Déjà Vu

Valore and his men returned to their security mission on the tank farm a 

few days after the firefight. In the weeks that followed, they received additional 

equipment and manpower—beacons, loudspeakers, video equipment, additional 

sensors, Air Force and Navy dog teams, and the USARSO elements Loeffke had 

promised—to help them deal with trespassers on the facility. In related operations, 

other U.S. units were trying to get a handle on the exact composition and intentions 

of armed intruders in the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point north of the tank 

farm, and in the jungle west of Howard Air Force Base. As sightings and sensors 

indicated an increase in intruder activity, the issue quickly became a Priority 

Intelligence Requirement that would preoccupy the Southern Command and JTFPanama commanders and staff for a better part of the year to come.

Woerner expressed his concern over the matter four days after the 12 April 

firefight when he directed Col. Chuck Fry, the SOCSOUTH commander, to conduct 

reconnaissance and surveillance missions to “find, fix, and capture intruders.” 

Fry responded by setting up Task Force Gray, composed of three-man Special 

Forces teams; a twelve-man reaction force from the 3d Battalion, 7th Special 

Forces Group; and aviation assets from the 617th Special Operations Aviation 

Detachment. An AH–1 Cobra attack helicopter and an AC–130 Spectre gunship 

were on-call, as was an immediate reaction platoon from the 1st Battalion, 508th 

Infantry, the conventional Army unit barracked at Fort Kobbe, adjacent to Howard 

Air Force Base. Fry’s three-man teams would conduct daytime patrols “followed 

by infiltration of observation posts to points along likely enemy infiltration routes.” 

In the days following Woerner’s directive, Task Force Gray set up three observation 

posts in the jungle west of Howard.29

Shortly thereafter, Lt. Col. Robert Barefield, commanding officer of the 1st 

Battalion, 508th Infantry, received word from the 193d Brigade headquarters that 

28 Quote on “priming the pump” from Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 19 Apr 88, sub: Update 

#55. Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 10. A Marine colonel ruminating on Woerner’s decision later observed, 

“We tried our damnedest to get an infantry battalion on the ground,” but “they did not want a lot of 

marines down there.” Anderson Interv, 30 Mar 90. 29 Interv, Frank with Valore, 29 Mar 90. Quote from Interv, author with Col Chuck Fry, U.S. 

Army, 1 May 89, Albrook Air Station, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

78

Fry’s teams would be operating in the vicinity of the air base. Because the 1st 

Battalion of the 508th was responsible for conventional patrols in the area and 

because the battalion’s Company C had the “hot” platoon that would respond to any 

emergency involving the Special Forces, Barefield immediately called the 193d’s 

liaison officer at Special Operations Command, South, and asked what the teams 

would be doing and where exactly they would be located. The reply he received 

surprised, then angered, him: the special operators did not believe he needed to know 

that information. When he persisted, asking for at least a radio frequency and a link-up 

point that the Special Forces team and his battalion might use in case of a problem, 

he was told not to worry. Frustrated, he informed SOCSOUTH headquarters that, 

given the risks inherent in uncoordinated operations, the Special Forces team should 

not call him should it require assistance in the event of an emergency.30

About 1445 on 20 April, a Task Force Gray team from the 7th Special Forces 

Group moved into the jungle, 150 meters west of the Howard flight line, close to 

what had been designated as Observation Post 2.31 The location for the outpost had 

been selected for its proximity to the intersection of several trails running through 

the dense foliage. Reconnaissance had revealed a widening of the trails, together 

with a handful of “cave-like” areas, possibly rally points, that someone had cut into 

the jungle. At dusk, the team moved from its jungle cover to Observation Post 2 

on the edge of a north-south trail. The men positioned themselves for a 360-degree 

line of sight and set three Claymore antipersonnel mines on the periphery of the 

outpost. An hour later, it was dark enough for one of the team to don his night 

vision goggles. He immediately saw about two dozen uniformed persons, each 

carrying a rifle, advancing toward his position. Equally alarming, every fourth 

person wore night vision goggles.

Two of the unidentified men were approaching an area covered by one of the 

Claymores. The two showed no sign of having seen the mine, but the Special 

Forces team leader could not take the chance that they would find it and reposition 

it to go off in the direction of the observation post. He therefore ordered the 

mine detonated. Following the explosion, about half of the unidentified intruders 

retreated eastward across a small rise. The others dropped to the ground and began 

crawling toward Observation Post 2 on its right and left flanks. Fearful of being 

encircled, the team opened fire with two M16 rifles and a squad automatic weapon 

(SAW). The men expended several hundred rounds, mainly from the SAW, and 

one team member observed what appeared to be the night vision goggles of one of 

the intruders shatter as the man fell backwards. When the Special Forces stopped 

firing, the team leader detonated a second Claymore to clear an escape route. The 

three men then retreated to a position about 200 meters southeast of Observation 

Post 2 and took cover.32

30 Barefield Interv, 7 Nov 90.

31 Unless otherwise noted, the account of the events that followed on the night of 20 April is 

based on Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 210230Z Apr 88; SCJ–3 to JCS J–3, 221945Z Apr 88; AFOSI 721st 

Det to HQ, AFOSI, 212145Z Apr 88; CDR, 470th MI Bde, to USDAO, 240025Z Apr 88; and CDR, 

470th MI Bde, to JCS, 070115Z May 88, sub: IIR. Intervs, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89; Cisneros, 

1 May 89; Maj J. C. Hiett, U.S. Army, 27 Apr 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Barefield, 7 Nov 90; 

Graves, 18 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; and King and Vaughn, 18 May 89. 32 An Army officer standing on the porch of the mess hall at Fort Kobbe distinctly remembers 

hearing the two Claymores go off before the small arms fire began. Graves Interv, 18 May 91.
79

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

During the confrontation, 

the Special Forces team had 

radioed for help. As the word 

passed from headquarters to 

headquarters, Cisneros made 

his way to the Tunnel at Quarry 

Heights, Colonel Rossi moved 

into the operations center at 

Fort Clayton, while Loeffke 

hastened to join Fry at the Task 

Force Gray operations room in 

a hangar at Howard. Fry, for his 

part, dispatched his twelve-man 

reaction force to link up with 

the Special Forces team at its 

new position. While this rescue 

force was en route, the colonel 

received approval from Quarry 

Heights to launch an AC–130 

with infrared cameras to fly 

over the area. SOUTHCOM 

also directed Rossi to have 

JTF-Panama send elements of the Navy’s Special Boat Unit 26 to check out reports 

of two small boats operating off the coast where the shooting had taken place. The 

Navy commander who took the call sent the boats but not before chiding Loeffke’s 

chief of staff for trying to tell the Navy how to do its job.

When Loeffke arrived at Howard, Fry asked him to summon the on-call 

reaction platoon at Fort Kobbe. Loeffke called the 193d and directed that the 

platoon report to Howard and that the rest of Company C be placed on alert. 

Accordingly, Barefield assembled the company and prepared the reaction platoon 

to deploy. But he delayed sending anyone to Howard until he could ascertain the 

chain of command for the Special Forces involved. He went to the airfield himself, 

where, joining Loeffke, he received the briefing he had sought earlier in the day. 

The information confirmed his fears that there was no coordinated plan to extract 

the Special Forces team.

In due course, Company C’s 3d Platoon arrived at Howard, accompanied by 

the company commander, Capt. William Graves. The captain, who had previously 

served in the 7th Special Forces Group, asked some of his former colleagues in 

the operations room about the situation. To his consternation, he received the 

answer Barefield had been given that morning: the information was too sensitive to 

disseminate. Graves thought this a strange reply under the circumstances: elements 

of his company were about to assist in extricating a Special Forces team in trouble. 

Irritated, the captain proceeded to an office in the hangar where Loeffke was briefing 

the reaction platoon on its mission. In essence, the platoon, accompanied by a 

Special Forces escort, would enter the Air Force ammunition depot at Howard, cut 

three passageways through the chain-link fence surrounding it, and wait for Fry’s 

three-man team and the larger rescue force to come through the openings. Once the 

Special Forces soldiers were safely inside the depot, Loeffke said, the 3d Platoon 

The guard house at the entrance to Quarry 

Heights, the location of the U.S. Southern 

Command headquarters
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

80

from Fort Kobbe should shoot to kill anything that moved. After the briefing, the 

general accompanied the platoon to its dismount point. The men entered the depot 

area and were preparing to cut the fence when they received word to wait.

The reason for the delay was that Fry was talking with the stranded Green 

Berets over the radio, trying to coax them in. But they were reporting continuous 

movement in their vicinity and thus were refusing to budge from their fallback 

position. When the AC–130 over the area detected a group of twenty to twentyfive persons moving toward the ammunition depot, the SF team was advised of 

the group’s presence, while the rescue force Fry had deployed was told to hold 

its position. Meanwhile, Loeffke talked to Cisneros about whether the gunship 

or the 3d Platoon should open fire on the unidentified group. Because of the 

mixture of friendly and hostile forces in the area and the uncertainty surrounding 

the whereabouts of either, neither general could say for certain that the group 

discovered by the AC–130’s infrared camera was hostile. Given the circumstances, 

the judicious decision was to withhold fire.33

Once Fry realized that he could not extricate his men that night, he decided to 

pull them out after dawn. For this, he was given operational control of Company C 

from Fort Kobbe. Graves was uneasy with the mission. His company would be the 

third friendly element in the area, and he did not know where the other two were. 

There was also the possibility that the intruders might still be around, although 

the two groups that had been tracked by the AC–130—one near Observation Post 

2, the other near the ammunition depot—had apparently withdrawn well before 

dawn. Despite Graves’ misgivings, his soldiers entered the jungle from Howard at 

first light. Fry, his 9-mm. pistol drawn, led the way, walking point with a fire team 

from the company. The colonel’s small group used a main trail, while Graves, two 

infantry platoons, and a scout platoon(-) shadowed them from the jungle. Fry found 

his three-man team on the trail in the middle of a perimeter set up by the original 

twelve-man rescue force. The colonel entered the perimeter several minutes ahead 

of Graves. By the time the captain arrived, Fry was visibly upset. The colonel had 

just learned that there had been no exchange of shots with intruders, but that the 

Special Forces team had done all the firing.34

As the colonel prepared to pull his men out of the jungle, Graves asked if 

Company C could stay and comb the area for evidence of what had occurred. After 

Fry consented, Graves sent out patrols that in due course found the site from which 

the Special Forces team had opened fire. Fragments from the two Claymores had 

penetrated the jungle foliage at a height of about three meters, a level unlikely to 

produce casualties. In fact, as with the tank farm firefight, no evidence of hostile 

casualties could be found, although an intelligence report later indicated that 

an ambulance, with the PDF clearing its way, had left the area the night of the 

33 Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89. Staff officers on duty in the U.S. Army, South, and JTF‐Panama 

and the SOUTHCOM operations centers confirmed that, on the night of 20–21 April, they had no 

idea who the AC–130 was tracking. Subsequent evaluation of the AC–130 videotape and other evidence confirmed that the group was, in fact, intruders. Intervs, author with Hiett, 27 Apr 90; and King 

and Vaughn, 18 May 89. Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 221945Z Apr 88. 34 In retrospect, both Fry and Loeffke commended the Special Forces team for its candor. The 

team members could easily have said that they had been fired upon, thereby avoiding the displeasure 

of their superiors. Their honesty, in Fry’s opinion, established their credibility regarding the events of 

that night. Intervs, author with Fry, 1 May 89; Loeffke, 31 May 89; and Graves, 18 May 91.
81

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

shooting and crossed the Bridge of the Americas, thus lending some support to the 

account of the Special Forces team member who reported having seen one of the 

intruders fall.

As with the 12 April firefight at the tank farm, the shooting incident west of 

Howard on 20 April was shrouded in ambiguity and raised several questions for 

U.S. military headquarters in Panama involved in crisis management. Two issues of 

critical importance dealt with the relationship between Special Operations Forces 

under the Special Operations Command, South, and conventional forces under 

JTF-Panama. Each group adhered to vastly different doctrinal and operational 

procedures. The special operators went into the field in small teams, preferred to 

work alone, and, because of their vulnerability, insisted on operations security, 

which generally meant dispensing with such formalities as situation reports and 

communications checks. Above all, it meant shrouding their missions in secrecy, 

not just from the opponent, but from friendly forces as well. Conventional forces, 

although used to procedures that placed a premium on coordination and the 

sharing of information with friendly units, were generally content to let the Special 

Operations Forces units go their own way. An exception was when they had to 

work together and in proximity to one another. At that point, the commanders 

of the conventional troops sought coordination with the special operators and 

information as to their mission, composition, and location. To be denied such 

cooperation could result in the conventional units acting blindly in an emergency, 

possibly at risk from both hostile and friendly fire. Acquiescence in these demands 

for coordination and information, of course, was exactly what the special operators 

believed could compromise their mission, their procedures, and, given the small 

size of the teams involved, their lives.

After the 20 April incident, the issue of interaction between conventional 

and unconventional forces came to a head, resulting in several compromises. 

Fry provided JTF‐Panama with a liaison officer, at least for the time being. The 

special operators also became more forthcoming in providing information to 

the commanders and staff of conventional units when the two forces worked in 

proximity to one another. Despite receiving these concessions, the conventional 

commanders still complained on occasion of being left uninformed about special 

operations that had the potential for placing conventional units in danger.35

35 Intervs, author with Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89; Col John A. Cope, U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort 

Clayton, Panama; Barefield, 7 Nov 90; and Hiett, 27 Apr 90. One example of continuing strains 

between Special Operations Forces and conventional forces at the tactical level is contained in the 

Loeffke Diary in an entry for 10 October 1988. Loeffke canceled an operation between the marines 

and the Special Forces when an Army platoon leader from Company C, 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, 

told the general of coordination problems with the Special Forces. Loeffke requested the report be 

put in a disposition form (DF), the text of which follows. “During my company’s commitment [5–11 

September 1988] at the Arraiján Tank Farm we had a problem with coordination with a Special 

Forces unit. . . . On two occasions, for example, Special Forces teams came across our positions. In 

both cases we had no radio contact, no prior planned visual link-up, nor any kind of warning they 

were approaching our position. In the case I was personally involved in, a two-man team walked 

across our sector during the early morning (approximately 0530 hrs). Due to limited visibility, it was 

with great difficulty that we were able to identify them as friendly forces. . . . Due to this same lack 

of coordination, I was sending patrols into areas not knowing exactly where the Special Forces units 

might have been or they knowing where we were.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

82

The problem of special operations and conventional forces working together 

at the tactical level raised another key issue, that of command and control. As 

commander of a subordinate unified command charged with the planning and 

execution of special operations, Fry worked directly for the SOUTHCOM 

commander. The night of 20–21 April, he was the officer who directed the efforts 

to extract the beleaguered Special Forces team, reporting to Woerner via Cisneros. 

Loeffke, after he arrived at Howard, did not challenge this arrangement. In his 

opinion, however, the special operations units, because they were engaged in a 

mission involving the Panama crisis and requiring JTF-Panama assistance, should 

have been under his operational control. With this in mind, he established his own 

“running dialogue” with Cisneros, a move that frustrated Fry, who later charged 

that Loeffke had undercut his handling of the situation. Fry was especially upset 

when, after the AC–130 had detected unidentified persons moving toward the 

ammunition depot at Howard, he had assembled forces to be flown into the area 

to set up an ambush, only to have those forces recalled while they were airborne. 

The recall came after Loeffke had informed Cisneros of the initiative, and the two 

generals had decided against it.36

Once the 20–21 April incident was over, Loeffke pushed for an immediate 

change in command and control relationships, as they pertained to JTF-Panama, 

between special operations and conventional forces (Chart 3). Cisneros agreed, 

and the next day, in a staff update briefing at Quarry Heights, Woerner told Fry 

that, on operations related directly to the crisis in Panama, the colonel worked for 

the JTF-Panama commander. Fry did not protest the SOUTHCOM commander’s 

directive but sought clarification after the meeting, arguing that “there appears to 

be a serious misunderstanding of USCINCSO’s intent.” By this he meant that JTFPanama would surely regard Woerner’s decision as placing Special Operations 

Forces under Loeffke’s operational control for “all phases of the crisis,” not just 

the operations scheduled by Task Force Gray west of Howard. In Fry’s opinion, 

JTF-Panama could establish missions, assign terrain, and provide administrative 

and logistical support to Special Operations Command, South, but Fry himself 

should direct the execution of any operation, with his men reporting straight to 

him, and he, in turn, to Loeffke. As the SOCSOUTH commander, he pointed out, 

he was obligated to exercise this control. Moreover, he had little confidence that 

conventional commanders and staff would employ his forces properly, ignorant as 

he believed most traditional officers were of special operations doctrine, procedures, 

and tactics. Loeffke, as Fry knew, had actually had eight years’ experience with 

the Special Forces, but, counteracting that, in Fry’s opinion, was the general’s 

opposition in the past to formal efforts to “divorce” Special Operations Forces 

from conventional forces because the separation, in Loeffke’s mind, would create 

an unacceptable “anomaly” within the Department of Defense.37

Loeffke, as Fry feared, clearly saw Woerner’s decision as giving JTF-Panama 

operational control over Special Operations Forces employed in crisis-related 

36 Interv, author with Fry, 1 May 89. Quote from Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. Interv, 

author with Hiett, 27 Apr 90. 37 The third and fourth quoted words from Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. Intervs, 

author with Cisneros, 1 May 89; Fry, 1 May 89; and Hiett, 27 Apr 90. Msg, CINCSO to CDR, 

JTF-Panama, 211813Z Apr 88. First and second quotes from Msg, CDR, SOCSOUTH, to CINCSO, 

231701Z Apr 88, sub: SOF Command and Control.
Emergency Operations Center

J–4

J–2

J–1

J–5

J–3 Provost Marshal J–6

Navy Forces Marine Forces Special Operations

Forces

Air Force Forces Army Forces

Commander, Joint Task Force (JTF)-Panama

Chief of Staff

Operational CommandOperational ControlCoordination

Chart 3—Command Relationships: Joint Task Force-Panama (as of May 1988)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

84

missions in Panama. Having acquired that authority, Loeffke’s next step was to try 

placing the special operations units engaged in any such mission under the direct 

control of his Marine Forces or Army Forces commander, depending on which one 

of the two had responsibility for the area in which the special operators would be 

working. The arrangement, Loeffke believed, would provide unity of command, 

improve coordination, and diminish the risks of friendly fire. Under the setup, 

the special operations units would report directly to their assigned JTF-Panama 

component commander, who would report to Loeffke or his staff. Fry resisted. 

The arrangement, in his opinion, violated his charter, which made him accountable 

only to the SOUTHCOM commander. He also reiterated his deeply held belief that 

the conventional component commanders did not “know how to command and 

control special operations people,” thereby increasing the risk to special operators 

in the field. Finally, there was the problem of interoperability. On one occasion 

Fry remarked that his special operators were “scared s——tless” when they had to 

withdraw through Army lines, especially when the Army units involved in security 

enhancement came from USARSO’s combat service support elements.38

Loeffke and Fry were never able to establish a working relationship that would 

resolve the command and control issue to the satisfaction of each. As Loeffke 

lamented, “The Marines were not our biggest problem. Our biggest problem was 

with the special operations units.”39 A year after the Observation Post 2 incident, 

Rossi could still say, “There continues to be a struggle, even today, as to who has 

operational control of Special Operations Forces when they’re working—when 

they’re operating—within an Area of Responsibility which is under the operational 

control of JTF-Panama.” On occasion, both Loeffke and Fry expressed a desire 

to resolve matters, but their respective positions could not be easily reconciled.40

Observers attributed the standoff and the friction between the two to the forceful 

personality—some said stubbornness—of each. The difficulty, however, ran deeper, 

being in essence a systemic concern for how best to organize and direct two very 

different kinds of forces with divergent roles, missions, and modi operandi. For this 

reason alone, the issue would remain a source of contention between JTF-Panama 

and Special Operations Command, South, well after Loeffke and Fry had departed 

the scene. 

Another problem with which Loeffke and Rossi found themselves grappling 

after the 20 April incident concerned the areas in Panama for which JTF-Panama 

had operational responsibilities. When the joint task force was activated, these 

areas conformed to the near indefensible hodgepodge of U.S. bases, facilities, and 

38 Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. Quotes from Interv, author with Fry, 1 May 89.

39 Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89.

40 Rossi Interv, 24 May 89. On 13 June 1988, Loeffke sent Fry a note emphasizing “integration” of conventional forces and Special Operations Forces as one of the three challenges Admiral 

Crowe had issued to the U.S. Special Operations Command. Fry responded in a letter in which he 

acknowledged that a “wall” had been erected between the two kinds of forces and cited the command and control system as “the root cause of our current problems.” In closing, he wrote, “I pledge 

my efforts and solicit your assistance in making the system work.” He signed the letter, “Chuck.” 

Loeffke replied with a note scribbled at the bottom of Fry’s letter. “My Friend,” it began, “We can

work together. However there has to be one man responsible for the overall fight.” As to who that 

man should be with respect to Special Operations Forces, neither officer, despite good intentions, 

could reach agreement with the other. Fry interpreted Loeffke’s note as a rebuff of his overture. Ltr, 

Fry to Loeffke, 17 Jun 88; Fry Interv, 1 May 89.
85

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

housing in Panama. On the east bank of the canal on the Pacific Ocean side of 

the country, Fort Clayton, Curundu, Quarry Heights, and several housing areas 

were Army responsibilities; Albrook Air Station belonged to the Air Force; and the 

Navy had responsibility for Fort Amador. On the west bank, the Air Force guarded 

Howard Air Force Base; the Navy had responsibility for Rodman Naval Station, 

the Arraiján Tank Farm, and the ammunition depot north of it; and the Army 

looked after Fort Kobbe (Map 3). As one staff officer described the arrangement of 

service responsibilities, there were “islands within islands.” The 20 April shooting 

incident revealed many of the problems inherent in this setup. With a minimum of 

coordination and centralized direction, Army units, special operations teams and 

aviation, Air Force security police, and an AC–130 had all been involved in the 

action west of Howard. Fry was ostensibly in charge, but, in fact, “everybody was 

talking to everybody.”41

“Goose eggs” were the solution JTF-Panama devised to unsnarl the tangle. 

Rossi simply drew three large circles on a map of the canal area and assigned the 

responsibility for security enhancement and coordination within each goose egg to 

a different commander answerable to JTF-Panama. The entire Atlantic side of the 

canal area went to an Army military police commander, while on the Pacific side, 

the Marine Forces commander, Colonel Conley, was given the west bank of the 

canal, and Colonel Bolt, the 193d Brigade commander, the east side. At this point, 

Conley, as promised by Loeffke, received operational control of an Army infantry 

company and two military police companies. The spectrum of these overhauled 

responsibilities was formally defined in JTF‐Panama Operation Order 10–88, 

published on 25 April.

The key function that the goose eggs facilitated was coordination, which was 

now centralized, and not control, which varied from one area of responsibility 

to another. For example, on the west bank of the canal, Conley still did not have 

control over internal security at Howard Air Force Base. The Air Force was 

adamant that the security police would retain responsibility for that function, per 

Air Force—and joint Army–Air Force—doctrine. Nor could Conley order security 

police to carry out Marine Forces missions under JTF-Panama. As Cope bemoaned, 

“They will not twitch off the vicinity of that airbase.” A similar situation existed at 

Albrook Air Station, where, again, the security police operated independently of the 

JTF-Panama component commander in charge of the area of responsibility, in this 

case Colonel Bolt. At Fort Kobbe, within the Marine Forces area of responsibility, 

the Army continued to provide security. Despite these anomalies, Loeffke could 

report to the Army chief of staff that JTF‐Panama was becoming “a mature fighting 

force” that was “integrating daily the Navy, Marine, Army, and Air Force assets 

into one coordinated effort.” Loeffke specifically noted that the Marine Corps area 

of responsibility included Howard Air Force Base, thus compelling the Air Force 

and the marines to talk to each other for “the first time” on air base ground defense, 

for which no joint doctrine existed between the aviators and the Leathernecks.42

41 First quote from Interv, author with Vaughn and Rivera, 16 Mar 89. Second quote from Interv, 

author with King and Vaughn, 18 May 89. 42 Intervs, author with King and Vaughn, 18 May 89; and Vaughn and Rivera, 16 Mar 89. First 

quote from Interv, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89. Interv, author with Augustine, 7 Jun 89. Msg, 

CDR, JTF-Panama, to COMNAVFORPM et al., 251600Z Apr 88, sub: JTF-PM OPORD 10–88. 

Remaining quotes from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 271425Z Apr 88, sub: Update No. 10.
J

J

J

ALBROOK

AIR STATION FORT

CLAYTON

SOUTHCOM

QUARRY

HEIGHTS

HOWARD

AIR FORCE BASE

RODMAN

NAVAL STATION

ARRAIJÁN

TANK FARM

FORT CLAYTON

ARMY BASE

FORT

KOBBE

FORT

 AMADOR

B A Y O F P A N A M A

VATICAN EMBASSY

U.S. EMBASSY

BRIDGE OF THE

AMERICAS

Flamenco Island

COMANDANCIA

MIRAFLORES 

LOCKS

PEDRO MIGUEL

LOCKS

PANAMA CITY

BALBOA

DIABLO HEIGHTS

PAITILLA

PANAMA

VIEJO

F O R M E R P A N A M A C A N A L Z O N E

Pacific Ocean Side

CANAL AREA 

1987–1989

0

0

4 Miles

4 Kilometers

Map 3
87

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

As JTF‐Panama moved in the wake of the 12 April firefight and the 20 

April incident to straighten out chain of command arrangements, geographical 

responsibilities, and operational procedures, the new headquarters also engaged 

the Southern Command in a dialogue over operational reporting. The issue had first 

been addressed on 9 April, the day JTF-Panama was activated, in the SOUTHCOM 

J–3 Guidance Message 1. In the message, Cisneros informed JTF-Panama and 

its components that they needed to monitor the timeliness and accuracy of their 

reports so that the Southern Command could make sound decisions and provide 

prompt answers to queries from the president, the secretary of defense, and the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a series of follow-on messages, Cisneros prohibited 

JTF-Panama and its components from sending information copies of their situation 

reports to commanders outside the theater. Information copies sent directly to other 

headquarters without SOUTHCOM’s review and input, Cisneros argued, could be 

misleading in that they would lack the broader assessment of events that only the 

unified command could provide, given its access to various intelligence sources 

off-limits to subordinate commanders and staff. Cisneros did insist, however, that 

information copies of component situation reports to JTF-Panama be submitted 

directly to the Southern Command. This procedure, he asserted, would further 

ensure that Washington and out-of-theater commanders received timely reports, 

thus saving Woerner from the avalanche of outside requests for clarification that 

inevitably followed the issuance of incomplete or erroneous accounts.43

Staff officers at JTF‐Panama readily acknowledged the need for better reporting. 

During the 12 April firefight, for example, much of the information received in 

the operations center at Fort Clayton had been inaccurate, vague, and conflicting. 

“Rumor rather than fact often clouded the issue,” Rossi informed Cisneros after 

the incident. Rossi and Cope also agreed with Cisneros’ directive that prohibited 

JTF-Panama’s components from reporting to their service headquarters and outside 

commands. Both men had experienced the frustration of being informed by a Navy 

admiral or Marine commander from a headquarters outside Panama of an event 

that should have been reported first through the JTF-Panama chain of command. 

But Loeffke’s staff objected to Cisneros’ decree that JTF-Panama’s components 

had to send information copies of their situation reports to the Southern Command. 

Inexact component reports arriving at SOUTHCOM could result in Cisneros and 

his staff themselves setting off the dreaded “avalanche” of inquiries from higher 

authorities. Accurate reporting could be better served, Rossi and Cope proposed, 

by having the components send their reports solely to JTF-Panama, which would 

consolidate and verify the information before passing them to the Southern 

Command in the form of a single report. Cisneros considered the proposal but 

rejected it on the grounds that a single situation report would take too long to reach 

SOUTHCOM, thereby impeding Woerner from responding promptly to the Joint 

Chiefs or National Command Authority.44

From the perspective of JTF-Panama, the conditions Cisneros set for both 

timely and accurate reports seemed mutually exclusive. If SOUTHCOM wanted 

43 Msgs, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 092154Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 

1; 121939Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 3; 150006Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance 

Message No. 4; and 160300Z Apr 88, sub: SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 5. 44 Quote from Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama [Rossi], to CINCSO [Cisneros], 140022Z Apr 88, sub: 

Special Sitrep—Firing at the Arraiján Tank Farm. SCJ–3 Guidance Message No. 3.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

88

critical information within minutes, even while an incident or event was in progress, 

accuracy was bound to suffer. That “the first report is always wrong” was taken 

as axiomatic within the joint task force staff, as reports from the field during the 

tank farm firefight and the special operations fracas west of Howard had clearly 

demonstrated. Indeed, as the result of precipitous reporting during the 20 April 

incident, Woerner’s first message to the Joint Chiefs, written before the Special 

Forces team had been recovered, stated that the intruders had fired first, when, 

in fact, they had not fired at all. Right after the event, Cisneros sent a personal 

communication to Loeffke stating the obvious: “significant improvements” still 

needed to be made in operational reporting.45

Concerning the dissemination of information, Loeffke often referred to the 

Southern Command as the buffer that kept him from having to engage in public 

relations with the news media or deal directly with the Joint Chiefs’ inquisitiveness. 

Yet, as Cope observed, the buffer could at times become a “conduit” for passing 

downward unreasonable demands from the highest authorities for information 

that, in the midst of an incident, JTF-Panama could not provide if it hoped to 

render an accurate report. Cope cited one recurring sequence in which the Joint 

Staff would receive word (often through CNN) about something happening 

in Panama; Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the director of operations in the Pentagon, 

would call and “beat up” on Cisneros for information; and Cisneros, in turn, would 

call JTF-Panama, wanting the information “yesterday.” As Woerner explained 

in later years, Washington too often preferred fast, even inaccurate, information 

to no information at all. From the outset, then, the contradictions inherent in the 

desire for accuracy and the demand for timeliness became a source of friction 

between the Southern Command and JTF‐Panama. Staff officers at Fort Clayton 

complained about undue interference and micromanagement on the part of the 

unified command, whereas their counterparts at Quarry Heights believed that the 

issues at stake in the crisis necessitated a close monitoring of JTF-Panama’s tactical 

communications network.46

The SOUTHCOM staff also began questioning whether JTF-Panama had 

the resources to exercise crisis management on a day-to-day basis. Of immediate 

concern to both headquarters was the number of troops available to the joint task 

force to carry out its security enhancement mission following the violent events 

of mid-April. Loeffke was especially worried about such vulnerable facilities as 

Howard Air Force Base and the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point. In an update 

to Woerner, he now recommended approving not only the Air Force request for 

more security police, but also Conley’s request for an additional Marine company, 

one that would deploy with amphibious light armored vehicles (LAVs), ideally 

suited to the terrain in Panama. Loeffke further noted that the Army might have to 

45 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 210230Z Apr 88. Cisneros quote from Msg, CINCSO [Cisneros] to 

CDR, JTF‐Panama [Loeffke], 211847Z Apr 88. Of the inaccurate “first reports” that flooded the 

JTF-Panama operations center during the crisis, one that took on a special urgency was the information phoned in that the Panama Defense Forces were drowning opposition members in a river. 

Persons sent to verify the report discovered a mass baptism in progress. Intervs, author with Vaughn 

and Rivera, 16 Mar 89. 46 Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. Quoted words from Interv, author with Cope, 29 

Mar 89. Intervs, author with General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans., and Col Arnie Rossi, U.S. Army, 27 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
89

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

send a mechanized unit to serve as an evacuation and quick reaction force. “The 

type of aggressiveness that the enemy has exhibited warrants this precaution,” he 

explained. In an update to Vuono a few days later, he reiterated that the threat to 

American interests in Panama had increased, thus forcing JTF-Panama to consider 

asking for additional forces, the formal request for which would be made through 

Woerner to the Joint Chiefs.47

The Prayer Book

The units that Loeffke indicated might be needed in Panama were, as in the 

case of the earlier security enhancement forces, listed in contingency plans for 

the crisis. Those plans had been evolving at a steady pace since the completion of 

SOUTHCOM’s draft of Elaborate Maze in mid-March. In early April, during a trip 

to Washington following the Marriott incident, Woerner met with the Joint Chiefs 

and received further planning guidance. To begin with, U.S. units identified in the 

first three phases of Elaborate Maze, which covered defensive operations and the 

buildup of forces in Panama, were to be consolidated into one force “module” in 

an operation order code-named Elder Statesman. Troop deployments envisaged 

under Elder Statesman were to be reviewed and revised so that “combat forces are 

front loaded on the flow list to the maximum degree possible.” Woerner was also to 

submit separate operation orders for a nonpermissive evacuation of U.S. civilians, 

code-named Klondike Key; offensive operations—Phase IV of Elaborate Maze—

now code-named Blue Spoon; and Phase V stability operations, code-named 

Krystal Ball.

48 In effect, Elaborate Maze, with its five interactive phases, had 

been divided into three separate operation orders, purportedly to rationalize and 

simplify the planning process. At the same time, the plan for an evacuation of 

noncombatants had been elevated in status from an Elaborate Maze annex to an 

operation order in its own right. When taken together, the set of four operation 

orders that replaced Elaborate Maze—and were derived from it—acquired the 

code name Prayer Book.

In the SOUTHCOM Operations Directorate, staff officers working for Lt. Col. 

John McCutchon and monitored by Cisneros wrote the new operation orders within 

a week, and late on 13 April Woerner began sending them to the Joint Chiefs. One 

of the first to be transmitted was Klondike Key, which described in general terms 

a coordinated program of military escorts, psychological operations, and public 

affairs announcements that would go into effect should the National Command 

Authority through the Joint Chiefs order an evacuation of U.S. citizens from 

Panama. JTF-Panama would take charge of the operation, with the commander of 

a Navy carrier battle group supporting the effort. Woerner’s intent was to conduct 

the evacuation swiftly, protect American lives and property in the process, and 

accomplish the mission using the minimum force necessary. In this last point, 

the key word was “necessary,” in that U.S. troops participating in the operation 

were to demonstrate their resolve and take whatever actions the situation required 

to safeguard the evacuees. The Southern Command did not anticipate Panama’s 

47 Memos, Loeffke for CINCSO, 21 Apr 88, sub: Update #58, and 26 Apr 88, sub: Update #60; 

Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 271425Z Apr 88, sub: Update No. 10. 48 Msg, JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 082317Z Apr 88, sub: Panama Situation Planning Update. 

The “K” in Krystal Ball is not a typographical error or an unintentional misspelling on the part of 

the author.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

90

police or military using force to interfere with an evacuation, but the command 

could not rule out “plausibly deniable” hostile actions by regime-backed “goon 

squads.”49

Within a minute after the Southern Command forwarded Klondike Key

to Washington, CINCSO OPORD 5–88, Blue Spoon, for offensive military 

operations in Panama, followed.50 Reiterating the concept of operations contained 

in Elaborate Maze, the plan called for U.S. forces to seize PDF command, 

control, and communications sites together with key airfields. The Panamanian 

military and any other groups employing armed resistance would be “neutralized.” 

Anticipating a breakdown of law and order during the fighting, the plan called 

for Woerner to assume full “political-military” authority over all U.S. interests in 

Panama. Civil-military operations initiated under Blue Spoon would be expanded 

during the postcombat phase, covered by Krystal Ball.

In Blue Spoon, as in Elaborate Maze, surgical strikes by U.S. Special 

Operations Forces, the majority of which would deploy from the United States under 

the control of a joint special operations task force, remained the central feature of 

open hostilities in Panama (Chart 4). The list of targets was also virtually the same, 

to include the Comandancia, the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex, the Paitilla 

and Curundu airfields, Fort Cimarrón, David, Rio Hato, Tinajitas, and Panama 

Viejo. Depending on the enemy units involved and their locations, the plan called 

for a variety of operations, ranging from isolating and neutralizing the Panama 

Defense Forces (Comandancia) and seizing key facilities (Torrijos-Tocumen), to 

reconnaissance and surveillance activities (Tinajitas). JSOTF elements would also 

perform civil-military operations as required and conduct hostage rescue missions. 

Throughout Blue Spoon operations, the joint special operations task force would 

receive support from JTF-Panama.

Besides supporting JSOTF missions, JTF-Panama under Blue Spoon was to 

conduct follow-on operations to neutralize the Panama Defense Forces and other 

combatants; to relieve special operations strike forces once they had achieved their 

objectives; and to stand ready to conduct offensive operations against Fort Espinar, 

Fort Amador, Fort Cimarrón, and Tinajitas. The conventional joint task force 

49 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 140326Z Apr 88, sub: Klondike Key OPORD 4–88. 50 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 140327Z Apr 88, sub: Blue Spoon OPORD 5–88.

(U.S. Atlantic Command)

Commander in Chief, U.S. Southern Command

Joint Special 

Operations Task Force

Joint Task 

Force-Panama

Carrier Battle 

Group

Chart 4—Initial Blue Spoon Command Arrangements
91

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

would also be given operational control of an amphibious task force, composed 

of a battalion-size Marine expeditionary unit, for employment at David, Rio Hato, 

and in the Panama City area. The plan carried the proviso that should offensive 

operations be necessary before special operations units could deploy, JTF-Panama 

would execute the JSOTF missions as required.

Blue Spoon also called for the SOUTHCOM commander to receive operational 

command of a Navy aircraft carrier battle group from the U.S. Atlantic Command. 

Once deployed, the battle group could be used to block any reinforcements and 

weapons dispatched from Cuba, to provide close air support for JTF-Panama, 

to conduct air strikes against specified targets, and to augment SOUTHCOM’s 

reconnaissance efforts and intelligence collection. The Blue Spoon operation order 

concluded with a statement of Woerner’s intent to bring the offensive operations to 

a “swift and decided end.”

Of the three major subordinate organizations answerable directly to the 

SOUTHCOM commander under Blue Spoon, two—the joint special operations 

task force and JTF-Panama—were up and running as of late April, but the status 

of the carrier battle group was problematic, even for planning purposes. From the 

Navy’s perspective, relinquishing command and control of a carrier group, the 

crown jewel of the fleet, to an Army general was anathema. A non-naval officer 

was certain to misuse this prized asset. For Woerner, however, the principle of 

unity of command dictated that the carrier battle group be under him. Cisneros and 

his Navy counterpart at the Atlantic Command tried to work out an agreement that 

would satisfy both headquarters, but, after several heated telephone conversations, 

the effort collapsed. Woerner then took his case to the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Crowe. “USCINCSOUTH,” Woerner wrote, “must be 

able to command air/land/sea forces toward a single focal point to accomplish 

identified objectives.” Any command and control arrangement that interfered 

with this necessity would violate the clear intent of JCS Publication 2 and the 

Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986: namely, 

that the “supported CINC” be provided authority commensurate with his assigned 

responsibility and mission.51 Crowe, in responding, sided with Woerner and against 

his own service. In the event Blue Spoon was executed, the admiral decreed, the 

SOUTHCOM commander would exercise operational command over a carrier 

battle group. As events would demonstrate, issuing such a directive was easier 

than enforcing it.

Krystal Ball OPORD 6–88 for civil-military operations in Panama was the 

last of the separate plans derived from SOUTHCOM’s Elaborate Maze, and 

it reached the Joint Chiefs late on 14 April.52 Like Phase V of its parent plan, 

the operation order assumed that, as a result of U.S. combat operations against 

armed elements in Panama, the country would experience varying degrees of 

damage, a security vacuum, and a disruption of basic services, especially in the 

two largest urban areas, Panama City and Colón. Hostile acts by isolated pockets 

of military and paramilitary groups, criminal elements, and, possibly, international 

terrorists could complicate progress toward the restoration of law and order and 

the installation of a government recognized by the United States. Based on these 

51 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 142045Z Apr 88, sub: Elaborate Maze Planning. 52 All quotes contained in the discussion of Krystal Ball are from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 

150125Z Apr 88, sub: CINCSO OPORD Elaborate Maze: Krystal Ball, OPORD 6–88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

92

assumptions, Woerner’s civil affairs planners conceived of Krystal Ball being 

executed in three stages, to be concentrated first in Panama City and Colón, then 

expanded to other areas as required. In the first, or immediate, stage, U.S. stability 

operations would concentrate on public safety, health problems, and population 

control to eliminate life-threatening conditions. The second, “sustained,” stage 

would concentrate on restoring essential services and transferring responsibility 

for the rebuilding of Panama from the U.S. military to the U.S. Embassy’s country 

team and to Panamanian institutions. In stage three, the United States would work 

through Panamanian institutions to ensure a stable, democratic Panama.

During Krystal Ball, a civil-military operations task force (CMOTF) would 

answer to the SOUTHCOM commander and have operational control over civil 

affairs assets, SOUTHCOM’s treaty affairs center, and a variety of units and 

personnel specializing in security and stability operations. Given this arrangement, 

the operation order raised “command concerns” over whether the president would 

authorize the call up of the necessary reservists under the Presidential Selected 

Reserve Call-up, a critical question given that most of the military’s civil affairs 

capability was in the reserves. The issue was also raised as to whether adequate 

cash would be available to jump-start Panamanian bank operations. As for the 

CMOTF’s specified missions, one included responsibility for the “reconstitution, 

reformation, and retraining of the PDF as a responsible Panamanian institution.” 

This task was predicated on the Panama Defense Forces remaining intact after 

Blue Spoon but as an apolitical organization that would support and facilitate 

democratic government in Panama. 

Because SOUTHCOM’s commander would be in charge of an interim U.S. 

military government in Panama during and following hostilities and because of the 

sensitive nature of the plan and Woerner’s concerns about it leaking to the media 

or to the Panamanian government, Krystal Ball was kept under tight wraps at 

Quarry Heights. In the ensuing weeks and months, SOUTHCOM’s Civil Affairs 

Branch of the Policy, Strategy, and Programs Directorate, supported by reservists 

on 31‐day temporary tours of active duty, refined the CINCSO and the supporting 

Commander, CMOTF, versions of the plan.53 The other Prayer Book operation 

orders were farmed out, as Elaborate Maze had been, to subordinate commanders 

for their supporting plans. The joint special operations task force, working out 

of Fort Bragg, concentrated on its portion of Blue Spoon, while JTF-Panama 

developed supporting operation orders for Elder Statesman, Blue Spoon, and 

Klondike Key. In formulating the new supporting plans, both the joint special 

operations task force and JTF-Panama relied almost entirely on what they had 

written for Elaborate Maze.

Indeed, the same U.S. Army, South, planning cell that had cobbled together 

the JTF-Panama version of Elaborate Maze now took on the task of writing the 

supporting operation orders for the Prayer Book. For Maj. Dan Augustine, the 

leader of the small team that still worked under the watchful eyes of Colonel Cope 

and Colonel Rossi, that meant tackling Elder Statesman. The process, over a hectic 

ten days, contained its share of twists and aggravations. To begin with, Augustine 

and Cope were skeptical of the guidance they received from higher headquarters 

53 Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91; Fishel, The Fog of Peace, pp. 7–12. As Fishel relates, “SCJ5 requested a team of CA officers principally from the SOUTHCOM CAPSTONE reserve unit, the 361st 

CA Brigade, to draft the full plan.”
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Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

requiring that the plan schedule combat units, or “shooters,” to arrive in Panama at 

the beginning of any troop buildup. The U.S. military in Panama simply did not have 

the logistical base to support several thousand combat troops deploying with only 

their basic loads. There was also the Friday afternoon, both men recalled, when they 

received word that the Joint Staff in the Pentagon wanted the list of forces required 

for an Elder Statesman troop buildup in Panama. Augustine was still working on 

a mission statement, a prerequisite for determining the necessary forces, but the 

Joint Staff persisted in demanding the list of troops, even if the units did not have 

missions assigned to them. Augustine and Capt. Carlos Puentes, another member 

of the original USARSO planning cell, referred back to Elaborate Maze and put 

together a troop list that they briefed to Cope on Saturday. Sunday they briefed the 

deputy director of operations at Quarry Heights, even though their list was already 

on its way to the Joint Chiefs. “That’s dumb, but that is the crisis action system,” 

was Cope’s verdict. Not everything concerning the process, however, received 

such a negative assessment. Augustine, for example, did not have to draft both the 

JTF-Panama and the Army Forces versions of Elder Statesman, as the USARSO 

cell had done for Elaborate Maze, because a group from the 7th Infantry Division 

(Light) arrived in Panama to write the ARFOR plan. Also during this time, Lt. Col. 

Robert Pantier moved from the Southern Command to U.S. Army, South—which 

also meant to JTF‐Panama—on 13 April to fill the position of director of plans. 

Later that month, enough augmentees arrived at U.S. Army, South, on temporary 

duty to help ease the planning burdens of the command.54

By the time the JTF-Panama Elder Statesman OPORD 6–88 was transmitted 

to the SOUTHCOM commander on 18 April, the code name had been changed 

to Post Time. In general, the document described PDF actions, capabilities, and 

intentions since the 16 March attempted coup and listed defensive operations 

JTF-Panama would execute on its own or in conjunction with a troop buildup. 

These operations included protecting and defending U.S. defense sites, housing 

areas, the U.S. Embassy, and treaty-designated areas of military coordination. 

Addressing the logistical issue, Post Time noted USARSO’s concern that the 

support base for forces already in country was severely strained and would likely 

not improve. Since additional combat service support units were not scheduled to 

arrive until the fifth day of the projected buildup, Southern Command and JTFPanama support groups would, through a consolidation and centralization of their 

efforts, try to sustain initial operations.55

54 Interv, author with Augustine, 7 Jun 89. Quote from Interv, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89.

55 Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 181730Z Apr 88, sub: COMJTFPM Post Time OPORD 

6–88. The Army Forces-Panama (ARFORPM), Post Time Operation Plan, written by a group of 

planners from the 7th Infantry Division (Light), was submitted to JTF-Panama on 3 May 1988. It 

assumed that, at the beginning of any buildup of U.S. forces, the United States would not be involved 

in open conflict with the Panama Defense Forces but that relations would be strained and hostilities 

could begin at any time. The plan also assumed that a noncombatant evacuation operation would not 

be conducted prior to the arrival of Post Time forces. A noncombatant evacuation operation, the plan 

argued, would detract from the Army’s defensive mission during the buildup and would interfere 

with the buildup itself. The concept of operations consisted of five phases, based on what units were 

already deployed to Panama and the extent of the area they had to defend. Msg, CDR, ARFOR/

CDR, 7th Inf Div (Light), to CDR, JTF-Panama/CDR, USARSO, 031900Z May 88, sub: ARFORPM 

OPLAN 1–88, “Post Time.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

94

If at any point in the crisis the National Command Authority ordered an 

evacuation of U.S. civilians from Panama, JTF-Panama, by direction of the 

Southern Command, would be in charge of the operation. Thus, as Augustine 

was working on the Elder Statesman (Post Time) operation order, Maj. Chuck 

Herrick was grappling with JTF-Panama’s evacuation plan, Klondike Key. The 

magnitude of the problem had not changed since March when he had worked on 

the Elaborate Maze evacuation annex. There were still around 50,000 American 

noncombatants living in Panama, most in or around Panama City and Colón in 

housing areas that were often isolated or adjacent to PDF facilities. To bring these 

people together and to facilitate their evacuation, Herrick identified assembly and 

holding areas, rally points, ground and sea routes, helicopter landing zones, and 

the procedures for extricating Americans from what could easily be a chaotic state 

of affairs. “The extraction force commander,” JTF-Panama assured the Southern 

Command, “must be sensitive to the need first to avoid a confrontation with PDF 

elements. At the same time he must provide for the defense of his element and 

the evacuees under his charge.” If force had to be used in any instance, it needed 

to be “limited in intensity, duration, and magnitude to that reasonably required to 

counter successfully the hostile act or hostile intent.”56 Each of these statements 

was in keeping with emphasis on minimum force Woerner had approved in the 

SOUTHCOM version of Klondike Key.

Herrick briefed the evacuation plan to Loeffke and Rossi. He also briefed it 

twice to officers at Quarry Heights. During one of the SOUTHCOM briefings, 

he turned what had been a relatively sedate meeting into pandemonium when he 

announced that each family being evacuated could take only one pet dog or cat with 

them. During the ensuing uproar, one colonel was heard to claim—presumably with 

some exaggeration—that he would rather leave his family than his dogs behind. 

For days, Herrick “caught hell” over this “incredibly emotional” issue.57

Meanwhile, Captain Dearborn was working on the JTF-Panama operation 

order for Blue Spoon, which was submitted to the Southern Command on 18 

April, a few hours after the Post Time message. On D-day, according to the plan, 

JTF-Panama forces, in support of JSOTF strike forces, would continue to defend 

key facilities in Panama. But there would also be offensive missions to execute. 

JTF-Panama would secure Fort Amador and Fort Espinar, neutralize the Panama 

Defense Forces at both installations, control and demilitarize the area between Fort 

Amador and Albrook Air Station, isolate Panama City and prevent Panamanian 

armed forces from reinforcing the Comandancia, secure selected communications 

facilities and utilities, and take control of Colón. On D plus 1, JTF-Panama could 

expect to relieve JSOTF elements and begin law and order and stability missions 

that would continue as long as necessary.58

While JTF-Panama was drafting its four supporting plans for the Prayer

Book, special operations planners at Fort Bragg concentrated on Blue Spoon. 

Their JSOTF supporting plan, submitted to the Southern Command on 21 April, 

56 Conversation, author with Maj Chuck Herrick, 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama. Quotes from 

Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama/CDR, USARSO, to CINCSO, 130100Z Apr 88, sub: OPREP–1, Elaborate

Maze OPORD 4–88.

57 Herrick Conversation, 1989.

58 Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, 182200Z Apr 88, sub: Blue Spoon, COMJTFPM 

OPORD 7–88.
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Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

posited a concept of operations consisting of four phases, the first two of which 

dealt with the predeployment of some special operations equipment and strike 

forces to Panama several days in advance of executing offensive operations. Phase 

III would begin at H-hour with a Ranger battalion under Task Force Red deploying 

from the United States and seizing the Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex. A second 

Ranger battalion, constituting the remainder of Task Force Red, would deploy to 

Howard Air Force Base, board waiting helicopters, and move to isolate and, on 

order, neutralize the Panama Defense Forces at the Comandancia. Other JSOTF 

task forces, namely White, Black, Blue, and Green, would simultaneously carry 

out other offensive operations called for in SOUTHCOM’s version of Blue Spoon. 

AC–130 gunships and AH–6 Little Bird helicopters would act in direct support of 

the special operations strike forces against those targets that planners anticipated 

would offer the greatest resistance. During these operations, the JSOTF operations 

center would be “the central node for maneuver, airspace, and fire support decision 

making.” The fourth, and final, phase of the operation would begin when targets 

secured by Special Operations Forces were turned over to JTF-Panama.59

The complexity of the Blue Spoon plans alone required careful and frequent 

coordination among the Southern Command, the joint special operations task 

force, JTF-Panama, and Special Operations Command, South. Certain portions of 

the plans had to be clarified. The JSOTF commander, for example, wanted to know 

exactly what was meant by the term neutralization that appeared frequently in the 

operation orders in reference to the Panama Defense Forces. There were also more 

sensitive issues that had to be sorted out. Panama City and the area surrounding 

it would be the primary battlefield during offensive operations, and both joint 

task forces would have troops operating in close proximity to one another. The 

special operations planners believed that, once the hostilities began, JSOTF should 

control the major combat assets employed, with the exception of those used by 

JTF-Panama for defensive missions. As Col. Joe Stringham, who helped draft the 

original JSOTF Phase IV operation order, asserted, the job of conventional forces 

on D-day was to hold what they had and “stay out of the way.” The problem was 

that JTF-Panama also had offensive Blue Spoon missions, albeit only a few, to 

conduct at H-hour. Early in April, Colonel Fry had questioned whether JTF-Panama 

could “simultaneously defend all vital installations and defend/assault at Ft Espinar 

and Ft Amador?” JTF-Panama believed that it could, and the operation orders 

remained unchanged. Between 14 and 17 April, the special operations planners 

from Fort Bragg visited Panama to “deconflict facilities and terrain with all JTFPM 

customers.” Some issues were resolved, others were not. Among the latter was the 

allocation of air support. In JTF-Panama’s copy of the JSOTF operation order of 

21 April, next to a sentence reading, “All JTF-PM helicopters will return to their 

departure location and not be used during the rest of Blue Spoon,” someone had 

written in bold letters, “NO!”60

59 Msg, CDR, JSOTF, to CINCSO, 212332Z Apr 88, sub: COMJSOTF OPORD 8–88, Blue

Spoon.

60 Ibid. Stringham quote from Interv, John Partin with Brig Gen Joseph S. Stringham, U.S. Army, 

29 Aug 89, Fort Bragg, N.C. Fry quote from Msg, CDR, SOCSOUTH, to CINCSO, 080120Z Apr 88, 

sub: Commander’s Sitrep No. 010. Last quote from Msg, CDR, JSOTF, to CINCSO, 212332Z Apr 

88, sub: COMJSOTF OPORD 8–88, Blue Spoon.
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96

On 23 April, Lt. Gen. Gary Luck, the special operations commander at Fort 

Bragg, sent a message to Woerner, stating that the mid-April coordination meetings 

had helped to refine and integrate the supporting plans for Blue Spoon. To sustain 

the momentum of the process, he advocated a “continuous dialogue” between 

conventional and special operations planners and called for another coordination 

visit at JTF-Panama’s earliest convenience. The list of major issues that needed to 

be discussed included intelligence collection and dissemination; gray, white, and 

black lists of enemy or unfriendly personnel; operations security and command and 

control; vulnerability analyses of Howard Air Force Base, Rodman Naval Station, 

and Albrook Air Station; JSOTF–JTF-Panama hand-off procedures; coordination 

of psychological operations and fire support; JTF‐Panama AC–130 requirements; 

the availability of tactical air support; logistical issues; deception plans; rules of 

engagement; and communications.61

The second coordination visit took place 27–29 April. After evaluating its 

results, Luck sent Woerner a list of what had been resolved and what had not. 

Among the former, Luck listed over a dozen issues. They included procedures 

for JSOTF hand-offs to JTF-Panama; assignments of areas of responsibility; the 

insertion of JTF-Panama forces into Tinajitas; airspace management (the joint 

special operations task force would control all air activities from H minus 2 to 

H plus 10); the validation of JSOTF requirements for certain communications 

channels; the jamming of PDF air traffic control radar and communications; 

and support for psychological operations. The list of unresolved issues was just 

as long and included airspace management in connection with a JTF-Panama 

assault on Fort Amador; the daily operation of the Torrijos-Tocumen airport 

complex once the Rangers had departed; command and control arrangements for 

the 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, during Blue Spoon; “reinitiating” 

reconnaissance operations by Special Operations Command, South; the allocation 

of AC–130 assets; the control of Volant Solo (a C–130 transport plane converted 

into a PSYOP platform); the vulnerability studies of specific U.S. installations in 

Panama; command and control of close air support; logistical information; and 

tactical deception “integral to JSOTF planning.” To help reach consensus on these 

and other issues, the special operations delegation from Fort Bragg left Panama 

agreeing to attend bimonthly targeting meetings with JTF-Panama for the purpose 

of further Blue Spoon planning.62

Although many issues raised in the contingency plans for U.S. military 

operations in Panama remained open for discussion, the procedures for coordinating 

and refining the plans had been established by early May. The writing and revising 

of the CINCSO and CMOTF Krystal Ball operation orders were confined to a few 

planners in SOUTHCOM’s Policy, Strategy, and Programs Directorate, assisted by 

reservists coming in on 31-day temporary tours. On matters pertaining to Post

Time and Klondike Key, the Southern Command and JTF-Panama would work 

closely together. On Blue Spoon, coordination efforts involved the SOUTHCOM 

Operations Directorate and two of the three headquarters directly answerable to 

61 Msg, CDR, JSOTF, to CINCSO, 230700Z Apr 88, sub: JSOTF Blue Spoon Coordination 

Visit.62 Quotes from Msg, CDR [JSOTF] to CINCSO, 041700Z May 88, sub: JSOTF Blue Spoon

Coordination Visit. Msg, CDR, SOCSOUTH, to [JSOTF], 300135Z Apr 88, sub: Commander’s 

Sitrep No. 032.
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Woerner under the plan—JTF-Panama and the joint special operations task force—

with the Atlantic Command remaining recalcitrant on making a carrier battle group 

available, even after Crowe’s ruling that it should. On 9 May, the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff approved the series of updated Prayer Book operation orders for further 

“execution planning.”63 One contingency not mentioned in the message concerned 

what to do about Noriega should the United States take military action against his 

regime. Plans for possible actions along those lines continued to remain highly 

sensitive and compartmentalized.

Fissures

Whether the Prayer Book plans, particularly Blue Spoon, should be executed 

became a subject of debate. There were Americans in and out of uniform who 

claimed that national honor and the growing threat to U.S. citizens in Panama 

demanded military action. To this small chorus was added the voices of several 

Panamanian opposition leaders. On 13 April, a JTF-Panama intelligence summary 

noted that the National Civic Crusade’s failure to remove Noriega through protests, 

demonstrations, and strikes had demoralized the opposition, causing many 

Panamanians, in their private conversations with U.S. officials, to express “hope 

for a U.S. military solution.” Against this significant, but never excessive pressure, 

President Reagan held fast to his 29 March decision against the use of armed 

force. Consequently, SOUTHCOM’s guidance to JTF-Panama was to continue 

security enhancement measures but to avoid actions that could be construed by the 

Panamanian armed forces as overly aggressive.64 This approach suited Woerner, 

Loeffke, and key members of their staffs, who did not waiver in their belief that 

U.S. intervention in Panama would be a disaster for American interests and policy 

in Latin America.

The real danger, in their view, was war by accident. The Panama Defense 

Forces, intelligence reports confirmed, would not deliberately provoke the United 

States to the point of open hostilities. But there was always the possibility that an 

unforeseen incident could escalate into a confrontation neither side desired. The 

continuous intrusions by armed persons on U.S. installations and the incidents 

of 12 and 20 April had demonstrated the risks involved in crisis management. 

In early May, the U.S. intelligence community in Panama submitted its first 

detailed assessments of the composition and intentions of the intruders. According 

to these reports, soldiers from the PDF jungle operations school and the 7th 

Infantry Company (also known as the macho de monte, or “Wild Boars”) had 

conducted reconnaissance missions against U.S. facilities in mid-March. Noriega 

had subsequently created a special operational element made up of select PDF 

members from several units and possibly trained by Cuban advisers at Rio Hato. 

Captain Cortizo, who had made an appearance at the tank farm the night of the 

firefight, had apparently been picked by Noriega to exercise overall control of this 

special element’s activities. After training for ten days, the unit had returned to 

staging areas near La Chorrera and Arraiján and had begun its intrusions into the 

fuel depot, the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, and the area west of Howard 

63 Msg, JCS to USCINCLANT et al., 091709Z May 88, sub: Approval USCINCSO OPORDs.

64 Buckley, Panama, pp. 136–37. Quote from Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 132230Z 

Apr 88, sub: Panama INTSUM 57–88. Msg, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 092154Z Apr 88, sub: 

SCJ3 Guidance Message No. 1.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

98

Air Force Base. The reasons for the intrusions were not readily apparent, although 

sabotage, intelligence gathering, training, and psychological warfare were offered 

in the reports as possibilities. One point, however, was clear. The intruders had 

stopped short of “engaging in a decisive conflict which would provoke a major 

US response.”65 The marines could take some comfort in this assessment, which 

seemed to vindicate their argument that there had indeed been intruders on the tank 

farm the night of 12 April. (The episode remained controversial, however, as did 

the related issue of whether the marines had overreacted to any intrusion that had 

taken place.)

By the time these reports were issued, the danger of accidental war was 

receding, as were the tensions that had led Loeffke in late April to consider 

asking Woerner for more combat units. During the first week in May, in fact, the 

intrusions had dropped off sharply, although the reason seemingly owed to special 

circumstances: Noriega was at a crucial stage in his renewed negotiations with the 

United States.66

A second round of talks with the dictator had begun with Michael Kozak’s 

return trip to Panama in mid-April. There would be another, extended visit from 

late-April through mid-May and another covering 22–25 May. The purpose of 

these talks mirrored that of the first round in mid‐March: to reach an agreement that 

would allow Noriega to relinquish his power in Panama peacefully. The Southern 

Command was kept out of the secret negotiations, but, during Kozak’s mid-April 

visit, the headquarters did convene discussion groups to consider the kind of 

interagency campaign plan that would be necessary to achieve U.S. policy goals, 

should the negotiations fail. Those goals, in what came as close to specific policy 

guidance as the Southern Command would receive, had recently been disseminated 

in classified form by White House chief of staff Howard Baker. They included 

the protection of U.S. citizens, the defense of the canal and U.S. facilities, the 

“placement of the [U.S. government] in the best possible position to maneuver in 

a post-Noriega regime,” and the “removal of General Noriega (preferably without 

resorting to a military option).”67 Among the U.S. government agencies represented 

in the weekend discussions at Quarry Heights were the Southern Command, the 

State Department, the U.S. Embassy, and the CIA. At times the attendees broke 

65 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS/Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), 091350Z May 88, sub: Panama 

Intelligence Weekly, PDF “Special Operational Element,” and CDR, JTF-Panama, to AIG 9029, 

111900Z May 88, sub: INTREP 16–88 May. One question not addressed in these reports was whether 

or not Cubans took part in the 12 April intrusion at the Arraiján Tank Farm. Several high-ranking U.S. 

officers have indicated to the author that they had reason to believe the Cubans were involved and 

suffered casualties. In Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 283–84, Kempe cites a source “with access to U.S. 

military intelligence reports” telling him that the intruders on the tank farm were made up primarily 

of Cuban commandos and that three were wounded, one of whom died later. At the time, New York 

Senator Alfonse D’Amato accused the Pentagon of withholding information regarding Cuban involvement so as not to heighten tensions between the United States and Panama. On post–Just Cause

information relating to the 12 April 1988 firefight, see Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 9–10. During a trip 

to Panama in 1990, the author also saw interrogation reports that support what Reynolds writes in his 

official history. 66 Msgs, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 132330Z May 88, sub: Update No. 11, and CINCSO to JCS/

DIA, 091350Z May 88, sub: Panama Intelligence Weekly, PDF “Special Operational Element.” 67 Baker’s goals are listed in Memo for CINCSO, 13 May 88, sub: Panama Campaign Plan, 

signed by Brig Gen James J. LeCleir, U.S. Air Force (USAF), SCJ–5.
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Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

into small groups to brainstorm political, economic, military, and psychological 

initiatives that, if integrated into a comprehensive program, might secure the goals 

set forth by Baker.

The proposed interagency campaign plan that emerged from the sessions 

underwent revisions and rewrites, but its fundamental approach remained 

constant: a coordinated effort to create and exploit what Woerner referred to as 

“fissures” within the Panama Defense Forces. One of SOUTHCOM’s key roles in 

this stratagem would be to deliver a series of messages in face-to-face meetings 

with Panamanian officers who were close to Noriega or who favored a long‐term 

PDF-U.S. relationship. The messages would be designed to convince the selected 

officers that Noriega was placing the PDF’s existence as an institution in jeopardy 

by courting a military confrontation with the United States. The U.S. government, 

as SOUTHCOM officers would emphasize, supported the preservation of the 

Panama Defense Forces as an organization and was committed to the fulfillment 

of U.S. treaty obligations. The implicit message was that the Panamanian military 

had to take charge of its own destiny, place loyalty to its institutions (and concern 

for one’s career) above loyalty to Noriega, and remove the general from power 

before the United States was forced to do the job, in which case the PDF would fall 

with the general. The proposed guidance for delivering these messages cautioned 

against conveying the impression that U.S. officers were imposing a gringo solution 

to a Panamanian problem or that they were making promises regarding future aid 

or favors. Woerner also emphasized that the SOUTHCOM initiative would not 

work in a vacuum but had to be bolstered by a reduction of off-post personnel, 

military shows of force, increased activity by the Panamanian opposition, and a 

fully developed set of interagency political, economic, and psychological measures 

for increasing the pressure on Noriega and the Panama Defense Forces.68

The scope and magnitude of the interagency campaign plan was formidable. 

A revised version, submitted by the SOUTHCOM Policy, Strategy, and Programs 

Directorate to Woerner on 13 May, postulated a sequence of actions calculated to 

generate popular support for the opposition and to motivate and strengthen the 

opposition movement, to convince the Panamanian military to act on its own to 

preserve itself as an institution, to position the U.S. government for future actions 

in Panama, and to convince Noriega that he would be forced to leave Panama, 

“one way or another.” The démarche consisted of three phases, or “packages.” 

Package A, the “soft” approach, contained thirty initiatives, each assigned to the 

appropriate U.S. “execution authority”—SOUTHCOM’s commander, the U.S. 

Embassy, the Joint Chiefs, the State Department, the Panama Canal Commission, 

or the Interagency Policy Review Group in Washington. If Package A failed to 

achieve results after about sixty days, Package B would be executed. Intentionally 

designed “to be hard-line and more provocative,” the eight or so actions included 

bringing additional combat units into Panama, commencing “show of force military 

exercises,” and enacting a selective economic embargo. If Noriega still clung to 

power, Package C would begin a flow of “full combat assets” and an evacuation 

of U.S. citizens, enact a total economic quarantine, and set the stage for Woerner 

to deliver an ultimatum to Noriega to step aside or suffer the consequences. An 

interagency campaign staff, composed of the U.S. ambassador to Panama, the 68 Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91; Paper, Creating and Exploiting Fissures in the PDF, 29 Apr 88, 

Woerner Papers, MHI.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

100

SOUTHCOM commander, the Panama Canal Commission administrator, and a 

CIA representative would supervise execution of the plan and ensure the initiatives 

were properly coordinated.69

To be effective, the proposed campaign plan needed to be executed as an 

integrated whole. An uncoordinated, piecemeal implementation of the plan would 

likely ensure its failure, a point Woerner tried to get across to his superiors in 

Washington. As Woerner recalls telling the Pentagon, “What you can’t do is tell 

me to execute one, two, three, four, or five elements of this plan and think that 

you have a strategy. . . . And I got back: ‘Implement paragraph 3A, 4C.’ But that 

is exactly what I said would not work.” At one point in late May, the interagency 

group in Washington did approve most aspects of one version of the plan but 

withheld authority for certain other critical initiatives.70 This came at a time when 

the behind-the-scenes negotiations between Noriega and Kozak had become public 

knowledge, and the Reagan administration was engaged in controlling the damage 

caused by rumors, true to be sure, that the president was prepared to drop the 

indictments against the general if Noriega agreed to step down from power.

Despite a Senate nonbinding resolution and the urgings of Vice President George 

H. W. Bush not to drop the indictments in a deal with Noriega, President Reagan 

authorized one last round in the talks in late May. Kozak returned to Panama, where 

after two days of intense negotiations, he believed he had reached an agreement 

with the general. A last-minute snag developed, however, when Noriega balked at 

issuing a public statement. Frustrated, Secretary of State Shultz ordered Kozak to 

break off the talks. On 25 May, Shultz announced that the United States had taken 

all offers off the table and contemplated no further negotiations.71

With a diplomatic solution to the crisis beyond reach for the foreseeable future, 

Woerner again raised the fissures campaign plan with the Joint Chiefs but without 

success. Thus, with the interagency approach moribund and with the president 

continuing to resist the use of U.S. military force in the crisis, the question of 

policy guidance arose once again. What did the administration want the Southern 

Command to do? The answer came that summer. With the presidential election 

campaign impending and with Vice President Bush, the probable Republican 

nominee, vulnerable on the Panama issue because of his previous dealings as CIA 

director with Noriega, Woerner was told face-to-face and by way of telephone to 

put the crisis on the back burner and to keep the situation under control lest an 

intensification of the crisis hurt Bush’s chances for the Republican nomination 

and the presidency.72 Several officers at the Southern Command who knew of the 

69 Memo for CINCSO, 13 May 88, sub: Panama Campaign Plan.

70 Woerner is quoted in Thomas Donnelly, Margaret Roth, and Caleb Baker, Operation Just 

Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: Lexington Books, 1991), pp. 33–34. See also Woerner 

Interv, 30 Apr 91; Msg, SecDef to AmEmb, Panama/CINCSO, 272036Z May 88, sub: Implementation 

of PDF Fissures Plan. 71 Just how close Kozak was to an agreement with Noriega became a controversial issue. The 

account of the negotiations in Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 309–31, suggests that Shultz’s impatience scuttled an accord. Buckley, in Panama, pp. 140–45, argues that Noriega was just stringing 

the United States along, buying time to consolidate further his position in Panama and to make the 

Reagan administration look foolish in the process. See also Tropic Times, 27 May 88. 72 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 272331Z May 88, sub: USCINCSO PSYOP Campaign Plan; Kempe, 

Divorcing the Dictator, p. 333; Donnelly et al., Operation Just Cause, pp. 35–36; author’s informal 

conversations with a SOUTHCOM officer who worked directly for Woerner. According to Kempe’s 
101

Violence, “Fissures,” and a Prayer Book

new guidance believed that the White House had improperly involved the military 

in partisan politics. But orders were orders. Noriega was not going away, efforts 

by the United States to effect his ouster had been put on hold, and the Southern 

Command was left to contemplate an indefinite stay in the Twilight Zone.

account, National Security Adviser Colin Powell delivered this message to Woerner personally, while 

Admiral Crowe, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci conveyed 

it over the telephone.

I I I

4

Settling In

May 1988–January 1989

After the recall of the Kozak mission in late May 1988, the crisis in 

U.S.-Panamanian relations, with all its attendant risks, settled into something 

of a routine. On the diplomatic front, President Reagan maintained economic 

sanctions against the Solis Palma regime, continued U.S. recognition of Eric 

Devalle as the legitimate president of Panama, and, in general, continued to seek 

Noriega’s removal from power. Still, beyond monitoring these and a series of less 

publicized initiatives, the administration’s interest in Panama seemed to wane as, 

for the remainder of the year, Reagan turned his attention to more pressing foreign 

policy matters, beginning on 29 May with a summit meeting with Soviet leader 

Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow.

A similar shift in priorities occurred as well within the American news media. 

Once reporters, analysts, and columnists had conducted their postmortems on the 

Noriega-Kozak negotiations, the crisis in Panama nearly vanished from newsprint 

and the airwaves. Other events now vied for media coverage, chief among them 

the U.S. presidential election. As 1988 unfolded, Republicans and Democrats 

held state primaries followed by national conventions; they then took aim at each 

other in the campaign proper. The election and Panama were linked, of course, 

but not in any way clearly visible to the American voter. And that was how the 

administration intended to keep it, as evidenced by its directive to Woerner not 

to let matters in Panama deteriorate to the point where the inevitable publicity 

might raise as a campaign issue the Republican presidential candidate’s former 

ties with Noriega. The SOUTHCOM commander and his staff agreed, albeit for 

reasons far removed from partisan politics, that everything possible should be 

done to prevent the crisis from spinning out of control.1

 A serious escalation, they 

feared, might culminate in a U.S.-PDF military confrontation. Such a showdown 

would likely damage not only long-term interests of the United States in Panama 

but America’s standing and policies throughout Latin America as well. 

1 On the intrusion of partisan politics into the crisis, see Chapter 3. Woerner’s instructions to 

keep the lid on are cited in Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 36. The author’s 

talks with key staff officers who were at the Southern Command in mid-1988 confirm the receipt of 

the directive and the resentment expressed among the officers privy to it.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

104

Noriega, needless to say, was not visited by an injunction similar to that 

imposed on Woerner. The dictator, though, had a knack for sensing just how far he 

could go in taunting the United States without provoking a military response that 

he could not hope to survive politically. Since at this point in the crisis, he had no 

intention of crossing the line marking the limits of American tolerance, he became 

a silent partner in advancing the Reagan administration’s goal of containing the 

crisis. But if he was an unsolicited accomplice in this effort, he was also an 

unpredictable one, in that he remained a despot willing to do what he regarded 

as necessary to retain control over his country. With the diplomatic impasse and 

Washington’s subsequent preoccupation with the election and other issues, he 

detected a low-risk opportunity to bolster his position at home by intensifying his 

anti-American rhetoric and authorizing further PDF intrusions onto U.S. military 

facilities. With his blessing, the Panama Defense Forces and the regime it propped 

up also continued to violate the canal treaties when circumstances permitted and 

to engage in the physical, psychological, and bureaucratic harassment of U.S. 

forces and citizens in Panama. Statistics compiled on the harassment, intrusions, 

and treaty infractions fluctuated from week to week and month to month, with 

each upsurge conveying the message that Noriega, should he choose, could make 

life extremely difficult, even dangerous, for many of the Americans living or 

stationed in Panama. Thus, despite the desire of key leaders in both countries to 

prevent the situation from escalating toward armed conflict, so long as the crisis 

persisted, with its low-grade intimidation and provocations, there was always 

the chance that, in the words of one U.S. general, “Sooner or later, somebody’s 

going to get killed out there.”2

Woerner’s Critique and Policy Proposals 

In the absence of such a dramatic event, the staff at SOUTHCOM and JTFPanama believed that, for the foreseeable future, the situation in Panama would 

continue to be handled as a “crisis on the cheap,” with decision makers in 

Washington allocating few resources for managing the problem and little guidance 

for resolving it.3

 Some high-placed officers in the Pentagon appeared to question 

whether or not the situation in Panama even constituted a serious threat. The 

country’s cities were not in flames, blood was not flowing through the streets, and 

the only fatality U.S. forces had suffered to date had been the result of friendly fire. 

Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the director of operations on the Joint Staff, conveyed this 

message during a visit to the Southern Command in 1988. In a conference room 

2 The officer’s quote is from Interv, author with Brig Gen Marc Cisneros, U.S. Army, 1 May 89, 

Quarry Heights, Panama. 3 The discussion that follows of SOUTHCOM’s perception of the policy-making process regarding the Panama crisis is based on Intervs, author with Maj Dan Augustine, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 89, Fort 

Clayton, Panama; Cisneros, 1 May 89; Col John A. Cope Jr., U.S. Army, 25 May 89, Fort Clayton, 

Panama; Brig Gen John F. Stewart Jr., U.S. Army, 14 Jun 89, Quarry Heights, Panama; General Frederick 

F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Col Paul F. Morgan, U.S. Army, 

7 Jul 89, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.; Briefing, Brig Gen Cisneros, 14 Apr 89, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Presentation, General Woerner, 30 Apr 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Conversations, author with 

Maj Fred Polk, U.S. Army, 1989; Msg, CINCSO to CJCS [personal, General Woerner for Admiral 

Crowe], 042115Z May 89, sub: Policy Initiatives Post Elections. The phrase “crisis on the cheap” was 

used by Colonel Cope in a conversation with the author in early 1989.
105

Settling In

full of officers, he explained that, from his vantage point in the Pentagon, the socalled crisis was something akin to a “pimple on an elephant’s ass.”4

A “pimple” it may have been, but it was causing enough irritation, in Woerner’s 

opinion, to detract from SOUTHCOM’s ability to treat even uglier blemishes in 

the region, such as narco-trafficking. Even so, the crisis was not so festering as 

to goad the Reagan administration into applying an effective remedy in the form 

of a comprehensive policy designed to compel Noriega and his cronies to step 

aside. Instead of policy, the Southern Command was the recipient of what Woerner 

referred to derisively as tactical guidance and naïve counsel. There had also been 

the stream of ill-conceived, even counterproductive, measures emanating from 

Washington, against which he had objected, to little avail. The administration’s 

selective economic sanctions, for example, were indeed beginning to have an 

adverse effect on the Noriega-backed regime, but the penalties continued to exact 

an even higher toll on businessmen and professionals opposed to the dictator, and 

on the Panamanian people in general. A continuation of that trend, Woerner feared, 

could “nudge” the opposition into an accommodation with the dictator.

The SOUTHCOM commander also was not pleased with the instructions 

he had received to sever almost all contacts with the Panama Defense Forces. In 

a message to Elliott Abrams, the assistant secretary of state for inter-American 

affairs, Woerner argued that the tactic “could be playing into Noriega’s hands” by 

increasing the apprehensions of Panamanian officers that the United States was out 

to destroy the organization itself, not just to remove its tainted leadership. If the 

policy stood, the general warned, the likely consequences included the loss of a 

valuable source of information, an intensified feeling on the part of even the more 

professional and moderate PDF officers that their future was linked to Noriega’s 

political survival, and, concomitantly, a decreased likelihood that Panama’s military 

would act against its leader in a way that would constitute the kind of Panamanian 

solution to a Panamanian problem that Woerner had advocated from the outset 

of the crisis. “We may well be unifying the PDF, rather than creating the critical 

wedges—which should be our objective,” he concluded.5

Another impediment to an effective U.S. policy for Panama, Woerner insisted 

with increasing frustration, was the continued inability to achieve interagency 

consensus in Washington. Differences that had divided the State Department, the 

Defense Department, the White House, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs, the Southern 

Command, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and other bureaucratic 

organizations from the beginning of the crisis did not lend themselves easily 

to compromise or resolution. The result, in Woerner’s words, was a policy of 

“incrementalism by committee,” in which policy makers sought the “lowest 

common denominator”—that is, the minimal response to the crisis that they could 

make without any one agency sacrificing critical points on its closely held agenda. 

So long as these turf battles persisted, any all-inclusive policy put forward for 

interagency consideration was likely to be only partially implemented or, worse, 

4 Kelly’s use of the phrase, “pimple on an elephant’s ass,” was related to the author by a former 

SOUTHCOM officer present at the general’s briefing. 5 Quotes from Msg, USSOUTHCOM to State/RCI [personal, Woerner to Abrams], 271530Z 

Oct 88, sub: Clarification of Panama Policy–Business as Usual. Trip Rpt, 23 Nov 88, sub: Trip 

Report—CINC Washington Visit 21–22 November 1988; Stewart Interv, 14 Jun 89; Presentation, 

Woerner, 30 Apr 91.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

106

confined to bureaucratic limbo. The fate of Woerner’s “fissures” plan in April–May 

1988 had demonstrated to the SOUTHCOM commander the difficulty of trying to 

forge a comprehensive approach to resolving the crisis.6

Throughout the remainder of 1988, Woerner found few reasons to alter his 

critical opinion of Washington’s handling of the affair. While the Joint Chiefs 

accepted or approved several of his proposals pertaining solely to military aspects 

of the crisis, his more comprehensive economic, political, and psychological 

recommendations requiring an integrated interagency program continued to be 

tabled or only partially implemented. In early October a SOUTHCOM report held 

out little hope that “bold new initiatives” would be approved by Washington for at 

least another six months. In the message, Woerner’s Policy, Strategy, and Programs 

Directorate predicted that, even after the presidential election, the winner, whether 

Michael Dukakis or George H. W. Bush, would probably take a cautious “waitand-see” approach until he entered the White House in January and had a chance 

to review U.S. policy toward Central America and Panama.7

Woerner saw little profit in procrastination. Much of the information and 

intelligence available to the Southern Command indicated that Noriega was 

strengthening his hold on power and that, given Washington’s preoccupation with 

other issues and the National Civic Crusade’s relative quiescence, he was under 

no real pressure to abandon his criminal and dictatorial ways. The Kozak mission, 

besides allowing Noriega time to regroup after the 16 March coup attempt, had 

demonstrated the futility of reaching a political accommodation with the general, 

at least in the near future. That realization notwithstanding, President Reagan 

showed no inclination to reverse his decision against U.S. military intervention, 

6 Quotes from Presentation, Woerner, 30 Apr 91. The “fissures” plan is discussed in Chapter 3.

7 Information Paper, USSOUTHCOM J–5, 5 Oct 88, sub: Support for U.S. Policy in Panama.

Paramilitary Dignity Battalion members in red T-shirts in the streets ready to fight
107

Settling In

a decision with which Woerner still concurred. The SOUTHCOM commander, 

though, strongly believed that, between the extremes of negotiation and war, 

there was much room for effective action and that difficult decisions about the 

crisis should be made sooner rather than later. With this in mind, he persisted in 

seeking a comprehensive interagency strategy based on a series of continuously 

updated proposals he submitted to Washington through the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff.

One set of proposals went to Admiral Crowe in a message dated 7 October. 

Woerner began by advising the chairman that the time had come for “the U.S. to 

apply additional pressure to the Noriega regime.” The paragraphs that followed 

outlined an interagency plan for covert U.S. psychological operations that would 

improve the flow of information from “non‐regime sources” in Panama to the 

Panamanian people. Because of “legal limitations on covert activities by DOD 

[Department of Defense] and our need not to be seen as being directly tied to the 

opposition,” Woerner recommended that the military serve in “a supporting and 

advisory role to whichever agency is given the lead.” The plan included the use 

of electronic and written media, such as a radio station offshore or in an adjacent 

country, a mobile van, an airborne platform, tapes, an illustrated comic book, and 

issues of the Tropic Times; advice and assistance to the opposition in targeting its 

desired audience, developing a campaign plan, learning information dissemination 

techniques, and gaining access to polls and surveys conducted by agencies outside 

Panama; and activities that would exploit the PDF’s sensitivity to its image in 

Central America. In addition, a “leak of a professionally written psychological 

profile on Noriega showing serious personality defects of a kind not compatible 

with Latino culture,” Woerner suggested, “might serve to strain relationships 

between Noriega and his key supporters in the PDF.”8

Woerner followed this message nine days later with another, setting forth a 

campaign that would, through overt means, convey positive information about 

the goals of the United States in the region. In the pages of the Tropic Times

and the broadcasts of the Southern Command Network’s television channel 

and radio station, SOUTHCOM had already increased its own news coverage 

of the crisis. Additional measures, however, were still required. A survey had 

revealed that, among U.S. service personnel in Panama, 60 percent did not 

understand America’s policy in the crisis, and more than 90 percent wanted 

U.S. officials to explain what the policy was. SCN radio and television could 

address this need, Woerner wrote, without becoming “politicized or used in 

a psyop role.” He also proposed that the U.S. Treaty Implementation Plan, a 

classified document that established milestones for the withdrawal of U.S. forces 

from Panama by the end of the century, be declassified in an effort to counter 

Noriega’s allegations that the United States had no intention of honoring the 

canal treaties. Additional recommendations included running a series of Tropic 

Times articles and television and radio programs on U.S. treaty rights; having 

senior American officials address issues such as regional democracy, economics, 

and security assistance; and publicizing U.S. military activities in Panama so 

8 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS [personal for Lt Gen Riscassi, JCS; Asst SecDef Armitage; Chargé 

d’Affaires Maisto, AmEmb; and Col Rankin, USCINCSO, Liaison Officer (LNO)], 071845Z Oct 88, 

sub: Panama–Covert Psyops Proposal.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

108

as to demonstrate America’s determination to defend the canal and protect its 

citizens. The implementation of these proposals, Woerner maintained, would 

keep U.S. forces and Panamanian citizens better informed and, thus, lessen their 

vulnerability to “hostile disinformation.”9

Soon after Bush was elected president, Woerner threw a third cluster of 

proposals into the interagency arena. In a visit to Washington in late November, 

the general met with officials in the Pentagon and the State Department and 

laid out his “Panama scenario.” The assessment he presented was bleak, and 

he followed it with an appeal for the United States to become more “proactive” 

by promoting an “aggressive but subtle” initiative in which the Panamanian 

opposition to Noriega would take the lead in publicizing human rights violations 

in the country. The goal of such action would be to increase international and 

domestic pressures on the Solis Palma regime and Noriega (but not on the PDF, 

lest its officers “circle the wagons”) and to “ensure the most propitious electoral 

conditions possible” for Panama’s presidential balloting, scheduled for May 

1989. As in Woerner’s covert psychological operations plan, the United States 

government, with the State Department playing the leading role, would not 

become outwardly involved in the human rights campaign but would restrict itself 

to behind-the-scenes advice and support for Panama’s opposition groups and 

other interested parties such as the Catholic church, human rights organizations, 

and private citizens.10

From experience, Woerner knew that his recommendations might never emerge 

from the bureaucratic labyrinth of interagency politics. He had another concern 

as well. Two of his three sets of comprehensive proposals were predicated on the 

Panamanian opposition taking the initiative, and he was not at all confident that the 

National Civic Crusade was up to the task. This perception of the Civic Crusade was 

widely shared within the U.S. military community in Panama. Opposition leaders 

had at times shown remarkable bravery, but on the whole, the movement seemed to 

have run out of steam, despite its periodic demonstrations. The NCC itself conceded 

as much. In mid-June 1988, after a year of challenging Noriega and the government, 

one opposition leader remarked, “The time of white handkerchiefs, pot banging 

and marches is over. We need to find something new.” Little of substance followed. 

In Woerner’s view, the Civic Crusade lacked strong, charismatic leadership, was 

prone to fragmentation, and might even be inclined to seek an accommodation with 

Noriega. Some companies owned by opposition members continued to do business 

with the Panama Defense Forces, even as the owners called for U.S. intervention. In 

short, Woerner concluded that Noriega’s well-to-do critics wanted a solution to the 

crisis that would not entail undue risk or sacrifice on their part.11

Brig. Gen. John F. Stewart Jr., SOUTHCOM’s director of intelligence, agreed 

that the opposition was “sitting on its hands,” when it should have been taking to 

the streets in an effort to garner labor and student support and to confront the regime 

9 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS et al., 160030Z Oct 88, sub: USCINCSO Public Information Plan.

10 Quoted words from Trip Rpt, 23 Nov 88, sub: Trip Report—CINC Washington Visit 21–22 

November 1988. Paper, n.d., “Human Rights Initiative.” 11 The opposition leader is quoted in Tropic Times, 13 Jun 88. Woerner’s critique of the opposition can be found in Trip Rpt, 23 Nov 88, sub: Trip Report—CINC Washington Visit 21–22 

November 1988; Msg [draft?], CINCSO to Crowe, Nov 88, sub: Outlook for the Next Six Months in 

Panama; Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91.
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Settling In

with continuous turmoil. “Freedom is not free,” Stewart declared. Yet few in the 

opposition seemed willing to pay the necessary price, whatever that might be. There 

was also the problem of relations between the National Civic Crusade and the Panama 

Defense Forces. Woerner’s strategy for toppling the Noriega dictatorship called for 

the civilian opposition, at some point, to join in common cause with sympathetic 

elements within the Panamanian military. But, as Stewart noted, the two groups were 

natural antagonists, despite their alleged business connections. The PDF regarded 

itself as representing labor and the lower classes, while the opposition’s leaders came 

primarily from the white business and professional classes who resented the steady 

encroachment of the armed forces on the Panamanian economy. PDF members, 

therefore, had good reason to believe that the opposition, should it come to power, 

would not hesitate to dismantle their institution. Thus, even those officers who 

despised Noriega regarded the Civic Crusade as an unacceptable alternative. Until a 

reluctant and intimidated opposition built bridges to the Panama Defense Forces, the 

prospects for an internal solution to the crisis remained problematic.12

As 1988 drew to a close, Woerner and his principal advisers came to suspect 

that the development of a comprehensive U.S. policy for dealing with the crisis 

in Panama would have to await the inauguration of the new American president, 

the rejuvenation of the Panamanian opposition, and perhaps Panama’s presidential 

election the coming May. In the meantime, Woerner would continue his efforts to 

keep the volatile situation under control. Left to “grope and cope,” as one USARSO 

officer put it, SOUTHCOM’s commander, his staff, and key action officers met 

regularly with their counterparts in the U.S. Embassy and other agencies to 

discuss and coordinate various routine undertakings that the crisis required. Also, 

as SOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty Affairs continued to deliver formal protests 

regarding PDF misconduct and treaty violations, Woerner, in an effort to reduce the 

risks to Americans, initiated on his own authority limited measures to reduce the 

number of service personnel and their dependents living in Panama proper and not 

on U.S. military bases. The measures included cutting back on dependent travel, 

granting liberal environmental and morale leave, and allowing for the early return 

of dependents to the United States. As a part of this effort, Woerner successfully 

sought to change the length of military tours in Panama from thirty-six to thirty 

months for service personnel accompanied by dependents and from twenty-four 

to fifteen months for unaccompanied personnel.13 All the while, SOUTHCOM’s 

commander waited for the appropriate time to mount another appeal to Washington 

for policy guidance.

Joint Training

Managing the tactical aspects of the crisis remained the responsibility of Joint 

Task Force-Panama. As the year progressed, the friction that had characterized 

aspects of the command relationship between that headquarters and the Southern 

Command persisted, with staff officers at Fort Clayton complaining that their 

counterparts at Quarry Heights had a habit of not coordinating or consulting 

12 Stewart Interv, 14 Jun 89.

13 The “grope and cope” quote is from Morgan Interv, 7 Jul 89. On interagency meetings in 

Panama, see Intervs, author with Col Curt Ely, and Lt Col Mike Michaelis, both U.S. Army, 7 Jun 

89, Fort Clayton, Panama. On the reduction of off-post personnel (ROPP), see Information Paper, 

USSOUTHCOM J–5, 5 Oct 88, sub: Support for U.S. Policy in Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

110

with the joint task force but rather issuing decrees from above that often ignored 

tactical realities. Also from the perspective of JTF-Panama, there were too many 

people in the higher headquarters who wanted to be operators, the result being 

micromanagement, facilitated in this case by the fact that Quarry Heights and Fort 

Clayton were just a ten-minute drive from one another. But unsolicited guidance on 

minor issues could come as well from as far away as Washington, as in the case of 

the Pentagon dictating the appropriate garb (helmets and flak jackets) for military 

policemen standing guard in Panama. For JTF-Panama, this kind of “interference” 

only complicated the command’s task of orchestrating day-to-day operations.14

As commander of the joint task force, General Loeffke had the mission to 

ensure that the troops under his command were prepared to provide security and, 

if required, execute combat operations. This necessitated a good deal of training, 

and, from the outset, Loeffke insisted to his staff and component commanders 

that this function be truly joint. At JTF‐Panama’s daily briefings, the general 

would listen to each service component’s training schedule, then suggest ways 

to combine the separate training events into a joint undertaking. Staff officers 

for the components, after experiencing some consternation over this seemingly 

haphazard and short-notice reordering of their training timetables, began to 

anticipate Loeffke’s wishes. This led to a weekly meeting at which each service’s 

operations officers would discuss the training needs of their units, devise a plan 

that would satisfy some of these needs through joint training, then present the plan 

to Colonel Cope, the JTF-Panama director of operations, and, once he approved 

it, to Loeffke.15 Before long, the weekly coordination meetings for joint training 

14 Intervs, author with Morgan, 7 Jul 89; Cope, 25 May 89; and Col Arnie Rossi, U.S. Army, 27 

Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Conversation, author with Maj Chuck Herrick, USARSO Secy of the 

General Staff (SGS), Summer 1989, Fort Clayton, Panama. 15 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 310200Z Jan 89, sub: Update No. 20; Interv, author with Maj 

Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. Army, 28 Apr 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. The systematic planning of joint 

Fort Clayton
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Settling In

became routine, to Loeffke’s deep satisfaction. Areas covered by the joint training 

plans included administration, logistics, communications, intelligence, patrolling, 

land navigation, linkup procedures and passage of lines, rules of engagement, civil 

disturbances, interior guard duty, and the use of night‐fighting equipment.

Loeffke mandated at least one battalion-size joint training event every other 

week, and he zealously scrutinized the results. Some of his component commanders 

showed less enthusiasm for the undertaking. Citing the purely defensive mission of 

the marines, Colonel Conley, the Marine Force commander, initially resisted joint 

training but soon relented. The Navy’s participation in any scheduled joint training 

event, on the other hand, could never be taken for granted, and SOCSOUTH’s Colonel 

Fry, whose special operations forces occasionally came under Loeffke’s operational 

control, thought the general had gone too far in making joint training one of the JTFPanama’s primary missions. Fry was characteristically blunt: “This became thought 

of as a goddamn training experience and not real goddamn operations. . . . I don’t 

play those games. I do not send people on real missions where they can get shot 

[just] to train them.” This skepticism notwithstanding, joint training quickly became 

a hallmark of JTF-Panama. The sight of a target being attacked simultaneously by a 

105-mm. cannon of an Air Force AC–130, the mortars of a Navy special boat unit, 

and Army gunships was not uncommon, Loeffke informed the chief of staff of the 

Army. Finally, Loeffke’s decision to shuffle several USARSO units in and out of the 

Arraiján Tank Farm, where they came under the operational control of the Marine 

Force commander, allowed soldiers to learn the ways of marines and vice versa.16

One of the principal goals of joint training was to identify and resolve 

problems of interoperability. Of the several difficulties that came immediately to 

the fore, one of the most critical entailed jargon and communications. As Colonel 

Conley advised Colonel Cope, differences in service terminology and acronyms 

were leading to misunderstandings and confusion. Some JCS publications helped 

“high-level staffs” overcome this obstacle, but these were of no use to units at the 

tactical level. “The potential is present,” Conley warned, “to cause a disaster if 

the wrong terms were to be used in a critical situation.” Over time, the problem of 

terminology was mitigated by several methods, including interservice coordination 

on a regular basis, the exchange of liaison officers, and simply the ongoing daily 

routine of a functional joint task force.17

Communications were Loeffke’s recurring nightmare. The FAX machines, 

STU III secure telephones, and multichannel hotlines set up in Panama early in 

the crisis facilitated communication between JTF-Panama, its components, and 

training events did not completely resolve the problem of JTF-Panama making last-minute changes 

to the agreed-upon schedules, even though, for optimum effectiveness, these schedules needed to be 

approved weeks in advance. Interv, Lt Col Robert L. Barefield, 7 Nov 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 16 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to DA [Loeffke to Schwarzkopf], 100150Z Jun 88, sub: Update No. 

13. Intervs, author with Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 27 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Barefield, 7 Nov 90; and Lt Col John R. Finch, U.S. Army, 17 Mar 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 

Quote from Interv, author with Col Chuck Fry, 1 May 89, Albrook Air Station, Panama. Msg, CDR, 

USARSO, to CSA, 310200Z Jan 89, sub: Update No. 20. 17 Conley’s remarks are from Lessons Learned Rpt, CDR, MARFOR, JTF-Panama, n.d. (but in 

response to Colonel Cope’s memo of 19 May 1988, calling for JTF-Panama components to submit 

lessons learned to DCSOPS, USARSO, every Monday morning). See also Intervs, author with Maj 

Tom King, U.S. Army, and Maj Clyde Vaughn, U.S. Army, 18 May 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; and 

Col Thomas W. Roberts, USMC, 24 Mar 89, Rodman Naval Station, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

112

higher headquarters, but the tactical-level networks between the components and 

their units did not always function properly. For this reason, Loeffke insisted on 

redundant communications and emphasized before every major joint training event 

that he wanted “the comms stressed to the max.” Early problems included the 

different times at which each service changed its frequencies and variables, the lack 

of a joint key list for “crypto” variable compatibility, the inability to determine call 

signs for want of joint communications-electronics operating instructions, and the 

general incompatibility of one service’s equipment with that of another’s. Coming 

up with solutions to these problems on paper was not necessarily difficult, but 

implementation often took time. Moreover, despite the emphasis Loeffke placed 

on communications, every time he thought that the nets were operating efficiently, 

some new glitch would surface to induce yet another nightmare. In an incident in 

1989, for example, a Panamanian citizen handling an unexploded artillery shell on 

the U.S. Army’s Empire Range was killed when the shell exploded. Afterwards, 

Rossi drew a diagram of all the U.S. officers who had used the communications 

network in reacting to the incident. The network had been overwhelmed. By Rossi’s 

calculations, of the twenty officers who had tied up communications, only five had 

a legitimate reason for doing so.18

As the JTF-Panama director of operations, Cope grappled with another 

problem highlighted by the joint training events: many of the U.S. troops rotating 

in and out of Panama for the security enhancement mission simply were not 

trained or qualified to operate in what he and others regarded as a low intensity 

conflict. The Cobra crews arriving as part of Task Force Hawk offered a case in 

point. Trained to destroy Soviet tanks on a European battlefield, they could not 

readily adjust to a mission that called for close air support for ground troops. 

Nor were they adept at hitting slow-moving targets in the Bay of Panama, a 

competition in which the Navy’s special boat unit regularly bested them.19

The Cobra crews, in Cope’s assessment, illustrated a larger problem plaguing the 

Army: the lack of realistic training for a low intensity conflict. The National Training 

Center and the Joint Readiness Training Center were essential, Cope conceded, for 

giving commanders and their troops a feel for combat. But at both locations, training 

was conducted in a “sterile” force-on-force environment. Innocent civilians and 

“people‐related problems” found in many low intensity conflicts were absent from 

the training centers. So, too, were various constraints on the use of massive combat 

power. Rather, there was an emphasis on “kill and destroy,” using any means available. 

Such training tended to reinforce traditional thinking about the role of the military 

as a conventional instrument, to be employed, after the “failure” of diplomacy, to 

resolve a problem through the use of force, free from political constraints. “Sterile” 

training, Cope believed, obscured the inextricable link between politics and military 

18 First quote from Interv, author with Loeffke, 29 Mar 89. Second quoted word in both Intervs, 

author with Loeffke, 31 May 89 and 27 Mar 89. Intervs, author with Rossi, 27 Mar 89; Cope, 29 Mar 

89; and Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89. Msg, item 001, CDR, MARFOR, sub: Communications Interoperability, 

USMC Command Chronology, 6 April 1988–31 May 1990: Lessons Learned, History and Museums 

Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C. At some point in mid-1989, Loeffke 

noted that just when he thought the importance of using the same communications variables during 

joint training events had been learned, a MEDEVAC exercise was held in which key elements were 

using different variables. Author’s notes on Comments, Maj Gen Loeffke, mid-1989. 19 Cope Interv, 29 Mar 89; Author’s notes on Comments, Maj Gen Loeffke, mid-1989.
113

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power inherent in a low intensity conflict. In his opinion (and that of others), the 

U.S. military needed to redirect a portion of its training programs to deal with the 

restraints, politically mandated constraints, and large numbers of civilians found on the 

nonlinear, unconventional, often urban “battlefield” characteristic of an unorthodox 

LIC environment.20

To facilitate the Army’s understanding of low intensity conflict, Loeffke directed 

Cope to compile “lessons learned” files featuring the insights acquired from the joint 

training events and from the daily operations of JTF-Panama and its components. 

Cope consequently instructed staff officers in the field to submit weekly reports 

containing the required material. Some of the units complied readily; others did so 

only reluctantly, equating lessons learned with mistakes. Whichever the case, Cope’s 

staff screened the incoming information, always pulling a few select items to brief 

at JTF-Panama update meetings. Lessons ranged from the problems encountered 

in using dogs in the jungle to broader operational issues. Critics of the program 

charged that the material presented was tilted more toward tactical minutiae than 

overriding issues dealing with joint interoperability, and Rossi, in reading summary 

sheets, came to believe that the lessons submitted had been “relearned” rather than 

learned. Yet, if there was a serious flaw in the program, it was to be found outside of 

Panama, where various agencies failed to take advantage of the information Cope 

provided them. At the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, for 

example, officers expressed appreciation for the USARSO/JTF‐Panama reports, but 

under the erroneous assumption that the center was receiving raw, not processed, 

material, confined the reports to rarely opened file drawers.21

Loeffke, for his part, never tired of disseminating the lessons of JTF-Panama, 

whether in hosting official visitors to U.S. Army, South, or in giving briefings 

back in the United States. The bottom line, in his view, was that his troops were in 

an ever-increasing state of readiness to conduct joint operations should the crisis 

suddenly turn “ugly.” In this light, he regarded the joint training program as the 

“success story” of JTF-Panama, an organization, he told a variety of audiences, 

that had in many ways become the “joint training center for DOD.”22

The “Stage”

There were concerns voiced early on at the Southern Command and JTF-Panama 

that an expanded program of joint training throughout the canal area carried with it 

the slight risk of provoking an unwanted confrontation with the Panama Defense 

Forces.23 As scheduled training events proceeded, however, these fears receded, as 

20 Cope Interv, 29 Mar 89.

21 Intervs, author with USARSO staff officer, early 1989; Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89; Loeffke, 27 Mar 

89; and Rossi, 27 Mar 89. Memo, Colonel Cope for CDR, MARFOR, et al., 19 May 88, sub: Input 

of Lessons Learned on JTF-Panama. 22 Quotes from Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89. Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 310200Z Jan 89, sub: 

Update No. 20. 23 A SOUTHCOM Disposition Form dated 8 July 1988 raised the possibility of a confrontation. 

In a note attached to the DF, Cope maintained that Noriega had probably drawn a line on a map. If 

JTF-Panama crossed that line, even for training purposes, the Panama Defense Forces might well 

respond with military force. Cope thought the best course was to find out where the line was, perhaps 

by using U.S. aviation assets, not so much for the purpose of avoiding it as challenging it. To leave 

the line unchallenged, he argued, might prompt Noriega to move it closer to the canal.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

114

potentially explosive encounters between U.S. troops and Panamanian forces failed 

to materialize. The same could not be said of concerns raised by the situation on the 

Arraiján Tank Farm and the Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, where American 

forces continued their daily security enhancement duties. For a short period in May, 

during the Noriega-Kozak negotiations, intrusions onto these two U.S. facilities 

tapered off, prompting Loeffke to express his relief. “Ninety days on alert began 

to wear thin,” he confided to General Vuono. But in June, after the negotiations 

had collapsed, the intrusions picked up again. From July through October, they 

escalated sharply, numbering well over a hundred a month.24 Small arms fire was 

often exchanged, although, with one exception, the intensity of the shooting in no 

way approached that of the 12 April firefight. Still, the tank farm and the adjacent 

ammunition supply point had become the “stage,” as Woerner called the area, on 

which the most dangerous aspects of the Panama crisis were being acted out.

Under Rossi’s goose egg approach, the tank farm and the ammunition supply 

point were in the Marine Forces area of responsibility. Since the marines did not 

have sufficient personnel to secure both facilities as well as other terrain assigned 

to them (such as Sierra Miñon, a nearby hill overlooking Howard Air Force Base), 

Loeffke kept a company-size element from the 193d Infantry Brigade under 

the MARFOR’s operational control. Military police also drew guard duty at the 

ammunition supply point, even though several MP commanders protested that this 

static defense mission did not properly employ their mobile assets.25

In Loeffke’s opinion, the use of infantry and military policemen on the tank 

farm and ammunition supply point, while helpful in promoting jointness, tied down 

Army units needed for other duties. Their employment also prevented combat 

service and combat service support units in Panama from learning their rear area 

security missions. To remedy the situation, the general gave USARSO’s 324th 

Support Group, band members, communications personnel, and other noncombat 

elements four weeks to prepare for guard duty on the two facilities. The preparations 

revealed that the designated units and personnel were not equipped to carry out 

the mission. They lacked armored vests, night-vision devices, sniper weapons, 

and adequate communications. Reviewing the statistics, Loeffke concluded that 

JTF-Panama had surfaced a major weakness in Army training. Efforts were made 

to correct the deficiencies, and by the end of the year he could boast that USARSO/

JTF-Panama had the best-trained combat support and combat service support units 

in the theater, if not the Army. The units were physically fit, he argued, could fire as 

well as any U.S.-based infantry unit, and had been exposed to real-life dangers. To 

the infantry and MPs guarding the Arraiján Tank Farm and Rodman Ammunition 

Supply Point, the additional manpower came as welcome relief. The Special Forces 

24 Loeffke’s relief was expressed in Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 232000Z May 88, sub: 

Update No. 12. For the situation on the tank farm and ammunition supply point for the last half of 

1988, see Msg, CDR, MARFOR, to CG, 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB), 18 Mar 89, 

USMC Command Chronology for 6 April–31 December 1988, History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C.; Fact Sheet, SOUTHCOM J–3, 25 Oct 88, sub: 

Intrusion Incidents. 25 Telephone Interv, author with Capt Anthony M. Schilling, U.S. Army, 20 Nov 90, Fort Sill, 

Okla. The military policemen had chafed at the static security mission they performed at the ammunition supply point as an inappropriate use of troops who operated best when they could employ their 

mobility and their ability to interact with people. Michaelis Interv, 7 Jun 89.
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were less enthusiastic, worrying that inexperienced “kids” in combat support and 

combat service support units might compromise ongoing special operations west 

of Howard.26

While the primary mission of U.S. troops at the tank farm and ammunition 

supply point was to defend and protect the facilities, JTF-Panama was also 

supposed to gather evidence of the reported intrusions and, if possible, identify 

the intruders and determine their motives. Military intelligence personnel 

worked on the problem, but the findings were largely inconclusive. When field 

commanders complained that they needed more extensive and precise data, Col. 

Paul F. Morgan, the JTF‐Panama director of intelligence, fired back, “No way! 

This is not the battlefield of Europe where you can see them coming.” Tracking 

the whereabouts of a PDF unit going about its routine business was relatively easy 

for intelligence officers; tracing a handful of individuals using guerrilla tactics to 

infiltrate U.S. facilities was next to impossible. Also, as General Stewart noted, 

legal and peacetime constraints that ruled out most covert collection operations 

compounded the difficulty of acquiring accurate and timely intelligence “beyond 

the line of sight.” Even when official dispensations were forthcoming, establishing 

a productive intelligence network based on human sources [HUMINT] took time, 

as did the procedures essential for the protection of sources and collectors alike.27

Tactical commanders worked under many of the same constraints as intelligence 

personnel. Troops on the tank farm under MARFOR control, for example, could 

have acquired information through deep patrols, surveillance, and ambushes, but 

the rules of engagement prohibited such activities. Routine U.S. patrols would at 

times pursue intruders and hope to surround them before they escaped the area, 

but, aside from the jungle terrain making this tactic almost impossible to realize, 

higher headquarters explicitly stated that intruders trying to get away should be 

permitted to do so. Avoiding an unwanted and perhaps deadly incident trumped 

the requirement for information. Highly sophisticated sensors, photographic 

equipment, and night-imagery devices were employed to provide tangible proof of 

the armed intrusions, but the results were generally less than satisfactory. Finally, 

one could police an area in which intruders had been sighted or in which there 

had been an exchange of shots, but as General Cisneros noted, you could run a 

herd of elephants through the thick jungle and an hour later find no evidence of 

their presence. Rossi put it more bluntly: “We have fired thousands of rounds to a 

distance of six meters away, and we haven’t hit s——t.”28

26 Intervs, author with Loeffke, 27 Mar 89; Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89; and Fry, 1 May 89. Comments, 

Maj Gen Loeffke, n.d. [Spring 1989]; Msg, CDR, USARSO, to DA, 292325Z Sep 88, sub: Update 

No. 17. On several occasions, Loeffke required his staff officers to visit the tank farm and ammunition supply point, even to the point of spending the night. Morgan Interv, 7 Jul 89. 27 Intervs, author with Morgan, 7 Jul 89, and Stewart, 14 Jun 89.

28 Intervs, author with Stewart, 14 Jun 89; Maj John Mulholland, U.S. Army, 30 May 91, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.; Maj William Graves, U.S. Army, 20, 27 Aug 91, 18 May 92, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Maj Dan Augustine, 13 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 21 

May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Fry, 1 May 89; Cisneros, 1 May 89; and Rossi, 27 Mar 89. The 

efforts to obtain hard evidence of intruders did produce at least one videotape of armed personnel, 

but some officers who saw it argued that ascertaining for certain whether the individuals were on 

U.S. property or not was impossible. On the existence of the videotape, see Fact Sheet, SOUTHCOM 

SCJ–3, 25 Oct 88, sub: Intrusion Incidents, which reported that the “best hard evidence of intrusion 

was only recently obtained on 25 October with video footage of intruders being secured by Army/
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

116

Although conclusive evidence regarding the intruders may have been lacking, 

what information did exist supported what military intelligence, staff officers, and 

commanders had surmised since early May. Intrusions of armed personnel on the 

Arraiján Tank Farm and Rodman Ammunition Supply Point did take place, the 

violations of U.S. facilities was a campaign orchestrated by the PDF, and the units 

involved were probably the 7th Infantry Company or the special forces of the 

Special Security Antiterrorist Unit (known by the Spanish acronym UESAT)—

or perhaps both—engaged in training exercises. The identity of the unit or units 

was really immaterial, according to one U.S. intelligence officer. More critical 

was the intention of the intruders. As of late October 1988, the list of probable 

motives included trying to make U.S. troops look incompetent and unprofessional, 

attempting to unnerve U.S. troops, testing the efficacy of PDF psychological 

operations, determining the limits of the rules of engagement and other operational 

constraints under which U.S. troops operated, and, in the event of a “failure” (being 

captured or killed by U.S. troops), “providing a ‘martyr’ around which to rally 

future campaigns against the US.”29 Missing from this list was any suggestion that 

the presumably well-armed intruders sought to inflict casualties on the Americans, 

an act that would have precipitated the military showdown with the United States 

that Noriega wanted to avoid. 

While officers discussed the nature and purposes of the intrusions, guard duty 

on the tank farm and ammunition supply point settled into a nightly routine for 

the troops involved. At dusk, the assigned units would engage in a night-firing 

Marine forces in the ATF.” As to the quality and the handling of the tape and the release of apprehended intruders, the author’s comments are based on conversations with a handful of officers in 

Panama, not on hard documentation. 29 A concise presentation of what was known about the intrusions in the latter part of 1988 is 

provided in Fact Sheet, SOUTHCOM SCJ–3, 25 Oct 88, sub: Intrusion Incidents. That a large number of U.S. officers in Panama accepted these findings is attested to in messages and interviews too 

numerous to cite here.

Rodman Naval Station
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exercise that consisted of each person firing twenty M16 rounds with the help of 

night-vision scopes. Ten hits on the target were required before one could advance 

to the next test, the identification of various objects through night-vision goggles. 

There followed “spot tests” on the rules of engagement then in effect and on 

“survival Spanish,” a series of Spanish words and sentences (printed on a small 

card) that Loeffke deemed appropriate for security enhancement duties. Once the 

troops had “qualified,” they took up their positions and began acclimating to the 

nighttime sounds of the jungle. (To facilitate the acclimatization process, JTFPanama initiated the practice of sending newly arrived Marine units to the Jungle 

Operations Training Center on the Atlantic side of the isthmus. After a short tour 

there introduced the Leathernecks to the terrain and sounds unique to Panama’s 

jungles, they would be sent to the tank farm and ammunition supply point to 

assume their duties.) 

If, while on guard duty, a soldier or marine spotted an armed individual or 

group moving in his direction, the rules of engagement directed that he issue the 

verbal challenge, alto (Spanish for “stop”). If the person or group did not stop 

but continued to maneuver toward the guard’s position, the guard was authorized 

to lock and load his weapon and fire a warning shot. If the intruders opened fire 

prior to a warning shot, the guard was authorized to return fire. Most “firefights” 

involved the exchange of only a few shots, after which the intruders would 

withdraw. Any sighting of armed men was reported to the JTF-Panama operations 

center at Fort Clayton. In those cases where shots had been fired, the operations 

center notified Colonel Rossi immediately, who in turn informed Loeffke. All 

shooting incidents required a debriefing afterwards. JTF‐Panama would then 

analyze the incidents and draw what conclusions were possible, then forward 

the information in situation reports to the Southern Command. SOUTHCOM, if 

a particular incident was serious enough, would pass the information further up 

the chain to the Joint Chiefs.

Although most shooting engagements after the 12 April firefight were small 

affairs, there were exceptions. The most noteworthy occurred on 31 October, 

Halloween night. At 2015, eleven marines in separate listening posts on the 

Arraiján Tank Farm detected movement and heard voices around the southern 

edge of the facility. When they sighted armed intruders in the jungle nearby, the 

marines issued the required verbal challenge. The intruders thereupon opened 

fire with automatic weapons and other small arms. The marines fired back. Over 

the next two and a half hours, six more firefights broke out, four started by the 

intruders and two by marines responding to what they perceived as threatening 

movements. Once the small arms firing stopped, the marines, in what they 

considered a prudent measure, continued to fire illumination rounds from their 

grenade launchers and 81-mm. mortars throughout the night. The Leathernecks 

sustained no casualties during the fighting, and, after dawn, patrols relieved the 

men in the listening posts.

Panama’s regime-controlled media played up the Halloween theme, 

claiming that the marines had been shooting at witches on broomsticks. The 

JTF-Panama/Southern Command assessment was more down to earth. The 

incident, an intelligence report claimed, was the most violent since the 12 April 

firefight. And for once, there was a good deal of physical evidence to indicate 

that multiple intrusions and hostile firing had taken place, although ascertaining 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

118

whether or not the intruders had suffered casualties proved impossible. The 

implications of the night’s events were particularly unsettling. The 31 October 

intrusions displayed a tactical sophistication not normally associated with the 

Panama Defense Forces, raising again the possibility of participation by more 

experienced, non-Panamanian personnel, possibly Cubans. More alarming was 

the apparent readiness of the intruders to fire on the marines without provocation. 

There was also evidence that the trespassers possessed a thorough knowledge of 

the U.S. rules of engagement.30

Rules of Engagement

This last point touched upon a contentious issue within the U.S. military 

community in Panama. When officers observed unidentified armed personnel on 

the tank farm and ammunition supply point, the intruders not only seemed to have 

a “total awareness” of U.S. rules of engagement, but even appeared to know when 

the rules had been modified, oftentimes before the changes had been implemented 

in the field. How the intruders acquired that information was certainly a source 

of concern. More troubling to the troops performing guard duty, however, were 

the rules themselves. Since the beginning of the security enhancement mission, 

the content and interpretation of the rules of engagement had been a source of 

confusion and frustration. 

Rules of engagement set forth policies and procedures for engaging a hostile 

force. Because the United States and Panama were not at war, U.S. troops performing 

security enhancement duties in the area of the canal operated under peacetime rules 

of engagement contained in a SOUTHCOM letter of instruction dated 29 December 

1987. The SOUTHCOM rules, in turn, were based on JCS guidelines and subject to 

modification by the Joint Chiefs or the SOUTHCOM commander.31

“The inherent right of self-defense is the basis for these Rules of Engagement,” 

the SOUTHCOM document asserted, and the right to use force in self-defense 

depended on two elements: necessity and proportionality. Necessity constituted a 

response to the commission of a hostile act or the demonstration of hostile intent. 

Proportionality was the requirement that the use of force be “limited in intensity, 

duration, and magnitude to what is reasonably required to counter the hostile act 

or hostile intent and ensure the safety of US forces.” A hostile act consisted of 

an attack or use of armed force against U.S. forces, American citizens, or their 

property. Hostile intent was defined as “the threat of the imminent use of armed 

force” against these and other targets. A justifiable use of deadly force required the 

presence of one of these threats, or the designation in advance by the SOUTHCOM 

commander that an opposing force was hostile, in which case U.S. troops could 

employ deadly force “without respect to the commission of a hostile act or the 

demonstration of hostile intent.”32

30 Accounts of the 31 October firefights are contained in Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 11–12; CDR, 

MARFOR, to CG, 6th MEB, 18 Mar 89, USMC Command Chronology for 6 April–31 December 

1988; USSOUTHCOM News Release, 3 Nov 88, sub: Armed Intruders Encountered at Arraiján Tank 

Farm Monday Night; Intelligence Rpt (INTREP) 10022–88, n.d., in Colonel Rossi’s files, USARSO/

JTF-Panama.

31 USSOUTHCOM, 29 Dec 87, sub: Letter of Instruction (LOI), Peacetime Rules of Engagement 

(ROE). 32 Quotes from Ibid. Excerpt, JCS Deployment Order, 122000Z Mar 88.
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Elaborating and, in some cases, qualifying these general guidelines were 

supplemental rules of engagement, issued by the Southern Command and the Joint 

Chiefs, that specifically addressed the situation in Panama. For example, U.S. 

troops performing security enhancement missions at the tank farm and ammunition 

supply point were to “attempt to control” an incident without using force. “When 

time and conditions permit,” SOUTHCOM’s letter of instruction read, “the hostile 

forces should be warned and given the opportunity to withdraw or cease threatening 

actions.” U.S. troops could employ force only as a “measure of last resort” and just 

to the degree needed to establish control over a situation. Pursuit of a hostile force 

was not allowed except when the disablement or destruction of that force was 

“required in self-defense.”33

Accompanying the rules of engagement were rules of conduct that called 

upon U.S. troops to respect Panamanian property and to deal courteously with 

Panamanian citizens. Also closely associated with the rules of engagement were a 

series of orders that one Marine Forces commander characterized as “operational 

constraints.” In the early part of the security enhancement mission, JTF-Panama 

decreed that only Army military policemen, Air Force security police, and Navy 

security personnel could carry loaded weapons, mainly side arms. Other troops, 

including those guarding and patrolling the Arraiján Tank Farm and Rodman 

Ammunition Supply Point, were not permitted to have magazines in their weapons, 

much less rounds in the chambers. Should a threat arise, a field commander could 

direct that magazines be taken out of ammunition pouches and inserted into the 

weapons, although the prohibition against chambering a round remained in effect 

unless the use of force was required.34

As soon as the rules of engagement and other operational constraints went 

into effect, problems surfaced. To begin with, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 

Southern Command wanted component and subordinate commanders to have 

copies of the SOUTHCOM letter of instruction. The commanders, in turn, were 

to brief all incoming troops on the rules of engagement. At JTF-Panama, Loeffke 

believed that one way to ensure the widest possible dissemination was to issue 

the troops a wallet-size card listing, in general terms, the appropriate rules. His 

proposal ran into bureaucratic obstacles, however, because several of the rules 

were classified Confidential. JTF‐Panama appealed to the SOUTHCOM staff to 

intercede with the Joint Chiefs, who would have to approve declassification of 

the rules in question. On 11 May, the SOUTHCOM staff judge advocate talked 

with a legal officer assigned to the Joint Staff but failed to receive permission to 

declassify the rules in question. Loeffke bridled at a decision that in essence meant 

“as a technical matter . . . we should not brief those soldiers on these ROE.” “That, 

of course, is absurd and unacceptable,” he wrote Woerner, adding that, unless the 

33 Quotes from USSOUTHCOM, 29 Dec 87, sub: Letter of Instruction (LOI), Peacetime Rules 

of Engagement (ROE). Excerpts, JCS Deployment Order, 122000Z Mar 88. 34 Memo, Lt Col Joseph Cornelison, Staff Judge Advocate, USARSO, for JTF-Panama J–3, 27 

Apr 88, sub: Minimizing the Effect of U.S. Military Operations on Panamanian Civilians. Quote 

from Interv, Benis Frank with Col Thomas W. Roberts, USMC, 30 Mar 90, Camp Lejeune, N.C. 

Intervs, author with Graves, 20, 27 Aug 91, 18 May 92; and Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89. Msg, CDR, JTFPanama, to CDR, Army Forces-Panama (COMARFORPM), et al., 131330Z Apr 88, sub: Policy for 

Carrying Ammunition; Memo, Lt Col Joseph Cornelison for CDR, JTF-Panama, 15 Apr 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

120

SOUTHCOM commander objected, JTF-Panama intended to publish the card, not 

as rules of engagement but as orders or guidelines from Loeffke.35

Woerner did not object. Nor did he let the matter drop with the Joint Chiefs. 

On 20 May, he sent a message to the Pentagon in which he strongly urged 

“expeditious action” in declassifying the rules of engagement and approving 

issuance of the card. Getting an answer took almost three weeks. At that point, 

the Joint Chiefs informed Woerner that they had no objection to certain classified 

rules being published in a “bullet format” (short, concise statements listed without 

elaboration) but that they also wanted some changes in the way certain rules 

were worded. In the end, the troops responsible for protecting U.S. facilities in 

Panama received a card listing, in sequence, the appropriate steps they should 

take when confronted by intruders and at what points the use of deadly force was 

deemed permissible.36

Although the cards provided U.S. forces with written guidelines, problems 

concerning the rules of engagement continued to mount. Both commanders and 

troops expressed frustration at what they regarded as the vague and inconsistent 

wording of the rules. The frequent changes made to specific rules and other 

operational procedures compounded their confusion. Inquiries from the field piled 

up. When specifically could you chamber a round? When specifically could you 

open fire? What specifically constituted a “threat”? Commanders briefing their 

troops had difficulty providing intelligible answers, largely because the officers 

themselves did not always fully comprehend the rules. Early in the security 

enhancement phase of the crisis, troops often expressed incredulity at what they 

were told. As they became accustomed to the briefings, a sense of resignation 

encouraged sarcasm and cynicism. As one company commander recalled his 

experience briefing the troops on rules of engagement, “It’s kind of like a bad 

comedian in front of a crowd of hecklers.” Yet, the same officer conceded that 

when higher headquarters attempted to add specificity—and thus clarity—to the 

rules, the length and complexity of the resulting guidance only made briefing the 

changes more difficult.37

Without a clear understanding of the rules of engagement, marines and 

soldiers on guard duty or patrol often had doubts about what they could do under 

certain circumstances. They also began to worry about the consequences of their 

actions should they employ deadly force, even in self-defense. Would they incur 

the wrath of higher headquarters, perhaps to the point of facing court-martial and 

incarceration? Several commanders whose units had exchanged fire with intruders 

on the tank farm and ammunition supply point complained that the debriefings 

35 Memo, Loeffke through Chief of Staff, SOUTHCOM, for CINCSO, 18 May 88.

36 On the issue of providing the troops a wallet-size rules-of-engagement card, see Excerpt, 

JCS Deployment Order, 122000Z Mar 88; Msg, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 212315Z Apr 88, 

sub: USCINCSO Directed Standing Order; Memo, Loeffke through Chief of Staff, SOUTHCOM, 

for CINCSO, 18 May 88. First quote from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 200316Z May 88, sub: ROE 

Classification. Second quote from Msg, JCS to CINCSO, 072220Z Jun 88, sub: ROE Classification. 

Msg, CDR, USARSO, to Headquarters, DA (HQDA), 260105Z Mar 88, sub: Briefing for Soldiers 

Arriving in Panama. 37 The company commander’s observations come from Graves Interv, 27 Aug 91. See also 

Augustine Interv, 13 Jun 89; Msg, item 8, 193d Inf Bde (Light), Lessons Learned, n.d., sub: 

OPLAN 6000.
121

Settling In

conducted by JTF-Panama and the Southern Command afterwards were generally 

contentious sessions akin to an interrogation, with the guards who had fired their 

weapons often believing that their behavior, not that of the intruders, was on trial. 

At one point, the marines even had to account for every round expended in the 

course of a shooting incident. As an Army officer observed, the troops’ uncertainty 

surrounding the use of force, when combined with the perception that support from 

higher headquarters was lacking, left the “guy on the ground in the lurch.” The 

result, according to another officer, was a “hesitant soldier,” a soldier who might 

wait too long to load his weapon and defend himself. In the jungle, where distances 

were compressed and a patrol could encounter hostile elements unexpectedly, 

hesitation could prove fatal.38

In an attempt to clear up some of the doubts and confusion surrounding the 

subject, Colonel Rossi provided JTF-Panama components a memorandum on 

12 August designed to serve as an authoritative, single-source document on the 

rules of engagement currently in effect for ground forces in Panama. In addition 

to the rules previously indicated, specific guidelines stated that unarmed intruders 

on U.S. facilities would be warned by voice or loudspeaker that they were in a 

restricted area and that they should stop. If the intruders obeyed the order to stop, 

they would be apprehended. If they attempted to flee, no warning shot would 

be fired. Armed intruders would receive a similar warning, together with one to 

lay down their weapons. If they failed to heed the command, U.S. troops could 

fire a warning shot. But, Rossi emphasized, the troops could fire at the intruders 

only if fired upon, if irrefutable evidence existed of hostile intent, or if clearly 

acting in self-defense. With this sort of directness, Rossi’s memorandum did 

provide a comprehensive and comprehensible set of guidelines for the rules of 

engagement, but, as the colonel himself conceded, JTF-Panama continued to 

receive requests for clarification and changes.39

The combination of uncertainty, doubt, and hesitation produced by the rules 

of engagement was inextricably linked to the larger issue that pitted the right 

of individual and unit self-defense against the need for discipline and restraint 

in a complex and politically charged situation. The ensuing debate was intense 

and controversial. Published rules of engagement proclaimed in capital letters, 

“NOTHING IN THESE RULES NEGATES A COMMANDER’S OBLIGATION 

TO TAKE ALL NECESSARY AND APPROPRIATE ACTION FOR HIS 

UNIT’S SELF DEFENSE.”40 Yet, there were those in the field who questioned 

this claim. The rules were too restrictive, they argued, and were more concerned 

with preventing Panamanian casualties than with protecting American troops. 

The marine or soldier who gave a verbal warning, “alto,” to an intruder or who 

waited for clear evidence of a hostile act or hostile intent before chambering 

a round in his weapon, or who fired a warning shot before employing deadly 

force against a hostile element, risked giving away his position and exposing 

himself to hostile fire. Col. Thomas W. Roberts, the MARFOR commander who 

38 Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 11. For the comments and quotes of the two officers, see, respectively, Intervs, author with Augustine, 13 Jun 89, and Graves, 27 Aug 91. 39 Memo, Col A. T. Rossi for ARFOR [and other JTF-Panama components], 12 Aug 88, sub: 

Rules of Engagement; Rossi Interv, 27 Mar 89. 40 USSOUTHCOM, 29 Dec 87, sub: Letter of Instruction (LOI), Peacetime Rules of Engagement 

(ROE).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

122

succeeded Conley, insisted that young men engaged in the profession of arms on 

the tank farm and ammunition supply point had to be trusted to go on a mission 

with a loaded weapon. To proscribe this and other commonsense measures, he 

asserted, represented a training failure and placed young marines or soldiers in 

vulnerable positions. To both Roberts and his predecessor, the existing rules of 

engagement conceded the initiative to a hostile force and, in the event of a major 

confrontation, increased the likelihood that a U.S. soldier or marine would take 

the first bullet.41

To a number of officers on the SOUTHCOM and JTF‐Panama staffs, the 

criticism emanating from the Marine Forces component reinforced the view held 

in both those higher headquarters since the 12 April firefight that the marines were 

“loose cannons,” obsessed with the 1983 Beirut terrorist bombing in which 241 

marines had been killed. That tragedy, according to some Army staff officers, had 

rendered the marines unable to function in a politically sensitive and nuanced 

environment in which the probability of hostilities was low and the need for 

discipline and restraint high. The chain of command from Crowe through Woerner 

to Loeffke had emphasized that the object of the security enhancement mission 

in Panama was strictly protective; it was not to kill Panamanians. The peacetime 

rules of engagement were carefully calculated to avoid unnecessary violence and 

casualties, even when encountering armed and unfriendly forces. In this sense, 

the Southern Command and JTF‐Panama both affirmed, the rules had served 

U.S. military objectives well. No American installations had been destroyed, no 

U.S. troops had been killed by hostile fire, and American forces had not created 

martyrs by killing Panamanian citizens, armed or otherwise. The problem, Rossi 

explained, was to get this message across to a security force, composed largely but 

not exclusively of marines, that was well armed, preoccupied with force protection, 

proud of its warrior ethos, accustomed to thinking in traditional terms of wartime 

rules of engagement, and that believed the presence of any armed Panamanian in 

an unauthorized area constituted hostile intent.42

What made the issue so contentious was not that one side in the debate believed 

U.S. troops in Panama had a right to defend themselves and the other side did not. 

Rather, the friction derived from what each side perceived as the most appropriate 

way of ensuring the protection of those troops. The MARFOR commanders 

readily conceded their preoccupation with the Beirut tragedy but argued that, 

even if a marine had never set foot in Lebanon in the mid-1980s, they would 

have been concerned about the limitations they perceived higher headquarters 

had placed on the ability of their troops in Panama to act in self-defense. In a 

41 Intervs, Benis Frank with Col Donald F. Anderson, USMC, 30 Mar 90, Camp Lejeune, N.C., 

and Roberts, 30 Mar 90; author with Fitzgerald, 28 Apr 89; Loeffke, 27 Mar 89; and Roberts, 24 Mar 

89, Rodman Naval Station, Panama. Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 11–12. 42 Intervs, author with Finch, 17 Mar 89; Rossi, 27 Mar 89; Morgan, 7 Jul 89; Loeffke, 27 Mar 

89; Cisneros, 1 May 89; and Cope, 29 Mar 89. Diary, Bernard Loeffke 5 Nov 88; Comments, Maj 

Gen Loeffke, n.d. [Spring 1989]; Handwritten note, Col Michael Bigelow to SCJ–3, 21 Jun [88]. 

The “loose cannons” phrase was used by the JTF-Panama command group on several occasions. 

One Army company commander whose unit frequently came under the MARFOR’s operational control on the tank farm noted that all he heard from the Marine commander and staff was “No more 

Beiruts.” In his opinion, however, this concern made the marines overly cautious, not unduly aggressive. Graves Interv, 27 Aug 91.
123

Settling In

measure of interservice harmony, most Army commanders in the field also favored 

greater latitude in dealing with hostile forces than was allowed under the rules of 

engagement. From the perspective of the Southern Command and JTF-Panama 

headquarters, however, less restrictive rules could make the situation more, not less, 

dangerous. In a note to Woerner, the SOUTHCOM deputy director of operations 

argued that “US/PDF (intruders) appear to have entered into a situation where 

both sides are abiding by ROE designed to avoid armed conflict, or at least that has 

been the effect. . . . For the US forces to modify this situation, ie, more aggressive 

ROE, may invite an escalation in terms of military/terrorist activity which is not 

in our best interests at the present time.”43 Even the security enhancement forces 

conceded that, if the Panama Defense Forces really wanted to kill U.S. troops or 

destroy American facilities, they could easily do so virtually anytime, anywhere. 

Noriega, most observers acknowledged, did not want a shooting war; he sought 

only to enjoy the benefits of his psychological warfare campaign. As Woerner 

and Loeffke saw the situation, an overreaction by U.S. troops to armed threats on 

the Arraiján Tank Farm and Rodman Ammunition Supply Point would, at best, 

provide Noriega with the propaganda victories he sought. At worst, the crisis could 

escalate out of control. Thus, until intelligence or other sources revealed that the 

Panamanian military intended to inflict casualties on American troops, U.S. forces 

on guard duty and patrol were to continue to exercise discipline and a high level 

of restraint.44

While the Southern Command and JTF-Panama publicly insisted on compliance 

with the strict rules of engagement, expediency and a desire to minimize friction 

with units in the field occasionally resulted in both headquarters turning a blind 

eye when troop commanders chose to ignore or apply their own interpretation to a 

specific rule. In one example of this, Loeffke, whose views concerning the nature 

of the crisis and how best to handle it at no time detracted from his genuine concern 

for the safety and morale of the troops he controlled, more or less resigned himself 

to the fact—common knowledge at the time—that Marine and Army units under 

the MARFOR’s operational control on the tank farm generally went on guard duty 

at night locked and loaded.45

On occasion, arguments generated by the rules of engagement carried over 

to related issues and procedures. One such concern had to do with the pursuit of 

hostile forces. Early in the security enhancement mission, an MP on guard duty 

at the ammunition supply point expressed her frustration directly to Loeffke. 

“General, why are we here?” she asked. “We hear them all around us and when we 

say ‘alto’ they laugh and withdraw. Why can’t we go after them? Why should we 

be on guard if we are not allowed to chase them?”46 At Quarry Heights, Cisneros 

was asking the same questions. As the SOUTHCOM director of operations, he 

favored a more assertive policy toward the intruders, although not so assertive as 

43 Handwritten note, Bigelow to SCJ–3, 21 Jun [88].

44 Ibid.; Comments, Maj Gen Loeffke, n.d. [Spring 1989]; Intervs, Frank with Anderson, 30 Mar 

90; author with Loeffke, 27 Mar 89; Morgan, 7 Jul 89; Rossi, 27 Mar 89; and Lt Col Michael Mallory, 

U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 45 My conversations with several officers who served on the Arraiján Tank Farm and with 

JTF‐Panama staff officers who admitted knowing that the rule regarding ammunition was consciously being violated. 46 MFR, Loeffke, n.d.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

124

to provoke open hostilities. At one point, he suggested that Colonel Fry at Special 

Operations Command, South, develop a plan to ambush and capture an armed 

intruder on U.S. property. Fry submitted the plan to Loeffke, who forwarded it 

for approval to Woerner. In an accompanying memorandum, the skeptical joint 

task force commander explained that the proposed operation would violate JCS 

supplements to the SOUTHCOM rules of engagement in two ways. First, the 

ambushes might exacerbate the crisis, and, second, the Special Operations Forces 

would be employing force as an initial step, not as a last resort, and would make no 

attempt to warn a hostile force or give it a chance to withdraw. “This may be too 

aggressive for the situation at this time,” Loeffke penned at the bottom of the memo. 

Despite this reservation and an opinion by another general officer on Woerner’s 

staff that the plan was too risky and served little purpose, other SOUTHCOM staff 

directorates recommended that the commander approve the proposal.47

Loeffke quickly followed his dissenting memo on the ambush plan with 

another proposal related to the rules of engagement. Under pressure from his 

MARFOR component following a series of shooting incidents on the tank farm 

and ammunition supply point in July, he suggested that Woerner declare the 

intruders a “hostile force.” Such a designation would allow U.S. troops to fire 

at armed intruders without first yelling a warning and firing a warning shot, both 

of which ran the risk of giving away U.S. positions. Messages were drafted for 

the SOUTHCOM commander’s signature, but after a month of considering the 

proposal, Woerner decided to put it on hold, to be reconsidered only if the situation 

should further “heat up.” (There was some speculation that, given Loeffke’s 

concerns about intensifying the crisis, JTF-Panama might have raised the issue 

with Woerner knowing that he would not approve it. Meanwhile, Loeffke could tell 

the marines that he had argued their case with his immediate superior.)48

Despite this setback, the MARFOR commander continued his efforts to modify 

the rules of engagement. On 29 October, Colonel Roberts sent a memorandum 

to JTF-Panama indicating his intention to rewrite the wallet-size cards his troops 

carried. The new card would begin with the statement, “ROEs are based on the 

inherent right of self-defense,” thus emphasizing and clarifying a point that he 

believed the original card obscured. The next rule would read, “Use the minimum 

force necessary to contain the threat” (instead of “to control the situation,” the 

wording of the original). The rule following that one would read, “If fired on, 

return fire,” thus omitting the phrase dictated by the Joint Chiefs, “if necessary for 

self-defense.” Colonel Cope, then acting as the JTF-Panama chief of staff, replied 

47 On the ambush proposal, see Memo, Loeffke through Chief of Staff, SOUTHCOM, for 

CINCSO, 8 Jul 88, sub: Operation to Apprehend Intruder, which contains the quote. Staff Action 

Summary Sheet, 11 Jul 88, sub: ROE for Panama; Draft msg (unsigned), CINCSO to CDR, 

JTF-Panama, Jul 88, sub: Adjusted ROE for Special Operations. Handwritten notes, Col Gar Thiry 

to Brig Gen LeCleir, SCJ–5, and Col Berrean, SCJ–2, 11 Jul [88]; LeC [Brig Gen LeCleir, SCJ–5] 

to Vice SCJ–3, 12 Jul [88]; and Denny [?] to VJ–3 [Col Gar Thiry, USMC], 12 Jul [88]. Memo, Col 

G. E. Thiry, USMC, Vice Dir SCJ–3, through Dep CINC and Chief of Staff, for CINCSO, 14 Jul 88, 

sub: Proposed SOF Operation. 48 Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 26 Jul 88, sub: Rules of Engagement; Draft msg (unsigned), 

CINCSO to CJCS, n.d. [drafted 28 Jul 88], sub: Rules of Engagement; Handwritten note, Woerner to 

J–3, 4 Sep [88], attached to Staff Action Summary Sheet, Brig Gen Cisneros through Chief of Staff 

and DCINC to CINCSO, 29 Jul 88, sub: Rules of Engagement.
125

Settling In

to the memo two days later, informing Roberts that the proposal was being staffed. 

“You may not be aware,” Cope added, “that the JCS only blessed the current ROE 

card after we incorporated their verbiage; so we must remain consistent. Your rules 

2 and 3 deviate. Until we resolve inconsistencies, continue using the current JTF-P 

card.”49

The rash of firefights on the tank farm the night of 31 October resulted in 

a general review of security enhancement policies and rules of engagement in 

effect on both the fuel depot and ammunition supply point. The review took 

place during a meeting in Woerner’s office on 2 November. Loeffke opened 

with an assessment of the current situation, which, as a result of the 31 October 

incidents, he again described as increasingly dangerous. He was particularly 

worried about the intruders’ willingness to answer U.S. verbal warnings with 

gunfire. Troops guarding the two sites, he went on to say, were beginning to feel 

like “sitting ducks.” To ameliorate their predicament, he proposed three options 

for Woerner to consider. Loeffke himself did not endorse each of the options 

but believed he had the duty to raise them with the SOUTHCOM commander. 

The first deleted from the rules of engagement the requirement to issue a verbal 

warning to armed intruders before engaging them with deadly force. Instead, 

every thirty minutes, U.S. troops would broadcast warnings to intruders that they 

were in a restricted area and thus subject to being fired on. Option two applied 

only to the Arraiján Tank Farm and involved pulling all observation posts and 

listening posts out of jungle areas surrounding the facility. This option, Loeffke 

warned, would reduce the MARFOR’s early warning capabilities and was not 

doctrinally sound. The third option called for Woerner to pull all guard personnel 

out of defensive positions and to have the Marine Force component use vehicular 

patrols to provide security for the area.50

Woerner asked for comments from those in the room, then proceeded to render 

his decision. He noted that the current rules of engagement had served their purpose 

and that he would not change them. Rather, he would order tactical changes on the 

tank farm and ammunition supply point. These changes amounted to accepting 

Loeffke’s second option, one that the JTF-Panama commander did not personally 

support. Each day after dark, Woerner directed, observation and listening posts 

would be pulled inside the perimeter of the tank farm. Loudspeaker broadcasts 

would continue but so would the requirement to issue a verbal warning to intruders. 

To provide maximum protection for the guards, Woerner insisted that those issuing 

49 The quotes of Roberts and Cope are taken respectively from Memos, Col T. W. Roberts, CDR, 

MARFOR, for CDR, JTF-Panama, 29 Oct 88, sub: Rules of Engagement, and Col John A. Cope, 

Actg Chief of Staff, for Col Roberts, USMC, 31 Oct 88, sub: Guidance Based on Incidents over the 

Last 72 Hours. See also Roberts Interv, 24 Mar 89. 50 Memo, Brig Gen Marc Cisneros for CDR, JTF-Panama, 18 Nov 88, sub: Tactical Changes 

to Support Current Rules of Engagement (ROE). Quote from MFR, Col Charles E. Bonney, 2 Nov 

88, sub: Rules of Engagement (ROE) at Arraiján Tank Farm (ATF) and Ammo Supply Point (ASP). 

According to the MFR, besides Woerner and Loeffke, General Eugene H. Fischer (deputy CINCSO), 

Rear Adm. Richard Ustick (SOUTHCOM chief of staff), Rear Adm. Jerry G. Gneckow (NAVSO 

commander), General Cisneros, Col. Charles Carleton, Col. T. Hayden, and Col. Charles E. Bonney 

attended the meeting. The day before, Loeffke had provided Woerner a memorandum outlining the 

three options discussed at the meeting. See Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 1 Nov 88, sub: Update No. 

121, Options.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

126

any warning be located in well-covered positions. Daylight patrols were authorized 

so long as they did not go more than 300 meters beyond the perimeter; they also 

had to return by 1700.51

After the meeting, Cope informed Roberts of Woerner’s decisions. The 

MARFOR commander was livid. In a tersely worded memorandum to Loeffke, 

Roberts charged that his forces were being placed at a tactical disadvantage and 

requested that the decisions be rescinded. Any immediate reconsideration of 

Woerner’s ruling, however, was out of the question, and, over the course of several 

days, “a system of bunkers and trench lines” sprang up on the Arraiján Tank 

Farm and Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, as the marines sought to protect 

themselves by digging in. The marines’ presence at the fuel farm was also reduced 

to one platoon(+), with a second platoon serving on the ammunition depot, and a 

third providing a reaction force in reserve. Roberts continued his protests, Loeffke 

sympathized, and by mid-month, the two achieved a partial reversal of policy. The 

troop reductions for each location remained in effect, but Roberts was able to order 

the bunkers and trenches “razed,” as the marines returned to “light infantry tactics” 

in an effort to deter intruders on the two facilities.52

Although they advocated divergent courses of action, both Woerner and 

Roberts sought the same result: to reduce the number of incursions at the tank 

farm and ammunition supply point. By late 1988, if not sooner, several officers in 

the Southern Command and JTF-Panama had concluded that the increasing tempo 

of hostile activity at both sites could be attributed mainly to the large number of 

U.S. troops present there on guard duty. By serving as a lucrative target for PDF 

training exercises and psychological warfare, the troops who had been deployed to 

secure the facilities from intruders had ironically and unwittingly invited the very 

activities they were there to curtail. In becoming “obsessed” (Rossi’s term) with 

the intrusions, JTF-Panama, the Southern Command, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

had managed to respond in ways that only played into Noriega’s hands. Woerner 

and Roberts (and others) now attempted to reverse such counterproductive policies, 

Woerner by pulling most of the troops out of each facility, Roberts by employing 

aggressive tactics that would make further intrusions too risky for the Panama 

Defense Forces. In a message to Admiral Crowe, the SOUTHCOM commander 

described the tank farm and ammunition supply point as being “more theater and 

stage than battlefield.” If he reduced the number of troops—the “audience”—at the 

two locations, the intruders, he thought, would quickly lose interest in performing 

before something well short of a “full house.” Roberts, on the other hand, maintained 

that aggressive patrolling and the setting of ambushes would make the Panamanian 

military “think twice before entering the storage facilities.”53

51 Memo, Cisneros for CDR, JTF-Panama, 18 Nov 88, sub: Tactical Changes to Support Current 

Rules of Engagement (ROE); Diary, Loeffke, 5 Nov 88; MFR, Col Charles E. Bonney, 2 Nov 88, sub: 

Rules of Engagement (ROE) at Arraiján Tank Farm (ATF) and Ammo Supply Point (ASP). 52 Memos, Col John A. Cope Jr. for Col Tim Roberts, USMC, 2 Nov 88, sub: Results of Meeting 

with CINC, and CDR, MARFOR, for CG, JTF-Panama, 6 Nov 88, sub: Rule [sic] of Engagement. 

Msg, CDR, MARFOR, to CG, 6th MEB, 18 Mar 89, USMC Command Chronology for 6 April–31 

December 1988; Maj Robert B. Neller, USMC, Marines in Panama: 1988–1990 (Paper, USMC Staff 

College, Quantico, Va., 1991). Quotes from Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 11–12. 53 The Woerner quotes are from Msg, CINCSO to JCS [personal, Woerner to Crowe], 141831Z 

Dec 88, sub: Security Enhancement Forces. The quote summarizing Roberts’ views is from Reynolds, 
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Settling In

Subsequent events could be used to vindicate either Woerner’s decision or 

Roberts’ tactics. By the end of 1988, the number of incidents at the Arraiján Tank 

Farm and Rodman Ammunition Supply Point had dropped off sharply.54 These 

statistics, while encouraging, needed to be read with caution. To apply Woerner’s 

theater metaphor, Noriega’s players might, in fact, be a traveling troupe that, 

when attendance fell off at one location, would simply move its stage production 

to another.

The Redeployment Question

Having removed much of the “audience” from two key facilities, Woerner had 

to determine where to send it. The obvious answer was “home,” which suggested 

inactivating the MARFOR headquarters and redeploying the Marine security 

enhancement rifle company. (There was also a growing feeling at Quarry Heights 

and even Fort Clayton that JTF-Panama had outlived its usefulness and should 

be inactivated, a measure that would be expedited by redeploying units under its 

control, such as the Marine company, that were based outside of Panama.) But, 

as Woerner knew from experience, bringing troops into a country was easier than 

sending them back home, even though many of the stateside headquarters that had 

been highly supportive in contributing to the security enhancement effort were now 

clamoring to have specific units returned to them. Policy makers in Washington 

would have to determine whether to pull the troops out, a decision the Reagan 

administration was not about to make before considering all the ramifications.

The issue of redeployment had first surfaced in late May 1988 when, after the 

collapse of the Noriega-Kozak negotiations in Panama, President Reagan indicated 

that he was not going to order an invasion of the country. At that time, Woerner 

had taken the position that there should be no reductions in security forces until 

a settlement with the Noriega regime had been concluded. Other headquarters, 

though, expressed concerns about this open-ended commitment. The 7th Infantry 

Division (Light), for example, had deployed Task Force Hawk, about a third of 

the division’s aviation assets, to Panama, and, while the division expressed its 

willingness to support the detachment so long as the crisis warranted, it also 

Just Cause, p. 12. In a message to the Pentagon, Admiral Ustick, the SOUTHCOM chief of staff, carried the “stage” metaphor into the 1989. A reduction in the security forces, he contended, would “take 

away [Noriega’s] audience to where his applause meter would eventually reach zero.” Msg, CINCSO 

to Joint Staff [personal, Rear Adm Ustick to Lt Gen Johnson], 162026Z Feb 89, sub: Panama—

Update. 54 On the decrease in incidents at the tank farm and ammunition supply point, see Msgs, CDR, 

USARSO, to CSA, 281829Z Dec 88, sub: Update No. 19; CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 042131Z Apr 

89, sub: Update No. 22; and CINCSO to Joint Staff, 162026Z Feb 89. USMC Command Chronology 

for 6 April 1988–31 December 1988; Msg, Commanding Officer (CO), MARFOR, Panama, to CG, 

6th MEB, 19 Jul 89, sub: Command Chronology [for 1 January 1989–30 June 1989], History and 

Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; Loeffke Interv, 27 Mar 89; Neller, Marines 

in Panama; Reynolds, Just Cause, p. 12. In early 1989, an American soldier, Special Forces S. Sgt. 

John C. Brite, was fatally wounded from a shotgun blast fired by a Panamanian, presumably a hunter. 

That incident took place on the Atlantic side, not at the tank farm or ammunition supply point, and 

an investigation convinced the U.S. command, as well as most of Brite’s associates, that the shooting 

was a tragic accident. Tropic Times, 3 Feb 89; Diary, Loeffke, n.d. [entry on Brite shooting]; Notes, 

n.d., Loeffke Papers; Intervs, author with Rossi, 27 Mar 89; Fry, 1 May 89; and Mulholland, 30 May 

91.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

128

noted that “This tasking obviously degrades the readiness and deployability of 

this division as well as its ability to participate in JCS directed exercises. . . . 

Additionally, combined arms training within the division is severely restricted; we 

can airlift only platoon sized elements.” Given these requirements and shortfalls, 

the 7th Division requested that Task Force Hawk be redeployed by 15 July.55

Military police commanders voiced similar concerns. By August, they could 

see no justification for keeping eight MP companies in Panama. The commander 

of the U.S. Forces Command (FORSCOM), the Army headquarters in Atlanta, 

Georgia, responsible for providing combat-ready regular and reserve forces for 

deployment overseas, also chimed in. FORSCOM had overseen the deployment 

of 1,550 soldiers for the security enhancement mission. On 7 July, in a message 

to the Joint Staff and the SOUTHCOM director of operations, the command 

expressed its continued support for SOUTHCOM’s needs in the crisis but also 

addressed the adverse impact of the security enhancement deployments on 

scheduled unit training and exercises, reserve component support, National 

Training Center rotations, and various joint endeavors. “Our current challenge 

is to satisfy all competing demands and still retain a viable response force,” the 

message stated. With that in mind, Forces Command suggested that the Joint 

Chiefs and the Southern Command “look for ways to subtly reduce the 1557 plus 

soldiers to the minimum essential,” with an emphasis on redeploying aviation 

assets, military police, and various support units.56

Reaffirming U.S. security needs in Panama but recognizing “competing 

requirements in other environs,” Woerner directed Loeffke to conduct a thorough 

review to determine what forces were essential to the security enhancement 

mission. When the review was completed, the Southern Command recommended 

that several elements be redeployed, including the MP brigade headquarters, 

an MP battalion headquarters, and three MP companies. On 28 July, the Joint 

Chiefs authorized redeployment of all the units the Southern Command named 

except the military police. Both the State Department and the National Security 

Council expressed concern that bringing those units home would signal a 

weakening of America’s determination to see Noriega removed from power. Not 

until September were the MP units allowed to redeploy.57 By then, a second 

review concerning the disposition of augmentation forces was under way at 

55 On Woerner’s views in May 1988, see Msg, Loeffke through Chief of Staff, USSOUTHCOM, 

to CINCSO, 15 Jul 88, sub: JTF-Panama Force Requirements Review. On Task Force Hawk and for the 

quotes, see Msg, 100900Z Jun 88, sub: Task Force Hawk’s Role in Panama Security Augmentation. 56 Msg, CINCFOR to JCS [personal, Maj Gen Wiegand to Lt Gen Kelly and Brig Gen Cisneros], 

072241Z Jul 88, sub: Panama Security Enhancement. See also Telephone Interv, author with Capt 

Anthony Schilling, U.S. Army, 30 Nov 90. 57 Quote from Msg, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 131620Z Jul 88, sub: Force Requirements 

Review. Memo, Loeffke through Chief of Staff, SOUTHCOM, for CINCSO, 15 Jul 88, sub: 

JTF-Panama Force Requirements Review; Congressional Background Paper, SOUTHCOM J–3-

Operations (SCJ–3-O), 2 Aug 89, sub: Security Augmentation Forces—A Historical Perspective 

(Deployment/Redeployment). When the 16th Military Police Brigade had deployed from Fort Bragg, 

the brigade’s commander, a full colonel, had insisted that the MP command in Panama fell under 

his operational control. The MP commander in Panama, also a full colonel, unsuccessfully resisted 

the move. The resulting friction, often erupting into “bloodletting” verbal confrontations between 

the two officers had a detrimental impact at brigade headquarters, where staff officers stationed in 

Panama were abruptly and unceremoniously removed from their offices. The tension did not subside 
129

Settling In

Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton. The consequent recommendations, made that 

December, called for substantial reductions in security enhancement forces, 

including redeployment of the Marine headquarters and rifle company. Again, 

the idea of reducing U.S. forces in Panama collided with concerns at higher 

levels about how Noriega would interpret such a move. The Southern Command 

submitted a revised redeployment schedule designed to allay those concerns, but 

by then the press of current and impending events made sending home anything 

other than small support units impossible. An upswing in treaty violations and 

harassment in Panama in the beginning of 1989, the desire in Washington to 

keep the pressure on Noriega, and the uncertainties surrounding the impending 

Panamanian presidential election all militated against a large-scale drawdown of 

U.S. security enhancement forces.58

Enter the XVIII Airborne Corps

These same considerations also affected planning efforts related to the crisis. 

Throughout 1988, Woerner held to the position that U.S. military intervention 

in Panama was to be avoided if possible. Yet, as he understood from the outset, 

unanticipated events could leave the White House with little choice but to 

commit American forces to combat operations in the country. Prudence therefore 

still demanded that planners at the Southern Command, JTF-Panama, the Joint 

Special Operations Command, and other headquarters continue to update and 

revise the Prayer Book series of plans, with special attention to Post Time, which 

included a buildup of U.S. forces in Panama, and Blue Spoon, which called for 

offensive combat operations against the Panama Defense Forces and regimesponsored paramilitary groups.

In the Operations Directorate at Quarry Heights, Cisneros oversaw the 

Southern Command’s work on the CINCSO version of both of these operation 

orders. The general also provided guidance to JTF-Panama and the joint special 

operations task force as those two headquarters modified their supporting 

plans and tackled a lengthy list of difficult and unresolved issues. There was, 

for example, the question of how much time would be required to complete a 

buildup of U.S. forces in Panama. The original Post Time operation order called 

for seventeen days, which seemed excessive, even if the purpose of a buildup 

under Woerner’s strategy was more psychological than military. By expunging 

extraneous units from the troop list, Lt. Col. John McCutchon and Lt. Col. Robert 

Pantier, the SOUTHCOM and JTF-Panama chiefs of plans, respectively, were 

able to cut the time to twelve days. The two officers also discussed how to get a 

brigade of the 7th Infantry Division (Light) into Panama prior to the beginning 

of any offensive actions. If this could be accomplished, JTF-Panama would be 

until the brigade headquarters was redeployed and the MP commander in Panama reassumed command authority. Conversation, author with Lt Col Mike Michaelis, Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 58 Congressional Background Paper, SCJ–3-O, 2 Aug 89, sub: Security Augmentation Forces—A 

Historical Perspective (Deployment/Redeployment); Msgs, CINCSO to JCS [personal, Woerner for 

Crowe], 141831Z Dec 88, sub: Security Enhancement Forces, and JCS to CINCSO, 130045Z Jan 89, 

sub: Deployment Order—Panama Augmentation Forces. In February 1989, the marines were told that 

they would, in fact, redeploy, but subsequent events overrode this decision. Msg, CDR, MARFOR, 

Panama, to CDR, JTF-Panama, 9 Feb 89, sub: Operational Implications of the Redeployment of 

Company C, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Rgt.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

130

better prepared, should the Panamanian military launch preemptive strikes, to 

carry out defensive and offensive combat operations on its own until Blue Spoon

units based outside Panama could arrive in the country.59

If Blue Spoon did have to be executed, better that operations be conducted 

on a timetable set by the U.S. military, beginning with H-hour. In order to ensure 

maximum tactical surprise and to prevent normal commercial air operations 

at Torrijos International Airport from interfering with U.S. attacks on targets 

(including the airport itself) in and around Panama City, the planners recommended 

that combat operations commence at 0100 on D‐day. The initial fighting would 

thus take place after dark, an advantage to U.S. forces trained and equipped for 

night operations. On a related matter, planners decided that evacuating American 

citizens from Panama shortly before or during Blue Spoon would not be feasible. An 

evacuation operation conducted prior to hostilities would give away the element of 

surprise deemed essential to a swift and economical victory, while one conducted 

simultaneously with Blue Spoon would tie up airfields and aircraft, create mass 

confusion, and obstruct combat operations. Staff officers did not welcome the 

prospect of thousands of U.S. citizens being placed at risk, but there seemed to be 

no course of action, save the rapid defeat of the PDF, that would protect civilians 

without jeopardizing the mission itself. In a slightly different vein, the safety of the 

special operations personnel who would be flown in to execute Blue Spoon posed 

another set of insuperable challenges. AC–130 gunships could counter surface-toair missiles (SAMs), but C–141 troop transports could not. If the Panama Defense 

Forces managed to shoot down one or two aircraft carrying Ranger units to their 

D-day objectives, the triumph U.S. planners correctly saw as inevitable would 

quickly become a pyrrhic victory.60

These and other conundrums were discussed at meetings held in Panama and 

the United States throughout 1988 and into the new year. One session held at Fort 

Bragg between 6–10 February 1989 was of special significance. It witnessed a 

changeover from JTF-Panama to the XVIII Airborne Corps as the executive 

agency for planning conventional Blue Spoon operations. The transition had its 

origins fairly early in the planning process when the question arose as to whether 

the U.S. Army’s contingency corps should be brought into the crisis upon the 

execution of either Post Time or Blue Spoon. General Loeffke and the USARSO 

staff vehemently opposed the move on the grounds that full-scale involvement of 

the corps was unnecessary. A USARSO-dominated JTF-Panama, they believed, 

had the prerequisite expertise, the firsthand knowledge of Panama and the crisis, 

the equipment, the familiarity with the plans, and the capability to perform 

Prayer Book missions, especially given the short span of control required and the 

limited geographical area involved. To call on the XVIII Airborne Corps instead 

would require a “steep learn-up curve” for a stateside headquarters that knew 

“virtually nothing about this part of the world.” Furthermore, Loeffke and his staff 

contended, what was the point of the Southern Command and JTF-Panama having 

contingency plans if an “outside” organization had to be brought in to execute 

59 Intervs, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, 13 Jun 90, Fort Clayton, Panama, and 21 May 91, 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Memo, Col Wesley Taylor, 75th Ranger Rgt, for CDR [JSOTF], and CDR, 

1st SOCOM, 23 Sep 88; Briefing, Lt Col Robert Pantier, 21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 60 Memo, Taylor for JSOTF and 1st SOCOM, 23 Sep 88; Intervs, author with Maj John Diviney, 

U.S. Army, Mar 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and Augustine, 13 Jun 89.
131

Settling In

them. In USARSO’s view, the XVIII Airborne Corps would be justified in directing 

combat operations in Panama only if the fighting escalated because of Cuban or 

Nicaraguan intervention.61

Initially, Woerner and Cisneros accepted this argument. By June 1988, however, 

they had begun to have doubts about USARSO’s ability to serve as an operational 

headquarters should the new contingency plans be executed. U.S. Army, South, had 

only limited resources and had to apply them to a wide range of missions, given 

the headquarters’ three distinct roles as a SOUTHCOM component, a major Army 

command, and the nucleus of JTF-Panama. There was also a question of command 

and control to consider. The USARSO commander was a two-star general. As a 

wartime commander executing Blue Spoon, he would not have seniority over at 

least two other general officers whose forces would be deployed, in one case under 

JTF-Panama’s operational control. Making the commander of the joint task force 

a three-star billet by bringing in the XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters would 

resolve that problem. Finally, Woerner recognized, as did General Kelly in the 

Pentagon, that “if it became necessary to bolster JTFPM forces with brigades from 

the United States, a corps headquarters would be needed to run the operation.” 

With these considerations in mind, Cisneros invited Col. Thomas H. Needham, 

XVIII Airborne Corps’ director of operations, and Lt. Col. Timothy L. McMahon, 

the corps’ chief of plans, to Panama to discuss what role their headquarters might 

play in the crisis. At one point during the visit, Cisneros asked the two if the corps 

would be willing to take over as JTF-Panama should war break out. The proposal 

came as a surprise to both officers, but they responded that the XVIII Airborne 

Corps was capable of performing the mission.62

Maj. David Huntoon, who had arrived at Fort Bragg in July as a regional 

war planner for the corps, was given the Panama desk and the assignment of 

defining the precise role that the XVIII Airborne Corps might play with respect 

to the Prayer Book. A series of messages passed between SOUTHCOM, JTFPanama, and the corps headquarters, followed by a conference in Panama from 

9–12 August 1988. Throughout, USARSO’s position was that corps assets could 

certainly be used to augment the existing JTF-Panama, but the corps itself should 

not come in as the “war-fighting” headquarters unless the Army Forces component 

of the joint task force exceeded one division on the ground, a prospect Loeffke 

did not consider likely unless there was outside intervention by countries hostile 

to the United States, also an unlikely prospect. The threat in Panama was “puny,” 

Loeffke always maintained, and JTF-Panama, acting in tandem with the joint 

special operations task force, possessed enough military power to meet any local 

challenge. Huntoon’s response was that, in the event the contingency plans were 

61 Memo, Loeffke for CINCSO, 11 Mar 88, sub: #41, Plus and Minuses of 18th Airborne Corps. 

See also Intervs, author with Cope, 29 Mar 89; Augustine, 13 Jun 89; and Morgan, 7 Jul 89. 62 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 36. Intervs, author with Woerner, 30 Apr 

91; Cope, 29 Mar 89; Augustine, 13 Jun 89; Cisneros, 1 May 89; Pantier, 13 Jun 90; and Maj J. C. 

Hiett, U.S. Army, 27 Apr 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Conversation, author with Lt Tim McMahon, 

20 Dec 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Telephone conversation, author with Maj David Huntoon, 27 Jun 

90; Comments, Maj Fred Polk, U.S. Army, to author, 1989. Quote from Ronald H. Cole, Operation 

Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama, February 1988–January 

1990 (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

1995), p. 10, and see also p. 9.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

132

executed, the corps should be brought to Panama as early as possible to assume the 

role of the joint task force in charge of conventional operations. In doing so, the 

corps would not be interested in sharing command with the current JTF-Panama 

nor would it allow its resources to be used simply to augment that organization. 

The XVIII Airborne Corps “does not piecemeal out its assets,” Huntoon declared. 

After intense and detailed discussion, the participants agreed on a compromise. 

Upon execution of Post Time or Blue Spoon, XVIII Airborne Corps would deploy 

a 31-man group to serve as an advance party for the corps headquarters, should 

SOUTHCOM’s commander request its deployment. The anticipated “trigger” for 

that request would be the commitment to the fight of one or more brigades from 

the 82d Airborne Division.63

During the August conference, Cisneros approved a manning document 

Huntoon had drafted in coordination with McCutchon and Pantier for a corps-led 

JTF‐Panama. After further staffing, Woerner sent the document and a message to 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking the chairman to add a corps headquarters to the 

Blue Spoon force list. On 19 October, Admiral Crowe approved the request, with 

the formal response coming in a message from General Kelly on 21 November. 

Kelly, whom USARSO staff officers correctly regarded as the XVIII Airborne 

Corps’ “friend in court,” had been lobbying since April to have the corps serve 

as the operational headquarters for Blue Spoon. He thus agreed with most of 

Woerner’s position but made one significant change to the August compromise: 

the corps would deploy to Panama and become JTF-Panama as soon as a troop 

buildup began under Post Time.

64

This message, which the Pentagon had not coordinated or staffed in advance 

with U.S. Army, South, came as a surprise to staff officers at Fort Clayton, who 

referred to the contents as Kelly’s “diktat.” A USARSO memorandum opposing 

the decision claimed there would be “no end to the confusion” created in a 

transition from a USARSO-led to an XVIII Airborne Corps joint task force. U.S. 

Army, South, understood the nuances of the situation in Panama and provided the 

expertise and continuity necessary to make the transition from peace to war. It also 

had responsibility for all Army personnel in the theater. Kelly’s decision relegated 

the command “to a position of kibitzing from the sidelines.” If allowed to stand, 

Rossi predicted, “We will necessarily be starting down a path in which CONUS 

based forces are seen as the only answer for Latin American issues.” The USARSO 

chief of staff also candidly noted, “In my opinion, this condition will serve as a 

strong argument for the eventual deactivation [sic] of USARSO, if and when it 

63 First quote from Telephone conversation, author with Huntoon, 27 Jun 90. Interv, author with 

Pantier, 13 Jun 90. Second quote from Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. USARSO Memo 

1–1, Staff Action Summary, 9 Sep 88, sub: XVIII Airborne Corps Deployment to JTF-PM. The 

role of the advance party between its deployment and any CINCSO request to deploy the corps 

headquarters seems to have been interpreted differently by the various parties involved. Huntoon 

indicated later that the small advance element would be augmented by JTF-Panama and U.S. Army, 

South. USARSO staff officers clearly believed that the thirty-one men would augment the existing 

JTF-Panama until the corps deployed.

64 Telephone conversation, author with Huntoon, 27 Jun 90; Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 272115Z 

Oct 88; Msg, JCS to CINCSO, 212122Z Nov 88; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 9–10.
133

Settling In

is returned to [the United States], because if a stateside command can plan and 

prepare to execute the plan, why do you need another similar command?”65

Arguing that the SOUTHCOM commander had the authority to run his operation 

plan the way he desired, U.S. Army, South, recommended that Woerner challenge 

Kelly’s position on the timing of the corps’ deployment. Woerner, despite contrary 

advice from Cisneros, was inclined to do so. Since his message to the Joint Chiefs, 

his views on the subject had not changed, in that he still acknowledged the need 

for a larger command element under certain conditions but was no more eager than 

before to involve the XVIII Airborne Corps—a group of outsiders—until absolutely 

necessary. On this point, he and Loeffke were in complete accord. In overruling 

Kelly, Woerner simply held fast to his original intention: as the SOUTHCOM 

commander, he would determine when the flow of Blue Spoon units reached a 

level requiring the deployment of all or part of the corps for command and control 

purposes. Put more directly, the corps in some configuration would not be brought 

to Panama until combat operations were well under way. Neither Kelly nor the new 

corps commander, Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner, was happy with the prospect of having 

the XVIII Airborne Corps deploying and assuming operational control from JTFPanama in the midst of heavy fighting. Kelly consequently continued to argue for 

an earlier deployment, but Woerner held firm and Crowe supported the combatant 

commander on the scene.66

With the command and control issue temporarily settled (or, as Woerner’s 

critics would argue, left hanging), the Southern Command and the XVIII Airborne 

Corps addressed a second aspect of Kelly’s message: the corps was to conduct a 

detailed review of the Prayer Book plans. When, in early December, Cisneros 

formally requested the review, the XVIII Airborne Corps responded with a request 

to be designated the executive agent for Panama planning. Pantier and Huntoon 

met in January to discuss the shift in responsibility, and the hand-off, as previously 

noted, took place in February at Fort Bragg.

Initially, XVIII Airborne Corps planners worked mainly with JTF-Panama 

and other organizations responsible for conventional operations. There was 

also coordination with Joint Special Operations Task Force-Panama, but that 

headquarters continued to work directly for the SOUTHCOM commander, despite 

appeals from the corps to integrate conventional and special operations planning. 

There was another issue that also troubled corps planners. The airborne command 

preferred operations in which U.S. forces struck rapidly with overwhelming power, 

defeated the enemy, and then withdrew, to be ready for the next contingency. The 

Blue Spoon operation order called for such an attack, but, in Woerner’s preferred 

scenario, only after a gradual buildup of U.S. forces in Panama under Post Time

had had a chance to intimidate PDF officers into taking steps to depose Noriega 

65 Most of this paragraph and the quotes therein are taken from MFR, Col A. T. Rossi, 19 Dec 

88, sub: XVIII Airborne Corps Designation as COMJTF-PM. See also Cope Interv, 29 Mar 89; 

Fact Sheet, 9 Dec 88, sub: Prayer Book Command and Control, Submitted by CPT Patrick Collins, 

USARSO DCSOPS Plans Division. 66 Memo, Lt Col J. R. McCutchon, Chief of Plans Division, for SCJ–3, 23 Nov 88, sub: Corps 

Level JTF-PM; Handwritten note, Cisneros, attached to ibid.; MFR, Col Rossi, 19 Dec 88; Staff 

Action Sheet, Maj Kiser (through Chairman, Prayer Book Planning Cell, and SCJ–3-DD), to SCJ–3, 

1 Dec 88, sub: XVIII Airborne Corps Designation as COMJTFPM; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 

10.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

134

themselves. Since the buildup would take almost two weeks, this did not fit the 

corps’ modus operandi. But Woerner saw no reason to change the concept, and in 

that he was the “supported” commander in chief, the corps had no choice but to 

“salute” and follow SOUTHCOM’s guidance. Moreover, given XVIII Airborne 

Corps’ worldwide commitments and the open question as to when it might be 

called upon to deploy to Panama, Stiner soon delegated planning responsibilities 

back to JTF-Panama, choosing merely to monitor that headquarters’ efforts. As he 

said later, “We didn’t pay too much attention to [Blue Spoon] in the early stages, 

except to know that we had that responsibility, because we had a full plate of our 

own training activities.”67

At this point in early 1989, the crisis in U.S.-Panamanian relations had settled 

into a regularized if not comfortable dynamic. Tensions continued between the two 

governments, intrusions onto U.S. installations accompanied by the occasional 

exchange of gunfire ebbed and flowed, planning for contingency operations 

proceeded apace, and incidents of harassment and treaty violations occurred with 

varying frequency and severity. Throughout all this, the Reagan administration 

took few policy initiatives after May 1988, as it awaited the outcome of the U.S. 

presidential election. Once George H. W. Bush became the president-elect, military 

and foreign policy specialists generally assumed that the situation in Panama 

would remain on the back burner until after his inauguration. What tack the new 

administration would then take vis-à-vis Noriega elicited much speculation on the 

part of all parties to the crisis. Presumably, the answers would be forthcoming.

67 The quote about corps planners having to “salute’ is from Telephone conversation, author with 

Huntoon, 27 Jun 90. Stiner quote from Interv, Dr Robert K. Wright Jr. with Lt Gen Carl W. Stiner, 2 

Mar 90, Fort Bragg, N.C. Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 10.
I I I

5

Toward a Tougher Posture

February–April 1989

On 20 January 1989, George H. W. Bush took the presidential oath of 

office. To mark the occasion, General Noriega led 5,000 Panamanians in a 

demonstration that included burning outgoing President Ronald Reagan in effigy. 

Reagan offered no public comment on the spectacle. There was no need. He had 

already taken his parting shot at his antagonist to the south. In an interview given 

shortly before leaving the White House, Reagan suggested that the United States 

should reconsider adhering to the canal treaties if Noriega were still in power when 

the time came to turn the waterway over to Panama.1

Any attempt to abrogate the canal treaties a decade after their ratification would 

entail widespread ramifications, most of them negative. America’s credibility would 

be undermined, public opinion in Panama and the rest of Latin America would be 

inflamed, and Noriega would be provided ammunition for his propaganda war. For 

these reasons and others, the new president showed no inclination to act on his 

predecessor’s suggestion. What policy, then, would Bush adopt in the crisis? That 

remained an open question. In 1988, as vice president he had opposed any diplomatic 

solution that would drop the federal indictments against Noriega as the price for 

the dictator leaving Panama. Some attributed this position to political posturing, but 

the hard line did not change after the election. When Noriega, through his lawyers, 

put out feelers in early 1989 for better relations with the United States, the new 

president authorized the State Department, in behind-the-scenes contacts, to reiterate 

his uncompromising conditions for the dictator’s departure. So long as Bush held 

to this position, the diplomatic impasse would continue.2

 That left the president to 

choose among three options: continuing Reagan’s policies, downplaying the whole 

issue, or devising new initiatives of his own to end the crisis.

Bush initially followed the first course, letting word circulate that he would 

propose no new policies or change any existing ones until he had put together 

his own national security team, an undertaking that proved more difficult than 

anticipated. The president’s first choice for secretary of defense, former Senator 

John Tower of Texas, failed to win confirmation after a heated debate in the Senate 

1 New York Times, 21 Jan 89, p. 9. 2 For a brief, very general sketch of these contacts, see James D. Baker III, with Thomas M. 

Defrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 

1995), p. 180.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

136

along partisan lines. Bush immediately submitted a new candidate, Republican 

Congressman Richard Cheney of Wyoming. Cheney received quick and unanimous 

Senate approval, but by then almost two months had been lost trying to fill the 

position. Meanwhile, another key post in the national security bureaucracy 

remained vacant. Elliott Abrams had resigned as assistant secretary of state for 

inter-American affairs, conceding in late 1988 that Noriega’s removal from power 

would not likely occur on Reagan’s watch.3

 Press reports suggested that Secretary 

of State James D. Baker wanted Bernard Aronson, a Democrat, to fill the position, 

but a handful of Republicans in Congress and the administration, skeptical of 

Aronson’s party affiliation, indicated that they might try to stall his confirmation. 

In the midst of the political wrangling in Washington, the Southern 

Command picked up indications that significant new White House initiatives 

in the Panama crisis would be held in abeyance even longer than first thought, 

until after the Panamanian presidential election on 7 May. The lack of timely 

decisions caused Woerner to make some candid comments that, to his dismay, 

got him off on the wrong foot with the new administration, a misstep from 

which he never fully recovered. Soon thereafter, an incident involving U.S. 

schoolchildren in Panama outraged Americans there and in the United States 

and opened a highly publicized and emotional debate on the whole issue of 

PDF treaty violations and harassment. Meanwhile, out of the public limelight, 

planners in JTF-Panama (with the XVIII Airborne Corps looking on) and at 

the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg continued to update the 

Prayer Book series of operation orders. 

3 What made Abrams’ concession newsworthy was that, in the early phases of the crisis when 

he had encouraged military action against Noriega, he made statements to the effect that the dictator 

was barely holding onto power. By November 1988, however, he had become more cautious. In a private meeting with Woerner, he simply emphasized the need to solve the problem in the coming year 

lest it develop into a “holy mess” during the 1990s. Trip Rpt, 23 Nov 88, sub: Trip Report—CINC 

Washington Visit 21–22 November 1988.

President Bush speaks at an Armed Forces Review and Awards Ceremony. At the left is 

Richard Cheney and at the right is General Colin Powell.
137

Toward a Tougher Posture

Then, near the end of March, as Bush’s national security team finally settled in, 

speculation surfaced that those advisers predisposed toward a tougher American 

stance with respect to Noriega would have the president’s ear. Within the command 

groups at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton, these rumors only added to the 

apprehension concerning future U.S. moves in the crisis.

Woerner’s Woes

From the outset of the troubles in Panama, Woerner had regarded Admiral 

Crowe, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as an ally in Washington policy 

debates over the crisis. During the rancorous exchanges within Reagan’s inner 

circle in 1988, Crowe had generally tried to restrain the hard-liners like Abrams 

and Secretary of State Shultz and had argued successfully against military 

intervention, a position Woerner keenly supported. The problem for Woerner was 

that, other than Crowe, he had no strong ally or base of support in the capital; nor, 

in Crowe’s view, did the SOUTHCOM commander fully appreciate the byzantine 

nature of Washington politics. Woerner was virtually unknown to Congress, and 

he had never served a tour in the Pentagon. He also had vocal critics well placed 

within the military. In the Joint Staff, for instance, Lt. Gen. Tom Kelly continued 

to question the command and control arrangements for Blue Spoon, while at Fort 

Bragg, commanders and operations officers in the joint special operations task force 

and the XVIII Airborne Corps saw little merit in Woerner’s concept of a gradual 

buildup of U.S. forces in Panama should the White House find military escalation 

unavoidable. Crowe generally backed Woerner’s positions in these arguments—at 

times, some said, against the admiral’s own preferences.4

Woerner, for his part, grew increasingly frustrated at the inability of the national 

security establishment to fashion an interagency approach to the festering crisis. 

He truly appreciated President Reagan’s decision not to use military force in the 

spring of 1988 but found himself disappointed time and again as SOUTHCOM’s 

proposals for a comprehensive set of initiatives went unanswered or were diluted 

and rendered ineffective by bureaucratic politics. He had been told to keep the 

crisis under control during the U.S. presidential campaign, but the election was 

now several months in the past and Bush was in the White House. Would there 

finally be a concerted effort to resolve the crisis? Given the multitude of domestic 

and international problems facing the new president and the difficulties Bush was 

having getting key national security personnel on board, Woerner was skeptical. 

He had no problem with the administration gearing new U.S. policies to Panama’s 

upcoming presidential election but feared that crucial decisions regarding those 

initiatives were being left to the last minute. “Of the few remaining non-violent 

options to force the ouster of Noriega,” he informed Crowe in early January 1989, 

“the May elections present us with the best opportunity, but only if we can quickly 

plan for and execute a comprehensive action plan.”5

The first public pronouncements by Secretary Baker on the subject reinforced 

Woerner’s concerns. In an appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee 

4 On Woerner’s status in Washington, see Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, 

pp. 16, 26–27; Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 83; Cole, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 10. 5 Msg, CINCSO to JCS [personal for Crowe, Armitage, Abrams, Amb Davis], 031320Z Jan 89, 

sub: May 89 Panamanian Elections—An Opportunity.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

138

in mid-February, the secretary of state asserted that the Bush administration would 

not normalize relations with Panama so long as Noriega remained in power. He 

added that there would be a review of existing policy with the intention of making 

improvements, but what those improvements might be was left unsaid. Later, senior 

officials in the administration told reporters that, despite the objections Baker had 

raised to wide-ranging financial sanctions against Panama when he was treasury 

secretary under Reagan, President Bush had no intention of lifting the embargo.6

In short, pending a policy review at some undetermined point in the future, the old 

and, in Woerner’s view, ineffectual and piecemeal measures for dealing with the 

crisis would remain in place.

Shortly after Baker’s testimony, the New York Times reported a luncheon speech 

given by Woerner to the Central American Chambers of Commerce in Panama 

City.7 At this point, Bush had been president for just a month, the Tower affair 

was still in the headlines, and Aronson’s nomination to the position vacated by 

Abrams was still rumor, not fact. When Woerner accepted the invitation to address 

the business group, he knew that he would be asked about any impending changes 

in U.S. policy toward Panama. To preempt a barrage of questions on the topic, he 

decided to field the first such question with a comprehensive statement on the crisis 

as he saw it.

As expected, the luncheon address afforded him such an opportunity. Citing 

an “absence” of U.S. policy toward Panama, he asserted the urgent need for debate 

and for decisions concerning “what our actions are to be on May 8 [the day after 

the Panamanian elections] given a variety of scenarios.” Would such deliberations 

take place in the immediate future? Woerner doubted that they would. “We are 

frankly ill prepared to do that now because, as you well know, we have a vacuum 

in Washington in the absence of an appointment of an assistant secretary of state 

for Latin American affairs. . . . Until we get that position filled and the debate can 

commence, I offer you little hope of an articulated policy.”8

“What I said, I said deliberately,” Woerner later asserted. He had anticipated 

expressing his views on the policy process, and he had. He had also anticipated 

that his comments, while made off the record, would be reported by someone in 

the news media. They were. So that he would have an accurate account of what he 

said, he had asked his public affairs people to make a tape recording of the remarks. 

What he had not anticipated was the way his remarks would be interpreted in the 

media. The New York Times article, under the headline, “General Sees Lack of 

Policy,” characterized Woerner’s words as harsh and alleged that he was “[a]dding 

his voice to critics who say the Administration has moved slowly in formulating 

its foreign policy.” As soon as the article appeared, Woerner recalled, “all hell 

hit the fan.”9

 Numerous callers wanted to know exactly what he had said, and 

armed with a transcript of his remarks, he was able to tell them. He also sent the 

tapes and transcript to his superiors in Washington, emphasizing that his remarks, 

taken in context, clearly did not refer to a policy vacuum but to the vacancy at the 

State Department. In other words, nothing he said was intended as criticism of 

6 New York Times, 24 Feb 89, p. 3. 7 The account of Woerner’s speech and the furor that followed is based on ibid.; Interv, author 

with General Frederick F. Woerner, Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 8 New York Times, 24 Feb 89, p. 3. 9 Quotes from ibid.; Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91.
139

Toward a Tougher Posture

the president. Initially, he was led to believe that the White House accepted this 

explanation and that the tempest had blown over.

A few weeks later, while on an official visit to the capital, he found out 

otherwise. At the end of a meeting he had with Crowe and Brent Scowcroft, 

Bush’s national security adviser, the latter asked Woerner to remain behind. “The 

president is infuriated,” Scowcroft scolded the general. Surprised by the rebuke, 

Woerner asked if Scowcroft had read the transcript, and Scowcroft replied that 

he had. “What you said is true,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t have said it.” 

Woerner thereupon apologized for the remarks and assured Scowcroft that his 

aim had not been to embarrass the president. When Woerner rejoined Crowe, the 

admiral asked if Scowcroft had raised the speech issue. Woerner answered yes, at 

which point Crowe became visibly displeased. “He had no right to bring it up!” 

Woerner remembers the admiral saying in anger. Apparently, the White House had 

led Crowe to believe that the whole matter was a “dead issue.”10

Two years after the episode, Woerner still defended his remarks and rejected 

the interpretation that he was being critical of the new administration. “If you get 

to four stars,” he reflected, “you might not be very smart, but you’ve got enough 

sense not to criticize your commander in chief.” But he also added, “If I had it to do 

all over again, I wouldn’t do it. . . . I wouldn’t make the speech.”11 But the damage 

was done. Woerner survived the furor over his luncheon remarks, but his standing 

in Washington had slipped even further. To his military critics at Fort Bragg and in 

the Pentagon were now added civilian antagonists within the president’s inner circle, 

even, perhaps, the president himself. Within this group, the impression grew over the 

ensuing weeks and months that Woerner was not a “team player” and that his reading 

of the crisis was out of sync with that of the policy-making bureaucracy. To make 

matters worse, charges were beginning to circulate that he was a general who could 

not, or would not, protect the men and women serving in his command.

“Terror” in Panama

Since early in the crisis, there had been a “continuous ebb and flow” in the level 

of harassment and treaty violations directed against Americans and U.S. installations 

in Panama. By the end of 1988, service personnel, their dependents, and employees 

of other U.S. agencies had grown accustomed to a variety of aggravations. For one, 

PDF tránsitos continued to solicit bribes from American motorists they stopped, 

and, despite SOUTHCOM guidance not to pay, many of the victims, anxious to get 

on with their business, chose to hand over the widely accepted “fine” of $20. The 

likely outcome for those who refused to part with their cash, or who failed in some 

way to dissuade their tormentors, was night court, where any judgment against 

a U.S. serviceman usually had tacked onto it a gratuitous $300 fine for showing 

“disrepect to the PDF.” Besides the bribes and night court, the Panama Defense 

Forces regularly detained American service personnel performing official duties, 

occasionally roughing them up in the process.

The SOUTHCOM Center for Treaty Affairs issued periodic fact sheets 

summarizing the incidents, which numbered in the hundreds by the end of 1988. 

Seven categories of infractions were covered: denial of freedom of movement, 

excessive force and endangerment, procedural guarantee violations, other violations 

10 Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91.

11 Ibid.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

140

of treaty documents or arrangements, detentions without charges, confiscation 

or destruction of personal or U.S. government property, and violations of U.S. 

installations.12 What these categories and the terse summary of individual incidents 

under each one failed to reveal were the feelings, ranging from annoyance to abject 

fear, experienced by the numerous service personnel and their dependents who were 

variously detained, handcuffed, interrogated, strip-searched, sexually intimidated, 

verbally abused, denied legal counsel, bullied, photographed for propaganda 

purposes, and subjected to many other indignities. SOUTHCOM treaty affairs 

officers who recorded these activities empathized with the plight of the victims 

and grew increasingly frustrated over the futility of official protests.

While the illegal activity and harassment directed against Americans could 

be nerve-racking, most of the intimidation consisted of low- to medium-grade 

inconveniences, aggravations, and provocations. On occasion, however, more 

serious incidents broke the pattern. One such case involved the violation of U.S. 

rights at the port of Las Minas on the Atlantic side of the canal area. In blatant 

defiance of the canal treaty, the Panama Defense Forces periodically interfered with 

the movement, unloading, and processing of U.S. cargo at the port. The Southern 

Command had protested the disruptions but to little avail. Then, on 29 September 

1988, Panamanian authorities at Las Minas seized a 120-mm. gun tube that the 

Army had sent to Panama for testing. When SOUTHCOM officials arrived at the 

scene, they were denied access to the port, with one of the uniformed Panamanians 

present using his AK47 to push away an American MP liaison officer. The Southern 

Command demanded return of the gun tube while rejecting Panamanian charges 

that the tube was linked to U.S. “subversive activities.” Woerner also decided 

that the provocation was so flagrant as to require action beyond a formal protest. 

Using open communication lines, SOUTHCOM officers initially played down the 

issue, deliberately misleading eavesdropping Panamanians as to the seriousness 

of the SOUTHCOM commander’s intentions. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, 508th 

Infantry, at Fort Kobbe was placed on alert and units were moved to the Atlantic 

side of the canal area to be closer to the port. The show of force “surprised the 

devil” out of Noriega, according to one U.S. intelligence officer. The next day, the 

gun tube was returned, accompanied with an apology. What might have transpired 

had the Panama Defense Forces remained intransigent is a matter of speculation. 

But as Loeffke noted in his diary, “We were ready to go and fight the PDF to take 

back the weapon.”13

The Las Minas affair involved a threat to U.S. property. Other incidents that 

exceeded routine petty harassment involved threats to, and in some cases actual 

abuse of, American citizens. On several occasions, the Southern Command had to 

protest the use of excessive physical force against U.S. servicemen in PDF hands. 

One such incident involved an allegedly drunken PDF officer using a night stick on 

a U.S. enlisted man and his pregnant wife. Another report charged four unidentified 

12 Fact Sheets, SCTA-J, 22 Apr 88, 22 Nov 88, sub: Recap of Recent PDF–US Forces Incidents. 

Quote from Interv, author with Maj William Graves, U.S. Army, 27 Aug 91, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.13 Third quote from Diary, Bernard Loeffke, 30 Sep 88. Second quote from Interv, author with 

Brig Gen John Stewart, U.S. Army, 14 Jun 89, Quarry Heights, Panama. First quote from Fact Sheet, 

SOUTHCOM J–3, 25 Oct 88, sub: Las Minas Events. Fact Sheet, SCTA-J–3, 22 Nov 88; Tropic 

Times, 30 Sep 88, 3 Oct 88.
141

Toward a Tougher Posture

PDF officers with pulling an American civilian from his rental car, accusing him 

of working for the CIA, and beating him unconscious. In a similar incident, a PDF 

officer repeatedly kicked a U.S. serviceman and placed a gun to his head. Besides 

physical force, the Panama Defense Forces also tried to employ intimidation, as 

when they arrested General Woerner and Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh Jr. 

while the two men were jogging on the Fort Amador causeway. In an even more 

brazen episode, Dr. Marcos Ostrander, an international lawyer employed by the 

U.S. Army, South, left his home one morning in September to find a decapitated 

and mutilated human body propped against his car. At the time, Ostrander was 

involved in preparing a report proving that American citizens did not receive fair 

trials in Panama. The body was assumed to be a warning against publishing his 

findings. A Panamanian officer Ostrander knew attributed the grisly act to radical 

elements within the Panamanian military and advised the lawyer to take the threat 

seriously.14

While the psychological impact of PDF harassment, intimidation, and abuse 

was felt throughout the American community in Panama, news of these incidents 

was rarely reported in the United States. When stories of PDF misconduct did 

surface, as in the New York Times in August and September 1988, they produced no 

discernible backlash. SOUTHCOM’s Public Affairs Office took notice, however, 

and prepared a response to “set the record straight.” “While basically factually 

accurate,” a command spokesperson conceded, “this harassment pattern is not 

considered a campaign by the General Manuel Noriega regime, as the articles 

suggest, but rather a continuation of a trend which began in February [1988]” as a 

result of PDF officers taking advantage of the climate created by their commander’s 

anti-U.S. posture and disinformation campaign. The majority of the incidents 

reported, the Southern Command assured the news media, were not serious, and 

the command’s Center for Treaty Affairs diligently protested each infraction. That 

the Panama Defense Forces by and large ignored the protests was regrettable, 

but at least the official effort served to put the Southern Command “on record on 

the way business should be conducted.” As a further response to the increased 

harassment, public affairs officers stressed, the command had moved about 1,400 

of the 2,450 families of military personnel and Defense Department civilians to 

safer locations in Panama or back to the United States. But “short of other kinds 

of military actions,” there was not much else U.S. officials could do to remedy the 

situation.15

If the American public was largely indifferent to the situation in Panama, many 

important officials in Washington were not. An officer in the Pentagon described the 

PDF’s conduct as “appalling,” while unidentified sources in the State Department 

criticized the Southern Command as being more interested in conducting “business 

as usual” with Noriega than with mounting a vigorous campaign against PDF 

14 New York Times, 29 Sep 88; Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Barefield, U.S. Army, 7 Nov 90, 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Diary, Loeffke, 1 Nov 88, 10 Nov 88. According to one source, Loeffke 

was so angered by the threat to Ostrander that he had his provost marshal deliver a message to 

Noriega through a PDF officer that the dictator would pay a “devastating price” if the USARSO lawyer “so much as developed a hangnail.” See Kurt Muse and John Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom

(New York: Citadel Press, 2006), p. 63. 15 New York Times, 24 Aug 88, 27 Aug 88, 29 Sep 88. Quotes on SOUTHCOM’s position on 

PDF harassment are from Tropic Times, 26 Aug 88.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

142

harassment. Some U.S. officials even suggested that Woerner and his generals 

had issued a gag order prohibiting disgruntled colonels and majors from reporting 

incidents to the Defense Department. (The New York Times mitigated the effect 

of this accusation by reminding the paper’s readers that the White House itself 

had placed restrictions on negative publicity about Panama for the duration of 

the presidential campaign.) Soon after the election, Woerner went to Washington 

to discuss possible U.S. initiatives in Panama during the coming year. Most of 

the conversations he held highlighted to one degree or another concern over the 

harassment problem. In one meeting, Admiral Crowe raised the issue but ordered 

no specific actions to resolve it. Most officials recognized that Woerner had few 

options available to him. Military force had been ruled out at the highest level, 

while any decision to impose curfews on U.S. service personnel and to declare 

certain areas off-limits would mean, in effect, abdicating several of America’s 

treaty rights in Panama.16

When, in late January 1989, a Washington Post article made a passing reference 

to the harassment in Panama and characterized morale among U.S. troops as 

having hit “rock bottom,” Loeffke dismissed the analysis as “pure malarkey.” 

The Southern Command preferred the term “ill-informed” and denied allegations 

of a “cover up or downplaying” of the incidents. Yet, by coincidence, the piece 

appeared just as harassment in Panama was again on the upswing. In the weeks 

that followed, not only did the number of incidents increase, but the Noriega 

regime demonstrated the multiplicity of ways in which it could disrupt the lives 

of Americans in the country, especially in areas that previously had offered only 

a potential target or had received only negligible attention. The upward trend in 

“confrontational events,” Rear Adm. Richard C. Ustick informed the Joint Staff, 

“seems to be approaching a new threshold to test our limits.”17

Ustick singled out PDF interference with U.S. “freedom of movement” in 

Panama as a treaty violation that, left unchallenged, could hamper SOUTHCOM’s 

ability to perform assigned missions. Throughout the crisis, Panamanian 

authorities had tried to control and restrict the movement of U.S. vehicles being 

used for official business, but, on 19 January 1989, the Panamanian cochairman 

of the Combined Board signaled an intensification of this effort when he informed 

his American counterpart that the Panama Defense Forces had “placed fixed 

sentry posts at the entry points of the canal area” to assist American personnel 

who got “lost” in Panama. In fact, the PDF used the checkpoints to stop, search, 

reroute, detain, and impound U.S. government and government-leased vehicles. 

One tactic involved taking advantage of the unwritten but mutually accepted 

definition of a U.S. military “convoy,” which, by law, required a PDF escort. 

Over the years, both sides had agreed that four official vehicles traveling together 

16 First quoted word from New York Times, 29 Sep 88. Second quote from Army Times, 20 Mar 

89 Trip Rpt, 23 Nov 88, sub: Trip Report—CINC Washington Visit 21–22 November 1988. In a 

handwritten note attached to a copy of the trip report, Col. Arnie Rossi at JTF-Panama indicated that 

he was “most interested” in the fact that the harassment and human rights issues had dominated the 

“dialogue” about Panama in Washington. 17 Washington Post, 21 Jan 89, 7 Feb 89. For Loeffke’s response, see Msg, CDR, USARSO, to 

CSA, 310200Z Jan 89, sub: Update No. 20. SOUTHCOM’s position and Admiral Ustick’s comments 

are from Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff [personal, Rear Adm Ustick to Lt Gen Johnson], 162026Z Feb 

89, sub: Panama-Update.
143

Toward a Tougher Posture

to a single destination constituted a convoy. With the upsurge in harassment, 

the PDF began stopping and detaining single vehicles traveling independently 

to different locations. Once four vehicles had been stopped, the Panamanian 

officers present designated them a convoy, which could then be turned back for 

not having coordinated its movements with the proper authorities and for not 

having the required escort. 

In addition to the convoy ploy, the Panama Defense Forces sought to limit the 

freedom of movement of American officials and troops in Panama by refusing to 

recognize the decals that were used to identify U.S. government vehicles. This 

flagrant disregard of an important treaty provision raised concerns about how the 

PDF on any given day would deal with the legal status of those vehicles and the 

protection to which they were entitled. The Southern Command again protested 

vigorously, again to no avail.18

Another form of harassment inconvenienced American military personnel 

living in housing units that, under the treaty, had reverted from U.S. to Panamanian 

control. In 1984, the Southern Command had arranged to lease the units, most 

of which were located in the Balboa and Diablo Heights areas of Panama City, 

as a means of lessening the demand for limited on-base housing. With the crisis 

and the economic sanctions invoked by President Reagan in early 1988 under the 

International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the rent due on the units 

was diverted from the Solis Palma regime controlled by Noriega into an escrow 

account. In retaliation, the regime began hinting that Americans who had failed 

to pay their rent would be evicted. The threat hung in the air until February 1989, 

when the Panamanian housing ministry ordered electricity and water to seventyeight of the residences shut off. The Southern Command responded by terminating 

the leases and moving over a hundred Americans affected by the cutoff to other 

quarters. Many of the families requested permission to pay the rent, but U.S. law 

imposed a steep fine for those who willingly violated the IEEPA sanctions. In his 

diary, Loeffke lamented the hardship caused by the “evictions.” “This was a lousy 

way to get us out.”19

The regime found other ways to turn its bureaucracy and the IEEPA issue against 

Americans in Panama. On 20 February 1989, it announced that all U.S. service 

personnel would have to obtain a Paz y Salvo (“Peace and Safety”) certificate 

from the government before they could receive 1989 license plates for their cars 

and vans. Although American citizens were exempt from this procedure under the 

treaty, the Southern Command had no realistic option but to protest, an ineffectual 

response. With only one week before the new plates would be required, many U.S. 

military personnel stood in line up to eight hours to get the prerequisite certificate. 

Several thousand failed to meet the deadline and found themselves subject to fines 

for driving with expired plates. 

18 On the attempts to limit U.S. freedom of movement in Panama, see Tropic Times, 24 Feb 

89; Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 162026Z Feb 89, sub: Panama-Update; Author’s notes on Treaty 

Affairs briefing, 23 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Msg, CINCSO to VCJCS [personal, Gen Woerner 

to Gen Herres], 060115Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Assessment. 19 Diary, Loeffke, 16 Aug 88, 3 Oct 88, 18 Feb 89, n.d. [Feb 89]. On the rent issue and evictions, 

see also Tropic Times, 22 Feb 89; Msgs, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 162026Z Feb 89, sub: PanamaUpdate, and CINCSO to VCJCS, 060115Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Assessment.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

144

The inconvenience was enormous for the American military community but 

did not match the problems confronting Panamanian citizens employed by the 

U.S. government. For them, a Paz y Salvo certificate was proof of having paid 

their national taxes. But, under the IEEPA sanctions, money withheld from their 

paychecks for income and education taxes did not go to the regime but into the 

aforementioned escrow account. Panamanians employed by the United States 

were thus unable to obtain the certificate. Without it, not only were they unable to 

purchase license plates, but they could not engage in a variety of business activities 

and their personal property was subject to government seizure. Admiral Ustick did 

not understate the facts when he described the Paz y Salvo controversy as “another 

highly emotional issue involving all of our Panamanian employees and their 

families.” The U.S. administrator of the Panama Canal also noted the disruption to 

the waterway’s operations caused by the PDF’s detaining Panamanian employees 

with expired license plates.20

In addition to the regime’s psychological and bureaucratic warfare, the 

physical mistreatment of U.S. government employees and service personnel 

continued, with the Southern Command concerned over the increasing propensity 

of the Panama Defense Forces to resort to violence. Two incidents in February 

1989 called attention to the problem. In the first, a civilian employee of the U.S. 

Navy received an official summons to appear at the local National Investigation 

Department (DENI) station to make a statement. When he arrived, the PDF 

lieutenant who met him outside the building began to hit him. An MP liaison 

at the scene reported that the Navy employee was pushed into the station while 

being hit in the face. When the military policeman tried to intervene, he was 

knocked aside. Inside the DENI station, the U.S. civilian was handcuffed and 

thrown into a cell. The PDF later beat him with a rubber hose and repeatedly 

kicked him in the head, telling him throughout the ordeal that he was going 

to die. Meanwhile, the MP liaison returned with another PDF lieutenant, and 

subsequent negotiations secured the release of the employee, who emerged with 

a broken eardrum and bruises on his back, buttocks, and hands. The Southern 

Command protested the incident, and the Panama Defense Forces, in essentially 

a meaningless concession, apologized.21

Two weeks later, in the second incident, a U.S. Navy lieutenant birdwatching in a marshy area near the old Tocumen airport was confronted by two 

PDF officers, who took him into custody. While in detention, he was accused 

of being a spy, denied contact with U.S. military liaison officers, strip-searched 

twice, hit in the head, back, and kidney area, threatened with sodomy and death, 

and photographed with his bird-watching equipment, which included binoculars 

and a camera. After nine hours of illegal confinement, the Panamanian military 

released him. The next day, while driving in Panama City, the lieutenant was 

stopped by a PDF tránsito for an alleged traffic violation. Fearing a repetition of 

20 Ustick’s comments are contained in Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 162026Z Feb 89, sub: 

Panama-Update. For additional information on the Paz Y Salvo issue, see Msgs, CINCSO to VCJCS, 

060115Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Assessment, and CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 221840Z Mar 89; Tropic 

Times, 1 Mar 89, 3 Mar 89.

21 Tropic Times, 10 Feb 89; Fact Sheet, SCTA-JC, 10 May 89, sub: Recap of Recent–US Forces 

Treaty Violations/Incidents from 01 Feb to 28 Feb 89; Msg, CINCSO to VCJCS, 060115Z Mar 89, 

sub: Panama Assessment.
145

Toward a Tougher Posture

the previous day’s ordeal, the American fled the scene in his vehicle. As he raced 

back to Quarry Heights, he lost control of the car and ran into a retaining wall, 

incurring severe leg injuries. When an ambulance arrived, the driver was forced 

by a PDF officer to take the lieutenant to a Panamanian hospital instead of Gorgas 

Army Hospital. U.S. military liaison officers were finally able to intervene in 

the case, and sometime later the lieutenant was transferred to Gorgas, where he 

underwent surgery for his injuries.22

The harassment of Americans in Panama reached a new plateau on 3 March, 

in what would become one of the most emotional and publicized incidents of the 

crisis.23 Shortly after 0700, several U.S. military headquarters began receiving 

reports that the Panama Defense Forces were stopping and holding American 

school buses at gunpoint. The buses were owned and driven by Panamanians, but 

the transportation they provided was a service contracted by the U.S. Navy. In 

keeping with SOUTHCOM’s protests over the Paz y Salvo problem, the Navy 

had placed U.S. government license tags instead of Panamanian plates on the 

vehicles. PDF personnel were now detaining the buses for displaying improper 

licenses. What alarmed U.S. officials was that American schoolchildren, many of 

elementary school age, were still on the buses.

Of the twenty-one vehicles detained by the Panama Defense Forces, twelve 

were released after the drivers were issued tickets. Nine buses, however, were 

taken to the dirección nacional de transporte terrestre (DNTT). Maj. Alan 

Mansfield, a veteran of the crisis who ran the USARSO Provost Marshal Office 

at Fort Clayton, rushed to the scene, as did SOUTHCOM treaty affairs personnel, 

criminal investigation officers, and other U.S. representatives. When Mansfield 

and two other military policemen arrived, they closed off the area and collected 

the bus drivers’ keys. Mansfield then confronted the ranking PDF officer on the 

scene in an unsuccessful effort to negotiate the removal of the children. When 

the Panama Defense Forces brought in a wrecker to tow away one of the buses 

with the children still on board, Mansfield ordered MP vehicles to block the route. 

At one point, a higher-ranking PDF officer arrived, as did more PDF troops and 

American MPs. As on many occasions during the crisis, Mansfield proved his skill 

in handling a highly charged situation. Every time a camera turned toward him, 

he coolly demanded to know why the Panamanians were abducting American 

schoolchildren. The PDF officer finally relented and released the children, many 

of whom had been detained on the buses well over an hour. American government 

vans called to the scene, as well as cars driven by distraught parents, were used to 

evacuate the children. In the meantime, the MP quick reaction force was placed 

on alert. The Panama Defense Forces detained the buses for another hour until 

the drivers, under extreme pressure, surrendered their licenses. The last bus was 

released at 0937.

The incident shocked and angered the American community in Panama, 

which viewed the “traumatization” of their schoolchildren as a major escalation 

22 Fact Sheet, SCTA-JC, 10 May 89, sub: Recap of Recent–US Forces Treaty Violations/

Incidents from 01 Feb to 28 Feb 89; Tropic Times, 22 Feb 89. 23 The following account is based on Tropic Times, 6 Mar 89; Army Times, 20 Mar 89; Log, 

SOUTHCOM Joint Operations Center, 3 Mar 89; Handwritten notes, n.d., titled J–3 Guidance; 

Telephone Interv, author with Capt Anthony M. Schilling, U.S. Army, 30 Nov 90; Interv, author with 

Lt Col Mike Michaelis, U.S. Army, 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

146

in the crisis. “I can tell you that gets up close and personal, when they start 

screwing with your family like that,” recalled a U.S. officer whose son was on 

one of the buses.24 Many U.S. service personnel wanted the Southern Command 

to take strong action. When the command did little more than express outrage 

and issue a formal protest, the frustration that had been building throughout the 

crisis was vented, most of it at Woerner, Loeffke, the Joint Chiefs, and the Bush 

administration. A “unique opportunity” to take a “bold step” against the Panama 

Defense Forces had presented itself, one officer complained, “but nobody had the 

courage” to act. Sarcastic references to Woerner as “WIMPCOM” resurfaced. He 

was the “Philosopher King” whose policy of protecting his troops was “mind over 

matter—he didn’t mind and we didn’t matter.” Anger and frustration also fueled 

the extracurricular activities of a few U.S. noncommissioned officers and enlisted 

men who, in groups of threes and fours, would go “hunting the PDF,” that is, 

mugging or beating any PDF officer they could find and isolate. In a nonviolent but 

much more consequential move, someone at Quarry Heights sought retribution by 

leaking a copy of a classified document on PDF harassment to the Military Times 

Media group, which included the Army Times, a private newspaper circulated 

weekly to Army installations and personnel throughout the world.25

“Terror in Panama,” was the banner front-page headline on that newspaper’s 

20 March 1989 issue. An article with that title reported that U.S. servicemen in 

Panama had been abducted, beaten, threatened, and submitted to psychological 

torture. The story also quoted Elliott Abrams on what the former assistant 

secretary of state asserted was a “shameful” and “pusillanimous” official 

response to the harassment in “a real effort to downplay it and not have that 

information circulated widely in Washington.” Abrams went on to call Admiral 

Crowe’s larger policy objectives “legitimate” but to voice his objection to 

carrying out the policy “over the bruised bodies of the men in Panama.” An 

interview with a Navy petty officer, Mike Nieves, seemed to lend credence to 

Abrams’ criticism. Nieves recounted his encounter with several PDF policemen 

who, after abducting him for parking an official van in a no-parking zone at 

Torrijos airport, took him out on a dirt road; robbed, beat, and kicked him; then 

put a gun near his head and pulled the trigger while he was forced to beg for his 

life. The article went on to report congressional concern over the harassment. 

One outraged Republican congressman, Robert Dornan of California, declared, 

“The next time an American is beaten we should hit them with a ton of bricks. 

And sometimes a ton of bricks is spelled: 82d Airborne.”26

When General Loeffke walked into the JTF-Panama meeting on 23 March, 

he was clearly distressed about the Army Times article. His first question to the 

staff and commanders sitting around the U-shaped table in the Simón Bolívar 

24 Army Times, 20 Mar 89, p. 3. Quotes from Barefield Interv, 7 Nov 90. 25 Intervs, author with Maj John Mulholland, U.S. Army, 30 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Maj William Graves, U.S. Army, 20, 27 Aug 91, 18 May 92; and JTF‐Panama staff officer. 

Conversations, author with several officers and enlisted men in Panama who expressed their criticism 

of higher authorities on condition of anonymity; Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, p. 363; Donnelly, 

Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 32, 45; Lt Col Paul J. Woodrow, ‘Ni Un Paso Atras’-The 

Crisis in Panama, 1987–1989, U.S. Army War College Personal Experience Monograph (Carlisle 

Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 12 April 1992), pp. 14, 16. 26 Army Times, 20 Mar 89, p. 3.
147

Toward a Tougher Posture

conference room at Fort Clayton was whether or not Americans in Panama were 

really being “terrorized” or if the incidents of which all present were aware 

could be better characterized as “harassment” and “intimidation.” Most around 

the table preferred the latter terms: the incidents did not constitute “terrorism.” 

As the discussion progressed, however, some expressed their concern that the 

Southern Command and JTF-Panama might be minimizing what in fact had 

become a serious problem. Loeffke responded that Noriega was certainly a 

“thug,” but that Panamanian officials could justify some of their actions because 

of the refusal of the United States to make various payments to the regime.

At one point, the exchange migrated from the conference table to the larger 

audience of officers and civilians in attendance. A Center for Treaty Affairs 

official volunteered that many incidents that might constitute “terror” were going 

unreported because of a prevailing belief that neither top military commanders in 

Panama nor policy makers in Washington would take decisive action on behalf 

of the victims. That viewpoint generated further comments, until the discussion 

worked itself back to where it had begun, with seeming agreement that “terror” 

was too harsh a word to describe what Americans were enduring in Panama. 

The debate carried into the corridors afterwards, with several officers who had 

been in the audience arguing that “psychological terror” did exist when military 

personnel and their dependents were afraid to go about their daily business for 

fear of being detained and abused.27

The discussion at that meeting revealed the nuances and complexity of the 

harassment issue and the differences of opinion it generated within the American 

military community. To many service personnel who lived and worked in 

Panama, the incidents were clear-cut violations of the canal treaty and required a 

strong U.S. response if Noriega was to be discouraged from continuing or further 

escalating his tactics. Several officers and civilians in SOUTHCOM’s Center 

for Treaty Affairs who had dealt with the victims of harassment on a daily basis 

tended to side with this group. For one treaty affairs official, the solution was 

simple: evacuate U.S. citizens, bring in the U.S. 82d Airborne Division, and “blow 

them away,” meaning the Panama Defense Forces and its commander. Other 

Americans, including many military personnel and their families, disagreed. 

PDF and regime harassment was clearly a concern and an annoyance, but with 

the exception of a few atypical incidents in which Panamanian authorities had 

exercised excessive force or poor judgment, the threat to Americans was not 

undue cause for alarm and certainly not a cause for war. Besides, as the wife of 

one officer told an interviewer, “A lot of the harassment stories, unless they were 

officially documented, were rumors. Some were just plain stupid.”28

27 This account of the JTF-Panama meeting is based on Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update 

Meeting, 23 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 28 Woodrow, ‘Ni Un Paso Atras.’ First quote from Briefing, Center for Treaty Affairs official to author, 23 Mar 89. Conversations, author with numerous military personnel in Panama 

who expressed their criticism of higher authorities on condition of anonymity. Second quote from 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 44. Loeffke’s files contain an example of how 

rumors of harassment could get started. In January 1989, while leaving Howard Air Force Base, 

the general stopped to talk with a PDF officer he knew. A security policeman saw the two men 

conversing and reported that the Panamanian military had stopped Loeffke and searched his vehicle. Two days later, Woerner heard at a party that Loeffke had been beaten up by the Panamanian 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

148

Woerner, Loeffke, Ustick, Cisneros, and other key commanders and staff officers, 

in weighing reason against emotion, tried to keep the harassment issue in perspective. 

The days when the United States would go to war to prevent its citizens abroad from 

being maligned or roughed up were long over. In early 1988, President Reagan had 

agreed to send security enhancement forces to Panama to protect American lives 

and property, but neither he nor his successor condoned the use of U.S. military 

force unless Noriega placed those lives in imminent danger. The incidents of petty 

harassment in Panama, for all the inconvenience, irritation, anger, and psychological 

distress they produced, did not pose such an acute threat. As Woerner later explained, 

“I did not feel that Americans were threatened life and limb.” Neither did Crowe, and 

neither did the White House. With the military option excluded, there was little the 

Southern Command could do to end the harassment without escalating the crisis. As 

Woerner pointed out, he could cut off electricity to a PDF facility on a U.S. installation 

in response to some incident, but Noriega could retaliate by shutting down electricity 

to an entire American housing complex. Noriega and his cronies held “most of the 

trump cards,” Woerner advised the Pentagon. Under the circumstances, the Southern 

Command had few options except using the formal mechanisms still available to it 

under the treaty to issue a stream of official protests, most of which elicited only a 

perfunctory reply from their recipients.29

As for the more serious and increasingly well-publicized incidents that 

went beyond petty harassment, few were as clear-cut as reported, several were 

surrounded by ambiguity or mitigating circumstances, and some simply never 

happened. In the case of the Navy bird watcher, for example, he was apprehended 

near a PDF facility, pursuing his hobby with binoculars and military maps in 

hand—behavior bound to raise an adversary’s suspicions. Early in his detainment, 

when his Panamanian interrogators told him to write a statement confessing to 

espionage, the officer instead wrote a letter to his girlfriend. His reference in the 

letter to Panama as a “Banana Republic,” and the sentence, “This is a bunch of 

bulls——t,” were presumably what provoked his tormentors into more brutal 

action. The beating was inexcusable, but many U.S. service personnel who heard 

the whole story could only marvel at the officer’s foolhardy behavior from start 

to finish. In another incident that received a good deal of publicity, a PDF officer 

allegedly accosted a U.S. Army private first class and his wife sitting in their car, 

forced the man into the trunk at gunpoint, and raped, or attempted to rape, the 

woman. That the Southern Command only protested the outrage angered many 

Americans in Panama. What never caught up with the initial reports, however, was 

the conclusion, reached after a thorough investigation, that the rape (or attempted 

rape) never took place. Finally, even the detention of the school buses could be 

viewed as within the rights of the regime, although stopping them while the children 

were on board had betrayed a serious lapse of judgment (one for which the officer 

in charge had reportedly been disciplined).30 Americans demanding stronger action 

military. In his notes on the “incident,” the JTF-Panama commander bemoaned this “gross information.” Notes, n.d., Loeffke Papers. 29 Woerner’s comments are taken from Msgs, CINCSO to VCJCS, 060115Z Mar 89, sub: 

Panama Assessment, and CINCSO to Joint Staff, 162026Z Feb 89, sub: Panama-Update. See also 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 43. 30 Several officers at the Southern Command and JTF‐Panama expressed doubts to me about 

the alleged rape. Having access to the official report, I continued to believe that a rape had occurred 
149

Toward a Tougher Posture

by the Southern Command regarded these reservations, qualifications, and denials 

as desperate rationalizations by commanders who did not take kindly to bad news 

that might intensify the crisis. In some cases, this argument was not without merit, 

but, generally speaking, it overlooked the substantial difficulties U.S. commanders 

had in determining the facts of a given case and acting upon them.31

Most of the critics who chided Woerner for his handling of the “terror in 

Panama” were also unaware of one important consideration: the directive from 

Washington that forbade the SOUTHCOM commander from taking any action that 

would provoke a military confrontation with the Panama Defense Forces and the 

Noriega regime. Originally, the “statute of limitations” on this verbal directive ran 

through the U.S. presidential election. After George Bush became the presidentelect, it was extended to his inauguration in January and, following that, to the 

Panamanian elections in May. The latter extension was to allow the president’s 

new national security team ample opportunity to review the crisis and determine 

appropriate courses of action.

In the meantime, on 6 March 1989, three days after the school bus incident, 

Woerner offered his assessment of the increasing harassment to the vice chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs. Up to this point, SOUTHCOM’s official position had been 

that the pressures brought against Americans in Panama were not part of an 

officially directed campaign, but the logical consequence of the regime’s pervasive 

anti-American attitudes, the declining economic conditions in Panama, and, on 

several occasions, the fact that Americans had truly been in the wrong. Now Woerner 

explicitly labeled the harassment as being directed by the regime, probably by 

Noriega himself. Why had the PDF commander changed tactics? Woerner offered 

three possibilities: retaliation for perceived attacks on the Panamanian government 

in the U.S. media, including the Tropic Times; an attempt to shore up support 

within the regime’s power base of public workers, labor unions, the poor, and 

the Panama Defense Forces by focusing attention on the U.S. troop presence and 

alleged U.S. violations of Panama’s sovereignty; and an endeavor to build a case 

for postponing or canceling the elections scheduled for May.32

With a view to the future, Woerner predicted that the harassment would not 

“diminish over time,” although he continued to believe that Noriega would not 

“intentionally take [the] harassment campaign to [the] point where US lives will 

until I interviewed a female MP officer who had taken part in the investigation. She convinced me 

that the story was a fabrication to cover up other activities by the three individuals involved. As for 

the Navy bird watcher, a copy of his handwritten letter to his girlfriend, which contains the quotes, 

was placed in a JTF-Panama file. The position that the Panamanian regime was within its rights in 

stopping the school buses was expressed on various occasions by Woerner, Loeffke, and Cisneros, 

among others, all of whom condemned stopping the buses while the children were on board. A couple 

of months before the bus incident, Woerner had informed Crowe that “Some of the recent incidents 

have appeared to be of a . . . serious nature. However, further investigation revealed that some of 

these incidents were either not as serious as indicated, or that there was less PDF involvement than 

initially reported.” Interv, author with Maj Nancy Nykamp, 11 May 99, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; 

Msg, CINCSO to JCS [personal, Gen Woerner to Adm Crowe], 141831Z Dec 88, sub: Security 

Enhancement Forces. 31 On the other hand, one of the MP officers involved in investigating reports of harassment 

complained to me that, in the incident involving the gun being discharged near the Navy petty officer’s face, the Southern Command “deliberately got in the way” of the investigation. 32 Msg, CINCSO to VCJCS, 060115Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Assessment.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

150

be directly threatened.” Instead, Woerner argued, the dictator would continue to 

abridge and violate U.S. treaty rights through new and more severe bureaucratic 

measures and media attacks. In short, the tactical initiative rested with Noriega. 

The challenge facing the Southern Command, Woerner declared, was to seize 

the initiative from Noriega in such a way that would strike at the general’s 

vulnerabilities without “providing grist for his propaganda/harassment mill.” In 

words that would have confounded his critics had they seen the message, Woerner 

concluded by saying, “Noriega will push us until we push back in a forceful and 

effective manner.”33 How such a push might be accomplished became the focus 

of a full-scale Washington-SOUTHCOM review in the months preceding the 

Panamanian elections.

A Tougher Posture

Even before the Bush national security team was completely in place, Secretary 

of State Baker asked the acting assistant secretary of state for inter-American 

affairs, Michael Kozak, a veteran of the crisis, to prepare a paper listing steps the 

United States could take to secure Noriega’s removal from power. Baker, himself, 

favored “a policy of escalating political, economic, and covert pressures.” But 

he also realized that military force might have to be used to end a crisis that had 

dragged on far too long. Kozak’s memorandum supported increased pressure on 

Noriega and indicated the time had come to make fundamental policy choices.34

After Cheney was sworn in as secretary of defense on 12 March 1989, he 

met frequently with Baker and Scowcroft to discuss additional measures to take 

against the Panama regime. Arthur H. Davis, the U.S. ambassador to Panama, 

also participated in the dialogue, with Baker receiving a “strongly worded” 

cable from the embassy in April that recommended a more assertive policy in 

place of the one that had “stagnated.” In a similar message later that month, the 

ambassador argued for “sterner measures” with “no punches pulled.” The United 

States, he recommended, should remove all “nonessential” American citizens 

from Panama, secure the canal area, and, assuming that Noriega would steal the 

7 May elections, prepare to assert U.S. treaty rights more forcefully. A proper 

mix of military and psychological pressure, he continued, would likely force 

the dictator from power or convince the Panama Defense Forces to remove him 

as a preemptive measure to ensure the institution’s survival. As a last resort, the 

United States itself needed to be ready to employ military force to get the job 

done. “I firmly believe,” Davis wrote, “that before we undertake this plan, we 

must commit ourselves to the ultimate use of U.S. military power to achieve our 

policy objectives should it become necessary. Not to make that decision from the 

outset puts the U.S. into an untenable paper tiger position.” The ambassador did 

not believe that a tougher policy would lead to a military confrontation, but he 

added that “any credible option” had to run that risk.35

According to Baker, Davis’ position prompted “an even more direct internal 

memorandum” from Kozak, dated 14 April. Again calling for stronger measures 

33 Ibid.

34 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 178. 35 First and second quoted words from ibid., p. 180 and p. 181, respectively. The remaining 

quotes are from Msg, AmEmb to SecState, 271729Z Apr 89, sub: A Post-Election Action Plan. Cole, 

Operation Just Cause, p. 11.
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Toward a Tougher Posture

to oust Noriega, the acting assistant secretary asserted, “And while we don’t think 

U.S. military force should be necessary, the President must be prepared to use 

force as a last resort. The credible threat represented by our willingness to use 

force opens other options and is the only wedge which will separate Noriega 

from the Panama Defense Forces.” If pressure on the Panamanian military had 

not brought the desired results by 1 September, Kozak concluded, “the President 

should order Noriega’s removal by a snatch or U.S. military action.” Of these two 

recommendations, Baker regarded the “snatch” operation as politically unrealistic. 

Although he believed such action to be legal, he knew that President Bush, at this 

early point in his administration, was not interested in kidnapping the Panamanian 

strongman.36

From his headquarters at Quarry Heights and in visits to Washington, Woerner 

weighed in on the policy review he considered long overdue. In meetings and 

telephone conversations and through a stream of messages, the SOUTHCOM 

commander offered a variety of suggestions for dealing with the crisis in general 

and with the Panamanian elections and their aftermath in particular. His specific 

proposals were quite detailed, but, broadly speaking, Woerner reiterated the 

need for a more comprehensive and better-organized approach at the interagency 

level. A task force needed to be established with one agency placed in charge of 

orchestrating an agreed-upon plan—a plan designed to provide U.S. support for 

the political opposition in Panama, discredit the current regime, keep the Panama 

Defense Forces from closing ranks even more tightly behind their leader, and, in 

the event of a fraudulent election, apply more effective pressure on Noriega to 

step down.37

One recommendation the SOUTHCOM commander continued to put forward 

during the policy review was for a human rights initiative geared to the elections. 

His staff had submitted the plan to Washington back in November, and Woerner had 

revisited the issue with Crowe and others in January, urging that the interagency 

working group give the proposal serious consideration. A well-organized initiative, 

he maintained, would emphasize the human rights abuses of the Panamanian regime, 

focus international attention on the importance of the upcoming elections, and 

36 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 181–82. According to one U.S. planner in Panama, Special 

Operations Forces had responsibility for devising an operation to “snatch” Noriega. While the project 

took place in utmost secrecy, the planners involved kept their counterparts in Panama informed of 

basic developments so that their mutual efforts would not conflict. All were aware that one argument 

against a snatch operation was that it would risk PDF or popular retaliation against U.S. citizens in 

Panama. 37 The recommendations Woerner presented before and during the policy review on Panama 

are contained in the following messages: Msgs, CINCSO to JCS [personal, Crowe, Armitage, 

Abrams, and Ambassador Davis], 031320Z Jan 89, sub: May 89 Panamanian Elections—An 

Opportunity; CINCSO to CJCS [personal, Gen Woerner to Adm Crowe], 281627Z Mar 89, sub: 

Panama Action Plan—Leveling the Playing Field; USSOUTHCOM to Special Security Office 

(SSO)/DIA [eyes only, Woerner to Crowe], 15 Apr 89, sub: Panamanian Election Fraud; CINCSO 

to CJSC, 261820Z Apr 89, sub: USG Policy Statement Before Panamanian Elections; CINCSO 

to CJCS [personal, Gen Woerner to Adm Crowe], 281822Z Apr 89, sub: May 8th—Pass, Punt or 

Fumble; USSOUTHCOM to JCS [eyes only, Gen Woerner to Adm Crowe], 022219Z May 89, sub: 

A Panama Dark Horse Option; CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening Our Panama 

Posture; and CINCSO to CJCS [personal, Gen Woerner to Adm Crowe], 042115Z May 89, sub: 

Policy Initiatives Post Elections.
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152

improve the prospects for the emerging anti-Noriega coalition to win a “reasonably 

honest” contest. Furthermore, he implied, such an initiative could help elevate U.S. 

policy above the “trivia” in which he believed it to be currently mired.38

Conceding that a human rights campaign by itself probably would not “carry 

the day,” Woerner proposed other ways in which Washington could “positively 

influence events” by supporting Noriega’s political opponents. His list of 

recommendations included promoting unity within the historically fractious 

opposition; assisting the opposition in acquiring accurate polling data and helping 

it develop an effective advertising campaign; devising means to “get out the 

vote,” in part by counteracting the Panamanian voters’ sense of futility; providing 

communications facilities for the opposition; simplifying the issues by turning the 

election into a plebiscite on Noriega; and assisting the opposition with its most 

pressing financial needs. These covert operations and other actions in support of 

Noriega’s opponents, Woerner warned, had to be conducted with utmost discretion 

lest they become public knowledge and an embarrassment to the people Washington 

most wanted to help. (The revelation in March that President Bush had authorized 

the CIA to spend $10 million in support of the electoral opposition to Noriega gave 

the strongman an instant boost in the propaganda war: soon after the news broke, 

pro-regime candidates held their largest rally of the campaign.)39

Woerner also warned against any pronouncements or actions by the United 

States that would cause the Panamanian armed forces to “circle the wagons” 

around their leader. If “carefully crafted,” he asserted, any U.S. policy statement 

with respect to the election could “also serve to reassure the PDF that our argument 

is only with Noriega, and that it is not our desire to destroy the Defense Forces as 

an institution.”40

Woerner assumed, as did most analysts, that no amount of outside backing 

for the Panamanian opposition could prevent Noriega from employing fraud and 

intimidation in a well-orchestrated program to “steal” the election for his handpicked candidates. The recommended U.S. support to the opposition, however, 

might help drive the dictator to such blatantly obvious excesses in his illegal 

machinations that the predictable—meaning fraudulent—outcome of the vote 

would be open to challenge. The critical question for the Bush administration, 

therefore, was what policy and strategy to adopt for the postelection period. 

Woerner envisaged three possibilities. Washington could acquiesce in the results 

of a fraudulent election and continue with its current policy of economic sanctions. 

The SOUTHCOM commander deemed this option “unacceptable” in light of the 

ineffectiveness of U.S. policies to date and the threat Noriega’s regime posed to 

U.S. citizens and American interests in Panama. For the same reasons, Woerner 

labeled as “disastrous” a second option, U.S. disengagement from Panama. The 

third option, the one he endorsed, was in harmony with the firmer policy being 

38 Quoted words from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 031320Z Jan 89, sub: May 89 Panamanian 

Elections—An Opportunity. Paper, n.d., Human Rights Initiative; Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 281627Z 

Mar 89, sub: Panama Action Plan—Leveling the Playing Field. 39 First quote from Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 031320Z Jan 89, sub: May 89 Panamanian Elections—

An Opportunity. Second quote from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 281627Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Action 

Plan—Leveling the Playing Field. New York Times, 23 Apr 89, p. 14. 40 First quote from Paper, Human Rights Initiative, n.d. Second quote from Msg, CINCSO to 

CJSC, 261820Z Apr 89, sub: USG Policy Statement Before Panamanian Elections.
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Toward a Tougher Posture

discussed by Baker, Kozak, and Davis: the United States should increase its 

pressure on Noriega to relinquish power.41

In Woerner’s estimation, the stage for a tougher policy could be set even before 

the election if the White House or the State Department were to issue a statement 

proclaiming both America’s commitment to a democratic solution to Panama’s 

internal crisis and the Bush administration’s determination not to recognize 

another Noriega-imposed regime. The president could also dispatch an emissary 

to Panama to convey this strong message directly to Noriega and his entourage. 

Having done so, the administration could then respond to any electoral fraud on 

7 May with a campaign aimed at exposing the regime’s corruption and denying 

international legitimacy to a stolen election. This campaign would itself be part of 

a broader, “comprehensive time-phased, interagency-approved action plan which 

applies maximum pressure on Noriega—political, economic, and military.” The 

goal of the plan would be “to force Noriega out at [the] low end of [the] violence 

spectrum and as early as possible.”42

In keeping with his repeated calls for a comprehensive plan, Woerner provided 

Crowe a list of political, diplomatic, economic, and military initiatives for the 

administration to consider. The strictly military portion of the list included such 

measures as increasing psychological operations against the Noriega regime; 

jamming certain Panamanian television and radio programs; making Panama an 

unaccompanied tour for U.S. troops together with shortening the length of the 

tour; reducing the reliance of U.S. forces on Panamanian sources of support in 

such vulnerable areas as logistics, communications, and utilities; redeploying 

nonessential units; and limiting the number of military dependents allowed into 

the country, sending many in Panama back to the United States, and bringing 

dependents living on Panamanian territory onto U.S. bases.43

Woerner freely admitted that these and other actions might not be sufficient 

to dislodge Noriega. Worse, they might even provoke a violent confrontation 

between Panamanian and U.S. forces. This was a risk he was willing to take. 

Having witnessed the failure of efforts to “nickel and dime” the dictator, he called 

for raising the ante, aware that “we should undertake these wide ranging initiatives 

only with [the] full understanding that our hand almost certainly will be called.” 

The stakes were high and “Noriega doesn’t bluff.” Should the game turn violent, 

the United States had to have the “capability and intent to use military force, and be 

prepared to accept political and human costs.” This was tough talk from a general 

who remained opposed to a U.S. military solution to the crisis, although Woerner 

still believed that, if Washington could craft and execute an effective plan of action, 

“it is possible that Noriega will go before we commit U.S. forces.” The use of the 

conditional was intentional, as he continued to have strong doubts as to whether 

41 Msg, USSOUTHCOM to SSO/DIA, 15 Apr 89, sub: Panamanian Election Fraud. Quoted 

words from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 281822Z Apr 89, sub: May 8th—Pass, Punt or Fumble. 42 Msgs, USSOUTHCOM to SSO/DIA, 15 Apr 89, sub: Panamanian Election Fraud; CINCSO 

to CJSC, 261820Z Apr 89, sub: USG Policy Statement Before Panamanian Elections; and 

USSOUTHCOM to JCS, 022219Z May 89, sub: A Panama Dark Horse Option. Quotes from Msg, 

CINCSO to CJCS, 281822Z Apr 89, sub: May 8th—Pass, Punt or Fumble. 43 Msgs, CINCSO to CJCS, 281627Z Mar 89, sub: Panama Action Plan—Leveling the Playing 

Field; CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening Our Panama Posture; and CINCSO to 

CJCS, 042115Z May 89, sub: Policy Initiatives Post Elections.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

154

the national security bureaucracy could devise and implement a comprehensive 

plan. But even if it could, he had always believed that prudence required him to 

keep all options open, including military intervention, albeit only as a last resort. 

In one message that he signed personally, he raised in four different paragraphs the 

need to be prepared to use military force, indicating that “this level of sacrifice, 

including possible loss of life, is justified to achieve policy objectives.”44

Woerner accompanied his tough talk about the possible use of military force 

with a call for a U.S. troop buildup in Panama after the election. If, following 7 

May, the crisis escalated to the point of a military showdown, having additional 

forces on the scene would clearly work to SOUTHCOM’s advantage. But Woerner 

did not issue his appeal with the idea that the incoming units would constitute an 

invasion force. Consonant with his long-held strategy of using a troop buildup as 

psychological leverage, he viewed the move as a means for increasing pressure on 

Noriega to bow out. How this pressure might be applied was the topic of several 

high-level discussions in April and May 1989. One option frequently raised was 

to use a postelection buildup to compel the Panama Defense Forces and the 

Panamanian regime to abide by the guarantees granted U.S. forces under the canal 

treaties. As Woerner saw the situation, Washington had to be prepared “to violate 

Panamanian pseudo-legal constraints on our treaty rights.”45

In the opinion of the SOUTHCOM commander and his key advisers, “the 

clearest provocation by the PDF to date” with respect to U.S. treaty rights concerned 

the “freedom of movement” issue Woerner and Ustick had previously raised with 

the Pentagon. From early in the crisis, the Panama Defense Forces had blatantly 

violated treaty guarantees by interfering with the movement of U.S. military 

vehicles and equipment. The time had arrived, SOUTHCOM’s chief of staff now 

asserted, for a command policy serving notice that any further interference “will 

result in prompt, appropriate U.S. reassertion of that right.” Woerner was equally 

direct. “Our response should be an aggressive reassertion of our full treaty rights, 

both in letter and in spirit,” he informed Crowe. “We must convince Noriega and 

the PDF leadership that we will no longer accept harassment and interference with 

our freedom of movement or other rights.”46

In the weeks preceding the elections, the Southern Command and the Pentagon 

discussed more precisely just what this course of action would entail. Woerner 

contended that, at some point, all military convoys of four or more vehicles should 

44 Fourth and fifth quotes from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 281822Z Apr 89, sub: May 8th—Pass, 

Punt or Fumble. Sixth quote from Msg, USCINCSO to VCJCS, 060115Z Mar 89, sub: Panama 

Assessment. Remaining quotes from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 042115Z May 89, sub: Policy Initiatives 

Post Elections. 45 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening Our Panama Posture.

46 Msgs, USSOUTHCOM to SSO/DIA, 050209Z May 89, sub: Procedures for US Assertion 

of Treaty Rights, and CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening Our Panama Posture. 

First quote from Memo, Rear Adm Richard C. Ustick, USN, Chief of Staff, USSOUTHCOM, for 

JTF-Panama et al., 12 Apr 89, sub: Policy on Freedom of Movement of U.S. Forces Vehicles in the 

Republic of Panama. Remaining quotes from Msg, USSOUTHCOM to SSO, 280133Z Apr 89, sub: 

Aggressive Reassertion of Our Treaty Rights. On the freedom of movement issue, Article XV, section 

2(e), Agreement in Implementation of Article IV of the canal treaty read that “the vehicles and equipment of the United States Forces may, when in performance of official duties, move freely in the 

Republic of Panama, without obligation of payment of taxes, tolls or other charges to the Republic of 

Panama and without any other impediment.”
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Toward a Tougher Posture

have an armed escort.47 This proposal came shortly after he had asked Crowe, 

citing the need “vigorously to reassert our rights,” for authority the day after 

the Panamanian elections “to use the minimum force required to ensure strict 

compliance with these rights, regardless of Panamanian law and/or PDF unilateral 

interpretation of the Carter-Torrijos Treaty.” In the Pentagon, staff officers gave 

the request a cool reception and questioned the circumstances under which the 

SOUTHCOM commander might assert such authority. “The [SOUTHCOM] 

message does not give details of which rights would be defended,” according to one 

staff action. “It is inconceivable that SECDEF would grant USCINCSO the carte 

blanche authority he appears to be requesting.” Consequently, the officers vetting 

the recommendation suggested that the request be turned aside unless Woerner 

provided specific examples of how he might employ force to compel the Panama 

Defense Forces to comply with the canal treaties.48 Woerner’s armed convoy plan 

was a response to this query.

Although Woerner wanted to use a postelection troop buildup primarily to 

reassert U.S. treaty rights, he and the others discussing ways to toughen U.S. policy 

recognized that the additional units might end up having to execute contingency 

plans for the crisis.49 With that possibility in mind, planners at the Southern 

Command, JTF-Panama, and the Joint Special Operations Command worked to 

update the Prayer Book operation orders. At Fort Clayton, Colonel Cope called 

Maj. Dan Augustine back into the USARSO Plans Division to work on a reception 

plan for additional troops, should President Bush accept the recommendation 

for a buildup. At Quarry Heights, operation orders were reviewed and revised. 

The principal changes appeared in Post Time and Blue Spoon, the plans for a 

U.S. troop buildup and offensive operations in Panama. A third brigade from the 

7th Infantry Division (Light), originally slated to be on-call, would be added to 

the incoming troops required under the plans. Appendixes concerning electronic 

warfare operations, airspace management, and liaison officer requirements were 

also added to the Blue Spoon operation order. Meanwhile, the impasse between 

SOUTHCOM and the Navy over the use of a carrier battle group—a deadlock 

that had plagued planning efforts in 1988—eased somewhat when the Atlantic 

Command agreed in principle to provide a naval blocking force in the Caribbean 

to prevent Cuban interference in any U.S. undertaking. Finally, the commander 

of the XVIII Airborne Corps was designated in Blue Spoon as the commander 

of Joint Task Force-Charlie—a headquarters that would supersede JTF-Panama—

upon execution of the operation order.50 The exact point at which this would occur, 

however, remained unspecified.

47 Msgs, USSOUTHCOM to SSO, 280133Z Apr 89, sub: Aggressive Reassertion of Our Treaty 

Rights, and USSOUTHCOM to SSO/DIA, 050209Z May 89, sub: Procedures for US Assertion of 

Treaty Rights. 48 First and second quotes from Msg, USSOUTHCOM to SSO, 280133Z Apr 89, sub: Aggressive 

Reassertion of Our Treaty Rights. Remaining quotes from Memo and FAX Cover Sheet, 3 May 89, 

sub: Aggressive Reassertion of Our Treaty Rights, JCS Papers. 49 This point was emphasized, for example, in a telephone conversation between Cisneros and 

Brig. Gen. Henry Shelton, the vice director, J–3, of the Joint Staff. See Msg, CINCSO to JCS/Joint 

Staff, 100216 May 89, sub: CONOPS for Security Enhancement Forces. 50 Intervs, author with Maj Dan Augustine, U.S. Army, 11 May 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 

and 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama, and Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 90, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 241355Z Apr 89, sub: USCINCSO PrayerBook OPORDS.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

156

No major revisions were made to Klondike Key, the operation order for 

evacuating American civilians, or to Blind Logic, the plan for a post-invasion 

Panama. With respect to the latter, however, the Southern Command did list specific 

unresolved issues, along with a forceful reminder that reserve civil affairs forces 

would need to be called up should the order be executed. Simply put, civil affairs 

resources in the active component of the Army were insufficient to accomplish the 

Blind Logic missions.51

Besides the Prayer Book operation orders, the Southern Command and 

JTF-Panama staff and components developed plans for handling any civil 

disturbances that might erupt during the election period. The officers also determined 

what security measures they needed to adopt for the horde of election observers 

heading for Panama, including those, like former President Jimmy Carter, who 

had been invited, and others, like some prominent U.S. congressmen, who were 

coming with President Bush’s blessing but without visas for entering the country. 

As for American forces in Panama, as the election approached they began raising 

their state of readiness, making sure to maintain a low profile in the process.52

On the eve of the Panamanian elections, then, the Bush administration was on 

the verge of taking tougher measures toward Noriega and his regime. The policy 

review that Woerner had been calling for since the beginning of the year was 

under way, and he was a principal participant in it. To his familiar appeals for an 

interagency approach to the crisis and for a Panamanian solution to the problem, he 

added his voice to those calling for a tougher line. Following his publicized remarks 

in February (or, perhaps, in part because of them), Woerner repeatedly pushed for 

a more aggressive policy. His recommendations, in fact, seemed almost identical 

to those of Ambassador Davis, with whom he had a very rocky relationship. The 

similarity was no coincidence, in that the Southern Command and the embassy had 

coordinated their recommendations, almost to the word.53 Both the SOUTHCOM 

commander and the ambassador argued that the status quo was no longer acceptable 

and called for stronger measures; both recommended a reduction of U.S. citizens 

in Panama; both urged the reassertion of U.S. treaty rights; and both accepted that 

a tougher policy might entail the use of military force. Ironically, Davis’ tough 

line garnered him rave reviews within the inner circle of the new administration, 

while Woerner continued to be regarded as the odd man out—a general not really 

in sympathy with administration policy, a reluctant warrior. This perception would 

ultimately cost Woerner his command, but not until after Panamanian voters had 

had a chance to go to the polls.

51 Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 241355Z Apr 89, sub: USCINCSO PrayerBook OPORDS. 52 Intervs, author with Col John A. Cope, U.S. Army, 25 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Brig Gen 

Marc Cisneros, U.S. Army, 1 May 89, Quarry Heights, Panama; Pantier, 13 Jun 90; and Augustine, 11 

May 90, 7 Jun 89. 53 On coordination between the Southern Command and the embassy, see Msg, U.S. Ambassador 

to SecDef, 27 Apr 89, sub: A Post-Election Action Plan.
I I I

6

Operation Nimrod Dancer

May 1989

For nearly two years, as U.S. policy in the Panama crisis drifted through a series 

of critical events, speculation arose as to when Washington might take more 

decisive action against Noriega. The inauguration of George H. W. Bush as president 

had been the most recent occurrence to elicit expectations of more resolute measures, 

but, after 20 January 1989, a policy reassessment moved forward only tentatively 

while the new president waited for his national security and foreign policy advisers 

to come on board. By the time the new team was in place, the next milestone, the 

presidential election in Panama scheduled for 7 May, was fast approaching. Behind 

the scenes, the U.S. government, as Woerner and others had recommended, did what 

it could to assist the slate of candidates in opposition to Noriega, but any new public 

initiatives would have to await the outcome of the election. At that point, some U.S. 

officers in Panama anticipated, the president would have to determine “what in the 

hell we’re going to do on this darn thing.”

In the meantime, American officials closely monitored the Panamanian political 

scene. The candidates slated to receive Washington’s sub rosa assistance were leaders 

of opposition parties who had managed to put aside their personal and philosophical 

differences for the sake of presenting a united front. Topping the opposition ticket 

was Guillermo Endara, a portly 52‐year-old lawyer who had been a confidant of 

Arnulfo Arias, one of Panama’s most prominent political figures until his death the 

previous August. Endara’s two vice presidential running mates were businessman 

Guillermo “Billy” Ford of the National Liberal Republican Movement, and Ricardo 

Arias Calderón, a philosophy professor and member of the Christian Democrat Party. 

Together they would go up against Noriega’s handpicked slate of candidates, headed 

by Carlos Duque, a business crony of the general.

Preelection polls conducted by U.S. and Latin American organizations indicated 

that Endara would overwhelm Duque in a fair election. Reinforcing these findings 

were the large crowds that showed up at opposition rallies to cheer wildly when 

the three candidates promised to depose Noriega and end the corruption endemic 

in his regime. The downside to this optimistic prognosis was the assumption, 

taken for granted by opposition leaders and U.S. officials alike, that Noriega had 

the means and the intention to rig the election. Sources reported that the regime 

was doctoring lists of eligible voters and jailing many Endara supporters. In open 

contempt of the opposition, Noriega first restricted, then curtailed its access to the 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

158

media. Adding to Endara’s woes were financial and organizational problems within 

his own movement. President Bush expressed his concern over electoral fraud by 

publicly calling for free and open elections and proposing that a group of impartial 

observers monitor the vote. Privately, through a presidential “finding” approved in 

February, he had formally authorized covert financial assistance to the opposition, 

a reported $10 million. The Central Intelligence Agency took charge of distributing 

the money, which was to be used primarily for communications and psychological 

operations.1

In March, news of the presidential finding leaked to the press. Predictably, 

Noriega denounced U.S. interference in Panama’s internal affairs, while the 

opposition candidates emphatically denied receiving money from the CIA. 

Woerner had warned of an “embarrassment” should covert U.S. efforts on behalf 

of the opposition become public, and the regime did reap some short-term benefit 

from the disclosure. According to the polls, though, the popularity of Endara, Ford, 

and Arias Calderón remained strong. The dictator would have to find even more 

damaging evidence to use against his opponents. He soon had it.

The Muse Affair

On 5 April, Kurt Muse, a 38-year-old American citizen who had been raised 

in Panama and, as a businessman selling printing and graphic arts, continued to 

reside there with his family, returned to the country after a trip to the United States. 

As he stopped before the immigration window in Torrijos International Airport, he 

noticed to his horror a sign taped to the other side of the glass. “Kurt Muse,” it read. 

“American citizen. Arrest him on sight.” Within minutes, Muse found himself in 

the custody of the Panama Defense Forces.2

1 Buckley, Panama, pp. 169–75. 2 Muse’s own account of his arrest, incarceration, and rescue can be found in Kurt Muse and 

John Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom (New York: Citadel Press, 2006). Details of his arrest appear 

on pp. 7–13.

Demonstrators bang pots in protest against the Noriega regime.
159

Operation Nimrod Dancer

The arrest was more than just another case of routine harassment. In October 

1987, Muse and a small group of like-minded colleagues had graduated from 

“fooling around with their radios, playing tricks on PDF soldiers, dispatching 

them on useless missions to dead-end streets” to broadcasting intermittently a 

series of short anti-regime, pro-opposition messages over The Voice of Liberty, 

the name they gave the clandestine radio operation they had set up that was 

capable of overriding Panamanian commercial transmissions with its own. At 

one point, the conspirators required additional, more expensive equipment and 

money to maintain the leases on apartments in which the illegal transmitters 

were located. They quickly discovered the Central Intelligence Agency was 

ready to foot the bill. In early 1989, as the Panamanian elections approached, 

The Voice of Liberty prepared to intensify its campaign aimed at encouraging 

Noriega’s opponents to go to the polls in mass. Before the prerecorded messages 

could be broadcast, however, Muse was betrayed by someone close to the group. 

Immediately following his being taken into custody, his collaborators scattered 

to avoid a similar fate. U.S. officials in Panama learned of the arrest from Muse’s 

family the night it occurred, but, initially, the regime deflected all inquiries as to 

his status and whereabouts. When U.S. pressure finally forced an admission that 

Muse was being held, the disclosure was accompanied by a public announcement 

that the prisoner was a U.S. agent engaged in subversive activities with the help 

of opposition leaders and the U.S. Embassy. A search of Muse’s apartment and 

possessions had, in fact, uncovered pamphlets, firearms, photographic and film 

equipment, and recordings of clandestine radio and television transmissions, all 

of which were put on display at a press conference arranged for the international 

news media.3

Newspapers controlled by Noriega ran banner headlines and photographs of 

Muse and his “subversive” material, which the Panamanian military charged was 

given to him by U.S. psychological operations officers. At the quickly arranged 

press conference, Muse admitted to the reporters present that he had made covert 

radio broadcasts, although he denied working for the U.S. government. Panamanian 

officers at the conference claimed that Muse’s clandestine communications network 

encompassed seven FM radio stations and three television transmitters capable of 

jamming local frequencies and that the network had been broadcasting for at least 

two months. They charged further that broadcast tapes had been recorded in advance 

for the purpose of spreading allegations of electoral fraud, should the opposition 

candidates lose on 7 May. Muse conceded only that the prepared broadcasts sought 

to encourage Panamanians to vote. Finally, the Panama Defense Forces confirmed 

that Muse would be charged with crimes against state security, one of the “big five” 

criminal charges that, under the treaties, did not obligate the Panamanian government 

to relinquish custody of an American prisoner to U.S. Forces.4

3 This paragraph summarizes material in ibid., pp. 7–139, with the quote on p. 36. Msg, 

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Chiva Chiva, Panama, SSN 8464, 070112Z Apr 89, Serial 

PA0704011289, Country: Panama, sub: U.S. Citizen Arrested, Charged with Antistate Activities. 4 When capitalized, “U.S. Forces” refers to a formal entity named in the Panama Canal treaties of 1977. Msg, CINCSO, SSN 686, 080045Z Apr 89. Msgs, FBIS, Chiva Chiva, Panama, SSN 

8483, 081?39Z Apr 89, sub: Clandestine Radio, TV Stations Dismantled; SSN, 081558Z Apr 89, sub: 

DENI Director, Attorney General on Muse; SSN 8520, 081609Z Apr 89; SSN 8521, 081611Z Apr 

89; and SSN 8522, 081613Z Apr 89, sub: Officials on ‘Clandestine’ Operation.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

160

Prior to the press conference, a three-man delegation led by Lt. Col. Robert 

Perry from SOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty Affairs had arrived at the DENI 

station at which Muse was being held. Woerner had authorized the visit, but 

only after hearing that Muse’s wife was a teacher in the Department of Defense 

Dependent Schools (DoDDS), thus making the prisoner a military dependent 

covered by certain rights under the canal treaty. The whole affair irked the 

SOUTHCOM commander, who was not pleased to learn about “another case 

of the CIA conducting ops on his facilities without him being aware of it.” 

Once the press conference ended, the ranking Panamanian officer on the scene 

granted Perry’s demand to meet with Muse, but not until the delegation was first 

shown the confiscated material, including a large cardboard box with labels on 

it indicating it had received priority shipping on U.S. military aircraft flying into 

Howard Air Force Base. The delivery address on the labels was the Program 

Development Group, a widely known euphemism for the CIA located in nearby 

Corozal. After perusing the items, the group was allowed to see the prisoner. 

One of Perry’s entourage, Lt. Col. James Ruffer, M.D., examined Muse, who, 

although solemn, appeared to be in relatively good physical condition. Muse 

said he had not been mistreated, except for the PDF’s refusal to let him sleep 

during the first 24 hours following his arrest. Under the circumstances, he later 

related, he thought it best not to mention that, at one point during his initial 

interrogations, a PDF officer had put a pistol to his head, and, at another point, he 

had been forced to watch while an alleged Colombian drug peddler was savagely 

beaten and then killed by the interrogators. When advised by Perry of his rights 

under the canal treaty, Muse acknowledged that the Panama Defense Forces had 

honored them. Perry then assured him that he would receive periodic visits from 

U.S. Forces representatives and that he should contact them whenever the need 

arose. The PDF officer present asked that Muse’s status be conveyed accurately 

to decision makers in Washington.5

Soon after meeting with Perry at the DENI station, Muse was placed in 

a small cell at the Carcel Modelo, the jail located across the street from the 

Comandancia. He received visits every other day from SOUTHCOM and 

USARSO representatives, who inquired as to his health and the conditions of 

his imprisonment and kept him abreast of progress on his legal case. One of the 

regular visitors, Dr. Marcos Ostrander, the USARSO lawyer who had himself 

been the target of PDF harassment, conveyed messages to and from Muse’s 

family, whom U.S. Army, South, and the CIA had arranged to fly out of Panama 

and relocate in Florida soon after Muse was arrested. With Noriega exploiting 

the affair as a conspiracy between the Bush administration and the opposition 

candidates to sabotage Panamanian democracy, the general feeling was that 

Muse would not be released before the election, if he were to be released at 

all. The charges against him were serious, and he had admitted making the 

broadcasts. He had, without question, violated Panamanian law, and on one of 

his trips to Washington, a friend in the State Department had told him that, if 

the clandestine operation was discovered, Muse would be on his own. Still, if 

the U.S. government had assisted him in his secretive activities—as it had—

did it not bear a moral obligation to secure his release? George H. W. Bush was 5 MFR, SCTA, n.d., sub: Joint Committee Coordination in Reference to Mr. Muse; Muse and 

Gilstrap, Six Minutes to Freedom, pp. 133, 147–49, 153–58.
161

Operation Nimrod Dancer

convinced that it did. In the ensuing months, the frustration of trying to secure 

Muse’s freedom would weigh heavily on the president.

Preelection Preparations

While the Center for Treaty Affairs worked to get Muse out of the Carcel 

Modelo, other U.S. officers and officials were trying to determine what precautionary 

measures American citizens in Panama needed to take before, during, and after the 

elections. The Southern Command was deeply concerned about the potential for 

violence, whether initiated by Noriega in an attempt to steal the election or by 

the opposition as a reaction to electoral fraud. Under the circumstances, trying 

to anticipate the range of threats that would place American lives, property, and 

interests in jeopardy seemed a logical and judicious inquiry.

Preparing for the elections necessitated coordination among and within the 

principal U.S. civilian and military agencies in Panama. On the military side, 

the Southern Command and JTF-Panama worked closely together on the matter, 

although not entirely without friction. On 5 April, the SOUTHCOM public 

affairs director, U.S. Air Force Col. Ronald T. Sconyers, sent a memorandum 

to General Cisneros, the command’s director of operations, stating that the time 

had come to begin “war-gaming” what the U.S. military in Panama was going to 

do before, during, and after the election. That same day, U.S. Marine Corps Col. 

Gar E. Thiry, Cisneros’ vice director, sent his own memo to the SOUTHCOM 

chief of staff, expressing the need to hold an executive-level meeting at Quarry 

Heights to discuss what “prudent precautionary measures” U.S. forces might 

take in connection with the election. Both memos went to JTF-Panama, where 

Colonel Rossi noted in the margins his concern that the Southern Command was 

once again trying to play “crisis operator & manager,” the role that Woerner 

had created the joint task force to perform. “Before we are ‘postured’ by 

[SOUTHCOM] discounting [JTF-Panama] input,” Rossi noted, “JTFPM needs 

to take the initiative.”6

In the weeks leading up to 7 May 1989, the impending election absorbed both 

headquarters, once again at the expense of time they needed to be devoting to their 

regional responsibilities. By late April, staff activity had reached a frenetic pace; 

by early May, briefings occurred daily to determine how U.S. forces in Panama 

should be “postured” during the elections. The general guidance was for military 

personnel to maintain a low profile and a high state of readiness. On 5 May, U.S. 

forces would begin a period of increased vigilance that would extend as long after 

the election as necessary, although, for planning purposes, 15 May was generally 

projected as the date the troops would resume their routine duties.

Besides U.S. military personnel in Panama, there were the tens of thousands 

of military dependents and American citizens who also needed to be advised 

and informed about issues concerning the election. At the Southern Command, 

the Tropic Times and SCN began running stories in March to provide the 

American community insight into the country’s electoral system and to keep 

U.S. citizens abreast of their own government’s position on the elections. The 

6 Memos, Col Ronald T. Sconyers, USAF, Dir, Public Affairs, for Brig Gen Cisneros, 5 Apr 89, 

sub: Election Day, Before and After, and Col G. E. Thiry, USMC, Actg Dir, J–3, for Chief of Staff, 

5 Apr 89, sub: PM Election. Rossi’s handwritten comments are on Staff Action Cover Sheet, Lt Col 

Mike Michaelis to Chief of Staff, 10 Apr 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

162

Tropic Times for 28 March reported that U.S. State Department officials were 

predicting election fraud and pledging that there would be “no accommodation 

with a Noriega-dominated regime.” Articles in subsequent issues ranged over the 

potential for election irregularities; the complexity of Panama’s voting procedures; 

Ambassador Davis’ statement that Panama was living through the “blackest days 

of its history”; the regime’s denunciations of U.S. covert activities and Noriega’s 

efforts to bar American journalists from the country; and Secretary of State 

Baker’s warning to the Panama Defense Forces to allow fair elections or “face 

the consequences.” The newspaper also covered President Bush’s call for “free 

and fair” elections, his praise for international observers traveling to Panama to 

“shine the light of world opinion on the Panamanian elections,” his declaration 

that “the day of the dictator is over,” and his vow that the United States would 

not recognize “the results of a fraudulent election engineered simply to keep 

Noriega in power.”7

Keeping Americans in Panama informed was one matter; ensuring their 

physical safety and the security of U.S. facilities was quite another. Forces 

assigned to JTF-Panama were tasked with providing the necessary protection. 

The joint task force’s mission essential task list called for deterring intrusions, 

conducting reconnaissance and surveillance, securing fixed sites, establishing 

secure military zones on defense sites onto which U.S. citizens could be 

relocated, executing specific contingency operations if necessary, and, in the 

event of the latter, ensuring a smooth transition from a peacetime to a crisis 

environment. Addressing these tasks meant in some cases repeating activities 

conducted the previous year during the March-April invasion scare. Plans for 

evacuating U.S. citizens were dusted off, as were those for defending vulnerable 

areas such as Panama Canal Commission housing. Contingency plans, including 

the recently revised Blue Spoon operation order, were reviewed, together with 

arrangements for coordinating and collecting intelligence. Communications nets 

were tested repeatedly. Arrangements for providing on-post “safe havens” and 

“sponsors” for military personnel living off U.S. installations were updated. 

Lengthy checklists were compiled and numerous decisions made. As election 

day approached, marines from JTF-Panama augmented the guard at the U.S. 

Embassy. Helicopters stood ready to conduct aerial observation, and military 

policemen and soldiers designated as JTF-Panama’s reaction forces were put on 

a shorter “string,” meaning the time required for them to move out in response 

to an incident. Large traffic barriers were delivered to U.S. facilities in case 

they were needed. Staff officers also devised plans to transport ammunition 

from fixed supply points to sites where soldiers and marines could draw it more 

readily. (Because each trip from a fixed ammunition supply point would require a 

PDF escort, the whole undertaking could serve as a warning to Noriega that U.S. 

forces were prepared to react to any violence directed against Americans.) The 

precautionary measures enumerated in advance of the election seemed endless, 

as did the hours put into planning and implementing each one of them.8

7 Tropic Times, 17 Mar 89, 28 Mar 89, 7 Apr 89, 14 Apr 89, 24 Apr 89, 26 Apr 89. Davis’ quote 

from Tropic Times, 3 May 89. Baker’s quote can be found in Washington Post, 2 May 89. The president’s quotes are in Department of State Bulletin 89 (June 1989): 2, and (July 1989): 66. 8 Briefing slides, 27 Apr 89, sub: In‐Progress Review Panama Strategy; Memo, Col A. T. 

Rossi, Chief of Staff, USARSO, for JTF-Panama J–3 et al., 13 Apr 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama 
163

Operation Nimrod Dancer

Having prepared for the possibility of election-related violence, General 

Loeffke and his subordinate commanders and staff had to determine specifically 

what JTF-Panama would do should a direct threat to American lives and facilities 

actually materialize. As there was no contingency plan geared specifically to the 

election crisis, Rossi instructed the staff to develop scenarios for three “highly 

probable” situations in which JTF-Panama would have to conduct operations 

for up to thirty-six hours without reinforcement. In the first situation Rossi 

envisaged, U.S. citizens would not be the target of Panamanian violence but would 

nonetheless feel the impact. The second situation involved “domestic violence” 

being “deflected” by one side or the other against the American community. 

The third entailed violent acts deliberately directed against U.S. citizens and 

property. For each scenario, Rossi wanted the staff to develop an appropriate 

response, while gathering information on relevant command and control, 

logistics, intelligence, public affairs, and legal issues. On 21 April, JTF-Panama 

reviewed the staff’s findings, including the measures proposed and the forces 

required. Around this time, Colonel Cope informed the component commanders 

that, in addition to Rossi’s three scenarios, they should also be prepared to react 

to other possible threats, including mortar rounds landing at Fort Clayton, probes 

of U.S. perimeters, a firefight, and an influx of refugees.9

A command post exercise was scheduled the following week to allow 

Southern Command, Panama Canal Commission, and U.S. Embassy personnel 

to rehearse a variety of possible election-related activities. The new MARFOR 

commander, Col. James J. Doyle Jr., had already expressed the view that such an 

exercise would provide an “excellent platform” for addressing the “concerns and 

questions” component commanders had about the May elections and the execution 

of contingency plans in general. Requiring further attention and guidance, in 

Doyle’s opinion, were questions regarding what to do with refugees who showed 

up at U.S. installations, how to handle prisoners and detainees, when to expect 

publication of a JTF‐Panama fire support plan, who had operational control over 

certain forces, what arrangements had been made for emergency resupply, and 

so forth. During the hectic two weeks leading up to the election, these and other 

concerns were discussed, some more thoroughly than others, so that by 3 May 

enough of the issues had been clarified to allow publication of a JTF‐Panama 

fragmentary order to the Post Time operation order. The fragmentary order 

presented a four-part concept covering the emergency employment of U.S. forces 

in Panama to secure bases of operation, protect Quarry Heights, increase the 

American presence in military areas of coordination, and, if necessary, execute 

contingency plans.10

Preparation; Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 292105Z Apr 89, sub: Preparations for Panama Elections; Memo, 

Col John A. Cope Jr. for CDR, AFFOR, et al., 28 Apr 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama Security 

Enhancement; Intervs, author with Maj Jonathan House, U.S. Army, 17 Oct 89, Washington, D.C., 

and Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 90, Fort Clayton, Panama. 9 Briefing slides, JTF‐Panama, n.d. [24 April is handwritten on a paper copy of the first slide]. 

Quoted words from Memo, Col A. T. Rossi, Chief of Staff, USARSO, for JTF-Panama J–3 et al., 13 

Apr 89. Memos, Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke for CINCSO, 26 Apr 89, sub: Update No. 172, Joint Task 

Force-Panama Preparation for Election Period, and Col John A. Cope Jr. for JTF-Panama CDRs, 25 

Apr 89, sub: JTF-PM Working Paper. 10 Quoted words from Memo, CDR, MARFOR-Panama, for CDR, JTF-Panama (for J–3), 14 

Apr 89, sub: MARFOR JTFPM CPX Inputs. Briefing, Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) JTF‐Panama, 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

164

As planners and commanders were fine-tuning this set of possible responses, 

other staff officers at the Southern Command and JTF‐Panama were ensuring that 

they would be able to monitor any significant developments during the election. 

Woerner intended to set up a 24-hour response cell early on election Sunday. The 

Friday before, a crisis action team would begin operating out of the Tunnel at 

Quarry Heights. At Fort Clayton, Colonel Cope decided to activate two such teams, 

one for JTF-Panama, the other for U.S. Army, South. He believed this arrangement 

necessary because, even with the heightened sense of urgency created by the 

election, he still lacked enough officers from other services to fill every position on 

the joint team. Manning the Army team, however, could be accomplished through 

personnel shifts internal to USARSO, thus posing fewer problems. Concerning 

the JTF‐Panama crisis action team, Cope did achieve one significant concession. 

After he “went to the barricades,” the Southern Command agreed to place liaison 

officers from each service at Fort Clayton instead of Quarry Heights. (To Cope, 

having these officers at SOUTHCOM made no sense in light of JTF‐Panama’s 

mission to execute contingency plans should the need arise.) As election day drew 

nearer, the colonel held a tutorial for officers unfamiliar with the functions of a 

crisis action team. He also cautioned his audience that, although they would be 

at the “center of the storm,” they should remain calm and refrain from “shooting 

from the hip.”11

Besides being ready to monitor the election and respond to a variety 

of contingencies, both the Southern Command and JTF-Panama had to be 

prepared for the possibility that President Bush would send additional forces 

to Panama. During the policy discussions in April and early May, Woerner had 

recommended a postelection troop buildup.12 Before requesting specific units, 

however, he had consulted with Loeffke, who as commander of JTF-Panama 

would have operational control over the newly arrived units. Loeffke counseled 

that the number of U.S. ground troops in a buildup should be kept to a minimum. 

Deployment of a large force, he argued, far from creating a more stable situation, 

would only increase the possibility of unwanted incidents between U.S. troops and 

the Panama Defense Forces. Also to consider was the problem U.S. Army, South, 

would face in having to house (and supply) incoming units on military sites that 

were already congested. “Consequently,” Loeffke advised Woerner (in terms that 

reiterated much of the position the joint task force commander had taken during 

the security enhancement buildup of 1988), “an additional brigade is not the way 

to go.” Instead, he recommended deploying a mechanized infantry company or 

battalion and a Marine company with its light armored vehicles, a modest buildup 

that would send Noriega a “dramatic signal.” If need be, these units would also 

enhance JTF-Panama’s ability to put infantry into Panama City, “bust barricades,” 

and extract Americans from Panamanian territory in the event of an evacuation.13

n.d.; Memo, Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke for CDR, AFFOR, et al., 16 Jun 89, sub: Mission Guidance. 11 Memo, Col G. E. Thiry, USMC, Vice Dir J–3, for E plus CDR, JTF-Panama, 25 Apr 89, sub: 

Crisis Action Team (CAT) Preparation. First quote from Interv, author with Col John A. Cope Jr., 

U.S. Army, 25 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Remaining quotes from Briefing notes, Colonel Cope 

to CAT Personnel, n.d. 12 See Chapter 5.

13 Loeffke advice to Woerner from Memo, Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke for CINCSO, 2 May 89, 

sub: Update No. 179, Additional Forces. Msg, CDR, USARSO, to Chief of Staff, Army, May 89, 
165

Operation Nimrod Dancer

The previous year, the Southern Command had rejected a similar request from 

JTF-Panama for Marine LAVs and a mechanized unit. Now, the move toward a 

tougher U.S. posture brought the two headquarters closer—but not completely—

together. In a message to Crowe, Woerner recommended the deployment of the 

mechanized battalion(-) and Marine company that JTF-Panama wanted. Contrary 

to Loeffke’s advice, however, the SOUTHCOM commander also suggested 

sending an infantry brigade headquarters(-) to the Atlantic side of the canal, 

where, if necessary, it could assume operational control of any additional troops 

the situation might require in that area. By sending these units to Panama, Woerner 

believed, the United States would “convey the desired political signal.” The move 

would also give his command “additional operational capabilities.”14 The message 

made no direct reference to the year-old contingency plans for Panama, but the 

fact that the units Woerner requested were already on the troop list for Post Time

was no coincidence. The timely arrival of a brigade headquarters, a mechanized 

battalion, a Marine company from a light amphibious infantry (LAI) battalion, and 

possibly an infantry battalion for assignment to the Jungle Operations Training 

Center would certainly pave the way for an even larger deployment if the election 

led to a direct confrontation between U.S. forces and the Panamanian military.

The Election

As election Sunday drew near, the Southern Command enacted a “stay 

close to home” policy, advising U.S. service personnel, their dependents, and 

federal employees to avoid demonstrations and polling places over the weekend 

and to refrain from venturing outside U.S. facilities. To encourage compliance, 

the command placed restrictions on unnecessary travel and asked that various 

installations stage entertainment and other special events. Monday was declared a 

training holiday for military personnel, while civilian employees were encouraged 

to take leave and DoDDS teachers received an “in-service” day. All of these 

measures, the Tropic Times emphasized, were designed to “lessen off-base 

travel—not encourage three-day trips.” As part of its information campaign, 

SOUTHCOM’s Public Affairs Office activated a rumor-control hotline to keep 

U.S. citizens apprised of election developments. Finally, at 1800 Saturday night, 

Personnel Movement Limitation Bravo went into effect, one additional measure to 

keep Americans out of harm’s way.15

While these precautions assisted Panama’s American community in 

maintaining a low profile, other measures increased the ability of the U.S. military 

to deal with any contingency. As security forces under JTF-Panama prepared to 

go to an “advanced readiness status,” the crisis action teams at Quarry Heights 

sub: Update No. 24, Panama Elections [the day in May is not typed in, although Loeffke initialed 

the message]; Cope Interv, 25 May 89; Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening 

Our Panama Posture. According to one officer at USARSO, a mechanized company was all that was 

required to participate in an evacuation. A mechanized division, however, would balk at deploying 

just one company, and, if two companies were sent, they would be accompanied automatically by a 

maintenance “slice,” which, in turn, would require a battalion headquarters. Interv, author with Maj 

Dan Augustine, U.S. Army, 11 May 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 14 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 031505Z May 89, sub: Toughening Our Panama Posture.

15 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 292105Z Apr 89, sub: Preparations for Panama Elections. First and 

second quotes from Tropic Times, 28 Apr 89, and 5 May 89, respectively, and see also 21 Apr 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

166

and Fort Clayton began operations on Friday, 5 May. The location and status of 

PDF units were monitored as closely as possible, while a flood of last‐minute 

reports and rumors were processed in an effort to anticipate events. Watch officers, 

however skeptical they might be over specific news items, could discount nothing, 

even though some of the information and speculation reaching them seemed farfetched. According to one rumor, the Panama Defense Forces intended to pick 

up Americans and charge them with interfering in the election. Another held that 

Panamanian officials were going to dispense cocaine to American citizens, then 

charge them with drug possession. Most rumors proved groundless, although the 

PDF, as anticipated, did begin setting up checkpoints and roadblocks throughout 

Panama City, some located on routes leading into U.S. facilities.16

Reports of PDF activities were mixed with news concerning the arrival and 

movements of various groups of election observers. The Southern Command had 

assumed responsibility for receiving, transporting, and housing the observers—

no mean logistical feat under the circumstances. The most prestigious group was 

an international team headed by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose 

participation in the election had been approved by Noriega and blessed by President 

Bush. (Bush’s advisers saw Carter’s mission as a “no-win” situation for Noriega: 

the general could not refuse to receive the former president, still a hero in Panama 

because of the canal treaties; yet, Carter’s unbiased team of observers would likely 

uncover and publicize election irregularities.) Other groups arrived and went to 

work without fanfare. One last-minute addition was the official U.S. observation 

team, also approved by Bush and led by Democratic Congressman John P. Murtha 

of Pennsylvania. Consisting of twenty‐one U.S. senators, congressmen, officials, 

and aides, the delegation flew into Howard Air Force Base, despite statements by 

regime officials that the observers would not be welcome in Panama. Complicating 

matters further, Washington’s policy of denying diplomatic recognition to Noriega’s 

regime meant that the group arrived at the U.S. facility without having obtained the 

documents necessary for entering Panamanian territory.

Woerner and Ambassador Davis were waiting at Howard when the aircraft 

carrying this congressional delegation touched down. To those on the plane who 

could see the two men from their windows, the general and the ambassador seemed 

engaged in a heated argument. What the senators and congressmen did not yet 

know was that, sometime before their arrival, Woerner had personally been advised 

by the head of PDF intelligence that Noriega might have the uninvited observers 

arrested if they entered Panama illegally, that is, without proper documentation. 

Davis reportedly “scoffed” at Woerner’s concern, reminding the general that, in 

the view of the United States, Panama had no legal government and, thus, had no 

authority to take such action. If the Panamanian immigration officer at Howard 

refused to issue visas for the group, Davis said, the congressional party would 

be escorted into Panama City anyway. In addressing the delegation on board 

the aircraft, the ambassador reiterated this position, which Woerner considered 

irresponsible. When Davis finished, Woerner stepped forward and, in contrast to 

the ambassador’s reassuring remarks, advised the delegates not to resist if detained 

or arrested; the Southern Command would go through legal channels to secure their 

release. Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona bristled at the SOUTHCOM 

16 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 2 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
167

Operation Nimrod Dancer

commander’s words. In what Woerner described later as “an openly belligerent 

tone,” the senator expressed his incredulity at hearing a U.S. Army general declare 

that he could not guarantee the security of U.S. officials on a mission approved 

by the president. That Woerner had no legal jurisdiction to prevent Panamanian 

authorities from arresting foreigners traveling on Panamanian soil without the 

necessary papers did not seem relevant to the senator.17

As the delegates at Howard boarded buses that would take them into Panama 

City, an embassy official arrived with their passports, all stamped. With that, the 

prospect of a confrontation with the Panama Defense Forces passed. Not so, however, 

the hard feelings the episode left in its wake—hard feelings exacerbated in a later 

meeting between Woerner and the delegation during which the possible evacuation 

of U.S. citizens became a topic of discussion. McCain was demonstrably unhappy 

with the estimates Woerner projected for the time needed—several months—to 

move Americans out of Panama with the least possible disruption to their lives. 

The meeting ended with McCain turning his back on Woerner and walking out. 

Not surprisingly, when the delegation returned to Washington after the election, the 

senator (and, reportedly, two of his fellow delegates, Republican Senator Connie 

Mack of Florida and Congressman Murtha) urged Bush to relieve Woerner. “That 

man is no damned good,” McCain is reported to have said. Bush, for the moment, 

demurred. As for Woerner, in retrospect he conceded he should have been more 

diplomatic with the senators and congressmen, even though he had no sympathy 

with their position that seemed to place them above Panamanian law, even if they 

considered the regime administering it illegitimate.

On Sunday, 7 May 1989, several polling places opened late. If this was, as 

some speculated, a ploy by the regime to hold down the vote, it failed. Throughout 

the day, Panamanians turned out in large numbers to cast their ballots. That 

afternoon a Dutch priest, vocal in his charges of election fraud, was shot to death 

by a PDF officer in Chiriquí Province. This brutal incident notwithstanding, 

the voting generally seemed to go peacefully, albeit with irregularities. Official 

observers heard a catalog of complaints, including charges that members of the 

Panama Defense Forces were driving around to several polling stations, voting at 

each; or that the registration lists had been fixed to disfranchise known opposition 

sympathizers; or that opposition ballots had not been readily available when the 

polls opened. Aware of these allegations, some members of the U.S. congressional 

delegation voiced concern, but former President Carter indicated that, from what 

he had seen, the vote seemed to be “clean.” Toward the end of the day, both sides 

claimed victory, although no returns had yet been posted.

Preelection polls had indicated the opposition would win by a two-to-one 

margin. On the basis of the large turnout on Sunday, coupled with comments made 

by Panamanians leaving the voting stations, this estimate seemed to have been 

borne out. Noriega was reported to be genuinely shocked at the magnitude of his 

candidates’ impending defeat. In a last-ditch effort to salvage the situation, he had 

dispatched the Panama Defense Forces and paramilitary teams Sunday night to 

17 The story of the U.S. delegation and its interaction with General Woerner is from Washington 

Post, 6 May 89, p. A15. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 44–45, 47. Davis 

quote from Buckley, Panama, p. 177, and see also pp. 176, 178. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 

183–84; Intervs, General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., 

and author with Woerner, 30 Apr 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

168

seize ballot boxes, trash polling stations, and, in some cases, burn ballots. But these 

highhanded moves only added to the mounting criticism. By Monday morning, 

opposition leaders and members of the U.S. congressional delegation were publicly 

proclaiming fraud. When opponents of the regime marched to protest the “stolen” 

election, they ran into the batons and birdshot of riot police and Dignity Battalions. 

On Monday afternoon, after members of his delegation had conferred with the 

Southern Command about security measures, Carter held a press conference to 

accuse the regime of “taking the election by fraud.” Noriega’s government, Carter 

charged, was “robbing the people of Panama of their legitimate rights. . . . I hope 

there will be a worldwide outcry of condemnation against the dictator who stole 

this election from his own people.” Senator Mack went even further: if Noriega 

rejected the opposition’s victory, he said, he would introduce legislation to abrogate 

the canal treaties.18

Mack’s threat attracted little support. To abrogate the treaties, various senators 

and U.S. officials calmly pointed out, would play into Noriega’s hands, unite the 

Panamanian people against the United States, alienate most of Latin America, 

and call into question the word and honor of the U.S. government. Still, the 

broader issue implicit in Mack’s comments had to be addressed: how should the 

United States respond to fraudulent elections? Unaware of the administration’s 

preelection planning, prominent senators and congressmen on both sides of the 

aisle agreed that President Bush should not rule out the option of using military 

force; indeed, by Tuesday reports circulated that the White House was, in fact, 

considering sending more troops to Panama. But Bush refused to be rushed. 

Noriega had not yet allowed the “official” results of the vote to be announced. 

Until the regime actually “stole” the election, any action taken by the president 

would be premature.19

Matters came to a head on Wednesday. A protest march led by the opposition 

candidates and joined by thousands of Panamanians was disrupted at several 

points along its route by riot police using tear gas, shotguns, batons, and water 

cannon. At one point, the uniformed officers stood aside while Dignity Battalion 

members dressed in red T-shirts and wielding clubs charged the crowd. In the 

ensuing melee, Endara fell to the ground unconscious, a large gash in his head 

from an iron pipe. Arias Calderón was hit several times before his bodyguard 

pushed him to safety. Billy Ford managed to get into a car, only to have his 

bodyguard slump against him, mortally wounded by a gunshot to the head. 

When Ford got out of the car, his shirt soaked in the bodyguard’s blood, he, 

too, was beaten. What had begun as an orderly march turned into a scene of 

violence and disarray, as demonstrators sought safety and medical assistance. In 

the meantime, Panama City’s jails began to fill with several hundred opposition 

members arrested by the Panama Defense Forces.20

18 This brief account of the election in Panama is based on Buckley, Panama, pp. 178–80. 

The author has a videocassette tape of election coverage by U.S. television news media. President 

Carter’s comments can be found in both sources. 19 Author’s videocassette tape of election coverage.

20 Buckley, Panama, pp. 180–83; Panama chronology, n.d. The source of this chronology is not 

indicated on the cover sheet, but the document contains summaries of official U.S. message traffic 

relevant to the Panamanian election crisis between 14 and 16 May 1989.
169

Operation Nimrod Dancer

As the crisis action teams at 

Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton 

tried to construct a coherent 

picture of the confrontation and 

to determine the whereabouts of 

Endara, Arias Calderón, and Ford, 

U.S. troops reviewed their alert 

status. At 1640, the command put 

Personnel Movement Limitation 

Charlie into effect, further 

restricting the movement of 

U.S. citizens in Panama. DoDD 

Schools were closed (later 

followed by a decision to end the 

school year early). That afternoon, 

Ambassador Davis announced 

that embassy employees would be 

moved onto U.S. military bases 

Thursday. The first of some 150 

fearful Panamanians were already 

making that trip, the beginning of what would become a “flood” of refugees into 

the canal area. About a dozen journalists covering the election learned that they 

had been declared personae non gratae and must leave the country. Reports that 

U.S. servicemen had been arrested at the time of the opposition march, when 

combined with rumors that the Panama Defense Forces were preparing to take 

American hostages in the event of an invasion, fueled media speculation that 

U.S. citizens in Panama would become the target of further regime-sanctioned 

violence. The movement of PDF military units into Panama City to reinforce 

 Opposition candidates Guillermo Endara (left) and Ricardo Arias Calderón and marchers face the Panama Defense Forces during the post–May 1989 election protest. 

A Dignity Battalion member attacking 

Guillermo “Billy” Ford (left)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

170

the police in no way allayed these concerns. Finally, there were also reports of 

frenetic activity at the Carcel Modelo, where many of the arrested opposition 

members had been incarcerated. In short, as of Wednesday night, Panama once 

again seemed in chaos. In this charged atmosphere, the regime announced that 

the election had been annulled.21

In Washington that evening, Bush met with his national security advisers. The 

next afternoon, the president made a brief announcement to the press. He began by 

praising the commitment to “elected constitutional government” in most of Latin 

America but acknowledged that “in many parts of our hemisphere, the enemies 

of democracy lie in wait to overturn elected governments through force or to steal 

elections through fraud.” Turning to events in Panama, he denounced the dictatorship 

for using “massive fraud and intimidation” and ultimately “violence and bloodshed” 

to steal the election. “The United States,” he continued, “will not recognize nor 

accommodate a regime that holds power through force and violence at the expense 

of the Panamanian people’s right to be free.” The crisis in Panama, he said, was 

“between Noriega and the people of Panama.” Pointedly, he expressed the hope that 

the Panama Defense Forces would stand with the people. In words that reflected 

Woerner’s longstanding position, the president emphasized that a “professional 

Panamanian Defense Force can have an important role to play in Panama’s democratic 

future.”

After reiterating U.S. commitments to democracy in Panama, to the protection 

of Americans living in the country, and to the “integrity of the Panama Canal 

Treaties,” Bush listed the actions he intended to take. The United States would 

support diplomatic initiatives by Latin American governments and the Organization 

of American States (OAS) to resolve the crisis. In the meantime, the American 

ambassador to Panama and much of the embassy staff were being recalled to the 

United States in protest. U.S. government employees and their dependents “living 

outside of U.S. military bases or Panama Canal Commission housing areas” would 

be relocated immediately “out of Panama” or onto “secure U.S. housing areas.” 

Economic sanctions would “continue in force,” and the United States would “carry 

out its obligations and . . . assert its treaty rights in Panama.” There was only one 

strictly military measure in the list: a brigade-size force would be sent to Panama to 

augment U.S. forces already there. As the president neared the end of his statement, 

he warned that he did not “rule out further steps in the future.”22

Deployments

The groundwork for the commitment of more troops to Panama, code-named 

Nimrod Dancer, had been laid several days before the president actually announced 

his decision. On 8 May, the day after the elections, the Joint Staff had requested a 

concept of operations for the additional security enhancement forces Woerner had 

listed in his 3 May message to Crowe. The Southern Command relayed the request 

to JTF-Panama, which found one aspect of the message troubling: included on the 

list of troops that might be sent to Panama was a light infantry battalion. Before 

21 Logs, SOUTHCOM CAT, 10, 11 May 89; Author’s videocassette tape of election coverage; 

Msg, SOUTHCOM J–3 to NMC, 110710Z May 89, sub: Sitrep No. 10; Daily Operational Update, 

SOUTHCOM, 11 May 89. 22 The full text of President Bush’s statement can be found in Department of State Bulletin 89 

(July 1989): 70–71.
171

Operation Nimrod Dancer

the election, Loeffke had argued that the situation did not warrant sending the 

“light fighters” from the 7th Infantry Division (Light), and subsequent events had 

not changed his mind. The Pentagon, however, had decided otherwise. As Loeffke 

later noted, the unit “was force fed to us.”23

The concept of operations drafted by planners at Fort Clayton stated in general 

terms what each of the headquarters and units designated for possible deployment 

could do to enhance the capability and flexibility of those U.S. forces already in 

Panama. Overall, the additional troops would add 1,716 soldiers and 165 marines 

to JTF-Panama, thus improving its ability to react to any situation and, if necessary, 

to execute Prayer Book operations.24

On Wednesday, 10 May, soon after the assault on the opposition candidates and 

marchers, a meeting took place at Quarry Heights. Those present heard that, within 

thirty-six hours, President Bush would announce that he was sending more troops 

to Panama. Last-minute preparations had to be made, including a review of existing 

contingency plans, the drafting of reception plans for the soldiers and marines about 

to deploy, and the dissemination of the PDF order of battle. In Washington late that 

night, the Joint Chiefs alerted several headquarters to anticipate an execute order 

for Operation Nimrod Dancer. The next afternoon, as a result of the president’s 

decision, both the State Department and the Pentagon activated special groups to 

monitor the crisis and coordinate actions on a 24-hour basis. The State Department 

also issued a travel advisory warning Americans of the unsettled conditions in 

Panama. Meanwhile, as another in a series of precautionary measures triggered 

by the crisis, Crowe ordered Woerner and SOCOM’s General James J. Lindsay to 

“posture” special operations units called for in Blue Spoon so that, if notified to do 

so, they could execute combat operations in Panama within seventy-two hours.25

Acting for the National Command Authority, the Joint Chiefs issued the order to 

execute Nimrod Dancer Thursday afternoon. As the message worked its way down 

the chain of command, the appropriate headquarters responded. The commander 

in chief, U.S. Pacific Command, prepared an amphibious task force for possible 

23 From the evidence available to the author, when the light infantry battalion was added to the 

troop list or who made the decision is unclear. Loeffke’s observation that the unit had been “force 

fed” to the commanders in Panama was made in late May 1989. Two years after the fact, Woerner 

implied that he was not pleased with the size of the U.S. troop buildup in Panama after the elections. 

Journalist Bob Woodward also has written that Woerner tried to dissuade Crowe from sending too 

many troops. Quote from Interv, author with Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 31 May 89, Fort 

Clayton, Panama. Interv, author with Woerner, 30 Apr 91. See also Bob Woodward, The Commanders

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), pp. 86–90. 24 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS/Joint Staff [Cisneros to Brig Gen Shelton, Vice Dir, J–3, and Col 

Harbison, J–3, Joint Operations Division (JOD)], 100216Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for Security 

Enhancement Forces; CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 090400Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for Security 

Enhancement Forces; Intervs, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, 13 Jun 90, and 21 May 91, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.; Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 120145Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for Additional Security 

Enhancement Forces; Panama chronology, n.d., entry for 13 May 89, 0200 Eastern Daylight Time 

(EDT). 25 Augustine Interv, 11 May 90; Msg, CJCS to USCINCLANT et al., 110015Z May 89, sub: 

Operation Nimrod Dancer [alert order]; Chronology, n.d., entries for 10 May 89, 1315 EDT, and 

12 May 89, 0010 EDT, 0306 EDT, 0308 EDT. Quoted words from Msg, CJSC to USCINCSO 

and USCINCSOC, 102346Z May 89, sub: Blue Spoon. Msg, CDR [JSOTF] to USCINCSO et al., 

110336Z May 89, sub: Blue Spoon Alert Posture.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

172

deployment to Panama on 72-hours’ notice in case it was needed to ensure the safety 

of U.S. citizens. At Norfolk, Virginia, the commander in chief, Atlantic Command, 

received orders to ready a carrier battle group for possible deployment to the western 

Caribbean should there be an evacuation of Americans from Panama or, less likely, 

Cuban interference in the crisis. The Atlantic Command, as directed, also began 

the series of measures necessary for deploying a Marine company from a light 

amphibious infantry battalion. Similarly, the commander, U.S. Forces Command, 

located at Fort McPherson, Georgia, assumed responsibility for deploying the 

light infantry and mechanized Army units designated in the execute order. At 

Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, the Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) was 

the headquarters responsible for coordinating the physical movement of Nimrod

Dancer units from the United States to Panama and for providing the necessary 

planes and ships, primarily from the Military Airlift Command (MAC) and from 

Department of Defense sealift assets. The Strategic Air Command, for its part, 

would refuel MAC aircraft en route to Howard Air Force Base.26

Before NimrodDancer units actually began their deployment, the Transportation 

Command and Military Airlift Command requested information on the PDF’s 

capability to fire on planes flying into Howard or to attack the air base itself. Of 

special concern were any SA–7s, SA–14s, and mortars in the PDF inventory. The 

Southern Command and JTF-Panama responded that the Panama Defense Forces 

had received training in Nicaragua on the use of SA–7s but were not known to have 

any of these surface-to-air missiles in their arsenal. The number of SA–14s the 

Panamanian military might have was unknown, but not so the number of mortars, 

which were listed as sixty-four 60-mm., twelve 81-mm., and six 120-mm. The 

Panama Air Force had several trainer-fighters and helicopters, but, in the estimate 

of the JSOTF commander, no real air-to-air capability. If the need arose to suppress 

PDF air defenses, Woerner and Loeffke had Air Force security patrols at Howard, 

Marine patrols in the jungle outside the air base, quick reaction forces on alert, 

60-mm. and 81-mm. mortars, Cobra helicopters, and an AC–130 gunship, with 

another on the way. What this reassuring inventory did not address was a chilling 

prospect that had haunted U.S. commanders and planners in Panama throughout 

the crisis: with all the U.S. equipment and firepower available, there was no way 

to guarantee that the Panama Defense Forces would not shoot down a transport 

or bombard Howard. The most that could be said in a positive vein was that, if 

the Panamanian military had this capability, they most likely lacked the desire 

or resolve to use it. The best estimate of PDF intentions at the time judged any 

interference with the airlift unlikely, although one analyst conceded that “anything 

is possible.”27

As the commander who would receive operational control of the Nimrod

Dancer conventional forces, Loeffke lobbied to get the mechanized battalion into 

Panama first. In the event the crisis took a marked turn for the worse, the unit’s 

armored personnel carriers (APCs) would be sorely needed. Loeffke’s priorities, 

26 Msg, CJCS to USCINCLANT et al., 111953 May 89, sub: Operation Nimrod Dancer [deployment order]. 27 Memo, Col Ben Anderson, CAT Dir, for Team Ch, CAT, 120835Z May 89, sub: Suppression 

of Enemy Air Defenses; Msgs, SOUTHCOM CAT to TRANSCOM CAT, 121542Z May 89, sub: 

Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, and 61NAG Howard AFB to AIG 7110, 112100Z May 89, sub: 

Threat Assessment for MAC Aircraft.
173

Operation Nimrod Dancer

however, ran afoul of the Joint Operations Planning System, the relative readiness 

of the deploying units, and the availability of MAC aircraft. There was also the 

limited facilities at Howard Air Force Base, a potential “chokepoint” in any attempt 

to sustain large-scale air operations into Panama.28 These considerations would 

determine the order of deployment, which in this case meant that the Marine’s 

Company A, 2d Light Amphibious Infantry Battalion, at Camp Lejeune, North 

Carolina, would probably arrive first, landing at Howard on Friday, one day after 

the president’s announcement. The 165 marines brought with them the company’s 

seventeen LAV–25s, fourteen of which boasted 25-mm. guns and could carry 

four infantry scouts. Of the remaining three, two served logistical purposes and 

one was configured for command and control. As Colonel Doyle, the MARFOR 

commander, observed, the light armored vehicles were ideal for operations 

in Panama, where a “water obstacle” ran the length of the MARFOR area of 

responsibility. Accompanying the newly arrived unit was an eight-man combat 

camera team, added to the deployment list at the last minute. After assembling 

at Howard, the marines crossed the Inter-American Highway into their billeting 

area at Rodman Naval Station. As with the security enhancement deployments in 

1988, the small base was once again to experience the strains of accommodating 

an influx of additional forces whose home base was not in Panama.29

Friday afternoon, troops and equipment from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) 

began arriving at Howard.30 The division, stationed at Fort Ord, California, had 

been on the Post Time and Blue Spoon troop lists for a year and thus was no 

stranger to the crisis in Panama. As the Panamanian election approached, planners 

at Fort Ord had begun preparing for a possible deployment. Although under the 

worst circumstances, the entire division might be involved, a two-man liaison 

team sent to Panama the week before the election learned that Woerner believed 

a much smaller commitment would be sufficient. Apprised of the SOUTHCOM 

commander’s thinking, the G–3 shop at Fort Ord scurried to write an appropriate 

plan and, on 4 May, sent to Forces Command a one-page proposal for deploying 

variously sized task forces of up to three battalions. From Fort McPherson, the 

paper made its way to the Joint Staff in Washington. As was the case with USARSO 

planners a year before, 7th Infantry Division staff officers found themselves having 

to determine the force structure for deployment to Panama without having been 

told what the troop’s precise mission might be.

28 Memo, Col A. T. Rossi for Army Operations Center [MG Smith], 11 May 89, sub: Stationing 

of Augmentation Forces—Latest Package. Planes carrying Nimrod Dancer troops were originally 

scheduled to arrive at Howard at the rate of one every thirty minutes. Because of the airfield’s limitations, the rate came closer to one every hour. Interv, Maj Larry Heystek with Maj Jeff Karhohs, U.S. 

Army, 26 May 89, Fort Sherman, Panama. 29 Msg, USCINCTRANS/CAT to JCS, 120440Z May 89, sub: USTRANSCOM SITREP No. 1; 

Key Events, Operation Nimrod Dancer, WANG LC3 CAT1 459. Quoted words from Interv, author 

with Col J. J. Doyle, USMC, 14 Jun 89, Rodman Naval Station, Panama. Chronology, n.d., entry for 

12 May 89, 1730 EDT. 30 Unless otherwise noted, discussion of the 7th Infantry Division’s deployment is based on 

Intervs, author with House, 17 Oct 89; Col David R. E. Hale, U.S. Army, 16 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, 

Panama; Maj Jeff Karhohs, 8 Mar 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Maj Robert Reese, U.S. Army, 19 

Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Capt Richard Killblane, U.S. Army, 21 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

and Heystek with Karhohs, 26 May 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

174

When the order to deploy a battalion and brigade headquarters arrived at Fort 

Ord, the 1st Brigade—or, 9th Infantry regiment—was the division ready brigade, 

DRB1, capable of deploying within eighteen hours. The “Manchus,” as the regiment 

was nicknamed, had just returned from an exercise at Fort Polk, Louisiana, with 

the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), which was also sending troops to Panama 

for Nimrod Dancer. Deploying with the 1st Brigade headquarters would be the 2d 

Battalion, 9th Infantry; an artillery battery from the 2d Battalion, 8th Field Artillery; 

and various supporting elements, for a total of 1,032 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 6 

105-mm. howitzers. On the night of 11 May, the Manchus took buses to Travis Air 

Force Base, California, where the plan called for them to board a fleet of C–141s for 

the flight to Panama. The discovery upon arriving at Travis that the Military Airlift 

Command had substituted thirteen C–5A Galaxy transports for some of the C–141s 

caused the division’s movement officers to “really scramble” in reconfiguring 

the loading arrangements for troops and materiel to accommodate the larger 

transports. Despite these last‐minute difficulties—not to mention the frustrations 

that virtually all the headquarters involved in Nimrod Dancer experienced from 

having to keep deployment arrangements Top Secret—the first transport carrying 

7th Infantry Division troops took off from Travis Friday morning. Two days later, 

the last of the division’s deploying units arrived at Howard. From there, the troops 

and equipment were moved via helicopters, trucks, and landing crafts, mechanized 

(LCMs), to Fort Sherman on the Atlantic side of the canal area.31

31 According to the 9th Infantry’s S–3, the movement of 7th Infantry Division’s contribution to 

Nimrod Dancer from Howard Air Force Base to Fort Sherman was no simple accomplishment. First, 

the troops and equipment on the planes had to be unloaded and put into a ground convoy that moved 

to a holding area. From there, the force went to an embarkation point for LCMs, which took it up the 

canal, where it then unloaded and moved by a ground convoy into Sherman. Since the movement 

from Howard to Sherman began once the first units arrived, the “tail” was quite lengthy, running from 

Sherman back to Travis Air Force Base in California. Karhohs Interv, 26 May 89.

U.S. Army troops arriving for Operation Nimrod Dancer
175

Operation Nimrod Dancer

Sandwiched between the marines and the light fighters was Company D, 1st 

Battalion(-), 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), the one mechanized unit allowed 

to deploy immediately to Panama. The remainder of the battalion(-), composed of 

a second mechanized company, a battalion headquarters(-), and support elements, 

would not deploy until its equipment had made the three-hour overland trip from 

Fort Polk to the port of Beaumont, Louisiana, there to be loaded aboard the USNS 

Bellatrix for a sea voyage to Panama. Under these arrangements, the 5th Division’s 

entire contribution of over seven hundred soldiers, nearly sixty armored personnel 

carriers, six mortar carriers, and over a hundred support vehicles did not finish 

deploying to Panama until 19 May. For command and control purposes, the 

mechanized forces were placed under USARSO’s 193d Infantry Brigade, part of 

the Army Forces component under JTF-Panama.32

That the deploying mechanized force had the M113 armored personnel carrier 

in its inventory and not the newer Bradley infantry fighting vehicle was no accident. 

Compared to the Bradley, the M113 was narrower, carried more people (nine as 

opposed to six), and, in the event of an evacuation or the outbreak of hostilities, 

could maneuver more easily through the cramped streets of Panama’s cities. At one 

point, the Joint Chiefs had raised with the Southern Command the possibility of 

sending a unit equipped with Bradleys, but JTF-Panama’s chief planner responded 

to the inquiry with an emphatic protest up the chain of command. Not so easily 

resolved was the question of where the troops with their M113s would be lodged 

when they arrived. JTF-Panama wanted to use the mechanized force in support of 

possible operations in Panama City, but there was insufficient billeting space for 

the battalion on the east side of the canal. Consequently, only one company moved 

across the waterway from Howard to Albrook Air Station. The bulk of the force 

took up residence on the west side, at a facility known as Camp Rousseau. Should 

the armored personnel carriers at the camp be needed in Panama City, they would 

first have to cross either the Bridge of the Americas or a swing bridge in front of 

Fort Clayton.33

The Marine light amphibious infantry company and the Army light infantry 

and mechanized units constituted the core of the Nimrod Dancer deployments, 

and their arrival in Panama occasioned extensive media coverage. This tended to 

overshadow other movements of troops and equipment that were also critical to 

the operation. To begin with, some eighty-two officers and enlisted men from U.S. 

Army, South, were in Florida working with a National Guard brigade as part of its 

annual training. Prior to the election, Loeffke had decided to keep those USARSO 

personnel in the United States in line with the command’s policy of making 

prudent preparations without overreacting. Now, with Nimrod Dancer under way, 

JTF-Panama requested the return of the soldiers, and Washington concurred. By 

16 May, all were back in Panama. While this redeployment was taking place, the 

Joint Staff, in response to a mutual request from the Southern Command and U.S. 

32 Msgs, CINCFOR, Fort McPherson, to CDR, I Corps, Fort Lewis, and CDR, III Corps, Fort 

Hood, 110900Z May 89, sub: Oper/Nimrod Dancer, and Joint Staff to USCINCLANT et al., 112205Z 

May 89, sub: Change 1 to Nimrod Dancer Deployment Order; Interv, author with Maj Bill Epley, 

U.S. Army, 17 Oct 89, Washington, D.C. Chronology, n.d., entries for 12 May 89, 0120 EDT, 1115 

EDT; 13 May 89, 1115 EDT; 15 May 89, 1755 EDT; and 16 May 89, 0830 EDT. Theresa L. Kraus, 

Working Chronology for Operation Just Cause, Working Paper, entries for 17, 19 May 89. 33 Pantier Interv, 13 Jun 90.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

176

Army, South, directed the deployment of three intensive care nurses to augment 

the staff at Gorgas Army Hospital on Ancon Hill. Two UH–60 helicopters also 

arrived in Panama to fill out Task Force Hawk. Finally, amid all the publicized troop 

movements, certain special operations elements deployed secretly during Nimrod

Dancer, occupying an office—dubbed the “no tell motel”—at Fort Clayton.34

With events moving swiftly and with international attention focused on 

Panama, Woerner looked to his Public Affairs Office to acquire and disseminate 

information about the crisis. The Army, Air Force, and Navy all deployed combat 

camera documentation teams to help out. Once they had arrived, Woerner 

activated a public affairs task force and a joint audio-visual detachment. The task 

force was to keep U.S. forces in Panama informed of the developing situation 

and to respond to queries from the media. Command policy was “maximum 

disclosure with minimum delay,” although information would first be evaluated 

for accuracy and to determine if it would be of interest to the media. The mission 

of the joint audio-visual detachment was to provide video and photographic 

documentation of Nimrod Dancer operations, together with daily updates to 

Woerner and the Joint Chiefs. Woerner also asked the Pentagon to deploy the 

28th Public Affairs Detachment from Fort Lewis, Washington, for thirty days. 

The commander of the detachment had worked on the operation orders for 

Panama and was thus familiar with the general situation. Finally, as a means of 

documenting events and capturing “lessons learned,” Woerner encouraged his 

commanders to participate in taped interviews.35

34 Augustine Interv, 13 Jun 89; Briefing slides, JTF‐Panama, n.d., JTF‐PM Posture, and JTF‐Panama, 

n.d. [24 April 1989 written on first slide]; Chronology, n.d., entries for 13 May 89, 1630 EDT, and 14 May 

89, 0156 EDT, 2240 EDT; Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 252100Z Apr 89, sub: Medical Contingency Planning, 

and Col Rossi to Gen Pagonis, 14 May 89; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 90. 35 Msgs, CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 150153[?] May 89, sub: Photo Documentation, Nimrod

Dancer, and CINCSO to JTF-Panama, 150245Z May 89, sub: Nimrod Dancer Public Affairs. Quote 

Albrook Air Station
177

Operation Nimrod Dancer

While the Southern Command was moving to enhance and organize the public 

affairs assets available to it, efforts were under way to increase the security around 

Howard Air Force Base and other key installations in the event of hostilities. For 

the past year, Lt. Col. Bob Pantier, the chief planner for JTF-Panama, had been 

arguing that the introduction of countermortar radar (CMR) into Panama was 

urgently needed in light of the PDF’s possession of 120-mm. mortars. In 1988, 

his appeals had been in vain, with Washington rejecting his requests presumably 

because deployment of the CMR sections, given their status as combat elements, 

might have run counter to White House efforts at the time to keep Panama off 

the front pages. The election crisis offered Pantier another opportunity. When 

JTF-Panama was directed to provide a concept of operations for Nimrod Dancer

forces, he had been tapped to write the document. On his own authority, he 

inserted yet another request for two AN/TPQ–36 CMR sections. As he recalled his 

reasoning, “I figured it was better to ask forgiveness later on than permission.” At 

the Southern Command, Cisneros deleted the request before sending the concept 

to the Joint Chiefs. Two days later, as Nimrod Dancer deployments into Howard 

again accentuated the air base’s vulnerability, JTF-Panama prevailed on Cisneros 

to reconsider. He did. On 12 May, a follow-up message asked the Joint Chiefs for 

the two countermortar radar sections, one of which would be located at Howard Air 

Force Base at all times. The message also requested an AC–130 Spectre gunship, 

which would bring the number in Panama to two, thus allowing the command 

to have one or the other always ready to launch. Secretary of Defense Cheney 

authorized deployment of the CMR sections and the AC–130, with General Lindsay 

at MacDill Air Force Base providing the Spectre. (Soon after Cheney’s decision 

was relayed to the appropriate headquarters, a teleconference among some of the 

key commanders revealed that the countermortar radar had been a part of the 7th 

Infantry Division’s field artillery package for Nimrod Dancer all along.)36

There would be one other addition to the conventional forces deploying to 

Panama in the wake of the election violence. On 9 May, the Southern Command 

had raised the issue of having a “non-Panama based unit” replace the 193d’s 1st 

Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne), in the Jungle Operations Training Center 

class scheduled to begin 21 May. Bringing in an additional combat unit for the 

expressed purpose of training would, without fanfare, bolster the number of troops 

on hand in the event of hostilities. Loeffke was not happy about removing the 

USARSO battalion from the JOTC rotation, but he did not object vehemently and 

regarding command policy from Msg, SOUTHCOM PA to JTF-Panama, 150254Z May 89, sub: 

Nimrod Dancer Public Affairs. Msg, SOUTHCOM PA to JCS J–3, 150255Z May 89, sub: Request 

for Public Affairs Detachment; Chronology, n.d., entries for 15 May 89, 0337 EDT, 1145 EDT, 1235 

EDT.36 Pantier’s thinking on the countermortar radar issue is from Pantier Interv, 13 Jun 90. On 

the decision to deploy the countermortar radars and the AC–130, see Augustine Intervs, 13 Jun 

89, 11 May 90; Presentation, Lt Col Robert Pantier, 21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Msgs, 

CINCSO to JCS/Joint Staff [Cisneros to Shelton and Harbison], 100216Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for 

Security Enhancement Forces; CINCSO to CDR, JTF-Panama, 090400Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for 

Security Enhancement Forces; CDR, JTF-Panama, to CINCSO, May 89, sub: CONOPS for Security 

Enhancement Forces; CINCSO to JCS, 120145Z May 89, sub: CONOPS for Additional Security 

Enhancement Forces; and CJCS to CINCFOR et al., 130218Z May 89, sub: Operation Nimrod

Dancer Augmentation. Chronology, n.d., entries for 13 May 89, 0200 EDT, 0354 EDT, 1020 EDT, 

and 14 May 89, 1230 EDT.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

178

his staff had no problem with JTF-Panama picking up operational control of 660 

more soldiers. On 13 May, the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, from the 7th Infantry 

Division (Light) was designated the JOTC battalion.37

Adjusting and Adapting

As Nimrod Dancer forces began arriving in Panama, JTF-Panama received 

a directive to provide the Southern Command detailed information on the 

disposition and employment of the new troops, the command and control 

arrangements under which they would operate, and how they would be integrated 

into contingency missions and Loeffke’s joint training program. In complying 

with the directive, Loeffke’s response would be based on Prayer Book operation 

orders and the JTF-Panama fragmentary order for emergency action and would, 

as Colonel Doyle remarked, move U.S. forces in Panama “a notch closer to a 

contingency footing.”38

In providing guidance to the JTF-Panama staff as it assembled the information 

SOUTHCOM wanted, Colonel Rossi once again drew “goose eggs” on a map. 

As was the case the previous year, there were three, each representing the 

creation of a new task force. Two were located on the Pacific side of the canal: 

Task Force Semper Fi on the west bank, Task Force Bayonet on the east, with 

the latter’s area of responsibility extended north to the Tigris River. Across that 

divide and covering the other half of the canal area was the third oval, labeled 

Task Force Atlantic.39

As suggested by the name, Task Force Semper Fi was a Marine command; 

more precisely, it constituted a new designation for JTF-Panama’s MARFOR 

component, which now added the newly arrived LAI company to the other 

Marine units falling under Colonel Doyle. For purposes of contingency planning, 

rehearsals, joint training, and the conduct of small-scale operations, Doyle 

would also exercise operational control over certain elements from U.S. Army, 

South, and, at times, over a company from the 7th Infantry Division brought 

down from the Atlantic side. As a result of these arrangements, Marine ForcesPanama experienced a net gain in assets and manpower, even though in the 

weeks following the May troop deployments, the number of units under Doyle’s 

operational control would fluctuate continuously depending on the course of 

events in Panama and the theater. On several occasions, for example, crisisrelated activities required that Task Force Semper Fi make its light armored 

vehicles available, on a short-term basis, to either Task Force Bayonet or Task 

Force Atlantic.40

Across from Task Force Semper Fi on the east side of the canal was Task Force 

Bayonet, commanded by Col. William J. Bolt and organized around USARSO’s 37 Quote from Msg, CINCSO to HQDA, 092302Z May 89, sub: Replacement Battalion for 

JOTC Training. Cope Interv, 25 May 89; Kraus, Working Chronology for Operation Just Cause. 38 Msg, CINCSO/SCJ–3 CAT to JTF-Panama/J–3, 142139Z May 89, sub: Nimrod Dancer

Integration and Employment; Memo, Col John A. Cope Jr. for Department of the Army, CAT-Panama, 

24 May 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama Organization. Quote from Doyle Interv, 14 Jun 89. 39 Note, Col Arnie Rossi to DCSOPS, 16 May 89, sub: AORs.

40 Doyle Interv, 14 Jun 89; Msg, CDR, JTF-Panama, to CDR, MARFOR; CDR, 9th Regimental 

Combat Team (RCT); CDR, 324th Support Gp, 231530Z May 89, sub: FRAGO (ASP Security); 

Memo, Cope for Department of the Army, CAT-Panama, 24 May 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama 

Organization.
179

Operation Nimrod Dancer

193d Brigade, which he also commanded. In addition, he exercised operational 

control over the mechanized battalion(-) at Camp Rousseau on the west bank, the 

assumption being that, in a contingency operation, the employment of the battalion 

would be within Task Force Bayonet’s area of responsibility. On a day-to-day basis, 

Bolt enjoyed the support of various military police, engineer, and naval assets, all 

of which remained under the control of their parent units.41

While modifying the organization and areas of responsibility of the two task 

forces on the Pacific side of the canal area entailed some significant adjustments, 

activating Task Force Atlantic on the northern side would require many more. In 

that Loeffke had never been fully convinced that light fighters from the 7th Infantry 

Division were needed at this stage in the crisis, JTF-Panama was at first reluctant 

to establish the task force, the core of which would be the division’s 1st Brigade, 

commanded by Col. David R. E. Hale. Thus, when Hale set up his headquarters at 

Fort Sherman and began integrating his troops into activities on the Atlantic side, he 

discovered that he had no control over USARSO units and other elements already 

stationed in the area, most of which were commanded by lieutenant colonels. He 

immediately raised the issue with JTF-Panama and, after he “beat on the table,” 

received the authority he sought. Soon thereafter, Task Force Atlantic was formally 

activated with Hale as its commander. Forces under his control included the light 

infantry and field artillery units from Fort Ord and, for activities connected with 

Operation Nimrod Dancer and the crisis in general, several USARSO assets, 

including two MP companies and an engineer battalion.42

The activation of Task Force Atlantic superseded the organizational and 

command and control arrangements JTF-Panama had created on the Atlantic 

side of the canal in 1988. The new configuration initially caused some confusion, 

largely because Loeffke and Hale, while personally agreeing on the setup, failed 

to notify all the affected parties. For example, the operations center at Fort 

Clayton received word of the changes only through an offhand remark Loeffke 

made when he showed up to conduct a tour for a visiting general. As for Lt. 

Col. Mike Michaelis, commander of the 549th Military Police Company and, 

under the old arrangement, the officer in charge on the Atlantic side, he never 

did receive written orders that put his company under Hale’s operational control. 

To remove a potential source of friction, Michaelis asked Hale’s provost marshal 

to use JTF-Panama as a conduit when giving the 549th an assignment. This 

procedure proved satisfactory to both parties, thus obviating any formal effort 

to “fix something [that] was not broken.” Similarly, no one protested vigorously 

the arrangement under which JTF-Panama kept operational control over the Task 

Force Hawk aviation assets that Loeffke sent north in support of Task Force 

Atlantic, even though the aircraft involved had been in Panama for over a year 

courtesy of Hale’s own 7th Infantry Division. As one officer summarized the 

situation, “everybody’s working together.”43

41 Note, Rossi to DCSOPS, 16 May 89, sub: AORs; Memo, Cope for Department of the Army, 

CAT-Panama, 24 May 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama Organization. 42 Quote from Augustine Interv, 7 Jun 89. Memo, Cope for Department of the Army, CATPanama, 24 May 89, sub: Joint Task Force-Panama Organization. 43 Quote on relationship between Task Force Atlantic and the 549th Military Police Company 

from Interv, author with Lt Col Mike Michaelis, U.S. Army, 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Intervs, 

author with Karhohs, 8 Mar 90, and Killblane, 21 Jun 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

180

Occasionally, when a command and control issue did require formal 

clarification, Hale did not hesitate to refer it to JTF‐Panama. One such instance 

involved the question of who had operational control over whatever battalion 

happened to be rotating through the Jungle Operations Training Center. Hale’s 

concerns on this point were twofold. First, under the JOTC’s hastily revised unit 

schedule, the 7th Infantry Division’s own 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, had deployed 

to the center for the expressed purpose of training. Hale did not want to “break 

faith” with the American people and the families at Fort Ord by using the unit 

for potentially dangerous operations. He did need its assistance, however, in such 

areas as contingency planning, communications, and force protection. If the unit 

were under his control during its rotation through the training center, he would be 

in a position to use—but not abuse—its assets in support of Task Force Atlantic. 

Hale’s other concern stemmed from the fact that any battalion going through the 

jungle school had combat missions to perform should Blue Spoon or the JTFPanama fragmentary order be executed. In either contingency, one company from 

the JOTC battalion would be placed under Hale’s operational control; the remainder 

of the unit would be assigned to Task Force Bayonet. Because preparing for those 

combat missions was one priority of the JOTC battalion and because Hale was the 

senior commander in the north responsible for contingency operations, he insisted 

that any battalion at the center come under his operational control for purposes of 

training. In mid-June, he raised the matter with Loeffke, who agreed.44

One command and control relationship required no clarification under a 

reorganized JTF-Panama: each of the three task force commanders answered 

to Loeffke on operational matters. As commander of USARSO’s 193d Infantry 

Brigade, Bolt was accustomed to the arrangement, while Doyle had the experience 

of previous MARFOR commanders to draw upon. Hale adapted quickly, although 

he had to make some adjustments in the content of his staff’s daily reports to Fort 

Ord. Designed to keep division headquarters abreast of the 9th Infantry’s activities, 

the reports contained a wealth of information, including current intelligence 

estimates. As a courtesy, Hale provided JTF-Panama information copies of the 

messages, only to be told after a few days to omit the intelligence section in his 

reports to the division. This was in keeping with reporting procedures agreed 

upon by the Southern Command and JTF-Panama in 1988, which stipulated 

that all crisis-related intelligence had to be channeled through Fort Clayton and 

Quarry Heights. Hale complied, only to have 7th Infantry Division headquarters 

chide him for the omissions. Since he had to follow Loeffke’s orders on the issue, 

Hale suggested that, to obtain intelligence reports, the division chief of staff talk 

directly to his JTF-Panama counterpart, Colonel Rossi.45

Some areas of potential friction between the JTF-Panama headquarters and the 

newly arrived commanders and staff officers were not so readily smoothed over, 

as was evidenced by the difficulties encountered in staff coordination. Soon after 

taking command of Task Force Atlantic, Hale observed that, initially, his greatest 

problem was simply learning to whom he had to talk and on what phone line. That 

was to be expected. What confounded some officers new to the theater, however, 

44 Quote from Hale Interv, 16 Jun 89. Memos, Col David R. E. Hale for CDR, JTF-Panama, 11 

Jun 89, sub: Operating Procedures for JOTC Training Battalion, and Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke for 

CDR, MARFOR, et al., 16 Jun 89, sub: Mission Guidance. 45 Hale Interv, 16 Jun 89.
181

Operation Nimrod Dancer

were the obstacles they ran into even after they had learned what numbers to call. 

“So we talk to everybody that we think we can talk to and things don’t work 

out,” one Marine staff officer complained. The source of the problem, he indicated, 

was the joint task force itself. Despite the deeper shade of purple the presence 

of additional Navy and Marine liaison officers briefly lent to the emergency 

operations center at Fort Clayton during the early days of Nimrod Dancer, 

JTF-Panama was still predominantly an Army headquarters woefully understaffed 

for joint operations. And it would remain so unless Prayer Book contingency 

plans were executed. In the meantime, USARSO’s theater and administrative 

responsibilities as a SOUTHCOM component and a major Army command could 

not go unattended. Under these hectic conditions, coordination among the various 

staffs and components that constituted JTF-Panama was frequently the result of 

fortuitous circumstances rather than routine procedures.46

This was often the case in the area of training, which, as many of the forces 

entering Panama were surprised to learn, would be their top priority in the crisis. 

In the year since JTF-Panama had been activated, Loeffke’s enthusiasm for joint 

training had only increased. The reasons soon became clear to the recent arrivals. 

Joint training acclimated them to the physical and operational environment in 

Panama. It also offered all involved the opportunity to work with their sister 

services and to become familiar with the array of resources that would be available 

for the conduct of combat operations. Most important, joint training enhanced the 

readiness of the troops to execute contingency plans; indeed, training events known 

as Purple Storms were still “rehearsals” in many respects, designed to approximate 

the movements and missions assigned to JTF-Panama units in the Prayer Book

and the emergency fragmentary order.

Coordinating training events, as well as other joint activities, sometimes 

proved frustrating for the newcomers. As in the past, Loeffke offered general 

suggestions at the daily JTF‐Panama update meetings, and operations officers 

conferred in anticipation of his recommendations. But as his guidance worked its 

way down through the components and staff offices of his expanded command, 

different interpretations of his remarks sometimes surfaced. Reconciling these 

often entailed last-minute redrafting of the orders affected, which then had to be 

briefed to Lt. Col. Brett Francis, Cope’s chief of operations, and, on occasion, 

to Cope himself. When the time came for execution, staff officers found that 

the operational details had not always been disseminated in a timely way. One 

possible solution, having the units involved coordinate laterally—for example, 

S–3 to S–3—risked leaving key personnel uninformed and sacrificing unity of 

command. Recurring problems of coordination sometimes led to confusion among 

the units scheduled to participate in a joint training event or operation. In one case, 

according to a Marine staff officer, “We not only caught the PDF by surprise; we 

caught the 193d as well.” When asked about command and control arrangements, 

Francis conceded that “I think it’s fair to say that [they are] confused,” although he 

rightfully attributed some of the problems to commanders and staff officers who, 

46 Intervs, author with Hale, 16 Jun 89, and Doyle, 14 Jun 89. The quote from the Marine staff 

officer is from Interv, author with Maj Rick L. Horvath, USMC, 14 Jun 89, Rodman Naval Station, 

Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

182

for the sake of convenience, knowingly circumvented both the chain of command 

and JTF-Panama procedures.47

The demands Nimrod Dancer placed on JTF-Panama were enormous, not 

just in the area of operations but throughout the headquarters. Officers from the 

principal staff directorates at Fort Clayton worked long hours under considerable 

stress and with seemingly dwindling resources. Only two days after the election, 

the USARSO and JTF-Panama crisis action teams had been reduced in size, as 

component commanders and even some USARSO deputy chiefs of staff, under 

pressure themselves to meet a variety of requirements, recalled their liaison 

officers and representatives from Clayton’s operations center. Other desperately 

needed personnel were being sent home under Blade Jewel, the code name for an 

operation—executed simultaneously with the Nimrod Dancer buildup of combat 

units—to reduce the number of U.S. military members and their dependents 

stationed in Panama. Requests submitted to beef up the joint task force headquarters 

with active duty augmentees made little headway, although several captains, a few 

majors, and at least one lieutenant colonel were sent from the reserve component 

to help out. Among the new arrivals, few were familiar with the crisis, or the 

organizations and people involved in it. Furthermore, in Francis’ opinion, the 

captains and majors were being thrown into “an arena they cannot comprehend,” 

mainly because “they don’t have the lower-level experience . . . to truly grow into 

it.”48 In the meantime, higher headquarters and subordinate units alike still expected 

Loeffke’s people to provide them a steady flow of timely and current information. 

Pressure also increased on JTF-Panama planners and operations officers to write, 

revise, and disseminate a succession of operation orders for contingencies, joint 

operations, and training events. Finally, combat units coming into Panama as part 

of the Nimrod Dancer buildup looked to JTF-Panama to provide them liaison 

officers and logistical assistance.

Logistics, as Col. Norman D. Higginbotham, JTF-Panama’s J–4, commented 

with a sense of resignation, has been too often regarded by commanders and planners 

alike as a “peripheral” concern. Yet, without logistical support, “you’re not going 

anywhere.” This truism was embedded in the orders for Nimrod Dancer, which 

spelled out, at least in general terms, the supplies and support each deploying unit 

would need. But combat and support units do not always deploy together, in that 

the former usually enjoy a higher priority on the transport schedules than the latter. 

In these cases, the combat troops go in first with minimum support and arrange for 

the logisticians to follow. Nimrod Dancer offered no exception. Consequently, the 

mechanized and light infantry battalions setting up shop in Panama relied heavily 

at first on USARSO’s logistical system.49

47 Michaelis Interv, 7 Jun 89. First quote from Interv, author with Horvath, 14 Jun 89. Second 

quote from Interv, author with Lt Col Brett Francis, U.S. Army, 9 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 48 Francis Interv, 9 Jun 89. In one touch of irony, the Blade Jewel drawdown itself siphoned 

off staff officers, clerks, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men needed to help run the Panama 

Relocation Center set up to process the departure of those Army personnel and dependents directed 

to leave Panama as part of the operation. 49 Higginbotham’s remarks from Interv, author with Col Norman D. Higginbotham, 30 

May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. On the issue of Nimrod Dancer logistics, see Msgs, CINCSO to 

USCINCLANT et al., 120445Z May 89, sub: USCINCSO OPORDER 1–89 (Nimrod Dancer), and 

CDR, USARSO, to Chief of Staff, Army, 142230Z May 89, sub: Update 25, Arrival of Forces.
183

Operation Nimrod Dancer

By the end of May 1989, that system was stretched to the limit, with U.S. 

Army, South, providing logistical assistance to 4,000 service personnel in Panama 

over what it would normally support. Trucks were needed to transport troops and 

supplies. Rations had to be delivered. Laundry and mail facilities were essential to 

troop morale. Communications equipment was necessary to facilitate command 

and control and daily operations. “We have lost a good deal of flexibility with 

key USARSO resources—particularly ground transportation and communication 

equipment,” a JTF‐Panama staff officer observed in summarizing the situation. 

“We are now working in 3 arenas when we normally work in only one.” Besides 

routine support to USARSO units, the command was also having to support the 

deploying forces, as well as the service personnel and dependents relocating 

from Panama City onto U.S. bases. In the face of these demands, Higginbotham 

predicted that, should the crisis worsen, U.S. Army, South, would have to bring 

in at least a transportation company, a service company, and a backup general 

supply base.50

There was yet another logistical issue with which U.S. Army, South, and 

JTF‐Panama had to contend. For over a year, since the first contingency plans 

had postulated a buildup of U.S. forces in Panama, planners and logisticians had 

been pondering where the additional troops would be billeted, given the shortage 

of living facilities that already existed. Now, in May, the combined impact of 

the incoming Nimrod Dancer units and the surge of U.S. service personnel and 

families pouring onto U.S. bases brought those concerns to a head. U.S. Army, 

South, and JTF‐Panama did what they could to accommodate the influx. On the 

Atlantic side, USARSO worked with Hale’s brigade headquarters to obtain the 

necessary tenting for the troops and supplies. On the Pacific side, the command 

provided two air‐conditioned “bubbles”—inflatable structures that could house up 

to two hundred soldiers each—for the mechanized elements at Camp Rousseau. 

To ease the housing and billeting crisis further, JTF-Panama, through the Southern 

Command, also requested that the Air Force send Harvest Eagle and Harvest Bare 

shelters to Panama. Harvest Eagle, which began arriving in mid-May, consisted of 

“tent cities” designed for temporary occupancy. Harvest Bare, on the other hand, 

consisted of more durable, accordion-like prefabricated units that, when unfolded 

and set up, could be used over a longer period as housing, dining, showering, and 

latrine facilities. Harvest Bare units began arriving in Panama in late May, after the 

Joint Chiefs authorized their use, and they were erected primarily at Howard Air 

Force Base to house the overflow of troops and civilians.51

The biggest adjustment Nimrod Dancer forces had to make was to the nature 

of the crisis itself. Prior to President Bush’s announcement on 11 May, television 

news coverage of the election had graphically depicted the bloody breakdown of 

law and order in the streets of Panama City. The president’s words themselves 

heightened the sense of danger and impending conflict, as did the fact that U.S. 

troops were actually being deployed. Taken together, these images and impressions 

led many soldiers and marines en route to Panama to assume that they would 

50 Quotes from Note, USARSO Staff Officer, n.d. Higginbotham Interv, 30 May 89.

51 Tropic Times, 9 Jun 89, 31 May 89; Karhohs Interv, 8 Mar 90; Msg, SOUTHCOM J–3 to JCS 

J–3 CAT, 130355Z May 89, sub: Harvest Eagle/Prime Beef Augmentation; Log, SOUTHCOM CAT, 

17 May 89; Daily Operational Update, SOUTHCOM, 17 May 89; Log, SOUTHCOM CAT, 18 May 

89; Msg, SOUTHCOM J–3 to NMC, 210420Z May 89, sub: Sitrep 26.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

184

soon be engaged in mortal combat with the Panama Defense Forces and Dignity 

Battalions. Others anticipated being immersed in utter chaos. Calmer assessments 

envisioned at best a tense situation. 

The last prognosis proved the most accurate. By the time the marines, light 

fighters, and mechanized elements arrived in Panama, the capital was “tense 

but quiet.” On 13 May, Bush publicly called on the Panamanian people and the 

Panama Defense Forces to “do everything they can” to oust Noriega, but neither 

group appeared eager to accommodate the president. In Panama City, incidents of 

petty harassment against Americans declined dramatically, while U.S. intelligence 

sources reported that the Panamanian armed forces seemed to be “operating under 

rules to avoid conflict with U.S. elements.” Rumors spread throughout the capital 

that political prisoners in the Carcel Modelo were being tortured, but there was 

no mass demonstration in protest. The opposition did schedule a general strike 

for 17 May, but a disappointing response produced only a slowdown in business 

activity. The same day, the Organization of American States passed a resolution by 

a vote of 20 to 2, formally condemning Noriega’s abuses but also warning against 

outside intervention in the internal affairs of a member state. In keeping with the 

resolution’s call for “a transfer of power . . . with full respect to the sovereign 

will of the Panamanian people,” the organization decided to send a diplomatic 

team to Panama to assist in the changeover. The Noriega regime denounced the 

resolution, while opposition leaders, which U.S. officials privately characterized 

as “cowed,” called for rallies when the OAS delegation arrived on 23 May. 

Although few believed that the inter-American organization could engineer an 

agreement satisfactory to the principal parties, news of the mission afforded all 

sides a welcome breathing space. Thus, as Nimrod Dancer units began arriving in 

Panama, there was much news concerning the crisis but little disruptive activity. 

So calm did the situation appear from mid- to late May that newly arrived troops 

questioned whether they were really needed.52

As was the case with the security enhancement units rotating through Panama 

the previous year, the forces deploying for Nimrod Dancer had to adapt to a 

crisis in the Twilight Zone. Although American lives, property, and interests in 

Panama were at risk, there was no war or even the likelihood of one. The majority 

of Panamanians were friendly or indifferent, while the Panama Defense Forces 

and Dignity Battalions were keeping a low profile. In this tense but restrained 

environment, daily operations consisted largely (but not entirely) of guard duty, 

routine patrols, exercises, and a lot of police-type work, prompting Colonel Hale 

at one point to remark, not completely in jest, that he would gladly trade one of 

his rifle companies for a military police company. As during the first two years of 

the crisis, political considerations often determined military activities and virtually 

all operations were in some way politically sensitive. A company commander’s 

52 Tropic Times, 15 May 89; Buckley, Panama, pp. 186–87; Chronology, n.d., entry for 13 May 

89, 1345 EDT, and 15 May 89, 1351 EDT; Msgs, AmEmb to SecState, 12 May 89, sub: Torture, 

Business and Opposition Press Conference; SecState to Distribution, 18 May 89, sub: Situation 

Report; SOUTHCOM J–3 to Distribution, 20 May 89, sub: Situation Update; CDR [JSOTF] to 

JTF-Panama, 152235Z May 89, sub: COMJSOTF DISUM 005; CDR [JSOTF] to JTF-Panama, 

172100Z May 89, sub: COMJSOTF DISUM 07; CDR [JSOTF] to JTF-Panama, 202100Z May 89, 

sub: COMJSOTF DISUM 10; CDR [JSOTF] to JTF-Panama, 232100Z May 89, sub: COMJSOTF 

DISUM 13.
185

Operation Nimrod Dancer

operation orders, so the speculation went, sometimes had to be approved by 

the secretary of defense. There were restrictive rules of engagement and other 

operational constraints to assimilate, and the legal restrictions on the movement 

and activities of U.S. forces were complicated and numerous. There were also 

cultural differences with which one had to contend. The situation, in short, was 

complex, ambiguous, and fluid. Adapting to it would require maturity, flexibility, 

and discipline.

Of the incoming troops, the marines were perhaps the best informed about 

what to expect, able as they were to draw on the experience of the MARFOR 

units that had preceded them. This knowledge, however, did not make the rules 

of engagement and other constraints any less frustrating. The Army light fighters, 

for their part, were supposed to be ideally suited for low intensity conflict, but 

their experience at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, 

had been at the “combat end” of the spectrum, strictly force-on-force with no 

holds barred, as opposed to a politico-military simulation featuring a large civilian 

presence. The soldiers thus found themselves unprepared for “day-to-day existence 

in an environment where you’re not going to see the enemy.” As for the troops 

in the mechanized battalion, what they encountered in Panama bore little or no 

resemblance to any of the conventional operations for which they had trained. 

According to Colonel Hale, the process of adapting to the militarily unorthodox 

situation in Panama entailed, first, accepting the environment, then becoming 

increasingly proficient at operating in it.53

The program for integrating the new units into JTF-Panama and acclimating 

them to an unfamiliar and unorthodox environment was extensive if not always 

efficient, given the daily demands of crisis management. Senior commanders were 

briefed about the crisis upon their arrival.54 After that, they could rely on their staffs 

and the daily JTF-Panama meeting to keep them abreast of current developments. 

As for the troops, the reception plan drawn up by JTF-Panama called for each 

incoming unit to be briefed. For the marines, Colonel Doyle set up an orientation 

program that included a “welcome aboard” briefing on the history of Panama, the 

background and nature of the crisis, the organization of MARFOR-Panama, the 

rules of engagement, the modus operandi of intruders on the Arraiján Tank Farm 

and Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, operations security, training programs, 

command policies, leave, and recreational opportunities and prohibitions. 

Likewise, Colonel Bolt met with the first elements of the mechanized battalion the 

day after they arrived to acquaint them with the crisis and assure them that they 

would receive the training they needed to perform their mission. Briefings to other 

units covered similar ground, some more thoroughly than others. The immediate 

scheduling of joint training events also accelerated the process of adjustment and 

acclimation, as did the efforts of Panama-based military policemen, staff officers, 

53 Intervs, author with Horvath, 14 Jun 89, and Hale, 16 Jun 89. Quote from Karhohs Interv, 

8 Mar 90. Discussion notes, author with Col David R. E. Hale, 28 Sep 89, LICPRO Office, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. 54 For Hale, his meeting with Loeffke was not soon enough. The minute he stepped onto the 

tarmac at Howard, he was asked to meet with the international press corps assembled there. After this 

awkward introduction to the crisis, he went off to meet with Loeffke. One of the 7th Infantry Division 

staff officers already in Panama maintained that JTF‐Panama should have had someone present to 

brief Hale at the air base. Intervs, author with Hale, 16 Jun 89, and Killblane, 21 Jun 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

186

and public affairs personnel to answer questions and disseminate information. In 

assessing the orientation program, Loeffke regretted that he could not make one 

change, the lowering of Personnel Movement Limitation Charlie back down to 

Alpha, a measure that would have allowed the new troops to go downtown where 

they could mingle with the Panamanian people and get to know them.55

Once Nimrod Dancer units received their orientation briefings and other 

pertinent information, they began the process of applying what they had learned. 

At Camp Rousseau, the mechanized battalion reworked its mission essential task 

list to incorporate nontraditional requirements necessitated by the crisis. At Fort 

Sherman, Hale told the press that, along with such routine concerns as operations 

security and perimeter defense, he was also emphasizing the troops’ need to learn 

the rules of engagement.56 Progress along these and other lines proved impressive, 

even though the reception programs and adaptation activities could not close the 

perceptual gap that, from the outset of the Nimrod Dancer buildup, separated 

the forces already stationed in Panama from the newcomers. To the former, the 

crisis had become a routine part of everyday life, a largely political confrontation 

in which Washington used the U.S. military to send signals to the other side, 

protect American interests, and keep the situation under control. A slide into open 

hostilities could not be discounted, but on a daily basis the more likely threat a 

U.S. soldier, airman, or sailor faced was harassment by a PDF tránsito. Under 

these conditions, to be ready for any contingency, to be able to respond to the 

surges in the crisis, but also to be able to back off during the periods of calm 

were the skills and flexibility required of American forces. Conversely, to go on a 

permanent war footing was neither cost effective nor psychologically wise, given 

the continuously changing and open-ended nature of the crisis. Such a posture 

might also inadvertently provoke the kind of military escalation that the Southern 

Command and JTF-Panama hoped to avoid.

Many Panama-based U.S. officers who embraced this assessment not 

surprisingly regarded some of the new troops as being too “warlike.” The light 

fighters seemed the worst offenders. As part of their “persona,” they donned “rag 

pots” (kevlar helmets with strips of cloth attached) and face paint, accouterments 

employed for camouflage but also intended to present a “fierce” image. When 

these painted “warriors” stepped off their transports at Howard, the JTF-Panama 

commander and staff had been appalled. Colonel Cope, concerned about the 

impression their appearance would have on the Panamanian people and the 

Panama Defense Forces, tried through channels to explain the “idiosyncrasies” 

of the 7th Infantry Division to the Panamanian military. But Cisneros, always 

more inclined than other top staff officers to put additional pressure on the 

Noriega regime, stopped the message. Subsequent efforts directed at Hale to 

have his soldiers don what JTF-Panama headquarters regarded as attire more 

appropriate to the situation met with strong resistance, from both the colonel 

and the division commander, Maj. Gen. Carmen Cavezza, who was adamant 

that combat troops should look like combat troops. The rag pot and face paint, 

55 Intervs, author with Doyle, 14 Jun 89, and Loeffke, 31 May 89; Telephone Interv, author 

with Capt Anthony M. Schilling, U.S. Army, 30 Nov 90; Tropic Times, 19 May 89. Also the author 

attended two orientation briefings, one given by Colonel Doyle, the other by Colonel Michaelis. 56 Tropic Times, 19 May 89; Interv, author with Col Robert Barefield, 7 Nov 90, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.
187

Operation Nimrod Dancer

which Cavezza associated with discipline and the warrior ethos, conveyed the 

troops’ determination to meet any kind of challenge. On 22 May, the general flew 

to Panama to visit Hale’s troops and to help “cement” relations between Task 

Force Atlantic and JTF-Panama. In a meeting between Cavezza and Loeffke, 

the issue of the rag pots and camouflage surfaced. Believing accommodation 

more conducive to harmony and efficiency than fiat, Loeffke acquiesced. At the 

next JTF-Panama update meeting, Hale arrived, as he had before, with his face 

painted black and green, his rag pot under his arm, and a 9-mm. pistol in a 

shoulder holster.57

When faced with criticism about the appearance and demeanor of their troops, 

commanders of the newly arrived marines and soldiers retorted that allegations 

concerning a “go-to-war” mind-set were grossly exaggerated. What the troops 

based in Panama had to realize, they argued, was that, in President Bush’s 

assessment, the crisis had reached such dangerous proportions as to require the 

deployment of additional combat units. The troops in these units, therefore, needed 

to prepare for any operational contingency. What might appear excessive from 

the staff offices of Fort Clayton represented, from the perspective of the field, 

nothing more than essential precautions. If the barbed-wire defensive perimeters 

surrounding areas occupied by the new forces stood in stark contrast to the less 

visible security measures in place at most U.S. bases in Panama, then so be it. The 

same could be said of the mechanized infantry soldier who, clad in body armor and 

kevlar helmet and holding an M16, stood guard next to an M113 in full view of 

unarmed USARSO soldiers and civilian employees driving to work along Gaillard 

Highway. Incongruous as these and other sights might be, the reasoning behind 

them seemed sound to the new arrivals.

In a replay of yet another aspect of the security enhancement deployments 

of 1988, these differences in perception and perspective became a source of 

considerable friction at the tactical level between those troops based in Panama 

and those who were there as part of the Nimrod Dancer buildup. USARSO soldiers 

were restrained by the same travel restrictions as everyone else, but unlike the 

augmentation forces, they could go home at the end of the day, see the family or 

sweetheart, and have a beer. The newcomers quickly came to resent what they 

interpreted as a “laid back,” “business as usual” approach to the crisis on the part 

of Panama-based troops. In fairness, USARSO units were no less prepared than the 

others under JTF-Panama to respond to any contingency. But to the guard in full 

combat gear at Albrook, to the light fighter in his rag pot and camouflage, and to the 

marines and soldiers denied access to even the simplest pleasures that Panama had 

to offer, leaning forward in the foxhole, as one soldier phrased it, proved difficult 

when you could see everyone around you going to the golf club.58

This resentment took its toll on morale among the augmentation forces. 

But so, too, did other problems, including boredom; adjusting to an unfamiliar, 

ambiguous, and unpredictable environment; being away from friends and families 

57 “Idiosyncrasies” quote from Interv, author with Cope, 25 May 89. Intervs, author with Maj 

Harry Tomlin, U.S. Army, 22 Mar 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and Karhohs, 8 Mar 90. “Persona” 

quote from Interv, author with Hale, 16 Jun 89. Author’s recollection of JTF-Panama update meeting 

during which Colonel Hale appeared as described. 58 Intervs, author with Francis, 9 Jun 89, and Tomlin, 22 Mar 91. Quoted words from Karhohs 

Interv, 8 Mar 90. Killblane Interv, 21 Jun 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

188

in the United States; personal problems having little to do with the crisis; and, 

initially at least, not knowing “When am I going home?” Marines had had a year 

to build and refine various programs to bolster morale, and, once headquarters 

elements from the mechanized battalion and 7th Infantry Division arrived in 

Panama, they, too, initiated activities that allowed the soldier to shed his uniform 

periodically and go swimming, watch movies, take part in athletic events, go on 

picnics or to the snack bar, or have a barbecue. Yet, beneficial as these efforts 

were, some soldiers experienced severe levels of stress and frustration. One Task 

Force Atlantic company commander had two of his men “explode in fits of anger,” 

with one taking a rifle butt to furniture and other items, and the other, a sergeant, 

flinging his tray and food across the mess hall. When the captain asked a senior 

officer if these episodes were unique to his company, the reply was, “It’s across 

the board.” A noncommissioned officer with the mechanized troops offered a 

similar assessment: “Morale sucks.” As Army officers newly arrived on the scene 

quickly realized, maintaining troop morale in an uncertain environment would tax 

their leadership techniques and skills to the utmost. Complicating the task was 

the fact that several officers, especially below field grade level, were themselves 

experiencing the psychological stress of operating on the unorthodox fringes of 

the Twilight Zone, in conditions that seemed to sap the self-esteem they acquired 

from being warriors.59

Harbinger: The “Invasion” of Fort Espinar

Contributing to the stress experienced in the early days of Nimrod Dancer

was a feeling that, no matter how calm the situation in Panama appeared and no 

matter how determined each side was to avoid open hostilities, every daily “milk 

run,” in the words of one officer, contained a “potential flash point.” The validity 

of that observation was brought home the night of 18 May 1989 in what became 

sardonically known as the “invasion” of Fort Espinar.

Soon after troops from the 7th Infantry Division arrived on the Atlantic 

side, a decision was made to move most of the 2d Battalion, 9th Infantry, onto 

Fort Davis, a U.S. base, with the battalion’s Company B going instead to Fort 

Espinar, a military area of coordination in which the PDF’s 8th Infantry Company 

was billeted right next to an American family housing area. The movement of 

Company B would involve about 140 combat troops, military policemen, logistics 

and communication personnel, and engineers. To minimize the possibility of an 

unwanted confrontation with the PDF company, Colonel Hale and his staff held 

a number of “skull sessions” trying to anticipate anything that might go wrong. 

Working in their favor and promising to help avoid trouble was the fact that, en 

route to Fort Espinar, the troops would traverse a highway that, under the canal 

treaty, was considered Panamanian territory. This meant that the Panama Defense 

Forces would be obliged to provide an escort for the column. On Tuesday, 16 May, 

U.S. officials notified the Combined Board about the convoy, stating that the move 

would take place the next day. The PDF members balked, arguing that they had not 

received the customary 24-hour notice. Although the canal treaty did not specify 

the time required for advance notification, the Americans decided not to press the 

point, in part out of concern for precipitating an incident while the Organization 

59 Discussion notes, author with Hale, 28 Sep 89; Killblane Interv, 21 Jun 89.
189

Operation Nimrod Dancer

of American States was meeting in Washington to discuss the crisis. Company B’s 

move was therefore postponed until Thursday.60

At 1700 Thursday, the company assembled for departure. The PDF escort 

arrived twenty minutes later, and the passage from Fort Davis to the Fort Espinar 

officers’ club, Company B’s new headquarters, took place without incident. Then, 

despite all the planning and prior coordination, the situation took a dramatic turn 

for the worse. The PDF 8th Infantry Company, described by Cope as “jittery to 

begin with,” was not accustomed to having U.S. troops other than MPs inside 

Espinar. Furthermore, the 8th Company’s commander apparently had been led to 

believe that the troops scheduled to enter the post would be a small group from 

the 29th Military Intelligence Battalion—a familiar unit on the Atlantic side—not 

over a hundred soldiers from the “2-9th Infantry.” Faced with U.S. combat troops 

wearing face paint and rag pots, and the presence of HMMWVs with mounted 

machine guns, the 8th Infantry Company “went ballistic.” Word quickly reached 

Company B that the PDF unit was setting up mortars. In response, Task Force 

Atlantic began training its artillery pieces on Fort Espinar. The tubes, located at 

Forts Davis and Sherman, had the capability of locating the source of rounds fired 

from enemy mortars. Attack helicopters from Task Force Hawk were also readied 

for action. As an additional measure, JTF-Panama called for an AC–130 gunship. 

The first confrontation to arise out of Operation Nimrod Dancer was under way.61

For several tense hours, U.S. officers monitoring the standoff could not tell 

whether their formidable show of force would compel the PDF to back down. In 

the operations center at Fort Clayton, Colonel Rossi personally got on the telephone 

with the watch officer at the Comandancia, Capt. Moisés Cortizo, commander of 

the PDF 5th Infantry Company. Cortizo, often quite vocal in his anti-American 

sentiments, ended up urging restraint. “We are not at war,” he told Rossi, adding 

that both sides had to consider the welfare of the Panamanian people and avoid 

rash actions. After further discussion, reports reached JTF-Panama that the PDF 

company at Fort Espinar was beginning to stand down. By midnight the incident 

was over.62

The “invasion” of Fort Espinar raised serious concerns about an unanticipated 

flash point escalating into hostilities that neither side wanted. One reason for 

moving Company B into the fort had been to establish a military presence at a site 

targeted in JTF-Panama contingency plans. Another reason, the one made public, 

had been to demonstrate that the United States, under the canal treaty, had the right 

to station forces at Espinar. Throughout the crisis, the Panama Defense Forces had 

regularly violated provisions of the treaty. The Southern Command, as previously 

recounted, had submitted written protests over each violation but, under directives 

from Washington, had not sought to challenge the PDF militarily. That approach 

was now changing and, as the Fort Espinar incident revealed, so, too, were the 

risks involved. 

60 Quotes from Interv, author with Karhohs, 8 Mar 90. Intervs, Heystek with Karhohs, 26 May 

89; author with Hale, 16 Jun 89; and Cope, 25 May 89. 61 Intervs, Heystek with Karhohs, 26 May 89; author with Karhohs, 8 Mar 90; Loeffke, 31 May 

89. Cope’s quote from Interv, author with Cope, 25 May 89. 62 Karhohs Interv, 26 May 89. Cortizo’s entreaty was written on a blackboard in the Fort Clayton 

operations center.

I I I

7

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

May–June 1989

Two days after he announced the reinforcement of U.S. troops in Panama, 

President Bush met with reporters aboard Air Force One. In his comments, 

he touched on the prospects for resolving the two-year crisis, expressing his hope 

that the Panama Defense Forces would remove Noriega from power. Calling 

for the overthrow of a foreign dictator is not a routine presidential entreaty, but 

neither is it unique. The real news to come out of the session was what Bush 

left unsaid. He made no threat of military action against Panama’s regime. The 

ouster of Noriega was for the Panamanians to arrange; it was not an objective 

of Operation Nimrod Dancer. Pentagon officials beginning with Admiral Crowe 

underscored this position in statements downplaying the chances for war. “The 

last thing we need to do is bomb and invade,” one senior officer informed a 

Washington Post reporter.1

Until the veracity of the administration’s temperate pronouncements could 

be tested, news agencies that had covered the 7 May 1989 election and its 

violent aftermath kept a spotlight on the crisis. For the troops deploying under 

Nimrod Dancer, this meant learning to cope with intrusive media coverage 

of their arrival and initial activities in Panama. Colonel Hale had to make the 

adjustment more quickly than most. As soon as he stepped off the plane at 

Howard Air Force Base, a waiting escort officer hustled him over to a nearby 

assemblage of the international press for an impromptu news conference. 

The unsuspecting colonel referred frequently to his mission statement, which 

emphasized U.S. rights and the protection of American citizens, to get through 

a barrage of questions, including the leadoff query, “Why are you invading 

Panama?” The marines, for their part, showed themselves old hands at dealing 

with the media. Soon after the company from Camp Lejeune arrived, Marine 

Forces-Panama staged an amphibious landing for the benefit of the cameras, 

prompting half-critical, half-admiring comments from Army officers on the 

Leathernecks’ knack for “photo-ops.”2

In the ensuing days, as Nimrod Dancer units took up their positions and 

began performing what appeared to be rather routine duties, most reporters 

1 New York Times, 14 May 89, p. 1. Quote from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, p. 48.

2 Interv, author with Col David Hale, U.S. Army, 16 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Conversations, 

author with Army officers who commented on the Marines’ “photo-op.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

192

concluded that war, in fact, was not in the offing and that the incoming troops 

had deployed, as indicated in the president’s 11 May message, mainly to protect 

American lives and property (Chart 5). Several commentators lauded Bush for 

his cautious, yet sensible handling of the crisis, while the news media in general 

turned their attention to OAS mediation efforts, to certain well-publicized U.S. 

military exercises in Panama, and to stories breaking elsewhere in the world. 

By the third week in May, press coverage of the postelection crisis had dropped 

to the point where the confrontation at Fort Espinar on 18 May went virtually 

undetected, which is to say, unreported. To be sure, the evacuation of American 

dependents proceeded without letup; Ambassador Davis, an announcement 

stated, would not return to the U.S. Embassy in Panama City; and reports 

continued to circulate that several opposition members arrested during public 

protests against the regime were being tortured by their captors. Still, all this 

sobering news was overshadowed by other outward indications that the tension 

in Panama was abating and, together with it, the possibility of hostilities between 

U.S. and Panamanian forces. 

Ironically, just as the news media were losing interest in Nimrod Dancer, U.S. 

forces in Panama were preparing to adopt a more assertive—some on the scene 

even used the term provocative—posture, a part of the tougher policy U.S. officials 

had agreed in advance to implement in the event Noriega stole the Panamanian 

elections. Beginning in late May, the range and intensity of U.S. military activities 

in Panama increased dramatically. Outside Panama, few Americans were aware of 

the change in course.

Triad and Fissures II

As the Bush administration prepared to increase the pressure on Noriega 

and his regime, General Woerner and his staff at the Southern Command once 

again recommended that a tougher military posture be but one part of a more 

comprehensive strategy for ending the crisis. In a message to Admiral Crowe 

drafted in mid-May, Woerner began by asserting that the United States faced its 

best opportunity thus far to dislodge the Panamanian dictator. “To accomplish 

our objectives,” he continued, “all three legs of what I would like to term as the 

Panama Triad—enhanced U.S. force presence, international support/pressure, and 

opposition activities—must work in synchronization.” In the remainder of the 

message, Woerner elaborated on the triad concept and the relationship of each leg 

to the other two.3

The first leg, the increased U.S. military presence in Panama, afforded the 

United States an opportunity to intimidate the Panamanian military. The tougher 

policy put into play by Nimrod Dancer called on U.S. troops to initiate a variety 

of activities to assert U.S. rights under the canal treaties. If properly conducted, 

these initiatives could “create fear and dissension in PDF ranks through the 

suggestion of the unknown.” Noriega and the Panama Defense Forces, in 

other words, should always be concerned “with US military action directed at 

them.” The United States, however, had to be careful. Military activities had 

to be orchestrated in such a way as to preclude Noriega’s deflecting attention 

3 Unless otherwise noted, the presentation—including quotes—that follows Woerner’s “triad” 

strategy is from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, [15] May 89, sub: Panama Triad.
Joint Task ForcePanama

Navy Forces Marine Forces

Task Force Atlantic Task Force Pacific

Army Forces

Special Operations

Forces

Air Force Forces

Chart 5—Joint Task Force-Panama Organization for Nimrod Dancer
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

194

away from the real issue of Panamanian democracy to a bogus but potentially 

emotional issue of U.S. aggression.

As for the second leg of the triad, international pressure and support, Woerner 

(as well as the administration) focused almost exclusively on the activities of the 

Organization of American States following the postelection violence in Panama. 

Most Latin American countries criticized Noriega’s annulment of the election 

and the beating of the opposition members, but these public denunciations were 

usually coupled with expressions of concern about outside (meaning U.S.) military 

activities and interference in Panamanian affairs.4

 Deliberations in the OAS reflected 

this traditional tension between a desire to take collective action in response to a 

member’s unacceptable behavior and the need to uphold the principle of national 

sovereignty, especially against infringements by the United States, a country with 

a long record of intervention in Latin America. As a result, U.S. efforts to obtain a 

strongly worded statement against Noriega were only partially successful, despite 

pressure exerted by the Bush administration on the organization’s delegates meeting 

in Washington. On 17 May, the organization passed a resolution that condemned 

Noriega by name and called for a transfer of power to the Panamanian people. 

Of the resolution, one commentator later wrote, “The language was so tame that 

even Jorge Ritter, Noriega’s foreign minister, called it fair.” To help implement the 

resolution, the OAS voted to send a commission to Panama.5

Woerner termed the OAS resolution “reassuring,” even though he held little 

hope that the diplomatic démarche by itself could produce a solution to the crisis. 

In his opinion, the involvement of the Organization of American States served 

mainly to internationalize the situation, offer moral support to any U.S. effort to 

back the opposition in Panama, keep Noriega from casting the crisis in terms of a 

small nation beset by the colossus of the north (the real crisis being a beleaguered 

people beset by a ruthless dictator), and provide a “fig leaf” for U.S. actions in 

general.6

 If the United States hoped to capitalize fully on this regional support, 

Washington again had to be careful, avoiding any actions that could be construed 

as a unilateral attempt to impose a solution. Specifically, Congress should not move 

to reexamine the status of the canal treaties, and U.S. military forces in Panama 

should not engage in any provocative actions while protecting American lives and 

property and asserting U.S. treaty rights.

Concerning the third leg of the triad, the Panamanian opposition, the scheduled 

visit to Panama of an OAS delegation in late May would, in Woerner’s words, 

provide a “security blanket” for the regime’s critics to take to the streets. By 

moving “boldly and massively,” opposition leaders could wear down Noriega and 

the Panama Defense Forces; if, however, the opposition failed to assert itself, it 

could negate the advantages generated by the other legs of the triad. Woerner was 

4 A list of messages from U.S. embassies throughout Latin America to the State Department, 

together with a summary of each message, is contained in a Chronology prepared during the election 

crisis. As the summaries in this Chronology reveal, most Latin American governments expressed 

mixed feelings about the situation in Panama, combining criticism of the regime with concerns about 

U.S. military intentions. 5 On the response of the Organization of American States to the annulment of the Panamanian 

election, see Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 183. Quote from Buckley, Panama, pp. 185–88. 6 Interv, author with General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans.
195

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

not optimistic. At this “most critical juncture of the crisis,” he stated, the opposition 

was not “doing its part.” The general strike it had called was a failure, and it was 

not filling the streets with outraged citizens. The basic problem, as Woerner saw it, 

was that the United States had no formal procedures for synchronizing opposition 

activity with U.S. actions. “We must develop this mechanism now,” he argued.

Having explained the triad concept, Woerner turned his attention to U.S. policy 

making at the interagency level, once again urging officials in Washington to 

devise and execute a plan to “drive a decisive permanent wedge between Noriega 

and the PDF.” Woerner called such a plan Fissures II, a restatement of the idea and 

terminology he had enunciated during policy discussions over the past year. As 

was the case with the original Fissures proposal, the SOUTHCOM commander 

maintained that Fissures II could not be implemented piecemeal but required 

a series of integrated initiatives executed as part of a comprehensive strategy 

approved and managed at the interagency level.

Looking back from retirement on the crisis as a whole, Woerner later claimed 

that the United States never did come up with “a coherent and attainable strategic 

vision . . . or the institutional capacity within the structure of government—the 

decisive authority composed of political will, and consensus and resources—to 

carry it through.” Because, in his opinion, “most agencies wished to avoid bearing 

the costs of solving the problem,” Washington attempted to achieve the nonviolent 

removal of Noriega from power mainly through “wishful thinking,” with “rhetoric 

outdistancing intentions.”7

 Although the Pentagon supported a well-coordinated, 

interagency effort, the Bush administration, Woerner believed, had missed the 

opportunity afforded it by the Panamanian elections to jettison the limited and 

ineffectual approach of its predecessor in favor of a comprehensive, integrated 

blueprint that matched resources and means to objectives.8

Applying this very general critique to a postmortem of his specific 

recommendations of 1989, Woerner maintained that Fissures II suffered the same 

fate as Fissures I: the piecemeal implementation of disparate measures. As for 

his triad strategy, the synchronization of the three components essential to its 

implementation never occurred. The Panamanian opposition, after the beating it 

took (both literally and figuratively) in the postelection violence, shied from playing 

the active role Woerner deemed commensurate with its goals and responsibilities. 

As for efforts to internationalize the crisis, U.S. arrogance, he contended, prevented 

effective cooperation with the Organization of American States. The United States 

at the time was “on a roll,” having applied pressure unilaterally to remove dictators 

such as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and the young “Baby Doc” Duvalier 

in Haiti. In the hubris of the moment, Washington regarded OAS support for 

removing Noriega—always problematic given most members’ suspicions of U.S. 

motives toward Latin America—as superfluous.9

7 Gabriel Marcella and General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), The Road to War: 

The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 1987–1989, draft article, 6 May 91. 8 On Pentagon preparations for a tougher policy, see Joint Staff Action Processing Form (and 

atchs.), through Director, Joint Staff (DJS), to Asst to CJCS, 13 May 89, sub: Strategy Position Paper 

on Panama; as well as the Atch., Position Paper, J–5 to DJS, 13 May 89, sub: US Strategy and Policy 

in Panama. 9 Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91. In his memoirs, James Baker, Bush’s secretary of state, inadvertently supports this impression, implying that the administration’s support for OAS initiatives was 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

196

Publicly, of course, the administration trumpeted its support for the Panamanian 

opposition and Organization of American States. It also stiffened some existing 

anti-Noriega measures, such as economic sanctions (which Woerner continued 

to view as misguided and misdirected). But most of all, Bush’s tougher policy 

initiatives consisted of using the enhanced U.S. military presence in Panama to 

engage unilaterally in psychological warfare against Noriega and the Panamanian 

military. “We wanted Noriega to believe we were coming if he didn’t leave first,” 

Secretary of State Baker wrote in his memoirs. “More to the point, we also wanted 

to send the PDF a message: Noriega is the problem; either you remove him, or the 

U.S. military will.”10

Throughout March and April, in the discussions leading to this tougher 

policy, Woerner had agreed that the time had come to step up the military 

pressure on Noriega and the Panama Defense Forces. In his triad message, he 

reiterated the specific measures U.S. forces could undertake to this end. These 

recommendations, in keeping with the Fissures concept of spreading disaffection 

within the Panamanian military and driving a wedge between it and the dictator, 

included refining and rehearsing relevant operation plans, maintaining an active 

training posture, mounting a SOUTHCOM public affairs campaign to emphasize 

U.S. military readiness and Noriega’s isolation, continuing a “proactive” effort 

to collect intelligence, especially on Noriega, and vigorously defending U.S. 

treaty rights. Unlike the fate shared by many of Woerner’s nonmilitary proposals, 

virtually all of these measures were implemented to one degree or another. The 

arrival in mid-May of a three-man team from Fort Bragg, led by Maj. Dave 

Huntoon from the XVIII Airborne Corps, signaled the more direct and active part 

the corps would play from that point on in reviewing and revising the existing 

Prayer Book plans, specifically Blue Spoon. Meanwhile, most restrictions 

imposed on U.S. intelligence gathering before and during the elections were 

lifted, thus enabling MI units to put their people back on the streets. Of even 

greater significance, however, were the more aggressive actions American forces 

began to take as a means of reasserting U.S. treaty rights in Panama. 

Reasserting Treaty Rights: Convoys

In his communications with the Pentagon prior to the Panamanian election, 

Woerner had characterized repeated PDF interference with official U.S. 

vehicles and equipment in Panama as clear provocations and treaty violations. 

As one means of reasserting the freedom of movement guaranteed by the canal 

treaty, both he and Ambassador Davis proposed providing armed escorts for 

convoys of U.S. military vehicles. The Southern Command drew up the general 

procedures that an armed convoy would follow, and Woerner submitted them 

to the Pentagon.11 The Joint Staff requested clarification on several points, as a 

rigorous assessment of the risks involved proceeded up the chain to the secretary 

of defense and the White House. Late on 11 May, the Southern Command sent 

the Joint Chiefs a message that added a sense of urgency to the deliberations. The 

lukewarm at best. Washington, he wrote, had to give the Organization of American States a chance, 

“if for no other reason than to make it clear, should force become necessary, that the United States 

had exhausted every peaceful, diplomatic alternative.” Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 183. 10 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 183. 11 For the preelection discussion of freedom of movement and armed convoys, see Chapter 5.
197

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

potential for “state-sponsored violence” against Americans in Panama, Woerner 

claimed, had increased as a result of the country’s internal disturbances. The 

situation was unpredictable, and the possibility existed that elements of the 

Panama Defense Forces would take further actions to restrict U.S. movement, 

including the construction of additional traffic barriers like those set up during 

the election.12

The following night, Woerner received a message stating that the National 

Command Authority had authorized him to defend American citizens in Panama 

and to conduct freedom of movement operations “under the conditions set forth 

herein.” In protecting Americans, he was instructed to use the “minimum degree 

of force necessary” and, then, only if a U.S. citizen was in danger of “serious 

bodily harm.” American property by itself would not be defended, nor could 

U.S. troops use force to protect Americans from minor harassment or from 

Panamanian units performing legitimate activities, such as arresting an American 

for a misdemeanor or serious crime. As for freedom of movement activities, 

the message authorized the use of force, as a last resort, to remove barricades 

or other obstructions blocking access to U.S. defense facilities; it also covered 

procedures the driver of an unescorted official vehicle should follow if stopped 

illegally by Panamanian authorities.13

Accompanying the general directives governing freedom of movement 

operations was specific guidance that also stemmed from the preelection 

exchange of messages between the Southern Command and the Joint Staff. The 

focus was on the armed convoys, which would quickly become the centerpiece 

of the initiative to reassert U.S. treaty rights in Panama. On 5 May, Woerner had 

outlined for Crowe the procedures convoys (four or more official vehicles) with 

armed escorts would follow. A convoy commander would operate under peacetime 

rules of engagement and, if stopped by Panamanian authorities, would produce a 

bilingual card containing in Spanish and English the treaty clause that guaranteed 

official U.S. vehicles unimpeded movement in Panama. If a recitation of the 

legal text failed to have the desired effect, the convoy commander would notify 

his headquarters by radio and, five minutes after that, inform the Panamanian 

officials on the scene that any use of force to detain the convoy further would 

be considered a hostile act and would be countered with armed force. Having 

made this point, the commander would order the convoy to proceed. If necessary, 

U.S. vehicles would push aside any obstacles to their advancement. U.S. troops 

could also employ deadly force if they thought they were in “imminent danger 

of death or serious bodily harm.” This last prospect caused Woerner to propose 

forming a quick reaction force (QRF) capable of being inserted by helicopter to 

reinforce armed convoy escorts facing truly dangerous situations. Ideally, there 

would be no need to deploy this force, as the Panamanian military, according 

to U.S. analysts, would back away from any confrontation that threatened to 

escalate into a firefight. Whatever the PDF reaction, the main point conveyed in 

Woerner’s recommendation was that the convoy would not be detained or turned 

12 Joint Staff Action Processing Form, through DJS to CJCS, n.d. [prepared 12 May 89], sub: 

Assertion of US Treaty Rights in Panama; Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91. Quote from Msg, CINCSO to 

JCS/Joint Staff, 120250Z May 89, sub: Prudent Measures. 13 Msg, CJCS to CINCSO, 122304Z May 89, sub: Procedures for US Assertion of Treaty 

Rights.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

198

back; the United States would no longer tolerate PDF interference in the free 

movement of official U.S. vehicles.14

In notifying the Southern Command on 12 May of the NCA’s authorization 

to conduct freedom of movement operations, Crowe’s message reiterated the 

procedures Woerner had recommended for convoys, slightly modifying or 

emphasizing certain points. For example, while the general had mentioned the use 

of force in response to imminent threats, Crowe’s reply made clear that this included 

not just “hostile actions” by the Panama Defense Forces, but “any demonstrations 

of hostile intent” as well. This amplification was balanced, however, by several 

cautionary notes. Only a convoy commander could declare “hostile intent” by 

the Panamanian military, and “only the minimum force necessary to counter any 

hostile act or hostile intent will be used.” In a similar vein, a convoy commander 

faced with PDF resistance needed to determine “if the risks of proceeding are 

acceptable.”15

In having Crowe convey these points to Woerner, the Bush administration was 

seeking to walk a difficult line between peace and war. The Pentagon was directing 

the Southern Command to assert U.S. treaty rights in an aggressive manner but not 

so aggressive as to start a war. The policy of toughness was calculated to put pressure 

on Noriega and the Panamanian armed forces, not to engage them in hostilities. 

This intent was driven home to Woerner in a secure phone conversation with Crowe 

in mid-May. As Woerner interpreted the exchange, he was to intimidate Noriega, 

show resolve in dealing with the Panama Defense Forces, and act tough. “But,” 

Crowe told him emphatically, “understand that you are to do nothing provocative.” 

To an outsider, such advice might have appeared ambiguous, even contradictory. 

Woerner was not an outsider but a veteran of the crisis. “The worst part about it,” 

he later recalled, referring to the chairman’s directive, “is I understood perfectly.” 

The avoidance of armed conflict, he said, “was the operative guideline throughout 

my entire tenure.”16

Upon receiving Washington’s modifications of the convoy guidelines, Woerner 

passed them along to JTF-Panama and gave General Loeffke the mission to take 

responsibility for all convoy operations, to incorporate convoy procedures into a 

joint standard operating procedure (SOP), to establish secure communications for 

all aspects of the convoy movement, and to handle various other related details. 

With these taskings also came a set of CINCSO “implementing instructions.” All 

convoys would be escorted by an armed security element, and the troops involved 

would “display a combat ready posture” and would not “place themselves at a 

tactical disadvantage.” An air-ground reaction force would be on alert during convoy 

movements, with secure communications established between the convoy and the 

elements of that force. Convoy commanders who could not speak Spanish had to 

have an interpreter with them; they were also authorized to use force and, should 

they deem necessary, call in the reinforcements standing by. To ensure that the U.S. 

14 Msg, USSOUTHCOM to SSO DIA, 050209Z May 89, sub: Procedures for US Assertion of 

Treaty Rights. 15 Msg, CJSC to CINCSO, 122304Z May 89, sub: Procedures for US Assertion of Treaty 

Rights. 16 Crowe’s quote is from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 92. The Woerner quotes are from 

Interv, General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), U.S. Army Military History Institute, 

Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
199

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

personnel involved understood the authorized procedures and had the opportunity 

to practice them, JTF-Panama was to conduct rehearsals involving all members 

of a convoy’s security element and the reaction force supporting it. In accordance 

with treaty obligations, JTF-Panama, acting through the Combined Board, would 

also coordinate convoy movements with the Panama Defense Forces.17

There were several staff officers at JTF-Panama who reacted to the convoy 

directive with some perplexity. Not having been privy to the high-level policy 

discussions that preceded and followed the Panamanian elections, they questioned 

what the Bush administration hoped to achieve by the use of armed convoy 

escorts. Was the president trying to provoke a fight? To some, the obvious (albeit 

erroneous) answer was yes. Others, Colonel Cope among them, simply conceded 

that they did not know. All that was apparent was that Washington had deployed 

additional military assets to Panama. Was there a plan to use them? If there was a 

method to the madness, Cope confessed, it was not discernible to the staff at Fort 

Clayton. There were some officers, he indicated, presumably of a traditionalist 

bent, who had difficulty understanding Bush’s apparent intention of using U.S. 

troops in Panama to convey strictly political signals to the Noriega regime. There 

were also some officers who, believing that the PDF’s interference with official 

U.S. vehicles in the past had not been as extensive as the Southern Command 

was telling the Joint Staff, expressed the opinion that the more assertive convoy 

measures were provocative and unwarranted.18

Partly in response to Woerner’s directive on the convoys and partly to rationalize 

and coordinate planning on a variety of issues that fell between daily operations and 

long-term projections, Cope set up the Operations Planning Group (OPG) within 

his office. To head up the effort, he once again tapped Maj. Dan Augustine, who 

after departing for the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, 

was replaced by Lt. Col. Michael Menser, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command’s liaison officer to U.S. Army, South. Working with Menser on a variety 

of tasks, including procedures for freedom of movement operations, were Maj. 

Mark C. Collier and two national guardsmen.19

During intense planning sessions over the course of several days, Cope’s 

people worked closely with the SOUTHCOM Operations Directorate in refining 

convoy preparations and procedures. As in the past, the interaction was not 

free from friction. There were still officers at Quarry Heights who did not have 

full confidence in USARSO’s ability to handle major initiatives in the crisis. 

Consequently, Cisneros and his new vice director, Marine Col. Thomas A. Braaten, 

provided Cope’s people with highly detailed guidance. This degree of oversight 

was not entirely appreciated at Fort Clayton, where Loeffke informed his staff and 

component commanders that JTF-Panama, not SOUTHCOM, had responsibility 

for tactical matters and that Cope could convey that message to Cisneros’ people. 

17 Memo, General Fred F. Woerner for CDR, JTF-Panama, et al., 15 May 89, sub: Procedures 

for US Assertion of Treaty Rights. 18 Intervs, author with Col John A. Cope Jr., U.S. Army, 25 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Maj Dan Augustine, U.S. Army, 7 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama, and 11 May 90, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Conversation, author with Maj Chuck Herrick, USARSO SGS, Summer 1989, Fort Clayton, 

Panama. 19 Intervs, author with Augustine, 7 Jun 89; Maj Mark C. Collier, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 89, Fort 

Clayton, Panama, and 24 Jan 90, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

200

In this spirit, members of the Operations Planning Group occasionally “blew off” 

what they considered to be inappropriate or unwarranted guidance from a unified 

command bent on micromanagement.20

 Most of the guidance from Woerner’s staff, of course, could not be readily 

dismissed. Loeffke, for example, had strong reservations about having armed U.S. 

troops escort convoys that, under the treaties, would have PDF escorts as well, 

but he could not ignore the SOUTHCOM directive calling for every convoy to 

have “at least one armed vehicle.”21 Menser and Collier thus hammered out a JTFPanama operation order for the convoys that addressed such critical issues as the 

composition of the convoy and the weapons to be carried by the escorting troops, 

the rank of the officer who as commander of the armed security element would also 

be in charge of the convoy, the specific rules of engagement that would be in effect, 

the precise steps to take in the event of a confrontation, the communications setup, 

and the makeup of the quick reaction force. As planning proceeded, additional 

concerns surfaced. Cisneros, for example, wanted the operation order to address 

the treatment of wounded soldiers in the event of a firefight; there was also the 

question of what U.S. troops should do with any PDF personnel who had to be 

disarmed and detained. As the Operations Planning Group grappled with these 

issues, time became a precious commodity. Initial indications were that convoy 

operations would begin right after the OAS delegation left Panama, although 

Crowe informed Woerner that there would be no armed convoys before 18 May, 

itself a date that was approaching quickly.22

Initial guidance passed from the Joint Chiefs of Staff through the Southern 

Command called for a field grade officer to be in command of a convoy. That would 

have meant stripping staff personnel from the various headquarters involved, so 

JTF-Panama recommended, successfully, that a captain would suffice. Each convoy 

would contain MP vehicles, while a beefed-up infantry squad would serve as the 

armed security escort. The only visible weapons would be M60 machine guns on 

selected HMMWVs; ammunition belts for the M60s would be within reach of 

the gunners but not fed into the weapon. Any convoy commander delayed by the 

Panama Defense Forces would report the situation up the chain of command. Once 

given permission by higher headquarters to proceed—Woerner being the “decision 

authority” in “confrontational situations”—the convoy commander would notify 

the ranking Panamanian officer on the scene that the vehicles would proceed in 

five minutes.

Since Woerner’s guidance called for a quick reaction force composed of an 

infantry platoon to be on “immediate response” alert in case a convoy needed 

assistance, JTF-Panama arranged for the required troops, together with the air and 

ground assets needed to transport and protect them. As part of that protection, 

a light helicopter gun team from USARSO’s 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, was 

made available to provide air cover for the quick reaction platoon, while Marine 

Forces-Panama was directed to station two light armored vehicles with the unit. 

The marines balked. From what they had heard, the evolving operation order would 

20 Quote from Augustine Interv, 7 Jun 89. Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 22 May 

89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 21 Interv, author with Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 31 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 

Quote from Msg, Woerner to CDR, JTF-Panama, 15 May 89. 22 Theresa L. Kraus, Working Chronology for Operation Just Cause.
201

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

end up requiring two convoys with armed escorts to be launched simultaneously, 

one from Fort Davis on the Atlantic side of the canal area, the other from Fort 

Clayton, on the Pacific side. Since each convoy would have a quick reaction 

platoon standing by, two of the amphibious vehicles would essentially be lost to 

Task Force Atlantic. Arguing that deploying these two assets across the isthmus 

without an LAI command and control element was ill advised, the MARFOR staff 

suggested that the vehicles in question be kept at Rodman, where, in the event of an 

emergency, they could be attached temporarily to other units for specific missions 

anywhere in Panama. JTF-Panama acquiesced. The LAVs would be available only 

to the quick reaction force on the Pacific side; the comparable force up north would 

have to use HMMWVs.23

If the marines seemed less than cooperative in supporting specific QRF 

requirements, the Air Force appeared eager to participate to the fullest in the freedom 

of movement exercises. Recognizing an opportunity to provide air crews some 

practical experience, Brig. Gen. Robin Tornow, JTF-Panama’s newly promoted 

deputy and AFFOR commander, lobbied for a full “air cap” over the convoys. 

Loeffke evinced no enthusiasm for the proposal, but as a staunch advocate of joint 

cooperation, he made no concerted effort to oppose it. This created some difficult 

moments for planners in the Operations Planning Group. As they incorporated air 

support into the JTF-Panama operation order, AFFOR headquarters insisted on 

receiving 24-hours’ advance notice as to which of its assets JTF-Panama would 

require for each daily convoy. When the planners informed the Air Force liaison 

officer to JTF-Panama that they could not guarantee the 24-hours’ notification, the 

liaison’s response was brusque: “Well, then we can’t play.” Tornow soon intervened 

to break the impasse, informing the officer in question that the 24-hour heads up 

was simply desirable, not essential. That issue aside, the arrangement with the Air 

Force called for each convoy to have four layers of air cover: from the bottom level 

up, the air armada consisted of OH–58 Kiowas, AH–1 Cobras, OA–37 Dragonflys, 

and A–10 Warthogs.24

While OPG planners worked on the convoy plan, Colonels Hale and Bolt 

prepared their troops to execute it. Hale’s headquarters would be in charge of 

convoys leaving and arriving at Fort Sherman; Bolt’s 193d Infantry Brigade would 

oversee those leaving and arriving at Fort Clayton. The transfer of responsibility 

from departing to arriving convoys would occur approximately at the midway 

point along the transisthmian highway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific sides 

of the country.

The troops assigned to accompany the convoys had to be well versed in the 

rules of engagement, a term not that familiar to many of the newly arrived platoon 

leaders and company commanders. From their perspective at the tactical level, 

the general ROE guidelines on the use of deadly force issued by the Joint Chiefs 

and the Southern Command raised countless questions as to how such guidance 

might be applied in a myriad of specific circumstances. What, for example, if PDF 

elements attempting to block a convoy had an “extended” (that is, ready to fire) 

Rocket-Propelled Grenade18 on the scene? Did the presence of that weapon alone 

23 Third set of quoted words from Msg, Woerner to CDR, JTF-Panama, 15 May 89. Memo, 

MARFOR, Panama, 17 May 89, sub: Employment of LAI; OPLAN XX–89; Notes accompanying 

briefing slides, n.d. First two sets of quoted words from FRAGO, 211800R May 89. 24 Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 May 89. Quote from Interv, author with Collier, 20 Jun 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

202

constitute hostile intent? Or did convoy security troops need to make allowances 

for the fact that the RPG18 was not collapsible (unlike its U.S. counterpart) and 

was thus always in a configuration from which it could be fired? Concerning this 

and other possible scenarios, there were no definitive answers, just an admonition 

to convoy leaders to be very careful and not to invoke deadly force without being 

sure it was necessary.25

Peacetime rules of engagement, as a JCS working paper dealing with the 

situation in Panama explained, did not require U.S. commanders faced with hostile 

intent “to take the first hit” before using force in self-defense. A commander’s 

overriding responsibility had to be the safety of the troops, even if that entailed their 

being the first to open fire. Meant to be reassuring, this fundamental affirmation 

was greeted with skepticism by some officers in Panama. The United States was 

not at war, and there were limits to the precautions one could take in a politically 

sensitive crisis without appearing provocative, even when dealing with a clearly 

hostile adversary. Hale, for one, doubted that the rules of engagement would really 

allow U.S. troops, if threatened, to be in a position to fire the first shot, a point on 

which he conceded he was not always candid with his subordinates. As it turned 

out, he did not have to be. Several of his staff and company grade officers (as well 

as staff officers at Fort Clayton) had come to the same conclusion, expressing 

concerns that the rules of engagement for convoy operations were too general, too 

vague, and too difficult to apply in the “gray areas” of the Twilight Zone. In any 

confrontation, they feared, the Panamanian military might hold the initiative on the 

use of force, thus putting U.S. troops at a temporary, perhaps fatal, disadvantage. 

These misgivings, while discussed regularly by the officers involved, were not as a 

rule transmitted to the troops for fear of having a negative impact on morale.26

However worrisome their concerns surrounding convoy rules of engagement, 

ranking U.S. officers in Panama considered the PDF’s use of deadly force at the 

outset of a confrontation highly unlikely. That being the case, the focus on ROErelated issues shifted to the initial actions convoy commanders would take in the 

event the Panamanian forces tried to obstruct a convoy’s freedom of movement. The 

Joint Chiefs and the Southern Command had dictated the first step: the commander 

would dismount, approach the senior PDF officer on the scene, and read to him in 

English and Spanish the treaty clauses stating the U.S. military’s right to conduct 

unimpeded convoy operations. Higher headquarters had also dictated the final step: 

the vehicles would proceed if the convoy commander deemed the risks of doing 

so acceptable. What steps the commander might take in between, short of deadly 

force, was largely a question for JTF-Panama to answer.

During planning sessions on each side of the canal area, officers considered 

possible options. Legal issues loomed large in the deliberations, as U.S. officials 

had emphasized that none of the actions contemplated should violate the canal 

treaties or other applicable laws. For this reason, Hale found himself (as did other 

commanders) relying as much or more on his staff judge advocate for advice as 

on his operations officer. After long days and late hours, JTF-Panama produced 

25 Interv, author with Maj Harry Tunnell, U.S. Army, 13 May 98, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.

26 Atch. to Working Paper, JCS, n.d. [some pages of Working Paper stamped 11 May 89], sub: 

ROE for Panama, JCS Papers, CARL. Intervs, author with Augustine, 13 Jun 89, and 11 May 90, Fort 

Clayton, Panama; and Tunnell, 13 May 98. Discussion notes, author with Col David R. E. Hale, 28 

Sep 89, Low-Intensity-Conflict Proponency Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
203

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

a menu of measures from which a convoy commander could construct a course 

of action in the event of a confrontation. Some officers called these options 

“escalation standards”; Hale termed them rules of confrontation (ROC). Whatever 

the terminology, the goal was to attain such tactical superiority on the scene that any 

Panamanian force present would not wish to initiate hostilities. Repeatedly briefed 

and rehearsed, the rules of confrontation included such actions as dismounting the 

security platoon or squad from its vehicles; having the troops fix bayonets, lock 

and load, or “go to a knee” in a shooting position; firing illumination rounds from 

artillery in the rear; and giving concealed or open signals to the sniper or sniper 

team accompanying each convoy. (A sniper’s assignment, in most cases, was to 

protect the convoy commander. This generally meant being prepared to target the 

senior PDF officer present. For the convoy commander, this meant learning the 

“first rule of confrontation”: “Never block the sniper.”)27

If those company grade officers who were about to serve as convoy 

commanders worried that the rules of engagement might rob them of the initiative 

in a confrontation, or that the rules of confrontation might escalate to the use of 

deadly force, they could take some small comfort in the aforementioned consensus 

surrounding PDF intentions. A JTF-Panama intelligence summary issued on the eve 

of the freedom of movement operations contended that the Panama Defense Forces 

might set up obstacles to block the convoys but, having interfered with a column’s 

movement, would probably let the vehicles proceed, then formally protest the U.S. 

operation and try to exploit it for propaganda. The least likely scenario, according 

to the report, was any use of force by the adversary. Reports from the Southern 

Command echoed this assessment. Wary of American firepower and desirous of 

presenting a “low profile” during the imminent visit of the OAS delegation, the 

top PDF leadership, analysts indicated, had instructed subordinate commanders 

to avoid a confrontation with U.S. forces. The SOUTHCOM Intelligence (J–2) 

shop thus considered military conflict over the convoys unlikely, unless a PDF 

“hot head” ignored his instructions, or a PDF officer, lacking adequate direction 

in advance, made a “snap decision” or concluded that his orders required him 

to stop the convoy.28 The report did not raise the possibility that, under certain 

circumstances, U.S. forces themselves might overreact or take some ill-conceived 

action that would precipitate a firefight.

By Thursday, 18 May, JTF-Panama stood poised to launch the convoy 

operations, only to be informed that Washington had put the undertaking on hold 

until the following Monday. The temporary delay afforded Loeffke the opportunity 

he needed to test the communications network that would facilitate command and 

control during the convoys. Given the sensitive nature of the freedom of movement 

mission and the potential, however slight, for conflict with uniformed Panamanians, 

the ability of the convoy commanders and higher headquarters to communicate 

27 Rules of confrontation quotes from Interv, author with Tunnell, 13 May 98. Interv, author with 

Hale, 16 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Discussion notes, author with Hale, 28 Sep 89; Briefing, Col 

Hale to TRADOC Warfighter X Seminar, Sep 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 28 Msg, COMJTF-Panama to AIG 9029 et al., 212230Z May 89, sub: Panama Intsum 063-89U. 

Quoted words from Msg, CINCSO to AIG 7084, 230220Z May 89, sub: Freedom of Movement. 

Added to the concerns about an incident starting a firefight undesired by either side, Colonel Cope 

also raised the question of “how long the PDF are going to allow themselves to be provoked.” Cope 

Interv, 25 May 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

204

with one another at all times once the vehicles had made their scheduled departures 

was essential. Prior to the eighteenth, individual vehicles had reconnoitered the 

proposed route, setting up retransmission facilities and identifying communication 

“disconnects” and “blind spots.” What Loeffke now authorized for Saturday, 20 

May, was a major rehearsal, in which Bolt and Hale would each send out three 

vehicles containing a command and control element, an MP liaison, and a tactical 

air control party. This last element meant that the rehearsal would also include 

USARSO and AFFOR-Panama air assets.29

The rehearsal convoys moved out from Forts Clayton and Davis at 0800 

Saturday. In the course of the round trip over the transisthmian highway, each 

ran into the Panama Defense Forces. In the case of the 193d vehicles from Fort 

Clayton, a PDF officer at one checkpoint attempted to break up the convoy over 

the objections of the convoy commander, who recited the applicable U.S. treaty 

rights. The legal niceties were lost on the Panamanian officer, but the impressive air 

armada of OA–37s and A–10s above the convoy was not. After a glance skyward, 

he allowed the vehicles to proceed.30

The rehearsal convoy from Fort Davis faced a potentially more dangerous 

situation. Before the vehicles departed, Task Force Atlantic insisted that a 

uniformed military policeman from the 7th Infantry Division ride in the lead 

vehicle, displacing to another vehicle a USARSO liaison MP dressed in civilian 

clothes. Once under way, the convoy stopped at a PDF checkpoint located at a fork 

in the road. There, the substitute military policeman, perhaps following directions 

from the Panamanians manning the checkpoint, made a wrong turn onto a route that 

led to a PDF encampment. The men in the camp were not expecting combat-clad 

soldiers with air cover; the 7th Division personnel, for their part, assumed that the 

PDF members were trying to stop the convoy. A tense situation quickly developed, 

defused only after the USARSO MP moved to the forefront and, in the course of 

some intense conversation, managed to calm down both sides. The incident failed 

to be included in the formal reports on the rehearsal, but all involved were aware 

of its occurrence and the dangers that it raised. One officer stated what others were 

thinking: this was the sort of inadvertent incident that could trigger a fight.31 It had 

been another potential flash point, just two days after the one at Fort Espinar.

The results of the rehearsal were disappointing in other respects. At times, 

the dense rain forest on each side of the winding highway prohibited contact with 

the convoy via ground communications. The helicopters flying air cover were 

supposed to have radio contact with the vehicles, but one OH–58 launched by 

the 228th Aviation was equipped with a malfunctioning radio. The identification 

of the convoys as yours, theirs, and ours instead of using call signs added to the 

confusion, especially after command and control arrangements changed at the 

midway point. In another glitch, JTF-Panama personnel manning the operations 

center at Fort Clayton found they did not know how to call Task Force Atlantic. 

They also experienced difficulties with the equipment they were using, and when 

29 Orders for the communication rehearsal are from Draft FRAGO to OPLAN 2–89, 191200R 

May 89. 30 Collier Interv, 20 Jun 89.

31 Intervs, author with Maj Jeff Karhohs, U.S. Army, 8 Mar 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Collier, 

20 Jun 89; and Loeffke, 31 May 89. Conversation, author with Lt Col Mike Menser, U.S. Army, 26 

May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
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they switched to tactical satellite (TACSAT) communications for backup, the 

system failed, at first because of bad batteries—“Changing batteries before an 

operation is usually a better idea than changing them during it,” someone observed 

afterwards—and then again for reasons unknown. There were also numerous 

communication difficulties associated with aviation activities during the first leg 

of the rehearsal, although some of these problems were worked out before each 

convoy made its return trip. All told, the rehearsal had been a sobering experience. 

On the eve of the first major freedom of movement operation, the communications 

essential for effective command and control were deemed “poor to terrible.”32

During much of the 20 May rehearsal, Cope and Menser were at Quarry Heights 

where, at the SOUTHCOM J–3’s request, they were attempting to hammer out the 

final details of the convoy plan. While there, they received further indications that 

the first convoy operation would, in fact, leave that Monday, 22 May, one day 

before the OAS delegation was scheduled to arrive in Panama. After midnight, 

the two men returned to Fort Clayton and, Sunday morning, briefed the plan to 

Loeffke. The JTF-Panama commander, still unconvinced of the need to have an 

armed escort for the convoys, made a number of changes, then went to brief General 

Woerner. The plan Loeffke presented, JTF-Panama OPLAN 2–89, had taken over 

a week to write. It had undergone several revisions and had been coordinated with 

key personnel, including several military and civilian lawyers. The convoys were 

to be the showpiece of the effort to reassert U.S. treaty rights in Panama, and the 

proposed operations bore within them some potential for a violent confrontation 

with the Panama Defense Forces. Thus, when Woerner blessed the plan Sunday 

afternoon, Menser, who was present, likened the emotion of the moment to what a 

roomful of Allied officers in World War II must have experienced when they heard 

Eisenhower’s famous “Go!” order for the 1944 D-Day invasion.33

The SOUTHCOM commander’s approval of the operation plan may indeed 

have marked the emotional crescendo in the flurry of activity surrounding the 

proposed convoys. As events transpired, the initial execution of the freedom 

of movement operations proved, for the most part, anticlimactic. Two convoys 

assembled Monday morning, eleven vehicles at Fort Clayton, ten at Fort Davis. 

As called for in the canal treaties, the Panama Defense Forces received advance 

notification of the movement, twenty-four hours to be exact, as precedence, not 

law, dictated. When a PDF officer at Fort Clayton tried to delay departure of the 

convoy until the official escort (and television cameras) arrived, Loeffke waited 

an additional five minutes, then ordered Colonel Bolt to proceed. The Panamanian 

officer placed his hand on his holster but made no further threatening gestures. 

At 0905 the vehicles departed, leaving the tardy PDF escort to catch up. Neither 

convoy experienced any serious interference with its movement, and both arrived 

32 Draft memo, Lt Col Michael Menser for Col Cope, n.d., sub: Convoy COMMEX After Action 

Report. After convoy operations had been under way for several days, Cope conceded that there 

would always be communication problems. Partly in response to this issue, Loeffke would insist 

that many of the exercises run by JTF-Panama seek to “saturate the comms” in an effort to work out 

the glitches and to familiarize company grade officers with the equipment and procedures. Author’s 

notes, JTF-Panama Update Meetings, 24 May, 6 and 9 Jun 89. 33 Paper, Assertion of Treaty Rights Convoy 20 May, n.d.; Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89; Briefing 

slides [for convoy briefing on Sunday, 21 May 89], n.d. Author’s notes written on the slides refer to 

weekend planning efforts and Menser’s recalling Eisenhower’s “Go!” order.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

206

at their destinations pretty much on schedule. Throughout the operation, the 

Panamanian officers involved seemed confused although they did manage to 

film the convoys on videocassette. Late Monday JTF-Panama prepared two more 

convoys for departure the next day.34

The second day’s operation also went without incident. Loeffke joined the 

convoy from Fort Clayton and experienced firsthand some of the communication 

problems that had yet to be resolved. Later that afternoon, he presided over the 

JTF-Panama daily meeting, where he informed the assembled staff officers and 

component commanders that General Woerner wanted to reduce the size of the 

convoys while increasing the number of daily runs. Cisneros had further indicated 

that the advance notification of convoy operations given the Panamanian military 

should be reduced from twenty-four hours to one hour. Loeffke then raised a third 

issue that was beginning to cause some uneasiness: the convoys were expensive 

to run, especially in terms of the fuel and maintenance required by the dedicated 

aviation assets. One way of lowering the costs, he suggested, might be to keep the 

Cobra helicopters on the ground at Howard, unless needed.35

At this point, Woerner joined the meeting. He confirmed the need for 

adjustments, declaring that he wanted to vary the pattern of convoy operations to 

put “pressure on the PDF so they can’t keep up with our movements.” The time 

had come, he said, “to harass them.” In this context, he approved reducing the 

advance notification given through the Combined Board to one hour (later changed 

to two hours) and told Loeffke to decrease the number of vehicles per convoy. He 

declined to dictate the number of convoys JTF-Panama should run each day but 

reiterated that U.S. actions should not be predictable. Given this guidance, Loeffke 

directed the assembled officers to split each of the two large convoys scheduled 

for Wednesday into smaller groups. Staff officers in his operations shop were 

chagrined, in that the fragmentary order for Wednesday’s convoys had already 

been disseminated. But with some frantic work and phone calls, the adjustments 

Woerner wanted went into effect the next day.36

34 Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89; Msgs, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 22057Z May 89, sub: OPREP-3/

USCINCSO PM/038/May, and CINCSO to JCS, 230330Z May 89, sub: Panama Situation Update/

SCJ3/028/May; FRAGO, 231600R May 89 [for 23 May convoys]. 35 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 23 May 89. On the issue of notifying the Panama 

Defense Forces about convoy movements, the canal treaties merely stipulated that the United States 

had to provide such notification. Informing the Panamanian military through the Combined Board 24 

hours in advance was the result of precedent, not law. Reducing that time to one or two hours did not 

violate any legal aspects of the treaties. Also, withholding information on the purpose of the convoys 

and the contents of the vehicles, another ploy adopted during freedom of movement operations, was 

legal as well. Once convoy operations got under way, a movement control center took over the task 

of notifying the PDF two hours in advance. The procedure was cumbersome enough that word apparently did not always reach the other side until right before the convoys were set to move out. Author’s 

notes, JTF-Panama CAT change of shift briefing, 31 May 89. 36 Quotes from Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 23 May 89. The disgruntlement of 

the JTF-Panama staff officers affected by Woerner’s directives was conveyed to the author in the days 

following the meeting. Some of the staff expressed the view that, at the update, Loeffke or someone 

else from JTF-Panama should have informed the SOUTHCOM commander that the fragmentary 

order for the next day’s convoys was already in the field and that there would be less disruption if 

the adjustments were to go into effect Thursday instead of Wednesday. In another matter relating to 

changing the pattern of convoy operations, JTF-Panama reconsidered running simultaneous convoys 

from Fort Clayton and Fort Davis. At least one battalion commander taking part in the operations was 
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Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

Over the weeks and months to come, convoy operations became routine, with 

Loeffke extolling the excellent training they provided lieutenants and captains.37

In keeping with Woerner’s directive, JTF-Panama varied the number of convoys 

from day to day. The composition of the air umbrella also changed frequently in 

response to ongoing concerns over aviation maintenance, fuel expenditure, and air 

space congestion. The Panamanian regime denounced the convoys as a prelude to 

an American invasion but made no credible threat of retaliation. Once U.S. officials 

were satisfied that, as their intelligence reports had predicted, the Panama Defense 

Forces would not confront or seriously interfere with the convoy operations, 

Woerner delegated to Loeffke the authority to approve the use of deadly force 

by the armed escorts, should it be needed, a responsibility Loeffke said he would 

exercise “gingerly.”38

“Sliding into Something”

The convoys with armed escorts were never meant to be the only military 

means by which the United States sought to reassert its rights under the canal 

treaties. At the same time the Southern Command and JTF-Panama were planning 

the convoy operations, Woerner was considering a number of “supporting 

efforts” that could “be implemented simultaneously with or prior to [freedom of 

movement] actions.”39 Just hours after Admiral Crowe gave him the green light 

for the convoys, the SOUTHCOM commander informed the Joint Chiefs that he 

and his staff were reviewing a variety of operations in keeping with the National 

Command Authority’s guidance. The review turned into a continuous process, with 

Woerner evaluating recommendations, then informing JTF-Panama and the Joint 

Staff of those measures receiving his approval.40

The purpose of the supporting efforts, or “collateral operations,” as Woerner 

called them, was not just the assertion of U.S. treaty rights. In keeping with the 

broader aims of the administration’s tougher policy, Woerner also sought to 

heighten PDF concerns regarding U.S. military intentions, to strain PDF resources, 

relieved, noting that, when simultaneous convoys heading toward one another reached the criss-cross 

point, the risk of friendly fire incidents increased dramatically. Interv, author with Lt Col William 

Huff III, U.S. Army, 29 Jan 90, Fort Clayton, Panama. 37 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 22 May 89.

38 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 26 May 89.

39 Paper, SOUTHCOM J–3, Supporting Efforts for Freedom of Movement (FOM) Actions, 

15 May 89. One of the “supporting efforts” implemented prior to the convoys was the insertion 

of Company B, 2d Battalion, 9th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division (Light), into Fort Espinar on 18 

May. See Chapter 6. That move had been ordered, in part, to reassert “the right of the United States 

Government to house its force in areas of military coordination.” See Memo for Occupants of Fort 

Espinar Government Quarters, 18 May 89, sub: American Troop Presence. The memorandum, signed 

by Colonel Hale and Lt. Col. Robert Henry, assured residents of Fort Espinar that the arrival of the 

7th Infantry Division troops was not meant to be “provocative” or “confrontational.” 40 Paper, SOUTHCOM J–3, Supporting Efforts for Freedom of Movement (FOM) Actions, 15 

May 89; Msgs, CJCS to CINCSO, 201833Z May 89, sub: Assertion of Treaty Rights, and CINCSO to 

JCS, 210420Z May 89, sub: Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/026/May; Memo for CINCSO, 21 May 

89, sub: Assertion of US Forces Treaty Rights; Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 230330Z May 89, sub: Panama 

Situation Update/SCJ–3/028/May; Memo, Brig Gen Marc A. Cisneros, Dir, SOUTHCOM J–3, for 

COMJTF-Panama; CDR, SOCSO, 24 May 89, sub: Measures to Support Freedom of Movement 

Operation; Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 260415Z May 89, sub: Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/031/

May, and CINCSO to CJCS, 301426Z May 89, sub: Asserting Treaty Rights.
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208

and to increase the readiness of U.S. forces in Panama to execute contingency 

plans. By the end of May, these collateral measures constituted a wide range 

of activity and included, in general terms, conducting route reconnaissance 

and amphibious exercises using the Marines’ light armored vehicles, executing 

high visibility Air Force maneuvers and air and amphibious assault operations, 

restricting PDF movement on U.S. defense sites, increasing MP patrols between 

these sites and military areas of coordination, openly rehearsing the extraction of 

key U.S. leaders from various locations, establishing artillery and mortar-firing 

positions on defense sites, and practicing artillery “raids.” JTF-Panama and the 

Special Operations Command, South, also received a SOUTHCOM directive to 

develop deception plans that would accustom the Panama Defense Forces to seeing 

American forces operating in the vicinity of what U.S. planners knew to be Blue

Spoon targets and that would create in the mind of the PDF the perception that 

any attack on convoy movements or American citizens would “trigger immediate 

military intervention.”41

Of the specific measures on Woerner’s list of collateral operations for JTFPanama to carry out, Proud Warrior, an amphibious assault exercise around 

Howard Air Force Base, was one of the first. Executed on 23 May, it coincided 

with the second day of the convoy operations and involved 150 men, 4 LCM–8s, 

2 patrol boats, 2 A–10s, and 5 UH–60s. Three days later, another “high visibility 

exercise,” Devil I, put an MP quick reaction force into Fort Amador, then brought 

in another QRF by air to relieve the first. The same exercise also saw a company 

41 Msgs, CJCS to CINCSO, 201833Z May 89, sub: Assertion of Treaty Rights; CINCSO to JCS, 

210420Z May 89, sub: Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/026/May; CINCSO to JCS, 230330Z May 

89, sub: Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/028/May; and CINCSO to JCS, 260415Z May 89, sub: 

Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/031/May. First quote from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 301426Z May 

89, sub: Asserting Treaty Rights. Second quote from Msg, CINCSO to JTF-PM, 150753Z May 89, 

sub: Eloquent Fury Support to Ongoing Operations.

Howard Air Force Base, with hangars and runway in the background
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Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

from the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, conduct an air assault to secure a Directorate 

of Engineering and Housing compound at Corozal. In early June, the 7th Infantry 

Division conducted Purple Strike, followed a week later by a major exercise, 

Lightning Thrust I, involving the 193d Infantry Brigade and various units under 

its operational control or attached to it.42

Loeffke regarded these collateral activities as he did the convoys. On the one 

hand, they offered yet another opportunity to conduct joint training, exercises, 

and operations. Having U.S. service components working so closely together in 

Panama, he explained in a memo to Army Chief of Staff General Carl Vuono, 

enabled JTF-Panama to execute at least one joint operation a week and to review 

daily training schedules to see what could be accomplished jointly. On the other 

hand, Loeffke knew, collateral measures carried the same risks as the convoys 

of an unwanted incident. At minimum, an exercise or operation could backfire, 

providing the Panamanian regime a “propaganda showpiece.” This, in fact, had 

actually happened during an exercise in which JTF-Panama deployed an MP 

quick reaction force to Fort Amador. Within hours of its arrival, Noriega himself 

had shown up with an entourage. Approaching one of the military policemen, 

he shook hands and theatrically offered himself up for arrest. “Here I am,” he 

taunted. Panamanian cameramen captured the moment on film, leaving Loeffke to 

comment on the dictator’s “magnificent” handling of U.S. pressure. The USARSO 

commander also vowed to avoid that kind of embarrassment in future exercises.43

Of greater concern was the risk acknowledged by all of an unanticipated 

“trigger event” igniting hostilities. By late May, the mounting number of exercises 

under Nimrod Dancer was bringing U.S. troops into almost daily confrontation 

with the Panama Defense Forces. The atmosphere was highly charged, and while 

the initial passive response of the PDF was encouraging, it did not preclude the 

chance of a fatal mishap. At some point, Loeffke feared, someone would point 

a weapon at someone else, the act would be interpreted as hostile intent, and a 

firefight would ensue. Wondering aloud if events might be close to spiraling out 

of control, he inquired of one observer, “Do you get the feeling that we’re sliding 

into something?”44

The “invasion” of Fort Espinar and the inelegant convoy rehearsal had, within 

days of each other, demonstrated how miscommunication and misperception could 

result in an unplanned and unwanted confrontation. Both of those flash points had 

been defused, but others soon followed, despite the stringent rules of engagement 

and rules of confrontation and frequent injunctions to the troops to “follow the 

script closely” and avoid unnecessary conflict. At one JTF-Panama update, Loeffke 

spoke, without providing specifics, of three incidents in three days that had almost 

42 Memo, Cisneros for COMJTF-Panama, and CDR, SOCSO, 24 May 89, sub: Measures to 

Support Freedom of Movement Operation. For Proud Warrior, see Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, 240415Z 

May 89, sub: Panama Situation Update/SCJ–3/029/May, and CDR, USARSO, to HQDA, 242300Z 

May 89, sub: Sitrep/COMJTF-PM/010/May; Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 23 May 

89. For Devil I and quote, see Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 260415Z May 89, sub: Panama Situation 

Update/SCJ–3/031/May. For Lightning Thrust I, see Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 

6 Jun 89; Time Line for Lightning Thrust I. 43 First quote from Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, Jun 89 [011245Z], sub: Update No. 27, 

Panama Update, Operations. Second and third quotes from Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89. Author’s 

notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 26 May 89. 44 Comment, Loeffke to author, 24 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

210

led to armed conflict. He attributed the near misses to misinformation, citing the 

lesson internalized in two years of crisis, “The first report is always wrong.” In 

confidential comments and communications, he went even further, voicing a 

conviction shared by many USARSO officers: the “augmentees”—meaning the 

marines, the mechanized troops, and the light fighters—would be the ones most 

likely to get involved in an incident. U.S. forces organic to Panama, he stated, knew 

“the layout.” The security enhancement and Nimrod Dancer combat forces, in his 

opinion, did not have such a clear perspective or understanding of the crisis.45

Loeffke’s uneasiness over U.S. combat units from outside Panama was 

implied in a memorandum he sent Woerner on 31 May. The memo provided a 

brief account of two episodes, each of which, according to Loeffke, had contained 

the potential for an “armed confrontation by mistake.” He began by advising the 

SOUTHCOM commander that there “are many soldiers and Marines who are very 

aggressive and need to be calmed down.” The soldiers to which he referred in the 

first case were from the 7th Infantry Division (Light). On a visit to the Task Force 

Atlantic company billeted at Fort Espinar, he had inspected a defensive position 

on the roof of the officers’ club. There, he found “machine guns in place aimed 

at a PDF guard.” Loeffke ordered the machine guns removed, but the next day a 

SOUTHCOM general officer (Loeffke did not say who) visited the position and 

was reported to have told those present, “If anyone points a weapon at you, blow 

him away.” Loeffke, while diplomatically suggesting that the general in question 

might not actually have made the remark, cited the confusion evinced by some of 

Colonel Hale’s officers who, in his opinion, already had a tendency for “reading 

into hostile intent more than what it is meant to be.”46

The second episode recounted in the memo raised the same issue but in the 

context of an even more dangerous situation. On 30 May, as part of a joint exercise 

run by JTF-Panama, the marines “swam” six LAVs from Rodman to Fort Amador. 

Although part of the effort to assert U.S. treaty rights and keep the Panamanian 

military off-balance, the undertaking was supposed to be uneventful. The initial 

reports indicated that it had been. The PDF had received advance notification, and 

JTF-Panama had selected a “nonprovocative” route for the amphibious vehicles to 

follow. At the joint task force update meeting late that afternoon, Loeffke seemed 

in good spirits. The Panama Defense Forces at Fort Amador had been having a 

“family day” (picnics instead of paychecks, according to U.S. intelligence), 

and Loeffke humorously noted, “We brought in LAVs to give them rides.”47 He 

obviously believed at that point that the exercise had been a success.

Toward the end of the meeting, however, Rear Adm. Gerald E. Gneckow, the 

JTF’s NAVFOR commander (and SOUTHCOM’s Navy component commander), 

requested that the principal participants stay after adjournment to discuss what 

he described vaguely as some concerns he had with the freedom of movement 

activities. What he was alluding to were reports concerning the guidance the marines 

had allegedly received regarding rules of engagement for the LAV exercise. As all 

45 Quote on frequent injunctions to the troops from Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 

9 Jun 89. “The layout” quote from Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89. 46 Memo for CINCSO, 31 May 89, sub: Update No. 184, Possible Confrontation. See also 

Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 25 May 89. 47 Loeffke’s remarks are from Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 30 May 89. See 

also Memo for CINCSO, 31 May 89, sub: Update No. 184, Possible Confrontation.
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Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

involved knew, the PDF 5th Infantry Company at Amador had several CadillacGage V–300 armored reconnaissance vehicles, each with a 90-mm. assault gun. 

Just before the LAVs departed Rodman, the Marine platoon leader in charge had 

purportedly told his men that if one of the assault guns were aimed at them, they 

could fire on the offending vehicle. As the MARFOR commander, Col. J. J. Doyle 

defended the guidelines he had himself disseminated, arguing that his men could 

fire if fired upon or if they detected hostile intent. Having a weapon pointed at 

them, he declared, constituted hostile intent.48

Loeffke relayed this information to Woerner in the 31 May memorandum. “I 

believe this kind of attitude has been fueled by a feeling that we need to look 

aggressive,” he indicated. “Some officers misinterpret exercising our rights with 

being aggressive, to the point that we will start an exchange of fire when not 

needed.” Loeffke reiterated this point in his concluding recommendation that “we 

talk softer among ourselves and troops for fear of encouraging an aggressive action 

that we may not want to occur.”49

The rules of engagement controversy raised by the LAV exercise led Woerner to 

convene a meeting at Quarry Heights on 2 June. What transpired was a debate that 

Colonel Braaten, one of the senior marines present, characterized as “reasonably 

heated.” Doyle held to the position that PDF weapons pointed at his men constituted 

hostile intent and thus justified the use of deadly force. Woerner demurred. Having 

a weapon aimed at you, he maintained, did not necessarily reveal the intent of the 

person behind it. The Panama Defense Forces, he continued, knew that firing on an 

LAV would be suicidal, inasmuch as all the other LAVs would return fire. The PDF 

also knew that a firefight could lead to major hostilities that Panamanian forces 

had no hope of winning. Loeffke echoed this cautious line. As he later explained, 

a V–300 crew would always turn the turret in your direction simply as an act of 

bravado. U.S. military police at Amador had had it happen to them, yet they had 

shown the appropriate restraint and not opened fire. Confronted with a similar 

situation, Loeffke believed, the marines needed to adopt a “conservative” approach. 

Doyle disagreed and continued to argue the case for hostile intent, the result being 

that the meeting turned into a “marathon” session. Each time the issue seemed 

settled, someone would ask, “Is that clear, MARFOR?” and the answer would be 

that it was not, thus setting off another round of discussion. But the outcome was 

foreordained. Woerner refused to budge. According to Braaten, “everyone was not 

particularly happy, but understood what the CINC was saying.”50

48 Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 30 May 89; Loeffke Interv, 31 May 89; Msg, 

CDR, MARFOR, to COMJTF-PM [personal, Doyle for Loeffke], 121502Z Jun 89, sub: Rules of 

Engagement (ROE) Concerning Operation at Fort Amador. One Marine officer later indicated that 

Loeffke had tried to get Doyle personally to brief the Amador exercise to the unit involved but that 

Doyle had stuck by the “Marine way” of doing things, which meant giving his commanders guidance, then entrusting them to adhere to it in carrying out an operation. Interv, author with Maj Rick 

L. Horvath, USMC, 14 Jun 89, Rodman Naval Station, Panama. 49 Memo for CINCSO, 31 May 89, sub: Update No. 184, Possible Confrontation.

50 All quotes except Loeffke’s from Interv, author with Col Gar Thiry, USMC, and Col Tom 

Braaten, USMC, 12 Dec 89, Maxwell AFB, Ala. Loeffke quote from Interv, author with Loeffke, 31 

May 89. Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 2 Jun 89; Conversation, author with Col John 

Cope Jr., 3 Jun 89, Fort Clayton, Panama; Msg, CDR, MARFOR, to COMJTF-PM, 121502Z Jun 89, 

sub: Rules of Engagement (ROE) Concerning Operation at Fort Amador.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

212

One ramification emanating from the LAV episode was to highlight, once 

again, the near impossibility of reaching a consensus on rules of engagement 

that would protect troops in the field while minimizing chances that they might 

employ deadly force unnecessarily. ROE-related issues that had been discussed 

throughout the crisis, most recently during the convoy planning, now demanded 

further clarification in the aftermath of the Amador exercise. The process would be 

divisive, difficult, and generally unsuccessful. “The tendency is to reduce [the rules 

of engagement] to black and white instructions: ‘Do this if the PDF does that,’” 

the USARSO staff judge advocate (SJA) reported to Cope. “This simplification,” 

he warned, “can make the use of armed force the result of reflexible [sic] reaction, 

rather than the result of the exercise of judgment after having considered the 

overall circumstances surrounding the PDF’s actions.” Context was critical, the 

judge advocate’s report elucidated. “What might be deemed a hostile act or a 

demonstration of hostile intent in one setting, might not necessarily be so in another. 

For example, a drawn weapon could be merely an act of bravado [the term Loeffke 

had employed] or the preparatory act to firing.” In such a situation, how was a 

soldier or marine to gauge the other side’s intent? How was he to comprehend the 

“overall circumstances surrounding the PDF’s actions”? He would, in effect, have 

to rely on available intelligence on PDF intentions, the past performance of the 

Panama Defense Forces, comments made at the scene, and the size of the opposing 

forces present to determine the context for assessing the threat.51

The SJA’s report, the meeting at the Southern Command, and other messages 

and discussions served to elucidate each side’s views in the contentious ROE 

debate, but the basic issues in question remained unresolved. As had been the case 

throughout the crisis, questions of context would remain at the heart of the ongoing 

controversy, as key U.S. commanders and staff officers never reached complete 

accord on what circumstances constituted hostile intent. Ten days after Woerner’s 

conclave, Colonel Doyle continued to argue that the guidance he had given his 

marines for the Fort Amador exercise was consonant with the rules of engagement 

disseminated by JTF-Panama, the SOUTHCOM commander, and the Joint Chiefs. 

He had urged that his men show restraint, but he had also let them know that they 

could defend themselves with force appropriate to the threat should a weapon be 

pointed at them with what they perceived as hostile intent.52 This last point, of 

course, could rarely be ascertained with certainty and would, thus, remain a matter 

of contention, with one side insistent that an overt act should suffice as proof of 

one’s intent, the other side equally adamant that assessing context and the motive 

behind the act was essential.

The clash of views over the rules of engagement in general and the Fort 

Amador exercise in particular further served to aggravate relations between the 

JTF-Panama headquarters and its Marine Forces component. While a productive 

working arrangement between the two elements had been fashioned during the 

course of a year, the friction and suspicions that had followed the Arraiján Tank Farm 

firefight in April 1988 never completely dissipated. Throughout the crisis, Loeffke 

and his staff continuously questioned the Marines’ fire discipline and “warrior” 

51 Memo, Col Joseph W. Cornelison, U.S. Army, USARSO Staff Judge Advocate, for J–3, JTFPanama, 1 Jun 89, sub: Rules of Engagement. 52 Msg, CDR, MARFOR, to COMJTF-PM, 121502Z Jun 89, sub: Rules of Engagement (ROE) 

Concerning Operation at Fort Amador.
213

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

mind-set. Furthermore, just days prior to inserting the light armored vehicles 

into Fort Amador, there had been a heated exchange at a JTF-Panama meeting in 

which the Army staff accused the marines of safety violations in their handling of 

ammunition at the tank farm. The MARFOR representative vigorously denied the 

allegations and testily rejected an offer to have an Army “safety team” advise the 

marines on proper procedures.53 This clash, followed by the LAV episode, simply 

reinforced the strong reservations Loeffke’s staff harbored regarding the suitability 

of the marines, with their “Beirut mentality,” for employment in a crisis that 

required restraint, judgment, and restrictive rules of engagement. The MARFOR 

commander, with equal conviction, defended the performance and professionalism 

of his marines, asserting emphatically, “We are not ‘cowboys.’”54

While tempers flared over ROE guidance during the Fort Amador exercise, 

the fact remained that, despite what a platoon leader might have told his troops 

concerning hostile intent, the marines had not fired on the V–300 training its 

assault gun on them. Still, in the eyes of the Southern Command and JTF-Panama, 

this had been a close call, warranting further discussion and renewed efforts to 

keep future confrontations from spiraling out of control. The problem, recognized 

by all parties, was that, even if there had been consensus over what constituted 

appropriate rules of engagement, there was only so much that detailed planning, 

reliable intelligence, good judgment, and reasonable restraint could contribute in 

reducing the possibility of an armed clash. In a complex environment, the element 

of chance could always intrude on events, often with unwanted and undesirable 

consequences. 

In mid-June, that irrepressible element asserted itself forcefully during the 

course of a freedom of movement convoy. As a way of documenting the convoys, 

some of the helicopters flying over the vehicles carried Defense Department 

cameramen. On the afternoon of 15 June, an OH–58 involved in filming a Task 

Force Atlantic convoy on its return trip from Albrook Air Station hit a wire and 

crashed near the Madden Dam power plant. The wreckage spilled out onto the 

transisthmian highway.

The first U.S. forces on the scene were in the convoy the helicopter had been 

tracking.55 When they arrived, the crash was already beginning to attract a crowd of 

Panamanian civilians, most wanting to help. Leaving one squad behind to provide 

security for the vehicles, the convoy commander, Capt. Daniel Tarter, had the rifle 

platoon leader and the remaining squad accompany him to the crash site, where they 

found the bodies of the pilot, copilot, and defense cameraman. The squad then set up 

a perimeter to maintain the integrity of the site until the bodies could be removed. In 

the meantime, the crowd began to grow, weather conditions worsened, attempts to 

call in a helicopter to evacuate the bodies were hampered by poor communications, 

53 The exchange over whether safety violations were taking place occurred at the JTF-Panama 

meeting on 25 May 1989. Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 25 May 89. 54 Msg, CDR, MARFOR, to COMJTF-PM, 121502Z Jun 89, sub: Rules of Engagement (ROE) 

Concerning Operation at Fort Amador. 55 This account of events on the afternoon of the helicopter crash are based on Intervs, author 

with Karhohs, 8 Mar 90; Maj Reginald Sikes, U.S. Army, 7 May 99, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Col 

Robert Barefield, U.S. Army, 7 Nov 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; and Reginald Sikes, Operation 

Nimrod Dancer: A Personal View of Lessons Learned (Paper, A645, U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff [CGSC], Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 15 Feb 98).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

214

and the Panamanian news media and an armed PDF platoon arrived on the scene. 

The situation had the ingredients for one of the “worst-case scenarios” envisaged 

during the convoy planning: the intermingling of Panamanian civilians, U.S. troops, 

the media, and the Panamanian military under unanticipated circumstances.

The PDF officer leading the platoon stated that the wreckage was in Panamanian 

territory, thus giving the Panama Defense Forces jurisdiction over the site. Captain 

Tarter, acting on orders to secure the scene until the cause of the crash could be 

investigated, refused the PDF demand to take charge. A heated argument followed, 

with the PDF officer, at one point, ordering his men into the nearby jungle. As 

the armed Panamanians disappeared into the foliage, U.S. riflemen could hear the 

sound of AK47s being locked and loaded. In response, the convoy’s security platoon 

leader had an M60 gunner lock and load his weapon and aim it at the jungle line. 

After a few minutes, the PDF soldiers reemerged and returned to the highway, their 

weapons slung over their shoulders. In the meantime, a U.S. helicopter arrived but 

experienced difficulties in removing the bodies, thus prolonging the standoff.

Once the bodies were flown out and a platoon(-) from Bravo Company, 

5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, arrived to relieve the convoy’s armed escort and to 

provide site security, the tension eased somewhat, but the episode was far from 

over. Until an investigation team from Fort Rucker, Alabama, could be brought 

in to examine the wreckage, U.S. troops had orders to keep any Panamanians at 

bay. Meanwhile, the regime-controlled media charged that the downed helicopter 

had flown dangerously low over a populated area. PDF officers also objected to 

the continued monitoring of the scene by U.S. military personnel, although just 

how far they would go to challenge the Americans’ presence was unclear. When 

Loeffke inspected the wreckage the day after the crash, a PDF major he encountered 

appeared cooperative. The officer did request that the number of troops guarding 

the site be reduced so as not to give the impression of an “invasion.” When Loeffke 

sardonically remarked, “Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for?” the PDF 

major replied, “That’s for novels.” A tone of accommodation, not confrontation, 

characterized the exchange. Loeffke, while not reducing the U.S. force, did order 

the men to wear soft caps instead of helmets, to remove magazines from their 

weapons, and to carry their rifles pointed downward.56

That night, the situation took a dramatic turn for the worse.57 Around 2100, 

three PDF officers visited the site and insisted on taking over security duties. A 

U.S. guard refused. Shortly after midnight, a PDF contingent of thirty to fortyfive armed men showed up, approximately twice the number of American soldiers 

present. The Panamanian troops brought wreckers with them and said they were 

going to cart the remains of the helicopter to Howard Air Force Base. Bravo 

Company’s executive officer, a lieutenant, was the ranking U.S. officer at the 

56 Msgs, CINCSO to JCS, Jun 89, sub: Panama Situation Report No. 43, and CINCSO to JCS, 

171900Z Jun 89, sub: No. 44; Author’s notes, JTF- Panama and USARSO CAT change of shift briefing, 18 Jun 89. Quotes from Author’s notes, JTF-Panama Update Meeting, 16 Jun 89. Interv, author 

with Lt Col William Huff III, U.S. Army, 29 Jan 90. 57 This account of the confrontation at the crash site is based on Author’s notes, JTF-Panama and 

USARSO CAT change of shift briefing, 17 Jun 89; MFR, Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, 17 Jun 89, sub: 

Crisis at Helo Crash Site; Conversation, author with Loeffke, n.d. [17 Jun 89], Fort Clayton, Panama; 

Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 181830Z Jun 89, sub: Panama Situation Report No. 45; Daily Operational 

Update, SOUTHCOM, 18 Jun 89; Huff Interv, 29 Jan 90.
215

Asserting U.S. Treaty Rights

scene, and he rejected the demand, telling the PDF officers that an investigation 

team would be there at dawn and that the wreckage would be cleaned up after 

that. The Panamanians refused to be placated and began “mingling” with the U.S. 

troops, who, hearing movement in the jungle around them as well, got into the 

best defensive positions they could. Tensions mounted with each passing minute. 

To one U.S. guard, his comrades seemed almost as if they were moving in slow 

motion, putting on their helmets and flak jackets, picking up their weapons, locking 

and loading, and maneuvering for position. Meanwhile, the Panamanian soldiers 

were unslinging their rifles and locking and loading.

Loeffke received word of the standoff around 0100. He immediately called 

Colonel Bolt and ordered him to move elements of the Nimrod Dancer mechanized 

battalion to Fort Amador as a show of force. He also directed two officers—Lt. Col. 

William Huff III, the battalion commander of the U.S. guards at the crash, and Maj. 

Alan Mansfield, the provost marshal at Fort Clayton—to go to the site. Additional 

military police were sent there as well, and an AC–130 was dispatched (although 

difficulties in launching it delayed its arrival over the scene of the confrontation). 

Loeffke himself headed for the Comandancia, where he encountered two PDF 

officers, one a lieutenant colonel. In blunt terms, he told both men that if the 

Panama Defense Forces fired on U.S. soldiers at the site, he was prepared to “react 

accordingly.” Using his hand-held radio so that the PDF officers could hear him, 

he again talked to Bolt, issuing directives concerning the quick reaction force, the 

mechanized battalion, and other units on alert.

While at the Comandancia, Loeffke also talked over a radio with Col. Guillermo 

Wong, Noriega’s intelligence chief and the senior PDF officer at the crash site.58

Wong informed Loeffke that armed Dignity Battalion members were scheduled to 

demonstrate at the site around 0530 and demanded that the American guards leave 

before then. The Panamanian military, he said, would help the U.S. troops depart. 

Loeffke rejected the demand, indicated that his soldiers would leave around noon 

after the investigation had been completed, and notified Wong that any attack on 

the unit guarding the wreckage would be considered a hostile action by the Panama 

Defense Forces against U.S. forces. Wong took exception to the rhetoric but did 

not respond with threats of his own. He fared no better in advancing his cause after 

Huff and Mansfield arrived. Huff refused to talk to the colonel directly but had 

Mansfield convey a blunt message: if the PDF touched the wreckage, Wong would 

die. At one point, Wong received a call, presumably from Noriega, after which he 

appeared to Mansfield “a chastened man.” By dawn, both sides had “deescalated,” 

in Huff’s words. The confrontation was over. Soon thereafter, the investigation 

team arrived, and, once its members had completed their work, the wreckage was 

removed. Later that day, Loeffke assessed the incident in what were for him fairly 

grave terms: “It was the toughest I’ve been and the closest I thought we were going 

to get into something.”59

By the time of the helicopter crash, the exercises and operations conducted 

by JTF-Panama to assert U.S. treaty rights had, according to intelligence reports, 

caused some stress and disruption within the Panama Defense Forces, but not to 

the extent that would compel the institution as a whole or any group or officer in 

58 In The Commanders, pp. 89, 92, Bob Woodward identifies Wong as a “secret source” providing information to the Southern Command. 59 Quotes from Huff Interv, 29 Jan 90. Conversation, author with Loeffke, n.d. [17 Jun 89].
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

216

it to move against Noriega. Meanwhile, although the Panamanian military had 

not used force to resist the tougher U.S. actions, they had on about a half-dozen 

occasions been involved in confrontations that could have escalated into firefights. 

President Bush did not want a war but to remove that risk completely would have 

entailed reverting to pre–Nimrod Dancer policies, thereby raising the prospect of 

the crisis continuing indefinitely. That option was unacceptable. The alternative 

was to continue applying pressure in hopes both of rupturing the bond between 

the PDF and its commander and of compelling PDF officers to put the good of 

the institution over loyalty to its leader. While that strategy thus far had produced 

marginal results, there were still additional, more assertive measures that might yet 

yield the desired outcome. Of course, resorting to such measures meant entertaining 

additional, not fewer, risks.

Thus, at the very time Loeffke was talking tough over the face-off at the 

helicopter crash site, an initiative involving the Southern Command, the Joint 

Chiefs, and the National Command Authority was already well under way to 

“ratchet up” U.S. military activities in Panama. In July, President Bush would sign 

a national security directive authorizing the intensification of military pressure 

through a series of new actions. In doing so, his objective remained the same: to 

remove Noriega and bring the crisis to a satisfactory conclusion without having to 

execute an all-out U.S. invasion of Panama.

AC–130 Spectre gunship
I I I

8

Ratcheting Up

June–September 1989

One month into Operation Nimrod Dancer, the results of the troop buildup 

and the Bush administration’s tougher policy had been mixed. Measures to 

reassert U.S. treaty rights and to create fissures within the Panama Defense Forces 

had boosted morale within the American community and allowed JTF-Panama to 

hone its operational skills, but, as of mid-June, there was no end to the crisis in 

sight. Meanwhile, the Southern Command and its components had to deal with a 

host of other crisis-related issues, such as relocating military dependents, updating 

plans, and briefing visiting VIPs. These competed for time and personnel with 

other pressing requirements in the theater, including U.S.-sponsored construction 

and humanitarian projects in several Latin American countries, counterinsurgency 

efforts against Salvadoran and Peruvian guerrillas, the impending elections in 

Sandinista-controlled Nicaragua, and the drug war in general. To complicate matters 

further, this was also the time of the year when many U.S. military personnel 

would be retiring or transferring to new assignments. 

Blade Jewel and the Prayer Book

For USARSO officers also serving as JTF-Panama component commanders 

and staff, one of the most disruptive and frustrating issues to intrude on the conduct 

of daily business and the freedom of movement operations was Operation Blade

Jewel. The purpose of this undertaking was to effectuate what President Bush 

had called for in three sentences of his 11 May statement: “U.S. Government 

employees and their dependents living outside of U.S. military bases or Panama 

Canal Commission housing areas will be relocated out of Panama or to secure 

U.S. housing areas within Panama. This action will begin immediately. It will be 

completed as quickly and in as orderly a manner as possible.”1

As with the troop buildup and assertion of treaty rights, American officials 

had begun discussing a reduction in U.S. government employees and dependents 

in Panama weeks before that country’s 7 May elections. In fact, well before May, 

there was already in effect a Reduction of Off-Post Personnel program to achieve 

those ends, and Woerner was content with the steady progress it was making, 

taking exception to those who would have him accelerate the process unduly. 

1 President Bush’s statement can be found in Department of State Bulletin 89 (July 1989): 

70–71.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

218

Unless the Bush administration intended to invade Panama, which he assumed it 

did not, there was no need in his opinion to rush matters. Such a move would not 

intimidate Noriega but would result in “screwing around traumatically with the 

lives of our people for U.S. domestic reasons, not for strategic reasons.” Woerner 

conveyed this sentiment in a conversation he had with Senator John McCain 

during the visit of the congressional election observers in May. The meeting 

served only to deepen the discord between the two men, as the senator came 

away incredulous over what he considered to be the SOUTHCOM commander’s 

exaggerated claim that a drawdown of U.S. personnel would take several more 

months to implement. The State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and 

the National Security Council shared McCain’s impatience, believing the required 

reductions could be made within thirty days. Consequently, Washington overrode 

Woerner’s reservations and, once the president’s policy went into effect, gave the 

general until the end of June to implement it. In a measure to help ensure that the 

Southern Command would meet that deadline, the Pentagon moved forward to 

June permanent change of station (PCS) transfers scheduled originally for July and 

August for military personnel.2

Since soldiers far outnumbered their sister service counterparts in Panama, 

the impact of Blade Jewel fell mainly on U.S. Army, South. On paper, the task 

sounded simple enough: bring command-sponsored families living off post onto a 

U.S. base or send them back to the United States. In practice, the process proved to 

be complicated, contentious, and disruptive. Over 1,000 families, meaning several 

thousand people, would have to be moved on short notice. Two to three thousand 

people would return to the United States; others would move into housing on Fort 

Clayton, Fort Amador, and other Army bases. Of those moving on post, some would 

move in with other families, creating no small amount of inconvenience. In other 

cases, occupants of on-post housing were told (in accordance with regulations) to 

vacate and return to the United States in order to make room for families, some of 

them civilian employees, moving in from off post. Families leaving Panama would 

have to find housing when they got to their destination. For service personnel 

scheduled to change assignments, this meant finding quarters at their new duty 

station, or, depending on the date that they were eligible to return from overseas 

(DEROS), sending their families ahead to do so without them. The problem was 

that, with tours in Panama being cut short by up to sixty days, housing at the new 

posts might not be available for families arriving early. Some would have to “stay 

with mother” while awaiting quarters, apparently without reimbursement in the 

form of temporary duty (TDY) funds and often without their sponsor. 

Aggravating matters, many Army personnel coming to U.S. Army, South, as 

their new duty station would not arrive in time to fill the void created by those who 

were departing early. Moreover, after the 7 May elections, the status of official 

duty in Panama was changed to an unaccompanied tour, inflicting a last-minute 

hardship on many of the incoming replacements who, scheduled to arrive in July 

and August, had looked forward to their new assignment with the understanding 

that their families would be coming with them. The change in status also required 

2 For Woerner’s quote, as well as Woerner’s views on the personnel issue, see Interv, author 

with General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), 30 Apr 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. See 

also Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 183–84; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 

49.
219

Ratcheting Up

U.S. Army, South, to convert many of its on-post family housing units into bachelor 

quarters, thus further exacerbating the plight of the families uprooted from their 

homes in Panama proper, including ones they owned, and brought onto a nearby 

base only to find the quarters that they were slated to occupy now designated for 

unaccompanied personnel. As the tensions generated by the election and the buildup 

of U.S. forces seemed to subside in late May, many of these families questioned the 

need for such radical measures. In short, the list of problems and inconveniences 

associated with Blade Jewel seemed endless to all involved. The reluctance of 

Washington to grant the operation the status of an evacuation, with the supportive 

measures that such an undertaking would have entailed, only increased the myriad 

of complaints and annoyances. 

In Colonel Cope’s opinion, Blade Jewel succeeded in bringing some people on 

post, sending others home, and “pissing off” just about everyone.3

 The drawdown 

of dependents was not all that confusing in principle, he contended, but the broad 

procedures applied to the process did not make allowance for the myriad of 

individual problems that arose. This was a defect criticized almost daily at JTFPanama updates by Army component commanders looking out for the welfare 

of their troops. Loeffke sympathized but found himself repeatedly reminding all 

concerned that U.S. Army, South, “was writing the book” for this kind of activity. 

One chapter he himself contributed was the creation of a relocation center at Fort 

Clayton, where USARSO Deputy Chief of Staff for Resource Management Col. 

William Connolly and his staff worked long hours to rationalize the process and 

assist the uprooted families. To answer the variety of questions that surfaced daily, 

the command published the Pangram, a frequently updated newsletter focusing 

on Blade Jewel issues. Loeffke and other officers also addressed groups of 

families, keeping them abreast of developments and listening to their problems. 

Meanwhile, Rossi dealt with the Department of the Army (and the Pentagon 

in general), traveling back and forth to Washington to convey the extent of the 

upheaval created by Blade Jewel and to plead for financial and other assistance for 

the families involved. Among his accomplishments, he was able to get the Army 

to authorize TDY funds for families returning to the United States prematurely. 

To relieve the housing shortage, U.S. Army, South, also requested Harvest Eagle 

quartering packages from the Air Force.

At the peak of his frustration over Blade Jewel, Loeffke wrote the following 

to the chief of staff of the Army, a poignant reminder that the relocation process 

involved people, not statistics.

Anguish. This week was the first time in my Army career that I felt we were doing our families an 

injustice. When I farewelled the 225 families leaving yesterday, I went to shake hands with a wife. She 

was furious and proceeded to let me know it. She said to me: “Don’t touch me general. I’ve waited ten 

months in the U.S. until my husband got quarters on post. My three children and I lived with friends in 

the U.S. It was miserable and crowded. I no sooner get settled in Panama, and you give me a week to 

move to Bragg. You won’t let my husband go because it will hinder your readiness. I won’t get priority 

for a house at Bragg. What do I do? I can’t afford to live in a motel. I left a good job to join him here. I 

have lost that, so don’t even talk to me.”4

3 Interv, author with Col John A. Cope Jr., U.S. Army, 29 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.

4 Msg, CDR, USARSO, to CSA, 011245Z Jun 89, sub: Update No. 27, Panama Update, 

Operations.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

220

Despite the magnitude of the relocation effort and the problems it entailed, 

Blade Jewel achieved the stated goal at the end of June. As Woerner informed 

Admiral Crowe, 6,300 service personnel and their dependents had been relocated; 

1,625 sets of household goods had been moved within Panama, with another 

1,600 sets shipped to the United States. All leases for off-post quarters had been 

terminated, although seventy families still remained in Panama proper for one 

reason or another, pending various actions by the Defense Department. At the 

Southern Command and U.S. Army, South, the end of Blade Jewel brought a sense 

of relief but little joy. If the purpose of the operation had been to put U.S. citizens 

in Panama out of harm’s way or at least to convey the impression to Noriega and 

the Panama Defense Forces that Washington was clearing the decks for action, 

the impact was diluted by the fact that 30,000 U.S. citizens not employed by the 

U.S. government or under its control still lived on Panamanian territory. Nor did 

the families brought on post necessarily feel safer if they ended up on installations 

such as Fort Amador, where PDF combat units lived in barracks next to American 

housing areas. Looking back on Blade Jewel from the perspective of a few years, 

Woerner judged the whole operation a “shameful feint.” Many who had suffered 

through the ordeal agreed. For U.S. Army, South, it had been, in Rossi’s opinion, 

a crisis within a crisis.5

While Blade Jewel and the operations to assert U.S. treaty rights took 

place in public view, behind the scenes, military planners had to determine the 

impact of both enterprises on the Prayer Book series of contingency plans. The 

noncombatant evacuation operation plan, Klondike Key, certainly needed to be 

reassessed in light of the Blade Jewel drawdown. A more pressing concern was 

how the Nimrod Dancer troop buildup would affect both Post Time and Blue

Spoon planning and operations. In one change to Blue Spoon made after the 

activation of Task Force Atlantic at Fort Sherman, units under Colonel Hale’s 

control received the wartime mission of taking down the PDF 8th Infantry 

Company at Fort Espinar, an operation originally assigned to units from the 1st 

Battalion, 508th Infantry, 193d Infantry Brigade. The change freed the 193d 

units to hit targets closer to their headquarters on the Pacific side of the canal 

area. Similarly, the newly arrived mechanized battalion, which under the existing 

plans had combat missions on the Atlantic side of the country, was stationed 

under Nimrod Dancer on the Pacific side instead, where it picked up new Blue

Spoon missions in and around Panama City.6

Although the battalions sent to Panama from the 7th Infantry Division (Light) 

and the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) had been listed among those forces 

designated to deploy under Post Time, the operation order itself, which called 

for a much larger buildup, had not been executed. The possibility that it might 

be, despite the Bush administration’s calming words on the protective mission of 

Nimrod Dancer forces, was something Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner, commander of the 

XVIII Airborne Corps, had to consider. From the corps’ perspective, the execution 

of Post Time would likely be the prelude to a full-scale invasion under Blue Spoon, 

5 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 011608Z Jul 89, sub: Status Blade Jewel Personnel Moves-Panama. 

The “shameless feint” quote is from Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91. 6 Intervs, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 13 Jun 90, Fort Clayton, Panama, and 

Col Robert L. Barefield, U.S. Army, 7 Nov 90, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Joint After Action Report 

(AAR), USSOUTHCOM, Operation Just Cause, 14 Feb 91, sec. A.
221

Ratcheting Up

in which case Stiner and his staff would deploy at some undetermined point to run 

the war as a joint task force. Given this scenario, the general thought it essential 

that he receive timely information on developments in the crisis. With that in mind, 

he ordered a three-man advance party to Panama, the group arriving at Quarry 

Heights in mid-May.7

The team was led by Maj. David Huntoon, the corps’ chief planner for 

Panama. Accompanying him were Capt. Mike Findlay from G–2 plans and Maj. 

Ed Lesnowicz, a marine. During the first week of their stay, the three worked 

out of the Tunnel at Quarry Heights. Once they concluded that additional Post

Time units were not going to deploy as part of Nimrod Dancer, they gravitated to 

Fort Clayton, where they joined JTF-Panama’s Lt. Col. Bob Pantier and his staff 

in further refining the Blue Spoon operation order for conventional forces. The 

reception they received at U.S. Army, South, was a bit chilly, with Loeffke, Rossi, 

and Cope still hoping to limit the corps’ involvement in the planning process. Even 

so, all parties recognized that JTF-Panama needed the group’s expertise in some 

areas, and Pantier stood ready to tap into it.8

One of JTF-Panama’s most pressing requirements with respect to Blue Spoon

planning was to sort through a variety of fire support and battlefield coordination 

issues. One set of concerns had to do with special operations platforms, such as 

AC–130s, that would be used in any invasion. Other questions revolved around 

what artillery assets would have to be deployed under Blue Spoon, and how 

indirect fire support would be coordinated. Neither the Southern Command nor 

JTF-Panama had a planner who could answer these questions, so Pantier relied 

heavily on Lesnowicz, the corps’ deputy fire support officer. (Lesnowicz occupied 

what was traditionally a Marine billet on the staff of an Army headquarters.) Back 

in April, Pantier and Lesnowicz had started work on the structure for a fire support 

element (FSE) and a battlefield coordination element (BCE), and they continued 

this collaboration after the three-man team arrived in May. Doctrine served as their 

general guideline, but when necessary they made modifications to reflect conditions 

in Panama. The battlefield coordination element they set up, for example, did not 

require the doctrinally correct thirty-man staff.

While Lesnowicz concentrated on FSE and BCE issues, Findlay applied his 

expertise to a number of intelligence-related matters, including the need to ensure 

timely information from the field to the operations center in the event of a U.S. 

invasion. (In working these issues, Findlay found disconcerting the fact that the 

military intelligence people at the Southern Command and U.S. Army, South, 

were not always communicating with one another.) He also helped introduce 

into the Blue Spoon plan the kind of tactical jargon that he believed subordinate 

headquarters and units would more readily understand.

7 Telephone conversation, author with Maj David Huntoon, 27 Jun 90; Interv, author with Lt 

Col David Huntoon, U.S. Army, 7 Apr 92, Fort Bragg, N.C. 8 For the activities of the three-man team, see Telephone conversation, author with Huntoon, 

27 Jun 90; Intervs, author with Pantier, 13 Jun 90, and Maj Mike Findlay, U.S. Army, 8 Feb 90, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans. While at Fort Clayton, Huntoon ran into Loeffke in a hallway. As they talked, 

Loeffke said something to the effect, “By the way, we don’t think we’re ever going to need you guys. 

We think we can do this ourselves, but we sure appreciate your coming down and doing this coordination.” Huntoon Interv, 7 Apr 92.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

222

By the time Huntoon and his party returned to Fort Bragg in mid-June—to 

be replaced by a team led by Lt. Col. Charles Bergdorf—they had contributed 

significantly to refining Blue Spoon. They had also confirmed their belief that JTFPanama was not “robust” enough to be given responsibility for executing the plan. 

The headquarters was adequate, they concluded, for managing such operations 

as freedom of movement convoys, but it could not hope to oversee a full-scale 

intervention. That assessment, in combination with the tougher U.S. policy that 

had gone into effect with Nimrod Dancer, compelled the XVIII Airborne Corps 

to become more actively engaged in the planning mission the Joint Chiefs had 

assigned it the previous year. From the corps’ perspective, Stiner recounted later, 

Panama moved during this time “from the back burner to the front.”9

The most significant revision to Blue Spoon made in the wake of the Panamanian 

election and U.S. troop buildup originated with the SOUTHCOM commander and 

the joint special operations task force at Fort Bragg. At issue was the fate of the 

PDF commander in the event of a U.S. invasion. In compartmentalized sessions, 

planners had discussed a covert operation to snatch Noriega, but as of mid-1989, 

the approved D-day targets for Blue Spoon conventional and special operations 

forces included PDF units and sites, not individuals. In the opinion of JSOTF 

planners, however, locating Noriega at any of the specified targets once hostilities 

commenced was unlikely. Unless Noriega himself was identified as an H-hour 

target, he would probably “go to ground” and become “virtually impossible to 

find.” The critical question was, would having the Panamanian dictator on the 

loose once Blue Spoon began matter?10

Woerner contended that it did. Following SOUTHCOM discussions with the 

Joint Staff in the Pentagon and after receiving a formal request from the joint 

special operations task force at Bragg to make Noriega a target, the SOUTHCOM 

commander concluded that U.S. policy objectives as stated in Blue Spoon would 

not be satisfied fully if Panama’s strongman remained at large. Should Noriega 

escape to a friendly country such as Cuba, he could mount a propaganda campaign 

in support of guerrilla warfare in Panama, thus complicating the transition to a 

democratic government during or following a U.S. invasion. To avoid a “long 

term problem,” Woerner advised Crowe, “the capture of Noriega and disreputable 

elements of the present command and control structure of the PDF is not only a 

desirable objective for Blue Spoon but a legitimate and necessary objective for 

successful mission accomplishment.”11

On 1 June 1989, the capture or neutralization of the PDF commander became 

a formal Blue Spoon mission to be executed by special operations personnel. 

Planning Noriega’s removal from power remained compartmentalized at Fort 

Bragg, with Pantier and other key planners for conventional operations keeping 

abreast of the plan’s details in order to avoid any potential conflict between the 

new SOF mission and the conventional ones contained in Blue Spoon.

12

9 Interv, Robert K. Wright Jr., U.S. Army Center of Military History, with Lt Gen Carl W. 

Stiner, U.S. Army, 2 Mar 90, Fort Bragg, N.C., Just Cause Interview Tapes (JCIT) 024. 10 Msg, COM[JSOTF] to CINCSO, 181915Z May 89, sub: Blue Spoon Tasking. 11 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 231245Z May 89, sub: Blue Spoon Planning. 12 Joint AAR, USSOUTHCOM, Operation Just Cause, 14 Feb 91, sec. A; Interv, author with 

Pantier, U.S. Army, 21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. In The Commanders, p. 115, journalist Bob 

Woodward comments on the legal basis for targeting an individual. On 21 June 1989, the U.S. Justice 
223

Ratcheting Up

Woerner’s “Retirement”

Accelerated work on the Prayer Book operation orders continued throughout 

Nimrod Dancer, both in Panama and in the United States. In the meantime, those 

responsible for planning at the Southern Command and JTF-Panama had to deal 

with the disruptive effects of Blade Jewel and the flurry of military retirements 

and reassignments that occurs every year in June and July. Many planners 

would themselves be leaving Panama; so, too, would other key staff officers and 

commanders. At Albrook Air Station, SOCSOUTH’s Col. Chuck Fry prepared 

for retirement, while Brig. Gen. John Stewart, the SOUTHCOM J–2 and one 

of Woerner’s inner circle, packed his bags for a posting with the Army Staff. At 

U.S. Army, South, Col. William Bolt, who was also heading for the Army Staff, 

was ready to turn command of the 193d over to Col. Michael J. Snell; Colonel 

Cope anticipated his new assignment as Bernard Aronson’s military assistant in 

the State Department; Colonel Rossi looked to retirement; and General Loeffke 

awaited a tour in Washington as chairman of the Inter-American Defense Board 

and commandant of the Inter-American Defense College. These officers and 

others, especially the host of generals and colonels leaving Panama, took with 

them their expertise and long-term familiarity with the crisis. Their replacements 

would need time to acquire a similar degree of expertise. The orientation process 

for the newcomers, which included highly detailed, four-hour briefings on the 

Prayer Book, could not hope to produce an immediate mastery of such a complex, 

nuanced, and dynamic issue.

Mitigating this turnover in military personnel was the continuity guaranteed 

by the presence of two key officers who were not leaving the country (while a 

third, Rossi, would be extended at U.S. Army, South, into the fall). Brig. Gen. 

Marc Cisneros, SOUTHCOM’s operations director, had received orders to assume 

command at Fort Clayton, which meant he would receive a second star (in late 

October) and, like Loeffke, serve as commander, JTF-Panama. And Woerner, a 

calming influence in an increasingly turbulent period, had been asked to extend 

his tour as SOUTHCOM commander into 1991. For those who believed a 

U.S. invasion of Panama to be ill advised, the continued presence of these two 

officers seemed reassuring. Both would provide a steady hand at the helm of their 

respective headquarters as the host of new component commanders and staff 

officers acclimated themselves to the intricacies of the crisis.

That line of reasoning received a sudden setback in early July. On the sixth, 

Woerner received a telephone call from Chief of Staff of the Army General Carl 

Vuono, who said that he was coming to Panama to speak personally with the 

SOUTHCOM commander. Woerner received the call in his office. After he hung 

up, he told others in the room, “I am going to be relieved.” Those present disagreed, 

but Vuono’s arrival confirmed the CINC’s premonition. “Fred,” Vuono said once 

they were together, “the President has decided to make a change.” In the discourse 

that followed, Vuono advised Woerner to resign rather than face removal, but the 

SOUTHCOM commander realized that, despite any graceful exit that could be 

arranged for him, he had been sacked. “In my terms,” he would say later, “I’m 

Department issued a 29-page legal opinion “stating that the President had legal authority to direct 

the FBI to abduct a fugitive residing in a foreign country for violations of U.S. law.” According to 

Woodward, government officials believed that the opinion could be applied to Noriega.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

224

being relieved—the first time in my career.” When he asked Vuono the reasons 

for the decision, the Army chief pleaded ignorance: the secretary of the Army had 

offered no explanation. A few days later, Woerner was in Washington, where he 

met with Admiral Crowe at the Pentagon. The JCS chairman, too, said that he 

had not been consulted on the matter and suggested they go upstairs and talk to 

Secretary of Defense Cheney. In the course of that audience, Woerner tried every 

way he could to obtain a specific answer as to why he was being replaced, but 

Cheney only conceded that the decision was “purely political” and had nothing to 

do with Woerner’s performance. Woerner, the secretary stated, had done exactly 

what the administration had asked of him in executing U.S. policy in the crisis.13

After thirty-four years’ service, to be retired in this way hurt Woerner deeply 

and caused him to reflect on a higher principle. “I was disappointed and concerned 

professionally that the military officer, therefore the military institution, would 

be used for political gain.” Crowe also believed the dismissal to be unjust. To the 

chairman, the White House had shown a lack of courage and the secretary of defense 

had seemed indifferent to the fate of a four-star general. There were others who 

deplored the decision, but, on the whole, there was little public backlash to a matter 

that received only passing attention in the news media.14 Faced with an irrevocable 

decision, Woerner informed Cheney that he would like to remain at his position for 

ninety days. New officers coming to Quarry Heights in the “incredible turnover” 

that summer had to be brought up to speed on the crisis. Woerner also wanted to 

make a last visit to the Latin American countries in his area of responsibility. Cheney 

listened but agreed only to a sixty-day interval between the formal announcement 

of Woerner’s retirement and the ceremony itself. That meant the latter would occur 

at the end of September.15 General Maxwell R. Thurman, then scheduled to step 

down as commanding general, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, would 

become the new SOUTHCOM commander.

Ratcheting Up

Two weeks before Woerner received word of his retirement, he had participated 

in a change-of-command ceremony at Fort Clayton, during which Cisneros took 

over as the commanding general, U.S. Army, South. Both men used the occasion 

to make strong statements about the crisis, with Cisneros calling Noriega a “dime 

store dictator,” and Woerner warning that the United States would use whatever 

13 Second quote from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 96, and see also pp. 97–98. First and 

third quotes from Intervs, General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), U.S. Army Military 

History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Last quoted words from Interv, author with Woerner, 30 Apr 

91. The closest any ranking Bush administration official would come to a public but candid explanation of the specific reasons for Woerner being relieved appears in Secretary of State James Baker’s 

memoirs. Baker claims that Woerner opposed the tougher policy advocated by the Bush administration and had developed a case of “clientitis” with Noriega. The “final straw” was what was perceived 

in the administration as Woerner’s “leisurely timetable” for drawing down U.S. military dependents 

in Panama. (Baker does not address the issue that these perceptions of Woerner might not have 

been accurate.) According to Baker, he, Cheney, and Scowcroft strongly recommended to Bush that 

Woerner be replaced. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 183–84. 14 See, for example, newspaper columns on the subject by retired U.S. Army colonel, Harry 

Summers. Quote from Woerner MHI Interv. 15 Woerner MHI Interv; Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 97–98; Woerner Interv, 30 Apr 91.
225

Ratcheting Up

force necessary to protect American citizens and U.S. treaty rights in Panama.16

What neither realized at the time, of course, was that in three months Woerner 

would be gone and Cisneros would become the principal repository of the military’s 

“institutional memory” of the crisis among senior U.S. officers in Panama. As the 

SOUTHCOM operations director, Cisneros had always been candid about leaning 

toward the Woerner camp. Both he and his boss had been critical of Washington’s 

failure to advance a coordinated policy to resolve the situation, both believed 

that the United States should execute Blue Spoon only as a last resort, and both 

favored a comprehensive interagency program to put pressure on the Panama 

Defense Forces and the Noriega regime. Where the two differed somewhat was on 

the nature of the pressure to be applied, with Cisneros generally favoring a more 

aggressive, confrontational approach than Woerner found comfortable.17

In an incident that occurred shortly after the change of command at Fort 

Clayton, Cisneros offered a glimpse of just how aggressive he intended to be, given 

his new authority. The episode involved two PDF tránsitos pursuing a thief across 

the mud flats separating Panama City from Fort Amador. When one of the police 

officers opened fire at the suspect with an AK47, a stray round hit an inside wall 

of a U.S. colonel’s family quarters on the fort. Upon receiving the report, Cisneros 

immediately moved a quick reaction force with its M113s and .50-caliber machine 

guns onto Amador. When the troops arrived, they investigated what had transpired 

and reported back. Cisneros then ordered them to return but over a route that would 

take them in front of the PDF 

5th Infantry Company barracks. 

The QRF’s guns were to be 

locked and loaded and pointed 

directly at the buildings. With 

this show of force, Cisneros 

established his credentials as 

the new USARSO and JTFPanama commander, lived up 

to his reputation for wanting 

more confrontational action, 

and sent a clear message to 

both the Panamanian military 

and the American community 

in Panama: as commanding 

general at Fort Clayton, he 

would move decisively and 

with force against any perceived 

threat to U.S. military personnel 

and their dependents.18

In the days and weeks that 

followed, Cisneros made his 

mark in several other ways 

16 The remarks are from Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 49. 17 Ibid.; Conversation, author with Brig Gen Marc Cisneros, 13 Dec 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.

18 John T. Fishel, The Panama Intervention of 1989: Operation Just Cause and Its Aftermath, 

copy in author’s personal files.

General Cisneros (left) and General Thurman at 

the former’s promotion ceremony 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

226

related to the crisis. As Woerner’s J–3, he had monitored the daily activities of 

JTF-Panama, and he was not always pleased with what he saw. In an observation with which Loeffke would have disagreed vigorously, Cisneros maintained 

that the organization was not sufficiently oriented to combat. He therefore implemented measures to increase the joint task force’s operational preparedness 

while enabling it to exert greater pressure on the Panama Defense Forces. Contingency readiness exercises (CREs), which he had witnessed while stationed in 

Germany, constituted one such new measure. Supplementing the Purple Storms 

and joint training program Loeffke had promoted soon after the joint task force 

was activated, Cisneros specifically wanted the CREs to reduce to two hours the 

time needed for the bulk of U.S. forces under his command and control to muster and deploy for defensive or offensive operations. The exercises would also 

allow the troops additional opportunities to rehearse, without their knowledge, 

JTF-Panama’s Post Time and Blue Spoon contingency plans, although operations security and deception plans dictated that units would not go to their actual 

battle locations. Soldiers from the 193d, for example, in conducting several air 

assault exercises into Fort Amador, would generally land in front of the PDF 5th 

Infantry Company barracks, whereas the Blue Spoon plan called for a flanking 

attack.19

In addition to the contingency readiness exercises, Cisneros inaugurated a 

series of small-scale exercises that Rossi dubbed Sand Fleas. In common with 

the insect endemic to Panama, a Sand Flea exercise was designed to irritate the 

Panama Defense Forces, thereby aggravating the stress already generated by 

the regime’s inability to pay and feed many of the organization’s members. In 

practice, the line between Purple Storms, contingency readiness exercises, and 

Sand Fleas was often indistinct. But all three presented an opportunity to train 

U.S. forces, rehearse contingency plans, deceive the Panamanian military with 

false “signatures” and “footprints,” force the PDF to react to each and every 

undertaking, and observe those reactions, which often included troop movements. 

Theoretically, the resulting strains on PDF resources, time, and patience would, 

in line with the new U.S. policy, increase friction and lower morale within the 

institution. But Cisneros also hoped the numerous U.S. exercises would gradually 

lull Noriega’s men into a false sense of security, causing them ultimately to 

respond with an indifferent “Ah, the gringos aren’t going to do anything. This is 

all just psychological warfare.”20

To be sure, the exercises were, in some measure, psychological operations 

(PSYOP), an arena in which Cisneros was especially eager to become more 

confrontational toward the Panama Defense Forces. At one point right after he 

arrived at U.S. Army, South, this inclination nearly cost him his job. On 8 July, 

he gave a newspaper interview in which he asserted that he saw little chance of 

19 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 49. Intervs, author with Maj Gen Marc 

Cisneros, U.S. Army, 30 Jan 90 and 29 Jun 90, Fort Clayton, Panama; and Col Michael J. Snell, U.S. 

Army, 16 Dec 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 20 Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 49. Quote from Interv, author with Maj 

Gen Marc Cisneros, 30 Jan 90, Fort Clayton, Panama. Intervs, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. 

Army, 21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and 13 Jun 90; and Lt Col Brett Francis, U.S. Army, 14 

Dec 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Presentation, Lt Col Robert Pantier, 21 May 92, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.
227

Ratcheting Up

either a diplomatic resolution to the crisis or the PDF overthrowing Noriega. He 

went on to say, “I’ve been thinking more and more that the United States should 

impose a military solution that would give this country an opportunity to have 

a government that isn’t criminal.” Most Americans would support such a move, 

he continued, most Latin American governments would privately applaud it, and 

most PDF personnel would not fight to save their commander. Cisneros stated 

that he was expressing a personal opinion. “Any U.S. military action is decided 

by the President.”21

Word that the commander of U.S. Army troops in Panama was openly 

espousing military intervention created a sensation among people involved in the 

crisis. Spokespersons for Noriega’s regime railed against Cisneros (as they had 

many times in the past), accusing him of sponsoring an invasion of their country. 

Reaction at the Pentagon, while expressed privately, was hardly more restrained. 

That Cisneros really was not an advocate of intervention and that the interview was 

part of a larger PSYOP stratagem aimed at rattling the Panamanian regime and its 

armed forces mattered little. Admiral Crowe was furious over what he considered 

a deliberate and unauthorized provocation. Woerner, who was in Washington after 

hearing about his own relief, called Cisneros and twice warned the new USARSO 

commander that “his head was on the block,” and that he, too, might be relieved. 

In the end, Cisneros weathered the storm but not before taking to heart Woerner’s 

admonition not to grant any more sensational interviews.22

In making the controversial statements, Cisneros never intended to appear to 

his superiors as an erratic, bellicose commander, a “loose cannon.” With ample 

justification, he firmly believed his remarks, not to mention his handling of the 

shooting near Fort Amador or his introduction of the contingency readiness 

exercises, to be consonant with the Bush administration’s tougher approach to 

Noriega and his regime.23 Moreover, at the time of the interview, he knew that 

Washington was about to approve even stronger measures, the result of a monthold initiative that had begun on the eve of the first freedom of movement convoy in 

the last part of May and in which Cisneros himself had played a prominent role.

The initiative was partly prompted by a request from the Joint Staff on 19 

May for the Southern Command to provide a list of additional actions U.S. forces 

in Panama might take to assert America’s treaty rights and, in general, to advance 

the president’s new policy. Woerner’s J–3 shop, of which Cisneros was still the 

director at that time, had already enumerated several such “supporting efforts.” 

After revising the proposals and adding some new options, Cisneros forwarded 

the list to the SOUTHCOM commander and the Pentagon on 21 May. Some of the 

proposed measures fell into the category of low-risk “collateral operations,” which 

Woerner simply approved on his own authority while keeping Crowe informed. 

Other options entailed greater risks and required further analysis and discussion. 

By 30 May, the day Woerner formally submitted SOUTHCOM’s recommendations 

to the Joint Chiefs, rumors were beginning to circulate around Quarry Heights and 

21 Quotes from both Press Releases, SOUTHCOM PAO, 10 Jul 89, and USARSO PAO, 10 Jul 

89. 22 Cisneros Interv, 30 Jan 90.

23 Conversation, author with Cisneros, 13 Dec 89.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

228

Fort Clayton that there might be an escalation in the U.S. military activities then 

under way to put pressure on Panama’s regime and the Panama Defense Forces.24

In his message to Crowe, Woerner expressed the need for just such a course 

of action. While acknowledging the success of the convoys and the collateral 

operations he had authorized to that point, he also noted the low-key nature of the 

PDF’s response, confined mainly to a disinformation PSYOP campaign against 

American imperialism. In order for the United States to “maintain the initiative,” 

Woerner requested authority to execute new measures in early June, immediately 

following a scheduled OAS meeting on the crisis. The proposed actions included 

reoccupying various U.S. facilities currently being used by the Panama Defense 

Forces, asserting U.S. access to the Fort Amador causeway, and diverting public 

traffic around, instead of through, Howard Air Force Base. “Because some of these 

are confrontational,” he warned, “they will require the same degree of resolve as 

the freedom of movement operations.”25

About a week after sending the message, Woerner flew to Washington to talk 

with senior officials about the next steps in the crisis. A memorandum summarizing 

the nature of the discussions indicated that a major topic was “how to make 

both Noriega and the OAS think the US had military intervention on its mind” 

(presumably short of having the USARSO commander openly announce it to them, 

along with the rest of the world). Woerner indicated that there were numerous 

measures that could be employed to that end. Meanwhile, in Lt. Gen. Thomas 

Kelly’s operations shop in the Pentagon, staffers drafted a paper in preparation 

for an interagency Policy Coordination Committee meeting on 14 June.26 The 

paper recommended approval of the actions Woerner had discussed in his 30 May 

message and listed additional options for increasing pressure on Noriega and the 

Panama Defense Forces by “overstressing their centralized command structure 

system.” The proposals included night training operations and highly visible joint 

training exercises, publicizing the completion of Blade Jewel, reconnaissance and 

surveillance operations in the vicinity of PDF command and control facilities and 

other sites, an evacuation exercise, deploying U.S. Air Force aircraft to Panama for 

training purposes, the visible placement of logistical supplies in Panama, simulating 

logistical and operational preparations for a large military operation, and placing 

operational forces on Fort Amador. The lieutenant colonel who wrote the paper 

acknowledged that there were risks attached to the proposed courses of action. 

Although increased pressure might “polarize the PDF-Noriega relationship,” 

the measures might just as easily backfire, solidifying the PDF’s loyalty to its 

24 Joint Staff Internal Staff Paper to DJS, 21 May 89, sub: Options for Exercising Panamanian 

Treaty Rights. First quoted words from Paper, SOUTHCOM J–3, Supporting Efforts for Freedom of 

Movement (FOM) Actions, 15 May 89. Second quoted words from Memo, Cisneros for CINCSO, 21 

May 89, sub: Assertion of US Forces Treaty Rights. Memo, Cisneros for CDR, JTF Panama; CDR, 

SOCSO, 24 May 89, sub: Measures to Support Freedom of Movement Operation; Interv, author with 

Maj Gen Bernard Loeffke, U.S. Army, 31 May 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. 25 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 301426Z May 89, sub: Asserting Treaty Rights.

26 The Policy Coordinating Committee was made up of Bernard Aronson from the State 

Department, William Price from the National Security Council, Richard Brown from the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense, and Brig. Gen. David Meade from the Joint Staff. See Ronald H. Cole, 

Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama, February 

1988–January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, 1995), pp. 11–12.
229

Ratcheting Up

commander. Furthermore, the actions could increase the danger to U.S. citizens 

in Panama, while outside groups, including the Organization of American States, 

might view the moves as overly provocative, a reversion to “gunboat diplomacy.” 

Still, despite the risks involved, an attachment to the staff paper called for the 

coordination and implementation of new policy initiatives.27

On 13 June, the day before the interagency meeting in Washington, staff officers 

at Quarry Heights reviewed the latest, updated Joint Staff paper concerning future 

military action in the crisis. Key SOUTHCOM directorates questioned some of 

the options, modified some, and added others. The next day, Woerner provided this 

feedback to the Pentagon. While the list of actions “to increase PDF perceptions 

that the U.S. is preparing for a military solution to the ‘Crisis’ in Panama” took 

up the bulk of the memorandum, what was of even greater importance were the 

general observations that preceded and followed the list. Woerner began with a very 

forceful statement: “While these options may be successful in intimidating Noriega 

and his thugs, there is a real possibility that he and the PDF may react (by accident 

or design) and test U.S. resolve. As a consequence, the signal that these options 

will send should not be sent, unless we are prepared to use military force.”28 As 

in the past, the SOUTHCOM commander was not advocating a military solution 

to the crisis; he was simply warning Washington that the process of convincing 

Noriega of Washington’s seriousness concerning a military solution to the crisis 

might itself create a situation in which the United States would actually have to 

exercise that option. 

Woerner also detailed the risks involved in adopting the new measures. 

Latin American allies might rally around the “banner of non-intervention,” while 

Noriega would simply wait out any pressure he perceived as a bluff, which was 

likely if the United States in effect cried “wolf” again by employing “a series 

of piecemeal tactics which are not a part of a larger campaign plan.” Here, the 

SOUTHCOM commander reiterated familiar themes. He raised again the triad 

concept as the best approach for exploiting Noriega’s vulnerabilities and urged that 

the military options under consideration be incorporated into his latest proposal for 

an interagency campaign plan, Black Gnat, that he had just submitted to Admiral 

Crowe. In concluding, Woerner noted that “we are moving from one set of military 

missions (protect American lives & property/exert Treaty Rights) to a very different 

mission of threatening invasion. I therefore caution again that the aforementioned 

actions . . . must be accomplished as a part of a larger plan, and that the decision 

process for deception should include an agreement ahead of time that the signals 

we send may have to be executed.”29

The next day, Woerner repeated these sentiments in a message to Air Force 

General Robert Herres, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But in 

addition to the long-standing plea for putting contemplated military actions within 

the context of an interagency campaign plan, the SOUTHCOM commander made a 

telling point. “I am also concerned,” he wrote, “that by undertaking deception plan 

27 Memo for [SOUTHCOM] Chief of Staff, 13 Jun 89, sub: Deception Tactics. Quotes from 

Talking Paper [and atchs.], JCS J–3 Joint Operations Division, n.d., sub: Options to Increase PDF 

Uncertainty of US Intentions. 28 Memo, General Fred F. Woerner for Maj Gen Graves, 14 Jun 89, sub: Options to Heighten 

PDF Concerns. 29 Ibid.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

230

which implies U.S. invasion, we may be going beyond President’s publicly stated 

primary objectives of protecting U.S. lives and asserting U.S. treaty rights.”30 One 

can only speculate at this point on the impact these cautionary messages might 

have had on those key administration and military officials then planning the 

escalation of U.S. pressure in the crisis. Woerner was again implying that American 

policy makers had yet to accept responsibility and face up to the need for a truly 

integrated strategy. He was warning them that the additional military measures 

they were considering could result in the use of U.S. force, in effect the execution 

of Blue Spoon. And he was questioning whether, in revising the military’s mission 

in Panama, these policy makers were acting in accordance with President Bush’s 

wishes. Conceivably, these sentiments reinforced the perception of the president’s 

principal national security advisers that Woerner was not a “team player.” If so, the 

messages he sent in mid-June 1989 could have influenced the president’s decision 

to relieve him.

Whatever the impact of Woerner’s advice, another month would pass before 

President Bush issued formal guidelines for implementing more assertive military 

measures in Panama. As the administration deliberated, staff officers at the tactical 

level, anticipating the tougher initiatives, engaged in a series of brainstorming 

sessions to fashion various ways in which JTF-Panama could turn up the heat 

on the Noriega regime. The goal, as the participants understood it, was to make 

U.S. troops more visible to more people in Panama and, by forcing the Panama 

Defense Forces to react to the new initiatives, to sow confusion and discontent 

within that institution. Headed by Colonel Menser and Major Collier from the 

Operations Planning Group, the meetings, informally dubbed Operation Ratchet, 

convened in mid-June at Fort Clayton, just a week before Cisneros took command 

at U.S. Army, South, and included representatives from all the services as well 

as from SOUTHCOM’s Center for Treaty Affairs, the U.S. military intelligence 

community, and the Panama Canal Commission.

The atmosphere during these sessions was relaxed but thoughtful, with a 

premium placed on creative thinking. Few serious ideas were dismissed out 

of hand, and there was no shortage of suggestions. SOUTHCOM’s Center for 

Treaty Affairs kept the attendees apprised of the legal latitude they had under the 

canal treaties, and, to the surprise of many, the room for maneuver turned out 

to be considerable. The revelation, for example, that military exercises did not 

have to be restricted to the canal area opened up all sorts of possibilities. Treaty 

affairs personnel also suggested that the best way to confuse the Panamanian 

military was not to keep quiet about imminent U.S. activities but to provide 

PDF members on the Combined Board just enough information to satisfy the 

law while leaving them wondering about what specifically was going to happen 

and what they might have to do in response. After much discussion, the U.S. 

officers participating in these sessions produced a wide range of options, which 

were then consolidated by Menser and Collier for presentation to the incoming 

USARSO and JTF-Panama commander.31

30 Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 150003Z Jun 89, sub: Dangers in Crying Wolf.

31 Intervs, author with Maj Mark C. Collier, U.S. Army, 20 Jun 89, and 24 Jan 90, Fort Clayton, 

Panama.
231

Ratcheting Up

Alice, Beatrice, and the Others

Woerner’s call for tougher measures, Cisneros’ move from Quarry Heights 

to Fort Clayton, and Operation Ratchet all combined to increase the operational 

tempo of U.S. forces throughout July. Rare was the daily situation report that 

did not contain references to one or more Sand Fleas, contingency readiness 

exercises, or Purple Storms. Moreover, if any of these undertakings did result in 

a confrontation with Panamanian forces, the chances were that the whole affair 

would be documented on film, as each side increasingly made use of hand-held 

video cameras. An exercise recorded on videotape could, at the very least, serve as 

useful footage for evening newscasts. More important for the Southern Command, 

videotaping would capture any PDF provocations and presumably demonstrate 

PDF culpability in any escalation or resort to violence. (Whether the presence of 

cameras would actually encourage the kind of PDF posturing that might lead to 

violence remained an open question.) Film documentation, however, could be a 

two-edged sword. As U.S. troops came to suspect, the footage might also capture 

their own mistakes or lapses in judgment. Furthermore, knowing that one’s actions 

were being filmed could conceivably prove a distraction in any confrontation; an 

officer might hesitate to act or might overreact in the presence of the cameras. These 

potential drawbacks notwithstanding, increasingly frequent references to “dueling 

cameras” and “the camcord war” indicated the degree to which videocassettes 

were becoming standard issue for planned operations and exercises. The use of 

recording devices also demonstrated that both sides saw in the increased military 

activity an opportunity to influence public opinion in Panama.32

JTF-Panama mounted more exercises and operations in July than in June or 

May, although most of the daily ventures were still fairly routine and did not entail 

inordinate risks for U.S. forces. One exception involved a Purple Storm executed 

to regain U.S. access to the Panama Canal Causeway between Fort Amador and 

Naos, Perico, and Flamenco islands. Under Article III of the implementing treaty, 

the United States had the “right to use any portion of the Canal operating areas for 

military training.” The causeway and certain facilities on the islands fell under that 

clause. The problem was that the very specific language of the treaty to this effect 

had not been reflected in the color-coded treaty maps of the canal area, which showed 

the causeway and the islands as strictly Panamanian territory. According to Woerner, 

the time had come to rectify the mistake. On 18 July, he informed the Pentagon that, 

once the OAS delegation currently in Panama had concluded its business, the next 

series of U.S. exercises would include the causeway, which he referred to as “one of 

the prime areas” for the next step in asserting U.S. treaty rights.33

32 Colonel Hale offered a two-hour course in “counterpropaganda” for his battalion commanders. The employment of videotaping was an integral part of that course. Discussion notes, author with 

Col David R. E. Hale, 28 Sep 89, LICPRO Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 33 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 301426Z May 89, sub: Asserting Treaty Rights; JCS Internal Staff 

Paper (and atchs.) to CJCS, 20 Jul 89, sub: Military Activities in Panama. Second quote from Msg, 

CINCSO to Joint Staff, 182215Z Jul 89, sub: Military Activities in Panama. A handwritten note, 

not dated, provided the following legal opinion on the causeway: “The Causeway issue (a COA 

[Canal Operating Area] under the Treaty but white on the MAP) must be resolved by State, for the 

Commission, before we the U.S. Forces can patrol it. Technically JOINT Patrols are for green areas 

& not pink. Only good relationship w[ith] the PDF could allow such a thing.”
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

232

The magnitude of the exercise and the challenge it posed to accepted, though 

erroneous, legal interpretations of certain treaty clauses sounded alarms in the 

Joint Staff and the interagency arena, where Woerner’s proposal was regarded, 

as he intended it to be, as “an escalatory step.” The problem was not so much 

the increased risks involved, but the timing of the exercise. President Bush was 

“personally engaged” in supporting the OAS effort at the time and had deferred a 

decision on employing tougher military measures in the crisis. But barring an OAS 

breakthrough on Panama, which was considered highly unlikely, those around 

Bush assumed he would approve the new initiatives in a matter of days. Following 

that, the National Command Authority would require 24-hours’ notification before 

troops in Panama executed the causeway plan.34

On 22 July, as expected, the president approved NSD-17, a national security 

directive setting new guidelines for U.S. military actions in Panama to assert treaty 

rights and to keep Noriega and his followers off guard. The directive divided 

operations into four categories, based on a matrix of risk and visibility. Low-risk, 

low-visibility activities fell under Category I. As examples, NSD-17 listed such 

measures as publicizing the evacuation of U.S. government dependents, expanding 

media and psychological campaigns against the regime, and placing PDF members 

under formal escort whenever they entered a U.S. base. Low-risk, high-visibility 

activities constituted Category II, which included increasing MP patrols between U.S. 

installations, training Apache helicopter crews and battalion-size units in Panama, 

and practicing amphibious and combat operations at night. Category III consisted 

of medium-risk, high-visibility measures, such as the increase of U.S. armed patrols 

and reconnaissance in the vicinity of key PDF installations. The most sensitive and 

dangerous category, Category IV, encompassed high-risk, high-visibility operations 

and exercises. Examples included reestablishing U.S. access to the causeway and 

reasserting U.S. control over certain facilities at Fort Amador, Fort Espinar, and 

Quarry Heights. Because of the elevated level of risk, all Category III and IV 

proposals had to be submitted to the Joint Chiefs for approval at the interagency 

level or higher.35

Following dissemination of the new guidance, Woerner resubmitted the 

causeway proposal up the chain of command, notifying the National Command 

Authority that he was scheduling this Category IV event for 10 August. He 

quickly received the necessary authorization. At JTF-Panama, staff officers 

code-named the operation Alice, which, according to one source, caused 

Cisneros some consternation at first. Why pick a female name? he wanted to 

know. Why not something stronger, given the magnitude of the undertaking? 

Rossi provided the answers. To begin with, he pointed out, there were definite 

security advantages to the term Alice, should Noriega’s people overhear anyone 

discussing the operation. He also noted the negative impact Alice would have 

on PDF machismo once the operation had been executed and the code word 

publicized. Cisneros accepted the explanation.36

Just as the Southern Command and JTF-Panama were ironing out the final 

details of the plan, an unforeseen event intruded. On 8 August, just two days before 

34 JCS Internal Staff Paper (and atchs.) to CJCS, 20 Jul 89, sub: Military Activities in Panama.

35 Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 11–12. 36 JCS Internal Staff Paper (and atchs.) to DJS, 8 Aug 89, sub: Notification of Cat IV Activity—

Operation Alice; Collier Interv, 24 Jan 90.
233

Ratcheting Up

Alice, a routine Sand Flea exercise turned into a serious confrontation.37 The 

exercise, code-named Westward Ho, had six light armored vehicles from Task 

Force Semper Fi conducting a motorized reconnaissance that, at times, took them 

into Panamanian territory. This was allowed under the treaty, but legal niceties 

did not prevent two PDF tránsitos from stopping one of the LAVs while it was 

in a White, or Panamanian, area on the color-coded treaty map. The purpose 

behind this interference became apparent, as a group of Panamanians began what 

American sources described as a “small demonstration” at the site. The “outrage” 

of the demonstrators was duly filmed for Panama’s evening newscasts. Some tense 

moments ensued, during which a reaction force with five light armored vehicles 

arrived and extricated the LAV being detained.

The LAVs then proceeded to link up with the main body of the reconnaissance 

force, which, en route to its destination, noticed that it was being followed by six PDF 

vehicles. At one point, the pursuers, without realizing or without caring, trailed the 

light armored vehicles into a Green zone, or area of coordination. The canal treaties 

forbid the Panama Defense Forces to enter such an area without prior coordination 

with U.S. forces, so the MARFOR commander ordered all six cars stopped. Thirteen 

Panamanians—four in uniform, nine in plain clothes—were removed from the 

vehicles at gunpoint and disarmed. When the marines began the process of detaining 

each person, five of the plain-clothed individuals awaited their turn by videotaping 

the proceedings, only to surrender their cameras once they were themselves detained. 

Also surrendered were several automatic weapons, two fragmentary grenades, five 

9-mm. pistols, a flare pistol, a knife, and a Daisy BB gun. Once SOUTHCOM treaty 

affairs representatives arrived, the video equipment minus the film footage was 

returned, and the men were escorted out of the Green area.

That the thirteen had been disarmed at gunpoint made the incident newsworthy. 

What lent it even greater import was the fact that one of the men was Noriega’s 

brother-in-law. The humiliation he suffered simply by being detained ensured 

retaliation, and, a few days later, the Panama Defense Forces picked up four 

U.S. military policemen. This, in turn, led Cisneros to retaliate in kind, blocking 

the entrance to Fort Amador and picking up four PDF personnel. This forceful 

demonstration had the desired effect, and the MPs were released. As one JTFPanama staff officer observed, Noriega could now have no doubt that the situation 

was going to be more difficult. “That was when life started to get a little bit more 

interesting,” the officer added.38

Concerns raised by the PDF’s “ambush” of the light armored vehicle did 

not delay the execution of Operation Alice two days later. The first phase of the 

Category IV Purple Storm kicked off around dawn on 10 August and consisted 

of a series of diversionary movements. On the Atlantic side, beginning at 0545, 

some of Colonel Hale’s soldiers practiced an emergency withdrawal of ordnance 

from the Fort Espinar ammunition depot where, prior to Nimrod Dancer, U.S. 

vehicles engaged in the same procedure had been stopped by the Panama Defense 

Forces at gunpoint. Hale sent two trucks to do the job, and neither encountered any 

37 The following account of the events of 8 August is based on Msg, CDR, JTF-PM, to CINCSO, 

090440Z Aug 89, sub: SITREP/COMJTF-PM/085; Intervs, author with Collier, 24 Jan 90, and 

Cisneros, 30 Jan 90; and Reynolds, Just Cause, pp. 15–16. Reynolds gives a 7 August date to the 

Sand Flea. 38 Collier Interv, 24 Jan 90.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

234

resistance. But they did get the attention of the Panamanian military, which was, of 

course, the purpose of the maneuver.39

On the Pacific side, elements of the 5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, from Task 

Force Bayonet moved soon after daylight to secure the Ancon area, including 

Balboa High School, Quarry Heights, and Gorgas Army Hospital. Meanwhile, 

light armored vehicles from Task Force Semper Fi took up positions outside the 

PDF DNTT station near Fort Amador. At 0900, the second phase of Operation 

Alice, the main effort, began when elements of the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, 

another Task Force Bayonet unit, conducted air assaults into three landing zones on 

Fort Amador. Soon thereafter, units from the Nimrod Dancer mechanized battalion 

moved to link up with the infantry, and the combined force then made its way down 

the causeway, securing key terrain on Naos Island and a landing beach on Perico 

Island. LCMs escorted by craft from Special Boat Unit 26 then brought in six 

Marine LAVs over the beachhead. Throughout, JTF-Panama’s AFFOR component 

provided air cover and back-up air support for the ground troops and naval vessels. 

By 1150, the operation was over, with the U.S. units back at their bases. In the days 

preceding Alice, there had been some feeling that it would be the “trigger” event, 

that it would provoke a strong reaction, but at no point did the Panama Defense 

Forces offer any opposition. A PDF guard at the causeway surrendered his weapon 

voluntarily, and two PDF vehicles that had been set in place to block the causeway 

were removed as the mechanized and infantry force approached.40

Alice was considered a huge success. As one JTF-Panama staff officer boasted, 

the operation brought U.S. troops to Noriega’s doorstep, resulting in a loss of face for 

39 Msg, CDR, JTF-PM, to CINCSO, 110543Z Aug 89, sub: SITREP/COMJTF-PM/087; Interv, 

author with Col David R. E. Hale, U.S. Army, 28 Sep 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. 40 Msg, CDR, JTF-PM, to CINCSO, 110543Z Aug 89, sub: SITREP/COMJTF-PM/087; JCS 

Internal Staff Paper (and atchs.) to CJCS, 10 Aug 89, sub: Memorandum for Record—Exercise 

Alice; Collier Interv, 24 Jan 90.

Marines in their light armored vehicles
235

Ratcheting Up

the dictator. The exercise also showed the regime that U.S. headquarters could put 

together a large force on short notice and shut down Fort Amador and the three islands 

off the causeway. Equally satisfying was the realization that operations security had 

not been compromised in any significant way. In accordance with what treaty affairs 

advisers had predicted, the Panama Defense Forces received just enough advance 

information to confuse them. They knew there was going to be an operation, but 

not where the main effort would be. Thus Noriega’s propaganda specialists and the 

regime-controlled media showed up only for the Marines’ portion of Alice; they 

were not present to provide an anti-American slant to the sight of the large U.S. 

mechanized and infantry force advancing down the causeway.41

With its diversionary actions, Task Force Atlantic had played a supporting 

role in Alice. A few weeks later, it had the opportunity to mount a full-fledged 

Category IV operation of its own. In his 30 May message to Crowe, Woerner had 

recommended reoccupying various military quarters and facilities that the United 

States had leased to the Panamanian government before the crisis. One of these 

buildings was Quarters 32 at Fort Espinar, ostensibly the residence of the PDF 

8th Infantry Company commander. With the deterioration in U.S.-Panamanian 

relations, the Panama Defense Forces had stopped paying rent on the building, which 

SOUTHCOM treaty affairs personnel charged was not being used for its intended 

purpose anyway. The regime countered that the facility had been transferred to 

Panama in 1984, along with other portions of what was then called Fort Gulick. 

The United States rejected this position and, in March 1989, terminated the lease. 

As of late August, however, the PDF had not turned the building back to U.S. 

Forces. In a message to the Joint Staff on 31 August, Woerner notified the National 

Command Authority of his intention to reoccupy Quarters 32 on 2 September. The 

operation was code-named Beatrice.

42

Beatrice was a Category IV operation because the Southern Command could 

not rule out the possibility that the Panama Defense Forces would fight to retain 

possession of Quarters 32, which was now being used as a billet for visiting VIPs.43

The building was guarded 24 hours a day (one guard at night, two during daylight). 

Complicating matters, American family housing was located within twenty meters 

of the structure. In short, given the possibility of a hostile PDF reaction and the 

attendant risks to U.S. military dependents, JTF-Panama had to take exceptional 

care in planning the building’s reoccupation. From the beginning, the undertaking 

was treated as a major tactical operation, with highly detailed preparations, sand 

table rehearsals, and continuous requests for legal advice. At one point, Cisneros 

and Hale meticulously drafted a statement that the latter would read to the PDF 

company commander at Espinar, notifying him of the impending takeover of 

41 Intervs, author with Francis, 14 Dec 89, and Pantier, 21 May 91.

42 Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 301426Z May 89, sub: Asserting Treaty Rights; JCS Internal Staff 

Paper (and atchs.) to CJCS, 1 Sep 89, sub: USCINCSO Category IV OPERATION Beatrice. One of 

the attachments is Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 311745Z Aug 89, sub: Notification of Category IV 

Activity, in which Woerner provided the background and concept of operations for Beatrice. 43 The account of Operation Beatrice that follows is based on Msg, CINCSO to Joint Staff, 

311745Z Aug 89. Intervs, author with Maj Harry Tunnell, U.S. Army, 13 May 98, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.; Maj Reginald Sikes, U.S. Army, 7 May 99, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Collier, 24 Jan 90; Hale, 

28 Sep 89; and Maj Brian Clark, U.S. Army, 2 May 2000, Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Briefing, Col 

Hale to TRADOC Warfighter X Seminar, 28 Sep 89, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

236

Quarters 32. The trick in writing the statement was to convey the inevitability of 

the action in forceful but not offensive terms, so as not to deny the officer a facesaving exit.

In case the PDF commander did not accept a graceful way out, Hale had the 

force he needed to accomplish the mission. According to the concept of operations 

Woerner forwarded to the Joint Chiefs and National Command Authority, a locksmith 

and an MP liaison team with dogs would go to Quarters 32 to take possession of 

the building. In support would be an infantry company(-), a Marine platoon with 

LAVs (secretly infiltrated into Espinar through the fort’s back gate over the course 

of two nights), and a military police company. The infantry and light armored 

vehicles would be used to isolate the building and stop any PDF attempt to send 

reinforcements, while the military police working with a psychological operations 

team would provide security and information for noncombatants in the housing 

area. Snipers would take positions across from Quarters 32 with instructions to 

engage anyone pointing weapons at U.S. troops. The Panama Defense Forces, as 

required by law, would be apprised of the operation in advance and warned of the 

consequences of resisting. 

Light fighters stationed at Espinar kept Quarters 32 under continuous 

surveillance. The night before Beatrice, a Scout, after having observed the PDF 

guard on duty bringing in a woman companion, dutifully submitted a report on 

“that particular engagement.” The next morning, only one guard was present when 

the U.S. team riding in HMMWVs approached to retake the quarters. The guard 

made a quick telephone call, then picked up a TV antenna, flipped the building’s 

keys to the senior U.S. officer present, and walked off. A military police squad with 

an explosive-detecting dog proceeded to clear the house, after which Beatrice was 

over. That the operation transpired without incident Hale attributed to the PDF’s 

psychological state of mind. During Nimrod Dancer, the frenetic schedule of 7th 

Infantry Division exercises, especially at night, had worn down the 8th Infantry 

Company at Espinar to the point where, as Hale later contended concerning 

Quarters 32, “We were able to bluff them out of it.”44

Operation Beatrice, as initially presented by Woerner to the National Command 

Authority, had targeted two buildings for reoccupation, Quarters 32 at Espinar 

and Quarters 323 on Quarry Heights. The SOUTHCOM commander’s concept 

of operations was briefed to Secretary of Defense Cheney, after which Woerner 

received approval for the Espinar target only. Concerns over PDF intentions and 

the sensitive location of Quarters 323 led to the deletion of the second target, at 

least for the time being.45 This decision and others like it, such as the postponement 

of Alice, underscored the point that U.S. officers in Panama could not take for 

granted NCA approval for Category III and IV proposals. As was necessary and 

appropriate, the Bush administration would consider all requests in the context 

of broader political and diplomatic issues. Given this broader perspective, policy 

makers in Washington, after discussing risks and ramifications, might arrive at 

conclusions at variance with SOUTHCOM and JTF-Panama projections. 

44 Briefing, Col Hale to TRADOC Warfighter X Seminar, 28 Sep 89.

45 In all, Woerner had called for the reoccupation of four facilities. By the time he left Panama, 

all four had been reoccupied without incident.
237

Ratcheting Up

In some cases when the National Command Authority or the Pentagon 

expressed doubts about a proposed operation, JTF-Panama would revise the plan 

so as to allay specific concerns and elicit the necessary approval. There were times, 

however, when Cisneros wondered if officials back in Washington were being too 

cautious in their assessments. The general, as his admirers and even some of his 

detractors acknowledged, had an almost intuitive ability to anticipate how Noriega 

and the Panama Defense Forces would react to a specific military initiative. On 

rare occasions when Cisneros feared a fainthearted response from Washington to 

what he considered a safe and prudent undertaking, he would obviate involvement 

of higher headquarters simply by designating his plan Category I or II. As either, 

he could execute it on his own authority, without having to pass it up the chain of 

command to a point where, he might suspect, the measure in question could appear 

more deserving of a Category III or IV classification.46

Into September, the prognosis that the Panamanian military would not forcefully 

resist most initiatives to assert U.S. treaty rights remained unchanged. On those 

few occasions when U.S. officials worried that a Nimrod Dancer operation might 

actually provoke an armed reaction or some other undesirable PDF response, 

commanders and staff adjusted their mix of psychological operations, surprise, 

and overwhelming force to discourage any such outcome. Yet, to say that the 

Panama Defense Forces would not overreact was not to say that it would not react 

at all. At issue was what kind of response to expect. Although Woerner, Loeffke, 

Cisneros, and others proved adept at predicting how the PDF would handle most 

U.S. challenges, the problem was in determining how to respond to the response. 

For example, after the success of Operation Alice, the Noriega regime placed signs 

on the Amador Causeway proclaiming that it had reverted to Panamanian control 

and that U.S. forces could no longer wear their uniforms there. To challenge both 

claims, Woerner had to ask the National Command Authority for permission 

(which he received) to conduct another major causeway operation, Anne Marie, 

in mid-September.47

In this continuous process of action and reaction, calculations predicting 

how the Panama Defense Forces would respond to any U.S. initiative invariably 

distinguished between the institution itself and the individuals within it. 

SOUTHCOM and JTF-Panama assurances of PDF passivity during most U.S. 

exercises and operations generally applied to the institution. What an individual 

might do under pressure or in the heat of the moment was another matter and 

cause for concern. Anxiety on this point had existed throughout the crisis and 

pertained not just to planned confrontations but also to daily encounters, routine 

and otherwise, between Panamanian and U.S. forces. Concern increased, however, 

as U.S. policy became more aggressive under National Security Directive-17, and 

as troops and police on both sides found themselves caught up in the more truculent 

rhetoric and posturing.

Maj. Alan Mansfield, the Pacific-side provost marshal at Fort Clayton, 

witnessed how the more contentious and combative mood affected his daily 

responsibilities and those of the military police under his command. Writing to a 

46 Cisneros Interv, 30 Jan 90.

47 JCS Internal Staff Paper (and atchs.) to CJCS, 13 Sep 89, sub: USCINCSO Category IV 

Exercise—Ann Marie. (In Woerner’s message attached to the staff paper, the commander spelled the 

operation as the planners had named it, Anne Marie.)
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

238

friend, Mansfield reported with pleasure that the “new rules of engagement give 

the MPs a lot of leeway.” “Things are completely different now—any time the 

PDF violate the treaty in the freedom of movement arena, we meet the violation 

with a pile of forces.” He went on to describe four examples that illustrated his 

point, one of which involved a female MP, Capt. Anna Patilla, responding to an 

incident (unspecified in the letter) at the DNTT. When she arrived, PDF members 

at the scene with their commanding officer, a lieutenant, locked and loaded their 

AK47s. In reply, “She pulled her pistol and told LT Rodriguez that if they pointed 

their weapons she would shoot him.” To be threatened by a woman with a gun was 

a singular humiliation for any male PDF officer.

Mansfield went on to relate how, during the heightened tension, the Panama 

Defense Forces had charged him with “acts against the security of Panama and 

attempted murder of members of the PDF.” When he learned of the charges, 

he sought a meeting with Captain Cortizo, the PDF’s 5th Infantry Company 

commander at Fort Amador. “I told him that I was tired of certain personalities 

in the PDF and I was going to order them shot the next time they pointed a gun at 

one of my people. I talked all this war talk and more, then I left the building and 

went about my business.” Mansfield was posturing for effect, a technique he had 

perfected over the course of the two-year crisis, but he was also clearly enjoying 

himself. Nor did he appear to regret that the “PDF run every time we try to talk 

to them. We no longer have joint patrols or a joint MP Desk. According to CPT 

Cortizo, the PDF are afraid to work with us.”48

If the military police were becoming more assertive in the conduct of their 

duties, so, too, were other JTF-Panama units as they went through their daily 

routines. Patrols were but one example. Designed to collect information and show 

the flag, they did not fall under NSD-17 unless there were special circumstances. 

Yet, from mid-July on, in keeping with the spirit of the tougher U.S. policy (and 

without violating the provisions of the canal treaties), they became “more active,” 

in Hale’s words. At Fort Espinar, for example, squad-size patrols went out three 

times a day, twice during daylight, once at night. Whereas, in the early phases 

of Nimrod Dancer, they had kept to the roads and other established routes, once 

policy had been ratcheted up, they expanded their movements into White areas 

and into the jungle behind PDF positions. This kind of aggressive patrolling kept 

Panamanian units off-balance, forcing them to guess and react even as they were 

getting used to the increased tempo of U.S. operations.49

Shortly before the end of his five-month tour in Panama, Colonel Hale 

summarized the results of “Operation Ratchet.” In late May, he stated, when JTFPanama had begun asserting U.S. treaty rights, the command had sought minimal 

goals without being more provocative than need be. A firefight was something to be 

avoided, and the rules of engagement almost ensured an American “bleeding first.” 

Under the new phase recommended by Woerner and others at the end of May and 

authorized by President Bush in NSD-17, exercises and operations to assert treaty 

rights began to “push the limits of the treaty.” U.S. forces were more aggressive 

and more provocative, even at the risk of an armed confrontation. Working against 

such an incident was the fact that the new phase had evolved through a process of 

48 Ltr, Alan and Patty [Mansfield] to Tony [Schilling], 9 Sep 89.

49 Quote from Interv, author with Hale, 28 Sep 89. Interv, author with Sikes, 7 May 99.
239

Ratcheting Up

gradual escalation, allowing the Panama Defense Forces to acclimate to one level 

of activity before U.S. forces moved to a more intense level. In Hale’s opinion, 

if he had done in May what he was doing in August and September, there almost 

certainly would have been a firefight at the outset of Nimrod Dancer.

50

Cisneros was certainly comfortable with the even more hard-nosed approach 

authorized by NSD-17; he had been one of the key figures responsible for crafting 

it. But Woerner was the one who had recommended it to Washington, and he still 

had misgivings about the direction in which events were heading. Some in Panama 

suspected that a showdown with Panamanian armed forces would come on or 

around 1 September, the day a new—and, from the U.S. perspective, illegitimate—

government in Panama would take office, but that milestone passed without 

incident.51 In fact, according to Col. Mike Snell, the relatively new commander of 

the 193d Infantry Brigade, confrontations with the Panama Defense Forces fell off 

precipitously during most of September. On 5 September, Woerner sent a message 

to Crowe reiterating the purpose of U.S. military activity in the crisis: to protect 

American lives and property, to demonstrate U.S. treaty rights, and to train to be 

able to execute, if necessary, existing contingency plans. Those points, he indicated, 

had been reaffirmed with subordinate commanders following the political events 

of 1 September. He also acknowledged that the U.S. military in Panama needed 

to demonstrate its resolve to Noriega’s “new” handpicked regime. Then, having 

conveyed those points to the chairman, he went on to note emphatically, “I do not 

intend to execute operations solely for the purpose of ‘picking a fight.’”52 Woerner 

recognized that the United States might have to employ military force to end the 

crisis, an option he still believed should be used only as a last resort. But he was 

also unwilling to goad the Panamanian military into providing Washington with a 

pretext for using force.

That Woerner refused to engage in gratuitous provocations was rapidly becoming 

a moot point. When he conveyed that message to Crowe, the general had only three 

weeks left before retirement, and he was fully aware that there were officers above 

him and under him who were beginning to believe that a military solution was 

the only alternative to a prolongation of the uncertainty, distractions, and drain on 

U.S. resources caused by the ongoing crisis. During the past four months, JTFPanama had executed Purple Storms, contingency readiness exercises, and Sand 

Fleas under Nimrod Dancer and NSD-17. The exercises boosted morale, provided 

valuable lessons and experience, generated information, and enabled commanders 

to adjust command and control mechanisms. Yet, the crisis seemed no closer to 

resolution than it had at its outset two years before. Asserting U.S. treaty rights 

may have kept the Panama Defense Forces off-balance, but officers within that 

50 Quotes from Hale Interv, 28 Sep 89. Briefing, Col Hale to TRADOC Warfighter X Seminar, 

28 Sep 89. 51 On 1 September 1989, Francesco Antonio Rodriquez Poveda, a “close crony of Noriega’s,” 

was sworn in as the new Panamanian president. In response, President Bush refused to recognize 

the new government or to have diplomatic relations with it. From the administration’s perspective, 

Panama was “without any legitimate government.” Lt. Gen. Edward M. Flanagan Jr., U.S. Army 

(Ret.), Battle for Panama: Inside Operation Just Cause (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993), pp. 

1–19.52 Snell Interv, 16 Dec 89. Quotes from Msg, CINCSO to CJCS, 5 Sep 89, sub: USCINCSO’s 

Intent for U.S. Military Activities in Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

240

organization did not appear ready to move against their commander. Nor did they 

seem to be overly intimidated by JTF-Panama’s operations and exercises. In the 

Pentagon, General Kelly alluded to the lack of conclusive results when he used 

the phrase “SOUTHCOM Follies” to describe the military measures Woerner had 

employed since the Panamanian elections.53

Woerner also knew that President Bush, having witnessed the failure to end 

the crisis through diplomacy, economic sanctions, OAS involvement, and tougher 

military measures, was running out of options and that many of his key advisers 

were running out of patience. Admiral Crowe, himself looking at his last few 

weeks in uniform, had reluctantly reached the conclusion that the United States 

might have to execute Blue Spoon. According to journalist Bob Woodward, in 

September the admiral told certain key officers on the Joint Staff, “I don’t know 

when it’s going to happen, I don’t know what’s going to precipitate it, but I am 

convinced that we are going to have to go in with military force into Panama to 

resolve the situation, and we need to be ready to do it.”54

For over two years of crisis in Panama, Woerner and Crowe had managed 

to counter what they considered to be the rash proposals of several civilian 

presidential advisers, especially under President Reagan, as well as the periodic 

planning critiques of senior officers in the Pentagon and at Fort Bragg. Now both 

men were retiring. What position would General Colin Powell, Crowe’s successor, 

take on Panama? And what about the Thurman factor? Like Woerner, General 

Max Thurman, soon to take over as SOUTHCOM’s commander, was extremely 

intelligent, but unlike Woerner, he was not a specialist in Latin American affairs. 

He also had a reputation for blunt talk, not necessarily an attribute in a situation 

that was as politically sensitive as it was militarily complex. How did Thurman 

intend to handle the crisis he would walk into as Woerner’s successor? Woerner 

could only speculate. What he knew for certain was that on 30 September, he 

himself would cease to be an active participant, whatever the outcome.

53 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 100. 54 Ibid., p. 116. In Operation Just Cause, pp. 64–65, Donnelly, Roth, and Baker also mention 

Crowe’s pessimistic view, quoting the admiral as saying to Kelly and another staff officer, “I am 

absolutely 100 percent convinced that the only way the situation is going to get resolved in Panama 

is with military force. You guys better be ready. . . . I can’t tell you when it is going to happen and I 

can’t tell you what the trigger is going to be, but I’m convinced that’s the only way it’s going to be 

resolved.” The three journalists also write that Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security 

adviser, had reached a conclusion similar to Crowe’s.
I I I

9

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

October–December 1989

The SOUTHCOM change of command ceremony took place on 30 September 

1989. Among the dignitaries in attendance were Army Chief of Staff General 

Carl Vuono and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General 

Robert Herres. Admiral Crowe, who had welcomed Woerner to his new command 

two years before, was not present. He had been honored at his own retirement 

ceremony in Annapolis the previous day. Former National Security Adviser, 

General Colin Powell, would succeed him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. 

After the Southern Command flag was passed from Woerner to General Maxwell 

R. Thurman, the new commander praised his predecessor, highlighted the strategic 

significance of Latin America, commented on SOUTHCOM’s missions in the theater, 

and emphasized the “important new challenge” of ridding the earth of “the scourge 

of drugs.” The only reference to the U.S.-Panama crisis in the brief speech was when 

Thurman quoted from President Bush’s 11 May message the passage that denounced 

the Noriega regime and committed the United States to the cause of Panamanian 

democracy. If those listening expected to acquire a sense of how the new commander 

would deal with the dictator, they were disappointed. The talk was largely ceremonial, 

more platitude than policy.1

 What was generally recognized, at least among the U.S. 

officers present, was that the outgoing and incoming commanders had decidedly 

different personalities and ways of operating.

General Max Thurman 

In the days leading up to his retirement, Woerner received accolades from many 

who had served under his command or worked with him in some capacity during 

his tour at Quarry Heights. The praise was often peppered with implied criticism 

of the way the general had been relieved. Thus Woerner’s political adviser, John 

J. Youle, who chose to retire along with his boss, stated that “General Woerner 

has been right in every analysis, every policy recommendation, regarding Panama 

over the past 21⁄2 years,” an observation clearly critical of President George H. W. 

Bush’s decision to “make a change.”2

1 An account of the change of command ceremony and a transcript of General Thurman’s remarks can be found in the Tropic Times, 2 Oct 89. 2 Ibid., 29 Sep 89. The phrase “make a change,” used by General Vuono to inform Woerner of 

the president’s decision, is in Woodward, The Commanders, p. 96.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

242

Such kind remarks and other expressions of loyalty were gratifying, as Woerner 

prepared to reenter private life after thirty-four years in the Army. In the meantime, 

however, he still had to oversee the daily operations of a unified command and, 

of critical importance to him, to do what he could to ensure a smooth transition 

in leadership. To that end, he directed his staff to prepare extensive read-ahead 

books of policy statements, analyses, documents, and briefings for the benefit of 

his successor, with whom he planned to meet personally to discuss the myriad 

issues affecting the U.S. military in Latin America. 

For his part, General Thurman was trying to learn as much as he could about 

his new assignment. In July, when he received a telephone call from General 

Vuono informing him of Woerner’s “unprogrammed retirement” and asking if 

he would take the reins at the Southern Command, the 58-year-old Thurman 

was planning his own retirement after thirty-six years in the Army. His had 

been a distinguished career that ranged from a deployment to Lebanon when 

the United States intervened there in 1958, to two tours in Vietnam, to helping 

rebuild a shattered and demoralized U.S. Army once that war ended. As part 

of this latter achievement, he had revitalized the Army’s Recruiting Command, 

no small feat given the antimilitary feelings in much of the country at the time. 

Promoted to lieutenant general, he moved on to become the Army’s deputy chief 

of staff for personnel in 1981. Two years later, he received his fourth star and an 

appointment as vice chief of staff of the Army, a position that often placed him 

in the “joint” arena, attending meetings of the Joint Chiefs in their conference 

room, the Tank, and dealing with other service chiefs and their subordinates. In 

1989, when Vuono offered him the command in Panama, Thurman was less than 

a month away from stepping down as commander of the Training and Doctrine 

Command, the “brains” of the Army, located at Fort Monroe, Virginia. He had 

held the position for two years, during which time he had been diagnosed as 

having asthma. Concerned about Panama’s allergens, he waited to consult with his 

doctors and have a physical examination before accepting the new assignment. 

General Woerner talks at the change of command ceremony.
243

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

Unlike Woerner, Thurman had a solid 

constituency in the U.S. capital, not only 

among the Pentagon’s senior officers, 

but on Capitol Hill as well. “I was wellknown in the Washington community,” 

he observed as a matter of fact. “That 

was where General Woerner was having 

most of his difficulties.”3

 Also, unlike 

Woerner, he did not have an extensive 

knowledge of Latin America, an area 

he had visited only about a half-dozen 

times in the performance of his military 

duties. In the time available to him 

between Vuono’s call and the change of 

command at Quarry Heights, he was not 

going to become an expert on the region, 

but he could devour as much pertinent 

information as possible. Given his habits, 

the amount would be considerable. Over 

the years, he had acquired a reputation as a workaholic. A bachelor, he kept his office 

lights burning late, worked weekends, seemed to sleep little, and often resumed work 

before dawn. He had a penchant for detail, insisted on accuracy, and expected his 

subordinates to be well informed. Once he had accepted the command in Panama, 

he immersed himself in preparing for the new assignment, using as his “base of 

operations” a house in Alexandria, Virginia, owned by his brother, John R. Thurman, 

himself a retired Army lieutenant general. He also acquired an office in the Pentagon 

and brought in an executive officer to assist him. 

During several weeks of extensive study for the SOUTHCOM command, 

Thurman read voraciously, attended numerous meetings and briefings, took an 

intensive course in Spanish, and, in general, began to develop a feel for what he 

would encounter after the 30 September ceremony. In Washington, he visited the 

“deputy dogs” and the “top dogs” in various agencies and organizations connected 

with U.S. Latin American policies: the National Security Council, Drug Enforcement 

Administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Treasury Department, and White 

House. He called on his “buddies” in Congress and was introduced to members of 

the committees with which he would have to deal. “I also resolved that I would be 

friends with the State Department,” he recalled later. “I spent an enormous amount 

of my time and energy getting to know the Assistant Secretary of State [for InterAmerican Affairs] Bernard Aronson.” Of the numerous meetings Thurman attended, 

some covered general issues, some focused on the drug war, and some dwelt on the 

crisis in Panama. At the Pentagon, he met with Crowe, who told him, “I want you to 

take a fresh look at everything.”4

3 Except where noted, this and other quotations regarding Thurman’s preparation for the 

SOUTHCOM position are taken from Interv, Col Richard H. Mackey with General Maxwell R. 

Thurman, U.S. Army (Ret.), 1992, U.S. Army War College/U.S. Army Military History Institute 

(USAWC/USAMHI) Senior Officer Oral History Program, Project 1992–1. 4 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 103. Thurman later paraphrased Crowe as directing him, 

“Operate as if it is a clean sweep, fore and aft; it’s a complete, new deal.” Interv, John Partin with 

General Thurman
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

244

“Everything” included the Prayer Book, which took Thurman to Fort Bragg 

on 4 August for a day-long briefing. General James J. Lindsay, the commander in 

chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, accompanied Thurman. At Bragg, 

Maj. Gen. Gary Luck, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command 

(JSOC), was there to brief the special operations version of the Blue Spoon

operation order, while Lt. Cols. Bob Pantier and William Bennett flew up from 

Panama to represent JTF-Panama and the Southern Command, respectively. Lt. 

Gen. Carl Stiner, the XVIII Airborne Corps commander, was not able to attend, so 

his deputy, Maj. Gen. William A. Roosma, and planner Lt. Col. Timothy McMahon 

spoke for the corps. 

The briefing lasted eight hours and was broken into three parts: a general 

overview of the Prayer Book, the Blue Spoon operations assigned to Luck’s joint 

special operations task force, and JTF-Panama’s conventional portion of Blue

Spoon. Possibly influenced by the Prayer Book’s critics in the Pentagon, Thurman 

indicated that he was not comfortable with fundamental aspects of the existing 

plan; it was, he said, an “unworkable operation.” The gradual buildup of U.S. 

troops from outside Panama, called for in the Post Time plan, violated the tenets 

of operations security and surprise and, in his view, “depended on everybody 

standing fast on the PDF side while the operation went down.” The concept, he later 

recalled, reminded him of the piecemeal approach the United States had adopted 

in Vietnam, with disastrous results. In addition to these reservations, he did not 

like the idea of having the special and conventional Blue Spoon operations run by 

two different headquarters answering directly to the SOUTHCOM commander, a 

violation, in his mind, of the military principle of unity of command. 

Thurman emphasized to all present that he had not yet been confirmed as the 

commander in chief, Southern Command; that he in no way intended to encroach 

on General Woerner’s prerogatives; and that he had no authority to direct the 

assembled group to do anything. “You guys have to obey your current boss,” he 

recalled saying, referring to Woerner. But, having observed propriety, he went 

on to add that, once he took command in Panama, he would direct the various 

headquarters working on the Prayer Book, and Blue Spoon in particular, to come 

up with a different concept. The gradual buildup would have to be jettisoned in 

favor of a rapid assault, employing surprise and overwhelming combat power. 

Furthermore, in the interest of unity of command, the joint special operations task 

force would have to be placed under the conventional joint task force from the XVIII 

Airborne Corps. Thurman asked Luck, “Do you have any problems with this?” 

Luck answered that he did not, even though the command and control arrangement 

proposed by Thurman technically violated a near-sacred principle within the special 

operations community that special operations units with their unorthodox methods 

and requirements should not be placed under a commander of conventional forces. 

Beginning with World War II, recent history was replete with the tragic results 

of conventional commanders, acting out of ignorance, misunderstanding, or 

indifference, misusing unconventional forces assigned to them. Yet Luck’s reply to 

Thurman did not ignore either the principle or the history. The JSOC commander 

simply assumed (correctly, as events turned out) that, under the realignment, the 

joint special operations task force would answer to a joint task force commanded by 

General Maxwell R. Thurman, U.S. Army, 12 Apr 90, Fort Benning, Ga.
245

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

Stiner, a general who had extensive special operations experience and who himself 

had commanded the Joint Special Operations Command. Stiner understood how to 

employ Special Operations Forces and recognized their strengths and limitations 

on the battlefield; under his control, the unconventional forces called for in Blue

Spoon ran no risk of being misused.5

Luck’s assumption begged the question of when during the execution of Blue

Spoon the SOUTHCOM commander would call upon Stiner and the XVIII Airborne 

Corps to take charge of the operation. Woerner had deliberately left the answer 

vague, sticking to his plan to have a conventional joint task force from Fort Bragg 

deploy only after hostilities had begun and only if they had escalated to a level 

necessitating the corps’ involvement. This meant that, initially, JTF-Panama would 

run conventional Blue Spoon operations. If, at some point in the battle, Woerner 

determined that the XVIII Airborne Corps was needed, there would be a handoff 

of command and control responsibilities in the midst of the fighting. Thurman 

had studied this arrangement and foresaw a potentially awkward transition. So, 

well before taking over the Southern Command, he let Kelly, Vuono, and others 

know that he intended to put “one guy in charge” from the outset: in the event of 

a U.S. invasion of Panama, the XVIII Airborne Corps commander would be the 

Southern Command’s principal “war fighter.” Also militating for this streamlined 

arrangement was Thurman’s opinion of the SOUTHCOM staff, which he regarded 

as a group of foreign area specialists, not warriors. “The staff in Panama isn’t 

big enough, doesn’t have enough people on it, is not smart enough, to do the 

warfighting game,” he claimed. The XVIII Airborne Corps staff, on the other hand, 

was twice as large as SOUTHCOM’s and specialized in planning contingency 

operations. For Thurman, common sense dictated that an XVIII Airborne Corps 

joint task force be responsible for executing Blue Spoon from beginning to end, an 

arrangement he expected the Joint Chiefs to endorse soon after the 30 September 

change of command ceremony.6

Stiner personally received informal notification of this revised arrangement 

when, on 5 August, he attended the ceremony at Fort Monroe in which Thurman 

stepped down as the TRADOC commander. Once the official observances ended, 

Thurman left the reviewing stand and went over to his friend of sixteen years. 

Sticking his finger in Stiner’s chest, he said in his crisp voice, “Carlos, you are 

my man for Panama. I hold you responsible for all contingency planning and any 

combat operations.”7

5 The account of the meeting at Fort Bragg is taken from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 104; 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 55; Cole, Operation Just Cause, p. 13. Quotes 

from Interv, Partin with Thurman, 12 Apr 90. Interv, author with Lt Col Robert Pantier, U.S. Army, 

21 May 91, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.; Telephone Interv, author with Maj David Huntoon, 27 Jun 90; 

Conversation, author with Lt Col Timothy McMahon, 20 Dec 89, Fort Clayton, Panama. Concerning 

Thurman’s guidance that the joint special operations task force should come under the operational 

control of the conventional joint task force, the argument would also be made that Stiner, besides 

ensuring that the unconventional forces would not be misused, could also ensure that the special 

operations forces would not interfere in conventional operations. 6 Quotes from Thurman Interv, 12 Apr 90. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 103–04. 7 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 101. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 

55, give a fuller version of what Thurman said to Stiner. “Carlos, I’ve talked to the chief and I’ve 

talked to the chairman, and you are my man for everything that has to be done there. I’m putting you 

in charge of all forces and you’ve got it: planning, execution, the whole business. I have looked at my 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

246

Thurman’s remarks on the Prayer

Book to Pentagon officials, to the planners 

assembled at Bragg, and to General Stiner 

rendered Woerner something of a lame 

duck—an idiom used by one of Stiner’s 

subordinates—insofar as planning for 

U.S. military contingencies in Panama 

was concerned. Any doubts on that score 

seemed dispelled when, in response to 

guidance from the Joint Chiefs, the new 

director of operations at the Southern 

Command, Brig. Gen. William Hartzog, 

began reviewing the Prayer Book in July 

with an eye to devising an “alternative” 

to the existing concept of operations. 

Woerner monitored the process, but, 

according to Hartzog, did not get actively 

involved in the review or offer any 

“earthshaking or decisive guidance.” As 

for Thurman, Hartzog met with him in Washington, informed him of the project, and 

gave him a progress report. The alternative plan was code-named Banner Savior, 

and its contents satisfied in many respects the criticism Kelly, Stiner, Luck, and 

now Thurman had expressed about Post Time and Blue Spoon. The principle of 

surprise would be added to that of mass, conventional and special operations would 

be integrated, and the list of targets would be expanded. After Thurman received the 

Banner Savior briefing, he offered his thoughts on the evolving plan, again making 

clear that he had yet to be confirmed as the new SOUTHCOM commander. As events 

turned out, Banner Savior would be a “short-lived” project, to use Hartzog’s words. 

But the initiative, while it lasted, facilitated Hartzog’s interaction with the XVIII 

Airborne Corps where, as a result of Thurman’s visit, Stiner had directed his two 

Panama planners, Colonel McMahon and Major Huntoon, to prepare a new Blue

Spoon operation order compatible with the incoming SOUTHCOM commander’s 

statements of intent.8

In the final few weeks before assuming his new command, Thurman used 

what he called his “garden leave” to intensify even further his preparations for 

Panama. There were numerous meetings in August and September, including the 

one Woerner had anticipated. When the two generals met, Thurman alluded to the 

circumstances of Woerner’s departure, saying, “I want you to know I had nothing 

staff and I have told the chairman and I have told the chief that it cannot run a contingency operation. 

He said you can have it and I’m holding you responsible.” Stiner recollects Thurman contacting him 

before the visit to Bragg and the change of command ceremony. According to Stiner, General Vuono 

telephoned him even before the announcement of Woerner’s retirement and told him he needed to 

talk to Thurman. Thurman himself called Stiner about a week later, telling him, “You’re my JTF; I’m 

going to hold you responsible and I will turn everything over to you. And I hold you responsible for 

doing the whole thing.” Intervs, Robert K. Wright Jr., U.S. Army Center of Military History, with Lt 

Gen Carl W. Stiner, U.S. Army, 2, 7, 27 Mar 90 and 11 Jun 90, Fort Bragg, N.C. 8 Interv, author with Brig Gen William Hartzog, U.S. Army, and Col. Tom Braaten, USMC, 29 

Jun 90, Quarry Heights, Panama.

General Stiner
247

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

to do with this.” To which Woerner replied, “If I thought you did, I wouldn’t be 

here.” Thurman took possession of the thick briefing books the SOUTHCOM staff 

had prepared, but on the whole, Woerner regarded the meeting itself as not being 

very “substantive.” Rather than discussing the full range of hemispheric issues, he 

later related, the talks focused narrowly on the crisis in Panama.9

Late in September, Thurman briefed Admiral Crowe and the Joint Chiefs on 

his “views about everything down there,” meaning in the Southern Command’s 

area of responsibility. When he came to the crisis and the Prayer Book, he stated 

forcefully that he could not support the current Blue Spoon operation order and 

intended to change it. Crowe, according to Thurman, said, “Well, you go down and 

change the plan the way you want to. When you get done, bring it back up here.” 

At no point did the admiral criticize the existing plan, which he had supported for 

over a year and which the Joint Chiefs themselves had approved.10

En route to Panama, Thurman changed into his battle dress uniform (BDU). 

“I wanted there to be no mistaking that a warrior had arrived,” he said later. 

“Now a lot of people would laugh at that because they don’t perceive me to be a 

warrior. They look at me as a manager. But the whole purpose was to say, ‘This is 

a different climate now guys. You have a new guy on the block. Make sure that all 

the Panamanians reporting back to Noriega don’t get the sense that there is some 

guy coming down in his aloha shirt. There was a guy coming down wearing his 

pistol and his fatigues.’ The first order I gave after I assumed command was that 

fatigues would be the uniform of the day.”11

The SOUTHCOM change of command took place on a Saturday morning at 

Fort Clayton. To enhance security, JTF-Panama simultaneously ran Operation Rio

Bravo as a diversion, sending a mechanized company into Fort Amador to relieve 

an MP quick reaction force.12 Once the ceremony was over, Thurman went to his 

headquarters at Quarry Heights to settle in. The next day, Sunday, was to be his 

first “working day,” as he sought to determine “what the lay of the land was” 

through a series of briefings that lasted until 1800. In the process, his staff and 

other subordinates received their initiation into what was widely known as the 

Thurman Effect.13 Not that the new commander unleashed his modus operandi upon 

unsuspecting minions: his reputation for long hours, hard work, predawn briefings, 

blunt talk, probing questions, and relentless demands had preceded him. So, too, 

had the nicknames he had acquired along the way—Mad Max, the Maxatollah, the 

Emperor Maximilian. There were a few present who had previously served under 

him and could testify to his agile mind, acute intellect, and sharp tongue-lashings, 

as well as to the fact that he demanded and got results. 

9 The Thurman-Woerner exchange is quoted in Woodward, The Commanders, p. 98. Woerner’s 

assessment of the meeting is in Interv, General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.), U.S. Army 

Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. 10 Thurman Interv, 12 Apr 90.

11 Thurman Interv, 1992, USAWC/USAMHI, Project 1992–1.

12 On Operation Rio Bravo, see Msg, CINCSO to JCS, 011556Z Oct 89, sub: Situation Report 

149. 13 The so-called Thurman Effect is discussed in Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just 

Cause, pp. 52, 67; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 94; Lt. Gen. Edward M. Flanagan Jr., U.S. Army 

(Ret.), Battle for Panama: Inside Operation Just Cause (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993), pp. 

22–23. Several officers who had served under Thurman also offered comments—including those 

presented in the quotations—to the author on the general’s way of conducting business.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

248

The Army was Thurman’s “wife,” according to one metaphor, and several 

officers who had worked for him attested that he served her fully, faithfully, and 

zealously. For some, the marital comparison was proffered as a compliment; for 

others, especially those with families on accompanied tours, as a reproach. Those 

adhering to the latter view argued that Thurman, having no experience himself 

with family life, had no understanding of it and thus gave little thought to how 

essential it was to his subordinates. “I don’t think he ever knew or cared that I had 

a wife and children,” lamented one SOUTHCOM staff officer after spending over 

a hundred consecutive days working late at the headquarters. Given one night off 

to have dinner with his wife, this same officer had just raised a forkful of spaghetti 

to his mouth when the telephone rang. General Thurman wanted him back in the 

office, not to tackle some major issue but, in the officer’s opinion, to address some 

“silly thing”; the plate of pasta went flying against the dining room wall. Another 

story had a staff officer waking up at 0330 in a cold sweat, to be assured by his 

spouse, “It’s OK. The general hasn’t called.” 

All that said, one should not conclude that Thurman’s subordinates at Quarry 

Heights objected to hard work, long hours, and high standards of accountability. 

During periods of heightened tension in the two-year crisis with Noriega, working 

past midnight and, after a few hours sleep, returning to work before dawn had 

been routine for many SOUTHCOM and component officers. As for Thurman’s 

rough handling of advisers or briefers who seemed poorly informed or poorly 

prepared, the argument could be made that, if you did not have a thorough working 

knowledge of the specific issues assigned to you, the general had every right to 

call that to your attention in whatever manner he chose. What most critics of the 

Thurman Effect questioned was not the work it entailed but whether a steady 

subjection to consecutive work days, long hours, unexpected phone calls, and 

brusque treatment, when combined with a seeming lack of concern about the 

personal needs of the staff, offered the best way to achieve positive results without 

adversely affecting headquarters morale. Not helping matters were the rumors 

circulating before Thurman’s arrival that he considered the Southern Command 

a “Sleepy Hollow,” a sinecure for Latin Americanists within the military as well 

as for officers who were not quite competent enough to serve in more prestigious 

and demanding organizations. Once ensconced at Quarry Heights, Thurman 

sometimes reinforced this impression by relying disproportionately on only a 

handful of his staff, notably General Hartzog and Marine Col. Tom Braaten, the 

two ranking officers in the Operations Directorate. Other staff officers he seemed 

to keep at arm’s length, to a degree that implied a lack of respect or confidence. In 

one meeting, just a few days into his command, he reached down into the ranks to 

make a young Navy lieutenant in the Military Intelligence Directorate his principal 

adviser on Noriega, a clear indication that he found that officer’s superiors wanting 

in some way. He also turned to outside experts to analyze his headquarters for the 

purpose of recommending organizational and operational changes. In light of these 

and similar actions, U.S. officers in Panama were soon experiencing and, in many 

cases, lamenting their own version of the Thurman Effect.

“Black Tuesday”: The 3 October Coup Attempt 

Characteristically, Thurman was still in his office Sunday night, 1 October 

1989, when he received a telephone call from Hartzog. The headquarters, Hartzog 
249

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

declared, had received a report claiming that a Panamanian officer was planning 

to mount a coup d’état against Noriega the next morning. If the report proved true, 

Thurman, in just his second day as the SOUTHCOM commander, would be facing 

a pivotal moment in a crisis that had defied resolution for over two years.14

Following the call from Hartzog, Thurman convened a meeting in the Tunnel, 

where he learned that the wife of a Panamanian major had contacted a female friend 

of hers who worked as a secretary at the Southern Command. When the secretary 

could not locate her boss, she phoned her father, who knew Thurman’s personal 

secretary. He relayed the information regarding an imminent coup to her, and she, 

in turn, got in touch with a lieutenant colonel in the SOUTHCOM Secretary, Joint 

Staff office, who immediately informed Hartzog and others. Thurman, in his own 

words, was “spooked” over the unorthodox chain—wives, friends, fathers, and 

stenographers—through which such portentous information had arrived at Quarry 

Heights. It was too haphazard, too chancy, almost lackadaisical, and just plain 

bizarre. Yet he could not ignore the report. He therefore asked the CIA chief of 

station and the CIA representative to the Southern Command to meet with the 

major’s wife. 

The woman turned out to be Adela Bonilla de Giroldi, wife of Maj. Moisés 

Giroldi Vega, the 38-year-old commander of the PDF 4th Infantry Company, 

charged with security at the Comandancia. The two CIA agents drove to the house 

of Thurman’s secretary, where they met with the señora. She told them of the coup 

plot and her husband’s request to meet with a U.S. decision maker, meaning a highranking officer from the Southern Command, perhaps the commander himself. 

Having conveyed this message, Sra. Giroldi went to pick up her husband, and the 

two agents returned to the Tunnel to discuss the meeting with Thurman. They then 

went back to the secretary’s house to meet the major. 

The ensuing conversation took fewer than thirty minutes, during which Major 

Giroldi, appearing “nervous” and “scared,” refused to get out of his truck. Essentially, 

he told the two men that the coup was scheduled for the next morning and that, in 

addition to his own 4th Company, he had the support of two other PDF units, the 1st 

Public Order Company, or Dobermans, at the Comandancia and the cavalry squadron 

at Panama Viejo. Furthermore, the commander of Battalion 2000 at Fort Cimarrón 

had agreed not to get involved. The main threats to the coup, as Giroldi assessed them, 

were the 5th Infantry Company at Fort Amador, the 7th Infantry Company at Rio 

Hato, and the elite UESAT units. Since the move against Noriega would take place at 

the Comandancia, Giroldi wanted U.S. forces to block certain approach routes to stop 

any unit that might attempt to rescue the general. Two avenues the major mentioned 

specifically were the Bridge of the Americas that Rio Hato–based units would have 

to cross and the main road leading from Fort Amador to the Comandancia.15 He 

14 The account of the 3 October coup in this section is based on reconstructions from a variety 

of sources. The fullest journalistic account of the events between 1 October and 3 October can be 

found in Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 369–97. Kempe clearly had access to key U.S. officials 

together with some of the survivors of the coup attempt. Various chronologies and oral histories 

helped to flesh out Kempe’s account and to support or refute the events he describes. Woodward, The 

Commanders, pp. 119–25, also offers an inside analysis, most of which is not contradicted by official 

accounts. 15 In Divorcing the Dictator, Kempe calls attention to a dispute over what Giroldi asked for 

in the way of U.S. support. After the coup had failed, Sra. Giroldi claimed that she and her hus-
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

250

also asked that the families of the rebel leaders be granted safe haven on American 

bases if necessary. During the short conversation, Giroldi emphasized that the coup 

would be strongly nationalistic and that he intended to proceed with or without U.S. 

support. In one gesture to demonstrate the patriotic motives behind his undertaking, 

he refused to give his American interlocutors a telephone number at which he could 

be reached once the coup was under way. 

The CIA representatives were convinced of Giroldi’s sincerity. Thurman was 

not so sure. That Giroldi and Noriega were very close was no secret. The dictator 

was godfather to the Giroldis’ son and had been best man when the couple renewed 

their wedding vows (as all PDF officers were directed to do at Noriega’s behest). 

Giroldi rated such special attention from Noriega because of the key role he had 

played in putting down the coup attempt against the strongman in March 1988. 

Thereafter, Noriega had personally looked after the young officer’s professional 

welfare, promoting him to major and ultimately making him head of the security 

unit at the Comandancia. Giroldi, one author has noted, was one of a handful 

of people Noriega trusted around him with a machine gun. Why, then, was the 

major considering action against his benefactor? Giroldi and his wife claimed that 

increasing signs of Noriega’s instability—his drinking and belligerence, as well as 

other excesses and abuses—rendered the PDF commander unfit to lead. Noriega 

had become an embarrassment and a liability to Panama’s national interest and 

honor, and drastic action was required to remove him from power. 

The nature of that action also troubled Thurman, as it did the CIA agents. Giroldi 

did not intend to arrest or kill Noriega. Rather, he planned to seize the Comandancia

once the general was inside, invite other units to defect, deny Noriega access to critical 

communications and staff, and, then, once the dictator realized the hopelessness of 

his isolated position, convince him to retire, together with several senior Panamanian 

officers. There would be no need to incarcerate Noriega, and no need to turn him over 

to the Americans, despite the criminal indictments against him in the United States. 

The whole matter, in short, was to be handled in a gentlemanly way, with Noriega 

stepping aside graciously once he accepted the fact that he had been deposed. The 

plan, while conforming to the Panamanian tradition of fairly bloodless coups, failed 

to impress the two CIA agents who estimated the chances of success at less than 

fifty-fifty. 

Thurman was even less optimistic, regarding the plot as “preposterous.” 

More than that, its near surrealistic elements reinforced his suspicion that Giroldi 

was either incompetent or, worse, a fraud. The whole scheme, Thurman had to 

consider, might be a setup, “a ruse” as he put it, designed specifically to lure a 

U.S. commander new to his post into committing American troops to a nonexistent 

revolt, a move that would make him a laughingstock and undermine his credibility. 

There was something else that caused Thurman to suspect a “sting operation.” 

Unknown to all but a handful of SOUTHCOM officers, a command-wide, nonotice contingency readiness exercise was scheduled to begin at 0400 Monday. 

Under JTF-Panama, certain U.S. forces would be assembled at their bases, armed, 

and deployed around sunrise to all American housing areas in the former Canal 

band had specifically requested that U.S. forces block all (“todas”) of the main routes leading to the 

Comandancia and that the Southern Command provide air cover as well. The official U.S. version 

is that the Giroldis asked that only two routes—the Bridge of the Americas and the road out of Fort 

Amador—be blocked and that there was no mention of air cover.
251

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

Zone. As Thurman later recounted, “I said, ‘That sorry bastard has found out and 

he is preempting to see what I am going to do about all that.’ So he wants to find 

out who Thurman is.”16

Around midnight, General Cisneros received a telephone call from Quarry 

Heights, telling him to cancel the no-notice exercise and report to the Tunnel. 

When he arrived, he learned of the CIA contacts with Giroldi. Thurman, Cisneros 

said later, was justifiably cautious. The USARSO commander himself was wary, 

yet tended to give credence to the plot and viewed it as an opportunity the 

Southern Command could exploit. Going ahead with the predawn deployments, 

he argued, would signal moral support for the coup without involving U.S. 

troops in anything more than a training event, the kind they had been conducting 

routinely over the past several months. Thurman demurred. He would not 

reinstate the readiness exercise. So Cisneros changed his tack, requesting that 

Thurman instead authorize him to move an infantry company into Fort Amador 

to secure vulnerable American housing areas if necessary. Amador, Cisneros 

explained, was a potential “terrorist target,” an installation that the Panamanian 

military had indicated could come under attack should the United States take 

direct action against Noriega. Helping to alleviate any concern on Thurman’s 

part that the insertion of the company might be playing into Noriega’s hands, 

Cisneros proposed a low-profile movement, with the soldiers arriving dressed 

for physical training, their weapons and combat gear stashed out of sight in the 

bottom of their trucks. Around 0800, they could change clothes and be ready to 

secure the fort and to contain the Panama Defense Forces there, should Thurman 

direct them to do so. After Cisneros laid out the finer details of his proposed 

deception, Thurman gave his approval. He also told Cisneros to put JTF-Panama 

on a thirty-minute alert posture for a contingency readiness exercise, just in case 

one should prove necessary. He further determined that, if the coup did take 

place, the rebels’ family members should be taken onto U.S. bases, as Giroldi 

had requested. 

With these decisions out of the way, Thurman received a briefing on Giroldi 

from his military intelligence staff about an hour before dawn. Brig. Gen. Mike 

Schneider, the Southern Command’s director of intelligence, was relatively 

new to his post, so he let Ken Pierce, a young Navy lieutenant who had been 

in Panama about a year and a half, take the lead. Thurman was impressed, to 

the point of making Pierce his personal “Panama analyst.” As the Navy officer 

recalled, “My chain of command that morning effectively became me to General 

Thurman. . . . Actually, there were five levels in the chain of command between 

me and General Thurman that were brushed aside.”17 For the remainder of the 

crisis, Pierce would never be far from Thurman’s elbow. 

In the wee hours of Monday, 2 October, officials in Washington received their 

first notification of the impending upheaval in Panama. The CIA sent an urgent 

message for the National Command Authority, providing an account of the meetings 

between the two agents and the Giroldis. Meanwhile, John Maisto, the chargé 

d’affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Panama City, alerted the State Department. From 

Quarry Heights, Thurman called Lt. Gen. Tom Kelly, starting a chain of phone calls 

in Washington: Kelly to Colin Powell, Powell to Secretary of Defense Cheney, and 

16 Thurman Interv, 12 Apr 90.

17 Interv, author with Lt Cdr Kenneth D. Pierce, USN, 21 May 98, Fort Leavenworth, Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

252

Cheney to President Bush’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. After talking 

to Cheney, Powell headed to the National Military Communications Center in the 

Pentagon, where a crisis action team was quickly set up to monitor developments. 

With little more information to go on than what was available to those meeting 

with Thurman in the Tunnel, the officers present in the communications center 

shared SOUTHCOM’s skepticism. Giroldi’s plan seemed shaky, his motives and 

reliability questionable. After receiving an intelligence update, Powell decided 

he would recommend blocking the Amador route, a fairly safe measure. He had 

qualms, however, about shutting down the Bridge of the Americas, an action that 

could only be interpreted as American involvement in the coup attempt and that 

would place U.S. troops dangerously close to the Comandancia. 

Shortly after dawn, a company from the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry (Airborne), 

entered Fort Amador and began jogging on the causeway. A bit later, Thurman 

issued a warning order to JTF-Panama to be prepared to block Fort Amador 

and the Bridge of the Americas but not to do so without a direct order from his 

headquarters. Nearly all U.S. forces would be on full alert without necessarily 

knowing why, and Cisneros was told to reduce the reaction times of specific units, 

should they be ordered into action. Soon after 0800, various aircraft including an 

AC–130 were put on one-hour alert status at Howard Air Force Base. Still later that 

morning, JTF-Panama’s Marine Forces component placed a Fleet Anti-Terrorist 

Security Team platoon near the Bridge of the Americas. Located with the platoon 

were ten heavy road graders from USARSO’s 536th Engineer Battalion that could 

be used to block traffic should the order come. In another precautionary move, 

JTF-Panama fire support elements were placed on call. 

Meanwhile, in Washington, the president and senior national security advisers 

who had not yet heard about the planned coup received a briefing on the situation. 

An hour later, at 0900 EDT (Eastern Daylight Time—Washington time running 

one hour ahead of Panama time), President Bush convened a meeting in the Oval 

Office. After being advised to take a generally cautious approach, he reportedly 

responded, “Look, you’ve had me out there for the last couple of months begging 

these guys to start a coup. If someone’s actually willing to do one, we have to help 

them.”18 He went on to state his intention to have U.S. forces block Fort Amador and 

the Bridge of the Americas if such actions proved necessary to protect American 

lives and installations. He also indicated that America’s willingness to support a 

coup would be strengthened if the plotters included in their planned statement 

references to democracy and the need for international support. At 0930, Bush cut 

back the number of advisers in his office and conducted further discussions. The 

urgency of the talks diminished, however, when a message arrived that the coup 

had been postponed; the message did not give a new date. To several present, this 

only confirmed their suspicions that the whole enterprise was either bogus or “halfbaked.” There was no further need to take up the president’s valuable time with 

something that had not occurred and, in the minds of some, would not. 

While Bush moved on to other pressing business, senior U.S. officials in 

Washington and Panama, however skeptical they might be, had to be prepared just 

in case Giroldi did launch a coup attempt. Lawyers at the State Department and the 

Southern Command offered opinions on the legality of using U.S. troops to block 

18 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 185.
253

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

Fort Amador and the Bridge of the Americas. (Blocking Amador was allowed 

under the treaty, they concluded; blocking the bridge was more problematic.) Also 

at the State Department, Michael Kozak, a veteran of the crisis, talked with Maisto 

in Panama about the president’s desire to have the coup plotters include a call for 

democratic elections and international support in whatever public pronouncement 

they planned to make justifying their action. Around midday, a State Department 

drafted message containing these sentiments made its way to Panama and into the 

hands of Sra. Giroldi to deliver to her husband. 

At Quarry Heights, Thurman stayed in the Tunnel most of Monday, assessing 

incoming information and discussing various courses of action and appropriate 

rules of engagement. In a conversation with Powell, he indicated that he would 

justify whatever military action he took “in the name of protection of U.S. 

citizens,” almost always a safe legal argument. When a note from Sra. Giroldi 

arrived, indicating that the coup had been postponed only until the next day, 

Tuesday, 3 October, it did little to allay Thurman’s serious doubts about Major 

Giroldi’s intentions. In fact, information Thurman received throughout the day 

only increased his skepticism. Postponement of the coup had allowed U.S. 

officials to take a closer look at the Panamanian major, with the CIA reporting 

that Giroldi had a history of being involved in entrapment operations. The most 

recent episode had been in June when he was purported to have circulated rumors 

of a coup in order to “ferret out” disloyal elements within the Panama Defense 

Forces. In support of this assessment, Lieutenant Pierce pointed out that in the past 

nineteen months, there had been twenty instances of rumored coup attempts, the 

products of wishful thinking, disinformation, or the Panama rumor mill. Giroldi, 

one SOUTHCOM intelligence officer advised, “is totally corrupt.” By Monday 

afternoon, the command position being relayed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff was 

that Giroldi was probably on a mission to spread “bogus disinformation” (a superb 

example of a nonsensical redundancy). 

That being said, the Southern Command still had to follow a prudent course 

and be ready to act just in case Giroldi turned out to be on the level. Having been 

informed of the legality and legal ramifications of certain specific actions, Thurman 

again talked with Cisneros to determine what posture JTF-Panama would assume 

on Tuesday. And again, Cisneros later recalled, “we got into it,” by which he meant 

“a whole day of arguing.” If a coup attempt did occur, both generals assumed, it 

would probably take place in the morning. Cisneros once more advocated putting 

a force into Fort Amador, this time a company from the mechanized battalion 

attached to JTF-Panama during Operation Nimrod Dancer. Thurman was cautious 

as before, expressing concern over the perceptions the move would generate about 

U.S. involvement in a coup. Finally, when he was told the Panamanian military 

would be notified in advance that the deployment was a routine training exercise, 

he decided to go with the plan, which, after being forwarded to the Pentagon, was 

approved by the Joint Chiefs. Thurman also told Cisneros to have JTF-Panama 

prepared Tuesday morning to conduct an on-order contingency readiness exercise, 

and he directed that various aircraft at Howard Air Force Base again be placed on 

full alert. Around 1800 Monday, the command’s Center for Treaty Affairs informed 

the Panama Defense Forces of the mechanized company’s training exercise at 

Amador the next morning. Some U.S. officers believed that Giroldi, if telling the 

truth, would learn of this information and interpret it as American support for his 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

254

undertaking. Sometime before midnight, the Southern Command also informed 

Powell and the Joint Chiefs that, according to the latest information received from 

Sra. Giroldi, the coup would begin the next morning at 0800, Panama time. 

Sometime before that hour on Tuesday, 3 October, U.S. marines again took 

up positions near the Bridge of the Americas. Cisneros had instructed them to 

look “menacing” but not to block the highway over the bridge unless specifically 

ordered to do so. Cisneros himself was following the mechanized company en 

route to Fort Amador. Shortly before 0800, reports reached him of disturbances 

within the Comandancia compound, whereupon he ordered the company to move 

faster to its destination. The coup, he surmised, was under way, although he could 

not be sure. 

That was the problem. No ranking U.S. officers or officials could be certain 

as to what exactly was happening. Neither the Southern Command nor U.S. 

Army, South, had direct contact with Giroldi or any other officer involved in 

the plot. As initial reports of troop activity and gunfire at the PDF headquarters 

began arriving at Quarry Heights, Thurman tried to acquire a clearer picture of 

what was going on. He had several intelligence sources to draw on, CNN would 

be closely monitored, and there was always the vantage point the Southern 

Command enjoyed from its perch on Ancon Hill, from which staff officers 

could look down directly into the Comandancia compound. Yet, despite the flow 

of information he received at his command post in the Tunnel, Thurman was 

not able that morning to determine or, in some cases, even to approximate in 

a timely way what was transpiring. This uncertainty, taken in conjunction with 

the suspicions he and some of his staff harbored concerning the rebel officers’ 

motives and intentions, created doubts in the first hour or so as to whether a coup 

was actually in progress. The shots being reported could have been staged, part 

of the ruse Thurman still suspected. 

Given such doubts, Thurman’s initial response was measured. Within 

an hour of the first reports of gunfire, he closed Howard, raised the Personnel 

Movement Limitations level from Alpha to Delta, ordered Department of Defense 

dependent schools secured, and launched several aircraft for reconnaissance. 

During that same period, though, when Cisneros sought permission to execute 

the preplanned contingency readiness exercise, Thurman refused. In light of the 

sketchy information available to him at the time, he thought it premature to be 

maneuvering large numbers of U.S. forces, even if the measures they contemplated 

were purely defensive. 

In Washington, meanwhile, Robert Gates, the president’s deputy national 

security adviser, met with Bush at 0940 to pass on what was then known about 

developments in Panama. Scowcroft, Baker, and White House Chief of Staff 

John Sununu soon joined the meeting, a portion of which turned into a “walking 

briefing” as Bush hurried from the Oval Office, through the West Wing, to the Rose 

Garden to greet the president of Mexico. According to an informed account, the 

hurried discussion with the president lacked depth. There simply was not sufficient 

time to weigh U.S. options. One key adviser, the secretary of defense, was not even 

present. He was escorting the Soviet defense minister to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 

for a tour of the battlefield. Powell informed Cheney of the situation by phone, 

after which the secretary returned to Washington. Thus, as events unfolded rapidly 

in Panama and as the appropriate U.S. agencies tried to monitor the fast-moving 
255

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

developments, key top-level administration officials were distracted by other 

activities, unable at first to give their undivided attention to the coup attempt, 

the fate of which would likely be determined in only a matter of hours. In the 

meantime, officers at the Southern Command awaited specific guidance from the 

White House or Pentagon. 

By 1000 in Panama, reports reaching Quarry Heights confirmed that a coup 

was in progress, a conclusion supported by the arrival of the Giroldi family at 

Fort Clayton seeking refuge. Further information indicated that Giroldi’s 4th 

Infantry Company controlled the Comandancia compound, and that Noriega, his 

bodyguards, and some of his staff were on the premises, their status unknown. 

Responding to the updated reports, Thurman decided that the time had come to 

authorize JTF-Panama to execute the preplanned contingency readiness exercise, 

although he expressly stated that Fort Amador and the Bridge of the Americas 

should not be blocked at that time. Cisneros received the order shortly before 1000 

and passed it down to the various JTF-Panama units on alert. Within thirty minutes 

of being notified, most had reached and secured their designated positions at U.S. 

bases, facilities, and housing areas. In accordance with the law, Thurman’s treaty 

affairs people notified the Panama Defense Forces of the exercise, of its legal 

grounding in the right of the United States to protect American interests in Panama 

and to defend the canal, and of the Southern Command’s intention to stay out of 

whatever was the cause of that morning’s turmoil. 

In the midst of all this, word reached Quarry Heights that units from the PDF’s 

7th Infantry Company at Rio Hato were flying into Panama City, thus rendering 

irrelevant any roadblock U.S. marines might set up at the Bridge of the Americas. 

Once on the ground, the company’s lead elements headed for the Comandancia 

to launch a counterattack against Giroldi. When their initial assault failed, the 

attackers tried talking with the rebel officers in an effort to buy time until more 

units loyal to Noriega could arrive. Thurman, aware of the troop movements, 

issued an order at 1101 for U.S. forces at Fort Amador to seal off the installation. 

Accordingly, M113s moved onto the causeway, thereby containing UESAT units 

on Flamenco Island, while other vehicles blocked the main gate, thus freezing 

the PDF’s 5th Infantry Company in place. That company had gone on full alert at 

the outset of the coup attempt, but, confronted with armed American troops right 

outside its barracks, the commander, Captain Cortizo, issued instructions for his 

men to sit tight. 

At this point, the mood in Washington was upbeat. Shortly before noon, the 

president was finally free to convene a forty-minute meeting with his advisers in 

the Oval Office, where he expressed his opinion that indigenous backing for the 

coup was essential to its success and that the Panamanian opposition needed to get 

involved in support of the rebel officers. While the White House meeting was in 

progress, those officers were finally releasing a public statement, announcing their 

intention to have Noriega and other senior officers retire for the good of the country, 

whose economic condition, they said, continued to deteriorate. The statement 

went on to emphasize that the junior officers involved in the coup were acting on 

their own (that is, without U.S. involvement) and that they supported elections 

sometime in the near future. To Thurman and other American decision makers, 

this pronouncement fell far short of expectations. It did nothing to illuminate 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

256

Noriega’s current and future status, while the commitment to democracy sought by 

Washington seemed vague at best. 

The situation by this time had reached a critical point, and U.S. officials in 

Panama and Washington had yet to determine what further courses of action to take. 

Forcing the issue were the Panamanian units loyal to Noriega that were preparing 

to move in force against Giroldi. Additional troops from the 7th Infantry Company 

continued to arrive at Tocumen airfield, while units from Battalion 2000, realizing 

that their noncommittal stance could lead to reprisals if Noriega triumphed, decided 

to join the countercoup. When these and other loyalist elements began their march 

on the Comandancia, they did so via one of the main avenues running through 

Panama City, thus avoiding the U.S. roadblock at Fort Amador and U.S. troops 

at the Bridge of the Americas. If the Southern Command sought to prevent these 

pro-Noriega troops from proceeding, JTF-Panama would have to move its own 

units into the heart of the capital, and quickly. The U.S. force required to block the 

city’s principal thoroughfares would not be large, and such a move would probably 

compel the PDF loyalists to reconsider their commitment to the dictator. But the 

measure would also mean involving the United States directly in the coup attempt, 

and orders to that effect could only come from the president. 

Another matter U.S. decision makers had to address was the fate of Noriega, the 

man who had been at the center of the two-year crisis since its inception. Giroldi had 

already asserted that he had no intention of harming the dictator. But would he be 

willing to turn him over to the United States? And if so, how would the transfer be 

arranged? If not, should U.S. troops enter the Comandancia to seize Noriega by force? 

In Panama, the Southern Command and the U.S. Embassy worked on a set of options 

to cover each possibility. Washington did the same, with communication between 

the Joint Chiefs and Thurman’s control center being quite good but with the secure 

phone line between the embassy and the State Department experiencing problems. 

What was completely lacking was any communication between SOUTHCOM 

headquarters and the rebels. Thurman apparently made no attempt to contact Giroldi, 

who, as noted, had refused to provide the CIA agents a phone number at which 

he could be reached inside the Comandancia. Nor was the major able to telephone 

the general. As Thurman later testified, he had not made available to the plotters a 

number at which Giroldi could call him. “The operation seemed flaky,” Thurman 

explained, “and I did not want him to have a number to coup management.” 

Late Tuesday morning, Giroldi finally decided to establish contact with the U.S. 

military, not with Thurman but with Cisneros. Around 1100, he sent two of his fellow 

conspirators to Fort Clayton. When Cisneros heard of their arrival, he contacted 

Quarry Heights to request instructions and received the green light to meet with the 

two officers. To those with Thurman in the Tunnel, however, the new SOUTHCOM 

commander was clearly unhappy. “Why the hell are they over at Fort Clayton?” 

he demanded of Schneider and Pierce. “How’d they get there and why are they 

there? Are they there to surrender? Are they going to give us Noriega? What’s going 

on?” Receiving no answer, he asked the same questions of Hartzog and Braaten, 

with no better results. As Pierce later observed, the development at Fort Clayton 

was “completely unexpected”; it was a “surprise variable” that Thurman did not 

welcome. Yet he had no choice but to acquiesce in the meeting.19

19 All quotes from Woodward, The Commanders, p. 121. Pierce Interv, 21 May 98.
257

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

Of the two conspirators ushered into the USARSO commander’s office, Capt. 

Javier Licona, commander of the cavalry squadron that had sided with Giroldi, took 

the lead in the ensuing discussion. According to Cisneros, the first point Licona 

made upon entering the room was that the rebels had Noriega in their hands but were 

not going to turn him over to the United States in light of the indictments against 

him, which would mean extradition and a trial. Giroldi apparently still maintained 

that the dictator could be persuaded to retire with dignity. Cisneros replied that 

keeping Noriega at the Comandancia was a big mistake. The PDF commander, he 

believed, would not retire under any circumstances. If the rebels were not willing 

to turn Noriega over to U.S. authorities, they should at least remove him from 

his headquarters compound to some undisclosed location. Cisneros sensed that, 

despite Licona’s words to the contrary, the captain personally favored giving up 

the dictator but that he could not agree to such arrangements without Giroldi’s 

approval. 

Licona also raised the issue of American support for the coup, declaring that the 

rebels only wanted U.S. troops to block Fort Amador—he obviously did not know 

that Thurman had already issued that order—and the Bridge of the Americas and to 

control areas for which the United States was responsible under the treaty. The rebels, 

for their part, would be responsible for the areas under their control. Licona deemed 

this arrangement essential lest there be an accidental confrontation between U.S. 

and rebel forces. To Cisneros, the captain’s requests no longer reflected the reality 

in the streets. When he informed the two officers of the 7th Infantry Company’s 

deployment by air to Panama City, he tried to convince them of the urgent need 

to make critical decisions. Licona, though, insisted only that U.S. troops block the 

Bridge of the Americas, so Cisneros called the Southern Command and received 

permission to order the symbolic but otherwise meaningless gesture. 

After Cisneros reported the substance of his meeting with the rebel officers 

to Quarry Heights, Thurman’s staff relayed the information to the embassy, the 

CIA, and the Joint Chiefs. At some point in this process, either through a misprint 

in a telegram or through a misunderstanding of what Licona had said, the report 

reaching Washington indicated that the rebels were prepared to turn Noriega 

over to American authorities. This arrived at a time when three courses of action 

designed to accomplish that goal were being hammered out by Thurman and 

Maisto. One option envisaged the rebels bringing Noriega to a U.S. base, perhaps 

on a helicopter provided by the Southern Command. Another had a small group of 

U.S. authorities entering the Comandancia, with rebel permission, to take custody 

of the dictator. The third had U.S. troops moving into the Comandancia to seize 

Noriega by force. Thurman forwarded the plan to Washington and discussed each 

measure with Powell. By noon, the Joint Chiefs had replied that he should be ready 

to move on either the first or second option if approved but not to consider using 

force for the time being. 

Around 1345 EDT, the president held another meeting with his advisers in the 

Oval Office, and out of those discussions emanated further guidance on several critical 

points. Cisneros was to renew contact with the rebel officers and have them confirm 

that Giroldi really did have custody of Noriega. If that were the case, Bush directed 

that the rebels be asked to turn the dictator over to the United States and to renew 

their call for democratic elections. The assumption, based in part on the erroneous 

transmission of Licona’s meeting with Cisneros, was that the rebels would accede to 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

258

both requests. As a precautionary measure, however, the Southern Command was to 

proceed with making plans to take Noriega from the Comandancia by force. 

Thurman was at last receiving some concrete guidance from Washington. 

But it was too late. Even while the Oval Office meeting was in progress, the main 

counterattack against the rebels was succeeding. By the time President Bush and 

his advisers had finished their deliberations, shortly after 1300, Panama time, 

the attempted coup was over. Panamanian radio and television proclaimed that 

Noriega was safe and remained in charge of the Panama Defense Forces. From 

Quarry Heights, observers could see rebel soldiers stacking arms and putting 

their hands above their heads. Bush learned of the outcome around 1430 EDT. 

Since May, he had been on record as urging the Panama Defense Forces to oust 

its commander. Now a group of officers had tried and failed. The repercussions 

would be extensive.

Ramifications 

The 3 October 1989 coup attempt signaled a major turning point in the 

U.S.-Panama crisis—Secretary of State Baker called it a “watershed”—with 

immediate ramifications for each country. In Panama, Noriega moved quickly 

to cement his authority over the Panama Defense Forces and punish the coup 

plotters.20 Within twenty-four hours of the uprising, Giroldi and several officers 

and enlisted men who had actively supported him were dead, a lethal bullet, not 

confinement, being the retribution meted out, an unusual penalty in Panama for 

a military conspiracy. Giroldi apparently was singled out for especially brutal 

treatment. His niece told the press that his body had numerous bullet wounds and 

leg, rib, and skull fractures. Informants within the Panamanian military provided 

further details, revealing that several high-ranking officers who had displayed 

questionable loyalty during the coup attempt had been forced to take part in the 

executions. Other officers whose loyalty was in question, including three full 

colonels within Noriega’s inner circle, found themselves out of favor, demoted or 

arrested. Among the PDF rank and file, several hundred were also incarcerated. 

Other coup plots were purportedly uncovered, and further executions were 

reported by Panamanian physicians who received the remains of the victims. In 

stark contrast, those officers who helped rescue their commander were rewarded, 

some with promotions. Captain Cortizo, for example, whose 5th Infantry 

Company at Fort Amador had stayed in the barracks rather than challenge U.S. 

troops, had been vocal after the coup in spreading the word of Noriega’s triumph. 

His cheerleading won him quick elevation to the rank of major. 

While the Panama Defense Forces was the principal object of Noriega’s 

retribution and rewards, he also moved rapidly in the political arena to shore up 

his influence. Members of the opposition, even Guillermo Endara, were detained, 

a reminder as to who still wielded power in the country. On 11 October, district 

representatives answerable to Noriega enacted a series of “war laws” that suspended 

constitutional guarantees and concentrated more power in the dictator’s hands. The 

general seemed not only to have survived the attempt to depose him but to have 

strengthened his position in its wake. The incident of 3 October had been a close 

20 This summary of the measures taken by Noriega after the coup attempt failed is based on 

Briefing script, SOUTHCOM, 13 October Attaché Briefing, n.d.; Time, 16 Oct 89; Kempe, Divorcing 

the Dictator, pp. 393–97. Quoted word from Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 187.
259

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

call, but it appeared to be working 

to his long-term advantage. 

Some observers at Quarry 

Heights and Fort Clayton were not 

so sure. The regime’s excessive 

reprisals had spread fear and 

damaged morale throughout 

the Panama Defense Forces. 

Furthermore, the disruption caused 

by Noriega’s extensive personnel 

and organizational changes was 

bound to have an adverse effect 

on the military’s discipline and 

stability. True, there was little to 

prevent Noriega from asserting 

his authority and keeping his 

subordinates in line, except that 

in the days and weeks after the 

coup attempt, the erratic behavior, 

the rages, and the heavy drinking 

that had caused Giroldi to turn 

against him actually worsened. 

Given these conditions, U.S. officials could not rule out another plot to oust the PDF 

commander, although Cisneros for one thought that unlikely. More probable, he and 

others believed, would be some incident between U.S. forces and a Panamanian 

military racked by uncertainty and suspicion and led by officers now fully conscious 

of the need to demonstrate their unswerving loyalty to Noriega. How such an incident 

might play out was anybody’s guess. 

While analyzing the post-coup configuration, intentions, and mood of the 

Panama Defense Forces and the implications for American policy, the Southern 

Command also tried to find out what exactly had happened at the Comandancia 

on 3 October. In the investigation that followed, intelligence not available or 

processed during the coup attempt, debriefings of surviving rebels like Licona, 

and contacts with informants still inside the Panamanian military helped flesh out 

the skeletal accounts Thurman had received while the event was in progress. As 

a more complete picture came into focus, U.S. authorities learned that Giroldi 

had informed his 4th Infantry Company of the planned revolt just minutes before 

Noriega arrived at the Comandancia Tuesday morning. Once the dictator and his 

entourage were inside the compound, they were apprehended but apparently not 

placed under arrest. Early on, either Noriega or someone with him acquired access 

to communications equipment, using it to call in loyal units and to move others 

like Battalion 2000 off the fence. At one point, Giroldi considered sending the 

PDF commander to Fort Clayton, but Noriega himself talked the major out of it, 

so Giroldi sent Licona and another officer instead. The rebel leader also contacted 

other military commanders throughout the country to determine whether or 

not they supported his uprising. Later, as units loyal to Noriega mounted their 

counterattack, the general taunted Giroldi, yelling at the major either to shoot him 

or to kill himself. Giroldi did neither. At that point, according to some sources, 

Noriega waves his fist to supporters after the 

failed October 1989 coup.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

260

Noriega took a pistol and shot an officer standing next to Giroldi in the head. The 

coup attempt collapsed soon thereafter.21

Thurman was still incredulous: how could Giroldi have expected success 

from a scheme that left Noriega walking and talking throughout the effort to oust 

him? At one session in the Tunnel, Cisneros tried to explain that the idea of a 

coup d’état by telephone poll was not that far-fetched in Panama. What Giroldi 

had obviously not anticipated was Noriega’s brutal behavior during and after the 

uprising. Thurman listened but remained skeptical, clearly not persuaded by what 

Cisneros was saying.22 In fact, during the three days from the first contact with 

Sra. Giroldi to the failure of the coup, the new SOUTHCOM commander had not 

readily solicited or easily accepted Cisneros’ advice. Thurman had turned instead 

for information to a handful of officers on his own staff. To be sure, Thurman 

had brought Cisneros to Quarry Heights soon after the CIA’s initial meeting with 

the Giroldis, but the subsequent conversation centered on the options open to 

JTF-Panama; it did not draw extensively on Cisneros’ experience and expertise 

regarding the crisis and the Panama Defense Forces. Cisneros later described 

the experience: “We sat down and we started talking . . . we started listening to 

General Thurman.”23 What particularly troubled Cisneros was the failure to let 

him communicate directly with Giroldi, either before or during the coup. “I don’t 

know why, for the life of me,” he recounted, Thurman failed to ask such questions 

as “‘Do you know Giroldi?’ ‘What do you think about him?’ ‘What should we tell 

him?’ ‘How can we influence him?’ I mean no one knew how to exert influence 

more than I did here. That was an ability that I had. Nobody captured that. Nobody 

wanted to.” Cisneros did not make these points arrogantly or egotistically; other 

officers who had observed his behavior in the crisis for over two years conceded his 

knack for knowing how to deal with Noriega and the Panamanian military. Indeed, 

on 3 October, Giroldi himself had reinforced that perception when he sent Licona 

and the other rebel officer not the short distance up Ancon Hill to Quarry Heights 

but several miles down the road to Fort Clayton, where, once they arrived, the two 

had asked specifically for Cisneros. In the weeks and months to come, when the 

general reexamined the coup attempt and the way he believed his expertise had 

been squandered, his emotions encompassed sadness, frustration, anger, and just a 

touch of resignation. An opportunity, he believed, one that, if permitted, he might 

have been better able to exploit, had been lost. 

Lost, too, was any chance for a close working relationship between Thurman and 

Cisneros based on mutual trust and respect. Cisneros later described his relationship 

with Thurman as “very bad,” attributing much of the friction to the fact that he, 

Cisneros, was Hispanic; that he enjoyed ready access to important Panamanians; and 

that, during the events surrounding the coup, his recommendations to employ JTFPanama more decisively might have been misinterpreted by his superiors as a desire 

21 Briefing script, SOUTHCOM, 13 October Attaché Briefing, n.d.; Time, 16 Oct 89; Kempe, 

Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 381–93; Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 186. 22 An account of Cisneros’ efforts to explain a coup by “telephone poll” is in Pierce Interv, 21 

May 98. 23 Cisneros discussed his relationship with Thurman in Interv, author with Maj Gen Marc 

Cisneros, U.S. Army, 30 Jan 90, Fort Clayton, Panama. In more informal but off-the-record conversations, other USARSO and SOUTHCOM officers confirmed the friction and speculated on the reasons 

for it.
261

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

on his part “to start a war.” Other observers noted that Cisneros’ status as a holdover 

from the Woerner days and, thus, in Thurman’s mind, a part of the “Sleepy Hollow” 

gang may have contributed to the chilly relationship, as well. Some officers even 

went so far as to claim that the new SOUTHCOM commander suspected his Army 

component commander had “gone native” over the years, becoming so personally 

caught up in the crisis as to lose his objectivity and ability to devise imaginative 

approaches, a charge that struck Cisneros as gratuitous and deplorable. Whatever the 

causes, the strained relationship between the two generals was apparent to virtually 

everyone at SOUTHCOM and USARSO headquarters. In late December, it would 

come to a head during Operation Just Cause. In the meantime, each man conducted 

his day-to-day business with the other formally and with formality. 

For at least two weeks after 3 October, Thurman spent much of his time meeting 

and talking with officials in Washington. There, the Bush administration was 

under attack on several fronts for failing to take more decisive action during the 

coup attempt. Prominent Democrats in Congress such as Senators John Kerry of 

Massachusetts and Sam Nunn of Georgia and Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin 

led the charge, but a number of Republicans such as Senator Jesse Helms of North 

Carolina were firing their own salvos, as were some Panamanian opposition leaders. 

“Keystone Kops” was one unflattering reference used to characterize the response 

of the president and his advisers. More substantively, critics charged that Bush, 

having encouraged the Panama Defense Forces to move against their leader, had 

been too busy or too indecisive to order the action necessary to make sure the coup, 

once initiated, succeeded. This failure to follow through not only doomed the coup 

attempt, but also served to undermine U.S. credibility in the international arena. As 

former CIA director Richard Helms stated, “The oldest rule in the exercise of power 

is that if a nation tells the world it wants to get rid of a corrupt government, as did 

the U.S. in Panama, that nation had better have the means and the will to carry it 

through once the opportunity develops.” The question of presidential will surfaced 

repeatedly, recalling for many the “wimp factor” references that had dogged Bush 

during his bid for the White House the previous year. 

Not just the president’s personality and resolve but his style of crisis management 

also came under critical scrutiny. As Henry Kissinger remarked, crisis situations 

rarely provided a leader with a clear picture or adequate information on which 

to act. Given this truism, Bush, some argued, had further complicated matters 

by having information from three different and often contradictory sources (the 

State Department, Pentagon, and CIA) funneled, or “stovepiped,” directly to him, 

without benefit of interagency analysis. Besides that, he had failed to meet with his 

advisers for an in-depth discussion of the coup attempt until it was too late. More 

cautious commentators, to be sure, questioned the wisdom of additional American 

involvement in Giroldi’s machinations. If U.S. troops, for example, had blocked 

all avenues leading to the Comandancia or had moved to seize Noriega by force, 

they would probably have found themselves in the untenable position of having 

to fight rebels and loyalists alike. Still, however comforting Bush might find these 

endorsements of the minor role played by the United States on 3 October, they could 

not dispel the perception that the president’s limited course of action was not one 

he had mandated but rather one that had been dictated by the rapid movement of 

events spinning out of control. In short, the impression began to take hold after the 

failed coup that the administration’s excursion into crisis management had suffered 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

262

from distractions, poor communications, inadequate information, and, at the critical 

moments, indecision.24

In the face of this criticism, administration officials initially took the position that 

the president and his advisers had possessed little knowledge of the coup plot and 

that U.S. troops had not made any moves to support the rebels. These denials were 

quickly discredited, after which the administration went on the offensive against its 

critics, emphasizing the wisdom President Bush had shown in distancing the United 

States from a very questionable enterprise. The goals of the coup plotters were vague 

at best. Beyond forcing Noriega to retire, the conspirators seemed to have few if any 

specific ideas of what would happen in Panama, a position hardly worthy of U.S. 

support. Besides, who was this Giroldi, anyway? According to one Pentagon source, 

he was “a bastard, a sort of mini-Noriega.” Secretary Baker, after denouncing the 

critics as “armchair generals,” offered a loftier rebuttal when he declared, “You don’t 

[risk American lives] on the basis of someone else’s plans and in response to rapidly 

changing circumstances.”25 Refusing to act hastily under the pressure of fast-moving 

events was a sign of wisdom, not weakness or indecision. 

Thurman, who would meet at the White House with the president and his 

advisers on 16 October and testify the next day before Congress, was delighted by 

Baker’s statement and endorsed it in President Bush’s presence. In his congressional 

testimony and in the numerous coup-related briefings he would give over the 

following weeks, his words began to resemble a mantra: the coup, he said repeatedly, 

was “ill-motivated, ill-conceived, ill-led, and fatally flawed.”26

Yet, however vigorously the president’s men defended their actions during 

the coup attempt, at heart many realized an opportunity had been missed. Baker 

would later reveal the “soul-searching” that beset Bush’s inner circle, concluding 

that “It is an understatement to say that administration decision making was less 

than crisp. As a result, we revamped our entire crisis-management processes.” In the 

president’s words, “Amateur hour is over.” No one in authority confided to Thurman 

what would happen should circumstances similar to 3 October arise in the future, 

but the SOUTHCOM commander returned from Washington convinced that, if only 

for political reasons, Bush could not allow the appearance of another debacle in 

Panama. As the general later recalled, “I said, ‘Get your ducks in a row because he’s 

not going through this again.’ . . . I said to myself as I flew back down there. . . . ‘Get 

your s——t straight because if this ever happens again or if an American is hurt, then 

there will be a takedown here. That will be the end of it.’”27 

Cisneros, whom Thurman had been ordered to bring to Washington with him, 

returned with the same impression. Despite the different perspectives from which 

the two generals assessed the crisis, they had arrived at a similar conclusion: a 

major incident, be it another coup attempt or a U.S.-PDF confrontation, was almost 24 On the Bush administration being under attack for its handling of the coup, see Baker, Politics 

of Diplomacy, pp. 186 (reference to “Keystone Kops”)–87; Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 

127–28. Helms quote from Time, 16 Oct 89, and see also 23 Oct 89, 30 Oct 89, 6 Nov 89. 25 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 186–87. On the administration’s response to its critics, see 

also Kempe, Divorcing the Dictator, pp. 393–95; Woodward, The Commanders, p. 128; Time, 16 Oct 

89, 23 Oct 89, 30 Oct 89, 6 Nov 89. 26 On two occasions in early December 1989, the author heard Thurman’s briefings covering the 

event of the coup attempt. 27 First and second quotes from Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, p. 186. Third quote from 

Woodward, The Commanders, p. 128. Last quote from Thurman Interv, 12 Apr 90.
263

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

certain to result in a Blue Spoon execution order. Cisneros still thought another coup 

unlikely in the near future. What Panamanian officer would want to suffer Giroldi’s 

fate? Still, should there be another attempt, Washington seemed prepared to commit 

U.S. troops to the endeavor. This sort of automatic commitment seemed unwise to 

Cisneros, but what troubled him more was the very real prospect of an incident, 

provoked most likely by an errant member of the Panama Defense Forces, escalating 

out of control. Giving voice to this fear, he told U.S. troops arriving in Panama in 

mid-October during the scheduled rotations for security enhancement and Nimrod

Dancer units that, unlike the forces that had preceded them, they were likely to get 

into a conflict.28

Operation Order 1–90 and Operation Plan 90–2 

Thurman, in his testimony before Congress, claimed there had been no plan for 

SOUTHCOM forces to support the kind of revolt within the Panamanian military that 

had occurred on 3 October.29 This position was technically correct, although some 

U.S. officers in Panama believed that any military measures required that Tuesday 

could have been implemented in the framework of a Purple Storm or contingency 

readiness exercise. But such actions would have been improvised to accommodate 

the circumstances of the coup attempt, and the consequences would have been 

unpredictable. For President Bush, this debate over what could have been only 

buttressed his determination that, in the future, U.S. forces in Panama be prepared 

to deal effectively with any unexpected turn of events. “I want some follow-through 

planning,” he is reported to have told his National Security Council.30

Powell conveyed this sentiment to Thurman, realizing that the SOUTHCOM 

commander needed no prodding. Revising the Prayer Book had been one of 

Thurman’s priorities when he arrived in Panama. What the abortive coup did was 

provide the planners at Quarry Heights, Fort Bragg, and Fort Clayton additional 

factors to consider as they overhauled Blue Spoon. Powell merely wanted to hear 

that the effort was making progress. Thurman, who had been in continuous contact 

with the chairman since the coup, assured him that it was. 

In fact, there had been substantial progress on rewriting Blue Spoon well before 

the coup attempt. Hartzog, as previously noted, had been working on Banner Savior

from July through September, whereas Stiner, following the briefings that had been 

given to Thurman in early August at Fort Bragg, had directed Lt. Col. Tim McMahon 

and Maj. Dave Huntoon to write an XVIII Airborne Corps version of Blue Spoon

based on Thurman’s comments and the corps’ preferences for a swift and massive 

assault. Even before the change of command in Panama, the two planners had 

drafted a new document, JTF-South OPLAN 90–1. Woerner was aware of the 

undertaking but made no protest; 90–1 was, as Huntoon later observed, a corps, not 

28 Cisneros Interv, 30 Jan 90.

29 Except where noted, this section on the revision of Blue Spoon is based on the following 

sources: Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 55–62, 70–89; Woodward, The 

Commanders, pp. 128–31, 134–35, 139–41; Cole, Operation Just Cause, pp. 17–24; Intervs, Mackey 

with Thurman, 1992, USAWC/USAMHI, Project 1992–1; Partin with Thurman, 12 Apr 90; author 

with Hartzog and Braaten, 29 Jun 90; and Lt Col David Huntoon, U.S. Army, 7 Apr 92, Fort Bragg, 

N.C. Telephone Interv, author with Huntoon, 27 Jun 90; Conversation, author with McMahon, 20 

Dec 89. 30 Woodward, The Commanders, p. 128.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

264

a SOUTHCOM, plan. Hartzog and his subordinates, especially Lt. Col. Bill Bennett, 

kept in touch with the corps operations shop, thus ensuring that Banner Savior and 

90–1 developed along parallel lines, with planners in each headquarters staying 

abreast of what their counterparts were doing. 

After the coup attempt, Thurman met several times with commanders and 

planners from the SOUTHCOM operations directorate, the XVIII Airborne Corps, 

the Joint Special Operations Command, and JTF-Panama. At one session in Panama, 

he issued the formal guidance all anticipated and, to some degree, was already in 

effect. The XVIII Airborne Corps would be the principal planner for Blue Spoon

operations and the war-fighting headquarters should the full plan be executed. The 

Southern Command would provide the corps only general guidance, contained 

in a new version of the CINCSO Blue Spoon operation order. For Hartzog, this 

meant stopping work on Banner Savior and transferring the concepts he had 

developed therein to the revised Blue Spoon. The new plan was to cover a variety 

of contingencies from another coup attempt to an all-out U.S. invasion, and it was 

to consider what U.S. forces in Panama alone could accomplish in each of three 

scenarios determined by the amount of advance warning: no notification, little 

notification, or adequate notification. JTF-Panama would have to handle any sudden 

outbreak of violence. If forces outside Panama were needed—and the assumption 

was they would be—they would be brought in quickly and strike hard. The gradual 

buildup so critical to Woerner’s strategy of putting pressure on the Panamanian 

military was thus jettisoned, to be replaced by a combination of mass and surprise, 

both principles of war being essential to the concept of operations for which the 

Joint Staff in Washington, together with the Joint Special Operations Command and 

the XVIII Airborne Corps, had lobbied in the past. Finally, Thurman, as anticipated, 

formally changed the command and control arrangements for Blue Spoon. If the 

plan were fully executed, not only would the XVIII Airborne Corps serve from the 

outset as the joint task force in charge of conducting military operations but, as a 

measure to ensure unity of command, would have operational control over the Blue

Spoon joint special operations task force as well. 

After listening to Thurman’s guidance, Col. Tom Needham, the XVIII 

Airborne Corps director of operations, made the point that OPLAN 90–1 drafted 

by McMahon and Huntoon contained almost everything the SOUTHCOM 

commander wanted. Thurman and Hartzog agreed. What was lacking was only 

an explicit reference to another coup attempt that Thurman needed to satisfy 

Washington, but that was easily incorporated. More important were the revisions 

required in light of lessons drawn from the PDF’s behavior on 3 October and 

from Noriega’s actions in the aftermath. The ease with which the 7th Infantry 

Company had flown into Panama City, together with the belated move by 

Battalion 2000 to take part in the countercoup, had to be factored into the new 

Blue Spoon. Furthermore, Noriega had relocated a number of units after the 

coup. The bulk of the elite UESAT, for example, was moved from Flamenco 

Island, where U.S. forces had kept it bottled up on 3 October, to Panama Viejo 

in the capital city. To these considerations, Thurman introduced a new piece of 

guidance of great significance: the Panama Defense Forces would still have to be 

“decapitated,” but, in contrast to previous plans that envisaged only the removal 

of Noriega and the top military leadership, the destruction or radical reorientation 

of the entire institution was now to be a U.S. objective. For the planners, all these 
265

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

concerns meant expanding the scope of U.S. operations beyond select command, 

control, and communications nodes along the Panama City–Colón axis, adding 

new targets to the existing lists, and readjusting the forces assigned to what had 

to that point been peripheral objectives. At most targets, the aim was to “fix 

in-place” and “neutralize” all PDF units. Neutralization meant making them 

ineffective, through combat operations if necessary but through other less lethal 

means if the situation allowed. 

Armed with Thurman’s post-coup guidance, officers at the Southern Command, 

JTF-Panama, and the joint special operations task force reworked their respective 

Blue Spoon operation orders and plans, producing working drafts by mid-October. 

When Thurman flew to Washington soon thereafter to meet with the president and 

to appear before Congress, he and Stiner were able to give Powell and Kelly a 

comprehensive planning update. Stiner extolled the conceptual changes incorporated 

in the revised plan but emphasized that full-scale execution of Blue Spoon—the 

option he preferred—would depend on receiving adequate support from the Military 

Airlift Command. The request for airlift was not a mere formality. As the assembled 

officers knew, worldwide demands kept up to 80 percent of MAC’s fleet operating 

at any given time. The Air Force, therefore, needed to know and acknowledge the 

magnitude of the Blue Spoon airlift requirement, based as it was on employing 

more troops in a much shorter time than called for in previous versions of the plan. 

Complicating the issue, Thurman could not provide a specific date when the aircraft 

would be needed, only that they would have to be assembled within thirty-six hours 

of the command being notified. 

Three days after Thurman returned from Washington, he held another major 

planning session in the Tunnel at which drafts of the principal plans were presented 

for review. The new CINCSO Blue Spoon plan, designated OPORD 1–90, limited 

itself as promised to general guidance. The mission statement had the Southern 

Command conducting “joint offensive operations to neutralize the PDF and other 

combatants.” U.S. forces, the statement continued, had to be prepared to rescue 

any American citizens detained by the Panama Defense Forces and “to conduct 

restoration of law and order operations.” They also had to be ready “to conduct 

all missions simultaneously and to assist the emergent government of Panama in 

stabilization operations on the completion of combat operations.” Included in the 

concept of operations was the “removal of Noriega from power and Panama, the 

removal of Noriega’s cronies and accomplices from office, the creation of a PDF 

responsive to and supportive of an emergent democratic government of Panama, and 

a freely elected [government of Panama] which is allowed to govern.”31

The CINCSO operation order recognized that execution of Blue Spoon might 

come in response to a surprise “trigger event” or as the result of the “deliberate” 

reaction by Washington to some serious provocation. In the former case, JTF-Panama 

would undertake operations, with reinforcements from the United States joining the 

fight once they arrived in the country. In the latter case, in-country and deployed 

U.S.-based troops would conduct simultaneous operations under Joint Task ForceSouth (JTF-South), the designated XVIII Airborne Corps war-fighting headquarters 

for Blue Spoon. “From a military perspective,” 1–90 made clear, “deliberate 

execution of the OPORD is preferred; however, when the situation is viewed against 31 CINCSO OPORD 1–90 (Blue Spoon), 30 October 1989. The information in the text is taken 

from a copy of the operation order.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

266

the backdrop of international, regional, and national politics the reactive execution 

of the OPORD is more likely.”32 The operation order went on to identify specific 

objectives, the task forces involved and their responsibilities, and the command and 

control arrangements applicable under each scenario. With the required appendixes 

attached, the new CINCSO Blue Spoon ran only fifty-five pages, far shorter than 

previous versions that had envisaged the Southern Command as the war-fighting 

headquarters directing operations of a conventional joint task force and a special 

operations joint task force. 

Reflecting SOUTHCOM’s very general conceptual guidance (which, in turn, 

reflected what Hartzog, McMahon, and Huntoon had been working on in their 

respective planning shops well before October), the operational details of Blue

Spoon were set forth in the XVIII Airborne Corps’ JTF-South OPLAN 90–2. The 

concept of operations presented therein covered five phases: predeployment and 

crisis action, in-place force operations, assault force operations, stabilizing force 

operations, and redeployment. In keeping with Thurman’s directive, OPLAN 90–2 

stated as its “principal objective” the neutralization of the Panama Defense Forces 

and the protection of American lives, sites, and facilities. The in-place U.S. forces 

would have primary responsibility for the “protection mission”; they would also join 

with deploying assault forces to “conduct rapid and aggressive force-oriented attacks 

to isolate, neutralize, and, if necessary, destroy the PDF.” The capture of Noriega 

would be an integral part of these operations. Military action against the Panama 

Defense Forces, the plan stated, should be completed within three days; follow-on 

operations to stabilize Panama and restructure Panama’s armed forces would take up 

to a month to complete.33

OPLAN 90–2 explicitly posited another coup attempt as the event that would 

precipitate execution of Blue Spoon, but the planners knew that any number 

of incidents could have the same effect. Whatever the cause, once the National 

Command Authority had decided to execute the plan, elements from the XVIII 

Airborne Corps would deploy as JTF-South and direct the military operations 

assigned to the various task forces under its control. Most of the task forces 

involved Army units, but despite this fact, McMahon and Huntoon had deliberately 

omitted an Army Forces component headquarters from the chain of command. The 

corps would act as the ARFOR, while JTF-South would issue orders directly to the 

subordinate task forces (Chart 6). 

Many of the objectives assigned to a given task force had not changed from 

previous versions of Blue Spoon. Others had. One major revision involved shifting 

Ranger units slated to attack the Comandancia to an air assault on Panamanian 

military encampments at Rio Hato, now a “primary” target as a direct consequence 

of the 3 October experience. Replacing the Rangers at the PDF headquarters would 

be Task Force Gator, a force cobbled primarily from the Nimrod Dancer mechanized 

battalion and from elements of the 193d Infantry Brigade. As another consequence 

of the failed coup, certain units under Special Operations Command, South, found 

themselves assigned new targets, including the Pacora River bridge located along a 

main road north of the city over which any reinforcements from Battalion 2000 at 

Fort Cimarrón would have to travel to reach the Comandancia downtown. 

32 Ibid.

33 Joint Task Force-South OPLAN 90–2, 3 November 1989. The information in the text is taken 

from a copy of the operation plan.
U.S. Southern Command

Task Force Semper Fi Task Force Pacific Joint Special 

Operations Task Force

Task Force Bayonet Task Force Atlantic

Joint Psychological

Operations Task Force

Joint Civil Affairs

Task Force

Task Force Aviation 16th MP Bde Air Force Forces Navy Forces

Joint Task Force-South

Chart 6—Blue Spoon on the Eve of Operation Just Cause

Operation Plan 90–2 Command and Control
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

268

In yet another major change to Blue Spoon, the 82d Airborne Division replaced 

the 7th Infantry Division (Light) as one of the initial assault forces. Given the 

rapid deployment called for under the new concept of operations, using the 82d’s 

capability to introduce large numbers of troops quickly via parachute made more 

sense than landing the 7th Division at Howard over a period of hours, if not days. 

Once on the ground, units from the 82d, operating as Task Force Pacific, would 

move against Panamanian units at Tinajitas, Fort Cimarrón, and Panama Viejo. The 

two 7th Division combat brigades that were not already in Panama as part of Task 

Force Atlantic would still take part in Blue Spoon, but as a follow-on force, to be 

used primarily in mopping up and stability operations. 

The mission, objectives, and composition of Task Force Atlantic would remain 

pretty much the same as under the JTF-Panama Blue Spoon, with the task force 

operating in the northern and central sectors of the canal area. Similarly, the marines 

of Task Force Semper Fi could continue to plan for operations restricted to the 

west bank on the Pacific Ocean side of the canal, an area that included Howard 

Air Force Base, the Bridge of the Americas, and the town of Arraiján. Besides the 

newly acquired Comandancia mission, Task Force Bayonet, composed mainly of 

the two combat battalions and other units of the 193d Infantry Brigade as well as the 

Nimrod Dancer mechanized battalion, would remain responsible for taking down 

Fort Amador and various PDF headquarters and facilities in Panama City. Another 

Blue Spoon feature that remained unchanged was the Ranger assault that targeted the 

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex. The joint special operations task force continued 

to fine-tune the details of that mission, as well as missions for Navy SEALs, Army 

Special Forces, and other special operations units and personnel. 

Despite the additional targets and forces, much of what was contained in JTFSouth OPLAN 90–2 could be found in the Southern Command, JTF-Panama, and 

joint special operations task force versions of Blue Spoon written under General 

Woerner. H-hour remained set at 0100, and most targets and assignments did not 

change. What was dramatically different was the concept, “the idea,” as Huntoon 

noted, “that we were going to hit everything in one fell swoop.” That and the decision 

to neutralize the Panamanian military resulted in a plan with “many moving parts,” 

as Powell observed after one briefing. For officers acquainted with the vagaries of 

the fog and friction of war once military operations were under way, the chairman’s 

remark served as a cautionary note. Not that Stiner needed reminding. On the basis of 

his extensive military experience, he had already told Thurman, “It won’t go exactly 

as planned.”34 But Blue Spoon was a plan that, in contrast to Woerner’s, now had 

the wholehearted backing of the XVIII Airborne Corps, the Joint Special Operations 

Command, and the Joint Staff. All that remained was for the Joint Chiefs to sign 

on, which they did after being briefed in the Tank in early November. The approved 

version of CINCSO OPORD 1–90 was dated 30 October 1989; the published version 

of Joint Task Force-South OPLAN 90–2, was dated 3 November. 

There was one issue that the Blue Spoon revisions and detailed briefings did 

not address at any length. Both the CINCSO operation order and the JTF-South 

operation plan regarded law and order and stability operations as integral parts of 

the U.S. military mission during an invasion, yet little effort had been made to link 

34 Huntoon’s comments are in Huntoon Interv, 7 Apr 92. Powell’s and Stiner’s comments are in 

Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 79 and p. 89, respectively.
269

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

the new Blue Spoon plan to Blind Logic, the Prayer Book operation order for civilmilitary operations and nation building in a post-invasion Panama.35 In March, and 

again in May 1989, planners responsible for civil affairs in the SOUTHCOM Policy, 

Strategy, and Programs Directorate had reviewed and revised Blind Logic. One of 

the plan’s original assumptions in 1988 was that there would be a presidential call-up 

of reserve units necessary for post-conflict stability operations. At the time the plan 

was reexamined a year later, however, a presidential call-up no longer seemed likely. 

The planners thus began looking at the deployment of “pre-selected volunteers” in 

the reserves as an alternative. Blind Logic also assumed that there would be a U.S. 

military government established in Panama if Blue Spoon were executed. Without 

having received word to the contrary, the civil affairs planners at Quarry Heights kept 

that assumption intact. Finally, the revised operation order also took into account 

the probability—which would become a certainty after Thurman’s arrival—that 

the XVIII Airborne Corps would be the war-fighting joint task force and, during 

Blue Spoon, would control the support forces for civil-military operations. Blind

Logic therefore identified the conditions that would allow control of those units to 

be transferred, once the principal combat objectives had been achieved, from JTFSouth to a civil-military operations task force responsible for stability operations and 

nation building. 

Soon after Operation Nimrod Dancer got under way in May, a team from the 

XVIII Airborne Corps under Major Huntoon arrived in Panama, thus providing 

the civil affairs planners at Quarry Heights a chance to coordinate with a corps 

representative face-to-face on a variety of issues linking Blue Spoon to Blind Logic. 

One issue involved the corps’ responsibility as JTF-South to ensure that the support 

troops for restoring Panama arrived in a timely fashion—meaning, during Blue

Spoon—and that, once combat subsided, the transfer of control over these people 

to a civil-military operations task force went smoothly. More important, the corps 

had to understand fully that Blue Spoon itself envisaged certain stability operations 

that required more than lip service from officers preoccupied with planning combat 

operations. Coordinating talks on these and related issues between SOUTHCOM 

planners and Huntoon’s team in Panama went well enough, but, according to one 

participant stationed at Quarry Heights, whatever progress was made suffered a 

setback when the XVIII Airborne Corps command and staff back at Fort Bragg 

failed to follow through by taking the civil-military aspects of Blue Spoon seriously 

or by regarding the planning for them as a formal tasking. 

The lack of coordination between Blue Spoon and Blind Logic persisted after 

the SOUTHCOM change of command at the end of September. When Thurman 

arrived in Panama, he did not even know about Blind Logic, and during the turmoil 

of his first days and weeks in command, he offered his planners no guidance on 

postcombat reconstruction issues, nor did he direct the XVIII Airborne Corps to 

take Blind Logic into account when making the changes he wanted in Blue Spoon. 

At some point after the corps made the 7th Infantry Division (Light) a follow-on 

force under Blue Spoon, a staff officer at Fort Ord, realizing that elements of the 

division were thus likely to pick up responsibility for stability operations, contacted 

Huntoon with an urgent request to discuss the transition from wartime to postwar 

35 The following account of Blind Logic planning is taken mainly from Fishel, The Fog of 

Peace. See also Interv, author with Maj Harry Tomlin, U.S. Army, 22 Mar 91, Fort Leavenworth, 

Kans.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

270

civil-military operations. Huntoon agreed and said the issue would be placed on the 

agenda for the planning session in Panama scheduled for mid-December. When that 

meeting convened, however, events had altered the agenda significantly. 

Despite the failure to integrate Blue Spoon and Blind Logic with respect to civilmilitary operations, the planning process for U.S. combat operations in Panama would 

in retrospect be hailed as a highly successful endeavor. It would also be heralded as 

a validation of the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the measures contained in that law to 

promote joint military cooperation and operations. On this second point, the accolades, 

while well deserved, should have been tempered with some modest reservations. Blue

Spoon, although a joint undertaking, was dominated by the Army. Of the 26,000 troops 

called for in the plan, the overwhelming majority of them would be “green suiters.” 

True, the marines in Panama would participate as their own task force. However, just 

one day after the Joint Chiefs approved the plan, the Marine Corps offered Stiner 

additional units for combat in Panama, only to have Stiner politely decline. The force 

he already had was large enough to execute Blue Spoon, and the introduction of 

more marines from Camp Lejeune would only complicate matters. As for the Navy, 

although SOUTHCOM’s small naval component was included in the plan, the efforts 

begun under Woerner to incorporate an aircraft carrier battle group had never gotten 

off the ground. In the final plan, carrier-based Navy fighters would provide air cover 

for the Army and special operations forces deploying from the United States, but this 

was a naval interdiction operation in support of Blue Spoon, not the kind of direct 

participation envisaged in the original SOUTHCOM plans. All this leaves open for 

speculation the question of how smoothly joint planning would have proceeded had 

the Army and its sister services shared nearly equal roles in the proposed operation.

The Road to Just Cause

If, in the aftermath of the 3 October coup attempt, most U.S. officials involved 

in the crisis accepted the inevitability of some trigger event that would lead to open 

hostilities, “We hadn’t the foggiest notion” according to Hartzog, “of when this thing 

would occur.” In the meantime, the Southern Command and JTF-Panama continued 

to monitor the situation and conduct day-to-day operations in an atmosphere that 

was highly charged and likely to become more so. Thurman, while continuing 

to weather the criticism generated by the abortive coup, was virtually putting his 

headquarters on a wartime footing. Through November, Purple Storms and Sand 

Fleas, some initiated as high-risk Category III and IV undertakings, intensified and 

were increasingly geared to rehearsing missions found in the newly approved version 

of Blue Spoon. For the anticipated showdown with the Panama Defense Forces, 

Thurman wanted there to be more firepower already in place. Stiner concurred, 

and in mid-November, four M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicles (also 

regarded as light tanks) and six AH–64 Apache attack helicopters arrived in Panama 

under cover of darkness. (The Sheridans were concealed at the Empire Range, the 

Apaches in a hangar at Howard Air Force Base.) Entering the country openly in the 

days and weeks following the coup attempt were units and personnel replacing those 

security enhancement and Nimrod Dancer forces whose time had come to return to 

their home bases. Fresh to the crisis, these newly arrived troops quickly realized that, 

in the words of one officer, “This is a disaster waiting to happen.”36

36 Hartzog quote from Interv, author with Hartzog and Braaten, 29 Jun 90. Quotes on impending 

disaster from Interv, author with Brig Gen Keith Kellogg and Lt Col Gregory Gardner, 9 Apr 92, Fort 
271

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

The officer making this prediction was Col. Keith Kellogg, the commander of 3d 

Brigade, 7th Infantry Division (Light), rotating in to take over from Colonel Hale as 

commander of Task Force Atlantic. The tense environment Kellogg encountered was 

to his liking. Perhaps unaware of the strict restraints the White House, the Southern 

Command, and JTF-Panama had placed on the troops during most of the crisis, he 

viewed Hale’s tour of duty as having been driven by too many political considerations; 

these, he believed, had caused young U.S. soldiers to think too much about what was 

proper conduct in light of the restrictions placed on them and not enough about how 

to perform their duties aggressively and with confidence. Kellogg wanted to “make 

it much more black and white and take the onus away from [the soldiers] on having 

to make real hard decisions.” Whereas Hale had adjusted to the political dimensions 

of the crisis, Kellogg desired a freer hand, and under Thurman, he anticipated having 

it. Thurman “wasn’t going to take any crap from the Panamanians,” Kellogg noted 

with approval; he “wasn’t afraid to get into a nose-to-nose, hard-ass confrontation 

with them.” That being the case, the colonel wanted his men to be “much more 

aggressive” in exercising American treaty rights “to the fullest.” Panamanian armed 

forces should be kept busy reacting to U.S. initiatives, not vice versa. Looking back 

on this period in the crisis, Kellogg later declared, “I thought we turned up the heat 

quite a bit.” Perhaps too high, in the view of some. On one occasion, troops under 

Kellogg responded to a drive-by shooting by blocking off a main Panamanian road. 

When Cisneros found out, he placed a call to Kellogg’s headquarters and ordered the 

roadblock removed. This was not the first or last time Cisneros, himself an advocate 

of putting more pressure on the Panama Defense Forces provided it was done in a 

measured and calculated way, would consider it necessary to rein in his new Task 

Force Atlantic commander.37

Despite the concerns, expectations, intensified activities, and higher tensions 

precipitated by the coup attempt, the trigger event many U.S. officers anticipated 

did not occur in October or November. There was, however, one false alarm. Around 

the Thanksgiving holiday, the Southern Command received word from an informant 

that Colombian drug traffickers, acting in retaliation for some U.S. initiative in the 

drug war, were going to set off car bombs aimed at killing Americans, especially 

military personnel, in Panama.38 Thurman realized that, if this actually happened, 

President Bush might hold Noriega accountable—given the dictator’s reputed ties to 

the Colombian cartel—and authorize the execution of Blue Spoon. So as not to be 

Bragg, N.C. Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, p. 86; Woodward, The Commanders, 

pp. 132, 141. 37 The text including quotes is based on Interv, author with Kellogg and Gardner, 9 Apr 92. On 

the Pacific side of JTF-Panama’s area of responsibility, newly arrived units, once acclimated to the 

political-military nature of the crisis, continued to exercise close to the same degree of restraint as 

their predecessors. For example, according to a platoon leader in the mechanized battalion that had 

rotated in, he had been in Panama for only a few weeks when, in the midst of a Sand Flea exercise, 

his vehicles rounded a corner in Panama City and unexpectedly encountered armed Panamanian 

military personnel. The Panamanians were equally surprised and reflexively raised their weapons in 

the direction of the U.S. troops. As the platoon leader recalled, had this happened his first week in 

Panama, he would have ordered his men to open fire. Having had time to adjust to the requirements 

of the crisis, however, he and his men just kept on moving. The potential incident went largely unnoticed. Telephone Interv, author with 1st Lt Douglas L. Rubin, 5–6, 11 Apr 90. 38 The November bomb scare is covered in Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 142–44; Cole, 

Operation Just Cause, pp. 24–25; Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation Just Cause, pp. 91–93.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

272

caught flatfooted, the general ordered an increase in security at U.S. installations and 

facilities throughout the country. Soon, drivers trying to enter Fort Clayton or visit 

the commissary found their travel impeded by concertina wire, concrete barriers, and 

rigorous identification checks. The measures unleashed an avalanche of complaints, 

offset somewhat by acknowledgments that the steps were probably necessary, the 

inconveniences unavoidable. 

As an additional precaution during the bomb scare, Thurman activated JTF-South, 

calling Stiner and his staff back to Panama in between two scheduled Blue Spoon

planning sessions. The corps personnel would now have an opportunity to rehearse 

their role as the joint task force called for in the plans. At best, the arrangement would 

be instructive as a practice run; in the worst case, those involved might actually find 

themselves at war. In making this move, Thurman acted on his own authority, informing 

General Powell in Washington only after the fact. The Joint Chiefs chairman was not 

happy. The Southern Command, he let Thurman know, did not control the XVIII 

Airborne Corps and could not order it to do anything without the express approval of 

higher authorities. Thurman countered that the urgency of the situation had required 

him to act as he did. The explanation did little to dispel the chairman’s concerns over 

Thurman’s disregard of proper procedure, but, accepting the fait accompli, Powell 

let the arrangement stand. As expected, the activation of JTF-South served a useful 

purpose. Stiner’s people gained experience working with JTF-Panama personnel in 

the USARSO Emergency Operations Center, and this interaction revealed additional 

issues that would have to be addressed in the planning process. 

One particular security measure enacted during the bomb scare, while restricted 

solely to Gorgas Army Hospital on Ancon Hill, resulted in U.S. soldiers engaging in 

an “eyeball to eyeball” confrontation with Noriega’s Dignity Battalions.39 According 

to the informant who had generated the scare, the hospital would be targeted for a car 

bombing. The building’s vulnerability to such an attack was undeniable, given that 

several parking lots were located close to it. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 

18 November, representatives from the U.S. Forces Joint Committee met with PDF 

members of the Joint Committee and Combined Board to discuss the need, in light of 

the bomb threats, to inspect vehicles coming to the hospital and to close off parking 

areas within seventy-five meters of the facility. The U.S. officials asked for the 

cooperation of the Panamanian armed forces in helping American troops implement 

these measures. Soon thereafter, a unit from the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry 

(Airborne), commanded by Lt. Col. Billy Ray Fitzgerald at Fort Kobbe, arrived at 

Gorgas and began stringing concertina wire and emplacing other barriers to shut 

off the parking lots close to the hospital. Some of the restricted areas, however, also 

included parking places used by personnel at Panama’s Ministry of Health nearby. 

As the area was being secured, therefore, some Panamanians complained to the U.S. 

soldiers that what they were doing was not fair. This, however, seemed to be the 

extent of any protest. 

On Monday morning, 20 November, all that changed, as the regime’s intention 

to use the U.S. security measures to score propaganda points became apparent. The 

maneuvering began when Major Cortizo arrived on the scene, removed some of the 

concertina wire strung across a parking lot entrance, and waved a number of people 

39 The account of the confrontation at Gorgas Army Hospital that follows is based on Woodward, 

The Commanders, pp. 142, 144; Tropic Times, 22 Nov 89. Quotes from Interv, author with Lt Col 

Billy Ray Fitzgerald, U.S. Army, 27 Jan 90.
273

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

in to park their cars, to the cheers of other Panamanians in the vicinity. An effort 

by Center for Treaty Affairs personnel dispatched from Quarry Heights to calm the 

situation failed, as what would become a Dignity Battalion rally began to take shape. 

As the crowd grew, several protesters began taunting the U.S. troops still present at 

the hospital, across the street from the demonstration. Some soldiers had voodoo 

powder thrown at them, while all were subjected to harangues and patriotic music 

over speakers brought in for the occasion. As the protest continued, Col. Mike Snell 

directed Fitzgerald to wait until the wee hours of the morning, then advance farther 

across the parking lot, putting additional barriers, including concrete culverts, into 

place. Any demonstration on Tuesday would thus have to be staged a greater distance 

from the hospital. 

When the protesters, who did in fact return on Tuesday, saw the newly emplaced 

barriers, the demonstration quickly escalated into what Fitzgerald described as “a 

real mess.” At one point, men from a Panamanian electric company owned by a 

Dignity Battalion leader arrived with cranes to remove the culverts. Under orders to 

prevent this, Fitzgerald called on the mechanized battalion to send him some M113 

armored personnel carriers, which he used to block the cranes. By this time, several 

hundred demonstrators had gathered and had maneuvered right up to the curb of 

the hospital. As the taunts grew louder, Fitzgerald had the M113s rev their engines 

as a countermeasure. In a display of machismo, some of the “DigBats” raised their 

T-shirts to reveal pistols, and some began spitting on the Americans. Before the 

confrontation could get completely out of control, however, U.S. and Panamanian 

officials announced an agreement, whereby the regime recognized the increased 

danger U.S. forces faced because of the bomb threats and accepted responsibility for 

inspecting vehicles at two parking facilities near Gorgas. Both sides claimed victory 

in the confrontation, while each experienced a sense of relief that events had not 

spiraled out of control. 

Soldiers in an M113 armored personnel carrier guard an entrance to Gorgas 

Army Hospital.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

274

The November bomb scare came to a sudden end after a competent polygraph 

team arrived in Panama to test the informant and concluded that he had perpetrated 

a colossal hoax. Thurman then canceled or cut back on several of the security 

measures, although the concertina wire and concrete barriers on and near U.S. 

facilities remained in place. Going into December, tensions in Panama eased ever 

so slightly. To be sure, Stiner and what he called his “group of twenty” staff officers 

continued to visit the Southern Command for planning sessions, now scheduled 

at least once a month, but the group would arrive in civilian clothes, generally at 

night, to avoid attracting attention or causing an unwanted provocation. JTF-Panama 

units continued to conduct Sand Fleas, Purple Storms, and contingency readiness 

exercises, in effect rehearsing (still unknowingly in the case of the troops) portions 

of the new operation plan. Early in the month, though, Cisneros was told to reduce 

the intensity of the exercises in advance of a drug summit to be held in Panama. 

This was also a time when conventional wisdom held that “nothing ever happens in 

Panama during a holiday season.” The same could almost be said of crisis-related 

activities in the United States. At Fort Bragg and elsewhere along the East Coast 

during the first half of December, the 82d Airborne Division and Special Operations 

Forces conducted a series of Blue Spoon rehearsals for which precise mock-ups 

and line-outs of the actual targets in Panama had been constructed. There were two 

major rehearsals, the second of which was over by mid-month. The results would 

help to identify problems, streamline procedures, and update plans. In the meantime, 

as in Panama, almost everyone involved turned their thoughts to the holiday season, 

to parties, and to family and friends. At Quarry Heights, Fort Clayton, Fort Bragg, 

and the Pentagon, the safe bet was that the anticipated trigger event for Blue Spoon

would not occur before the new year.40 

Then, on 15 December 1989, just as the holiday spirit was getting into full 

swing, Noriega gave an inflammatory speech before the National Assembly of 

Representatives, which dutifully passed a resolution declaring, “The Republic of 

Panama is declared to be in a state of war while [U.S.] aggression lasts.” The same 

document also proclaimed Noriega “Maximum Leader for national liberation” 

and head of government. At the Southern Command and USARSO headquarters, 

viewers of the televised performance did not take it seriously. They dismissed it, 

correctly, as high theater designed to shore up the dictator’s political position. But, as 

hindsight would suggest, the speech possibly encouraged the Panamanian military, 

many members of which were still under suspicion because of the abortive coup, to 

demonstrate their loyalty and their patriotism by taking a more combative approach 

toward U.S. service personnel. Whatever the motives at play, the next night, Saturday, 

16 December, ended in a deadly confrontation. 

Virtually every U.S. headquarters in Panama was holding a holiday party that 

evening. At Fort Amador, Cisneros hosted the USARSO festivities. Hartzog, for his 

part, had arranged a celebration for his staff and their families. Some of these soirées 

were formal affairs, requiring dress uniforms. There were lavish dinners, toasts, 

speeches, and entertainment. At Hartzog’s quarters, the revelers had almost finished 

a song parody, “The Twelve Days of Thurman,” when the brigadier general received 

40 Interv, author with Hartzog and Braaten, 29 Jun 90. Concerning expectations of when the 

trigger event would occur, the Thurman Papers in the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle 

Barracks, Pennsylvania, contain briefing slides that, presumably for gaming purposes, used a date in 

mid-January.
275

From Black Tuesday to Blue Spoon

a telephone call. The Panama Defense Forces had shot an American officer, Hartzog 

was told, possibly killing him. At Amador, Cisneros was in the middle of remarks to 

the guests when he received word of the shooting. He quickly canceled the rest of the 

party and, with several of his staff, headed for Fort Clayton. 

By 2200, much of what had happened was known. Four U.S. officers riding 

through Panama City had ended up at a roadblock in front of the Comandancia. 

Soon after their car was stopped, the situation with the Panamanian guards manning 

the checkpoint had become abusive. Concerned about his and his passengers’ safety, 

the driver decided to run the roadblock, and the Panamanians opened fire, one bullet 

hitting U.S. Marine Lt. Robert Paz, who was sitting in the backseat. Before the driver 

could reach a hospital, Paz had bled to death. 

What the American officers assembled at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton did 

not know was whether the incident had broader ramifications. Was there, for example, 

another coup attempt under way into which the marines had had the misfortune to 

stumble? Was this a preemptive strike by the Panamanian military against United 

States forces? For several hours, the Southern Command and JTF-Panama gathered as 

much information as they could. Reconnaissance aircraft were launched to determine 

if there were any Panamanian troop movements. Meanwhile, JTF-Panama units went 

on heightened alert, with some moving to defensive positions on or around key U.S. 

installations as a result of a hastily called contingency readiness exercise. Analysts 

soon concluded that the shooting had been an isolated incident, not a preparatory 

or premeditated act. By midnight, the urgency and frenetic activity of the previous 

hours had subsided. Somewhat surprisingly, there was no visible sense of outrage 

over the killing of an American marine. As a group of officers in the operations 

center at Fort Clayton opined in matter-of-fact terms, running a roadblock anywhere, 

even in a friendly country, can bring one under fire. 

The outrage came on Sunday when reports circulated that, minutes after the 

shooting, PDF personnel had detained a U.S. Navy lieutenant and his wife who had 

witnessed the incident. Before being released, the lieutenant had been brutally and 

repeatedly punched and kicked, even after he had fallen to the floor. His wife had 

been made to stand facing a wall with her hands raised above her head. At least one 

Panamanian officer made sexual threats and fondled her until she ultimately passed 

out. Among the U.S. officers privy to the news, the episode provoked the anger not 

in evidence the previous night. Even so, indignation did not automatically translate 

into action. The critical question was whether the Bush administration, despite its 

more belligerent rhetoric since the October coup attempt, was really prepared to 

use military force in Panama. Many officers at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton 

thought not, believing that the State Department or the Southern Command’s Center 

for Treaty Affairs would simply protest the PDF’s behavior, then, as in so many cases 

in the past, let the matter drop. At a JTF-Panama meeting held around noon, Cisneros 

said that he could not predict what the president would do. What was important at 

the moment was to put the Panamanian armed forces off their guard, just in case 

Bush decided to take military action. Cisneros thus ordered units that had been put 

on heightened alert Saturday night to adopt a lower profile. He then went around the 

conference table, asking each of his commanders and staff officers if there were any 

problems, or “war stoppers,” that would prevent them from executing their Blue

Spoon missions. Only a few minor issues surfaced. That finished, he voiced his two 

principal concerns should there be hostilities: poor communications and friendly fire 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

276

incidents. The units slated for combat needed to do all they could to minimize the 

chances of either occurring.41 

As this meeting was under way, President Bush was at a White House Christmas 

party. At 1400 EDT, he slipped away to his residence on the second floor to receive 

a briefing on the Panamanian situation. Joining him in his quarters were his key 

military and foreign policy advisers. Cheney and Powell had conferred earlier in the 

day and had agreed to recommend a full-scale invasion of Panama to the president. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff had concurred. During the meeting with Bush, General 

Kelly delivered the Blue Spoon briefing with some passion, and the president asked 

several hard and detailed questions. His approval was not a foregone conclusion. 

Yet the fact remained that the discipline and stability of the Panama Defense Forces 

seemed to be disintegrating, calling into question the safety of American citizens in 

Panama to a degree that had not existed previously. After about an hour and forty 

minutes, Bush summarized the situation: “This guy,” meaning Noriega, “is not going 

to lay off. It will only get worse.” He then looked at Powell and said, “Okay, let’s go. 

We’re going to go.”42

After two and a half years, the crisis between the United States and Panama was 

going to be resolved through the use of military force. Blue Spoon, which had started 

out nearly two years before as one phase of the Elaborate Maze operation order, was 

going to be executed. The world would know it as Operation Just Cause. 

41 The account of the events from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon is based on notes the 

author took, 15–17 December 1989, while in Panama. 42 Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 160–71.
I I I

10

Conclusions

The crisis in Panama began in June 1987 with demonstrations against the 

dictatorial regime of General Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, the commander 

of the Panama Defense Forces, who had been accused by a former subordinate 

of drug-trafficking, election fraud, and murder. Over the ensuing months, as the 

domestic turmoil intensified, the general’s increasing resort to anti-American rhetoric 

and activities as a means of deflecting internal criticism precipitated a confrontation 

with the Reagan administration in Washington, D.C. That aspect of the crisis was 

exacerbated in February 1988, when two federal grand juries in Florida returned 

sealed indictments against the dictator. By the end of the month, tensions between 

the two governments had reached the point where the U.S. Southern Command, 

headquartered in the former Panama Canal Zone, began writing contingency plans 

for increasing the number of U.S. forces in the country, evacuating American citizens, 

and conducting defensive and offensive military operations to remove Noriega from 

power. As staff officers revised those plans over the course of nearly two years, U.S. 

troops based in Panama were significantly augmented on two occasions: the first 

occurring in March and April 1988 for the purpose of security enhancement and the 

second, in May 1989, for the purpose of asserting U.S. rights under the 1979 Panama 

Canal treaties (Table). As a result of these crisis-related measures, when President 

George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in December 1989, the plans 

for executing the appropriate military operations had been finely tuned, and a large 

portion of the conventional force needed to perform the tactical missions was already 

on the scene and prepared to act. The result was an overwhelming success from a 

strictly military standpoint. Despite the fog and friction inherent in warfare, the stage 

for Operation Just Cause had been so well set that the production was performed 

with comparatively few muffed lines. 

The foregoing synopsis reflects a common but skewed approach to assessing 

U.S. military involvement in the Panama crisis from June 1987 to December 1989. 

After the Bush administration employed armed force to resolve the confrontation 

with Noriega, several writers—civilians and military, official historians, professional 

authors, and journalists—applied their talents to recounting the plans and the 

combat operations executed on 20 December and after. In the process, the military 

dimension of the contentious 21⁄2 years preceding the invasion was treated as 

background material, covered in an introductory chapter or two, with emphasis on 
Table—Buildup of U.S. Forces in Panama, 1988–1989

Stationed in Panama

U.S. Navy, South

U.S. Air Force, South

U.S. Marines, South

U.S. Army, South (USARSO)

 193d Infantry Brigade

 92d Military Police (MP) Battalion

 228th Aviation Battalion

Special Operations Command, South

 3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne)

617th Special Operations Aviation Detachment

1988 Security Enhancement Augmentation

MP brigade

MP battalions 

Task Force Hawk (7th Infantry Division [Light] aviation assets)

U.S. Marine company

1989 Nimrod Dancer Buildup

Brigade headquarters, 7th Infantry Division (Light)

Battalion, 7th Infantry Division (Light)

Mechanized battalion, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized)

U.S. Marine light armored infantry company

Battalion in Jungle Operations Training Center

1989 Eloquent Banquet Insertions

AH–64 Apache helicopters

OH–58 Kiowa helicopters

M551 Sheridan armored reconnaissance vehicles

Total forces as of December 1989: 13,171

Of the total, Army forces: 9,254
279

Conclusions

those events and undertakings—U.S. contingency planning, the 1989 Panamanian 

elections and subsequent American troop buildup, and the 3 October failed coup—

whose cumulative effect was to increase the likelihood of all-out hostilities. Almost 

without exception, there appeared in print no comprehensive account or in-depth 

analysis of the day-to-day military activities undertaken during the crisis by the U.S. 

Southern Command and, at the operational and tactical levels, Joint Task ForcePanama and its component task forces.1

 The omission, while understandable, had the 

effect of underscoring the insights taken from Operation Just Cause while ignoring 

or downplaying other, equally important and valuable insights from the protracted 

pre-invasion period, some of which contradicted the positive lessons being gleaned 

from the invasion. For example, the analysts who praised Just Cause as a model of 

interservice cooperation consonant with the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 were 

generally unaware of the intense friction that, beginning with the security enhancement 

buildup in early 1988, had permeated dealings between the Army-dominated JTFPanama headquarters and its Marine Forces component. Likewise, many observers 

applauding the incorporation and interaction of conventional and special operations 

forces in the invasion remained ignorant of the largely unsuccessful efforts within 

JTF-Panama throughout the crisis to arrange a workable command, control, and 

operational relationship between these two disparate types of forces. 

As a corrective to the approach taken in most accounts, this study has attempted 

to assess the military dimension of the pre-invasion crisis on its own merits and not 

simply as a prelude to Just Cause. The perspective is that of the officers who had 

to cope with the tense, unfolding drama on a daily basis while civilian and military 

decision makers in Washington and Panama sought to resolve the confrontation 

through peaceful means. To these people, the outcome was far from certain, and 

the use of force was by no means accepted as inevitable, at least until the last two 

months before the invasion. When examined in detail, the activities of the U.S. 

military relating to Panama during the period June 1987 to mid-December 1989 

offer observations and insights that were relevant to, if not always appreciated by, 

civilian and military decision makers at the time, that are still relevant today, and that 

will remain so for the foreseeable future. 

The Twilight Zone 

From the outset, the crisis in Panama involved the U.S. military in circumstances 

that could not be formally categorized or easily defined. Since the United States 

1 Of the principal publications on the Panama crisis and Operation Just Cause, Woodward’s The 

Commanders provides a thorough and accurate account of the military dimensions of the crisis preceding the U.S. invasion, but from the perspective of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the Pentagon, 

the Southern Command, and Fort Bragg; the book makes only passing references to the activities of 

JTF-Panama and its components. Two official histories, Cole’s Operation Just Cause and Fishel’s 

The Fog of Peace, both address periodic milestones in the crisis from June 1987 to December 1989, 

but mainly in terms of contingency plans and the process in which they were drafted. The Marine 

Corps’ official history does contain a detailed account of military activities from early 1988 to late 

1989, but almost exclusively, as one would expect, from the perspective of Marine Forces-Panama. 

In the best commercial publication on the invasion to date, Donnelly, Roth, and Baker, Operation 

Just Cause, the first one hundred pages give a more detailed account than found elsewhere on the 

military aspects of the crisis up to President Bush’s decision to use armed force. Some of this material, however, needs to be updated.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

280

was not at war with the Noriega regime or the Panama Defense Forces, the situation 

could only be described technically as one of peace. In fact, the crisis occupied 

what USARSO’s chief of staff, Col. Arnie Rossi, referred to as the Twilight Zone 

between peace and war, a status not supported by any corpus of legal statutes and 

only marginally covered at the time in U.S. military doctrine for low intensity 

conflict. Consequently, the Southern Command often found the peacetime laws 

and rules it applied in dealing with the crisis inadequate tools for accomplishing 

its objectives. 

Operating in the Twilight Zone raised more than just legal and doctrinal 

problems. In peacetime, there was little need to worry unduly about the safety 

of the tens of thousands of U.S. military dependents and other American citizens 

living in Panama. In war, those citizens would presumably be evacuated. In the 

limbo between the two conditions, their situation was more precarious, as they 

remained in the country, generally going about their business without obstruction, 

but, at various times in the crisis, harassed in a variety of ways that included, on 

rare occasions, physical injury. What the Southern Command had to be concerned 

with was the sporadic but calculated intimidation of these Americans through 

acts that, however annoying or dangerous, fell short of the kind of direct threats 

to their lives and well-being that would have befallen them in wartime. Such 

expedients as Personnel Movement Limitations, town hall meetings, public affairs 

initiatives, and increased patrolling of U.S. housing areas helped to reduce the 

risks to Americans in Panama but did little to reduce the command’s vulnerability 

to charges that it was not doing enough to protect its personnel. In the meantime, 

military planners pondered what would happen to the American community in the 

event of hostilities. 

Dealing with a conflict in the Twilight Zone also affected the guidance the 

Southern Command received on what courses of action to follow. The dangers 

implicit in the deteriorating situation were enough to make Panama the object of 

discussion in Washington, but, without the clarity of a war and with seemingly 

more important issues in other parts of the world vying for the attention of both 

President Reagan and President Bush, the discussions were too often unfocused or, 

worse, they became bureaucratic turf battles that undermined attempts to devise an 

effective interagency strategy and policy. General Woerner, as the SOUTHCOM 

commander, was persistent in pushing for a multifaceted approach that would 

combine international, political, economic, and military pressure on Panama’s 

regime and armed forces in such a way as to compel a “Panamanian solution” 

to the crisis, but his entreaties could never overcome the entrenched positions of 

the various U.S. agencies involved. In his view, the incremental, disconnected 

measures—especially the economic sanctions—enacted by the White House and 

Congress only served to prolong the crisis, not end it. 

If a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the crisis was nonexistent and 

policy guidance often inadequate, Woerner did repeatedly receive one message 

that was very clear: U.S. forces in Panama were not to start a war. During most 

of the crisis, Quarry Heights and Washington were in complete agreement on 

this point, although not necessarily for the same reasons. Generals Woerner, 

Loeffke, Cisneros, and Stewart hoped to avoid hostilities because of the negative 

impact they would have on America’s influence and image throughout most of 

Latin America. The White House, on the other hand, while not unmoved by this 
281

Conclusions

same sentiment, was more concerned in 1988 about the negative effect hostilities 

might have on the American presidential election that year and on U.S. military 

capabilities elsewhere in the world. Even after President Bush took office in 1989 

and enunciated a tougher policy toward Noriega, the Southern Command, amid the 

directives it received to assert U.S. treaty rights in Panama and to put pressure on 

the Panamanian military, was also enjoined, once again, not to start a war. 

The impact of this injunction was twofold. First, since most American military 

personnel stationed in Panama were unaware of such behind-the-scenes restrictions 

placed on Woerner, they blamed the general for not being more aggressive in taking 

a stand against the Noriega regime’s campaign of harassment, much of which 

violated U.S. treaty rights in Panama. Yet for Woerner to have taken a stronger 

stand against these infringements would have risked precipitating the hostilities he 

was under instructions to avoid. Second, efforts to keep the crisis from spinning 

out of control meant restraining the activities of the U.S. military units that came 

into day-to-day contact with the Panama Defense Forces. The principal means of 

exercising this restraint was through restrictive rules of engagement that, based 

on peacetime requirements, were designed to limit the use of deadly force by 

U.S. troops to an extremely narrow range of conditions. Flag officers and legal 

authorities in the Southern Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and JTF-Panama 

generally consulted one another before promulgating what they considered to 

be rules of engagement appropriate to the situation. Once the rules were issued, 

Woerner, Loeffke, and their respective staffs with few but noteworthy exceptions 

demanded rigorous adherence. Relying on intelligence sources and their own 

expertise concerning Panama, they knew that Noriega and the Panama Defense 

Forces, despite their harassment campaigns and their violations of U.S. treaty 

rights, also sought to avoid open hostilities. Thus, war, if it came, was likely to be 

the result of an accident—some incident in which one side or the other overreacted 

in a tense situation. The strict and restrictive rules of engagement issued by the 

Southern Command and JTF-Panama would at least diminish the chances of an 

inadvertent war precipitated by American forces. 

At the tactical level, many troops—especially the marines and the Nimrod

Dancer augmentation units—complained that the rules were too passive and 

reactive, placing U.S. forces at a disadvantage in any confrontation with armed 

Panamanians. Among the critics were those who believed the rules of engagement 

almost guaranteed that an American would take the first bullet in any standoff that 

went wrong. In other words, the rules seemed to abridge the individual’s inherent 

right of self-defense in the face of hostile actions or hostile intent. 

There were other complaints about the rules of engagement. Some commanders 

of the tactical units maintained that the rules were too complex, at times ambiguous, 

and continuously changing in their details. The constraints they incorporated also 

implied that trained U.S. military personnel could not be trusted to know when 

to use their weapons. Furthermore, soldiers or marines contemplating the use of 

deadly force for legitimate reasons might hesitate, wondering whether their actions 

might land them in serious trouble with higher headquarters. That hesitation, the 

argument went, could have fatal consequences. The controversy surrounding the 

rules of engagement was never resolved to everyone’s satisfaction during the course 

of the crisis. Still, however one viewed the limitations placed on American military 

activities, the fact remains that, aside from two significant but contained firefights 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

282

in 1988, there were few shooting incidents between U.S. and Panamanian forces, a 

strong indication that Woerner, Cisneros, Loeffke, and others did have an accurate 

understanding of their adversary. When a U.S. officer was shot and killed on 16 

December 1989—the trigger event for the invasion of Panama—the circumstances 

had nothing to do with rules of engagement or related issues. 

To many soldiers and marines in Panama—again, especially those who entered 

the crisis in augmentation units from outside the country—operating under such 

constraints violated the “warrior” ethos they had brought with them. Whether 

these troops referred to their environment as low intensity conflict, unorthodox 

operations, or the Twilight Zone, most considered what they confronted and what 

they were required to do as having little or no relation to the scenarios for which 

they had been trained and prepared. The warriors who entered Panama were 

oriented to a linear battlefield on which one conventional force would fire and 

maneuver against a conventional enemy force, a mirror-image of their own, without 

restrictions on the use of nonnuclear firepower and without civilians getting in the 

way. In the Panama crisis, a sizable portion of the canal area—and, potentially, the 

entire country—was the battlefield, and the enemy, meaning the Panama Defense 

Forces and Dignity Battalions, constituted an unavoidable presence in urban areas 

whose population included U.S. military personnel and their dependents living 

“on the economy” and thousands of Panamanians friendly to the United States. On 

a daily basis, the warriors routinely pulled guard duty, conducted training events, 

and, during Operation Nimrod Dancer, asserted U.S. treaty rights. Their orders in 

each of these endeavors were to use force only as a last resort.

Coming to grips with the ambiguity, complexity, dynamics, and unorthodox 

aspects of the crisis required adjustments that some soldiers and marines were 

able to make, while others were not. In one example of the first instance, a platoon 

leader in a mechanized company whose unit had arrived in Panama in late 1989 

made the adjustment in a couple of weeks. Thus, when on an exercise with the 

platoon’s three M113 armored personnel carriers, he rounded a corner and found 

himself facing a surprised group of armed Panamanian soldiers who promptly 

pointed their weapons at his men, the young officer just kept on going. But he 

stated afterward that, had this happened on his first day or week in Panama, he 

would have opened fire on the group. From the perspective of JTF-Panama, the 

headquarters that had operational control of these tactical forces, the fact that most 

of the U.S. combat units arriving in the country possessed little or no training in 

the unorthodox requirements and nuances of the Twilight Zone was a source of 

great concern. 

Joint Operations

All units under JTF-Panama experienced working with units and personnel 

from other services on a weekly if not daily basis. Soon after Woerner activated the 

joint task force, Loeffke, as its commanding general, let his component commanders 

and their staffs know that he wanted unit training events, exercises, and operations 

to be planned and conducted on a joint basis. The success of this program, which 

allowed each service to adjust to different standard operating procedures, force 

structure, equipment, tactics, and jargon employed by its sister services, was 

something in which the organization as a whole took a great deal of pride. JTFPanama was less successful, however, in promoting joint working relationships 
283

Conclusions

in certain other areas. The three most serious problems centered on staffing the 

headquarters, relations with the Marine Forces component, and friction between 

special operations and conventional forces. Regarding the first, Colonel Cope, the 

JTF-Panama operations officer through most of the crisis, once remarked that the 

joint headquarters consisted of U.S. Army, South, personnel and “about ten other 

guys,” meaning that Army officers filled most key positions, except in times of 

acute crisis.2

 On a daily basis, only the Navy sent staff officers to help JTF-Panama 

in its operations center. 

As for the marines, high-ranking officers at both the Southern Command and 

JTF-Panama, to include Woerner and Loeffke, formed the impression early on 

that the Leathernecks were “trigger happy,” inclined to use force at the slightest 

provocation, which was exactly what the unified command and joint task force 

were trying to avoid. Marine Forces-Panama, for its part, believed that both higher 

headquarters evinced an inadequate concern for the personal safety of the marines in 

the field. Some Marine officers even believed that Woerner, Loeffke, and their staffs 

were setting them up, unintentionally to be sure, for another Beirut, the horrendous 

memory of which was fewer than five years old when the first Marine company 

sent to Panama for security enhancement duties arrived in April 1988. The friction 

between the Marine Forces component and the headquarters to which it answered in 

Panama began on the nights of 11 and 12 April 1988 when, in sequence, a marine on 

the Arraiján Tank Farm was killed by friendly fire and, the next night, the marines 

engaged in a two-hour firefight. That friction persisted late into the crisis, to subside 

somewhat once Thurman took over for Woerner and Cisneros had replaced Loeffke. 

For the most part, though, the conflicting mind-sets of the marines in the field and the 

commanders and staffs at Quarry Heights and Fort Clayton could not be reconciled 

through joint training events and the high level of cooperation attained in other, less 

volatile areas. 

The third case in point was the friction that developed early on between JTFPanama and the Special Operations Command, South, over the question of who 

had operational control of special operations forces and how those elite forces 

would interact with conventional forces when engaged in crisis-related activities. 

For Loeffke and the SOCSOUTH commander, Colonel Fry, the incident near 

Howard Air Force Base on 20–21 April 1988 brought both issues to the fore, in 

the most fractious of ways. In Loeffke’s opinion, the special operators needed to 

be under his operational control when conducting crisis-related missions; they also 

needed to coordinate those missions with conventional units in the area assigned 

to JTF-Panama. Fry’s response was that SOCSOUTH was a subunified command 

that answered only to the SOUTHCOM commander and that the safety of the 

small teams he fielded relied on operations security, which meant that they could 

share very little information with their conventional counterparts. For over a year, 

Loeffke and Fry tried unsuccessfully to work out an acceptable command and 

control arrangement. When they both left Panama at the end of June 1989, the 

points of friction still existed. At the time, some observers blamed the impasse on 

the personalities of two hard-headed and determined individuals, only to find that 

the pair’s successors would continue to fight the same turf battles. The persistence 

of this problem, together with the staffing issue and the friction with the marines, 

2 Interv, author with Col John A. Cope Jr., U.S. Army, 29 Mar 89, Fort Clayton, Panama.
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

284

was a source of concern but did not diminish the resounding success of JTFPanama’s overall record of promoting interservice cooperation, coordination, and 

interoperability.

At Quarry Heights, a quarter-century of joint experience within the unified 

command militated against the kind of problems JTF-Panama struggled with at 

the operational and tactical levels. Where the Southern Command encountered 

joint difficulties with respect to the Panama crisis was primarily in the conduct 

of contingency planning. The original CINCSO Elaborate Maze operation 

order of March 1988 called for three subordinate headquarters to be under the 

SOUTHCOM commander should hostilities occur in Panama: JTF-Panama, a 

joint special operations task force, and a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group. 

The staff at Quarry Heights had some doubts about establishing JTF-Panama, but 

the pressures generated by planning needs and various developments in the crisis 

overrode most of those concerns. The joint special operations task force, which 

Woerner readily activated, coordinated with the Southern Command and JTFPanama planners almost daily and proved cooperative throughout the planning 

process, even though some contentious issues did arise and although not all the 

special operators involved at Fort Bragg were enamored of Woerner’s concept for 

what became the Blue Spoon plan for U.S. combat operations in Panama. 

The same commitment to a cooperative joint relationship, however, was not 

forthcoming from the Navy’s Atlantic Command, which balked at putting a carrier 

battle group under the control of an Army general, no matter what GoldwaterNichols intended or the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed. At one point, Woerner 

appealed directly to Admiral Crowe to intercede. The Joint Chiefs chairman sided 

with the general, but the Navy continued to be recalcitrant, and the issue was not 

resolved until after the 3 October 1989 coup attempt, at which time SOUTHCOM 

planners simply dropped the carrier group from the Blue Spoon operation order. 

After Operation Just Cause, when General Thurman and others would herald the 

joint composition of the invasion force as a vindication of Goldwater-Nichols, 

there were veterans of the crisis who were inclined to add a disclaimer or two. 

Personalities

The bulk of U.S. military training and education emphasizes organizations, 

processes, doctrine, technology, and other impersonal factors. The subject of 

leadership to some degree addresses the issue of personality, but generally places 

greater weight on techniques and personnel management, overlooking the fact 

that, in any human endeavor, the interplay of different personalities is often critical 

to understanding the outcome. This was certainly the case in the Panama crisis. 

Three examples should suffice to make the case. To begin with, there was General 

Woerner, a commander with a vast knowledge of Latin America and extensive 

military experience in the area, including Panama. From the perspective of many 

officers serving with him, his expertise was put to excellent use during the crisis, 

a fact that Admiral Crowe in the Pentagon recognized as well. To his critics, 

though, Woerner’s reputation as an “intellectual” signaled a possible tendency to 

overanalyze problems, while his expertise with respect to Latin America fueled 

groundless speculation that he had “gone native.” Once what had been regarded as 

his attributes became a source of suspicion among policy makers in Washington 

and his peers in the Pentagon and elsewhere, his effectiveness in the crisis was 
285

Conclusions

reduced. That notwithstanding, at the time he was relieved, he could say that he 

had carried out his orders and, more important, had kept the crisis from escalating 

unnecessarily to the point that U.S. intervention would be required. His successor, 

General Max Thurman, only knew what he had absorbed about Latin America 

in the short time he had as SOUTHCOM’s commander-designate. Thurman 

was critical of Woerner’s strategy and plans and lacked Woerner’s wariness of 

“outsiders,” meaning primarily the XVIII Airborne Corps. How Thurman would 

have handled the crisis had he been the SOUTHCOM commander in 1987 and 

1988 can only be imagined; the same is true of how Woerner would have acted 

during the 3 October coup attempt or during the execution of Operation Just

Cause. Conjecture, however, would probably yield in both cases scenarios very 

different from the events that actually transpired.

Brig. Gen., later Maj. Gen., Marc Cisneros, like Woerner, knew much about 

Panama and, after Woerner’s departure, was the highest ranking officer in the 

country with any institutional memory for what had happened during the more than 

two years of crisis. Cisneros also had a knack for determining what Noriega and 

the Panama Defense Forces would do at critical moments, or how they would react 

to U.S. initiatives. Yet, if some thought Cisneros would become an indispensable 

adviser to General Thurman, they were greatly mistaken. Considered part of the 

“Woerner crowd,” plus being a person of Hispanic heritage, Cisneros was kept 

at arm’s length during his service as one of Thurman’s component commanders. 

On those occasions when he was encouraged to express his best judgment, his 

views often conflicted with those of the four-star. Cisneros’ largely unsuccessful 

efforts to explain the nuances of the 3 October coup attempt to Thurman, whom the 

USARSO commander believed to be letting ego get the better of common sense, 

illustrate the point. 

Other examples of the importance of personalities in the Panama crisis abound. 

All contribute to the conclusion that, in examining any such ongoing conflict, the 

personal dimension must be given the weight it deserves along with the impersonal 

factors that are also at work and generally highly emphasized in postconflict 

analyses. The actors—in this study, mainly the military leaders involved—should 

not be treated as interchangeable parts whose participation and interaction have 

only a marginal effect on the course of events. 

In addition to the aforementioned observations, there are many other “lessons” 

that the U.S. military derived or should have derived from its involvement in the 

Panama crisis from June 1987 to mid-December 1989. Many are highlighted in 

the main text of this study; readers will infer others; and still others will surface 

as classified documents are released and the crisis is examined by writers asking 

different questions of the material. In concluding this volume, the point to reiterate 

is that the role of the U.S. military in Panama during more than two years of crisis 

should not be viewed as simply setting the stage for Operation Just Cause, an 

invasion that few officers saw as inevitable until mid-October 1989. The daily 

activities of the U.S. Southern Command and, under it, JTF-Panama during this 

21⁄2-year period must be examined and analyzed on their own merits and from 

the perspective of individuals looking toward the future, uncertain of its outcome. 

What one observes from this perspective is an example of crisis management in 

which the U.S. military played a dominant—sometimes predominant—role while 

receiving inadequate guidance, fighting for scarce resources, continuing to carry 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

286

out theater-wide missions, enduring internal frictions, and at times operating under 

severe constraints generated by both military and political considerations. In a 

generic sense, U.S. military operations well before the Panama crisis were affected 

by these or similar issues, and that pattern holds true today. As a case study, the 

military’s role in the political-military confrontation with Noriega stands on its 

own as informative and instructive. Together with studies of similar endeavors, 

it has much to say to officers who at some point in their careers will experience 

military operations in similar “Twilight Zones.” 
Bibliography

I I I

Primary Sources

Most of the documents, oral histories, and other primary sources cited in 

the footnotes to each chapter were collected at a variety of locations during the 

U.S.-Panamanian crisis or soon after its resolution in Operations Just Cause and 

Promote Liberty. In the case of the documents, the vast majority were taken from 

operational files, xeroxed, and returned to the files. Most of those files no longer 

exist, although some of the material contained in them is likely to be located in 

the archives or history offices of the Joint History Office in the Pentagon; U.S. 

Army, South, now at Fort Sam Houston, Texas; the U.S. Army Center of Military 

History in Washington, D.C.; the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson, 

Georgia; the U.S. Army Military History Institute and the U.S. Army War College 

at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; the U.S. Army Special Operations Command 

at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; the U.S. Marine Corps History Division (formerly 

the U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division) at Quantico, Virginia; 

the U.S. Southern Command, now in Dade County, Florida; and the U.S. Special 

Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. 

In the case of the oral history interviews cited in the footnotes, most were 

conducted by the author, but many came from other sources: the XVIII Airborne 

Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; the U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons 

Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; the U.S. Army Center of Military History; 

the U.S. Army Military History Institute and U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute 

at Carlisle Barracks; the U.S. Army Forces Command; the U.S. Marine Corps 

History Division; and the U.S. Special Operations Command. 

With few exceptions, the author has placed the primary sources cited in this 

study into a discrete research collection. As of this writing, that collection is located 

at the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

Existing plans call for keeping that collection intact, even though its location may 

shift after completion of the second, and final, volume in this study of the crisis. 

Unpublished Material

Kraus, Theresa L. Working Chronology for Operation Just Cause. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1990.

Loeffke, Maj Gen Bernard, U.S. Army. Diary. 
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

288

Marcella, Gabriel, and General Frederick F. Woerner Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.). The 

Road to War: The U.S.-Panamanian Crisis, 1987–1989. Draft article. 6 May 

1991. 

Neller, Maj Robert B., U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). Marines in Panama: 1988–1990. 

Paper, USMC Staff College, Quantico, Va., 1991.

Sikes, Reginald. Operation Nimrod Dancer: A Personal View of Lessons 

Learned. Paper, A645, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kans., 15 Feb 98.

U.S. Southern Command. Joint After Action Report. Operation Just Cause. 14 Feb 

91.

Woodrow. Lt Col Paul J. ‘Ni Un Paso Atras’-The Crisis in Panama, 1987–1989. 

U.S. Army War College Personal Experience Monograph. Carlisle Barracks, 

Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 12 April 1992.

Document Collections

Thurman, Maxwell, Papers. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, 

Pa.

USMC Command Chronologies for Panama. U.S. Marine Corps History Division, 

Quantico, Va. 

Woerner, Frederick, Jr., Papers. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle 

Barracks, Pa.

Books

Baker, James A., III, with Thomas M. DeFrank. The Politics of Diplomacy: 

Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 

1995.

Buckley, Kevin. Panama: The Whole Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Cole, Ronald H. Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint 

Operations in Panama, February 1988–January 1990. Washington, D.C.: Joint 

History Office, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995.

Conniff, Michael L. Panama and the United States: The Forced Alliance. Athens, 

Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1992.

Dinges, John. Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United States 

and Made Millions in Drugs and Arms. New York: Random House, 1990.

_______. Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel 

Noriega. Rev. ed. New York: Times Books, 1991. 

Donnelly, Thomas; Margaret Roth; and Caleb Baker. Operation Just Cause: The 

Storming of Panama. New York: Lexington Books, 1991.

Fishel, John T. The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of 

Panama. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992.

_______. “Planning For Post-Conflict Panama: What It Tells Us About Phase IV 

Operations.” In Turning Victory into Success: Military Operations After the 

Campaign, edited by Brian M. De Toy. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combat 

Studies Institute Press, 2005.

Flanagan, Lt. Gen. Edward M., Jr., U.S. Army (Ret.). Battle for Panama: Inside 

Operation Just Cause. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993.

Kempe, Frederick. Divorcing the Dictator: America’s Bungled Affair with Noriega. 

New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990. 
Bibliography

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Meditz, Sandra W., and Dennis M. Hanratty, eds. Panama: A Country Study. 

Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 1989.

Reynolds, Lt. Col. Nicholas E. Just Cause: Marine Operations in Panama, 

1988–1990. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums 

Division, 1996. 

Scranton, Margaret E. The Noriega Years: U.S.-Panamanian Relations, 1981–1990. 

Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991. 

Woodward, Bob. The Commanders. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Newspapers, Bulletins, and Magazines

Air Force Times, Army Times, New York Times, Southern Command News, Time, 

Tropic Times, and Washington Post.

Department of State Bulletin. 89 (July 1989): 70–71.

Livingstone, Neil. “Just Cause Jailbreak.” Soldier of Fortune (October 1990).

Abbreviations and Acronyms

I I I

AAR After action report

AFB Air Force base

AFFOR Air Force Forces

AFOSI Air Force Office of Special Investigations

AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AO Area of operations

APC Armored personnel carrier

ARFOR Army Forces

ARFORPM Army Forces-Panama

BCE Battlefield coordination element

BDU Battle dress uniform

CARL Combined Arms Research Library

CAT Crisis action team

CCN Spanish acronym for National Civic Crusade

CG Commanding general

CGSC U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CINCFOR Commander in chief, U.S. Forces Command

CINCSO Commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command

CJCS Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

CMO Civil-military operations

CMOTF Civil-military operations task force

CMR Countermortar radar

CNN Cable News Network

CO Commanding officer

COMARFORPM Commander, Army Forces-Panama

COMJSOTF Commander, joint special operations task force

COMJTF-Panama Commander, Joint Task Force-Panama

COMJTFPM Commander, Joint Task Force-Panama

COMMARFORPM Commander, Marine Forces-Panama

COMSOCSO Commander, Special Operations Command, South

COMSOCSOUTH Commander, Special Operations Command, South
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

292

COMUSNAVSO Commander, U.S. Navy, South

CRE Contingency readiness exercise

CSA Chief of staff, Army

DA Department of the Army

DCSINT Deputy chief of staff for intelligence

DCSOPS Deputy chief of staff for operations

DENI National Investigation Department

DEROS Date eligible to return from overseas

DF Disposition form

DIA Defense Intelligence Agency

DJS Director, Joint Staff

DNTT Dirección nacional de transporte terrestre

DoDDS Department of Defense Dependent Schools

DRB Division ready brigade

EDT Eastern Daylight Time

FAST Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team

FBIS Foreign Broadcast Information Service

FOM Freedom of movement

FORSCOM U.S. Forces Command

FRAGO Fragmentary order

FSE Fire support element

HMMWV High mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle

HQDA Headquarters, Department of the Army

HUMINT Intelligence collected and provided by

 human sources

IEEPA International Emergency Economic Powers Act

INSCOM U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command

INTREP Intelligence report

INTSUM Intelligence summary

J–2 Joint intelligence directorate or officer

J–4 Joint logistics directorate or officer

JCIT Just Cause interview tapes

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JOPS Joint Operation Planning System

JOTC Jungle Operations Training Center

JSOTF Joint special operations task force

JTF Joint task force

LAI Light amphibious infantry

LANTCOM U.S. Atlantic Command

LAV Light armored vehicle

LCM Landing craft, mechanized
Abbreviations and Acronyms

293

LIC Low intensity conflict

LOI Letter of instruction

LNO Liaison officer

MAC Military Airlift Command

MARFOR Marine Forces

MEB Marine Expeditionary Brigade

MFR Memorandum for the Record

MHI U.S. Army Military History Institute

MI Military intelligence

MILGRP Military group

MP Military police

NAVFOR Navy Forces

NAVINVSERVRA Naval Investigative Service Agency

NAVSO U.S. Navy, South

NCC National Civic Crusade

NSD National security directive

OAS Organization of American States

OPG Operations Planning Group

OPLAN Operation plan

OPORD Operation order

PCC Panama Canal Commission 

PDF Panama Defense Forces 

PML Personnel movement limitation

PRD Democratic Revolutionary Party 

 (Partido Revolucionario Democrático)

PSYOP Psychological operations

QRF Quick reaction force

ROC Rules of confrontation

ROE Rules of engagement

ROPP Reduction of off-post personnel

RPG Rocket-propelled grenade

S–3 Operations directorate or officer

SAM Surface-to-air missile

SAW Squad automatic weapon

SCJ–3 Southern Command’s Operations Directorate

SCJ–5 Southern Command’s Policy, Strategy, and 

 Programs Directorate

SCN Southern Command Network

SCTA Southern Command’s Center for Treaty Affairs

SEAL Navy Sea-Air-Land

SF Special Forces
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

294

SGS Secretary of the General Staff

SJA Staff judge advocate

SOCOM U.S. Special Operations Command

SOCSOUTH Special Operations Command, South

SOUTHCOM U.S. Southern Command

STA Surveillance and target acquisition

TACSAT Tactical satellite

TAOR Tactical area of responsibility

TDY Temporary duty

TRANSCOM Transportation Command

UESAT Spanish acronym for the PDF’s special 

 operations unit

USAF U.S. Air Force

USAMHI U.S. Army Military History Institute

USARSO U.S. Army, South

USAWC U.S. Army War College

USCINCEUR U.S. commander in chief, Europe

USCINCLANT U.S. commander in chief,

 U.S. Atlantic Command

USG U.S. government

USMC U.S. Marine Corps

USSOUTHCOM U.S. Southern Command
Index

I I I

1st Battalion, 228th Aviation, 50, 70, 

200, 204

1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Division 

(Mechanized), 175

1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, 178, 180

1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, 193d 

Infantry Brigade, 72n17, 73, 

177, 220, 234, 252, 272

Company B, 77

Company C, 78, 79, 80

Corozal exercise, 209

and Las Minas incident, 140

1st Public Order Company, 249. See also

Panama Defense Forces (PDF).

1st Special Operations Command, 45, 48

1st Special Operations Wing (Air 

Force), 46

2d Battalion, 8th Field Artillery, 174

2d Battalion, 9th Infantry, 174, 188, 

207n39

3d Battalion, 4th Marines, Company I,

67, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76

3d Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, 

77, 96

3d Brigade, 7th Infantry Division 

(Light), 271

4th Infantry Company (PDF), 249, 255, 

259

5th Battalion, 87th Infantry, 81n35, 

214, 234

5th Infantry Company (PDF), 255

housed at Fort Amador, 29, 47, 71,

 210, 225, 226, 249, 258

and LAV exercise, 211

5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), 

174, 220

6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 67, 

75

7th Infantry Company (PDF) (“Wild 

Boars”), 97, 116, 249, 255, 256, 

264

7th Infantry Division (Light), 59, 155, 

171, 179, 210, 268, 269. See 

also Purple Strike.

in convoys, 204

deployment of, 129, 173,174, 188, 

220, 236

and Elaborate Maze, 50

and Elder Statesman, 93

and JOTC battalion, 178

and Post Time, 93n55

and Task Force Hawk, 127, 128

“warrior” attitude of, 186

7th Special Forces Group, 45, 46, 47, 

78

8th Infantry Company (PDF), 188, 189, 

220, 235

9th Infantry (“Manchus”), 7th Infantry 

Division (Light), 174, 180

16th Military Police Brigade, 56, 59, 

70, 128

XVIII Airborne Corps, 129–34, 220, 

244, 264, 265, 266, 285

and Hartzog, 246

and Joint Task Force-Charlie, 155
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

296

XVIII Airborne Corps—Continued

planners, 133, 196, 222, 263, 269

28th Public Affairs Detachment, 176

29th Military Intelligence Battalion, 189

75th Ranger Regiment, 46, 47

82d Airborne Division, 132, 147, 274

160th Special Operations Aviation 

Regiment, 46

193d Infantry Brigade, 79, 114, 181, 

220, 223, 226, 239. See also

Lightning Thrust I; Operation 

Nimrod Dancer.

and Arraiján Tank Farm, 70, 72, 77

and convoys, 201

and Elaborate Maze, 50

and Task Force Bayonet, 179

324th Support Group, 114

361st Civil Affairs Brigade, 44n18

407th Military Intelligence Brigade, 22, 

23

503d Military Police Battalion, 55

519th Military Police Battalion, 56, 59, 77

536th Engineer Battalion, 252

549th Military Police Company, 179

617th Special Operations Aviation 

Detachment, 77

A–10 Warthogs, 201, 204, 208

ABC News, 52, 57

Abrams, Elliott, 57, 58, 105, 136, 138, 146

on Noriega, 14, 19, 64

on sanctions, 40

AC–130 Spectre gunships, 47, 77, 85, 

96, 130, 215, 252

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 72n17, 75

and Blue Spoon, 95, 221

and joint training, 111

and Nimrod Dancer, 172, 177, 189

used to track intruders, 79, 80, 82

AH–1 Cobras, 59, 77, 172, 201, 206

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 71

training of, 112

AH–6 Little Birds, 95

AH–64 Apache helicopters, 232, 270

Air Force Dog Flight, 51

Air Force Forces (AFFOR), 61, 201

Air Force security, 66, 85, 88, 172

Airbase Ground Defense Flight, 51, 52

Aircraft carrier battle group, 50, 155

AirLand Battle doctrine, 34, 35

Albrook Air Station, 30, 45, 50, 85, 

187, 213, 223

and Blue Spoon, 94

troops billeted at, 175

vulnerability of, 96

Arias Calderón, Ricardo, 157, 168, 169

Arias Madrid, Arnulfo, 3, 6, 10, 11, 

157

Arias Madrid, Harmodio, 3

Armored personnel carriers (APCs), 

172, 175

Army Arrival/Departure Airfield 

Control Group, 51

Army counterintelligence detachment, 51

Army Forces (ARFOR), 61, 93, 266

Army Forces-Panama (ARFORPM), 

93n55

Army Movement Control Team, 51

Army Recruiting Command, 242

Army Special Forces, 268

Army Times, 146

Army Training and Evaluation 

Program, 45

Aronson, Bernard, 136, 138, 223, 

228n26, 243

Arraiján, Panama, 268

Arraiján Tank Farm, 52, 66, 75, 81n35, 

111, 114

debriefing after action, 71, 72

defenses of, 67–68, 126

firefights at, 65n5, 70–71, 81, 97, 

98n65, 127, 212, 283

guard duty at, 116–17

Halloween incident at, 117, 125

intruders, 69, 116, 185

and rules of engagement, 119, 123

Aspin, Les, 261

Augustine, Maj. Dan, 48, 49, 60, 92, 

93, 94, 155, 199

Baker, Howard, 98, 99

Baker, James D., 136, 137–38, 150, 

153, 254

on Noriega, 196
Index

297

on October 1989 coup attempt, 258, 

262

on Panamanian elections, 162

on Woerner’s retirement, 224n13

Balboa, Panama City, 143

Balboa High School, 234

Barefield, Lt. Col. Robert, 77, 78, 79

Barletta, Nicolás Ardito, 11, 13

Battalion 2000. See Panama Defense 

Forces (PDF).

Bay of Panama, 47, 112

Beaumont, Louisiana, 175

Bellatrix, USNS, 175

Bennett, Lt. Col. William, 244, 264

Bergdorf, Lt. Col. Charles, 222

Black Toucan, 36

“Black Tuesday” (October 1989 coup), 

248–58, 259, 279. See also

Giroldi Vega, Maj. Moisés.

Blade Jewel, 182, 217–22, 223, 228

Blind Logic, 44n18, 156, 269–70

Blue Spoon, 89, 97, 129, 133, 180, 

272, 274. See also 7th Infantry 

Division (Light); XVIII 

Airborne Corps; Blind Logic; 

JTF-Panama.

and aircraft carrier battle group, 91, 

155

airlift requirements, 265

changes and refinements to, 155, 

160, 196, 221, 222, 268

civil-military operations under, 90, 

92

conventional operations in, 221, 

244, 245

Crowe on, 240

elements of, 221

and evacuation of U.S. citizens, 130

execution of, 225, 263, 265, 266

force list, 132

Kelly on, 137

OPORD 1–90, 265

phases of, 95

rehearsals, 274

SOUTHCOM commander role, 91, 

92

and Special Operations Forces, 90, 

244, 265

targets, 90, 208, 266

task forces, 95

Thurman on, 247

trigger event, 274

Bolt, Col. William J., 185, 204, 205, 

215, 223

193d Infantry Brigade commander, 

56, 85, 180, 201

commands Task Force Bayonet, 

178

Bomb scare, 271n38, 272, 274

Bonney, Col. Charles E., 125n50

Braaten, Col. Thomas A., 199, 211, 

248, 256

Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, 175

Bridge of the Americas, 175, 268

Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 70, 81

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

249, 250n15, 252, 253, 254, 

255, 256, 257

Brite, S. Sgt. John C., 127n54

Brown, Richard, 228n26

Bush, George H. W., and his 

administration, 108, 134, 157, 

167, 218, 236, 240

and additional troops sent to 

Panama, 171

and assertion of treaty rights, 238

assessment of crisis, 187

campaign of, 100, 106

and convoys’ purpose, 199

and Muse affair, 160–61

on Nimrod Dancer, 220

on Noriega, 135, 137, 138, 151, 

170, 183, 191, 281

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 252, 254, 255, 

257, 261, 262

and Operation Just Cause, 1, 277

and Organization of American 

States, 194, 232

on Panamanian elections, 152, 156, 

158, 162, 166

pressures Noriega, 192, 194, 216, 

227

and relocation of U.S. dependents, 

217

and school bus detention, 146
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

298

Bush, George H. W., and his 

administration—Continued

and Woerner’s retirement, 167, 

224n13, 241

C–141 (aircraft), 130, 174

Cable News Network. See CNN (Cable 

News Network).

Cadillac-Gage V–300 armored 

reconnaissance vehicles, 211, 

213

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 67, 

173, 191, 270

Camp Rousseau, 175, 179, 183, 186

Carcel Modelo, 160, 161, 170, 184

Carleton, Col. Charles, 125n50

Carlucci, Frank, 40, 51, 55, 101n72

Carter, Jimmy, 7, 8, 156, 166, 167, 168

Carter-Torrijos Treaty. See Panama 

Canal Treaties (1979).

Casey, William, 20

Casino Gambit, 45, 48

Castillo, Col. Elías, 71, 74

Cavezza, Maj. Gen. Carmen, 186, 187

CBS News, 57

Center for Army Lessons Learned (Fort 

Leavenworth), 113

Center for Treaty Affairs. See U.S. 

Southern Command 

(SOUTHCOM).

Central American Chambers of 

Commerce, 138

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 14, 

20, 141, 218, 243

interagency campaign to oust 

Noriega, 98, 100, 105

and Muse affair, 159, 160

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

249, 250, 251, 256, 260, 261

and support of Noriega’s 

opponents, 152, 158

Cerro Gordo, Panama, 47

Cheney, Richard, 136, 150, 177, 236, 

276

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

251, 254

on Woerner’s relief, 224

Chiriquí Province, Panama, 10, 167

Chorrillos Military Academy, 10

Christian Democratic Party, 157

Cisneros, Brig. Gen. Marc, 24, 74, 115, 

223, 224, 225, 231, 275, 282, 

285

on XVIII Airborne Corps, 131, 132

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

72

assertion of treaty rights, 232, 233, 

235, 239, 271, 274

avoids provocative actions, 280

carrier battle group command issue, 

91

and contingency readiness 

exercises, 226

convoys, 199, 206

and crisis action planning, 37

and Elaborate Maze, 47

on harassment, 30, 148

and intrusions at Howard Air Force 

Base, 79, 80, 82

and Navy, 76

and Nimrod Dancer, 177

on Noriega, 224

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 251, 252, 253, 

254, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260, 

262

and Operation Alice, 232

and Prayer Book review, 133

presidential election preparations, 

161

and psychological operations, 226, 

227

on reporting procedures, 87, 88

and rules of engagement, 123–24, 

125n50

on school bus detention, 149n30

and SOUTHCOM Operations 

Directorate, 89

and Thurman, 260, 261

Claymore antipersonnel mines, 78, 80

CNN (Cable News Network), 23, 57, 

88

Collier, Maj. Mark C., 199, 200, 230

Colón, Panama, 3, 38, 49, 58, 94, 265

demonstrations in, 14

and Krystal Ball, 91, 92
Index

299

Colón Province, Panama, 10

Comandancia, 46, 47, 160, 189, 215, 

249, 266

and Blue Spoon, 90, 94, 266, 268

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

250, 252, 254, 255, 257, 259, 

261

Combined Board. See Panama Canal 

Commission (PCC).

Command and General Staff College, 

Fort Leavenworth, 199

Communications, 203–05

Conley, Col. William J., 67, 68, 75, 76, 

85, 88, 121, 219

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 71, 72n17, 73

on joint training, 111

Contingency planning, 35–40, 48, 49, 

63, 279, 284

XVIII Airborne Corps capability 

for, 245

Hale and, 180

and USARSO, 60

Contingency readiness exercises 

(CREs), 226

Convoys, 197, 213. See also Freedom 

of movement operations.

air cover, 201, 207

air-ground reaction force, 198

armed escorts of, 199, 207

communications, 205, 206

definition of, 142–43

reassertion of treaty rights, 196–207

rehearsals, 204–05

Cope, Col. John A. “Jay,” Jr., 55, 60, 

85, 155, 181, 212, 223, 283

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 71

on Blade Jewel, 219

concern about “warrior” 

appearance, 186

contingency planning role, 48, 49

and convoys, 199, 205

on dissemination of information, 88

and Elaborate Maze, 61, 92, 93

and Fort Espinar, 189

joint training and, 110–11, 113n23

“lessons learned” file of, 113

and military police, 56, 59

Panamanian election preparations, 

163

reporting accuracy issues, 87

rules of engagement issues, 124–

25, 126

on training in low intensity 

conflicts, 112–13

Corozal, Panama, 160

Cortizo, Capt. Moisés, 71, 72, 97, 189, 

238, 255, 258, 272

Crowe, Admiral William, 18, 20, 58, 

154, 227, 228, 235, 239, 241

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 132, 

133

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight 

report, 72

and Blue Spoon, 240

and Bush candidacy, 101n72

freedom of movement operations, 

197–98, 200, 207 

and harassment issues, 142, 148

human rights and presidential 

election, 151

integration of conventional and 

special forces, 84n40

and Noriega’s removal, 46, 57, 191, 

222

and personnel relocations, 220

phased force buildup preferred by, 

61

on plans for carrier battle group, 91, 

284

on sanctions, 40, 41, 42

and Thurman, 243, 247

and troop deployments, 171n23

and Woerner, 50, 126, 137, 139, 

165, 170, 224

Cuba, 13, 22, 33, 65–66, 155, 172, 222

Curundu airfield, 85, 90

D’Amato, Alfonse, 98n65

David, Panama, 47, 90, 91

Davis, Arthur, 14, 19, 156, 162, 166, 

169, 196

on increasing pressure on Noriega, 

150, 153

recalled, 170, 192
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

300

Dearborn, Capt. Mike, 48, 94

Deliberate Planning Process, 36

Delvalle, Eric Arturo, 13, 21, 28, 30, 

42, 57, 103

dismissal of, 31, 40, 74

on sanctions, 41

and state of emergency, 18, 19

Democratic Revolutionary Party See 

Partido Revolucionario 

Democrático (PRD).

Department of Defense Dependent 

Schools (DoDDS), 160, 165, 

169, 254

Devil I (exercise), 208

Diablo Heights, Panama City, 143

Díaz Herrera, Col. Roberto, 14, 15, 

18

Dignity Battalions, 58, 65, 168, 184, 

215, 272, 273, 282

DNTT (dirección nacional de 

transporte terreste), 145, 234, 

238

Dobermans. See Panama Defense 

Forces (PDF).

Dornan, Robert, 146

Doyle, Col. James J., Jr., 163, 173, 178, 

180, 185, 211

Duque, Carlos, 157

Elaborate Maze, 38, 40, 51, 58, 92, 

276, 284. See also Elder

Statesman; Prayer Book.

and Blue Spoon, 90

consolidation of, 89

evacuation plans, 89, 94

Kelly reviews, 43

and Marine expeditionary brigade, 

67

OPORD 1–88, 49

phases of, 39, 44, 46, 48, 59, 60, 

89

SOCSOUTH participates in 

planning, 45

and Task Forces, 47

troop list, 50, 55

Elder Statesman, 89, 92, 93, 94. See 

also Post Time.

Endara, Guillermo, 157, 168, 169, 258

Farfan antenna site, 66, 67, 76

Findlay, Capt. Mike, 221

Fissures. See Woerner, General 

Frederick F., Jr.

Fitzgerald, Lt. Col. Billy Ray, 272, 273

Flamenco Island, 47, 231, 264

Florida National Guard, 51

FM 100–20 (low intensity conflict field 

manual), 34

Ford, Guillermo “Billy,” 157, 168, 169

Fort Amador, Panama, 21, 75, 85, 96, 

141, 238, 274. See also 5th 

Infantry Company (PDF); 

Operations.

American housing at, 29, 218, 

220

asserting treaty rights at, 232, 233

and Blue Spoon, 90, 94, 95

causeway, 228, 237

and helicopter accident, 215

joint exercise at, 210, 211, 212, 213

MP quick reaction force at, 209

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

251, 252, 253, 255, 257

Purple Storm exercise at, 231

shooting near, 227

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 51, 55, 96, 

128n57, 139, 244

1st Special Operations Command 

at, 45, 48

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 130

and Blue Spoon, 92

and gradual buildup, 137

joint special operations task force, 

222

Noriega trained at, 10

planning at, 95, 131, 133, 196, 222, 

246

and Prayer Book, 94

Fort Cimarrón, Panama, 47, 90, 249, 

266, 268

Fort Clayton, Panama, 85, 109, 163, 

175, 181, 215, 218

Cisneros takes command at, 223–25

and convoys, 201, 204, 205, 206

and JTF-Panama, 70, 75, 127

Nimrod Dancer, 182

operations center at, 1
Index

301

relocation center at, 219

reports from, 87

review of security enhancement 

forces, 129

U.S. Army, South, at, 25

Fort Davis, Panama, 188, 189, 201, 

204, 205, 206n56

Fort Espinar, Panama, 29, 47, 204, 232, 

233, 238

7th Infantry company billeted at, 

188, 207n39, 210

American housing at, 29

and Blue Spoon, 94, 95

“invasion” of, 188–89, 192, 209

Quarters 32, 235, 236

Fort Gulick, Panama, 235

Fort Kobbe, Panama, 85

and 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry, 

140, 272

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 77, 78n32, 79, 80

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 113, 199

Fort Lewis, Washington, 176

Fort McPherson, Georgia, 172, 173

Fort Monroe, Virginia, 242, 245

Fort Ord, California, 173, 179, 180

Fort Polk, Louisiana, 174, 175, 185

Fort Rucker, Alabama, 214

Fort Sherman, Panama, 174, 179, 186, 

189, 201, 220

Francis, Lt. Col. Brett, 181–82

Freedom of movement operations, 197, 

203–04, 205–06, 217, 222, 227. 

See also Convoys.

Fry, Col. Chuck, 45, 82, 84n40, 95, 

111, 223

and intruders, 77, 79, 80, 124

and Loeffke, 84, 283

Gaillard Highway, 187

Galeta Island, 76

Gates, Robert, 254

General strike, 195

Giroldi, Adela Bonilla de, 249, 251, 

253, 260

Giroldi Vega, Maj. Moisés, 249–51, 

252–54, 255–57, 258, 259–60, 

261–62

Gneckow, Rear Adm. Jerry G., 75, 

125n50, 210

Goldwater-Nichols Department of 

Defense Reorganization Act of 

1986, 91, 270, 279, 284

Gorgas Army Hospital, 68, 145, 176, 

234, 272

Graves, Capt. William, 79, 80

Hale, Col. David R. E., 184, 185, 191, 

210, 238, 239. See also Rules of 

confrontation.

and Blue Spoon, 220

and convoys, 201, 204

and Fort Espinar “invasion,” 188

and Operation Alice, 233

and Operation Beatrice, 235, 236

and rules of engagement, 202, 203

and Task Force Atlantic, 179, 

180–81, 271

“warrior” impression of troops, 

186, 187

Hartzog, Brig. Gen. William, 246, 266, 

270, 274–75

and Operation Banner Savior, 263, 

264

relationship with Thurman, 248, 

256

Harvest Bare shelters, 183

Harvest Eagle shelters, 183, 219

Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 3, 7

Hayden, Col. T., 125n50

Helms, Jesse, 261

Helms, Richard, 261

Herrera Hassán, Col. Eduardo, 57

Herres, General Robert, 229, 241

Herrick, Maj. Chuck, 48, 94

Hersh, Seymour M., 13, 14

Higginbotham, Col. Norman D., 182, 183

High mobility multipurpose wheeled 

vehicles (HMMWVs), 55, 200, 

201, 236

Howard Air Force Base, 80, 81, 82, 

160, 206, 228, 270, 283

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 70

and Blue Spoon, 95, 268

election observers arrive at, 166, 

167
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

302

Howard Air Force Base—Continued

and helicopter accident, 214

hostile surveillance of, 66

housing at, 175, 183

and Nimrod Dancer, 174n31

Observation Post 2, 78, 80

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

252, 253, 254

Proud Warrior, 208

security at, 66, 76, 85, 177

security enhancement troops arrive 

at, 51, 56

vulnerability of, 76, 88, 96

Huff, Lt. Col. William, III, 215

Hull-Alfaro Treaty, 3

Human rights issues, 151–52

Huntoon, Maj. David, 132, 221

and Blue Spoon, 222, 246, 263–64, 

266, 268, 269

and Prayer Book, 131–32, 196

Hurlburt Air Force Base, Florida, 45, 

48

Inter-American Defense Board, 223

Inter-American Defense College, 223

Inter-American Highway, 67, 69, 71, 

173

Interagency Policy Review Group, 99

International Emergency Economic 

Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), 

63, 143

Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), 20, 99, 126, 

216, 270, 272, 276. See also

Task Force Gator.

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 132

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

72, 88

authorized contingency planning, 

31, 34, 36, 37, 49

and Bradley fighting vehicle, 175

and convoys, 196, 200, 202

on Elaborate Maze, 38, 43, 44, 59

on evacuation of noncombatants, 

44, 89

and exercises, 128

marine rifle company deployed by, 

67

on Marriott Hotel incident, 57, 67

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

253, 254, 256, 257

and Operation Nimrod Dancer, 

171, 176

and NSD–17, 232

and Prayer Book, 97, 246

Publication 2, 9

publications of, 111

and redeployments, 128

and rules of engagement, 119, 120, 

124, 125, 201, 202

and school bus detention, 146

and security enhancement buildup, 

51, 52

and Thurman, 242, 247

and Woerner, 58–59, 87, 88, 89, 

100, 107, 207

Joint Operations Planning System, 36, 

37, 173

Joint Readiness Training Center, 112, 

185

Joint Special Operations Command 

(JSOC), 48, 129, 155, 244, 245, 

264, 268

Joint special operations task force 

(JSOTF), 39, 46, 49, 129, 137, 

222, 268

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 133–34

and Blue Spoon, 90, 91, 92, 94

operation order for, 44, 45

Joint Staff, 43, 88, 93, 104, 240

and Blue Spoon, 265

and convoys, 196, 197

and Nimrod Dancer, 173

Operation Alice, 232

and security enhancement 

deployments, 128, 170

Joint Task Force-Charlie, 155

Joint Task Force-Panama. See JTFPanama.

Joint Task Force (JTF)-South, 265, 

266, 268

Joint training, 109–13, 181, 185, 209, 

226. See also Purple Storms.

JTF-Panama, 79, 87, 217, 226, 237, 

270, 279. See also Blind Logic; 

Prayer Book.
Index

303

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 132

activated, 36, 48, 60n50, 61, 282

additional troop requests, 89 165, 

170, 171

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 72

and Blue Spoon, 90, 91, 94, 95, 

129–30, 221, 226, 244, 265, 

268

and combat support units, 114

commanded by USARSO 

commanding general, 61

communications, 61, 111–12

conventional and special forces 

relations, 81, 82, 84

and convoys, 199, 203, 204, 207

and death of Marine Lt. Robert Paz, 

275

deception plans, 208

and Elaborate Maze, 39, 47, 49, 60

 Elder Statesman development, 92, 

93

and evacuation plan for U.S. 

civilians, 94

Fort Clayton operations center for, 

70, 117

fragmentary order, 163, 180, 206

and harassment of American 

citizens, 147

intelligence summary, 97, 203

and intrusions at U.S. facilities, 126

joint operations and training, 

109–13, 181, 210

JSOTF missions supported by, 90

logistical issues, 183

marines and, 74, 76, 90–91, 212, 

283

and Nimrod Dancer, 175, 178, 182, 

239

Noriega regime pressured by, 230

NSD–17, 239

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 260

Operation Alice, 232–33

OPLAN 2–89, 205

OPLAN 90–1, 263

OPORD 1–88, 85

and Panamanian elections, 156, 

161–64

Post Time, 226

Purple Storms, 239

and quick reaction force, 209

reporting procedures and issues, 

87–88, 88n45, 180

responsibilities of, 84, 85, 109

and rules of engagement, 120, 122, 

123

Sand Fleas, 239

security enhancement deployments, 

119

and SOUTHCOM, 109–10

and Task Force Atlantic, 187

and Thurman, 264

and Woerner, 104, 206n36

Jungle Operations Training Center 

(JOTC), 47, 117, 165, 177, 180

Justines, Col. Marco, 38

Keith, Maj. Eddie, 68

Kellogg, Col. Keith, 271

Kelly, Lt. Gen. Thomas, 43, 104, 131, 

228, 240, 245

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 132, 133

on Blue Spoon, 137, 276

on information distribution, 88

and October 1989 coup attempt, 251

and Operation Banner Savior, 246

Kerry, John, 261

Kindle Liberty, 21

Kissinger, Henry, 261

Klondike Key, 89, 90, 92, 94, 96, 156, 

220

Kozak, Michael, 54, 103, 127, 150, 

151, 153

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

253

talks with Noriega, 63, 98, 100, 

106, 114

Krystal Ball, 44n18, 89, 90, 91–92, 

96, 156

La Chorrera, Panama, 97

Landing craft, mechanized (LCM)–8s, 

208

Las Minas, Panama, 140

Law 20. See Panama Defense Forces 

(PDF).
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

304

Lesnowicz, Maj. Ed, 221

Licona, Capt. Javier, 257, 259

Light amphibious infantry (LAI) 

elements, 165, 178, 201

Light armored vehicle (LAV)–25, 173, 

234

Light fighters. See 7th Infantry 

Division (Light).

Lightning Thrust I, 209

Lindsay, General James J., 45, 48, 51, 

244

Loeffke, Maj. Gen. Bernard, 46, 53, 98, 

146, 177, 199, 223, 226

and 7th Infantry (Light), 171

XVIII Airborne Corps action 

opposed by, 130, 131

and Amador exercise, 211n48

and Arraiján Tank Farm, 71, 72, 73, 

74, 77, 111, 125n50

on Black Toucan, 36

on Blade Jewel, 219

and Blue Spoon, 221

on collateral activities, 209

and combat service units, 114

command and control issues and, 

75, 76, 82, 180

on communications issues, 111–12, 

203, 204, 205n32

and convoy operations, 198, 205, 

206, 207

on Cubans in Panama, 66

on dissemination of information, 88

on evacuation of civilians, 30, 51, 

94

Hale meets with, 185n54

on harassment, 143, 147, 148

on helicopter accident, 214, 215, 

216

joint training and, 110, 111, 113, 

181

and JTF-Panama, 61, 75, 84, 110

and Las Minas incident, 140

and light infantry battalion, 171n23

on marines, 85, 210, 212–13, 283

military action opposed by, 50

morale issues and, 142

use of MPs, 56–57

on Noriega, 55

and Ostrander affair, 141n14

on Panamanian elections, 163, 164

and PDF, 25, 172, 237

phased buildup preferred by, 61

planning staff augmented, 49

on rules of engagement, 117, 

119–20, 123, 124, 125, 126, 281

and school bus detention, 146, 

149n30

on security enhancement forces, 59, 

89, 128

on special operations forces, 80n34, 

82, 84

on State Department, 54–55

and Task Force Atlantic, 179

on “warrior” image of troops, 187

Low intensity conflict (LIC), 34, 35, 

112, 113

Luck, Lt. Gen. Gary, 96, 244, 246

M113 armored personnel carrier, 175, 

187, 225, 255, 273, 282

M551 Sheridan armored 

reconnaissance vehicle, 270

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, 45, 

177

Macías, Col. Leonidas, 53

Mack, Connie, 167, 168

Madden Dam, 74, 213

Maisto, John, 251, 253, 257

Mansfield, Maj. Alan, 25, 145, 215, 

237–38

Marcella, Gabriel, 43n16

Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security 

Team (FAST), 51, 52, 66–67, 

76, 200–201, 252

Marine Forces (MARFOR), 61, 75, 76, 

77, 85, 233, 283. See also Task 

Forces; U.S. Marine Corps.

Amador exercise, 210, 211

amphibious landing staged, 191

area of responsibility, 114, 115

and light armored vehicles (LAVs), 

173;

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 252

Panamanian election preparations, 

163
Index

305

and rules of engagement, 115, 

121–22, 124, 125, 185

and special operations units, 84

Marriott Hotel, Panama City, 57, 59, 

89

Marsh, John O., Jr., 141

Martyrs’ Day, 25

McCain, John, 166–67, 218

McCutchon, Lt. Col. John, 38, 89, 129, 

132

McMahon, Lt. Col. Timothy L., 131, 

244, 246, 263, 264, 266

Meade, Brig. Gen. David, 228n26

Mechanized infantry, 164, 185, 187, 

188, 220, 253, 273

Menser, Lt. Col. Michael, 199, 200, 

205, 230

Military Airlift Command (MAC), 51, 

172, 173, 265

Military Area of Coordination, 23

Military intelligence, 22, 97, 115, 123

Military police, 51, 55–56, 77, 114, 

185, 238

and convoys, 200, 204

at Fort Amador, 208

at Fort Espinar, 189

and Nimrod Dancer, 179

on redeployments, 128

responsibilities of, 66

and school bus detention, 145

Military Police Command, 55

Military Times Media Group, 146

Morgan, Col. Paul, 66n6, 71, 115

Murtha, John, 166

Muse, Kurt, 158, 159, 161

Muse affair, 158–61

Naos Island, 231, 234

Narco-trafficking, 105

National Assembly of Representatives, 

Panama, 274

National Civic Crusade (NCC), 15, 28, 

54, 64, 97, 106

demonstrations by, 18, 19, 53

and PDF, 108, 109

National Command Authority, 37, 87, 

216, 237, 266

and evacuation of civilians, 89, 94

freedom of movement operations, 

197, 198

and Nimrod Dancer, 171

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

251

Operation Alice, 232

Operation Beatrice, 235, 236

National Investigation Department 

(DENI), 144, 160

National Liberal Republican 

Movement, 157

National Military Communications 

Center, 252

National Security Council, 14, 128, 

218, 228n26, 243, 263

National Security Directive-17. See

NSD–17.

National Training Center, 112, 128

Navy Forces (NAVFOR), 61, 111, 155, 

210

NBC News, 57

Needham, Col. Thomas H., 131

Nevgloski, 1st Sgt. Alexander, 73

New York Times, 13, 138, 141, 142

Nicaragua, 9, 12, 15, 20, 22, 33, 60, 

66n5

Nieves, Petty Officer Michael, 146

Noriega Hurtado, Luis Carlos, 9

Noriega Moreno, General Manuel 

Antonio, 2, 9–14, 38, 45, 77, 

104, 123, 136

allegations against, 13

Arias coup led by, 10

on Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 73, 

97

Cuban arms deal, 65

demonstrations directed by, 24, 135

and Elaborate Maze, 45

on electoral interference by United 

States, 158

foreign advisers, 66n5

harassment of Americans by, 39, 

50, 65

indictment against, 28, 36, 135, 

277

Kozak negotiates with, 63, 98, 100, 

103, 114, 127

and Las Minas incident, 140
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

306

Noriega Moreno, General Manuel 

Antonio—Continued

March 1988 coup attempt against, 

54, 64, 65, 93, 106

Marriott raid, 59

as “Maximum Leader,” 274

October 1989 coup attempt against, 

248–58

organized opposition to, 14–15

Panama Defense Forces chief, 11, 

14, 277

propaganda campaign of, 42, 

52n32, 64, 65, 235

and psychological operations, 10, 72

psychological profile of, 107

reaction to redeployments, 129

response to demonstrations, 19

response to sanctions, 42

and Spadafora, 12

special operational element created 

by, 97

and Torrijos, 10

U.S. information source, 14, 20

U.S. military options against, 

45–46, 48–49, 57, 58, 61–62, 

96–97, 150–51, 222, 264–65, 

266

U.S. pressure on, 99, 218

NSD–17, 232, 237, 238

Nunn, Sam, 261

OA–37 Dragonflys, 201, 204

October 1989 coup. See “Black 

Tuesday” (October 1989 coup).

OH–58 Kiowas, 59, 70, 201, 204, 213

Okinawa, USS, 47

Operation Nimrod Dancer, 174, 176, 

186, 209, 263, 269, 270

asserting U.S. treaty rights, 282

conventional forces in, 172

demands on JTF-Panama, 182

deployments, 172, 174n31, 175, 

184

and helicopter accident, 215

impacts Blue Spoon, 220

impacts Post Time, 220, 221

and joint training, 178

and logistics, 182, 183

morale of forces, 187–88

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

253

and Operation Alice, 234

operations of, 189, 236, 239

and Panama Triad, 192

and PDF, 192

Prayer Book, 223

results of, 217, 222

rules of engagement, 281

Operations. See also Operations 

Planning Group (OPG). 

 Alice, 232, 233, 234, 235, 237

 Anne Marie, 237

Banner Savior, 246, 263

Beatrice, 235, 236

 Golden Pheasant, 60

Just Cause, 1, 69, 261, 276, 277, 

279, 284

 Ratchet, 231, 238

 Rio Bravo, 247

Operations Planning Group (OPG), 

199, 200, 201, 230

OPLAN (Operation Plan) 2–89, 205

OPLAN 90–1, 263, 264

OPLAN 90–2, 266, 268

OPLAN 6000–86, 35, 36, 38

OPORD (Operation Order) 1–88. See

Elaborate Maze.

OPORD 1–90. See Blue Spoon.

OPORD 2–88. See Elaborate Maze.

OPORD 5–88. See Blue Spoon.

OPORD 6–88. See Krystal Ball.

Organization of American States 

(OAS), 170, 188–89, 194, 196, 

229, 240

delegation in Panama, 200, 205, 

231

mediation efforts of, 192

meets on crisis, 228

Noriega condemned by, 184

Woerner on, 195, 196n9

Ostrander, Dr. Marcos, 141, 160

Pacora River bridge, 47, 266

Paitilla airfield, 47, 90

Pan-American Highway. See InterAmerican Highway. 
Index

307

Panama, 2–3, 6–9, 54, 92, 231. See 

also Panama presidential 

elections.

and Kindle Liberty, 21

opposition to Noriega, 14–15, 64, 

97, 108, 184, 194–95, 196

sanctions against, 20, 40–43

SOUTHCOM relations with, 21–32

U.S. intelligence gathering in, 13

Panama Air Force, 172

Panama Canal, 2–3, 33, 42, 47

Panama Canal Causeway, 231

Panama Canal Commission (PCC), 7, 

9, 99, 100, 163, 230

Combined Board, 8, 21, 28, 142, 

188, 206, 272

and sanctions, 41, 42

Panama Canal Treaties (1979), 7, 135, 

155, 206, 277

Panama Canal Zone, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 

22, 277

Panama City, Panama, 15, 50, 51, 91, 

94, 95, 175

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 71

and death of Marine Lt. Robert Paz, 

275

decline of harassment in, 184

and Elaborate Maze, 49

evacuation plans, 94

and Krystal Ball, 92

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

255, 264

PDF headquarters in, 1, 38, 46

targets in and around, 130

U.S. housing leased in, 143

violence in, 183

Panama crisis action team, 57

Panama Defense Forces (PDF), 18, 

30n31, 93n55, 97, 123, 141, 

280. See also Dignity Battalions.

Battalion 2000, 19, 249, 259, 264, 

266

and Blue Spoon, 95, 130

and convoys, 36, 142, 143, 202, 

205, 206n35

Doberman unit, 14, 15, 249

 Elaborate Maze and, 39, 45

and elections, 167

foreign advisers and weapons, 58, 

66, 97, 117

harassment of Americans, 24, 29, 

30, 39, 50, 65, 104, 136, 139, 

140–41, 144

increased U.S. military pressure on, 

226–28, 237

interference with U.S. freedom of 

movement, 142, 143, 154

jungle operations school, 97

at Las Minas, 140

Law 20 establishes, 11

left-wing groups controlled by, 35

Marriott Hotel incident, 57, 64

and Muse affair, 159

and Nimrod Dancer, 209

and Noriega, 11, 31, 37, 184, 191, 

239–40, 277

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 253, 258, 259, 

260

and opposition, 64, 108, 109

and Dr. Ostrander, 141

psychological operations, 126, 141, 

144, 227

purged, 53

radio stations closed by, 28

school bus detained by, 145

training, 126, 172

tránsitos, 139

UESAT, 47, 264

use of deadly force, 202

violates treaties, 136

Woerner on, 42, 105, 154

Panama Directorate of Engineering and 

Housing, 209

Panama Ministry of Government and 

Justice, 72

Panama Ministry of Health, 272

Panama Ministry of Housing, 143

Panama National Assembly, 31

Panama presidential elections, 129, 

153, 165–70, 222, 279

Bush policies geared to, 137, 157

candidates, 157–58

and human rights, 151–52

SOUTHCOM preparations for, 

155, 156, 161–65
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

308

Panama Relocation Center, 182

Panama Review Group, 41

Panama Triad, 192, 196, 229

Panama Viejo, Panama, 47, 90, 249, 

264, 268

Panamanian Student Federation, 10

Pangram, 219

Pantier, Lt. Col. Robert, 57, 93, 129, 

132, 133, 177, 221, 244

Partido Laborista Agrario, 11

Partido Revolucionario Democrático 

(PRD), 9, 11

Patilla, Capt. Anna, 238

Paz, Lt. Robert, 1n1, 275

Paz y Salvo (“Peace and Safety”) 

certificates, 143–44, 145

Perico Island, 231, 234

Perry, Lt. Col. Robert, 160

Personnel Movement Limitation, 23, 

24, 165, 169, 186, 254, 280

Pierce, Lt. Ken, 251, 553, 456

Policy Coordination Committee, 228

Post Time, 93, 94, 130, 165, 244

7th Infantry Division (Light), 173

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 132

additional units for, 221

fragmentary order, 163

operation plan of, 93n55

revisions to, 129, 155

Powell, General Colin, 50, 55, 101n72, 

240, 241, 263, 265, 268, 276

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 251–52, 

253–55, 257

Prayer Book, 89–97, 181, 196, 220–

21, 223

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 131

and Blind Logic, 269

and Nimrod Dancer, 178

reviews and updates of, 133, 246, 

155

Thurman on, 244, 247

Presidential Selected Reserve Call-up, 

92

Price, William, 228n26

Program Development Group, 160

Proud Warrior, 208

Psychological operations, 50, 226, 227

Puentes, Capt. Carlos, 48, 93

Purple Storms, 181, 226, 231, 233, 

239, 263, 270

Purple Strike, 209

Quarry Heights, 15, 25, 57, 85, 109–10, 

127, 129, 229, 232, 234

Quezada, Maj. Fernando, 53

Quick reaction force (QRF), 56, 197, 

200, 201, 208, 225

Reagan, Ronald W., and his administration, 8, 33, 56, 58, 136, 277, 280

approach to crisis in Panama, 24, 

29, 53, 55, 104, 105

Delvalle administration recognized 

by, 31, 40

and Marriott Hotel incident, 61

military force in Panama opposed 

by, 62, 63, 97, 106–07, 137

on Noriega, 13, 14, 19, 28, 58, 100

on Panamanian presidential 

elections, 134

Panamanians demonstrate against, 

135

on redeployments, 127

sanctions implemented by, 20, 40, 

42, 50, 103, 143

security enhancement forces 

approved by, 148

Reduction of Off-Post Personnel 

program, 217

Rio Hato, 47, 49, 66, 90, 91, 249, 255, 

266

Ritter, Jorge, 194

Roberts, Col. Thomas W., 121, 124, 

126, 127

Rodman Ammunition Supply Point, 88, 

114, 126, 127, 173

guard duty at, 116–17

intruders at, 77, 97, 116, 185

and rules of engagement, 119, 123

Rodman Naval Station, 68, 70, 72n17, 

85, 96, 211

guards at, 66, 67

security police at, 75, 76

vulnerability of, 96

Roosevelt, Theodore, 3
Index

309

Roosma, Maj. Gen. William A., 244

Rossi, Col. Arnold T., 60, 61, 92, 117, 

132, 180, 220

on accuracy of reports, 87

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 

70, 71, 72, 75, 79

on Blade Jewel, 219

on command and control issues, 76

on communications, 112

and evacuation plans, 49, 94

and Fort Espinar action, 189

and harassment of U.S. civilians, 

142n16

on intruders, 115

and low intensity conflict, 34n1

and Martyrs’ Day demonstrations, 

25

and Operation Alice , 232

on Panamanian presidential 

election preparations, 161, 163

on rules of engagement, 121, 122

on Sand Fleas, 226

on security responsibilities, 85, 114

on special operations forces, 84

tour extended, 223

and troop deployments, 178

on the “Twilight Zone,” 35, 280

use of MPs, 55

Ruffer, Lt. Col. James, 160

Rules of confrontation, 203, 209

Rules of engagement (ROE), 36–37, 

49, 115, 116–17, 118–27, 209, 

238, 281

and Amador exercise, 210, 211, 

213

and deadly force, 201, 281

and Nimrod Dancer, 186

peacetime, 52, 118, 197, 202

Sanctions. See Panama.

Sand Fleas (exercises), 226, 231, 233, 

239, 270, 271n37, 274

Sandinistas, 12, 60

School bus detention, 145–46

Schneider, Brig. Gen. Mike, 251, 256

SCN (Southern Command Network), 

23, 107, 161

Sconyers, Col. Ronald T., 161

Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, 172

Scowcroft, Brent, 139, 150, 240n54, 

251, 254

Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) forces, 46–47, 

268 

Security enhancement forces, 50–57, 

114, 125, 148, 210

additional troops for, 58, 59, 63, 

112, 128, 170

and JTF-Panama, 60, 97

missions of, 76, 77, 88, 122

redeployments, 127, 129

rules of engagement and, 118, 119, 

120

Shultz, George P., 13, 53, 55, 137

on Noriega, 57, 58, 100 

Sierra Miñon, Panama, 114

Sneddon, Maj. Bruce, 48, 49

Snell, Col. Michael J., 223, 239, 273

Solis Palma, Manuel, 31, 41, 103, 108, 

143

Somoza Debayle, Anastasio, 12

SOUTHCOM. See U.S. Southern 

Command (SOUTHCOM).

Southern Command Network. See SCN 

(Southern Command Network).

Southern Command News, 23, 24, 29

Spadafora, Dr. Hugo, 12, 13, 14, 19

Spanish-American War, 3

Special Boat Unit 26, 47, 79, 234

Special Forces, 81, 82, 114

Special Operations Command, South 

(SOCSOUTH), 47, 78, 124, 266. 

See also U.S. Special Operations 

Command (SOCOM).

and Blue Spoon, 95, 96

and JTF-Panama, 45, 81, 82, 84, 283

Special Operations Forces, 15, 45, 46, 

124, 245, 270 

and Blue Spoon, 90, 95, 273, 274

relationship with conventional 

forces, 81, 82, 84

Special Security Antiterrorist Unit 

(UESAT), 116, 249

Stewart, Brig. Gen. John F., Jr., 108–

09, 115, 223, 280

Stiner, Lt. Gen. Carl W., 220, 221, 244, 

245n5,n7, 263, 265, 270, 273
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

310

Stiner, Lt. Gen. Carl W.—Continued

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 122, 134

and Banner Savior, 246

and bomb scare, 272

experience of, 245, 268

Strategic Air Command (SAC), 51, 172

Strategic Military Council (Panama), 

53

Stringham, Col. Joseph S., 45, 46, 47, 

48, 53n35, 60n50, 95

Sununu, John, 254

Tactical satellite communications 

(TACSAT), 205

Tarter, Capt. Daniel, 213, 214

Task Force Atlantic, 178, 180–81, 201, 

210, 268, 271

activated, 179, 220

and convoys, 204, 213

and Fort Espinar, 189

and JTF-Panama, 187

morale of, 188

Operation Alice, 235

Task Forces 

Bayonet, 178, 179, 180, 234, 268

Gator, 266

Gray, 77, 78, 79, 82

Hawk, 112, 127, 128, 176, 179, 189

Pacific, 268

Semper Fi, 178, 233, 234, 268

Thatcher Highway. See Inter-American 

Highway.

Thiry, Col. Gar E., 25, 30, 161

Thurman, General Maxwell R., 224, 

240, 241–48, 264, 270, 273, 

283, 284

and Blind Logic, 269

on Blue Spoon, 246, 268

and bomb scare, 272, 274

and Cisneros, 260, 261

and Kellogg, 271

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 249, 250, 251, 

253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 

259

on Prayer Book, 263

Tigris River, 178

Tinajitas, Panama, 47, 90, 96, 268

Tornow, Brig. Gen. Robin, 201

Torrijos Herrera, Brig. Gen. Omar, 6, 

10, 11, 14

and canal treaties, 7, 8

and Nicaragua, 9, 12

and Spadafora, 12

Torrijos-Tocumen airport complex, 47, 

90, 146, 158

and Blue Spoon, 95, 96, 130, 268

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 256

Total Warrior exercises, 42, 51, 52

Tower, John, 135–36, 138

Transisthmian highway, 201, 204

Transportation Command 

(TRANSCOM), 172

Travis Air Force Base, California, 174

Tropic Times, 29, 107, 149, 161, 162, 

165

UH–1 Hueys, 70

UH–60 Black Hawks, 59, 70, 176, 208

U.S. Army Assistance Agency for Latin 

America, 15

U.S. Army Empire Range, 112

U.S. Army National Guard, 42, 175

U.S. Army, South (USARSO), 1n1, 29, 

30n31, 61, 67

XVIII Airborne Corps used by, 131, 

132, 133

and 193d Infantry Brigade, 23, 55

Blade Jewel impacts, 218–19

Cisneros commands, 230

civil disturbance responses, 30

core of JTF-Panama, 36, 60

 Elaborate Maze planning by, 92

Emergency Operations Center, 272

Fort Clayton headquarters for, 25

and intelligence, 22, 23

and logistical issues, 183

marines reinforced by units from, 

77

and Nimrod Dancer, 175–76, 183

on Noriega speech, 274

and October 1989 coup attempt 

against Noriega, 254

OPORDs developed by, 35

and Ostrander incident, 141
Index

311

planning cell in, 93

Plans Division of, 155

and Prayer Book, 92

Provost Marshal Office, 145

as reaction force, 24

staff judge advocate general, 212

Stringham on, 60n50

study group, 49

taxed by demands on, 48, 131

and Total Warrior exercises, 42

travel restrictions of, 187

on use of MPs, 56

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command (TRADOC), 199, 

224, 242

U.S. Atlantic Command (LANTCOM), 

51, 76, 91, 97, 155, 172

U.S. Caribbean Command. See U.S. 

Southern Command 

(SOUTHCOM).

U.S. Congress, 20

U.S. Department of the Army, 30, 49

U.S. Department of Defense, 105, 107, 

172, 213–14

U.S. Drug Enforcement 

Administration, 13, 14, 105, 243

U.S. Embassy, Panama City, 23, 52n32, 

92, 99, 108, 256, 257

command post exercises and, 163

demonstrations at, 19

guards at, 162

U.S. Forces Command (FORSCOM), 

128, 172, 173

U.S. Forces Joint Committee, 272

U.S. House of Representatives Foreign 

Affairs Committee, 137–38

U.S. Marine Corps, 35, 50, 59, 63, 210, 

211, 270, 281. See also Marine 

Forces (MARFOR).

aviation assets of, 67

Loeffke on, 212–13

morale of, 188

Operation Alice, 235

security enhancement rifle 

company, 127

security forces, 66

warrior ethos of, 282

U.S. Navy, South (NAVSO), 67, 76

U.S. Pacific Command, 171

U.S. Senate, 13, 19, 100

U.S. Southern Command 

(SOUTHCOM), 15, 82, 105, 217, 

270, 279, 280

and XVIII Airborne Corps, 133

additional troops for, 154, 164, 170

Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 72

and assertion of treaty rights, 227

and Blue Spoon, 94, 95, 244, 265

CAPSTONE reserve unit, 44n18

and carrier battle group, 155, 270

Center for Treaty Affairs, 24, 71, 

109, 139, 147, 160, 161, 230, 

253, 273

change of command, 247, 269

Civil Affairs Branch, 92

components of, 15, 60

contingency planning by, 30, 31, 

34, 63, 277

convoy procedures of, 196, 200, 

202, 206n36, 207

crisis action teams, 22

and debriefings, 120

deception plans used by, 208

deployment adjustments, 52

and evacuation of civilians, 94

and freedom of movement 

exercises, 197, 198, 203

Guidance Message 1, 87

on harassment of Americans, 140, 

141, 143, 144, 147

intelligence sections of, 22

and intrusions, 126

isolation campaign against Noriega, 

196

and joint special operations task 

force, 44

and JTF-Panama, 44, 61, 88

and Klondike Key, 96

and Kozak negotiations, 98

marines on, 74, 283

Military Intelligence Directorate, 

248

and Nimrod Dancer, 177

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

250n15, 252, 253, 254, 255, 

256, 257, 258, 259
U.S. Military Intervention in Panama, June 1987–December 1989

312

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)

—Continued

and Operation Alice, 232–33

Operation Beatrice, 235

Operations Directorate, 30, 74, 89, 

96, 199, 248

and OPLAN 6000–86, 35

and Panamanian presidential 

elections, 136, 156, 161–64, 

165, 166

and PDF, 20, 21–32, 237

Policy, Strategy, and Programs 

Directorate, 44, 92, 96, 99, 106, 

269

and Post Time, 93, 94, 96

and Prayer Book, 129, 155, 156

Public Affairs Office, 23, 52, 73, 

141, 165

redeployment schedule, 129

relocation of American civilians, 

141

reporting procedures, 87–88, 180

restrictions on, 271

and rules of engagement, 118, 119, 

122, 123, 124, 281

and shooting incidents, 117

videotaping, 231

Woerner on, 18n13

U.S. Special Operations Command 

(SOCOM), 45, 48, 244. See also

Special Operations Command, 

South (SOCSOUTH).

U.S. State Department, 14, 58, 59, 98, 

99, 105, 228n26

and Elaborate Maze, 49

military action in Panama desired 

by, 43, 218

and Muse affair, 160

negotiations with Noriega, 54, 135

and October 1989 coup attempt, 

251, 252, 253, 256, 261

and Panamanian presidential 

elections, 162

on redeployments, 128

and sanctions, 19, 20, 40–41

on SOUTHCOM, 141

special group to monitor crisis, 

171

Thurman and, 243

travel advisory to Panama issued 

by, 171

on Woerner’s Panama scenario, 108

U.S. Treasury Department, 63, 243

U.S. Treaty Implementation Plan, 107

USARSO. See U.S. Army, South 

(USARSO).

Ustick, Rear Adm. Richard C., 57, 

125n50, 142, 144, 148, 154

Valore, Capt. Joseph P., 67, 75, 76

at Arraiján Tank Farm, 68, 70–71, 

72, 73, 77

Villahermosa, Cpl. Ricardo M., 68, 72

Voice of Liberty, The, 159

Volant Solo (aircraft), 96

Vuono, General Carl, 241, 242, 243, 

245, 246n7

Loeffke reports to, 29, 51, 52, 59, 

61, 74, 75, 89, 114, 209

on Woerner’s relief, 223, 224

Walker, William, 54, 63

Washington Post, 142, 191

Weinberger, Caspar, 20

Westward Ho, 233

Woerner, General Frederick F., Jr., 24, 

38, 101n72, 217, 223, 231, 285 

on XVIII Airborne Corps, 131, 132, 

133, 134

193d Infantry Brigade commander, 

15

and Abrams, 136n3

Amador exercise, 212

and Arraiján Tank Farm firefight, 72

on augmentation force, 52

on Blade Jewel, 220

Blue Spoon, 90, 91, 92, 96, 133, 

230, 268, 284

and Bush administration, 136, 

137–39

Central American Chambers of 

Commerce speech, 138

and collateral operations, 207, 227, 

228

comprehensive program desired by, 

151, 153–54
Index

313

on convoys, 154–55, 199, 200, 206, 

207, 228

covert psychological operations of, 

108

and crisis action planning team, 43

and Crowe, 40, 41–42, 50, 224

 Elaborate Maze, 47, 48, 89

on Elder Statesman, 89

fissures campaign, 97–101, 106, 

192, 195, 196, 217

force increase recommended by, 50, 

51, 89, 98, 154, 155, 165

interagency approach desired, 151, 

156, 280

on intruders, 77

and JTF-Panama, 282

and Klondike Key, 89, 94

and Las Minas incident, 140

LAV exercise, 211

low intensity conflict, 34n1

and Marriott Hotel incident, 57

and Noriega, 21, 29, 31, 53n35, 74, 

222

OPLAN 90–1, 263

on OPLAN 6000–86, 36, 37

OPORD 2–89 approved by, 205

and Organization of American 

States, 194

on Panamanian elections, 151, 152, 

157, 158, 164, 166, 167, 171, 174

on Panamanian opposition, 152, 

195

on PDF, 21, 31, 42, 99, 141, 172, 

196, 197, 237, 282

phased plan desired by, 37, 61, 129, 

137

and PMLs, 23

and Post Time, 133

on redeployments, 127

reoccupation of U.S. facilities, 235, 

236, 238

and reports, 87, 88

retirement of, 241, 246n7

and rules of engagement, 119, 120, 

123, 124, 125, 126

on sanctions against Panama, 20, 

41, 43n16

and school bus detention, 146, 

149n30

and security enhancement forces, 

55, 59, 125, 128, 170

on Special Operations Forces, 82

and Stringham, 45, 50

and Thurman, 244, 246–47

and triad concept, 196, 229

and use of MPs, 56

Wong, Col. Guillermo, 215

Woodward, Bob, 240

Youle, John J., 241