Manuel Noriega
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* After reading “Panama’s Bad Old Times Return” (editorial, May 20), it occurred to me that The Times was suffering from a selective memory. Manuel Antonio Noriega had been on the payroll of the CIA for nearly 20 years before his “ouster.” One would have to be a fool to think that the CIA was not aware of Noriega’s cocaine trafficking all that time.
Noriega provided an important intelligence network to the CIA for the time he was in power, for which he was being compensated to the tune of $200,000 per year through the CIA.
In the final years of Noriega’s rule, he was becoming increasingly uncooperative.
The U.S. has a history of dealing with, and backing, unsavory foreign leaders. And Noriega is no exception.
TODD GROVES
Los Angeles
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