Original subtitles

NARRATOR: May the 29th, 2017.

Panama City.

Former dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega dies aged 83.

A ruthless dictator who amassed a personal fortune

through drug trafficking and money laundering,

his capture by the US 27 years earlier

had marked a turning point in Panamanian history.

On December the 20th, 1989,

troops sent by President George H.W. Bush

entered Panama to arrest Noriega and remove him forcibly from power.

- The American invasion was so carefully constructed

by the United States

to put the best gloss on what was happening

and to make sure that George Bush came out of it looking well.

NARRATOR: But relations between Noriega and the United States

had not always been so hostile.

Indeed, at one stage,

Noriega had been one of the CIA's most important intelligence assets

in Central America.

- The CIA had an interest in knowing what was going on in Panama

and Noriega became our inside person in the government.

He was totally undemocratic.

And we, the United States, supported him

because he was a convenience for us.

NARRATOR: Despite his illegal activities,

Noriega was useful to the US for decades.

- Noriega turned Panama into a launching pad

for cocaine imports and smuggling into the United States.

But the Reagan administration and CIA officials at this time

were willing to look past this,

knowing that Noriega was still their man and an ardent anti-communist.

NARRATOR: Why did the United States invade Panama

to capture a former CIA asset?

What were the hidden interests behind this invasion

that went far beyond the restoration of democracy and the rule of law?

(crowd chants in Spanish)

(theme music)

NARRATOR: The dream of linking the Atlantic Ocean

with the Pacific Ocean through Central America

was born as early as the Spanish colonial era

of the Sixteenth Century.

But it was not until the advances of the Industrial Revolution

in the 19th century

that the construction of an interoceanic canal

became a realistic possibility.

By the end of the 19th century,

Panama was part of Colombia, having broken away from Spain.

The great powers of the time,

Great Britain, France and the United States

were jostling for position to dominate world trade,

and they began to pressure the Colombian government

to authorize the construction of the Panama Canal.

In 1880, Colombia granted the concession

to the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps,

who had just completed the Suez Canal in Egypt.

But the project faced multiple obstacles

and ended up in the hands of Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla

who, to protect French investment,

began to sell shares in the canal to the United States.

- Bunau-Varilla went to Washington

and he lobbied hard for the US to take over the canal project.

He lobbied businessmen and politicians.

He also encouraged an independence movement in Panama.

NARRATOR: In 1903, the United States signed a treaty with Colombia

to build the canal.

But when it was rejected by the Colombian Parliament,

they pushed for Panamanian Independence

and a government they could do business with.

- Theodore Roosevelt wanted to do that

in order to be able to build a canal in Panama

and Colombia was resisting doing that.

And so he gets the Panamanians to declare independence,

then negotiates with the Panamanians a great deal

for a canal to be put right in the middle of the country.

NARRATOR: On November the 3rd, 1903,

with the United States Navy stationed just off its coastline,

Panama declared its independence.

Days later, on November the 18th,

US Secretary of State John Milton Hay and Philippe Bunau-Varilla,

signed an agreement in Washington which allowed the Americans

to begin the construction of the Panama Canal.

- Bunau-Varilla went ahead and signed a Panama Canal treaty

without consulting the Panamanian government.

And this treaty turned Panama into a virtual colony,

it gave the United States total control over a 10-mile strip,

cutting the country in half.

And the Panamanian government were outraged.

But by the time their negotiators arrived in Washington,

the treaty had already been signed and they couldn't reject it

because they needed the support of the United States

to protect their newly independent country.

NARRATOR: The Treaty gave the United States

the rights to administer and defend the canal in perpetuity,

in effect enabling the United States

to exert its will over the Panamanian government and people.

- This treaty was a source of great nationalist indignation in Panama

for many, many years to come.

- Imagine your country split in half

with another country's territory right in the middle of it.

And Panamanians didn't much appreciate this.

But nonetheless, the United States is a powerful country.

NARRATOR: The Panama Canal was completed in 1914,

and from then on, it revolutionised world trade.

The United States exercised its sovereignty in the Canal Zone

by directly appointing the governor of the area.

English was the dominant languag e in that zone,

and thousands of American civilians were employed to maintain the canal.

But the Canal Zone had more than just commercial interest

for the United States.

- The Panama Canal Zone

was also vitally military, strategically important

for the United States as well.

They'd cited hundreds and then later, thousands of US troops

in the Panama Canal Zone.

It became the size of the most important US military base

in Latin America.

NARRATOR: In 1946,

the United States opened the School of the Americas in the region.

This was a military academy

specialising in training Latin American soldiers

to fight insurgent groups,

in particular, those of a Marxist or Leftist persuasion.

- Fairly recently, the US Department of Defence

declassified the manuals that they used in the School of Americas.

These showed that they trained Latin American officers

in the use of fear, extrajudicial executions,

in false imprisonment, in beatings.

So, the School of Americas had this notorious reputation

as a school of dictators.

Many people in Panama didn't want it in their country,

you know, it was a source of great indignation and outrage.

NARRATOR: In the following decades,

resentment of the US presence in the region became ever stronger.

- Panamanian governments throughout the 20th century

were always in a kind of difficult position

because they had this agreement with the United States.

But they also didn't really have complete independence

and there was a very, very big military presence.

And by the 60s and 70s,

there's more than 30,000 Americans of various types,

including many American troops in a base called Quarry Heights.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: By the 1960s, Panamanians became increasingly frustrated

with the privileges that the American inhabitants were afforded

in the Canal Zone,

and protests to regain control of their territory

started to gain momentum.

This culminated in the election of a new President

in favour of severing ties with the United States,

Arnulfo Arias Madrid.

NARRATOR: On October the 11th, 1968, however,

a group of National Guard officers overthrew the incoming President

and instead installed a pro-US military Junta

that instituted press censorship,

suspended constitutional guarantees, and dissolved the National Assembly.

NARRATOR: General Omar Torrijos Herrera,

a graduate of the School of the Americas,

emerged as the leader of the new military junta.

Torrijos and his military intelligence chief,

Lieutenant Colonel Manuel Antonio Noriega, were ruthless

in their brutal suppression of any opposition groups.

Noriega was already building a fearsome reputation.

- Noriega was well-known to the Americans.

Noriega made his way up through the Panamanian military

and was the chief intelligence officer

working very closely with the CIA.

Panama was often a place that countries, like Cuba,

set up front agencies to get around the US embargo.

Panama was a location for a lot of drug money.

And so, the CIA had an interest in knowing what was going on in Panama,

and Noriega became our inside person in the government.

NARRATOR: As head of military intelligence,

Noriega strengthened his relationship with the CIA

and helped cement Torrijos' leadership in Panama

during the 1970s.

A decade later, with the sudden death of Torrijos in 1981,

Noriega was pushed to the front and centre of the leadership cadre.

Rumours persisted

that he had himself conspired in Torrijos' death.

Whatever the truth, Noriega was now Panama's main man,

and he had US backing.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: In the 1970s, Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos Herrera

carried out a series of major public works in Panama,

plunging the nation into a huge economic crisis.

In an attempt to save the nation from catastrophe,

Torrijos turned towards the Panama Canal.

NARRATOR: Torrijos launched an international campaign

to rally support for new commercial agreements over access to the canal.

This was received poorly in Washington,

particularly by senior members of the Nixon and Ford administrations

and the then Governor of California, Ronald Reagan.

- The people who own the canal should say to our government,

"Look, tell Mr Torrijos

"that we built that thing, we bought the place, we paid for it,

and we intend to keep it from here on out."

(audience applause)

NARRATOR: But the arrival of Democrat Jimmy Carter

to the presidency in January 1977 meant a change in US foreign policy

and the reopening of negotiations with Panama.

After lengthy negotiations,

the Torrijos-Carter agreements were signed in September 1977,

according to which US control of the canal

would end at midnight on December the 31st, 1999.

- We now have a partnership with Panama

to maintain and to operate and to defend the canal.

We have the clear right to take whatever action is necessary

to defend the canal and to keep it open and neutral and accessible.

We do not have the right

to interfere in Panama's internal affairs.

NARRATOR: In addition,

in the negotiation of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,

an agreement was reached

for gradual democratization of the country

that would allow for the legalisation of political parties,

freedom of the press and free and fair presidential elections in 1984.

It looked as though the US and Panamanians

had finally reached a deal that benefitted both sides.

However, the sudden death of Omar Torrijos in a plane crash

on July the 31st, 1981,

put the future of the agreements on indefinite hold.

Torrijos' death was mired in rumour and speculation.

Many claimed the accident was in fact an assassination by the CIA

in cahoots with Torrijos' right-hand man and intelligence chief:

Manuel Antonio Noriega.

- There are so many different stories.

One is that the CIA wanted to get rid of him.

Others believe that Noriega himself got rid of him.

But it's actually quite possible in this case,

that he just died in a plane crash and Noriega took over

because he was the person who commanded considerable support

among the rank and file within the Panamanian Defence Forces.

NARRATOR: Whatever the truth,

Torrijos' death significantly destabilized

the Panamanian government

and jeopardized the recently concluded Torrijos-Carter accords.

And in the subsequent elections,

there was only one serious contender to take power.

In August 1983, Noriega assumed the position of Commander-in-Chief

of the Panamanian National Guard,

which he transformed into the Panamanian Defence Forces,

thus making himself the country's undisputed leader.

From that point on,

despite never becoming Panama's president,

Noriega was able to exercise an extraordinary amount of power.

NARRATOR: In those years,

the United States was primarily concerned

with Cuba's growing influence in the region

and the ascendancy of other leftist groups

such as the FMLN Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador

and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Amid the Marxist regimes in the region,

Noriega became an even more important ally to Washington.

- He was a CIA asset,

including at the time that George H. W. Bush was director

of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976-1977.

And that relationship became increasingly important

as a result of communist uprisings

or left-wing uprisings in Latin America

particularly in Nicaragua.

- The Reagan administration believed in the domino theory.

It feared that if there'd been a revolution in one country,

then there might be a revolution in another and another and another,

and it was determined to stop that happening.

The Reagan administration, created, funded, trained and armed

a force of counter-revolutionary mercenaries known as the Contras.

And these contras would wage a war of terror in Nicaragua

to try to undermine support for the revolution.

NARRATOR: Although Noriega supported US counter-insurgent operations

and the US anti-communist struggle in Central America,

his loyalty was highly questionable.

- Every month he received a stipend from the CIA.

But he was also being paid by other countries.

The Soviet Union and Cuba used him.

That was one of the reasons we actually found him useful:

he was a triple agent.

And we learned things about Cuba and the Soviet Union from him.

- Noriega was also playing a number of different games.

One of them was he was a confidante of the CIA.

He was also helping out the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency,

and he was also taking backhanders from drug dealers.

NARRATOR: Noriega had close ties to Colombian drug cartels

that used Panama as a base for trafficking and money laundering.

And some of those ill-gotten gains were channelled into

the US-backed Central American counter-guerrilla groups.

- Noriega turned Panama into a launching pad

for cocaine imports and smuggling into the United States.

But the Reagan administration and CIA officials at this time

were willing to look past this,

knowing that Noriega was still their man

and an ardent anti-communist.

- He was totally undemocratic.

And we, the United States, supported him

because he was a convenience for us.

NARRATOR: As the May 1984 elections approached,

opposition to Noriega was growing.

Two leading candidates emerged

as the front runners in the presidential race:

Arnulfo Arias Madrid

against Noriega's favoured candidate Nicolas Ardito Barletta.

Due to Noriega's influence and widespread electoral fraud,

Barletta was declared victorious.

NARRATOR: The following year,

the opposition leader Hugo Spadafora,

who had accused Noriega of corruption, was assassinated.

NARRATOR: Spadafora's assassination

would be the first real tarnishing of Noriega's international image.

But his relations with the United States

would not deteriorate fully until a scandal emerged

that would engulf Ronald Reagan's administration:

the Iran-Contra Affair.

- US officials sold arms to the Iranian regime.

That broke an embargo, the US embargo on arms sales to Iran,

and they used those funds from selling arms to Iran,

they funnelled those to the Contras

to fund their counter-revolutionary war in Nicaragua,

which violated the US Congress's decision

to cut off aid to the Contras.

So it was completely illegal

and Manuel Noriega was a key figure in the Iran-Contra affair.

NARRATOR: The Iran-Contra scandal of the mid-1980s

exposed the CIA's connections with its main man in Central America,

Manuel Noriega.

And once this relationship was revealed,

and with it the eye-watering sums paid to Noriega by the CIA,

it emboldened his enemies at home and abroad.

- The United States knew that Manuel Noriega had been involved in

drugs trafficking, in gun running, in money laundering;

but they turned a blind eye to that

because he was a key intelligence asset for the CIA

and he became a key figure in the Iran-Contra war.

But the Iran-Contra affair was also the beginning of his downfall.

NARRATOR: In June 1987, Colonel Roberto Diaz Herrera,

former second in command of the Panamanian Defence Forces,

accused Noriega of a number of illegalities

including drug trafficking,

the assassinations of Hugo Spadafora and Omar Torrijos,

and electoral fraud.

NARRATOR: In February 1988,

in an attempt to crack down on illegal activities

linked to the Iran-Contra scandal,

Noriega was charged by the United States

with drug trafficking and organised crime.

The Reagan administration imposed sanctions on Panama,

including the elimination of preferential trade

and the withholding of canal tariffs.

We will continue to push

to see that Mr Noriega gets out of Panama. He should leave.

NARRATOR: George H. W. Bush had been an old acquaintance of Noriega's

from his days as Director of Central Intelligence,

and his arrival in the White House

would make things far worse for the dictator.

- As George H. W. Bush sought to move US foreign policy

into the new realms of what he dubbed a new world order,

a post-Cold War system

that would be based upon international laws, cooperation,

and would see the United States as the enforcer of those laws,

the world's policemen,

these links back to shady dealings,

illegal operations, sanction breaking

and the sponsorship of what essentially were death squads

simply was unacceptable at this point.

Noriega was too connected

to what had become seen as toxic American foreign policy.

George H. W. Bush's own connection to those policies,

both as a former CIA director

and as the vice president during the time of the Iran-Contra scandal,

meant that he simply knew too much

and Noriega had to be removed.

- I will protect the lives of Americans in Panama,

whether they're military or civilian.

We will not let American's lives be put at risk

by a dictator down there.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: The countdown to the American invasion of Panama

had begun.

(theme music)

NARRATOR: By the late 1980s,

in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal,

Noriega's regime had become more ruthless and oppressive

in his desperate attempt to cling onto power.

During this time he created the brutal "Battalions of Dignity",

a paramilitary civilian militia

trained by the Panamanian Defence Forces

to terrorize and repress resistance to his regime.

In May 1989, general elections were held,

in which parties opposed to Noriega's regime won by a landslide.

Noriega dismissed the results,

claiming that they'd been rigged by US interference.

(gunshots)

NARRATOR: He brutally repressed opposition supporters

and appointed Francisco Rodriguez,

one of his aides, as interim president.

- Let me be clear.

The United States will not recognise

the results of a fraudulent, fraudulent election

engineered simply to keep Noriega in power.

NARRATOR: In October of that year,

a coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Moises Giroldi

succeeded in capturing Noriega.

But the rebel group

underestimated the power that Noriega still wielded.

- Noriega somehow, goodness knows how,

managed to get a phone call out of where he was being held,

called in for reinforcements

and his Panamanian Defence Force loyalists

rounded up the coup plotters, there's about a dozen of them,

and they were all executed.

NARRATOR: The rebels were captured, tortured and executed

in what became known as the Albrook Massacre.

The US had the opportunity to support Giroldi

but they had abandoned him to his fate.

NARRATOR: On December the 15th, 1989,

the Panamanian Legislative Assembly

appointed Noriega as Chief of the War Cabinet.

They then declared Panama in a state of war with the United States

due to America's interference in Panama's internal affairs.

The next day, the actions of a few soldiers

would change the course of Panamanian history.

(dramatic music)

- There was a very unpleasant incident in December 1989,

which involved at least four American service personnel.

They were stopped by Panamanian Defence Forces.

It's not entirely clear what happened, whatever happened,

one of them was shot dead by Panamanian forces

and another was also shocked.

So Bush was at the end of his tether,

there was political pressure on him to do something.

Panama was going really badly.

He knew that Noriega was unpopular, then you had American lives at risk.

So Bush decided it was time to act.

NARRATOR: The US response was swift.

The following day, Bush ordered Operation Just Cause,

commanded by US Chief of Staff Colin Powell,

to invade Panama and capture Noriega.

- 25,000 American troops were sent to Panama

to overthrow the much smaller Panamanian military force.

(dramatic music)

NARRATOR: President Bush's justification for the invasion

was that it would protect American lives

and property in the Canal Zone,

and restore Panamanian freedom from the brutal regime

that had oppressed its people for so many years.

- He decided to send 2,000 US paratroops

in the first big paratroop jump since World War Two

of American service personnel.

They were going to go into Panama, they were going to seize Noriega,

arrest him, and essentially bring about regime change.

NARRATOR: In the early hours of December 20, 1989, the attack began

with a bombing of the Panama Defence Forces headquarters

in the El Chorrillo neighbourhood, which was razed to the ground.

- The Chorrillo district was... part of it was levelled

Because of the heat there was a pretty awful smell

because there were bodies under the rubble.

I don't know whose bodies, perhaps civilians,

perhaps military personnel.

NARRATOR: On the first day of the invasion, Guillermo Endara,

who had won the elections annulled by Noriega in May,

was sworn in as head of Panama's new government

at a US military base.

US forces quickly overpowered the organised resistance

but were unable to capture Noriega,

who had taken refuge in the Vatican nunciature.

He's running for his life

and he has to ask for other people's protection. He's finished.

- I hope that in the next few days he will be retrieved.

He has no right to be there, he's a common criminal.

NARRATOR: In the days that followed,

violent lootings spread across Panama City and Colon.

On December the 22nd,

The Organization of American States publicly condemned the invasion

and called for the withdrawal of US troops.

On the 29th of December,

the UN General Assembly voted 75 to 20, with 40 abstentions,

to condemn the invasion

as a flagrant violation of international law.

But this was of little concern to the United States.

- The invasion itself was criticised by the United Nations

as a breach of Article two:

an illegal use of war to overthrow another government.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Noriega remained holed up

in the papal nunciature.

To force him to surrender,

the US military launched Operation Nifty Package,

using psychological warfare tactics to force the dictator to surrender.

This included the playing of heavy rock music,

24 hours a day, through massive speakers

directly in front of Noriega's refuge.

The real fighting was over in four or five days.

And by this time...

life started to come back to Panama City.

I managed to get into a hotel

which was right next to the Vatican embassy.

Anway, one morning, early one morning,

I was woken up by

I think it was David Bowie but it might have been The Clash.

I mean, it was very, very loud music -

really, really loud music.

NARRATOR: The Pentagon story, which they put out

to the journalists in Washington,

was that it was psychological warfare.

The version I heard on the ground,

from the people who put up the speakers,

was nothing to do with that.

It was that General Thurman, Maxwell Thurman,

the commander of the American forces,

was paranoid that the media,

whom he knew were in the hotel that overlooked the papal nunciature,

had parabolic microphones and we could listen in to his conversations

with the papal legation,

the Vatican Ambassador about getting Noriega.

NARRATOR: Either way, after days of blaring music,

Noriega turned himself in to the US military

on January the 3rd, 1990.

The next day, he was transferred to Miami

where he was detained to await trial.

Thus ended the most sinister era in Panama's history,

which the United States

had first enabled through its financial support of Noriega,

and then brought to an abrupt and ignominious end

when Noriega became a liability.

Operation Just Cause had fulfilled its objectives.

- Today, democracy is restored. Panama is free.

NARRATOR: For George H. W. Bush,

the invasion of Panama and the capture of Noriega

were his first great personal victories

as president of the United States.

- The invasion of Panama did a lot for George Bush, personally.

He suddenly had 80% approval ratings.

He had not been nowhere near that since the start of his presidency.

The second thing it did, and this is by far the most important,

was it showed that to the American public,

America was in a sense back, it emboldened the United States,

it suggested that the United States

was willing to intervene militarily in other countries.

NARRATOR: Hundreds were wounded on both sides of the conflict

and tens of thousands of residents

of the El Chorrillo neighbourhood were displaced.

To this day

it is unclear how many people lost their lives in the invasion.

- The exact scale and casualties of this war are contested to this day

with the Americans claiming that figures were

somewhere between 100 and 150,

but various truth commissions across Latin America

are putting the casualties as high as 3,000.

NARRATOR: Operation Just Cause

was the last US military incursion into Latin America.

It was also the debut of a new interventionist US foreign policy

and served as a test bed for new warfare doctrine and technologies.

- The war also served as a first test run

of Colin Powell's doctrine of massive force,

learning from the lessons of gradual escalation in Vietnam

to instead deploy American forces in massive numbers

to rapidly overwhelm the opponents.

And importantly, this model would then come to be seen two years later

in the Gulf War

as the primary way of employing American military force.

NARRATOR: Through constitutional reforms,

Guillermo Endara's government

abolished the Panamanian Defence Forces

and, with the help of the United States,

the new Panamanian military was formed.

A brighter future seemed to be on the horizon for Panama...

but the US occupation of its territory

and total US control of the canal

still cast a shadow over the country.

(dramatic music)

(theme music)

(theme music)

NARRATOR: On December the 31st, 1999,

as stipulated in the Torrijos-Carter Treaty,

US military presence on Panamanian soil ceased

and Panama finally took control over its canal.

NARRATOR: The recovery of Panamanian sovereignty over the canal,

however, did not mean the end of US influence.

The 1977 Torrijos-Carter treaty

had upheld the right of the United States to intervene militarily

if they felt the security of the canal was threatened.

NARRATOR: On February the 5th, 2002,

the Salas-Becker Supplemental Agreement

to the Torrijos-Carter treaty

secured cooperation between the United States and Panama

in the fight against drug trafficking.

But cooperation between the two nations

goes farther than the treaty.

In military terms, US support for the Panamanian Armed Forces

has been fundamental to its defence capabilities.

Economically,

the United States remains Panama's largest trading partner.

And since Panama took control of the administration of the canal,

its economy has improved exponentially

and international trade ties have flourished.

Between 2017 and 2018,

25 agreements were signed between Panama and China,

11 of them on economic and trade issues.

Panama's close relationship with the two largest economies in the world

has provided economic growth and stability.

Today, more than 30 years after the US invasion of Panama,

the fortunes of the Central American country have changed dramatically.

- Probably the most important thing is that...

Panama leads Latin America in terms of economic growth,

its economy was fundamentally transformed.

Panama has become, you know, a very, very significant country

in terms of its development model.

Panama has largely achieved a very significant status

in terms of that economic stability and growth.

At the same time, however,

Panama got rid of Manuel Antonio Noriega

and attained the status of a democracy

with a very peaceful succession of leaders and the like.

NARRATOR: While democratic governments of different stripes

have succeeded one another and the economy has flourished,

the notorious Panamanian dictator and corrupt triple-agent,

Manuel Noriega, spent his final days behind bars in the United States.

In April 1992, in Miami,

Noriega was convicted of eight of the ten drug trafficking

and money laundering charges against him.

And in July of that same year, aged 58,

he was sentenced to 40 years in prison in the United States.

NARRATOR: In 2010, after 20 years in prison in the United States,

he was extradited to France

to serve a new 10-year sentence for money laundering.

NARRATOR: And then a year later, in 2011,

Noriega was extradited back to Panama,

where he had previously been sentenced to 20 years in 1995

for his role in the assassination of opposition leader Hugo Spadafora.

By February 2017,

having spent nearly 30 years in prison in 3 different countries,

Manuel Noriega was a shadow of the once strongman of Panama.

Now 83 years old and suffering from terminal cancer of the brain,

he was granted house arrest for three months

at one of his daughter's homes in Panama to receive treatment.

On May the 29th, 2017,

after spending three months in an induced coma,

former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega died.

His demise marked the end of a dark era

of corruption and violence

which had blighted the lives of a generation of Panamanians.

His rise and fall at the hands of the United States

is a lesson still being learned today

in the corridors of power in Washington DC and around the world.

- The United States political establishment

learned a lot from the invasion of Panama.

They learned if you win a war you're a success.

They also learned to get in, change the government and get out again.

So there was no long-term commitment.

Of course, American influence is still there,

but it's kind of business as usual.

And it also meant that in terms of intervening militarily,

the United States recognized very clearly

that the media presentation was extremely important.

And that the media could be used,

but they also had to be kept in check.

And that has been something that they've done very well ever since.

(dramatic music)

Subtitles by Sky Access Services