Original subtitles

[chop-chop of helicopter blades]

(male narrator) December 20, 1989.

25,000 U.S. troops descend on Panama City.

[loud explosion]

It's the biggest American invasion since the Vietnam War.

Their mission-- to capture one man...

Panama's military dictator, Manuel Noriega.

(John Dinges) The United States became enraged

at this two-bit dictator who was defying it.

(narrator) U.S. soldiers scour Panama City,

hunting for Noriega...

but he's nowhere to be found.

He basically goes into hiding.

(narrator) Noriega's turbulent 6-year rule

has been marked by violence, deception, and excess.

(Orlando J. Pérez) He was willing to do

just about anything to get ahead.

(Natasha Ezrow) He was not only corrupted by power,

but he was also corrupted by greed.

(Roberto Eisenmann) He was a gangster.

Basically a gangster in a military uniform.

(narrator) How did a kid who grew up in poverty

grow rich as dictator of Panama?

And what did he do to provoke an invasion

by the world's most powerful nation?

[loud applause & cheering]

(woman) Dictatorships have had an incredible impact

in the past century.

These dictators ended up learning from one another.

(man) They're all different but many use the same tactics.

(woman) The use of terror. (man) Propaganda.

(woman) Control the elites. Create an enemy.

Cult of personality. (man) Use violence--

These are tools that dictators use to stay in power.

(narrator) Manuel Noriega's rise to dictator is a near miracle

given the dire circumstances of his childhood.

He's born in Panama City in 1934.

Orphaned by the age of 5,

Noriega is raised by his godmother,

in the rough market area of Terraplen.

Young men born into the social strata

where he was born, their life chances

of rising to prominence and power

was very limited.

(narrator) As Noriega grows up on the mean streets,

he's picked on for his small size

and his acne-scarred complexion.

But he finds a way to improve his lot in life.

(John Dinges) Noriega saw himself

as getting ahead through education,

he was incredibly intelligent,

good student, somebody who

always excelled at his classes.

(narrator) Noriega applies himself

and wins a position in Panama City's best high school.

[chanting]

(narrator) Like many other Panamanian students in the early 1950s,

he is swept up in a wave of anti-American sentiment

that stems from the U.S. ownership of the Panama Canal.

It's a conflict that will play a key role in his life

and set the stage for his eventual dictatorship.

(Orlando J. Pérez) That was the great struggle

of Panamanian 20th-century history--

to recover national sovereignty, to recover the Panama Canal.

[loud explosion]

(narrator) Back in 1903,

America secured the right to build the Canal

a reward for helping Panama

gain its independence from Colombia.

The Panamanian elites

who supported the process of independence,

made a bargain-- gave the United States

the authority to build the canal,

gave the U.S. control in perpetuity.

Because to those elites,

independence and building the Panama Canal,

was at the time

more important than preserving national sovereignty.

(narrator) The Canal opens in 1914,

and transforms international trade by linking

the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

It generates more than $20 million a year

for the United States, and enriches Panamanian elites.

And so those elites,

for many Panamanians of middle class and lower class,

became traitors to their country.

They sold out their country for the benefits of the canal.

(Roberto Eisenmann) It became a source of irritation

because the United States created what in essence was

a U.S. colony in the midst of our country.

(narrator) It's called the Canal Zone,

a strip of land on both sides of the canal occupied

by some 57,000 Americans...

mostly military.

(Orlando J. Pérez) That fueled a tremendous level of resentment

toward the United States.

(narrator) The tide of U.S. resentment

fans Noriega's growing nationalism.

Graduating high school, he boldly declares his ambitions.

If you look at his yearbook, he says,

my ambitions are to become a psychiatrist

and the president of Panama.

(narrator) But Noriega's aspirations are nearly impossible,

because of the inherent discrimination

in Panama's class system.

His heritage is Creole,

a mix of African and European ancestry.

The country's elite, just 10% of all Panamanians,

are Caucasian.

They've held the positions of power since Panama was founded.

(Orlando J. Pérez) It was a political system that was elite dominated.

It was what one would call an oligarchic limited democracy.

And so elections were held on a regular basis,

but those elections were essentially manipulated

by this elite to keep control of the political system.

(narrator) When Noriega tries to become a doctor,

the harsh reality hits home.

(John Dinges) He didn't get into medical school

because the medical school had a limited number of seats,

and they were almost all given

to the white upper class kids from the other part of town.

(narrator) But Noriega is still driven to get ahead.

And when he runs into a friend who's in military school

he decides to follow another route,

one taken by many would be dictators.

(Mariam Mufti) It is quite common for dictators

to rise up the ranks through the military

and eventually, through means of a coup,

establish themselves as dictators.

Throughout the 20th century we've seen a number,

a huge number of dictators who actually were, in fact,

active or retired military officers.

(narrator) In 1958, the 24-year-old Noriega is a long way

from becoming an officer in Panama's army.

But he catches a break when he lands a scholarship

to a prestigious military school.

He was very well-adapted to military life

because of the kind of intelligence he had.

He's somebody who sizes up a situation,

see's where the best alternative is

and very decisively goes for it.

(narrator) After graduating in 1962,

Noriega joins the National Guard, Panama's military force.

Months later, he's stationed in Colon as a second lieutenant.

It's there that he meets the man

who will take him to the brink of power,

his commanding officer, Major Omar Torrijos.

Torrijos was an attractive, charismatic figure,

and he was idolized by members of the military,

and Noriega idolized him.

(narrator) Torrijos is a populist.

His dream is to recover the Canal for all Panamanians.

But to make it a reality, he needs political power.

Torrijos was very ambitious,

his goal was to become the head of the country.

(narrator) Torrijos sees promise in the young Noriega,

and presents him with an opportunity.

He assigns Noriega to the National Guard's

intelligence branch, later known as the G2.

Noriega gets intelligence training

at the School of the Americas,

a U.S. run military program in the Canal Zone.

Its official goal is to instill Democratic values

and to train its students to fight the spread of communism,

but it also instructs them in the use of blackmail,

coercion, torture, and execution.

Critics call it a school for dictators.

(John Dinges) Noriega discovered his vocation

as an intelligence officer.

And he was described by his course commander

as outstanding.

So Torrijos basically bet on this young officer,

and Noriega became a very, very effective officer for Torrijos.

(Orlando J. Pérez) Every great leader needs a henchman,

somebody to do the dirty work.

And Noriega was perfectly willing to be that henchman.

Noriega was behind the scenes eavesdropping on opponents,

repressing opponents, cracking heads.

Over time Noriega becomes

basically the right-hand man for Torrijos.

(narrator) By 1968, Noriega has helped to make Torrijos

one of Panama's most powerful military leaders.

But Panama's National Guard

still answers to its political leaders.

[applause]

Like the newly-elected president, Arnulfo Arias.

Arias is worried the military's growing political strength

could pose a threat to his regime.

(Orlando J. Pérez) Immediately after becoming president

he essentially began a purge of the National Guard.

(narrator) Arias informs Torrijos he is sending him to El Salvador

as a military attaché.

Without Torrijos, everything Noriega has worked for

could be lost.

But on October 11, 1968,

Torrijos turns the tables on Arias

by leading a military coup.

Noriega plays a key role,

by shutting down radio and telephone stations

in the Chiriqui province, Arias' power base.

Arias has no way to get help,

and Torrijos quickly takes control.

[loud cheering]

(narrator) Omar Torrijos is now Panama's military dictator.

He quickly moves to gain consent among Panamanians,

including many supporters of Arnulfo Arias.

And he comes into power with a program of land distribution,

social programs, emphasizing education,

and basically doing things that will appeal

to the underprivileged and forgotten people of Panama,

this majority of the country who had been ignored pretty much

by the businessmen who had been running the country before.

(narrator) Noriega reaps the benefits when Torrijos promotes him

to Chief of Military Intelligence, the head of G2.

The kid from the wrong side of the tracks

is now Lieutenant Colonel Noriega.

His new position opens up a clearer pathway to power,

one taken by many dictators on the rise.

Coming from an intelligence background is

incredibly important in any kind of dictatorship

because you know exactly what is happening.

You know who the threats are,

and you know what to do about those threats.

(Mariam Mufti) As a chief intelligence officer

you are in fact also one of the most powerful individuals.

And that is essentially the key to Noriega's power.

(narrator) Noriega is now the eyes and ears of the regime,

and he uses the information he gathers

to crush Torrijos' rivals.

(Orlando J. Pérez) Noriega had a free hand

to do what he wanted, and he was ruthless.

In basically cracking down on, on the opposition.

(narrator) Rumors circulate about Noriega's involvement

in several disappearances, like Héctor Gallego,

a young priest who angered the regime in 1971

by organizing the peasants politically.

(John Dinges) Gallego was arrested and last seen in military custody.

There was a report that he was beaten up so badly

that his, his face was distorted

and that then they couldn't then bring him back

and so they threw his body out of a helicopter into the ocean.

His body was never found.

(narrator) But for many, there is

little doubt who is responsible.

(Rubén speaks Spanish)

And that's why Torrijos called him "my gangster"

because when he had to kill people,

he killed people-- that's no problem.

(narrator) But Torrijos' loyal soldier

is up to something behind the scenes.

He's using his position for more

than just crushing the regime's rivals.

(Orlando J. Pérez) There is clear evidence

that Noriega's allegiance

was not necessarily to Torrijos but to himself.

(narrator) Noriega has developed a clandestine relationship

that will define his dictatorship

in the decades to come.

He has been secretly working as a paid informant...

for the United States.

In the United States, there was this fear

that revolution was in the air

and that it was being propagated by Cuba.

[loud cheering]

(narrator) Since Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959,

the U.S. has feared that Communism

will spread all the way up to Mexico.

Central America has become a Cold War battleground.

[loud roar of the crowd]

And so for the United States,

the ability to gain intelligence on these groups

was essential to fighting the infiltration of communism

in the U.S. backyard.

(narrator) Well-positioned to provide intelligence

on the region's communists

Noriega becomes a U.S. spy.

It's the culmination of a relationship

that began when he was in military school.

(Peter Eisner) In the '60s and '70s,

they saw him as a useful asset.

He was providing information about student activist groups,

left-wing groups in South America.

So they began to cultivate him in those early years.

He was getting payments from the CIA to operate

all of the things that the United States needed him

to do for them, including intelligence and wiretaps

of people all over the place.

(narrator) By the mid 1970s Noriega is the most important asset

the U.S. has in Central America.

But he's not just spying on the Cubans for the U.S.,

he's spying on the U.S. for the Cubans.

Noriega was somewhat of a double agent, and he was

exchanging information between the U.S. intelligence

and passing it on to the Cuban intelligence and so forth.

Noriega relished the ability to do intelligence operations.

He loved it; he loved the game.

(narrator) At the height of his intelligence game

he's selling information to at least 10 different countries,

including Nicaragua, Israel,

Taiwan, France, and England.

Noriega manages all of this,

like the octopus with many hands,

and it was in his own interest,

more than it was for any ideological purpose.

(narrator) Noriega's growing power

and influence within the nation don't go unnoticed.

A U.S. Department of Defense intelligence report

declares Noriega "the possible future dictator of Panama."

Even Torrijos begins to feel uneasy.

(Roberto Eisenmann) Torrijos needed him

but feared him at the same time

because he felt that anytime he might turn on him.

(narrator) Noriega may be one of the most powerful men in Panama,

but his situation is precarious.

[cheers & applause]

September, 1977, Torrijos signs

an historic treaty with U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

It guarantees that Panama will gradually

gain control of the canal and its revenues

over the next 22 years.

It's a huge victory for the people,

the country, and Torrijos.

But it could mean trouble for Noriega.

During the negotiations,

Torrijos promised to transition to a democracy.

Noriega saw that process of opening as dangerous.

Dangerous to the ability of the military,

and of himself probably, of maintaining control.

(narrator) And Noriega's right.

Political exiles who'd been expelled by the regime

return to Panama.

Free elections are planned.

Democracy is in the wind,

and it could spell the end of Noriega's rise.

But on July 31, 1981,

an event occurs that changes everything.

(narrator) Panama and its dictatorship

are thrown into chaos

when the plane of 52-year-old Omar Torrijos

disappears west of Panama City.

The wreckage is soon discovered in the hills of Cerro Marta.

There are no survivors.

There has always been rumors, never proven,

that Noriega had a hand in Torrijos' accident.

(narrator) But Noriega is officially cleared of suspicion

in the tragedy.

And as Torrijos' death is mourned

by hundreds of thousands,

the question is, who will replace him?

Torrijos' death resulted in a leadership vacuum.

And that vacuum had to be filled by someone.

(narrator) As the head of G2 and Torrijos' right-hand man,

Noriega has a wide-open path to the leadership.

all he has to do is take it.

(Mariam Mufti) Noriega being the chief intelligence officer,

and having the most access to what was going on,

the undercurrents at the time, seized the moment

to advance his own agenda and rise to the top himself.

(narrator) By August, 1983, Manuel Noriega holds

the top military position in the country--

Commander of the National Guard.

Like Torrijos before him, he is the country's de facto leader.

All of a sudden Noriega's the most powerful man in Panama,

and he quoted Torrijos,

"The first duty of a man in power is to stay in power."

(narrator) That won't be easy.

Noriega already faces a daunting obstacle--

Torrijos' promise to the U.S.

that Panama will hold democratic elections.

If Noriega keeps that pledge, he could find himself sidelined.

He needed the veneer of democracy, he needed the country

to seem to be a civilian dominated democracy

to avoid the opposition from getting too much power.

(narrator) Opposition politicians have their own agenda.

They want to limit the power of the military

and create a more democratic Panama.

Noriega has a plan to keep the opposition at bay

while he rules from the shadows,

an elected puppet president will do his bidding.

It was going to be a democracy

under the control of the military.

(narrator) To pull it off Noriega needs his puppet candidate,

Nicolas Ardito Barletta, to win the presidency.

But on election day, 1984, as the results start coming in,

Bartlett is losing.

And then Noriega intervenes.

60,000 opposition votes suddenly disappear.

Barletta becomes president.

On the surface Panama appears to be a democracy,

but Noriega holds the real power.

Supposedly the president is the top person in the country,

but in fact, it's really Noriega.

(narrator) from the start, Noriega is a polarizing figure.

(Orlando J. Pérez) For the opposition in Panama, they saw him

as someone who was ruthless in the way he gained power.

Now, for others, his group of supporters,

he was a nationalist defender of Panama

against the imperial U.S. trying to dominate Panama.

(narrator) Noriega quickly sets out

to reap the benefits of his position.

(Mariam Mufti) Amassing personal fortunes for dictators

is a symbol of prestige, of grandiosity,

and even invincibility.

That hoarding aspect of taking and extracting revenue

and wealth from, from society,

and using it for your own purposes,

is a hallmark of most dictatorships.

(narrator) In the early '80s, Noriega sees a new way

to turn his power into money-- the drug trade.

(John Dinges) When Torrijos is gone, that coincides with the rise

of the drug cartels in Columbia, 1981 is really the founding

of the Medellin Cartel by Pablo Escobar and Jorge Ochoa.

Noriega very quickly is in touch with that network of people.

Tons of cocaine were being produced in the jungles of Peru

and Colombia, and they needed ways to get the material

through to the United States or Europe or anyplace else.

(John Dinges) Drugs begin to fly in and out of Panama

and he starts to make $150,000 per flight.

(narrator) Over the next few years,

Noriega will pocket an easy $10 million to $15 million.

And soon he's not just running drugs,

he's running arms for the Americans.

The Reagan administration is arming the Contras in Nicaragua

and other anti-communist rebels in Central America.

(John Dinges) He's involved in transporting arms

back and forth to the various fighting forces

in the Central American civil wars.

So he is now becoming a key person

in the clandestine business happening in central America.

(narrator) But Noriega's schemes don't go unnoticed.

Hugo Spadafora, a hugely popular leftist revolutionary,

has learned of his illicit activities.

And he's publicly denouncing him.

[Hugo speaking Spanish]

(John Dinges) Hugo Spadafora was a tall, handsome,

Italian decent Panamanian,

I call him a romantic revolutionary.

And he is going on television saying Noriega's a dictator,

Noriega's a drug trafficker, Noriega is repressing freedoms.

Noriega is furious.

(narrator) Noriega is further enraged in September, 1984,

when Spadafora takes his claim to the opposition newspaper,

La Prensa.

it prints the story which echoes

far beyond the borders of Panama.

It even raises eyebrows in the White House.

Up to now, the U.S. government has kept a blind eye

to Noriega's drug trafficking

because of his help with intelligence and running arms.

Now, the U.S. is forced to at least appear

to take some action.

(John Dinges) The United States does make it known

that we have heard that you're involved in drug trafficking

and that's a really, really bad thing.

Noriega kind of salutes and says okay, I'm out of it.

(narrator) But Noriega's just playing the U.S.

He merely reduces his role in trafficking drugs.

And he discovers a way to profit even more from the cartels--

by laundering their money in Panamanian banks.

Steven Kalish, the leader of a smuggling ring

that has imported hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs

into the U.S., hopes Noriega will help him

clean millions of dollars of dirty money.

(Steven Kalish) I met Noriega, he told me that

he thought that everything I was looking for

I could find in Panama.

He provided me a safe banking haven.

It allowed me to bring in $25 million, $30 million

that had been sitting in a house in Tampa Florida.

(narrator) And Kalish is just the tip of the iceberg.

Noriega hauls in about $10 million a month

by laundering the Cartels' money,

totaling as much as $350 million by the early '80s.

After amassing his fortune,

Noriega has no compunction about spending it.

He splurges on luxury cars,

mansions, and estates all over the world.

(Steven Kalish) He lived a lavish lifestyle.

He had very beautiful women flown in from the U.S.

It was extremely festive.

He was fun to be around.

(Rubén Dario Paredes speaking Spanish)

(narrator) Noriega's the wealthiest man in Panama.

But he still doesn't have what he desperately wants-- respect.

[Noriega commands; men respond]

(Peter Eisner) If there's one thing that he wanted

was to be seen as being a Panamanian nationalist

in the way Omar Torrijos was seen,

and a figure to be honored.

But he was never going to be seen as the charismatic

swashbuckling, handsome fellow,

his physical appearance was always a detriment to that,

and it was painful, and it really hurt.

(narrator) Noriega's nemesis, Hugo Spadafora,

is everything Noriega isn't.

And Spadafora's criticisms are turning the people against him.

(John Dinges) Hugo Spadafora signaled

that he was going to lead

an opposition movement against Noriega.

(Natasha Ezrow) Hugo Spadafora was a real threat to his power.

And so instead of keeping him around,

where he could foment dissent

and help civil society groups continue

to challenge Noriega, he did something about it.

(narrator) September 17, 1985.

The headline in La Prensa delivers the shocking news.

Guerilla fighter and political leader, Hugo Spadafora,

has been murdered... he is found in a Costa Rican river,

stuffed in a U.S. mailbag.

He was beheaded.

And it's said that beheaded alive and tortured horribly.

You look at that photograph,

and you can't get over it forever.

(narrator) Spadafora was last seen when Panamanian soldiers

took him off a bus near the Panama/Costa Rica border.

Many suspect that Manuel Noriega is behind the crime.

[Rubén Dario Paredes speaking Spanish]

That was a, a very important moment

where Noriega actually started going downhill.

(narrator) Panamanians are outraged by Spadafora's murder...

80,000 attend his funeral.

And they're further inflamed

when Panamanian officials file no charges in the case.

The press coverage of the Spadafora incident

causes widespread unrest among the public.

Noriega needs to find a way to change the narrative.

(Mariam Mufti) Dictators want to make sure that the messaging that

is going out to the citizens supports the dictator's agenda.

So if a free media is relentlessly criticizing

the dictatorship, dictators often use

the practice of preemption to control the message.

And Noriega was really good at that.

(John Dinges) Noriega sent his troops in to raid the offices of La Prensa,

to show them don't go investigating things

that you shouldn't be investigating.

(Roberto Eisenmann) We were receiving death threats on a weekly basis.

We had to make a decision.

I said go back to your families, and talk to them tonight,

and tell them you're going to involve yourself

in a life-threatening objective,

we're either going for it, or we're not.

And everybody came back and said, "Let's go."

(narrator) Noriega's in a bind.

To keep up the semblance of democracy

he can't completely silence the press.

And he pays the price in June, 1986,

when New York Times reporter, Seymour Hersh,

publishes an exposé.

Hersh details the dictator's illicit activities

and claims that the U.S. knew about them,

but turned a blind eye.

(Orlando J. Pérez) The biggest revelation of that article

was the fact that the U.S. was complicit

in Noriega's illicit activities

well back into the 1970s.

(narrator) The news is an embarrassment for the Reagan administration.

(Orlando J. Pérez) This was a drug trafficker

cooperating with drug cartels in the midst of

the Reagan administration's strong war on drugs.

It became shameful for the U.S. government

to continue supporting Noriega openly.

(narrator) Noriega spends months currying favor with his U.S. allies,

trying to stem the bleeding from the Hersh article.

Noriega used my private jet to fly to Washington DC

to meet with the director of the CIA.

Upon his return Noriega said

with a big smile on his face that the U.S. needed him

for assistance in the war on drugs.

(narrator) Noriega assists the DEA on Operation Pisces,

a massive crackdown on Colombian drug cartels

that results in the indictment of kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Noriega's men arrest 40 drug traffickers and seize millions

from money laundering accounts in 18 Panamanian banks.

Noriega's U.S. allies are satisfied...

but he's facing a threat

from someone on the inside of his regime,

his second in command, Colonel Roberto Diaz Herrera.

(Orlando J. Pérez) Roberto Diaz Herrera

was a friend of Noriega and a collaborator of Noriega

and Torrijos from the 1960s.

(narrator) When Noriega first took power,

he made a deal with Herrera--

to give him a turn as leader after 4 years.

In May, 1987, Noriega's time is up, and Herrera wants in.

But now that Noriega's on top,

he's not stepping down for anyone.

(Orlando J. Pérez) Noriega as he was apt to do,

double-crossed him, and went back on his agreement.

And basically cashiered Diaz Herrera

to some diplomatic post.

(narrator) But Herrera refuses to go quietly.

He takes his story to the press

and makes some explosive claims.

He maintains that he helped Noriega rig the 1984 election.

Even worse, Herrera accuses Noriega

of ordering Hugo Spadafora's murder,

and of planting a bomb on Torrijos' plane.

[loud chanting]

Herrera's allegations trigger mass revolt among the people.

A few days after these revelations,

massive protests took place

in the streets of Panama City protesting the regime.

(narrator) Noriega arrests Herrera for high treason,

and the angry protests swell to 100,000 people.

It was pots and pans and white handkerchiefs.

It was a nonviolent movement.

[horns honking; people yelling]

(narrator) The protestors ridicule Noriega's appearance,

calling him "Pineapple Face."

And the military dictator, enraged, cracks down hard.

(Roberto Eisenmann) He reacted violently,

people were jailed and tortured and so forth,

it was quite horrible.

(narrator) The turmoil is broadcast all over the world.

A state of emergency is declared.

It appears Noriega is losing control of the country.

(Orlando J. Pérez) The impact of the Herrera revelations was significant

in essentially making it even more difficult

for the U.S. to simply look the other way.

Politically, it was unpalatable,

untenable to give him a free pass.

(narrator) On June 26, 1987,

the U.S. calls for Noriega's removal.

The administration tries to force him to step down:

cutting Noriega from CIA payrolls, and indicting him

for drug trafficking and money laundering.

There was tremendous effort

to broker some sort of deal and pressure Noriega to leave.

(narrator) But Noriega isn't going anywhere.

Instead, he tries to bolster his dwindling support,

by fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment

among his people.

(Orlando J. Pérez) I think he believed his own myth of invincibility.

He had survived double-crossing the cartels,

double-crossing the CIA, and he thought he was gonna survive.

(narrator) But Noriega faces another challenge

within his own borders.

May 7, 1989.

Panamanians go to the polls to elect a new president.

[loud cheering]

(narrator) Just like in '84,

It appears the opposition is on the verge of victory...

Until Noriega steps in

and declares his own candidate the winner.

(John Dinges) He just names a president.

So this is Noriega basically

throwing the pretense of democracy out the window.

[many people yelling]

(narrator) Panama City is engulfed in protests against Noriega

and his regime.

[many people yelling]

(narrator) He sends in his own paramilitary group,

known as the Dignity Battalions, to suppress the protestors.

They beat the opposition vice presidential candidate

Guillermo "Billy" Ford unmercifully.

(Orlando J. Pérez) You have that famous picture

of Billy Ford with his blood soaked [speaks a Spanish word].

Those images were very impactful

because the images revealed

for the world to see, the brutality of the regime.

(narrator) In the U.S.,

the pressure mounts on a new President,

George H.W. Bush, to take action.

Noriega's become less useful to the U.S.,

and Bush is worried about

the thousands of American citizens

who still live in the Canal Zone.

Bush makes a public demand for Noriega's resignation.

But Noriega isn't listening.

[applause & cheers; Noriega speaks Spanish]

The U.S. government pushed him over the edge,

and he felt betrayed.

I think he reached a tipping point, he actually broke.

He was no longer really in control of his emotions.

(narrator) Seven months after President Bush

orders Noreiga's resignation,

his regime condemns the superpower

for "insulting Panama's sovereignty

and territorial integrity."

Noriega said that a state of war was developing

between the two countries.

(narrator) He's thumbing his nose at the U.S.

and seems to think he can get away with it.

He played a very high-stakes game,

in which he defied the U.S. government.

[yelling in Spanish]

There was a saying that the United States is

like a monkey on a chain-- you can play with the monkey

but don't pull the chain too hard,

because the monkey's going to bite you.

(narrator) Noriega's threatening behavior

has the 40,000 Americans living in Panama on edge.

On December 16, 1989, the tensions finally boil over.

A Panamanian officer fires on an American car

when it runs a military checkpoint,

and a U.S. marine is killed.

[Rubén Dario Paredes speaks Spanish]

I will protect the lives of Americans in Panama,

whether they're military or civilian.

We will not let Americans' lives

be put at risk by a dictator down here.

(narrator) December 20, 1989.

U.S. troops storm Panama City.

Their mission-- secure the safety of Americans

and take down Manuel Noriega.

[loud explosion]

[gunfire; people screaming]

(Orlando J. Pérez) The machete wielding

you know, El Man, who had defied the U.S.,

for so many years, basically goes into hiding.

(Roberto Eisenmann) He did not issue

one military order-- not one.

He just ran and ran and ran.

That says a lot about bullies.

All bullies are basically cowards.

(narrator) After resisting U.S. forces on its own for 4 days,

the Panamanian Army, vastly outnumbered, is defeated.

The American invasion has left more than

a thousand Panamanians, soldiers and civilians, dead.

20,000 are homeless.

And Noriega is still on the run.

On Christmas Eve, he finds desperate refuge

in Panama City's Vatican Embassy.

He believed the Vatican Embassy might provide safe haven

to allow him to get out into exile someplace.

(narrator) U.S. forces are quickly tipped off,

but Noriega refuses to surrender.

Outside, protesters call for his head,

taunting him with chants of "Pineapple Face!"

[loud chanting]

(narrator) January 3, 1990.

Panama's military dictator surrenders to the U.S.,

but with one condition.

(John Dinges) He wanted to surrender in uniform,

but the United States then did

something that was very humiliating.

As soon as Noriega was arrested,

they made him take off his uniform

and they took a picture of him with a wrinkled T-shirt,

Noriega looking like a common criminal.

And that was the picture that they put out around the world

to show that Noriega was in custody.

(narrator) After a tumultuous 6 years as Panama's dictator,

the boy born with nothing who once had everything,

has just lost it all.

(Natasha Ezrow) Noriega was incredibly greedy.

He was not only corrupted by power,

but he was also corrupted by greed.

And that ended up being his downfall.

(narrator) In 1992, in Miami, Florida,

Manuel Noriega is convicted of drug trafficking,

racketeering, and money laundering.

He's sentenced to 40 years in prison.

[crowd yelling]

(narrator) Panamanians rejoice in the streets.

Noriega spends 25 years in custody

in the U.S., France, and in the end... Panama.

In 2017, he dies at the age of 83.

(narrator) At the height of his power Noriega had amassed a fortune

estimated at $600 million.

Today, while his estates are crumbling,

his country is rebuilding.

(John Dinges) Panama got the canal back in 1999

and they've run it very successfully, very competently.

Panama has become very, very prosperous.

(narrator) The country has held free elections with mostly

stable democratic governments since Noriega's arrest.

The abuses of his rule

have resulted in a landmark constitutional change:

the abolition of the country's military.

(Orlando J. Pérez) That has been instrumental

to democratic civilian control.

The idea of a coup these days is very far-fetched.

[Rubén Dario Paredes speaks in Spanish]

(narra

(man) To order "The Dictator's Playbook" on DVD,

visit shopPBS.org

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available

on Amazon Prime Video.

[synthesizer fanfare]