Today in Manhunting History -- December 24, 1989: Noriega Gets Religion

Leading up to the invasion, Noriega had been constantly tracked by members of Delta Force, aided by experts from the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency. This surveillance and intelligence cell, code named CENTRA SPIKE, reported directly to General Thurman and monitored radio and telephone communications and directed a network of informants that traced the dictator’s movements. On the eve of the invasion, Noriega’s last known location was in a house in Colon at 6PM on December 19. Shortly thereafter, he left the Atlantic side of Panama and travelled in a convoy of cars and buses south towards Panama City along the Boyd-Roosevelt Highway. Part of the convoy turned off the road toward Tocumen and Torrijos airfields, while the other half headed straight toward the Comandancia. Although the Joint Special Operations Command was confident that Noriega had not returned to his headquarters, they could not definitely say where he actually was. At H-Hour, U.S. troops raided Noriega’s beach house at Farallon and his apartment near Colon, but found both of them empty.

In reality, Noriega had returned to Panama City around 8PM, heading straight to a PDF club. Despite the mounting evidence of the impending invasion, he dismissed the possibility of a U.S. attack, insisting the reports of troop mobilizations were disinformation designed to scare him into fleeing. A longtime alcoholic, he proceeded to get drunk, eventually deciding another form of entertainment was needed. A sergeant on his staff was dispatched to pick up a prostitute, who met the intoxicated strongman at the Ceremi Recreation Center, a PDF rest area just east of Tocumen military airfield. His dalliance was interrupted at 1AM, when the thumping sound of an AC-130 gunship’s 105mm and 40mm cannon prepping the objective at Tocumen for the 1st Ranger Battalion’s assault shook the room. Noriega’s bodyguard, Captain Ivan Castillo, went outside and saw the sky filled with 750 parachutes descending upon the airfield. Castillo rushed back inside to collect his boss, and the dictator’s entourage piled into the two Hyundai hatchbacks.

The next day, elements of Bravo Company, 1st Ranger Battalion secured the Recreation Center, discovering some of Noriega’s personal belongings, including his uniform and shoes.

Early on the morning of 24 December, Ivan Castillo left the Panama City apartment where he and Noriega had been hiding for the past three days. He told his boss he was searching for the next place to hide, and that if he did not return by 7AM Noriega was to move without him. Noriega trusted Castillo completely. It was the captain who had told him to put on civilian clothes rather than his uniform at the Ceremi Recreation Center, a decision that allowed him to evade U.S. forces. Later that night, as Noriega and some bodyguards were leaving an associate’s house and saw three U.S. Blackhawk helicopters descending nearby, it was Castillo who warned them to stop running lest they draw the attention of another gunship hovering above. Consequently, when Castillo talked, Noriega listened.

But Castillo was tired of running and ready to give up. He set out to look for an American to take him to Major General Marc Cisneros, the Spanish-speaking commander of U.S. Army South, to whom he hoped to betray Noriega in exchange for his own safety. At 6:30AM Castillo found a patrol from the 7th Infantry, but none of the soldiers spoke Spanish. Castillo tried to explain who he was, but was taken into custody as a prisoner of war, and Cisneros did not find out about Castillo’s surrender until 10:30AM after four precious hours had passed.

“General,” Castillo told Cisneros, “if I could have gotten word to you when I wanted to, I could have found you Noriega.
“Well, where could he be?” Cisneros asked.

Castillo handed Cisneros a list of possible hiding spots. Although it was now several hours past the time he told Noriega to leave from their last safe house, Castillo said Noriega probably left his baggage behind and might return to the location. But when the team arrived, they found nothing besides the dictator’s wallet and briefcase.

Major General Marc Cisneros, Commander of the U.S. Army South during Operation Just Cause

Castillo was not the only person trying to contact Cisneros on Christmas Eve. While the raid was being planned and executed, Monsignor Jose Sebastian Laboa, the papal nuncio to Panama, was desperately trying to reach Cisneros by telephone for hours to warn him that Noriega was seeking asylum. While U.S. commanders had stationed forces outside several foreign embassies to which Noriega might seek asylum – such as Cuba, Nicaragua, or Libya – they neglected to block the Vatican’s embassy. Although Noriega kept pictures of two popes on his office desk, he claimed to be a Buddhist and was known to practice black voodoo.

Around 3:30PM Laboa’s call finally got through to the general. As Cisneros picked up the phone, he heard the priest whisper: “He just walked in.”

While Delta Force was hunting for Noriega, elements of the 7th SFG were conducting what came do be called the “Ma Bell” operations. In order to avoid direct attacks on the remaining PDF garrisons spread throughout the Panamanian countryside and the casualties such missions would entail, Captain Charles Cleveland suggested they telephone the Panamanian commander at each barracks and give him an ultimatum to surrender peacefully or face a U.S. attack. Between December 22-31, these missions produced the surrender of 14 garrisons and 2,000 PDF troops.

Perhaps the most significant capitulation was the first one, when Major Del Cid in Chiriqui, the linchpin to a potential guerrilla war strategy, announced he would surrender on December 23. The news depressed Noriega, who subsequently told an intermediary to call Monsignor Laboa and request asylum. Noriega requested the Vatican’s emissary pick him up at the Panama City Dairy Queen. There, a visibly exhausted Noriega – wearing a T-shirt, Bermuda shorts, and an oversized baseball cap – jumped into the backseat of the nunciature’s car, and sunk low in his seat to avoid being seen on the short drive to the nuciature, arriving at the Vatican’s embassy at 3:30PM.

Manuel Noriega had begun the invasion with a prostitute. He would end it surrounded by nuns.