Wanted: Noriega

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Even by the standards set by the Shah and Ferdinand Marcos, Noriega's record is infamous. The diminutive general, whose acne-scarred complexion earned him the nickname "Pineapple Face," has been accused in Panama of ordering both the decapitation of a political opponent and the murder of the son of the man he replaced as commander of the armed forces. Rising through the ranks, Noriega allegedly created a criminal organization that would be the envy of any Mafia don. The 12,000-man Panama Defense Forces are so much a part of Noriega's criminal empire that U.S. Attorney Kellner considered classifying the entire institution as a corrupt organization. According to investigators for the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Affairs, which will hold hearings this week, Noriega demands a cut of almost every crime-related dollar deposited in Panama's 130 banks. Drug traffickers and money launderers who refuse to pay may have their shipments hijacked at gunpoint.

Those who play along are well cared for. Steven Kalish, a convicted U.S. drug smuggler who was the chief witness against Noriega in the Tampa indictment, says he personally delivered at least $900,000 in bribes to the general in 1983 and 1984. In exchange, says Kalish, Noriega gave him a diplomatic passport, a multimillion-dollar letter of credit and safe passage for hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana.

Noriega may have been motivated by greed far more than loyalty to any ideology. While a valued point man for the CIA, he enjoyed close relations with Cuban Leader Fidel Castro. Blandon says he personally witnessed a 1984 meeting in Havana at which Castro mediated a dispute between Noriega and the leaders of a major Colombian drug cartel. According to Blandon, as well as U.S. Customs investigators, Noriega has supplied Cuba with U.S. intelligence and high-technology goods. In Central America, the general has sold weapons both to Nicaragua's anti-Communist contras and to Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador. "He is a businessman," declares Blandon. "Contras, Sandinistas, Cubans, the CIA -- he deals with them all to make money."

Until Blandon, Kalish and others provided direct evidence of Noriega's criminal activities, American officials were divided over what to do about him. As early as 1972, a U.S. narcotics agent proposed his "total and complete immobilization" -- meaning assassination. But the agent's superior rejected the idea. Last March, when Senators Jesse Helms of North Carolina and John Kerry of Massachusetts introduced a resolution condemning Panama for its , poor showing in the war on drugs, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Trott protested that the Panamanian record was "superb."

U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab begs to differ. "Occasionally they swing some poor slob out to make us feel they're cooperating," he says. "But it's nobody close to Noriega." Von Raab condemns the view that a pact with the devil is better than no pact at all: "At some point you become owned by the devil."

Those days presumably ended with last week's indictment. In effect, it will prevent Noriega from traveling to the U.S., where he would be arrested. Noriega would face the same risk in France, where he keeps an apartment, and in other countries that have an extradition treaty with the U.S.