George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

As we have seen, direct personal dealings between Bush and Noriega went back at least
as far as Bush's 1976 CIA tenure. At that time Noriega, who had been trained by the US
at Fort Gulick, Fort Bragg, and other locations, was the chief of intelligence for the
Panamanian nationalist leader, Gen. Omar Torrijos, with whom Carter signed the Panama
Canal Treaty, the ratification of which by the US Senate meant that the canal would
revert to Panama by the year 2000. During the treaty negotiations between Torrijos and
the Carter Administration, the US National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence
Agency are alleged to have conducted eletronic eavesdropping against Panamanian
officials involved in the negotiations. This bugging had reportedly been discovered by
Noriega, who had allegedly proceeded to bribe members of the US Army's 470th Military
Intelligence Group, who furnished him with tapes of all the bugged conversations, which
Noriega then submitted to Torrijos. According to published accounts, the US Army had
investigated this situation under a probe code-named Operation Canton Song, and
identified a group of "singing sergeants" on Noriega's payroll. Lew Allen, Jr., the head of
the NSA, supposedly wanted a public indictment of the sergeants for treason and
espionage, but Bush is alleged to have demurred, saying that the matter had to be left to
the Army, which had decided to cover up the matter. A plausible political cover story for
Bush's refusal to prosecute was his desire to avoid scandals in the intelligence community
that could hurt Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. [fn 26] Whatever the truth of all these
allegations, there seems to be no doubt that Bush met personally with Noriega during his
1976 CIA tenure. According to one account, that Bush-Noriega meeting was a luncheon
held in December, 1976 at the residence of the Panamanian Ambassador to Washington.
As Ferderick Kempe notes, "Years later in 1988, after Noriega was indicted on drug
charges in Florida, Bush would at first deny having ever met Noriega. He thereafter
recalled the meeting, but none of its details. His three lunch guests have better memories
and one of them insisted this was the third meeting between the two men." [fn 27]
During the preparation of his 1991 trial in Miamai, Florida, Noriega's defense attorneys
submitted a document to the United States District Court for the Southern District of
Florida in which they specified matters they intended to use in Noriega's defense which
might involve information considered claissified by the US government. Before being
released to the public, this document was heavily censored. No part of this filing is more
heavily censored, however, than the section entitled "General Noriega's Relationship with
George Bush," which has been whited out on approximately 6 of 15 pages, allegedly to
protect US national security, but in reality to hide material that is explosively
compromising to the political reputation of Bush. Noriega's proffer confirms a Bush-
Noriega meeting on December 8, 1976 at the Panamanian Embassy in Washington.
"During this meeting there were discussions concerning the unrest in the canal zone. But
at no time did Mr. Bush suggest that the Panamanian government was in any way
responsible for the bombing" that had occured in the Canal Zone when Ford, worried
about attacks from Reagan demanding that the canal remain in US hands, had cut off the
talks on the future of the canal. Noriega's proffer adds that "when Bush left office he sent
a letter to Noriega thanking Noriega for his assistance. Bush said that he was going to
inform his successor of Noriega's cooperation." [fn 28]