“Clarissa,” he said, “please tell my North American friend why they left their countries.” He nodded his head in the direction of the stage. Three new girls were accepting the hats from the others, who jumped down and started dressing. The music switched to salsa, and as the newcomers danced, they shed their clothes to the rhythm.
Clarissa held out her right hand. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said. Then she stood up and reached for our empty bottles. “In answer to Fidel’s question, these girls come here to escape brutality. I’ll bring a couple more Balboas.”
After she left, I turned to Fidel. “Come on,” I said. “They’re here for U.S. dollars.”
“True. But why so many from the countries where fascist dictators rule?”
I glanced back at the stage. The three of them were giggling and throwing the sailor’s cap around like a ball. I looked Fidel in the eye. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No,” he said seriously, “I wish I were. Most of these girls have lost their families—fathers, brothers, husbands, boyfriends. They grew up with torture and death. Dancing and prostitution don’t seem all that bad to them. They can make a lot of money here, then start fresh somewhere, buy a little shop, open a cafe—”
He was interrupted by a commotion near the bar. I saw a waitress swing her fist at one of the soldiers, who caught her hand and began to twist her wrist. She screamed and fell to her knee. He laughed and shouted to his buddies. They all laughed. She tried to hit him with her free hand. He twisted harder. Her face contorted with pain.
The MPs remained by the door, watching calmly. Fidel jumped to his feet and started toward the bar. One of the men at the table next to ours held out a hand to stop him. “
A tall, slim Panamanian came out of the shadows near the stage. He moved like a cat and was upon the soldier in an instant. One hand encircled the man’s throat while the other doused him in the face with a glass of water. The waitress slipped away. Several of the Panamanians who had been lounging against the walls formed a protective semicircle around the tall bouncer. He lifted the soldier against the bar and said something I couldn’t hear. Then he raised his voice and spoke slowly in English, loudly enough for everyone in the still room to hear over the music.
“The waitresses are off-limits to you guys, and you don’t touch the others until after you pay them.”
The two MPs finally swung into action. They approached the cluster of Panamanians. “We’ll take it from here, Enrique,” they said.
The bouncer lowered the soldier to the floor and gave his neck a final squeeze, forcing the other’s head back and eliciting a cry of pain.
“Do you understand me?” There was a feeble groan. “Good.” He pushed the soldier at the two MPs. “Get him out of here.”
CHAPTER 13. Conversations with the General
The invitation was completely unexpected. One morning during that same 1972 visit, I was sitting in an office I had been given at the Instituto de Recursos Hidraulicos y Electrificacion, Panama’s government-owned electric utility company. I was poring over a sheet of statistics when a man knocked gently on the frame of my open door. I invited him in, pleased with any excuse to take my attention off the numbers. He announced himself as the general’s chauffeur and said he had come to take me to one of the general’s bungalows.
An hour later, I was sitting across the table from General Omar Torrijos. He was dressed casually, in typical Panamanian style: khaki slacks and a short-sleeved shirt buttoned down the front, light blue with a delicate green pattern. He was tall, fit, and handsome. He seemed amazingly relaxed for a man with his responsibilities. A lock of dark hair fell over his prominent forehead.
He asked about my recent travels to Indonesia, Guatemala, and Iran. The three countries fascinated him, but he seemed especially intrigued with Iran’s king, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah had come to power in 1941, after the British and Soviets overthrew his father, whom they accused of collaborating with Hitler.1
“Can you imagine,” Torrijos asked, “being part of a plot to dethrone your own father?”
Panama’s head of state knew a good deal about the history of this far-off land. We talked about how the tables were turned on the shah in 1951, and how his own premier, Mohammad Mossadegh, forced him into exile. Torrijos knew, as did most of the world, that it had been the CIA that labeled the premier a Communist and that stepped in to restore the shah to power. However, he did not know—or at least did not mention—the parts Claudine had shared with me, about Kermit Roosevelt’s brilliant maneuvers and the fact that this had been the beginning of a new era in imperialism, the match that had ignited the global empire conflagration.
“After the shah was reinstated,” Torrijos continued, “he launched a series of revolutionary programs aimed at developing the industrial sector and bringing Iran into the modern era.”
I asked him how he happened to know so much about Iran.
“I make it my point,” he said. “I don’t think too highly of the shah’s politics—his willingness to overthrow his own father and become a CIA puppet—but it looks as though he’s doing good things for his country. Perhaps I can learn something from him. If he survives.”
“You think he won’t?”
“He has powerful enemies.”
“And some of the world’s best bodyguards.”
Torrijos gave me a sardonic look. “His secret police, SAVAK, have the reputation of being ruthless thugs. That doesn’t win many friends. He won’t last much longer.” He paused, then rolled his eyes. “Bodyguards? I have a few myself.” He waved at the door. “You think they’ll save my life if your country decides to get rid of me?”
I asked whether he truly saw that as a possibility.
He raised his eyebrows in a manner that made me feel foolish for asking such a question. “We have the Canal. That’s a lot bigger than Arbenz and United Fruit.”
I had researched Guatemala, and I understood Torrijos’s meaning. United Fruit Company had been that country’s political equivalent of Panama’s canal. Founded in the late 1800s, United Fruit soon grew into one of the most powerful forces in Central America. During the early 1950s, reform candidate Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala in an election hailed all over the hemisphere as a model of the democratic process. At the time, less than 3 percent of Guatemalans owned 70 percent of the land. Arbenz promised to help the poor dig their way out of starvation, and after his election he implemented a comprehensive land reform program.
“The poor and middle classes throughout Latin America applauded Arbenz,” Torrijos said. “Personally, he was one of my heroes. But we also held our breath. We knew that United Fruit opposed these measures, since they were one of the largest and most oppressive landholders in Guatemala. They also owned big plantations in Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, and here in Panama. They couldn’t afford to let Arbenz give the rest of us ideas.”
I knew the rest: United Fruit had launched a major public relations campaign in the United States, aimed at convincing the American public and congress that Arbenz was part of a Russian plot and that Guatemala was a Soviet satellite. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a coup. American pilots bombed Guatemala City and the democratically elected Arbenz was overthrown, replaced by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, a ruthless right-wing dictator.
The new government owed everything to United Fruit. By way of thanks, the government reversed the land reform process, abolished taxes on the interest and dividends paid to foreign investors, eliminated the secret ballot, and jailed thousands of its critics. Anyone who dared to speak out against Castillo was persecuted. Historians trace the violence and terrorism that plagued Guatemala for most of the rest of the century to the not-so-secret alliance between United Fruit, the CIA, and the Guatemalan army under its colonel dictator.2
“Arbenz was assassinated,” Torrijos continued. “Political and character assassination.” He paused and frowned. “How could your people swallow that CIA rubbish? I won’t go so easily. The military here are my people. Political assassination won’t do.” He smiled.
“The CIA itself will have to kill me!”
