Powell agreed with Stiner — and Thurman — that the force buildup originally envisaged for BLUE SPOON took too long (twenty-two days) especially if a crisis hit. A quick-strike, one-night operation using the capabilities of the XVIII Airborne Corps and the Special Operations Command was the way to go. Stiner, of course, knew the capabilities of both commands better than anybody else, and he also knew how to meld them together as one fighting team.
'Continue revising the plan,' Powell told Stiner.
Later that month, Thurman, Stiner, Hartzog, and Gary Luck, the JSOTF commander, met to get up-to-date. Since April 1988, they concluded, when BLUE SPOON had been published, Noriega had grown increasingly defiant and his forces better equipped and trained. A twenty-two-day buildup could result in prolonged fighting, more casualties, and more opportunities for Noriega to take hostages or escape to the hills to lead a guerrilla war. Stiner wanted a quick strike that would lead to decisive victory.
During September, as the staffs of the XVIII Airborne Corps, SOUTHCOM, and SOCOM continued to revise the plan in that direction, Stiner made another visit to Panama, this time with the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, the Assistant Division Commander of the 7th Infantry Division, the Ranger Regimental Commander, and Gary Luck, along with their operations and intelligence officers — including another of his best planners, to augment the four he'd already left there. Again, they traveled at night in civilian clothes, and in the same C-20 used for the first trip. At Howard AFB, they were met by Hartzog and Cisneros, and went directly to Fort Clayton for briefings.
The next day, the party broke into smaller groups and took off on clandestine reconnaissance missions, to get a better feel for the targets that had been selected, if a contingency operation was launched. Twenty-seven prime targets had been selected. Some key installations and facilities would have to be protected. Other targets would have to be 'taken out' — or 'neutralized.'
Targets to be protected included the Pacora River Bridge, the three locks on the Canal, Madden Dam, the Bridge of Americas (crossing the Canal at Panama City), Howard Air Force Base, the U.S. Embassy, and all U.S. dependents living on military installations shared by the PDF.
Targets to be taken out included the Comandancia and all PDF military installations.
The reconnaissance gave the commanders awareness of what they would actually be facing — though no one knew yet which targets would be assigned to which commander. Stiner later made these decisions, based on his knowledge of unit capabilities. Some targets could be taken only by SOF forces, while others were better suited for conventional units.
Meanwhile, the Senate had confirmed General Thurman as CINC, and on Saturday, September 30, 1989, he took command from General Woerner at SOCOM headquarters in Panama. One day later, at midnight, Colin Powell took over as chairman of the JCS; his welcoming ceremony occurred the next day.
THE OCTOBER 3 COUP ATTEMPT
On Sunday evening, October 1, a woman phoned the CIA station chief in Panama City: 'Can you meet me downtown where we can talk? 1 have something that you need to know about.' Though she refused to identify herself, the meeting was arranged.
She turned out to be the wife of Major Moises Giroldi, the commander of Noriega's security forces at the Comandancia.
'My husband is very worried about what the Noriega regime is doing to our country,' she told the station chief, 'and has decided to take action. Tomorrow morning at nine, as Noriega arrives at the Comandancia, my husband and others who oppose him will conduct a coup. We may need U.S. help to block PDF forces moving against the coup. We'll be back in touch.'
That night, when the meeting was reported to General Thurman, he immediately went to his command post in the tunnel at Quarry Heights, where he hoped to pick up more news.
Sometime after midnight, a pair of CIA agents went straight from a meeting with Major Giroldi to Quarry Heights, where they confirmed to Thurman that the conspirators planned to grab Noriega at about nine that morning and take control of the Comandancia, thus cutting him off from communications with his field units. However, they might need U.S. help to block the major roads from the west, in case PDF units reacted to the coup.
Once in control, Giroldi planned to talk Noriega into retiring to Chiriqui Province in western Panama, where Noriega had a country house — one of his many luxury homes.
The CIA agents went on to explain that Giroldi, who had played a large part in crushing the coup attempt eighteen months earlier (he'd identified the conspirators, who had then all been jailed and tortured), was not exactly a man of conspicuous integrity, and could not be totally trusted now.
Though he had a bad feeling about the entire CIA report, General Thurman decided to pass it up to the Pentagon, just in case, and at about 2:30 in the morning, he reached General Kelly at home on his secure phone. After Thurman described what was going on, Kelly asked for his thoughts. 'My advice is to wait and see what happens,' Thurman said.
Soon after that, Generals Kelly and Powell met in the Pentagon with Rear Admiral Ted Shafer, the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose analysts were already busy trying to check out the coup information. The immediate consensus was that the whole thing was likely a trick or a deception; but if not, the plan was ill-conceived and unlikely to succeed.
By this time, Secretary Cheney was in his office for a heads-up from Powell, followed by a further review by Kelly and Shafer. All four then went to the Oval Office to update the President, where Powell recommended holding off on a decision until there was further information. 'If there's a coup,' Powell told the President, 'we need to watch it develop before we act.' The President agreed.
That day, the coup did not go off. But Mrs. Giroldi reported it was on for the next morning, October 3.
That morning, Noriega arrived earlier than usual at the Comandancia; the ceremonial guard force met the entourage in the normal way, but then took the dictator into custody — sparking an immediate argument between Noriega and Giroldi. Shots were fired, which General Thurman could hear at his quarters in Quarry Heights about a mile from the Comandancia.
Thurman immediately called Powell with a report.
By 9:00, it was clear a coup was under way, but its outcome was still far from certain. By noon, Panamanian radio announced that a coup was in progress.
Meanwhile, under the guise of a routine exercise, U.S. forces blocked the road to Fort Amador, though the Panamanian 5th Infantry Company based there had not attempted to react. At about the same time, two PDF lieutenants, identified as coup liaison negotiators, arrived at the front gate of Fort Clayton and asked to see Cisneros (now a major general), who spoke fluent Spanish. Thurman told Cisneros to talk to them.
According to the lieutenants, the coup leaders had control of Noriega and his staff, and were now looking for an honorable way for the dictator to step down, yet remain in Panama; but when Cisneros offered to take him into custody at Fort Clayton, the lieutenants refused. They had no intention of turning him over to the United States. They still pressed for a U.S. roadblock at the Bridge of the Americas, however, to prevent Panamanian forces from coming up from Rio Hato.
Cisneros made no promises.
Talking Noriega into stepping down turned out to be a much more formidable undertaking than Giroldi had imagined. What the two men said to each other, we'll never know, but we do know that Noriega out-talked Giroldi. Rather than continue the conversation, Giroldi left Noriega in a locked room for a few minutes, then went off to regroup. It was a fatal mistake: The room had a telephone. Noriega (it was later learned) evidently got in touch with Vicki Amado, his number-one mistress, and asked her to contact the commanders of the 6th and 7th Companies at Rio Hato and the PDF Mechanized Battalion 2000 at Fort Cimarron, some twenty miles northeast of the city.
Soon, a 727 launched from Tocumen International Airport, ten miles east of Panama City, landed at Rio Hato
