Word: giroldi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1989-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...retrospect, the coup could have had three outcomes. If Bush had actively supported the coup, the plotters might have succeeded. But the improvement for the people of Panama would have been marginal at best; replace despot Manuel Noriega with would-be despot Moises Giroldi, a career military man with no demonstrated affection for democracy...
...this possibility remains only that. But it suggests some troubling questions. Why did Giroldi refuse to turn Noriega over to the Americans? Why was the only communication between the conspirators and the U.S. through the wife of one of the plotters? And most importantly, should the U.S. have entrusted American lives and prestige with such an unsavory group...
...retire peacefully instead of killing him or handing him over to the U.S. Their second was counting on Major Francisco Olechea, commander of the elite Battalion 2000, to be neutral; instead, he brought his troops to Noriega's rescue. The widow of the slain coup leader Major Moises Giroldi called Olechea a turncoat. Some U.S. officials, however, suspect that Olechea switched sides because he did not get timely assurances that Giroldi and his troops had succeeded in capturing Noriega. He waited for more than two hours after he knew the coup attempt had begun, and then, under pressure from loyalist...
Despite the long-standing contacts between the U.S. and Panamanian military and intelligence communities, the U.S. apparently did not learn of the coup until Giroldi spilled his story. Compounding that failure, the CIA officers whom Giroldi informed of the coup failed to arrange for reliable communication with him. "The first, the absolute first thing you do in this case is put somebody with a radio next to him," says a former CIA director...
Discussion went up the line to the President's top advisers. By Sunday night, according to a senior Defense Department official, "the basic conclusion was that if ((Giroldi)) was going to do it, he would have to do it largely alone." At 2:30 a.m. Monday, Powell was awakened by a phone call from a U.S. military officer in Panama. The rebel soldiers, Powell was told, wanted Southcom to assist the uprising by blocking two access roads near Fort Amador and the Bridge of the Americas, but otherwise wanted no U.S. involvement that might discredit them. Through Monday, as they...