Subject: Re: Diego Garcia
No it wasn’t. They could have paid more, promised upgrades, etc.

Yes it was. We could have paid people off to go our way. The average Panamanian resented our being there, the more educated ones knew the history, and even many of the educated believed propaganda that we hadn't paid the lease. Panamanians got the lower jobs on the canal, nearly all of the higher paid jobs were American and white foreigners. And this was smack dab in the middle of their country.

Strangely enough, getting Noriega is the only time I've ever seen one of our Latin American interventions for regime change to establish democracy work.