PANAMA: THE ROAD TO RECOVERY : Stiner--’Right Guy’ to Lead Complex Invasion of Panama

When Lt. Gen. Carl W. Stiner led the U.S. invasion of Panama last week, few among his admirers and critics were surprised.

The three-star Army general may be a slow-talking country boy from eastern Tennessee, but he has been in the center of many high-risk military actions in recent years, including the dramatic capture of the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.

“They couldn’t have found a better guy to do it,” said retired Gen. Edward C. Meyer, former Army chief of staff.

“He’s got direct experience in special operations, airborne, mechanized infantry. He served in Lebanon. He’s the right guy for this kind of intermixing of special operations and conventional forces,” Meyer said of Stiner, who is base commander of Ft. Bragg, N.C.

“He comes across like Jimmy Stewart,” another retired general added. “Stiner doesn’t get real excited. He has a lot of patience.”

Such unflappability served Stiner well on Oct. 10, 1985, at the Sigonella Air Base in Sicily, moments after U.S. Navy F-14 fighter jets had forced down an EgyptAir plane carrying several of Achille Lauro’s hijackers. As commander of the operation, Stiner flew aboard one of the Navy jets.

Once on the ground, amid great tension and confusion over custody of the hijackers, a squabble between Italian and American soldiers quickly escalated into a near-brawl.

“There was a sizable group and there were pretty good fisticuffs going on,” recalled one knowledgeable military source. “But Stiner was able to calm the situation and bring it under control.”

However, the same source who praised Stiner’s handling of that incident also added:

“He’s not particularly bright. He’s gone a long way without a lot of equipment,” the source said. He charged that Stiner’s lack of appreciation for the complexities of Middle East politics may have been a factor in the heavy loss of life in the suicide bombing of the Marine headquarters in Beirut in 1983. The terrorist attack killed 241 U.S. servicemen.

During his brief stint there as the representative of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Stiner in late 1983 recommended that the battleship New Jersey open fire on Muslim militias--even though, his critics have noted, no Americans were in immediate danger.

The subsequent U.S. shelling of Muslim areas destroyed American credibility and neutrality in Lebanon. Just over a month later, a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden truck leveled the Marines headquarters.

However, former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane said that blaming Stiner for the bombing is “a bum rap.”

“It’s true that he reported that the Marines were vulnerable and (recommended) that they be reinforced by gunfire,” said McFarlane, then the presidential trouble-shooter on the scene. But the final decision to shell the militias was made by President Ronald Reagan, McFarlane noted in an interview.

He and others described Stiner as an officer with uncommon concern for his troops--to the point of advising young soldiers on family planning and budgeting. “The guy’s very conscious of the relationship between stability at home and performance on the field,” McFarlane said.

Stiner was born in LaFollette, Tenn. He has a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Tennessee Polytechnical Institute and a master’s degree in public administration from Shippensburg State College, Pa. He obtained his officer’s commission through the ROTC.

“He’ll probably get a fourth star out of this,” said one retired general, referring to the Panama attack.

Times staff writers Robin Wright and John M. Broder contributed to this story.