TV REVIEW : Shady Dealings in ‘The Noriega Connection’

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s dark utterance, “He may be an S.O.B., but he’s our S.O.B.,” has new dimensions with deposed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, whose past is investigated in the “Frontline” documentary “The Noriega Connection” (tonight at 9, Channels 28 and 15; 10 on Channel 50).

The word alleged drops into the report’s narration with almost terrifying frequency, making one wonder at the end if there exists truly hard evidence to try Noriega. What bolsters the U.S. government’s case is the wealth of expert witnesses interviewed. There is also photographic evidence of Noreiga’s military operations, including arms support to the Nicaraguan Contras, but nothing connected to the drug trade.

After he assumed power in 1983, Noriega allegedly allowed Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel to set up facilities and an operations base in Panama, and at the same time was proving a useful informant to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. This echoed previous alleged double-dealing, when he was the CIA’s most-valued Panamanian asset as head of his country’s intelligence service, even as he was a solid ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. To the question “Who was this fellow working for?,” CIA veteran Nestor Sanchez responds, “For himself.”

“The Noriega Connection,” however, isn’t primarily intended as a filmic dossier ready-made for the government’s current case against Noriega. It depicts a U.S. policy in self-destruct mode: on one hand, DEA officials and U.S. attorneys attempting to amass evidence against the dictator; on the other hand, CIA and foreign-policy officials stopping any efforts to compromise a valued intelligence source. Not surprisingly, as the report repeatedly reminds us, the intelligence men win the day over the drug investigators.

The dangling question, of course, is: What will be done with such embarrassing evidence now that Noriega is awaiting trial. This “Frontline” production includes a photo of then-Vice President George Bush in conference with Noriega--a picture that U.S. officials would doubtless prefer disappear.