These were difficult days for Bush. On December 27, he gave another press conference
during which he was asked:
Q: Do you fear that Mr. Noriega might disclose any CIA information that could embarrass you or
the government?Bush: No.Q: Nothing whatsoever?Bush: I don't think so. I think that's history and I think that the main thing is that he should be tried
and brought to justice and we are pursuing that course with no fear of that. You know, we may get
into some release of certain confidential documents, that he may try to blind side the whole justice
process, but the system works, so I wouldn't worry about that.Q: Would you open up any documents that he might request so that there'd be no question as there
has been in other cases?Bush: There would be enough to see that he's given a totally fair trial.New Year's Day was excruciating for Bush, since this was another holiday spent at home
with football scores yeilding only to speculation on how long Noriega would elude
Bush's legions. The manifest refusal of the Vatican to expel Noriega seemed to deprive
Bush's aggression of its entire moral justification: if Noriega was what Bush claimed,
why did the Pope John Paul II decline to honor the imperative US demand for custody?
While Bush squirmed in agony waiting for the Rose Bowl to end, he began to think once
again of People Power.
In Panama City, the Endara-Ford-Arias Calderon forces mobilized their BMW base and
hired hundreds of those who had nothing to eat for militant demonstrations outside of the
Nunciatura. These were liberally seeded with US special forces and other commandos in
civilian clothes. As the demonstrations grew more menacing, and the US troops and tanks
made no move to restrain them, it was clear that the US forces were preparing to stage a
violent but "spontaneous" assault by the masses on the Nunciatura that would include the
assassination of Noriega and the small group of his co-workers who had accompanied
him into that building. At about this time Msgr. Laboa warned Noriega, "you could be
lynched like Mussolini." Noriega appears to have concluded that remaining in the
Nunciatura meant certain death for himself and his subordinates at the hands of the US
commandos operating under the cover of the mob. LaBoa and the other religious on the
staff of the Nunciatura would also be in grave danger. On January 3, 1990, after thanking
LaBoa and giving him a letter to the Pope, Noriega, dressed in his general's uniform, left
the Nunciatura and surrendered to Gen. Cisneros.
In Bush's speech of December 20 he had offered the following justification for his act of
war, Operation Just Cause:
The goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of Americans, to defend
democracy in Panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the Panama Canal
Treaty.^