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The Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) is a non-profit, non-political, educational association for current and former intelligence professionals and supporters of the US Intelligence Community. Part of our mission is to foster an understanding of the important role of intelligence in national security and to nurture student interest in careers across the many US intelligence agencies. To this end, the channel features podcast versions of our AFIO Now episodes - a series of recorded interviews and presentations that features experts, historians, and officers from across the US Intelligence Community who have fascinating stories to tell.
Episodes
Monday Jun 09, 2025
Monday Jun 09, 2025
Leon Carroll Jr, co-author (with Mark Harmon) on "Ghosts of Panama: A Strongman Out of Control, A Murdered Marine, and the Special Agents Caught in the Middle of an Invasion." The warm relationship in 1989 between US and Gen. Manuel Noriega has eroded dangerously. President George Bush declares Noriega a drug trafficker and a rigger of elections causing intimidation on streets for U.S. personnel. The nation becomes a powder keg.
Naval Investigative Service (NIS) Special Agent Rick Yell has worked the job in Panama since 1986, and lives there with wife Annya and a child. Yell develops an intelligence source with access to the Noriega regime turning into spy-versus-spy with secret meetings and hidden documents. A source has info on an imprisoned CIA asset and helps track Noriega’s movements. The reports shape the decisions made in Washington D.C., CIA headquarters, and the Pentagon. The powder keg is lit on December 16, 1989, when a young U.S. Marine is gunned down at a checkpoint in Panama City. This is the rest of that story.
Interview of Friday, 28 March 2025. Interviewer and Host: AFIO President James Hughes.
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