Rolando Masferrer, another Cuban exile employed by the CIA, was blown blown to bits when his car exploded on October 5, 1975. Masferrer had worked with “plumbers” Hunt, Sturgis and Barker on the intel gathering mission on Omar Torrijos in 1973. According to Miss Brussell, “He would have been investigated for his activities in connection with assassination attempts on foreign leaders, had he not been killed.”
Omar Torrijos led Panama after he staged a coup. He engineered the adoption of a new Constitution that gave him power for six years. The population was far to the left of Torrijos, himself anti-communist. In 1971 he began negotiations with the US on ending the American occupation of the Panama Canal Zone.
Nixon tried to bribe Omar Torrijos. In 1973, Richard Nixon offered Torrijos $1 million bribe to cancel a United Nations meeting called to oppose U.S. control of the Panama Canal.
The bribe was offered in March 1973 just before a Security Council session on America giving control of the canal back to Panama. A Nixon envoy, whom he did not identify, flew to Panama to offer the $1 million bribe to Torrijos, then head of government and National Guard commander in chief. The book says Nixon had previously sent “severe threats” through Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza before attempting the bribe, which General Torrijos turned down.
The book quotes Torrijos as responding, “If I fall, they will tilt the flag, give it a kiss and continue forward.” He was referring to the people of Panama not wanting to be an American colony.