Panama

Panama is the setting of the diplomatic crisis that serves as a formative episode in Lorenzo Quart’s career. During the U.S. invasion, he is dispatched to the Vatican nunciature, where General Manuel Noriega and a motley group of refugees have taken shelter. Quart helps manage the negotiations and avert an armed assault, but a secret evacuation ends with a U.S. soldier breaking his shoulder despite his clerical collar and Vatican passport. The episode becomes a model of crisis diplomacy for the Institute for External Works—and a reminder that even an impeccably negotiated agreement cannot control every person charged with enforcing it.

Mission at the Nunciature

Quart arrives within hours of the invasion, after a hazardous flight from Costa Rica. His official assignment is to assist the nuncio; in practice, he takes control of negotiations and reports directly to the Institute for External Works, replacing Monsignor Héctor Bonino, an Argentine-Italian diplomat who lacks the full confidence of the Secretariat of State in handling unconventional affairs. The distinction between the stated role and the actual one reflects the institution’s need to manage a crisis through a trusted operative.

The nunciature houses an unlikely collection of people: a Nicaraguan counterintelligence chief, five Basque members of ETA, a Cuban economic adviser threatening suicide if he is not returned safely to Havana, a Spanish intelligence agent, three Colombian drug traffickers, and Noriega himself. Outside, U.S. soldiers install loudspeakers and blast rock music around the clock to wear down the nuncio and those sheltering with him. Inside, Bonino requires the refugees to attend daily Mass as a condition of asylum. The unlikely congregation exchanges the sign of peace across political and criminal divisions while the siege continues beyond the walls.

Negotiations and the attempted assault

On the critical night, Delta Force commandos, their noses painted black, attempt to storm the nunciature. Quart remains in telephone contact with the archbishops of New York and Chicago until he secures President George H. W. Bush’s intervention to halt the entry. Noriega eventually surrenders without imposing many conditions. The Nicaraguan and Basque refugees are discreetly moved out of Panama, while the traffickers disappear and later turn up in Medellín.

A separate, confidential arrangement is made to get the Cuban adviser, Girón, out. The Spanish intelligence agent helps evacuate him in the trunk of an old Chevrolet Impala rented by Quart, risking his career in the process. Because the agreement is secret, the U.S. soldier Kowalski does not know about it. He stops the car, and Quart’s attempt to mediate fails: Kowalski strikes him, breaking his shoulder despite the visible clerical collar and papal passport. Girón spends a month in a Miami jail; after release, he obtains political asylum in the United States and gives an interview to Reader’s Digest under the title “I Was Deceived by Castro, Too.”

Consequences and significance

The episode is later regarded at the Institute for External Works as a classic example of crisis diplomacy. Quart’s work helps secure Noriega’s surrender, prevents the commandos’ assault, and arranges safe passage for several people whose circumstances and allegiances differ sharply. Yet the broken shoulder marks the limit of his authority: diplomatic negotiation can produce a secret agreement, but it cannot ensure that a soldier outside the chain of communication will recognize or respect it.

The injury becomes Quart’s only professional scar. It is also an enduringly ambiguous credential: Monsignor Spada treats it ironically as a badge of courage or martyrdom, while Quart would have preferred the soldier to take the Vatican passport seriously. Panama thus supplies both the Institute’s exemplary case study and the bodily cost that complicates its polished account of success.