ABSTRACT
Throughout the last years of the 1980s, relations between the United States and the Panamanian government sharply deteriorated, eventually culminating in late December 1989, with President George H.W. Bush’s authorization of a US military incursion into Panama. This study will examine the Soviet media interpretation of Panamanian affairs, generally, and US policy toward Panama, specifically, between mid-1987 and January 1990.1 The study will be divided into four parts. The first will review the themes that remained constant in Soviet media coverage of US policy toward Panama prior to the initiation of Operation Just Cause in late December, 1989. The second part will chronologically examine the Soviet media’s interpretation of the developing political crisis within Panama and the deterioration of US-Panamanian relations between mid-1987 and late December 1989. The third part will highlight Moscow’s analysis of US objectives in launching Operation Just Cause, within the context of the themes developed during the previous two-and-a-half years concerning the thrust of US policy toward Panama. It will also review the Soviet interpretation of the conduct of the operation itself and the international response. Finally, the fourth part will draw some conclusions concerning Soviet media coverage of US policy toward Panama during the last years of the Cold War era. In the broadest sense, however, this chapter provides a case study of the application of propaganda techniques by state-controlled media.
