A Hunted Noriega Reportedly Neared Suicide : Panama: The ousted strongman grew dispirited, an aide says. He feared that he would be shot by a U.S. soldier.

PANAMA CITY —  A distressed Manuel A. Noriega nearly committed suicide in a secret hide-out three days after the U.S. invasion after becoming convinced that the only remaining option was death at the hands of a U.S. soldier, a close Noriega associate disclosed Friday in offering the first insider’s account of the ousted dictator’s flight.

“He did not want to end his life shot by a GI Joe from Missouri who nobody knew,” said Mario Rognoni, a former minister of commerce who remained in frequent telephone contact with Noriega and his confederates until the former strongman took refuge in the papal nunciature here.

According to Rognoni, Noriega, although initially cocky, had grown progressively dispirited during his four days on the lam after learning of the surrender of his top colonels in the Panama Defense Forces and the postponement by the United Nations of action that he had hoped would bring about a cease-fire.

Rognoni, whose downtown office became a communications center for Noriega loyalists during the turbulent period, said that Noriega dismissed most of his bodyguards on the night of Dec. 23 and made clear that he planned to shoot himself rather than die what he thought would be an ignominious death while fleeing American forces.

But Rognoni said in an interview that Noriega suddenly changed his mind after receiving a mysterious telephone call early the next morning and agreed to seek asylum at the Vatican embassy under a plan for which his associates had begun to lay the groundwork soon after the U.S. attack. By early afternoon on Christmas Eve, Noriega was safe inside the gates of the seafront mansion that houses the Vatican mission.

Throughout the ordeal, Rognoni said, Noriega appeared ever-conscious of his place in history, determined that his years of power and glory not end in a manner that was less than fitting.

“He said, ‘How would that be recorded? This guy from Biloxi who shot me?’ ” Rognoni said of the former strongman. Mistrustful to the end, Noriega carried two machine guns with him to a rendezvous at a Dairy Queen near his final hide-out, where he met a Vatican car carrying one of his bodyguards and two priests, he said.

Rognoni reported that a Noriega confederate had made the first overtures to the papal nuncio on behalf of Noriega on the day after the Dec. 20 invasion, when the associate requested help in enlisting world leaders’ support for a brokered cease-fire that would have guaranteed Noriega safe passage to a third country.

He also said that the confederate, whom he would not identify, then called back on Dec. 23 to ask a representative of the papal nuncio whether the Vatican “would accept as guest a very important person” and made final arrangements for the pickup just after noon on Dec. 24.

Rognoni, who as Noriega’s top spokesman became a familiar figure on American television, said he spoke directly to his former boss only a few times during the period. But he said he had spoken nearly a dozen times to a Noriega aide who stayed by the general’s side and acted as his intermediary in conveying messages over open phone lines.

At its height, the informal communications system involved a wide network of people, who every morning relayed instructions from Noriega to his troops and other loyalists, Rognoni said.

Rognoni was arrested by American soldiers the day after Noriega gained refuge at the nunciature and was held for four days in a detention center outside of Panama City. But he said he was never questioned about his role in helping to orchestrate the strongman’s surrender.

Rognoni, who aspires to head political opposition to the new government of President Guillermo Endara under the banner of the Revolutionary Democratic Party, provided his detailed account to four reporters during a 90-minute interview in his office, which is still decorated with photographs showing him with Noriega.

His description of Noriega’s time on the lam is far more detailed than an official U.S. account released by the U.S. Army Southern Command headquarters here in late December and conflicts with it in some ways. The military statement contended that Noriega never made contact with his subordinates and that he spent much of his time at a home owned by the parents of his reputed mistress, where Rognoni said he never sought shelter.

In the interview Friday, Rognoni also said that Noriega had been warned by sources in the United States about American troop movements hours before the 1 a.m. attack and that at 8 p.m., Dec. 19, he called a “red alert” and ordered military and paramilitary commanders to follow contingency plans under which they were to prepare to lead an armed resistance.

Then, he said, Noriega fled to the officers club in a converted hotel at Tocumen military airport, still convinced that any American operation would be a limited strike aimed at him and confident that his proximity to troops and airplanes gave him the best chance of escape.

After narrowly dodging the American paratroopers who landed at Tocumen, Noriega spent the next four days shuttling every few hours from safe house to safe house in the neighborhoods of Campo Limberg, Santa Clara and Via Lucre, all of them between the airport and downtown Panama City, Rognoni said.

In sending the instructions to his troops--two installments of which were taped and broadcast via radio--Noriega appeared hopeful that at least some could keep American troops at bay in accordance with a 72-hour battle plan while the United Nations might intercede with a cease-fire plan that would guarantee his safety, Rognoni said.

But those hopes were dealt a major blow Dec. 23, he added, with the surrender in the northern province of Chiriqui of Col. Luis del Cid, a close Noriega associate who controlled 4,000 troops, and the decision by the U.N. General Assembly to postpone discussion about Panama until after Christmas.

By that afternoon, Noriega had ruled out the first of three options presented to him by his associates, saying that Panama would suffer too heavily if he were to flee to the mountains to lead a guerrilla resistance.

While Rognoni and other associates encouraged him to surrender to American justice, Noriega expressed doubts that U.S. soldiers would permit him to leave the country alive and seemed settled on the remaining option: to take his own life with a gun.

Rognoni said he has been unable to discover who placed the telephone call early Dec. 24 that persuaded Noriega to change his mind.

“If it was in the movies, it would be Vicki,” he said, referring to Noriega’s reputed longtime mistress, Vicki Amado. “But that’s just in the movies.”