First a friend, then an enemy of the United States, Manuel A. Noriega (born 1934), the strongman of Panama, was finally deposed by a U.S. military invasion, captured, and brought to Miami for trial in 1989.

Manuel Antonio Noriega was born the son of an accountant and his maid in a poor barrio of Panama City in 1934. At the age of five he was given up for adoption to a schoolteacher. He attended the National Institute, a well-regarded high school, with the intention of becoming a doctor, but a lack of financial resources prevented fulfillment of this career choice. Instead, Noriega accepted a scholarship to attend the Peruvian Military Academy. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in engineering. Returning to Panama, he was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in the National Guard and assigned to a unit at Colon, the city lying near the Caribbean terminus of the Panama Canal.

Colonel...