Page 114 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

INVASION
PANAMA
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Parliament to increase the wages of tax collectors. Forced to sell his property
to escape imprisonment for debt, Paine sailed to America in the fall of 1774. A
letter of recommendation from Benjamin Franklin soon earned Paine a position
as editor of Pennsylvania Magazine. A few weeks after his arrival, he wrote
"African Slavery in America," one of the best of the early attacks on slavery.
But as Paine was a giant among the pamphleteers and journalists urging the
cause of liberty in America, France, and, indeed, throughout the world, he was
among the most tragic victims of the abuse of free expression and of ungrateful
political enemies.
Paine spent almost a year in a French prison and came close to being a victim
of the guillotine because of the calculated indifference of Gouverneur Morris,
the American minister to France, 1792-1794. Afterward, Paine was scorned in
America because of the criticisms of institutionalized religion he made in The
Age of Reason and because he was a chief target for much of the calumny aimed
at Jeffersonian Democrats at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Paine, who died in poverty, could not rest in peace. His bones were unearthed
by one of those who vilified him while alive—William Cobett—and shipped to
England, where they were soon lost.
Astronomer and social commentator Carl Sagan characterized Paine as one
who "courageously opposed monarchy, aristocracy, racism, slavery, supersti-
tion, and sexism when all those constituted conventional wisdom."

SOURCE: Philip S. Foner, The Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine, 1945.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford

PANAMA INVASION. When U.S., troops stormed Panama on December 20,
1989, to depose dictator General Manuel Noriega, the high command wanted to
avoid the embarrassment it had encountered in the 1983 invasion of Grenada.
Then, hoping to avoid the "Vietnam Syndrome," where unfavorable news dam-
aged domestic support for a foreign war, the military excluded the press from
the invasion force. When reporters turned up in chartered boats, they were forced
back at gunpoint by U.S. troops. After that, a national media pool was formed
by reporters cleared and ready to mobilize with armed forces on short notice.
But in return for this concession, the military demanded almost total control
over any information obtained. The seven reporters taken to Panama with the
invading forces arrived four hours after the operation began, were kept in a
windowless room, and were not allowed to file dispatches for another six hours.
They were taken only to areas where the fighting was already over. Troops were
ordered not to talk to reporters. Some newspapers and television stations de-
manded to be allowed to land chartered planes, to which the military first agreed
but then refused, claiming it could not guarantee the safety of journalists. Con-
sequently, there was no coverage of combat, and coverage instead centered on
the aftermath, in which Panamanians were curiously portrayed as being over-
joyed at having been left homeless by the destruction. The war was portrayed