Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever [Hardcover]

David Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

In the summer of 1985, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the legendary Panama strongman, was just one of hundreds of potential suspects identified at the ground level in the daily combat in the Drug War raging around Miami, down where the Drug Enforcement Agencys rubber met the road. How it came to pass that 20,000 soldiers would be sent to invade Panama, grab the General and haul him back to the U.S., is one of the wilder, and least known stories in modern history up to now. This is, after all, the only time in its 225 year history that the United States has captured a world leader and tried him for violations of American lawviolations committed on that rulers own native turf.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's no shortage of books on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, which resulted in the capture of Manuel Antonio Noriega. Yet Shooting the Moon may be the most entertaining, as author David Harris blends the genres of legal thriller and true crime to produce a lively account of how and why the federal government decided to haul in the Panamanian strongman. It's an extraordinary story: "Just once in its 225 years of formal national existence has the United States ever invaded another country and carried its ruler back to the United States to face trial and imprisonment for violations of American law committed on that ruler's own native foreign turf." In large part, Shooting the Moon is the tale of the creative investigators and lawyers who made the case against Noriega. There's plenty of politics, too, with parts played by the first President Bush, Oliver North, and Eliot Abrams. Readers will also learn much about the world of drug smuggling in the 1980s, from the bureaucratic workings of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to the operations of Colombia's cocaine-peddling Medellin cartel. The book screeches to a halt just as the invasion gets underway--the military effort and Noriega's actual arrest are described in cursory fashion, taking up just a few pages at the end. Harris primarily focuses on the legal and political aspects of the case as they developed in Miami (where the case against Noriega was built) and Washington (where the powers that be called the shots).

Readers may need a few pages to get used to Harris's gonzo style--the first sentence of the book runs a whole paragraph, and his prose sometimes seems more suited for the spoken word than the written one--but it's worth the effort. Harris is an evocative writer; he describes Noriega's famous countenance as "a face that looks like somebody lit it on fire and then extinguished the blaze with an ice pick." For readers who crave narrative detail, this is a good yarn. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Harris's smartly rendered, admirably detailed exploration of the bizarre, violent road from Iran-Contra to the prosecution of Panamanian General Manuel Noriega synthesizes three distinct stories involving everyone from the Med‚ll¡n cocaine cartel to CIA Director William Casey, Oliver North, and assorted generals, federal agents and state's attorneys. During the Reagan-era cocaine wars, ambitious DEA agents went after Noriega for allowing cartels to ship drugs from and launder money in Panama. On the other hand, the autocratic, ruthless Noriega had long been the go-to man for CIA and covert military operations against Central American communism. Veteran author Harris (The League, etc.) persuasively argues that the dictator's cartel business overlapped with CIA incursions, primarily against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. Finally, Iran-Contra's rapid 1986 unraveling caused Noriega's American protectors to betray him. Following George Bush's election , unprecedented U.S. military action into Panama costing 28 U.S. and numerous Panamanian lives deposed Noriega, who then faced a Florida grand jury. (DEA executives, horrified by this pursuit of their onetime asset, nearly derailed the responsible agents' careers.) Harris portrays Noriega as the ultimate grifter and certain key American players as quasi-heroes: DEA agents struggling against bureaucracy, the dictator's sleazy legal team and former partners who turned state's evidence and Canal Zone military authorities with the unwelcome task of enforcing the State Department's capricious demands. Although his sometimes purple prose relies too much on unnamed sources, Harris's investigative epic of governmental malfeasance and retribution reads like an international thriller. (May 21)Forecast: Antiwar activist Harris will attract some conservative readers, and many academics and progressives, with his relatively balanced treatment. Harris will promote the book particularly in the Bay Area, where he lives, and the launch of the book will be televised on C-SPAN.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 394 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company; 1St Edition edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316340804
• ISBN-13: 978-0316340809
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,125,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Highly Inventive History, December 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever (Hardcover)

I know several of the characters in Harris' book, and he has invented a lot of their colorful talk and dress. In just one example Raymond Takiff ("Roy" in the index!) was from West Philadelphia, Overbrook Park, just south of the Main Line, not South Philadelphia. Harris makes Takiff, a Villanova graduate and former history teacher who considered himself an intellectual, sound like a cheap South Philly hoodlum. Takiff was a snappy dresser, in the South Florida style (Silk, please, not Rayon!), and the scene with the shorts and brogans was a grotesque invention. Harris also misspells Takiff's daughter's name! Most details on the other lawyers involved are also highly imaginary. As an indication of the sloppy job Harris did, he misses some colorful items, too, such as Takiff maneuvering the judge in the trial of the 91 year old woman accused of cocaine possession into helping the defendant out of the witness stand!
No wonder a number of the characters in this book are not named, or personal background and color is missing. Since Ray Takiff is dead he couldn't defend himself but I'd guess that some legal threats were involved with many of those in this book, and the publishers took the names and/or details out when they were unable to verify all the "facts".
The large percentage of mistakes on items I have personal knowledge of are a likely indication that the error level in this book is pretty high. Not a trustworthy source of information.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Too Captivating, June 5, 2001

By 

Edward Price (Dallas, Tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever (Hardcover)

As a recent high school graduate, I have lately found a little more time to do some personal reading, and I started with David Harris' account of the eccentric rule and arrest of the de facto ruler of Panama in the 1980's: General Manuel Antonio Noriega. Before reading this book, I knew the basics behind Noriega's demise, but Harris' account is absolutely thrilling in that he takes the reader behind the scenes, so to speak, and allows a glimpse of the happenings from the inner-circle of both the US and Panamanian governments. This work reminded me in some ways of Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World due to its style as a journalistic narrative. Harris includes interviews, excerpts from newspapers and magazines, and at times his own subjective personal input. This work will probably never attain the same respect as is awarded to Reed's work, but in my mind it should. It is just as captivating and exciting to read

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Historical account of the events of Noriega, August 9, 2011

By 

P. Mitchell (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever (Paperback)

Since I lived in Panama from 1981-1984, I remember Noriega and the dealings and the voiding of elections he did while head of the Panama Defense Forces. And, unfortunately, he was supported in part by the U.S. This book, although written in a novel format, depicts the real and truthful historical events of him and his demise.