Saving the Panama Canal, one body at a time...

Miraflores - Memoir of a Young Spy

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Kirkus Reviews --

"The author poignantly captures the miasma and moral bewilderment of a tumultuous time as well as the despair that leads Nick to become a willing participant in deeds of which he will never be proud. This is a mesmerizing story, full of artistic restraint and yet unflinching ... A captivating spy tale, historically astute and morally nuanced."
 
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Author’s Note
 
            Miraflores — Memoir of a Young Spy is a work of fiction woven around actual events in Panama and the Canal Zone in 1958. Those events also affected my family, which was living in the Canal Zone at the time. I was a second grade student at Ancon Elementary School during the May 1958 riots and was one of many students accidentally teargassed. My father, Edward Yocum, also took 8mm film of the riots, which I reviewed extensively in researching the book. I visited the US National Archives and Records Administration to review newspaper articles from the now-defunct Panama City-based Star & Herald. I also visited Panama and toured the University of Panama, including some classrooms that were in use in 1958.
            I took liberties with the timing of events in May 1958 but left the main occurrences intact. For instance, there was an Operation Sovereignty in which Panamanian students planted their national flag throughout the Canal Zone. There was indeed seething anger felt by many Panamanians at compensation policies that paid American employees of the canal a higher wage than Panamanians doing similar work.
            The May 1958 riots in Panama City left eight people dead and were aimed ostensibly at the Panamanian government around educational reform and funding. There was also an undercurrent of anti-Americanism. Students at the University of Panama played a key part in the resistance.
            While the riots depicted in this novel were factual, other narrative elements like Operation Banyan Tree are entirely fictional. The characters of Nick Halliday, Maria Santiago, and their families are fictional. There is no evidence that leaders of the Panamanian opposition in 1958 were targeted with assassination by the US intelligence services.
             The riots in 1958 occurred against a backdrop of nationalism and resistance against entrenched ruling families and military juntas throughout South and Central America. Some of the resistance was encouraged and abetted by communist organizations.
            During this period, Western governments engaged in a vigorous international policy of containment against the perceived threat of communist expansion, with many overt and covert programs that were the basis of countless Cold War-era espionage activities.
            In 1977 President Jimmy Carter was a signatory to the Torrijos-Carter Treaty, which started the process of returning the canal to Panamanian control. US withdrawal was completed on December 31, 1999.