Grapevine

By PAUL GRAY/

BRING US THE DISCOUNTED HEAD OF MANUEL NORIEGA. A former Panamanian government official says the U.S. capture of Manuel Noriega could have been accomplished with less muscle and money. In 1988, he claims, he and some fellow Noriega opponents worked through the Israeli embassy in Washington to contact two former commandos of the Israeli Defense Forces. They concocted a plan that involved a 200-man special unit of the Ecuadoran army and would have cost approximately $3 million. The Rambo scheme was killed when the C.I.A. tipped off the Senate Intelligence Committee.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS