Ricardo de la Espriella

Ricardo de la Espriella Toral (born 5 September 1934) is a Panamanian politician who was the President of Panama from 31 July 1982 to 13 February 1984.

Early career Ricardo de la Espriella has an economics degree from Stanford University and a law degree from University of Florida. Espriella was the general manager of National Bank of Panama from 1970 to 1978, when he became Vice President of Panama on 11 October 1978.

As vice president, De la Espriella was also head of the National Finance Commission (Comision Financiera Nacional or CFN) before Royo's resignation.

Presidency De la Espriella was a puppet president during a period when the country had only a "democratic façade." , sending the text to the UN as well as to President Ronald Reagan. On 26 July 1983, Reagan wrote a brief letter to each of the Contadora Four , thanking and congratulating them and sharing the principles the United States held must be part of any long term solution.

De la Espriella remained public and appeared in Time magazine, Newsweek, and other magazines - one of which printed a 1983 photo of him sitting next to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush who sat alongside a young, uniformed Manuel Noriega.

In February 1984, De la Espriella was pressured by Noriega and his reorganized National Defense Forces to reshuffle his cabinet to include supporters of Nicolás Ardito Barletta. When he seemingly balked at that, he was summoned away from his family and flown to a meeting in the capital with Noriega and Colonel Roberto Díaz Herrera

Since 1985, he has served as a president of a consulting and investment firm Ret Corporation. In 2007, he started a nine-year term as a member of the board of the Panama Canal Authority.