by Ira Shapiro
Johnson committed to negotiating a new treaty with Chiari in December 1964. However, by the time that treaty was completed in June 1967, Panama’s new president, Marcos Robles, caught in a tough reelection battle, was unwilling to fight for it. With Robles’s subsequent defeat in 1968 and Johnson’s decision not to seek reelection that same year, the treaty was orphaned, and the issue continued to fester.
Richard Nixon largely ignored Panama during his first term, focusing instead on the more pressing foreign policy issues of ending the Vietnam War, seeking an opening with China, and pursuing détente with the Soviet Union. In March 1973, Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, installed in a 1968 coup, forced the issue. He called a United Nations Security Council meeting in Panama at which the United States was forced to veto a resolution calling for a new “just and fair” treaty that would “guarantee full respect for Panama’s effective sovereignty.” That summer, Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger chose Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, one of the country’s most distinguished diplomats and former ambassador to South Vietnam, to begin negotiating a new treaty with Panama.
By February 1974, Kissinger and Panamanian Foreign Secretary Juan Antonio Tack had signed a set of “principles” that could form the bases of a new treaty. The principles included the United States’ use of “lands, water and airspace” necessary to operate and defend the Canal but set a fixed date for the return of the Canal Zone to Panamanian sovereignty. Senate conservatives soon shot back. A resolution sponsored by Strom Thurmond, the arch-conservative Republican from South Carolina, “in support of continued undiluted United States sovereignty over the United States–owned Canal Zone” won thirty-four cosponsors—enough to defeat any treaty. Nixon’s presidency was soon crippled by Watergate and, while negotiations continued, the Panama Canal became a low priority once again.
As negotiations dragged on, Panamanian frustration grew. As the 1976 presidential election neared, many feared renewed violence, perhaps even a seizure of the Canal. General George Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reassured the country’s leader, General Omar Torrijos: “General, you have my word as a soldier that we will work for a fair and just treaty . . . I am asking you to be patient a little longer and keep things under control until we can move ahead.”
For many Americans in 1976, the Panama Canal issue struck a deep and emotional chord. Troubled by the weak economy and humiliated by America’s loss in Vietnam, many voters saw challenges to American control over the canal as evidence of a country in retreat. They believed maintaining control over the canal showed American strength and purpose. The simplicity of the issue also made it an ideal political football. Ronald Reagan, challenging President Ford for the Republican nomination, trailed badly until he began attacking the “quiet, almost secret, negotiations to give away the Panama Canal.” The Reagan-allied American Conservative Union ran 33 newspaper ads and 882 radio spots on the issue in the North Carolina primary, helping deliver Reagan an upset victory. A Ford organizer later said the North Carolina campaign turned on “Sally Jones sitting at home, watching Ronald Reagan on television and deciding that she didn’t want to give away the Panama Canal.” It provided the momentum for Reagan to continue his challenge all the way to the Republican convention.
Jimmy Carter had said very little about the Panama Canal during his presidential campaign. But during the transition, Robert Pastor, his foremost Latin American expert, warned that unless a treaty was negotiated and submitted to the Senate in 1977, “violence in Panama is virtually inevitable, and the repercussions for the U.S. will be widespread.” Kissinger briefed Carter on the state of negotiations, underscoring Pastor’s message, noting that if violence broke out again, Mexico might send troops to back Panama, leading to unprecedented regional instability.
While previous presidents had favored a new treaty because of concerns about canal security, Carter also saw it as the cornerstone of a new relationship with Latin America. He hoped it would signal a powerful step toward a new, liberal internationalism, one pillar of which was promoting equitable relationships with smaller countries.
It would not be easy. Smaller than South Carolina in size, and smaller than Houston in population, Panama would soon loom very large in American politics.
THE SENATE PLAYS A special role in foreign policy. As far as treaties are concerned, its constitutional responsibility is to advise and consent. The reality is often far less constructive. John Hay, secretary of state to President Theodore Roosevelt, reflected on bitter experience. “A treaty entering the Senate is like a bull going into the arena,” Hay wrote. “No one can tell just how or when the final blow will fall—but one thing is certain—it will never leave the arena alive.” It was the Senate that ultimately shattered President Woodrow Wilson’s dream of a League of Nations, a United Nations precursor that might have stemmed Hitler’s rise. More recently, several important treaties, including the Law of the Sea Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, were not even submitted to the Senate because they were clearly doomed to failure.
Nevertheless, there were some reasons to be optimistic at the outset of the Panama Canal battle. Many of the Senate veterans in 1977 had just arrived in the Senate during the last major treaty considered there, the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty struck by President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1963. In that case, early opposition from Republicans and Democratic hawks, including Scoop Jackson, Richard Russell, and John Stennis, was worn down by Kennedy’s strong, patient advocacy, resulting in the treaty being ratified by an 80–19 vote. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen observed, Americans trusted Kennedy’s leadership and wanted desperately for the superpowers to move away from the nuclear abyss. However, it was doubtful that the Senate in 1978 would ever trust Carter the way they trusted Kennedy, and the Panama Canal clearly presented a “hot button” political issue. Would the senators, particularly those seeking reelection, be able to get past the politics and focus on the substantive issues?
The negotiators were working on two treaties. One would set forth new terms for the joint operation of the canal for the rest of the century, at the end of which Panama would assume total control. The other would guarantee the permanent neutrality of the canal and the right of the United States to defend it.
In the beginning, Byrd was ambivalent about the treaties. By background a hawkish, proud patriot, he had been a cosponsor of Strom Thurmond’s resolution three years earlier committing the United States to continued sovereignty over the canal. As he had begun to play an increasingly influential role in foreign policy, his views had become more nuanced. He was also a pragmatist who wanted to help a struggling Carter to a foreign policy victory if possible. All these factors made Byrd open to weighing the case for the treaties. His first step would be to ensure senators would be fully educated about the treaties and he loaned out his inner office, just off the Senate floor, as a classroom.
Over the next few months, Ambassador Bunker and White House Latin America Specialist Sol Linowitz led at least half a dozen seminars on the treaties to more than seventy senators. Byrd attended several sessions, sitting in the back, taking extensive notes on a yellow pad, and occasionally interjecting a pointed question. The diplomats impressed him with the case they presented, but Byrd kept his powder dry, not yet ready to commit.
In mid-August, as the diplomatic process had moved forward to the point where the basic principles of the treaties were settled, Carter invited Byrd and his wife, Erma, to a private White House dinner. Carter knew Byrd’s support was indispensable for getting the treaties ratified, and he took care not to pressure the proud majority leader too much. At the same time, he wanted Byrd to know the treaties were close to completion, and that the Senate would not be able to escape debating them. Byrd made no promises but underscored for the president that the treaties “had an uphill road to travel.”
As negotiations neared completion, senators began traveling to Pa
nama themselves. Ernest Hollings was recognized as one of the smartest, toughest, and most independent thinkers in the Senate. A graduate of the Citadel, a lawyer and former governor, Hollings had opposed a new treaty when Johnson put forth the idea. Now, however, Hollings approached the problem with an open mind. He grilled Panama’s President Demetrio Lakas and U.S. Lt. General Phil McAuliffe of the Southern Command, focusing sharply on whether the new treaties would strengthen or weaken U.S. access to the canal. A few days after returning to Washington, Hollings sent a newsletter to South Carolina with a ringing defense of the new treaties “as the only reliable and fair way for the United States to keep the Canal in use.”
Not all the Panama visits turned out so well. Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and Orrin Hatch, all openly opposed to the treaties, traveled to Panama in August 1977. They rejected most of the meetings that the U.S. ambassador tried to arrange for them, instead secretly recording a meeting with Lakas and turning the tape over to an anti-treaty newspaper columnist—an outrageous breach of diplomatic protocol. The right-wing Republicans’ action signaled just how hard, and how partisan, the fight over the Panama Canal would become.
CARTER AND TORRIJOS ANNOUNCED the completion of the Panama Canal treaties on September 16, 1977. Ten days later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began hearings in room 318 of the Russell Senate Office Building, a room used only for the most important hearings. Over three weeks, the committee would hear testimony from seventy-nine witnesses and accept countless written statements. The committee was working in the best tradition of the Senate, delving deeply into important and emotional issues, educating the public and educating itself.
Early questioning focused on what rights the United States would have to protect the canal once it had been turned over to Panama and whether U.S. warships would have priority over commercial vessels going through the canal. Statements by Panama’s chief negotiator, Romulo Escobar, most likely made for domestic consumption, had raised doubts that Panama shared the U.S. understanding on these issues, and senators wanted assurances. U.S. Ambassador to Panama William Jorden, appointed by Nixon in 1974, had been retained by Carter for the duration of the treaty fight. He testified that for Panamanians the issue was “not (about power over) the canal at all,” but about “the presence of a slice of territory (in Panama) in which the country on both sides has absolutely nothing to say about what goes on.”
On the issue of a U.S. right to intervene in the Canal Zone, he argued Panamanian and U.S. interests were not fundamentally different, but that Panamanians opposed the term “intervention” because of the legacy of colonialism. According to Jorden, “Intervention” in Panama and in the minds of Latin Americans has a very special meaning. When Latin Americans think about “intervention,” they think of foreign troops coming in, killing their people, removing their government, taking over and running the show. . . . They remember the Spanish, they remember the French in Mexico, they remember Haiti and Nicaragua, and all the rest of it. When they talk about “intervention” that hits a very sensitive nerve, and it is bloody difficult for any Panamanian to say: “Yes, we have given the United States the right to intervene.”
Perhaps the most crucial testimony came from the Pentagon. General Brown had been working on the treaty for four years. He made it clear that the U.S. national security interest was in using the canal, not owning it. “Our capability to defend the Panama Canal will be enhanced through cooperation with the government of Panama,” he said.
Howard Baker was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and participated extensively in the hearings. Like Byrd, Baker had been a cosponsor of the Thurmond resolution. Also like Byrd, Baker wanted to bide his time and make a considered decision. But Baker faced a much more complicated political calculus. He was up for reelection in 1978. He was the Republican leader, and an emboldened far-right faction of his party vehemently opposed giving away the Panama Canal. Unlike Dirksen dealing with the Test Ban Treaty, Baker would not be able to deliver many Republican votes under any circumstances.
Perhaps most importantly, Baker understood that supporting the Panama Canal treaties would likely end his hope of gaining the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. Howard Liebengood, Baker’s most senior legislative adviser, called the decision “a confrontation between statesmanship and politics” and said it “lends a chilling quality to the ‘Would you rather be right than President?’ cliché.” Many years later, Baker would remember his reaction to Jimmy Carter’s call in August 1977 asking for his support. “I wished he hadn’t asked,” Baker said. “It was an unwelcome challenge.” At the time, he wondered: “This has been kicking around for years. Why now, and why me?”
Baker was especially troubled when Panamanian negotiator Escobar questioned the U.S. right to defend the canal under the treaty and priority passage for U.S. warships. In Baker’s judgment, there was no way the Senate would advise and consent to a treaty unless those uncertainties were laid to rest. In October he told Carter as much with a dozen senators in tow. Carter got the message. He invited General Torrijos to Washington and after several hours of negotiation, the two issued a joint “statement of understanding,” which stated that American warships would be allowed to go to the head of the line of ships transiting the canal and that both Panama and the United States had the right to defend the canal from aggression. The statement clarified that this right to defend the canal did not create a U.S. “right of intervention” into Panamanian affairs, which was necessary to assure Panamanian passage of the treaties in an October 23 plebiscite.
Baker and Byrd both applauded the Carter-Torrijos statement but continued to withhold their endorsements. On November 9, Codel Byrd arrived in Panama City. The delegation included six other Democratic senators—Howard Metzenbaum, Paul Sarbanes, Walter “Dee” Huddleston of Kentucky, Donald Riegle of Michigan, Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii, and Jim Sasser of Tennessee. Codel Byrd also included three members of Byrd’s staff and, in a remarkable sign of cooperation between the two leaders, two of Baker’s most senior advisers, William Hildenbrand and Howard Liebengood.
On their first night in Panama City, the visiting senators dined with a cross-section of leading Panamanians from government, the business sector, and academia. Responding to the ambassador’s welcoming toast, Byrd gave the group a thoughtful description of the American political landscape. “What you have to understand,” he told them, “is that any senator voting for these treaties will pay a high political price. He will gain absolutely nothing personally by doing so. Therefore, you have to be tolerant and patient in bringing people around to understanding these problems and to taking this difficult decision.” It was an honest and important message that the audience needed to hear. Undoubtedly, though, the Panamanians thought they had been patient long enough. They had been waiting to redress the inequities of the 1903 treaty since the Eisenhower administration.
Codel Byrd had come principally to take the measure of General Torrijos. The Panamanian leader defied easy description. Critics attacked him as a “dictator” and a “tyrant,” and many Americans feared his ties with Castro. But American diplomats also praised his moderation in office and many believed he could be a trusted partner. Among Panamanians, Torrijos was a hero who was alleviating poverty in the countryside and making Panama a player on the world stage.
Torrijos impressed the senators on the second day of the tour, which they spent in San Blas territory, on the northeast coast of Panama, home of the Cuna Indians. The senators’ small plane landed on a dirt airstrip; they climbed into small boats to cross the lagoon to their island destination. Once there, Torrijos, who was acting as guide, presided over a meeting where a Cuna leader ran through a catalog of complaints about the Panamanian government, from an unreliable water supply to poor child health care. When Torrijos tried to offer explanations, the tough-minded woman cut him off. The senators, all veterans of town meetings, had never expected to see this type of grassroots democracy in the remote parts of Panama, with the
dictator they had expected to meet having to struggle to make his points.
The next day, Codel Byrd flew to Los Santos on the Azuero Peninsula, southwest of Panama City. It was cattle and farm country, and the people were celebrating the 156th anniversary of Panama’s independence from Spain. As the people of the town drank beer and danced to the music of a local band, Torrijos walked through the crowds, without a car or bodyguards, shaking hands, hugging women, and picking up children. The senators followed in his wake, admiring a natural politician at work.
Many senators and representatives had visited Panama in the previous months, but this delegation was the toughest. They asked Torrijos about his relations with Castro, why he had sent some of his people into exile, when he was planning to have elections, and whether he would step down. Riegle, Metzenbaum, Huddleston, and Sasser asked the harshest questions, often surprising Ambassador Jorden with their rudeness. But Torrijos responded calmly and patiently to even the most incendiary questions. Whatever he really thought of the senators—the phrase “ugly American” occurred to Ambassador Jorden—he understood that these visitors held Panama’s future in their hands.