The Last Great Senate

by Ira Shapiro

  As the delegation left a seaside resort, one senator told a CBS news reporter: “It was one of the toughest interrogations that could be made of any man.” Metzenbaum, who had been among the most insistent questioners, offered an important verdict: “I feel it is just to say that General Torrijos has impressed all of us favorably, particularly by his honesty and frankness.” If the final meeting went as well as the one just completed, Metzenbaum went on, “I would not have any difficulty in confirming that I would vote for the ratification of the treaties.”

  Back in Washington, despite his considerable patience, Baker was getting increasingly irritated by cheap shots from his Republican colleagues. Helms, speaking to the Florida Conservative Union in mid-September, had said Baker was “squirming like a worm on a hot rock.” Dole, back in the Senate after his failed vice presidential bid, was also speaking out against the treaties and subtly suggesting Baker was weak for his refusal to take a stand. Mary McGrory, the acerbic columnist, described Baker as “the Republican Hamlet on the Potomac.” Now, Baker received a full briefing from Hildenbrand and Liebengood about Codel Byrd. The report left little doubt that Byrd would fully support the treaties, as would the other senators. Moreover, Baker’s staffers came away with the same positive reaction. Baker decided it was time for him to visit Panama.

  Over lunch at Torrijos’ seaside villa, Baker laid out the political realities. The treaties in their present form would not be ratified by the Senate. He insisted that the treaties must explicitly incorporate the clarifications that Torrijos and Carter had agreed to in October. “There can be no doubt about our right to use force to protect the canal,” Baker stated. “And in time of emergency, our navy ships have to be able to get through the canal as fast as possible.” Torrijos agreed, provided the Senate insisted on no changes that would require him to resubmit the treaty, which had already won a two-thirds majority in a countrywide plebiscite, to another majority vote.

  Torrijos’s commitment settled it for Baker. He had already decided that if these crucial principles were incorporated into the treaties, he would support them. He would be able to show that he had closed the loopholes and addressed the most crucial concerns, insulating himself from criticism and making the treaties something the Senate could responsibly ratify. There was an embarrassing moment when Torrijos told the press he had won Baker’s backing. Baker, who preferred to announce his own positions, said flatly that he had not made a commitment, which caused Torrijos to walk away angrily. Sensing Torrijos’s embarrassment, Baker softened his point, saying appropriate “modifications” might satisfy him and might also win the necessary backing of two-thirds of the Senate. The atmosphere eased, the two men shook hands, and the visit ended successfully.

  The next day, Torrijos sent a clear signal to Baker that he had gotten the minority leader’s message. An editorial in one of the government-directed newspapers was headlined: “I am not dogmatic, gentlemen of the Senate.” The editorial acknowledged that senators had some “reasonable objections” to the treaties and stressed Torrijos’s flexibility. Before leaving Panama, Baker told waiting reporters he was inclined to support the treaties if the changes he had suggested could be worked out. Byrd, who had not yet announced his intentions, decided it was time to declare his support. First, he called Baker, who was in Brazil, and the two leaders decided to work together to obtain ratification. It would prove to be a historically important decision.

  On January 13, 1978, Byrd announced his decision to support the treaties at his weekly news conference. Repeating the arguments of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Byrd said “the treaties are the best means of continued access to the canal.” He said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the Senate would ratify the treaties but admitted there would be a “difficult battle” ahead.

  Thanks to Byrd and Baker, the second year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency was starting on a promising note. Byrd had captured the central truth quite clearly several months before when speaking to administration officials. “You’re not going to get a treaty without me, and you’re not going to get a treaty without Senator Baker,” he said. “If you have both of us, you might get a treaty.”

  The Panama Canal issue provided a stark reminder that politics entails courage, risk, and, sometimes, sacrifice. Baker’s support went a long way to ensuring that he would not be the Republican presidential nominee in 1980. Frank Church’s support made it quite likely that his distinguished Senate career would come to an end. Church had supported a new Panama Canal treaty as far back as 1967. Redressing the injustice of the 1903 treaty was completely consistent with his world view. He was the Senate’s most eloquent critic of “Yankee imperialism” in Latin America. Unfortunately, that view had little support in Idaho, one of the most conservative states in the country. Perennial right-wing suspicion about Church had already intensified as a result of his historic investigation into the intelligence community. Now, thanks to New Right opposition to the Panama Canal treaties, the political atmosphere in the country and in Idaho was coming to a boiling point. By 1977, 78 percent of Americans wanted to maintain control of the canal. In Idaho, it was slightly higher.

  Church saw the political writing on the wall. His staff told him the treaties were like “dynamite” and a leadership role in supporting them would ensure his defeat in 1980. When Ambassador Sol Linowitz approached him about floor managing the treaties, because of Foreign Relations chairman Sparkman’s failing health, Church told him that he would prefer to back the treaties as quietly as possible. Ultimately, though, Church realized that he could not avoid acting on his convictions—he would take the lead on the floor. Paul Sarbanes, a freshman senator who chaired the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, would be Church’s deputy. Sarbanes had won plaudits during the House Judiciary Committee hearings on Nixon’s impeachment in 1974. He was already regarded as a likely star in the Senate.

  BY FEBRUARY 1978, THE stage was set for a historic debate. Most Americans still opposed the treaties, but supporters were prepared to do what they thought was in the national interest, irrespective of the consequences. Even such prominent conservatives as William F. Buckley and George Will supported the treaties, suggesting the national security benefits of compromise on the canal, argued by every president since Eisenhower, were visible to anyone who looked for them. John Wayne, the legendary actor who personified cowboy ruggedness, had been married to a Panamanian woman, and had visited the country many times. He sent a three-page letter endorsing the treaty to all the senators.

  By this time, there was evidence the pro-treaty forces might be gaining the upper hand. The Foreign Relations Committee had opted not to formally include the Carter-Torrijos understandings when they passed the treaty out of committee, instead recommending their inclusion later. This was part of a Church-designed plan to avoid tempting fate before the Panamanian plebiscite. When Byrd and Baker introduced the Carter-Torrijos amendments now, they had seventy-six cosponsors.

  But the growing, populist right wing of the Republican Party opposed the treaties ferociously. To be sure, many opponents were sincere in their positions, but they were also taking a position that had been carefully road tested for political advantage. Richard Viguerie, the leading right-wing political direct mail guru at the time, called the treaties “an issue conservatives can’t lose on. If we lose the vote in the Senate, we will still have had the issue for eight or nine months. . . . We will have rallied many new people to our cause. . . . [Conservative activists] can go to the polls, look for a person’s name on the ballot who favored these treaties and vote against him.” Paul Laxalt of Nevada, who was leading the Senate opposition and serving as liaison between New Right conservative leaders and Senate treaty opponents, told the California Republican convention: “This is the best political issue that could be handed to a party.” The personally genial Laxalt was well liked in the Senate, but he was no less opposed to the treaties than Helms, Hatch, and Thurmond.

  On February 8, 1978, the Senate debate began. Thi
s was the first time a Senate debate would be aired live on radio by the Public Broadcasting Corporation—a promising development, but one that was immediately dashed by James Allen, who refused to grant the “unanimous consent” necessary to expedite any Senate business. So listeners were forced to listen to Senate debate each article of the treaty with yea or nay votes on any proposed changes. The debate would be protracted, and there would be no place for senators to hide.

  Like so many Senate debates, the real action in this case was not on the floor, but in the cloakrooms and the leaders’ offices. Byrd and Baker, thoroughly committed and communicating regularly, needed time to identify undecided senators and to find the combination of appeals that would sway them. The opponents were doing the same. But for them, wooing individual senators was less important than the fire they were lighting at the grass roots.

  The battle over the Panama Canal treaties broke new ground in the use of direct mail and grassroots lobbying. The opponents were borrowing Helms’s favorite strategy: “make them see the light by making them feel the heat.” The Carter administration had launched its own extensive public education effort, spearheaded by Anne Wexler, the White House’s talented and hard-driving director of public liaison. Within weeks, Wexler had convinced America’s elites that the new treaties were in the national interest. But polls and the mail flooding into Senate offices showed that most Americans had not yet been convinced.

  Struggling for every vote, the Carter administration soon discovered the downside of Mansfield’s democratized Senate in which limited deference was given to seniority, expertise, or committee jurisdiction. Dennis DeConcini was a freshman Democrat from Arizona, a conservative state where sentiments against the “canal giveaway” were running high. For a brief time, it appeared DeConcini would have the best possible political cover. Arizona’s senior senator, Barry Goldwater, the first hero of the New Right, had given serious thought to supporting the treaties, concerned that guerilla warfare might break out if the canal was not returned to Panama. Carter talked to Goldwater and several times expressed great hope that Goldwater might be with them. Yet ultimately Goldwater decided he could not go against so many of his strongest supporters.

  DeConcini, stuck in a politically difficult position, decided the Byrd and Baker amendments were too weak. In his view, there should be no uncertainty about the United States’ ability to intervene if unrest in Panama threatened canal operations. He introduced an amendment on February 9, which stated that if the canal was closed or its operations interfered with, the United States could take “such steps as it deems necessary” to reopen or restore operations.

  Many treaty supporters believed the DeConcini reservation was necessary to secure key votes. But the Carter administration, which was beginning to earn grudging respect from the Senate for its improved congressional relations, now failed to check its other flank. Reassured by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher that the reservation would be acceptable to Panama and nervous about the future of his signature foreign policy initiative, Carter agreed to the amendment on March 15.

  Neither Christopher nor anyone else had checked with Torrijos. Panamanian leaders were enraged by the news. They had accepted many amendments and reservations to win Senate votes, but DeConcini’s language undermined the basic idea of the treaty. It re-enshrined the 1903 concept of “perpetuity.” Ambassador Jorden told Washington the DeConcini reservation was flatly unacceptable to Panama, and “if adopted, could cause rejection of the treaty.”

  Every difficult negotiation has its crisis points, when the possibility of failure becomes vividly real, and everything thereafter rides only on cool judgment and improvisation. This was one of those moments.

  The White House and Senate worked frantically to explore whether another reservation could be added to undercut the impact of DeConcini’s language. Byrd was seething at DeConcini but cautious about trying to find consensus on new language at the eleventh hour, fearing he would lose DeConcini’s vote and several others. Consultations with Sarbanes and Vice President Mondale reached the same conclusion: changing the DeConcini reservation was impossible at the moment. The only realistic course, they decided, would be to convince Torrijos to stay calm, pass the Neutrality Treaty, and find a way to fix the problem during consideration of the second treaty. Torrijos and his advisers, despite their anger, agreed to go along for the moment.

  On March 16, just before the conclusion of debate, DeConcini rose to offer his reservation. Metzenbaum and Kennedy spoke strongly against it, calling it a throwback to the attitudes of the 1903 treaty and completely contrary to the new partnership with Panama that the current treaties sought to build. But most treaty supporters assumed the DeConcini reservation was a necessary evil, which had been fully vetted and discussed with Panama. The Senate approved the reservation 75–23.

  The historic debate had finally reached its conclusion. The majority leader had the last word. Byrd began by quoting the words Shakespeare gave Brutus before the Battle of Philippi:There is a tide in the affairs of men,

  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,

  Omitted, all the voyage of their life

  Is bound in shallows and in miseries

  On such a full sea are we now afloat.

  And we must take the current when it serves,

  Or lose our ventures.

  Byrd acknowledged to those who supported the treaties, “your badges of courage may be the dents in your armor.” But “nothing can be politically right if it is morally wrong. In my judgment, it is not only economically right, not only commercially right, not only right from the standpoint of the security interests of our country, not only politically right, but it is morally right that we vote to ratify these treaties, and thus live up to the principles that we have so long espoused among nations.”

  The vote was finally called. Vice President Mondale instructed the gallery to be silent. Every senator was in his seat for the vote, which happens only under extraordinary circumstances. The Senate voted 68 to 32. Byrd and Baker had the votes, with one to spare, and with two-thirds of the senators present and voting, the Neutrality Treaty was agreed to.

  A historic victory in a legislative battle of this magnitude would ordinarily trigger a night of celebration for the White House and its Senate supporters, before exhaustion set in. But this time, the elation was short-lived.

  WITHIN HOURS, THE WHITE House began to understand that the “DeConcini fiasco” had caused a poisonous backlash in Panama. Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s chief of staff, lamented not having recognized the danger posed by the reservation and reported that Carter was berating himself as well. Sarbanes, who had been steadfast and near-brilliant in his responsibilities as a floor manager, was incensed by the administration’s poor planning. Exhausted from the all-out effort to win passage of the first treaty, the White House had no strategy for neutralizing the DeConcini amendment, but officials desperately tried to reassure Torrijos, mostly on the basis of faith, that the problem could be rectified in the second treaty.

  By April 6, while the Senate was debating the second treaty, the administration and State Department had still not found a way to solve the problems created by the first. The Panamanians were pressing for strong language making it clear that the DeConcini reservation was overruled by the Organization of American States charter and the Charter of the United Nations, which prohibit armed intervention by one state in another’s territory. The Panamanians’ harsh language was straining treaty supporters and giving right-wing opponents a public relations bonanza. Several liberals, some of them among the treaties’ strongest advocates, were threatening to pull their support altogether, and Baker warned Panama on CBS News that “just the twitch of an eyelid, just the slightest provocation or expression that these treaties, or this treaty in this form, is not acceptable to Panama, and this whole thing could go down the tubes.”

  Remedying the impact of the DeConcini reservation should have been a manageable problem. But the key senato
rs and the White House had very little room to maneuver. If they went too far in providing reassurance to Panama, they ran the risk of looking weak and losing the votes of DeConcini and others who had been hesitant to come on board. Relations between the Panamanian government and the Carter administration were deteriorating rapidly. The White House and the State Department seemed unable to admit the magnitude of their error, and therefore could not rectify it. The senators would have to devise a solution.

  The senators found an important ally in Mike Kozak, one of the State Department’s legal advisers. Kozak had devoted himself to the Panama Canal treaties for several years and was determined to not let them go down the drain. He wrote a tightly reasoned statement any senator could deliver to show the DeConcini reservation did not provide a license for the United States to intervene in Panama’s internal affairs and shared it with Hoyt Purvis, Byrd’s chief foreign policy adviser. Purvis told Kozak he had been thinking along the same lines, but that Byrd would not want to be out in front of the movement to modify DeConcini. He suggested giving the language instead to Church, who had devoted all his energies to the treaties for months, exposing himself to Republican vitriol at home.

  Church read the statement and quickly embraced it. He went to the Senate floor, and won recognition from the chair.

  “It is highly regrettable,” Church stated, “that in the course of strengthening the Neutrality Treaty—by removing the ambiguities that we found in it—we appear to have introduced a new ambiguity which is causing grave concern among the people in Panama.”

  Church argued that “the U.S. policy of intervention is long gone.” He cited the U.N. Charter and other international agreements that prohibited interference in the internal affairs of other countries and quoted Senator DeConcini himself saying: “It is not our expectation that this change gives to the United States the right to interfere in the sovereign affairs of Panama.”