An Outsider in the White House: Jimmy Carter, His Advisors, and the Making of American Foreign Policy

8. NEGOTIATIONS WITH PANAMA

88 8 NEGOTIATIONS WITH PANAMA In a second set of negotiations begun at the beginning of his term in office, Jimmy Carter expeditiously came to terms with a foreign adversary. In early September 1977, Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos Herrera put their signatures to treaties that would transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama by 2000.The representatives of twenty-six other Western Hemisphere nations witnessed the ceremony, including several heads of state. A bit of history was introduced into the proceedings with Carter’s presentation of former president Gerald Ford, Lady Bird Johnson (widow of former president Lyndon Johnson), and former secretaries of state William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger to the crowd. The president observed that three previous U.S. administrations had been involved with the issue. General Torrijos noted in his remarks that the original treaty had been signed not by Panama but by a French citizen and that the new accords created some potential problems for the Panama Canal. But Panamanians, he said,“hold no feelings of rancor” for the people of the United States and that President Carter, by raising“‘morality as a banner in our relations,’ was representing the‘true spirit of the American people.’”1 In accordance with the wishes of presidential aide Hamilton Jordan, the PanAmerican aspects of the treaty were noted by the press, not just Torrijos. But CBS’s Walter Cronkite did not cover the story as Jordan envisaged; NBC provided live coverage of the event.2 At a White House dinner after the ceremony, foreign ministers and U.S. senators mingled with Ford and Kissinger as well as Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, and other notables. Sol Linowitz, one of the chief negotiators, sat next to General Augusto Pinochet of Chile. Afterward, Isaac Stern and André Previn entertained their distinguished audience, performing sonatas on the violin and piano. At the State Department, Cyrus Vance held a separate reception for ministers and their guests.3 Carter, it appeared, had many good reasons to celebrate. He had in hand what appeared to be a major diplomatic triumph. The administration had taken on an important task and, against considerable odds, had finally carried it off. Diplomatic professionals primarily conducted the negotiations, but Carter’s commitment to their efforts was essential to their success. Later, the Carter administration, like many others before it, faced impediments in the home base beyond any it experienced in the foreign field. This was an old American story. NEGOTIATIONS WITH PANAMA 89 The Commitment Jimmy Carter had placed Panama near the top of his foreign policy agenda for several reasons. Confronting rising nationalist sentiments in Latin American and the threats of revolutionaries disrupting traffic on the canal, the Linowitz Commission on U.S.– Latin American Relations had called the matter “the most urgent issue to be faced in the hemisphere.”4 Moreover, there was Republican support for taking on the matter. The Ford administration had been working on the project and Kissinger told Carter in a private session shortly after his election that in the canal matter U.S. relations with Latin America were at stake. All Latin American governments supporting Panama believed that the United States should give up some sovereignty; even Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) might be a supporter. The Mexican government, it seems, had told the senator that they would “send a division to help the Panamanians in the event of conflict with the U.S.”Though Kissinger“didn’t know whether or not the Mexicans were bluffing , they had impressed Goldwater.”5 The president’s advisors were all in accord. Carter saw the controversy as “sapping away our nation’s influence in the Southern hemisphere.”Vance thought that Torrijos, the strong man governing Panama, might be“forced to yield to ultra nationalist pressures and to acquiesce to violent disruption of the canal operations” should the canal not be returned. “Such an outcome could easily have expanded into an international confrontation, with world opinion solidly against the United States.”6 Brzezinski thought the administration should take advantage of the president’s honeymoon period to secure support for a Panama Canal treaty. Possible electoral damage would be minimized with swift legislation, “leaving them aside and trying to get them ratified in the third and fourth year would have been impossible.”7 A possible side benefit to the whole enterprise was noted by Hamilton Jordan. The Panama Canal treaties would serve as a dry run for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty...