Carter Wins on Panama

But it takes pleading and pressure--with more trouble ahead

Up rose the Senate's silver-haired Majority Leader Robert Byrd, ready to address the crowded chamber. After three months' tireless, tenacious work on behalf of the Panama Canal treaties, he was in a mood for Shakespearean rhetoric. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," he declared. "The Rubicon of decision on the treaties is now to be crossed."

That crossing was successfully made last Thursday afternoon. With the Senate galleries packed with spectators and all 100 Senators in their seats, the clerk began calling out the names. In just ten minutes of voting, the first of the two treaties was narrowly approved, 68 to 32--one more vote than the required two-thirds. The treaty gives the U.S. the right to defend the canal's neutrality after it is ceded to Panama by the year 2000. The second treaty, to be voted on next month, provides for the actual transfer of authority--and may provide another jarring Senate battle. But in the moment of victory last week, a great noise welled up from the Senate floor as supporters of the treaty converged on their leaders to congratulate them on a job well done.

At Hamilton Jordan's corner office in the White House, the mood was equally jubilant. As soon as they learned the outcome on TV, Jordan, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Harold Brown went to President Carter's private study to share the good news. Later, Treaty Co-Negotiator Sol Linowitz arrived. Carter, who had been watching his own TV, was beaming more broadly than anyone could remember for a long time. The President got on the phone to praise his often criticized Capitol Hill man, Frank Moore, who was proclaimed the "real hero of this thing."

Once the private celebration was over, Carter went to the White House press room to deliver a statement. "The people of the United States," he said, "owe a debt of thanks to the members of the U.S. Senate for their courageous action today in voting for the Panama Canal neutrality treaty. I am confident that the Senate will show the same courage and foresight when it considers the second treaty. This is a promising step toward a new era in our relationships with Panama and with all of Latin America." He singled out Byrd, Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, Gerald Ford and John Sparkman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, for special praise. As he was leaving the press room, a reporter called out: "How does it feel to win one?" Replied the President, smiling, "It feels good, I think."

That was quite an understatement.

Passage of the treaty was crucial for the nation's relationships with its southern neighbors, but it was also extremely important for Carter himself. The President's public standing has slipped after a series of setbacks: a dramatically declining dollar, a new surge of inflation, a dangerous coal strike, Soviet and Cuban intervention in the Horn of Africa and another outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East. A defeat of the Panama treaty after a heavily financed right-wing opposition campaign would have been disastrous for his presidency. Said a White House adviser: "Carter considered this a moment of truth for his Administration. He was either going to prevail or his presidency would be direly threatened." Added another aide, perhaps overoptimistically: "I really think that this is the precipitating event that will cause the pendulum to swing the other way."

The victory, however, had been costly. To win the support of the last hand ful of uncommitted Senators the President reluctantly agreed to accept two formal reservations that would be distasteful to Panama. One, provided by Arizona's Democratic Senator Dennis DeConcini, permits the U.S. to intervene militarily in Panama after the turn of the century if the canal should be closed down for any reason (such as a general strike, for example). The Administration claims that this right was implied in the original treaty; by making it explicit, however, the Senate is offering an affront to Panamanian national pride. The second reservation, introduced by Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, allows the U.S. to station military forces in Panama after 1999 in any circumstances that make the two governments consider it "necessary or appropriate."

The President kept Panama's chief of state, General Omar Torrijos, fully informed about the final days of debate and the two reservations.

Torrijos, who had behaved throughout with restraint and dignity, was far from pleased. "This is not a day for celebration," he told aides. "There is nothing to celebrate." Two minutes after the Senate tally, he called Gabriel Lewis, his Washington ambassador, and they talked for 25 minutes. Said Lewis afterward: "He did not tell me what he thought of the vote, and he didn't ask me either. We are keeping radio silence." Lewis, however, was ordered home on the first available plane. Jordan and Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher were supposed to accompany Lewis to Panama, but word came from Torrijos: "Not yet." He wanted to wait for the second treaty. Then he would compare the two documents to the original ones that he had signed with Carter before he made any public comment.

Torrijos was obviously waiting to see what the reaction would be in Panama. He had prepared the people for the Senate vote by lifting the usual censorship and allowing the newspapers and the government radio station to report the debate. For the first time that anyone could remember, Panamanians heard their leader described in unflattering terms. "The insults were unprecedented," remarked a businessman. After the vote was announced, Romulo Escobar Bethan-court, chief of Panama's negotiating team, went on Panamanian radio to defend the treaty. "The fundamental objectives that

Panama pursued have not been changed by these reservations that the Senators introduced," he said. "The treaty is a triumph for the Panamanian people and for General Torrijos."

For the most part, Panamanians seemed to take the news without much emotion. Most students were away on vacation from the University of Panama, so a mere 30 showed up to burn a copy of the treaty. "Yankee, go home!" they shouted. After watching the tally with Ambassador Lewis in Washington, Mario Parnther, secretary-general of the Panamanian Students' Federation, denounced the treaty as a burlesque. He said that President Carter had "promised that the treaty removed the right of the U.S. to intervene militarily in Panama, and now that is changed."

Administration officials were worried about the Panamanian reaction, but they thought any objections could be overcome. "The DeConcini reservation is a malicious thing," said a State Department official. "But I think it will not be that serious in the long run, if properly handled." Added another member of the Administration: "I don't think the Panamanian government is going to get all the attacks it has been dreading. I believe the country will accept the reservations and not find them all that horrendous."

The White House victory was all the sweeter because of the effort involved, Few times in recent history has a President mounted such a strenuous campaign to influence public opinion. Before the lobbying began last fall, polls showed that some 46% of the American public opposed the treaties, while 39% favored the treaties, which Carter had signed last September after 13 years of negotiations under four Administrations. A February Gallup poll indicated that 45% of Americans favored the pact and 42% were opposed--a turnabout for which the Administration can claim substantial credit. The

President has lived, thought and talked Panama for the past several weeks. Says an aide: "There's no other single foreign policy issue that, politically, consumed more of his time."

White House strategy was twofold: to convince the public and to convert the doubters in the Senate. The President held White House briefings for opinion makers from some 35 states, for out-of-town editors and for representatives of special interest groups. He spent hours on the telephone on behalf of the treaty. Even the day after the Palestinian terrorist raid on Israel, Carter phoned 16 Senators, all of them regarded as treaty opponents. Senator Pete Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, was cooking some mourning doves that he had shot when he got the call. Carter apologized for the interruption. In a voice that seemed to the Senator almost on the verge of tears, the President asked for help on the treaty vote, "the most important thing to the presidency." Domenici still said no, but he was impressed by Carter: "He was very serious, persistent, somber." A White House aide admitted that he thought Carter was crazy to make so many calls to his opponents. "But as a result, we got one vote to switch, and we could have had two if we needed them."

As well, Mondale, Jordan, Brown, Linowitz, Christopher, Brzezinski and Robert Strauss all worked the phones. So did key Republicans.

Through the White House switchboard. Gerald Ford spoke to Republican Senators from his home in Palm Springs, Calif. At the White House dinner for Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito, Carter even asked Lovelorn Columnist Ann Landers to help out. She agreed and called Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker.

In his zeal, the President also resorted to more questionable tactics. Though he had initially opposed a bill introduced by Herman Talmadge to pay farmers $2.3 billion for acreage taken out of production, the Administration reversed itself last week and supported the measure. Since last summer, DeConcini had been vainly urging the Administration to buy copper for Government stockpiles and thus relieve unemployment in the Arizona mines. Earlier this month, Mondale approached DeConcini on the matter. Said the Vice President: "We may be able to put something together." The week before the Senate vote, the White House offered to buy 225,000 tons of copper, less than half the amount DeConcini requested. "Too little, too late," responded the

Senator, who nevertheless accepted. There is no specific evidence of any unethical deals haying been made, but politicians know how to horsetrade.

"I wonder how much they had to offer Russell Long to get his support," one observer in the White House press room wondered. "Nothing much," suggested another, "except the transfer of the whole Louisiana Territory."

This maneuvering threatened to backfire when it became known. At least one treaty backer, Oregon Republican Bob Packwood, said he was disgusted with such tactics. The presidency would be damaged, said Packwood, if the "public thinks that the treaties were bought." Senator Paul Laxalt, a Nevada Republican and a leader of the antitreaty forces, complained that his side did not have comparable inducements to offer uncommitted Senators.

Despite the lobbying, the issue was still very much in doubt the weekend before the vote. Even some eventual supporters, like Henry (Scoop) Jackson, were growing concerned that the treaty might contribute to a weakening American posture around the world. The vote on the treaty was coming up just after the Russians and the Cubans had chased the Somalis out of Ethiopia. "A lot of members are uneasy about the African situation," said Jackson.

As the final week began, Byrd and his Senate head counters estimated that they had only 62 votes--still five short of what they needed. Sensing that the treaty had stalled, Michigan G.O.P. Senator Robert Griffin, a vigorous opponent, devised a strategy of sending the pact back to the President with the advice to renegotiate it with Torrijos. When Carter called Griffin to express his fear that a defeat would be a "devastating blow to the presidency," the Senator rather sharply replied: "I'm also concerned about the presidency. If you don't have the votes, you ought to take the initiative and call the treaty back, the same way you do a nomination that is in trouble in the Senate."

It was painfully clear that the President would have to go further to salvage the treaty, and that meant toughening some of its provisions for U.S. intervention in case of crisis. When Massachusetts Republican Senator Edward Brooke warned him that he was "creating a sort of Frankenstein situation by not allowing changes," Carter replied that he had given Torrijos his word: "I can't go back on it." Said Brooke: "Look, that's the Panamanians' problem. It's not our problem." The Senate leaders convinced Carter that he had to back down, and they began negotiations with Nunn, Talmadge, DeConcini and other Senators insisting on amendments.

The deadlock was finally broken when Nunn agreed to put his change in the form of a reservation instead of an amendment. A reservation is a condition applied to the treaty by one of the parties, and it does not have to be formally approved. An amendment, on the other hand, is a substantive change in the treaty that must be approved by both sides. Nunn, who figured that supporting the treaty without the reservation would have cost him 30% of his re-election vote this fall, was plainly relieved and swung over to the President along with Talmadge. Carter is a fellow Georgian, and the pair did not want to let him down if they could help it. "If I were President," said Talmadge, "I would not have signed the treaty. But we were confronted with a fait accompli. If the President loses, he also loses the effectiveness of the presidency."

DeConcini was more of a problem.

After he drafted his reservation, the State Department said it was too strong. "They wanted more from me, but I said no," he recalled. DeConcini asked for a meeting with Carter. Last Wednesday morning he met with the President in the Oval Office. Carter approved the language, and DeConcini was a safe vote. That made 64 for the treaty. Now that DeConcini's reservation had presidential backing, Brooke came out in support of the treaty. So did Henry Bellmon, a Republican from Oklahoma who ran into a fire storm of protest from Republicans in his state. Called everything from a "Communist traitor" to a "buzzard," he may well have jeopardized his Senate seat by voting his conscience. But, said Bellmon, "I know how I would feel if Panama owned a strip of land along the Mississippi." Paul Hatfield, a newly appointed Democrat from Montana, fled the pressures by spending a few days in the Rockies. But he too came out for the treaty.

Estimating that they now had the necessary 67 votes, the leaders looked around for a couple more just in case something went wrong. They approached Howard Cannon, the crusty chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, who opposed the treaties but feels devoutly loyal to the Senate. He was informed that there were enough votes to ratify, but that all the Senators would be blamed by the opposition for casting the deciding vote to "give away the canal." Would Cannon help his fellow Senators out? He agreed to vote in favor. The leaders also sounded out West Virginia Senator Jennings Randolph, a wavering anti. Up for re-election this fall, Randolph was already being attacked on the issue by his opponent. Would he support the President? "Presidents come and go," said the man who was first elected to Congress in 1932. But he agreed to cast the deciding vote if it was necessary. It turned out that it was not and, much to his relief, Randolph was able to vote no, as his constituents dictated.

A vote on the second treaty is planned for the week of April 10. The second vote could be as cliffhanging as the first; half a dozen Senators who voted aye last week say they will not necessarily vote the same way again. The opponents vow to keep up the pressure. The fact that one treaty has been approved, however, makes it somewhat easier to pass the other. Moreover, the point has been made--and reinforced by the reservations--that the U.S. has the perpetual right to come to the defense of the waterway. A treaty solidly in the national interest has become even more advantageous.

In all the furor over what a handful of indecisive Senators will or will not accept, it is too easily forgotten that the Panamanians are also a party to the treaty. They too have compromised on the delicate issue of foreign intervention, and they have been pushed even further by the reservations. The opposition will doubtless goad them still more by urging reservations or amendments on the second treaty when it comes up for a vote. If the Panamanians should decide to abandon the treaty, the U.S. will be left with its great ditch, but it will be surrounded by a hostile population. For all their zeal in defending what they take to be the national interest, the treaty opponents may well be sabotaging it.

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