The Nation: Now for the Hard Part

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Signing the Panama Canal pact was easy; selling it won't be

Not since John Kennedy's funeral in 1963 had so many heads of state descended on Washington at once. Nineteen national leaders, along with top officials of eight other Western Hemisphere nations—from Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to Argentina's President Jorge Rafael Videla—were in town with full, glittering retinues. The occasion: the signing of a Panama Canal treaty that was initialed last month after 13 years of on-and-off efforts through the Administrations of four U.S. Presidents.

The event was surrounded by all the relish and trimmings that Jimmy Carter could concoct. In the pillared, chandeliered, flag-draped Hall of the Americas in the Pan American Union building, Carter and Panamanian Strongman General Omar Torrijos Herrera signed two treaties (TIME cover, Aug. 22). The first gradually cedes control of the canal to Panama by the year 2000. The second guarantees permanent U.S. protection of the canal. "This opens a new chapter in our relationship with all the nations of this hemisphere," Carter told an audience of 1,500. He made a point of adding that if a new, sea-level canal is built, it will be done in Panama with the cooperation of the U.S. Said Torrijos: "Being strong carries with it the commitment to be fair, and you have turned imperial force into moral force." With that, he grasped Carter's hand and enfolded him in a hearty Latin American embrace.

The abrazo, of course, does not clinch the treaty, which faces a months-long scrap in the U.S. Senate and a plebiscite in Panama as well. But as last week's events sharply dramatized, Carter is going to use all his presidential resources to win approval of the treaty. He needs it to vindicate his foreign policy, which has run into snags in the Middle East, in the Far East and in the SALT talks. He also wants to emphasize that he is not solely preoccupied with East-West problems, but gives considerable weight to the crucial relationship between developed North and the underdeveloped southern portion of the globe. The Panama Canal treaty, he feels, is the key to establishing better relations with the South. As Costa Rican President Daniel Oduber told TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin, "Carter has raised much hope. He has rediscovered what has been there all along: we like you norteamericanos. He is giving us a chance to prove that."

All week long, Carter tried to prove that the feeling was mutual. At receptions and state dinners, Scotch and champagne flowed freely, and there were enough petit fours and napoleons to pave the Inter-American Highway. Hamilton Jordan, the Carter troubleshooter charged with getting the treaty through the Senate, testified to the importance of the occasion by showing up in a jacket and tie at a reception following the treaty signing. U.S. Protocol Chief Evan Dobelle, who had to arrange more than a score of identical red-carpet receptions, was described by one sympathetic observer as "busier than a centipede on a treadmill."