Squaring Off on the Canal

Both sides mobilize for the showdown on the treaties

Suddenly everyone was headed somewhere to talk about the Panama Canal treaties. With the pacts expected to be brought to a vote in the full Senate some time in March, seven members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by Chairman John Sparkman were in Panama last week to assess the situation there. So was the Duke himself, Actor John Wayne, a conservative on most issues but a supporter of the treaties ceding the canal to Panama. Meanwhile, a "Panama Canal truth squad," including several members of Congress and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting four U.S. cities to drum up opposition to the treaties. As part of an Administration counteroffensive, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance made a three-day swing through the South and West before shuttling off to the Middle East. This week Defense Secretary Harold Brown will hit the road for a three-state speaking tour.

The White House is mobilizing not a moment too soon. After the pacts were signed last September, the Administration let slide the all-important job of building support for them. Belatedly, the President began dispatching senior Cabinet members around the country to try to change minds. Carter is moving into overdrive as well. Last week he answered questions on the treaties via direct telephone hookups to Foreign Policy Association-sponsored meetings in Albuquerque and in Hattiesburg, Miss. He also sent letters to 3,000 American leaders in business and the professions, encouraging them to "help us lay the facts before the public."

The airborne truth squad got off to a false start. Stops in Nashville and Atlanta were scratched because of Hubert Humphrey's death. A storm that dumped 13 inches of snow on Cincinnati forced bypassing that city too. The first stop in the truncated, four-city "citizens' briefing" was Miami, where shoddy advance work produced a turnout of 250 people, including a number of Legionnaires and members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in full uniform. Most of those in the audience were elderly, conservative and already dead set against the canal pacts. Then it was on to St. Louis for a larger antitreaty crowd of 360 people and a dose of ripsnorting right-wing rhetoric. Said Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald: "This treaty is backed by the unholy alliance of Big Government, Big Business and Big Labor."

The squad took on a bit of glamour in Denver with the arrival of Ronald Reagan, who made the canal a major issue in his 1976 presidential campaign. Once again, the crowd needed little convincing, and Reagan derided claims that opposition to the treaties was faltering, calling them "hogwash." The crew then headed for its last stop, Portland, Ore.

In Panama, meanwhile, the Sparkman group was being treated to what is becoming the traditional package tour for visiting U.S. Senators, including a quick trip to the canal, talks with Panamanian officials and lunch with Torrijos. The Panamanian leader's guest of honor, seated at his right, was John Wayne; Committee Chairman Sparkman had to settle for the seat to Torrijos' left. Said the Duke, who started investing in Panamanian exports after World War II and scoffs at claims by conservatives that Panama's economy is a disaster zone: "I've come to see what this 'total failure' is that Governor Reagan keeps talking about." The Senators, however, came to see whether Torrijos would be willing to go along with some additions to the treaties that might make the deal more palatable to fence-sitting colleagues. The Panamanian leader was willing to qualify the treaties so that: 1) the U.S. explicitly has the right to defend the canal; 2) American ships will go to the head of the line in case of emergency; and 3) the U.S. will no longer be committed to a site in Panama should traffic necessitate the building of a sea-level canal.

In Washington, White House and State Department lobbyists were playing a numbers game of their own. The Administration figures it is still ten votes short of the 67 needed for ratification, with just under a score of Senators undecided and 24 staunch conservatives adamantly opposed to the treaties and eager to bury the chance of approval under as many as 40 amendments. The White House believes the odds are in its favor because of two not-so-secret weapons: Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd and Minority Leader Howard H. Baker. Byrd has thrown his considerable support to the treaties, and Baker says he will back them as long as they are modified slightly. But how to wheedle the Senate's swing votes into joining them? "The one who knows that best is Byrd," says an Administration official. "We're just waiting now on his advice."

Baker is operating amidst what he concedes to be "a lot of political danger." Unless he can get a majority of Republican Senators with him, he risks attack as a traitor to his party by such G.O.P. conservatives as Strom Thurmond and Paul Laxalt. That could damage, if not destroy, any chance of his becoming the Republican candidate for President in 1980. Says Baker: "The key to the thing is to assure people we are not sacrificing the security interests of the United States."

A poll in Baker's Tennessee gave treaty opponents a 2-to-l margin, but it also indicated that those numbers can be turned around if the White House agrees to amendments guaranteeing U.S. rights and privileges in the Canal Zone. The ultimate poll, of course, is the one that will take place on the Senate floor. Says an Administration vote counter: "We're within striking distance, and it's about a fifty-fifty ball game on the undecideds." In short, a brawl is shaping up in the Senate but with the Administration as the favorite.

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