by Ira Shapiro
Church allowed that the Panamanians might be “overreacting” or interpreting the reservation “out of context.” But given the history of U.S. interference in Latin American countries, he said, Panama’s reaction was “not so inexplicable.” Church urged the Senate to find “an appropriate way to reassure the people of Panama that our intention was not to nullify the specific pledge of non-intervention” that had been incorporated in the first treaty. He closed eloquently: “Let us find a way to tell all the nations of this hemisphere that we have not in one afternoon nullified the last 40 years in the history of United States–Latin American relations. Let us make clear to the world that we are not seeking for ourselves the kind of rights the Soviets claimed in Czechoslovakia in 1968.”
When Church finished, Daniel Patrick Moynihan took the floor to congratulate him for “what in history may prove to be the critical address in this long, crucial debate.” Moynihan’s praise was justified. Church had laid the problem before the Senate frankly and eloquently. He had shown an understanding of Panama’s anger and frustration, but he had also been careful to give DeConcini room to claim Panama had misunderstood his intent.
On April 13, the Washington Post ripped DeConcini and the Carter White House in a hard-hitting editorial. Referring to future historians, the Post wondered: “How was it, they may ask, that the treaties, with their immense diplomatic and political freight, came to hinge on the ill-informed whims of a 40-year-old freshman senator of no previous renown, of no known international awareness, or little experience of any kind beyond minor administrative posts in Arizona?” The editorial criticized Carter, saying he had “blundered sorely in failing to anticipate the explosive Panamanian reaction” to the reservation and called on him to impress on DeConcini that “if he persists in his ways, the wreckage will be on his hands and on the hands of those other senators so cynically playing his game.”
Jimmy Carter knew that if the Panama Canal treaties failed, no one would remember DeConcini very long; the “wreckage” would belong to the president, causing incalculable damage. Carter told Hamilton Jordan he wanted to go on national television that evening, to urge the Senate to adopt a resolution reaffirming the longstanding U.S. policy of not intervening in other countries’ internal affairs. The response from Byrd, Church, and others was harshly negative. Many of the senators supporting the treaties were being savaged politically in their home states. Carter going on television to reassure the Panamanians would be very damaging to the senators already under political fire from the right. Moreover, they said, the president and his administration had mishandled DeConcini long enough. They should stand aside now and let the Senate solve the problem. Carter quickly agreed to drop the idea.
AS THE LONG SENATE debate finally neared a conclusion, Byrd, Church, and Sarbanes shuttled between the majority leader’s office and the vice president’s, hammering out a new resolution that would neuter the DeConcini amendment without angering its author or his supporters. The language also had to be strong enough to mollify a half-dozen treaty supporters, led by Democrat Mike Gravel of Alaska, who were prepared to bolt unless the interventionist language was modified. Gravel was not a Senate heavyweight, but he had studied the canal treaties diligently and was deeply offended by the DeConcini reservations, even to the point of advising the Panamanian ambassador to “stick to (his) guns,” because Gravel and other supporters would kill the treaty if the problem was not solved to Panama’s satisfaction.
Byrd recessed the Senate on Thursday night, to give himself and the others until Monday, April 17, to find a satisfactory solution. Several versions of the resolution were drafted and tried out on DeConcini and his allies, but the senators also maintained close contact with the government of Panama, through its Washington counsel, William Rogers, a former undersecretary of state. Byrd, Church, and Sarbanes were very careful not to make the same mistake the Carter administration had. They would not lose touch with Panama.
On Saturday, April 15, Panamanian Ambassador Gabriel Lewis and Rogers were ushered into the Capitol and taken to S-208 where Senators Byrd, Church, and Sarbanes and Deputy Secretary Christopher were waiting for them. It was 11 a.m., and they were scheduled to meet with Vice President Mondale at 12:30 p.m. Every successful negotiation must have a deadline. This one was strict. They gave themselves ninety minutes to finally solve the DeConcini problem.
Ambassador Lewis was under instructions to insist on language in the second treaty to protect his country’s “political independence” and “territorial integrity.” So far, the resolution was not sufficiently explicit on those points, he said, and was therefore unacceptable.
Ambassador Jorden vividly described the scene in his memoir. Byrd put a copy of the resolution on the coffee table and, running his hand two-thirds of the way down the text, said: “We’re in agreement down to here.” Lewis said that was correct. “And you want to change the rest?” Byrd asked. Lewis again said yes. Byrd knelt on the floor beside the low table and began questioning Lewis, crossing out some words and adding others. Church and Sarbanes crowded around the coffee table, while Christopher and Rogers stayed in the background.
They worked through the paper, making changes to win Lewis’s approval while staying as close to the compromise language they had shown to other senators as possible. The senators and the ambassador reached one last temporary impasse. Lewis wanted an explicit reference to Panama’s “territorial integrity.” The senators thought it was sufficient to refer to Panama’s “sovereignty,” which subsumed “territorial integrity” and would be less of a red flag to DeConcini and his supporters. Byrd finally agreed to the phrase “sovereign integrity,” which the lawyers insisted had no real meaning, but had the value of being reassuring to Panama.
When Byrd rose from his awkward kneeling position his back and shoulder were cramped. Church had to apply a hasty massage to help the majority leader stand up. Byrd told Ambassador Lewis the newly agreed language might encounter some resistance in the Senate, but assured him it would not be changed. Lewis said he would send the language to General Torrijos with the recommendation that it be approved and he had no doubt it would be.
The final drafting session was both substantive and symbolic. Byrd, Church, and Sarbanes had not only moved mountains to meet Panama’s concerns, but they had treated Panama as a full partner in the effort. Shortly thereafter, Lewis received word from Torrijos that the wording was acceptable. “Tell the senator and the White House,” Torrijos said, “we think this is a dignified solution to a difficult problem.” Torrijos warned, though, that there could be “no surprises at the last minute.”
At noon on Monday, the last day of the historic Panama Canal treaties debate, Byrd summoned Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Kaneaster Hodges of Arkansas, two close friends of DeConcini’s. He explained the new language and, with Byrd’s encouragement, they went off to discuss the new resolution with DeConcini. Soon after, Byrd told a group of reporters he planned to introduce a reservation to “clarify” U.S. rights to protect the canal. He also disclosed the language was acceptable to Panama. The news traveled fast through the Senate.
The final, decisive meeting was with DeConcini himself. Byrd and others met with him in the leader’s office. Seemingly undaunted by the criticism that had rained down on him, DeConcini was still trying to get wording closer to his own, including the damaging reference to “the use of military force.” Byrd looked at DeConcini with cold eyes. “It has to be like this, Dennis,” he said grimly. “I will not accept any changes.” DeConcini quickly considered what his future in the Senate might be like with the majority leader as an implacable enemy and concluded that the language was acceptable. On the Senate floor, he later described himself as “amazed,” “puzzled,” and “shocked” that his reservation had generated so much controversy. He volunteered to cosponsor the new amendment.
On April 15, at 6 p.m., the Senate cast the final vote on the second Panama Canal treaty. The result was 68 to 32, precisely the same as the vo
te on the Neutrality Treaty a month before. This time, however, the celebration in Washington and in Panama City was heart-felt, authentic, and unalloyed. The United States and Panama had transformed their relationship, transcended their history, and changed the relationship of the United States to the rest of the hemisphere.
Jimmy Carter deserved great credit for staking his presidency on an issue so contentious that five previous presidents had failed to resolve it. But the Senate deserved extraordinary praise, too. The New Right, spearheaded by Richard Viguerie and his allies, had broken new ground in grassroots lobbying and single-issue attack politics; the assault had been multifaceted and brutally effective. As a result, many senators had supported the treaties because they were in the national interest, but at very high personal political cost. Baker’s bipartisanship and political courage would go down in Senate history. Church’s eloquence and tenacity in the face of potential political suicide would be long remembered. Sarbanes had as much impact in his first sixteen months in the Senate than any freshman in memory. And Byrd, who had been steadfast and brilliant throughout the long battle, would no longer be thought of as a Senate mechanic. He had proven himself a statesman and “the Leader.” The Senate had reminded the country what political courage and statesmanship was about.
chapter 9
VENTURING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST
THE PANAMA CANAL FIGHT HAD BEEN A LONG, BRUISING HISTORIC BATTLE—PROBABLY the most bitter foreign policy fight since the Senate had rejected the League of Nations in 1919. In ordinary times, the Senate would have returned immediately to routine business, allowing itself some time to recover. But pressing matters did not permit the Senate that luxury.
Just days after completing the Panama Canal treaties, the Senate would plunge into three more major battles. It would have to approve or reject the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia and Israel, consider major changes in the nation’s labor laws, and determine whether to offer loan guarantees to New York City. Little surprise that one senator, perhaps the foremost legislator of his era, would play a central role in all three issues, as he had done countless times over the past two decades.
On most afternoons when the Senate was in session, Jacob Javits sat at his desk in the Senate chamber, paging through a thick file of memos and press articles provided by his staff as he listened to the flow of Senate debate. Most senators came to the floor only to vote, speak, or wrangle over the few matters that were most important to them. In contrast, Javits regularly stayed on or near the Senate floor for hours on end. Virtually all the Senate’s deliberations were important to him. He sought recognition to participate regularly, always going right to the heart of the matter. When he got impassioned about a subject, as he frequently did, he would prowl all over the Senate chamber, the clarity of his voice matching the clarity of his reasoning.
A liberal Republican from New York, Javits was first elected in 1956. By 1978 he had served twenty-one years in the Senate. During that time, he had never once been in the majority. Until his third term, he was denied committee assignments on the Foreign Relations Committee and Judiciary Committee that he sought. Some of the southerners never warmed to the Jewish senator from New York City. In the early years, when he rose to speak in the Senate, Javits encountered a “chill of hostility.” James Eastland once stared coldly down a committee table and said: “I don’t like you—or your kind.” But nothing could deter Javits from becoming a force in the Senate out of sheer will and ability.
He once described his principal interests as “anything that affects New York City or America’s place in the world.” He was involved in almost every legislative matter because he added value in every legislative situation. Universally recognized as the Senate’s best lawyer and its foremost debater, he had a gift for brokering compromise. He was also a master of the committee process, which he saw as “a stimulating forum for individual creativity.” He frequently attended three committee hearings in a morning, requesting his time to be heard no matter how late he had arrived and cutting right to the heart of the issue at hand.
Besides possessing a superb intellect, Javits always seemed to operate at top-speed. He was always walking faster than anyone around him, playing tennis regularly, and swimming laps daily in the Senate pool long before exercise became fashionable. His wife, Marion, was an artist who lived in New York City, and Javits would take the shuttle to New York once or twice a week, catching the last flight back to Washington at night. In the days before airport security, Javits insisted on leaving the Capitol no more than fifteen minutes before the Eastern Shuttle was scheduled to take off from National Airport. He never missed it.
Javits extended his influence by hiring and retaining superb staff members. It seemed quite natural to Javits that lawyers from Harvard, Yale, or Columbia or top-flight journalists or economists would want to work in the Senate and love working for him, and they did. He had a soft spot for his staff members, whom he regarded both as his protégés and his children. “Take a chance on the young,” he would tell them, “like I did with you.”
Above all, Javits loved being a senator. In his autobiography, he wrote of the Senate: The United States Senate was my home. I know its rules and traditions and moods, and I could often sense what action it was about to take. My seat on the aisle in the Senate chamber became as agreeable to me as a favorite living-room easy chair, and I was familiar with the voices, the quirks, the foibles and inclinations of the ninety-nine other senators. I was thrilled when a team of senators enlisted in a cause worked smoothly, like a well-drilled football backfield, each senator knowing the others’ moves, and communicating by a sixth sense based on shared knowledge and skill. I was stimulated by the ebb and flow of debate and the philosophic tensions of the work we did—balancing lofty principles against sectional or selfish interests, welding together antagonistic human and economic and ideological forces into the coherent schemes of government that we call laws.
In the spring of 1978, Javits was nearing age seventy-four, serving out his fourth Senate term. His legendary energy and focus were beginning to flag. The ceaseless work of the Senate, its annual authorizations and appropriations, was becoming repetitive. He was also beginning to experience a weakening of his abdominal muscles, which doctors would later diagnose as the onset of motor neuron disease. In time, he would have to give up tennis and take breaks while climbing stairs.
To be sure, the demands of being New York’s senator took a toll; no senator from the Empire State had ever served in that position as long as twenty-four years. At the time, Javits planned to finish his term, set a state record for longevity, and then return to his beloved home city. His record spoke for itself. He had been one of the major players in enacting the Civil Rights Act and had been the principal architect of the War Powers Act and the Employee Retirement Insurance Savings Act (ERISA). Virtually every piece of social legislation had his fingerprints on it somewhere.
But now, even with his energy diminished and the twilight of his career approaching, the Senate needed Jack Javits more than ever.
JIMMY CARTER HAD PUT his presidency on the line for the Panama Canal treaties. For once, the gamble had paid off. But his overriding preoccupation with foreign policy, even more than the quest to reduce nuclear arms, was the effort to make peace in the Middle East.
He was not the first president so inclined. Beginning with Harry Truman, who pushed successfully for the recognition of the state of Israel in 1948, every American president had become deeply involved in the effort to secure Israel’s defenses against its Arab enemies, particularly Egypt, and to work for peace in the region. But no president had embraced the intractable issues posed in the Middle East as vigorously as Carter. “Looking back,” Carter would write in his 1982 memoir, “it is remarkable to see how constantly the work for peace in the Middle East was on my agenda, and on my mind.” This was no understatement.
Carter had entered office in a moment of relative regional calm. The Yom Kippur War in October 1973 had ended with
out either side losing. Israel had prevailed militarily, but only after recovering from Egypt’s successful surprise attack. The performance of the Egyptian military, under the leadership of President Anwar Sadat, had shattered the Israeli euphoria, hubris, and complacency that had resulted from routing Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the Six Day War in 1967. It had also allowed Egypt to recover its pride and reinforce its standing as the leading nation in the Arab world. But despite the temporary calm, the intense enmities in the region remained, as did the untenable U.S. dependence on Middle East oil.
Jimmy Carter first met with the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on March 7, 1977. Carter described the meeting as “a particularly unpleasant surprise.” He found Rabin “timid, stubborn and somewhat ill at ease.” Rabin offered nothing when Carter asked whether there was anything he could convey to Sadat. In contrast, Carter’s first meeting with Sadat on April 4, 1977, was much more encouraging. Sadat impressed Carter as being “a very strong and courageous leader who has never shrunk from making difficult public decisions.” Carter noted that Sadat had moderated Egypt’s position significantly on “the nature of permanent peace” as well as how soon open borders and diplomatic relations might be established. This was an opening to further discussions, if Carter could only bring Israel on board.
Within a few hours of Sadat’s return to Egypt from Washington, stunning news came from Israel that Rabin had announced his withdrawal as a candidate for reelection because of irregularities related to a bank account in New York. Rabin’s decision dramatically transformed the political situation in Israel. Within a few weeks, Menachem Begin, who had been a leader of Israeli resistance to British rule before the founding of the Israeli state, became the first prime minister from the Likud party. Begin’s background and Likud’s stridency made it likely that he would be even tougher than Rabin in considering peace with the Arabs. He would be particularly adamant about returning any of the West Bank areas captured in the 1967 war, which Likud regarded as part of Judea and Samaria—biblical Israel.
