393. Telegram From the Embassy in Honduras to the Department of State1
52. Limit distribution to Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary Woodward, the White House. From Goodwin. I was met at the conference of CA Finance and Foreign Ministers2 by David Samudio, Chairman of Panama’s National Planning Commission. He said that President Chiari has sent him to the conference to see me and deliver a personal and private message from Chiari to President Kennedy.
The message was, it is necessary for Panama and the US to undertake a fundamental revision of their relations with respect to the Panama Canal. Panama feels that the US should continue to operate and defend the Canal: but the income from operations should go to the GOP (this means the income now devoted to general improvements in the Canal Zone). Chiari wanted to deliver this message to President Kennedy so that the actions of Panama in asking such a revision will not come as any surprise. They want to negotiate an entirely new treaty and not merely renegotiate the existing agreement. This is because the original agreement was made by Secretary Hay and Bunau-Varilla who was a Frenchman acting as the Minister of Interior of Panama in Washington (try that on Abe Chayes). He further stated that Panama would do nothing about this until after Montevideo3 so as not to embarrass the US by permitting the Communists to use this as a lever with which to attack the conference.
I told him that I would relay his message to the President.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.19/7-2261. Secret; Priority.↩
- Reference is to an informal meeting of Foreign and Economic Ministers of Central America and Panama, held July 21-23 in Tegucigalpa.↩
- Reference is to the meeting to be held in August at Punta del Este; see Documents 19 ff.↩