1. Telegram From the Embassy in Venezuela to the Department of State1
391. Subject: Threat by Panamanian Strongman Torrijos To Take Military Action Against Canal Zone.
1. Former Ambassador Jack Vaughn, who arrived here last night from Panama, informs us that yesterday morning at 11 o’clock he received a call from Torrijos saying that he would send his personal helicopter to pick up Vaughn in the next 32 minutes and take him to Torrijos’ country residence. This was done.
2. Vaughn reports that Torrijos had told him “he had just about had it” so far as the Americans were concerned. The General said that negotiations had been going on between Panama and the United States for nine long years and that the Americans were far more “hawkish toward Panama than the most diehard hawks were toward Vietnam.”2 He characterized the American inhabitants of the Zone as being in the diehard category.
3. Torrijos went on to say that he had two elite battalions ready for military deployment against the Canal Zone.
4. Obviously Torrijos wanted this word to reach US authorities but Vaughn apparently did not have time before his departure from Panama to get in touch with our Embassy nor apparently with USCINCSO.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1114, NSC Unfiled Material, 1/15/73. Secret; Immediate. Repeated Immediate for information to Panama City and USCINCSO.↩
- For a different perspective on the U.S.-Panamanian treaty negotiations, see Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. E–10, Documents on American Republics, 1969–1972, Document 563. The Intelligence Memorandum suggests that the 1972 negotiations stalled in part because “General Torrijos was unwilling to commit himself on substantive issues or allow the talks to move from an exploratory to a bargaining phase.”↩