Office of the Historian

15. Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State1

New York, August 1, 1973, 0031Z.

2743. Subj: US-Panama Relations.

1. Panamanian PermRep Boyd approached Ambassador Bennett July 31 to ask whether latter had any information on prospective timing of appointment of individual to succeed Robert Anderson as head of team for negotiations with Panama. When Bennett replied he not informed, Boyd said he had heard Ellsworth Bunker mentioned as possible negotiator and commented this would be excellent choice in his opinion.2

2. He went on to urge that appointment, whoever it might be, be made without delay since pressures were building in Panama. In international field, he said nonaligned pressures on Panama were very heavy and increasingly hard to resist. Panama would be attending forthcoming Algiers meeting of nonaligned as an observer and he had been under pressure to go himself, a mission he said he very much wanted to avoid. He pleaded that something be done on US-Panama relations before it is too late.

3. Comment: Boyd has climbed off high horse he was riding during spring before and during Security Council meeting. He has played matters straight with us recently, and nothing has been heard from him re threats to bring Canal issue before GA. Having been picked by nonaligneds to serve as Chairman of Ad Hoc Terrorism Committee, he has tried hard to be an impartial chairman and to move work along, not the role his backers had intended for him. In his conversation today, he appeared genuinely anxious to see work get started on negotiations looking toward agreement between U.S. and Panama on outstanding issues.

Bennett
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, [no film number]. Confidential. Repeated to Panama City.↩
  2. In a June 28 memorandum to Kissinger, Jorden reported that Secretary Rogers wished to designate Ellsworth Bunker, former Ambassador to South Vietnam, to serve as Anderson’s replacement, and that Bunker was prepared to accept the assignment. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, Box 791, Country Files, Latin America, Panama, Vol. 3, January 1972–August 1974)↩