23. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- Panama Treaty Negotiations
PARTICIPANTS
- The Honorable Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota
- The Honorable Ellsworth Bunker, Ambassador at Large
- S. Morey Bell, Deputy for Panama Negotiations to the Ambassador at Large
(See Memorandum of Conversation of October 9 with Speaker Albert for substance of Ambassador Bunker’s presentation.)2
The Senator said that, except for a hardcore of perhaps no more than ten members, the Senate would be almost certain to view sympathetically a new treaty relationship with Panama, provided (a) it had ample Administration support and (b) it provided for what the Senator described as the rock-bottom U.S. needs: the ability to control, technically, the Canal plant itself, and to defend it. He added that virtually all of the Zone except for the waterway itself, including most of the Armed Forces contingent, could and should disappear. “Perpetuity and sovereignty and the exercise of jurisdiction over foreign nationals—these are out of step with the mood of the world and, especially, the mood of the American people”. Even “hardline national security-conscious” senators like Jackson,3 Humphrey concluded, would “go along,” for they know that the Canal has diminished greatly in military and economic importance, and that the U.S. posture there is no longer appropriate.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Ambassador Bunker’s Correspondence, Lot 78D300, Box 3, Congress. Limited Official Use. Drafted by Bell. The meeting took place in Humphrey’s office.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 22.↩
- Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-Washington).↩