94. Memorandum From the Deputy Secretary of State (Ingersoll) and the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Clements) to President Ford1
SUBJECT
- U.S.-Panama Treaty Negotiations
I. Background
The United States Negotiators requested new instructions from you on three major issues in the negotiation:
—the duration of the new treaty;
—the distribution of land/water areas in the existing Canal Zone between Panama and the United States; and
—the rights of the United States respecting any expansion of the Canal.
The Departments of State and Defense agreed earlier in recommendations to you for new instructions on the Canal-expansion issue. They have now agreed in recommendations to you on the duration and land/water issues.
They have also designed, for your approval, a process of negotiation with Panama which should minimize the intrusion of “the Panama problem” into our domestic political process next year. Thereby the nation should be able to examine more objectively and deliberately the question of how that problem is to be resolved.
An agreed draft NSDM incorporating all the recommendations for altered instructions is attached for your consideration.2
The Departments join in seeking an early decision from you so that the United States Negotiators may promptly resume negotiations with Panama. It is important that we break the negotiating “impasse” which Panama has alleged.
II. Recommendations
A. On the New Negotiating Instructions
The Negotiators would seek a minimum of 40 years duration of the treaty for Canal defense and 20 years for Canal operation. Their “opening” position would be, respectively, 50 and 25 years.
[Page 254]The Negotiators would carry into the next negotiating round an offer to Panama on the land/water issue which is improved over the original offer by the addition of options for the Negotiators contained in the second attachment to this memorandum.3
These options have been provided by the Defense Department following a review of its previous position on lands and waters. The review substantiated, in the Defense Department’s judgment, the soundness of its previous position and noted that the options would subject the operation and defense of the Canal to some risks. However, recognizing that other imperatives may require modification of the Defense Department position in order to pursue negotiations, the list of options developed, though involving some risks, might be acceptable to you.
These additions would impact to some degree on either Canal operation or defense for the treaty’s lifetime. The additions are intended to help the Negotiators secure from Panama a commitment to negotiate prior to the termination of the treaty a mutually satisfactory agreement concerning United States involvement in Canal defense, including a limited post-treaty presence.
Furthermore, the Departments of State and Defense have agreed to study the feasibility of certain other measures which might be taken to make our land and water position more acceptable to Panama. These are: redesignation of and/or joint arrangements for certain United States bases; designation of a United States base as a combined United States-Panamanian headquarters; and a long-range commitment to reduce United States military installations.
Respecting the issue of Canal expansion, the Negotiators would seek a definitive and exclusive option for the treaty period (operation), but recede if necessary to a “first-refusal right” for that period, and agree to negotiate terms with Panama should we ever decide to expand the waterway’s capacity.
B. On the Negotiating Process
The Negotiators would resume negotiations in early September. Thereafter, they would try to arrange that the two parties reach substantial agreement on the broad outlines of most if not all of the major issues before next January 9, the 12th anniversary of the 1964 student riots. It is important for Torrijos to be convinced before that date that solid, steady negotiating progress is being made.
[Page 255]Any agreements on negotiating issues would, of course, be confidential and ad referendum. They would serve as guidelines for the subsequent resolving of the many minor negotiating issues and drafting of the actual treaty text.
Proceeding with all deliberate speed, the treaty text would not be ready before September-October of next year. At that juncture the United States and Panamanian Negotiators would submit it to their governments for approval. It would be arranged that approval would not be forthcoming until after our elections are completed. The treaty would be signed publicly following the elections and submitted to the Senate for ratification in January 1977.
Provided there is satisfactory and uninterrupted negotiating progress in the period culminating with the draft treaty text, Torrijos is likely to acquiesce in the process described above. He might, however, insist at some point in the latter stages of the process on having a private commitment from you that the treaty would in fact be signed following the elections and sent to the Senate in January. Alternatively, he might desire that the treaty text at least be initialed confidentially by the Negotiators, ad referendum to governments, as soon as it is ready. Our Negotiators believe they would be in a position to resist such a confidential initialing should you desire that they do so.
Throughout the foregoing process, the two Departments would join in consulting steadily and confidentially with the Congress, to keep it informed of negotiating progress and to begin building adequate support for eventual treaty ratification. Presumably Panama would be undertaking a similar effort—a national plebiscite will be required there for treaty ratification, and Torrijos will have to convince his people that he has not “sold out” to the United States in the new treaty.
- Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OSD Files, FRC 330–78–0058, Panama 821 (Aug–Dec) 1975. Secret.↩
- Attached but not printed. The signed version of NSDM 302 is printed as Document 95.↩
- The attachment, undated, entitled “Options for United States Negotiators,” is attached but not printed.↩