Source: Stuart E. Eizenstat. President Carter: The White House Years (2018)
The key Senator proved to be Howard Baker (R; TN), and slowly the ice began to crack; on 13 January 1978, Senator Robert Byrd (D; WVA) went from neutral to in favor of the Canal Treaties. On 30 January 1978, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14 - 1 in favor of the treaties which then were forwarded to the floor for a vote, but there still was not the 2/3’s majority needed for ratification. At-or-around 30 Senators feared they would lose re-election if they came out in favor of the two treaties.
Carter enlisted former President Ford and former SecState Henry Kissinger to pressure Senators, but calling in favors and using Ford and Kissinger weren’t enough, in that those 30+ Senators wanted to be reassured that their politically risky vote wasn’t all that risky. Many Senators tried to get Carter to sweeten the pot for their state in a quid pro quo, and the media picked up on that development and called the entire process “Let’s Make a Deal”. No modern President disliked this kind of horse-trading more than Carter, but he had to swallow his distaste to get the treaties ratified.
It reached the point were there appeared to be 2/3’s (67 votes), but no Senator wanted to be the 67th vote, and to break that impasse, Baker and Byrd agreed to be the last Senators to vote. The alphabetical roll call vote then proceeded, and the 67th and 68th votes were cast by Baker and Byrd; only the debates over the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations lasted longer in the Senate than the debates/votes on the two Canal Treaties. Carter knew that if the Senate didn’t ratify the two treaties, the Panamanian National Guard was poised to attack the Canal Zone.
Carter enlisted former President Ford and former SecState Henry Kissinger to pressure Senators, but calling in favors and using Ford and Kissinger weren’t enough, in that those 30+ Senators wanted to be reassured that their politically risky vote wasn’t all that risky. Many Senators tried to get Carter to sweeten the pot for their state in a quid pro quo, and the media picked up on that development and called the entire process “Let’s Make a Deal”. No modern President disliked this kind of horse-trading more than Carter, but he had to swallow his distaste to get the treaties ratified.
It reached the point were there appeared to be 2/3’s (67 votes), but no Senator wanted to be the 67th vote, and to break that impasse, Baker and Byrd agreed to be the last Senators to vote. The alphabetical roll call vote then proceeded, and the 67th and 68th votes were cast by Baker and Byrd; only the debates over the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations lasted longer in the Senate than the debates/votes on the two Canal Treaties. Carter knew that if the Senate didn’t ratify the two treaties, the Panamanian National Guard was poised to attack the Canal Zone.
The next challenge was in the House of Representatives which had to authorize legislation to fund the financial aspects of the two treaties. The vote in the House was close (224 - 202) in large part because Torrijos was admittedly active in supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua against the nation’s dictator. The House bill was finally passed in the Senate two years later.
But an open question this: was the expenditure of the huge amount of political capital worth it for Carter in passing the two Canal Treaties, since they diverted attention and time from other major priorities. In the Congressional Elections of 1978, seven Senators that supported the Canal Treaties were defeated for re-election, and eleven more were defeated in the Election of 1980, and Carter’s support in the South seriously waned. Byrd recognized that the two Canal Treaties were a boon to the conservative movement, but while the conservative Republicans took full political advantage in 1980, the two treaties have stood the test of time. President Reagan didn’t even remotely try to amend the two Canal Treaties in any way, and Panama not only operated the Canal with great efficiency, but also constructed an expansion (with US financial/logistical support), to accommodate much larger container ships and tankers in 2016.
But an open question this: was the expenditure of the huge amount of political capital worth it for Carter in passing the two Canal Treaties, since they diverted attention and time from other major priorities. In the Congressional Elections of 1978, seven Senators that supported the Canal Treaties were defeated for re-election, and eleven more were defeated in the Election of 1980, and Carter’s support in the South seriously waned. Byrd recognized that the two Canal Treaties were a boon to the conservative movement, but while the conservative Republicans took full political advantage in 1980, the two treaties have stood the test of time. President Reagan didn’t even remotely try to amend the two Canal Treaties in any way, and Panama not only operated the Canal with great efficiency, but also constructed an expansion (with US financial/logistical support), to accommodate much larger container ships and tankers in 2016.
A positive consequence of a less-imperialistic America in the Western Hemisphere was that the number of dictatorships in Latin American nations was drastically reduced, with Fidel Castro as one of the very few true anti-American dictators as the dust settled. in the aftermath of the ratification of the Canal Treaties. The formal signing ceremony of the two Canal Treaties occurred at the Organization of American States complex in Washington, D.C., and Carter invited every head of state in the hemisphere except Castro; Carter even individually met with every head of state that attended.
The main barrier after the Canal Treaties were ratified and signed was Carter’s insistence on greater human rights in Latin American nations that had dictatorships, and again domestic politics became a factor in that Liberal Democrats howled for human rights at the expense of security interests between the US and Latin American nations. Carter applied his vision of human rights across the board, not only to Latin American nations, but also to the USSR.
Congress, for the first time, in 1974 directed the Executive Branch to take into account human rights when extending foreign aid. In 1975, Congress banned military sales, training, and credit to the Pinochet regime in Chile, even though he was viewed as a “friendly” dictator to US interests. In 1976, Congress required the State Department to publish an annual human rights review of nations that received US aid. In September 1976 when he was campaigning for President, Carter made his stance on human rights clear for the first time, in part because he hoped to unite the Democratic Party’s various factions, but he also recognized that the desire for greater human rights was gaining momentum in the US.
The main barrier after the Canal Treaties were ratified and signed was Carter’s insistence on greater human rights in Latin American nations that had dictatorships, and again domestic politics became a factor in that Liberal Democrats howled for human rights at the expense of security interests between the US and Latin American nations. Carter applied his vision of human rights across the board, not only to Latin American nations, but also to the USSR.
Congress, for the first time, in 1974 directed the Executive Branch to take into account human rights when extending foreign aid. In 1975, Congress banned military sales, training, and credit to the Pinochet regime in Chile, even though he was viewed as a “friendly” dictator to US interests. In 1976, Congress required the State Department to publish an annual human rights review of nations that received US aid. In September 1976 when he was campaigning for President, Carter made his stance on human rights clear for the first time, in part because he hoped to unite the Democratic Party’s various factions, but he also recognized that the desire for greater human rights was gaining momentum in the US.
Carter took human rights to a much higher level, and he embedded it in his foreign policy, which would prove to have both positive and negative consequences with other nations. Carter didn’t care for Congress mandating limits of assistance to other nations such as Argentina, in that it limited his flexibility in dealing with especially military dictatorships in Latin America. On 17 March 1977, Carter, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, stated that being anti-Communist was no longer a shield that could be used by dictatorships to justify their oppressive regimes (e.g. Pinochet in Chile).
Carter sent First Lady Rosalynn Carter on a seven nation human rights tour in Latin America with the message that the US would no longer conduct business-as-usual with military dictatorships, and the first positive changes were seen in Peru and Ecuador, which soon led to a sort of democratization in Latin America. In DD, the debate over centered on how far to push human rights with Latin American nations, e.g. when to use the carrot and when to use the stick, and how far to push human rights when the US desperately needed to import oil. In essence Carter had no choice but to treat nations differently in terms of human rights based on the economic and/or strategic importance a nation had to the US; the reality for Carter was that he would have to at least partially use the same realpolitik as had Nixon and Kissinger.
Carter sent First Lady Rosalynn Carter on a seven nation human rights tour in Latin America with the message that the US would no longer conduct business-as-usual with military dictatorships, and the first positive changes were seen in Peru and Ecuador, which soon led to a sort of democratization in Latin America. In DD, the debate over centered on how far to push human rights with Latin American nations, e.g. when to use the carrot and when to use the stick, and how far to push human rights when the US desperately needed to import oil. In essence Carter had no choice but to treat nations differently in terms of human rights based on the economic and/or strategic importance a nation had to the US; the reality for Carter was that he would have to at least partially use the same realpolitik as had Nixon and Kissinger.
It was Eleanor Roosevelt that was the first major US politician to link human rights to foreign policy after World War II by guiding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through the United Nations in 1948. However, Carter was the first President to apply human rights to US foreign policy, and he in large part had to create his own path in order to do so, which led to many inconsistencies in application (which was why the Shah of Iran and Ferdinand Marcos got passes).
Carter was called a naive moralist by his conservative detractors, but Carter understood that successful US foreign policy needed to be a mix of idealism and practicality, of mixing human rights with realpolitik , of mixing security with the expansion of human freedoms. The modern cornerstone of relations between the US and Latin American nations was the ratification and signing of the two Canal Treaties, which challenged the perception of the US among millions of Latin Americans.
Carter was called a naive moralist by his conservative detractors, but Carter understood that successful US foreign policy needed to be a mix of idealism and practicality, of mixing human rights with realpolitik , of mixing security with the expansion of human freedoms. The modern cornerstone of relations between the US and Latin American nations was the ratification and signing of the two Canal Treaties, which challenged the perception of the US among millions of Latin Americans.