poor georgie’s almanack. June 10, 2018
- FOREIGN POLICY DRAMA GRIPPED THE AMERICAS
- HEAD-OF-STATE PROMOTED RESORTS
- RONALD REAGAN AND HIS HOLLYWOOD BUDDY WERE IN THE POLITICAL SPOTLIGHT
- IN 1978, “THE DUKE” EXPLAINED AMERICA’S FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 2018
January 15, 1978 at a Florida Air Force Base: A few US Senators who had been in Minnesota earlier in the day for the burial of Hubert Humphrey. They joined up with the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and some staff who had arrived from Washington, DC a few minutes earlier.
Together the “delegation” flew to Panama, where in the next two days they would take a helicopter ride over the entire Panama Canal, be feted by the President of Panama, and meet with Omar Torrijos, Panama’s dictator and the actual head-of-state.
A public relations event with Torrijos was planned for the Contadora Island Resort. This was a prelude to marathon Committee hearings on Capitol Hill regarding the most pressing political issue of the decade … the potential transfer to Panama, of the Canal and a huge swath of surrounding land that was controlled by the USA. That territory housed major American military installations. But, for the most part, native Panamanians ran the day-to-day work of the Canal.
The area controlled by the “Colossus of The North” cut Panama in half, from its Pacific coast on the west to the Caribbean Sea beaches on its eastern shore. Many of the Senators skeptical constituents were saying: “We built it. We are helping the Panama economy. It is vital to our national and economic security. It is ours to keep.”
The first hurdle for the pro-Treaty side was to get enough votes in the Foreign Relations Committee to send the agreement to the Senate floor.
Jump to 2018, forty years later, US President Donald Trump is taking a page out of the Torrijos playbook. The Panamanian had seen an opportunity to publicize his country’s upscale resorts to bring them more business. That’s why Contadora Island Resort, a short plane hop from Panama City, was the agreed-upon meeting spot.
I wasn’t the Committee’s PR guy, each Senator had his own. The chief of staff remembered I had headed the Washington Post’s PR dept. during Watergate. So my secretary and I were assigned to carry briefcases and to handle press liaison with a group of reporters who saw the trip as we did … an opportunity to get some mid-winter sun, eat well, and produce what was expected with little effort.
That explains our being fully slathered with suntan lotion, lounging on a beach about 400 feet from Contadora’s expansive and expensively manicured golf course. Several reporters were clustered near my very demure secretary who, surprisingly, wore a swimsuit designed to raise testosterone levels. Ever the outlier, I was sweating like mad in my suit and tie. Viewing the reporters’ actions, I did ponder the different definitions of the word liaison.
As the Senators and Omar Torrijos, were chatting in the resort’s clubhouse about a block away, literally out of the blue, a small plane landed nearby. Out stepped THE DUKE, John Wayne in flesh and blood. He walked over to our gaggle of oglers, shook our hands, and quickly headed to the clubhouse because it was time for lunch.
The mysterious choreographer of that dance had done a great job.
We followed Wayne into a restaurant with tourists in their beachwear, seated at their usual tables. Unusually, however, there was a long head table. Behind it were all the dignitaries, dominated, by the big guy from the movies. Along with his longtime buddy Ronald Reagan, who was back in The States campaigning for the presidency, Wayne was the reigning personification of Hollywood’s political cult.
He was a staunch Republican, but unlike others, including Reagan, Wayne strongly supported the proposed Panama agreement. Coincidentally, The Duke owned property in Panama. Hmmm.
The Wayne-Reagan policy disagreement was tabloid paper material.
After the lunch plates were cleared, from behind the head table came the usual twice-thrice-four-times-told-tales our seasoned politicos had used as mantras for months.
Fortunately, someone asked if any of the assembled throng had questions. As I recall it, a tourist responded thusly: Mr. Wayne, how is it that you, such a good friend of Mr. Reagan, could be so far apart on this issue?
Wayne’s unexpected answer was a classic.
Big John said that he was one “of those who convinced Ronnie” to move politically from the very far left to the right.
“But, the momentum got away from us.”
Epilogue: I still chuckle at his honesty and now cluck about what that momentum has meant to the world order that, until recently, the USA led. The days-long hearings after the delegation returned to DC proved that the Senators really did know their stuff. The agreement eventually squeaked through the Senate and was implemented.
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An outlier’s view of New World
poor georgie's almanack 