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PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

February 7, 1974

No. 42

NOT TO BE PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED, QUOTED FROM, TRANSMITTED, OR USED IN ANY WAY BEFORE 3:30 P.M. E.D.T., FEBRUARY 7, 1974

ADDRESS BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
AT PANAMA

February 7, 1974

We meet here today to embark upon a new adventure together. Our purpose is to begin replacing an old treaty and to move toward a new relationship. What we sign today hopefully marks as well the advent of a new era in the history of our Hemisphere, and thus makes a major contribution to the structure of world peace.

Meeting as we do on this Isthmus which links North with South and Atlantic with Pacific, we cannot but be conscious of history -- a history which has profoundly changed the course of human affairs. Four centuries ago the conquistadors landed here bringing faith and taking booty. They were representatives of the traditional style and use of power. Seventy years ago, when the Panama Canal was begun, strength and influence remained the foundation of the world order.

Today we live in a profoundly transformed environment. Among the many revolutions of our time none is more significant than the change in the nature of world order. Power has grown so monstrous that it defies calculation; the quest for justice has become universal. A stable world order cannot be imposed by power; it must derive from consensus. Mankind can achieve community only on the basis of shared aspirations.

This is why the meeting today between representatives of the most powerful nation of the Western Hemisphere and one of the smallest holds great significance. In the past our negotiation would have been determined by relative strength. Today we have come together in an act of conciliation. We recognize that no agreement can endure unless the parties to it have a stake in maintaining it. Participation in partnership is far preferable to reluctant acquiescence.

What we do here today contains a message, too, for our colleagues in the Western Hemisphere who, in their recent meeting in Bogota, gave impetus to this negotiation. The method of solution and the spirit of partnership between Panama and the United States as embodied in this agreement are an example of what we mean by the spirit of community in the Western Hemisphere -- it can be the first step toward a new era which we believe will be given fresh hope and purpose when we meet again with the Foreign Ministers of all the Hemisphere in two weeks' time.

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## The United States and Panama

The relationship between Panama and the United States is rooted in extraordinary human accomplishment -- the Panama Canal, a monument to man's energy and creative genius. But as is so often the case, man's technological triumph outstripped his political imagination.

- For sixty years the safe, efficient and equitable operation of the Canal has given to Panama, to the United States and to all nations, benefits beyond calculation;

- Yet, the Canal still operates under the terms of a treaty signed in 1903, when the realities of international affairs were still shaped by traditional precepts of power.

- The tensions generated by these contradictions -- the endless debates over the costs and benefits of the Convention of 1903 -- have jeopardized the ability of our two countries not only to work together to meet future demands upon the Canal but also to develop a constructive relationship as friends.

We must assess the document we have just signed against this background of reward and frustration. Above all we must judge it in the context of what it means for the peoples of the United States and Panama and what it can mean for the people of the Western Hemisphere.

The eight principles in this agreement constitute, as General Torrijos has said, a "philosophy of understanding." Sacrificing neither interest nor self-respect, Panama and the United States have made a choice for partnership. Meeting in dignity and negotiating with fairness, we have acknowledged that cooperation is imposed upon us by our mutual need and by our mutual recognition of the necessity for a cooperative world order. Foreign Minister Tack and Ambassador Bunker have shown that Panama's sovereignty and the vital interests of the United States in the Panama Canal can be made compatible. They have engaged in an act of statesmanship impelled by the conviction that we are part of a larger community in the Americas and in the world.

In that spirit of partnership the United States and Panama have met as equals and have determined that a just solution must recognize:

- First, that Panama and the United States have a mutual stake in the Isthmus: Panama in its greatest natural resource -- its strategic location -- and the United States in the use and defense of the Canal;

- Second, that the arrangement which may have been suitable seventy years ago to both the United States and Panama must be adjusted to meet the realities of the contemporary world.

- Third, that a new treaty is required which will strengthen the relationship between us while protecting what is essential to each. A new agreement must restore Panama's territorial sovereignty while preserving the interests of the United States and its participation in what is for us an indispensable international waterway.

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Our agreement is the culmination of a long and difficult negotiation.

While we have taken a great stride forward, we must still travel a difficult distance to our goal. There is opposition in both our countries to a reasonable resolution of our differences. Old slogans are often more comforting than changes that reflect new realities. It is the essence of revolutions that to their contemporaries they appear as irritating interruptions in the course of a comfortable normalcy. But it is equally true that those who fial to understand new currents are inevitably engulfed by them.

We are determined to shape our own destiny. Our negotiators will require wisdom, purposefulness, tenacity. They will meet obstacles and disagreements. Yet, they will succeed - for our relations and our commitments to a new community in this Hemisphere demand it.

In the President's name, I hereby commit the United States to complete this negotiation successfully and as quickly as possible.

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The Western Hemisphere Community

We are here today not just as two sovereign nations but as representatives of our Hemisphere. We meet at a point of time between the meetings of Foreign Ministers in Bogota and Mexico City which can mark an historic turning point in Western Hemisphere relationships.

I know that many of my country's southern neighbors believe they have been the subject of too many surveys and too few policies. The United States is accused of being better at finding slogans for its Latin American policy than at finding answers to the problems that face us all.

Some of these criticisms are justified. At times rhetoric has exceeded performance. But the United States has been torn by many problems; only from afar does it appear as if all choices are equally open to us. We have not been willfully neglectful. And in any case, we have recognized that the time for a new approach is overdue.

I have come here today to tell you on behalf of our President that we are now fully committed to a major effort to build a vital Western Hemisphere community. We understand our own needs:

- To live in a hemisphere lifted by progress -- not torn by hatreds.

- To ensure that the millions of people south of us will lead lives of fulfillment not embittered by frustration and despair.

- And, above all, to recognize that in the great dialogue between the developed and the less developed we cannot find answers anywhere if we do not find them here in the Western Hemisphere.

For with all our differences, the nations of this Hemisphere share similar histories and comparable aspirations. They have a common view of the dignity of man. They have the human and economic potential for great acts of common creation.

It is in this spirit that I shall meet my colleagues in Mexico City later this month to deal with the issues posed by them in their Bogota meeting. We attach particular significance to the fact that the meeting in Mexico City -- its substance and its impetus -- is the product of Latin American initiative. It is a response to the necessities of the times such as the United States had hoped to achieve with partners elsewhere in the world.

The United States will not come to Mexico City with a program that presumes to have all the answers. Nor will we pretend that our lost opportunities can be remedied by yet another freshly-packaged program labelled "Made in the U.S.A." But we shall come with an open mind and, perhaps more importantly, with an open heart. We are at a moment of truth, and we shall speak the truth.

We know that our neighbors are worried about the blackmail of the strong. We want them to know that we are sympathetic to this concern. At the same time blackmail is no more acceptable from any other source. We need each other. So let us all seek solutions free of pressure and confrontation, based on reciprocity and mutual respect. In Mexico City we can but lay the foundations for the future. But building

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upon what we achieve in Mexico City we can, over the months and years
ahead, erect an edifice of true partnership, real trust, and fruitful
collaboration.

Thus we approach the meeting in Mexico with but one prejudice: a pro-
found belief that the Americas, too, have arrived at a moment of basic
choice, a time of decision between fulfillment together and frustration
apart. Our choice will be found in the answers we give to these critical
questions:

-- Can we make our diversity a source of strength, drawing on the richness of our material and moral heritage?

-- Can we define together, concretely and realistically, the role
for the United States in support of Latin American efforts to
build a better Western Hemisphere?

-- Can we together determine how Latin America's new identity and
strength can contribute to a hemispheric community?

-- In short, can the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean, and
the United States, each conscious of its own identity, fashion a
common vision of the world and of this Hemisphere -- not just as
they are, but as they are becoming and as we feel they should be
-- so that we can move together toward the achievement of common
goals?

We will conduct the broader dialogue we have all set for ourselves in
Mexico City with the same commitment to reciprocity, the same consideration
of each other's interests, that marked the negotiations between the United
States and Panama.

Thus in Mexico, we seek to initiate a process. We want to shape a new
relationship harnessing the political and economic forces of our time to
move us toward beneficial cooperation rather than apart into destructive
confrontation. Justice -- not size or strength -- should be the test of
our relations.

We begin the quest aware that we are old friends. If we cannot
creatively arrive at a modern relationship, the implications will be somber
indeed for a global community which shares neither our sense of common
destiny nor our history of collaboration.

For centuries men everywhere have seen this hemisphere as offering
mankind the chance to break with their eternal tragedies and to achieve
their eternal hopes. That was what was new about the New World. It was
the drama of men choosing their own destinies.

An American poet has written:

"We shall not cease from our exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

Panama and the United States have now begun this exploration. Our
sister republics can make the same choice. Our creativity, our energy and
our sense of community will be on trial. But if we are equal to the

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Executive Secretariat

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

February 8, 1974

SUBJECT: Secretary's Trip to Panama, February 7

On February 7, 1974, Secretary Kissinger traveled to Panama to sign a statement of principles in connection with the Panama Canal negotiations, and returned to Washington the same day.

The aircraft was MAC VC-137 No. 86970 piloted by Captain Stokes. The aircraft departed Andrews Air Force Base at 0810 on February 7 and arrived at Panama at 1154 local time. The aircraft departed Panama at 1745 local time and arrived at Andrews Air Force Base at 2315.

The passenger list is attached.

cc: S
S/PRS
Each Passenger