I found interesting WFB’s assessment of the importance of the Panama Canal debate in the late 1970s to Reagan’s election as president in 1980.

You might remember that the Panama Canal treaty was one of the few issues that divided Buckley and Reagan. The pair debated the treaty on television, and Buckley often jested about the issue in future years. (A recurring joke in the pair’s private correspondence emphasized Buckley’s shock and dismay that Reagan was considering giving away the Erie Canal.)

In The Reagan I Knew, Buckley writes:

I happen to believe, as I wrote at the time, that Reagan’s conspicuous position on the treaty, combined with the treaty’s ratification by the Senate, made possible his election in president as 1980. My thesis was (and is) that if he had favored the treaty, he would have lost his hard initial conservative support. But if the treaty had not passed the Senate, which it might not have done if the conservative opposition to it had been unanimous, uprisings in Central America during the 1980 presidential campaign might have frustrated Reagan’s hopes.

Regular readers of this forum will likely recall the central importance assigned to the Panama Canal debate by former New York Times chief Washington correspondent Adam Clymer. Click play below for a snippet of his conversation on the topic with Carolina Journal Radio. He discusses the long-term impact of the Panama Canal fight on American politics.