Series
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.
Episode Number
S0249
Episode
The Problems of the Panama Canal
Producing Organization
Southern Educational Communications Association
South Carolina Educational Television Network
Contributing Organization
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University (Stanford, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/514-901zc7sg6w
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Description
Episode Description
The Panamanian government had demanded a thorough revision of the treaty of 1903, which had given the United States dominion in perpetuity over the Canal and the strips of land adjoining it. Secretary of State Kissinger and the Panamanian negotiators had in 1974 reached an agreement in principle, but any actual treaty would require ratification by the Senate, and the proposal had stirred up a hornet's nest back home, becoming a hot issue in the Republican presidential primaries (as it would again in 1980 even though the treaty was eventually ratified in 1978-see Firing Line #S306). Dr. Cheveille and Mr. Chapman point out that the Panamanians' demands did not come out of the blue: Mr. Cheveille reminds us that "The earliest treaty, the 1903 treaty, has been renegotiated several times," and that Lyndon Johnson had agreed in 1964 to something very like the current proposal, but the war in Indochina and the war on America's campuses had put it on hold. Today's discussion ranges from the negotiation of the original treaty, to current issues of U.S. national security, to, with Archbishop McGrath, issues of peace and justice. Currently there is only a digitized transcript available for this episode.
Series Description
The television series Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. was a venue for debate and discussion on political, social, and philosophical issues with experts of the day. Firing Line broadcasts from 1966 through March 1971 were produced and syndicated by WOR-TV, a commercial station in New York, but some of them were also broadcast on noncommercial television stations. Starting in April 1971, Firing Line broadcasts were produced by the Southern Educational Communications Association, an arm of South Carolina Educational Television. Hoover Institution Library & Archives' Firing Line collection guide can be found at: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/firing-line.
Date
1976-09-30
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
Foreign relations; United States; Panama Canal (Panama); Treaties; Canal Zone; Panama
Rights
Copyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.
Media type
Moving Image
Embed Code
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Credits
Guest: McGrath, Marcos G.
Guest: Cheveille, Richard
Guest: Chapman, Guillermo O.
Host: Buckley, William F., Jr.
Producing Organization: Southern Educational Communications Association
Producing Organization: South Carolina Educational Television Network
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Stanford University
Identifier: 80040.493 (Hoover Institution)
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 1:00:00
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Citations
Chicago: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0249; The Problems of the Panama Canal,” 1976-09-30, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed July 17, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-901zc7sg6w.
MLA: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0249; The Problems of the Panama Canal.” 1976-09-30. Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. July 17, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-901zc7sg6w>.
APA: Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0249; The Problems of the Panama Canal. Boston, MA: Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-901zc7sg6w