19771776 Club
Carter signs treaties ceding the Panama Canal, to take effect in 1999
Two treaties signed at the OAS, with a twenty-two-year clock now running toward the 1999 handover.
For seventy-four years, the United States had run the Panama Canal under a 1903 treaty Panama never stopped resenting. On September 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos sat down at the Organization of American States headquarters in Washington and signed two agreements: one guaranteeing the canal's permanent neutrality, the other setting a firm date for Panama to take over. Full Panamanian control would begin at noon on December 31, 1999. The Senate still had to ratify both treaties…
