Office of the Historian

208. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter1

Washington, June 6, 1979

SUBJECT

  • Moss-Pastor Mission to Panama

On Monday morning,2 after the third urgent plea from Gabriel Lewis for Ambassador Moss and Bob Pastor to go to Panama to speak [Page 539] to General Torrijos, they went.3 They held five hours of discussions with Torrijos and his advisers on Monday night and met with President Royo on Tuesday morning.

Moss and Pastor explained the current precarious status of the implementing legislation and the efforts by Nicaragua and the opponents of the Canal Treaties to try to undermine the implementing legislation by linking Panama to the Sandinistas. Moss and Pastor requested from both Royo and Torrijos their personal assurances that Panama “is not intervening and will not intervene” in the internal affairs of Nicaragua. Royo and Torrijos gave these assurances orally and in letters to you (Tab A).4 Moss and Pastor confronted Royo and Torrijos with evidence of DC–6 flights from Cuba to Nicaragua to Costa Rica, but both insisted that these flights were for cultural and sports exchanges. We do not have any firm evidence which contradict their assurances, and we believe it would be very useful for you to convey these assurances to Murphy and key people in the House. If you agree that it would be useful to show these letters to certain Congressmen, we will inform Royo as he will want to release the letters in Panama first.

Torrijos had asked Moss and Pastor to meet with him because he felt that Somoza was nearing his end in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas apparently believe that the general strike in Managua and their all-out offensive will toll the end for Somoza, and Torrijos wanted to give us his assessment of the situation and recommend that we begin to open channels of communication with the more moderate and pragmatic elements of the Sandinista movement. Next Monday, Cy will chair a PRC meeting on Central America, and we will have an opportunity to reexamine our strategy to Nicaragua and all of Central America and make recommendations to you.5

Apparently, the Moss/Pastor trip succeeded in calming down Torrijos and the letters could be very helpful in delinking the implementing legislation from the Nicaraguan crisis. In his letter, Royo clearly places his concerns for Nicaragua in a broadly multilateral context (including Costa Rica, Mexico, Andean Pact) and his assurances on non-intervention are unequivocal.

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, North/South, Pastor Files, Country Files, Box 35, Nicaragua: 6/1–16/79. Confidential.↩
  2. June 4.↩
  3. In a June 5 memorandum to Brzezinski, Pastor reported on his trip to Panama and his meetings, along with Moss, with Torrijos and Royo. (Carter Library, Vertical File, Box 94, Folder 2, Robert Pastor)↩
  4. Attached but not printed are a Spanish-language letter, June 5, from Royo to Carter and an unsigned and undated letter from Torrijos to Carter.↩
  5. See Document 212.↩